Naturalism - What is it all about

[Billys Boots]

So why are Humanists excluded and Pagans included?  Mental.

[thejuice]

Because pagans are part of a religious body. Humanism is not a religion but a philosophy.

[Hardy]

Then the adherents of the blanket defence should also be allowed to conduct marriages.

[Billys Boots]

Because pagans are part of a religious body. Humanism is not a religion but a philosophy.

But marriage is a civil construct!

[thejuice]

yes, what's your point?

[Billys Boots]

Why is a civil construct confined to religious bodies?

[Declan]

But marriage is a civil construct!

Interesting stuff here

http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ATLAS_EN/html/history_of_marriage_in_western.html

[thejuice]

Why? Well Billy I assume you've been living in Ireland as long as I have. Do I need to answer that for you.


There are civil registries and religious ceremonies both recognised by the state. Humanist weddings will be the first non-religious ceremony to be recognised by the state.

[Billys Boots]

Sorry Juice, I wasn't reading it right - I must still be frustrated by the fact that us Larries will not get to kick the Royal holes in next year's League D2! 

[Main Street]

I don't believe showing examples of love existing is accounting for its existence. Show me what it is, break it down, give me real physical, material explanations.
I know it exists, that's not what I am questioning. You call my accounting for Love as "God of the gaps" but for me and millions of others, God is love. Therefore created in His image we are all capable of loving and being loved. That makes sense to me.

How can science not giving you the physical, material evidence you demand possibly mean that a god who created us in his own image makes sense?
You demand a lot more from one argument than you do for the other there. Evolutionary biology and neroscience can be easily written off unless they can provide you the entire picture, but for the god side it just makes sense?
Even if there is some form of deity that exists, how could you make the jump to "created us in his image" - how could we possibly know that.

Just because we don't 'know things' (the cause), doesn't disprove the concept that there must be a cause. There are limits to what we now know, there is still a way to go.
I don't know about the 'creating in His image' bit but a simple observation of life shows us that it takes an act to create. The working premises is that every effect must have both a material and an efficient cause.
In this universe we find that every effect has a cause. Without parents, there are no children.
The very existence of the universe implies that there must be a creator.
On the premise that "there is little evidence for a creator god" is argued that there is very little evidence for a creator God, but very little is analysed  re the trouble with arguing about evidence for the non-existence
of God. The contrary view is no less problematic, probably more so.

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

Does anyone know the options that exist in Ireland for people who wish to be buried (not cremated) in Ireland but not in a graveyard or cemetery of a church or religious organiation?

[J70]

I don't believe showing examples of love existing is accounting for its existence. Show me what it is, break it down, give me real physical, material explanations.
I know it exists, that's not what I am questioning. You call my accounting for Love as "God of the gaps" but for me and millions of others, God is love. Therefore created in His image we are all capable of loving and being loved. That makes sense to me.

How can science not giving you the physical, material evidence you demand possibly mean that a god who created us in his own image makes sense?
You demand a lot more from one argument than you do for the other there. Evolutionary biology and neroscience can be easily written off unless they can provide you the entire picture, but for the god side it just makes sense?
Even if there is some form of deity that exists, how could you make the jump to "created us in his image" - how could we possibly know that.

Just because we don't 'know things' (the cause), doesn't disprove the concept that there must be a cause. There are limits to what we now know, there is still a way to go.
I don't know about the 'creating in His image' bit but a simple observation of life shows us that it takes an act to create. The working premises is that every effect must have both a material and an efficient cause.
In this universe we find that every effect has a cause. Without parents, there are no children.
The very existence of the universe implies that there must be a creator.
On the premise that "there is little evidence for a creator god" is argued that there is very little evidence for a creator God, but very little is analysed  re the trouble with arguing about evidence for the non-existence
of God. The contrary view is no less problematic, probably more so.

The key question for me is where does the "cause" argument end? If the universe must have a creator, then what caused or created the creator, an entity that presumably would be even more complex. And what caused that particular creator? What must the creator of a god be like? And the god's creator's creator?! And on and on...

[Main Street]

I don't believe showing examples of love existing is accounting for its existence. Show me what it is, break it down, give me real physical, material explanations.
I know it exists, that's not what I am questioning. You call my accounting for Love as "God of the gaps" but for me and millions of others, God is love. Therefore created in His image we are all capable of loving and being loved. That makes sense to me.

How can science not giving you the physical, material evidence you demand possibly mean that a god who created us in his own image makes sense?
You demand a lot more from one argument than you do for the other there. Evolutionary biology and neroscience can be easily written off unless they can provide you the entire picture, but for the god side it just makes sense?
Even if there is some form of deity that exists, how could you make the jump to "created us in his image" - how could we possibly know that.

Just because we don't 'know things' (the cause), doesn't disprove the concept that there must be a cause. There are limits to what we now know, there is still a way to go.
I don't know about the 'creating in His image' bit but a simple observation of life shows us that it takes an act to create. The working premises is that every effect must have both a material and an efficient cause.
In this universe we find that every effect has a cause. Without parents, there are no children.
The very existence of the universe implies that there must be a creator.
On the premise that "there is little evidence for a creator god" is argued that there is very little evidence for a creator God, but very little is analysed  re the trouble with arguing about evidence for the non-existence
of God. The contrary view is no less problematic, probably more so.

The key question for me is where does the "cause" argument end? If the universe must have a creator, then what caused or created the creator, an entity that presumably would be even more complex. And what caused that particular creator? What must the creator of a god be like? And the god's creator's creator?! And on and on...

Good questions, does a creator have an uber-creator?
or "Causa sui" perhaps?
As a child you can accept your parents as being your 'creator' but do you fully understand  your 'creators' before you start to have your own children? A created being may recognise the existence of its creator, but it can only fully know its creator by
becoming the creator. So maybe God also has a God, an 'uber-God'. And maybe that uber-God also has an uber-uber-God. But before we can make a meaningful speculation on whether God has an uber-God, we must first know God. 

Also, because we don't 'know' the causes for creation  doesn't mean there isn't one, an unknown cause is not the same as no cause.
The first person (afaia) who propounded the cause and effect theory is Maharishi Kanada some 2,400 years ago.  He wrote that there are 2 causes, namely material and efficient.
If you consider a chair, there are 2 causes,  the 'material' cause - the wood from a tree and the 'efficient' cause - the process of construction, the carpenter ,  the tools etc.  Basically one material cause, but a number of efficient causes.  For the most part, western religious tradition considers an efficient cause  (the supernatural) and not the material cause, therefore the conflict with science.
Hawking makes the same error as western religious tradition  by only considering  an 'efficient' cause, neglecting 'material' cause.
Hawking wrote "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will
create itself from nothing,"  "Spontaneous creation is the
reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe
exists, why we exist."
Bertrand Russell was truly a brilliant humorous man, however he ('On The Notion Of Cause') also only argues for efficient cause
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/22891/

The foundation for the question of creation is studying the effect (the universe), the question is, how is it caused?
An analytical approach is limited,  I'd subscribe to the opinion that one needs a more total approach, analytic and intuitional.
Using Kanada's method of looking at the effect first, and using his theory of the material and the efficient causes, we can see that God is not an effect and God may or may not have a cause. Either way  (the escape clause) God is ultimately beyond description