And the Established Church of England! Fox-hunting parsons. Cricket on the village green. Dreaming spires.

That was real religion. Church power blended into the Old Boy network. A chap could go from Eton through the ecclesiastical hierarchy into the House of Lords. Sort of like the mediaeval papacy, but in a nice English way.

Didn’t seem to work for the colonials though. And all this modern enthusiasm….too much. Mysteries best left unrevealed.

So a 19C Anglican god might suit some of us. Trouble is,the world is spoilt for choice!

I love the universe, the complexity of nature, everything. I want to cry it’s so amazing.

But it doesn’t point to a God to me I’m afraid. And those cheap inspirational speakers just make me even more wary.

Sometimes I read the things you write and find myself thinking that you’ve got a healthy respect and understanding of science but then you go and pull this out.

(or was this an elaborate and subtle piece of satire that I’ve overreacted to?)

Can’t embed it

Indeed.
Theology is bad enough but do we have to suffer the twist of bad poetry too?
(grimace)
How about a good old-fashioned hymn of praise?
Monty Python: Oh Lord! You Are So Big!

Interestingly, it was also a time of great theological controversy among protestant christians in England. Science generally, and Darwin’s work in particular, sparked much church debate. But some was wholly theological, as Dean Stanley illustrated.

Scholars then were examining the early christian church – its origins, antecedent Jewish sects, and the new testament writings. This work raised more questions than it answered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Testament

The theological complexities now leave most of us baffled. But the questions raised then, unlike the scientific questions of the time, were never settled. Now ignored, at the time they were considered crucial to faith. What has happened meantime?

Most scientists would be able to summarize the 19C work of people like Dalton and Maxwell. Later arrivals like Einstein and Rutherford could ’stand on the shoulders of giants’, and acknowledge their predecessors’ massive contribution to knowledge.

But theology just seems to be going round the same old circles with a few new twists. And in the meantime, what could be called ‘20C applied religion’ has a lot to answer for.

For atheists/skeptics, ‘the justice of G-d’ is effectively an empty concept – it’s difficult to engage with when you don’t have that sort of personal faith, & – speaking personally here – it is extremely hard to reconcile with an awful lot of injustices.

If you look up to people like Stuart, as you seem to, consider that they delete posts that they can’t deal with in Thinking Matters (in flat contradiction to their claim that they welcome contributions from “all sides”). Deleting posts or banning posters is an extreme version of the thing I pointed out of not religions not wanting their member to consider other ways of looking at the issues.

(I’ve even had a priest write to my face that he blocks posts that would be a “danger” to his flock.)

His thoughtful comments were a real contrast to yours and Heraclides.

As for your feeble slight at me, how more pathetic can you get?

If you read Stuart’s post and the replies to it you’ll see that he entirely did not get the point of the references to Thor, etc., but went off on an unrelated tack. On a careful reading, you’d notice he doesn’t present substance. His post reminds me of that cliché about lips moving but nothing being said. It’s empty material that looks good only to someone who is not looking at the content of what he’s saying, perhaps because they are using is words as “echo chamber”.

I note you’re yet again avoiding interacting with what is actually being said… Perhaps you should ask yourself how you got into the position of not considering what other people say.