Yes the biggest challenge for science is communicating the ‘accepted theories’ to the general public. Which is why grapefruits appear in scientific media. 
If anyone is from Nottingham, is that keyboard player the guy who does Bamalamasingsong?
Been to so many Bamalama’s and it’s a top night out.
I know they’re from Nottingham, so likely him.
HE LIVES!!! and he plays guitar!!!
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The double neck convinced me.
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Jesus was a humble man, and railed against decadence and extravagance.
He would have played a telecaster.
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Fingers tough as, 12 string going on there too. Looks like a bit of a Led Zepplin / ACDC thing going there.
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For a moment I thought it must be Moses bottom right but then it looks more like a phone he’s holding than a tablet.
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Good point. Also, he really has that country twang vibe going.
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No, all that mass is spread out in a staggering amount of space.
Consider Jupiter. The energy required to create it (effectively) is its mass multiplied by C squared. That’s just Jupiter. There are probably billions of billions of Jupiters. We haven’t looked at stars, the largest of which we’ve seen (if placed at the same position as our sun, would extend beyond Jupiter.
All created just from energy. Wow.
If god had that much power, why not just create the earth? Why have a system that requires a star exploding every second? A little wasteful I’m sure you’d agree certainly when that energy and effort would be slightly better spent saving people from earthquakes or cancer?
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Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing, and it’s all got out of control. Maybe we’re the cosmic equivalent of chip pan fire, and at this moment God is running round looking for a tea towel.
From the Jack Reacher thriller novels. An otherwise frivolous book series but sometimes you get deep insights.
“We’re all atheists. You don’t believe in Zeus or Thor or Neptune or Augustus Caesar or Mars or Venus or Sun Ra. You reject a thousand gods. Why should it bother you if someone else rejects a thousand and one?”
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One book to the storyline of the same book just set in different identical towns. Head cracking fun though.
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Can absolutely relate to this. Have really missed the family support structures and friendships since left church. Many churches do brilliant work in their communities, mostly via volunteers. The pastoral care (and prayer) can also be a comfort in tough times.
On the other hand I’ve seen it go horribly wrong. Especially in relation to praying for healing, telling people God wants to heal them, they need to have faith etc. Has been so damaging psychologically to many people
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Apologies, it may feel like I’m constantly having pot shots but rather, I’m just making points as they occur to me.
One further thing that bothers me about religion is related the point I made yesterday, about the frailty I perceive in mankind’s psyche of the need to explain the unexplainable - leading to the insertion of a myth or faith-based construct.
As an example of this is the “Great Flood”. Often described as the “Flood Myth”. Flood myth - Wikipedia
Here’s an extract to serve as my summary…
A flood myth or deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primaeval waters which appear in certain creation myths, as the flood waters are described as a measure for the cleansing of humanity, in preparation for rebirth. Most flood myths also contain a culture hero, who “represents the human craving for life”.[1]
The flood-myth motif occurs in many cultures as seen in: the Mesopotamian flood stories, manvantara-sandhya in Hinduism, the Gun-Yu in Chinese mythology, Deucalion and Pyrrha in Greek mythology, the Genesis flood narrative, Bergelmir in Norse mythology, flood during the time of Nuh (Noah) of Qur’an, the arrival of the first inhabitants of Ireland with Cessair in Irish mythology, in parts of Polynesia such as Hawaii, the lore of the K’iche’ and Maya peoples in Mesoamerica, the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa tribe of Native Americans in North America, the Muisca and Cañari Confederation in South America, Africa, and some Aboriginal tribes in Australia.
Mythologies[edit]
Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh
Although the story of Noah in the Hebrew Bible has become the most well-known flood myth in Western culture, it shows the influence of earlier narratives from Mesopotamia. The nineteenth-century Assyriologist George Smith first translated a Babylonian account of a great flood,[2] and further discoveries produced several versions of the Mesopotamian flood myth; the version closest to that in the Book of Genesis (c. 6th century BC)[3] appeared in a 700 BC Babylonian copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh.[4] Many scholars believe that this account was copied from the Akkadian Atra-Hasis,[a] which dates to the 18th century BC.[6][b] In the Gilgamesh flood myth, the highest god, Enlil, decides to destroy the world with a flood because humans have become too noisy. The god Ea, who had created humans out of clay and divine blood, secretly warns the hero Utnapishtim of the impending flood and gives him detailed instructions for building a boat so that life may survive.[8][9] Both the Epic of Gilgamesh and Atra-Hasis are preceded by the similar Sumerian creation myth (c. 1600 BC)[10]—the oldest surviving example of such a flood-myth narrative, known from tablets found in the ruins of Nippur in the late 1890s and translated by Arno Poebel.[11]
George Smith, who discovered and translated the Epic of Gilgamesh
Chen analyzed various texts from the Early Dynastic III Period through to the Old Babylonian Period, and argues that the flood narrative was only added in texts written during the Old Babylonian Period. When it comes to the Sumerian King List, observations by experts have always indicated that the portion of the Sumerian King List talking about before the flood is stylistically different from the King List Proper. Essentially Old Babylonian copies tend to represent a tradition of before the flood apart from the actual King List, whereas the Ur III copy of the King List and the duplicate from the Brockmon collection indicate that the King List Proper once existed independent of mention to the flood and the tradition of before the flood. Essentially, Chen gives evidence to prove that the section of before the flood and references to the flood in the Sumerian King List were all later additions added in during the Old Babylonian Period, as the Sumerian King List went through updates and edits. The Flood as a watershed in early History of the world was probably a new historiographical concept emerging in the Mesopotamian literary traditions during the Old Babylonian Period, as evident by the fact that the flood motif didn’t show up in the Ur III copy and that earliest chronographical sources related to the flood show up in the Old Babylonian Period. Chen also concludes that the name of Ziusudra as a flood hero and the idea of the flood hinted by that name in the Old Babylonian Version of “Instructions of Shuruppak” are only developments during that Old Babylonian Period, when also the didactic text was updated with information from the burgeoning Antediluvian Tradition[12]
In Genesis, the god Yahweh, who had created man out of the dust of the ground,[13] decides to flood the earth because of the corrupted state of mankind. Yahweh then gives the protagonist, Noah, instructions to build an ark in order to preserve human and animal life. When the ark is completed, Noah, his family, and representatives of all the animals of the earth are called upon to enter the ark. When the destructive flood begins, all life outside of the ark perishes. After the waters recede, all those aboard the ark disembark and have Yahweh’s promise that he will never judge the earth with a flood again. Yahweh causes a rainbow to form as the sign of this promise.[14] Some religious scholars deny the earlier existence of the Gilgamesh narrative, reversing the direction of literary inheritance.[c]
In Hindu mythology, texts such as the Satapatha Brahmana[17] (c. 6th century BC)[18] and the Puranas contain the story of a great flood, “manvantara-sandhya”,[19][20] wherein the Matsya Avatar of the Vishnu warns the first man, Manu, of the impending flood, and also advises him to build a giant boat.[21][22][23] In Zoroastrian Mazdaism, Ahriman tries to destroy the world with a drought, which Mithra ends by shooting an arrow into a rock, from which a flood springs; one man survives in an ark with his cattle.[24]
In Plato’s Timaeus, written c. 360 BC, Timaeus describes a flood myth similar to the earlier versions. In it, the Bronze race of humans angers the high god Zeus with their constant warring. Zeus decides to punish humanity with a flood. The Titan Prometheus, who had created humans from clay, tells the secret plan to Deucalion, advising him to build an ark in order to be saved. After nine nights and days, the water starts receding and the ark lands on a mountain.[25]
Like many other folk-tale elements from around the world, the story of flood survival and human re-start (motif A 1021.0.2 and associated elements) appears in Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature.[26]
You can see that there are common themes describing such an event in multiple scriptures. Where I get frustrated is when scientific evidence is found to support whether a huge flood happened - those who believe in the events described in the scriptures (of whatever faith) then cite this evidence as fact that the story told in those scriptures is true. This is utter hokum.
I have no doubt that significant floods happened throughout history affecting large areas of inhabited land. Be those as a result of the thawing of the Ice Age, comets, tsunamis, unusually heavy rainfalls following droughts etc. I also have no doubt that those living through those periods, or seeing the remnants of such natural disasters, without understanding climate, weather systems, etc and believing in a God for the sun, the moon, the elements etc, would interpret these events as being punishments by God(s) for perceived unhappiness with some ‘wrong’ by mankind.
This is an example of where myths and faith-based constructs filled the void of understanding because humans simply need to attribute a reason for everything.
So yeah, huge floods almost certainly happened. These events would have been related to generation after generation in folklore. Amazingly common themes were developed and shared - boats/arks, certain people and animals survived - necessary narratives to explain how people and animals still existed.
It’s not evidence for Noah though. Nor God.
I’ve never spoken to any half-sensible Christian who thinks Noah and the ark is a literal event. You would also have to believe that one family incested with each other and repopulated the earth within 2000 years
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What about the less than half-sensible ones? 
Unfortunately, I know of many Christians who believe in the story of the Great Flood/Noah and not just as a parable.
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Ask them where the light came from (day 1) before the sun was created (day 4)
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What question have I not engaged in? Put it forth succinctly, and I will engage in good faith. If I have already addressed it, I will refer you back to previous.
So far, I spent a lot of time laboring the point that Stalin was an atheist. Finally that was admitted.
It was contested that he didn’t seek to squash the church and religious belief in Russia, so I engaged with that and showed the evidence for it.
I initially said that Hitler was an atheist, but I accept that it it a lot more complicated than that. Quicksand offered the diagnoses narcissistic personality disorder, while also calling him and evil cunt. I think (hope) we can all go with that, at least.
The conversation about historic figures was simply because I won’t let the concept slide by, lazily, that religious systems give rise to atrocity, while atheistic systems do not.
There was some technical conversation about whether atheist atrocities are done in the name of atheism. At that point I would simply say, here is an atheist, Stalin. He killed 9-20M people. Here is an officially atheist modern day government in China. They are systematically wiping out the Muslim Uighur people.
If I’m an atheist, of course I would push back against those simple facts. I would say stuff like Mascot has been saying. Well, yes, they might be atheists, but they are not doing it in the name of atheism. In fact, they are acting religiously if you think about it, as there’s a cult of personality and a demand for unquestioned devotion.
To that I would say, of religious atrocity committed in history, it was very far removed from the teaching of Jesus, and not representative of the Christian faith, at all. I tried to talk about geopolitics, and other reasons why things have happened, but generally the atheist viewpoint I have seen here has no problem with Christians committing atrocity, but atheists? Nah, maybe a bit of ballyhoo and tomfoolery, but anything bigger than that, it was because they were acting religiously.
To that I say balls. And then some.
On the New Testament, I engaged with documentary evidence there, and sent a link that more than addressed all the issues Lowton raised. I entered into this aspect of the discussion when people were saying Jesus didn’t even exist. Once the documentary evidence was in play, and as a comparison point it compared favorably to documentary evidence for Julius Caesar, the goalposts started shifting, and people were saying… even if a man Jesus did exist, it doesn’t prove he did the miracles, it doesn’t prove he was the Son of God. (Of course it doesn’t, btw. I engaged in that because the initial contention was that Jesus didn’t even exist).
I have engaged with the issue of belief, and how if the requirement is proof, then thread closed, as at that point we don’t even understand faith on a basic level. If it could be proved beyond doubt, everyone would believe, and this thread wouldn’t exist.
I have shared some things of my personal life too. I have done this because sometimes we bash each other on the internet and forget there’s an actual person at the other end, with a life, family, job, circumstances, and so on and so forth.
Against the notion that Christians are bastards and have committed numerous atrocities throughout history, I have attempted to show that this is something all people have done, as it is part of the human condition, and evil crops up regardless of religious belief or otherwise.
On the Christians I know and have seen up close, I spoke about how I have never seen a more generous and engaged bunch. Against the notion that Christians just live with their head in the clouds waiting for the life to come, I started to give lots of personal evidence of things I’m involved with, and know personally, to say that I don’t recognize the accusation. The Christians I know are involved in helping with the problems, hurts and needs in this world.
I have highlighted numerous scientists throughout history, specifically Christian, but I’m sure other faiths would be represented too if we looked. The point being, these are all theistic people who understand life with the existence of God, and they have made a significant scientific contribution across the spectrum to influence all fields.
I have asked folks how they understand the world, and more lately in the thread there have been various links and so on. I invested time to look at them, and shared my reaction to that. Most of it was pretty basic, apart from the stuff Tesh posted. And to me the massive hole is that it all assumes a starting point in the middle of the game.
Frankly, it’s a bit shit to be accused of dodging questions when I have done nothing of the sort.
And if there’s anything I missed, consider that for one of me, with my perspective, there is you, Mascot, Klopptimist and loads others, who are all piling in with your list of questions, most of which have previously been addressed in the thread.
And yes, of course it is ok to not know answers. Do you not think I know that? It is massively offensive to suggest that because of some intellectual impediment, or need to fill in the blank, I have unreasonably inserted the made up notion for God in my life. The sense of wonder that Brian Cox expressed with it all in one of the links I referenced above, is close to what I feel. At that point we depart, because I believe in God. I see order, mathematics, design, physics… it’s incredible. When I think about all of that, and consider that I am a conscious, sentient being in the midst of it all, it prompts me to think of God as the one who is behind it all.
If people want to believe that the universe appeared from nothing, that the material that gave rise to the universe was just always there, have at it! All I’m saying at that point is it sounds a bit sky fairy to me.
Anyway, long post. But I find it a bit shit to say that “once again, I notice, as have others, that you are dodging questions.” Read this post and realize how blatantly untrue that is.
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Snap, my mum for example.