rodshaw
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Ok thanks – with a bit of luck, the thread in question will be locked soon anyway as one of the mods has commented.
I have the same problem. I want to stop receiving emails when a new message is posted to the 'Why would membership of the SPGB be refused' topic because it's got really boring and is going round in circles. I get the messages because I made an early contribution to the topic.I've unchecked the box to receive these notifications in my account settings but I'm still getting them.Can they be stopped? Or do I have to post to the topic again and uncheck the notification box at that time?
I've sent him the email below with a link to the online pamphlet, but not to the DVD because the link posted above is just to a description of it with price details.Dear Mr. Hamilton James Watching the first part of your series ‘I Bought A Rainforest’, I was struck by your obviously genuine concern for the future of both the rainforest itself and the local population who necessarily have to continue doing damage to it in order to maintain their livelihoods. I was also interested in your comment that you were taught at school that we needed to look after the environment, and that now, decades later, nothing has happened. Can I suggest that the answer to the problem is to be found in common ownership, not just of sections of rainforest, but of all the world’s resources. Only by removing the forests, farms, factories and other major resources from the ownership of a small, profit-minded, private minority and making them democratically owned and controlled by all can we hope to serve the interests of both local populations and the world as a whole. You may be interested in this online pamphlet: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/inconvenient-question-socialism-and-environment which sets out the problem and the suggested worldwide solution in more detail. Kind regards Rod Shaw
Just for clarification, which of the following comments, as partial or complete answers to the the religion question, would cause an application to be rejected?I don't believe in a god.I don't know whether there is a god.Belief in a god is irrelevant to my socialist understanding.Religion is a personal matter.I don't believe in a god but I believe we live on in some way when we die.There is no god or heaven but I have a soul.There may be a god but its existence is irrelevant for describing and understanding how the world works.God is unknowable.The existence of a god and/or an afterlife can be neither proved nor disproved.I don't believe in a god but I believe in reincarnation.I have a memory of a previous existence.God has revealed himself to me and there's nothing you can do to disprove it.
Mike McDade wrote:"At this stage, I am still of the opinion that atheism should not be a pre-requisite for membership. I suspect that this stumbling block may be holding a significant amount of people back from becoming members."It would be interesting if the party had any statistics on how many applications to join, or refusals to apply, say in the last five years, have been because of disagreement on religion alone. It's interesting to me that the people who want us to relax the rules on religion always seem to say "I'm not religious but…"
I must say I don't understand why this particular person's views on religion have been posted, it's not usual. Unless, of course, it was exactly to spark this debate. But their views clearly don't impede membership.The people who think we should soften our approach should propose exactly how we are supposed to do that without being mealy-mouthed or contradictory about it.Do we admit members of some religions but not others? Do we just admit members who think there 'must be something out there', rather than having a firm belief? Do we say they can be members as long as they don't bring the subject up? Or do we just drop the question on the form and not ask at all?What then would be the party view on religion itself – that it's a personal matter after all? And what if religious members wanted to write articles for us introducing the G-word or notions of a creator (such as in Alan's scripture example above), contradicting the materialist approach?
I thought the 'Daily Politics' presenter treated Danny Lambert with supercilious disdain. And the woman sat next to her was glowering at him as if he'd just crawled out of a swamp. Very difficult to present our point of view in those circumstances. She put him on the back foot from the beginning and he coped very well.
SocialistPunk wrote:Hi rodshaw,I already have that one in the bag, so to speak. What I was looking for, and it may not be available, was some sort of actual historical, anthropology based explanation or addition.There is a danger that this thread may end up tangled with the one on socialism, morality and logic, and I'd rather it not as my enquiry was specifically about the religious view that morality, ethics, values etc came from a creator. Simply telling them that their belief is based on their cultural, political system is generally not enough explanation of itself, so any evidence based info would be beneficial. Whether that exists is another matter and is the reason for my post.Sorry to see you've had no direct replies to your question. I'd have been quite interested myself.I suppose the kind of evidence you need depends on who your target religious person is. Some of them may be won over quite easily by pointing out some no-brainer condradictions inherent in belief in a creator (e.g. If God made man to love and worship him, why did it take so long for humans to appear?; are the people who died before Christianity saved?; are Vikings still in Valhalla or did they move to heaven? at what stage of evolution did the soul appear?..etc.). Some will stick to their beliefs whatever evidence of an alternative source of morality you have, and some (I suppose the ones you have in mind) will be up for a right good philosophical debate, and may or may not be open to persuasion.But in my mind is the fact that whatever evidence you have, you can’t prove a negative, at least not here, i.e. that morality doesn’t come from a creator. All you can do is present some evidence that it may not be so. Which leads us back to science (using the word in its broad sense of knowledge) – i.e. what do we know (the science bit) and what is speculation or wishful thinking (the religious bit)?
I would tell them that they have the cart before the horse. Their religion is a product of their cultural and political system. It is man-made. Their belief system is just that – a belief that can't be substantiated. Any moral dimension, whatever that means, therefore comes from society, not a god. And if this means there is no moral dimension at all, then we can do without it. As socialists we evaluate things differently.
alanjjohnstone wrote:Some more UK statsThe 2013 British Social Attitudes Survey reported that 48% of respondents claimed they did not belong to a religion. The proportion of people who described themselves as belonging to the Church of England was just 20%, down from 40% in 1983. Church of England's own figures, 800,000 people would have attended a service on a typical Sunday in 2012. This is approximately half the number that attended in 1968. In 2011 there were 51,880 weddings, 139,751 baptisms and 162,526 funerals conducted by Church of England clergy. In 2011, about one third of England's 20,000 state-funded schools were faith schools, of which 68% were affiliated to the Church of England schools and 30% were Roman Catholic. In a 2006 Ipsos MORI poll, "religious groups and leaders" topped the list of domestic groups that people said had too much influence over ministers. A 2013 Lancaster University study of British Catholics suggested they were wildly at odds with their spiritual leaders on matters of personal morality. According to the survey, only 9% would feel guilty using contraception and just 19% would support a ban on abortion. More favoured allowing same-sex marriage than were opposed. The 2011 census suggested there were 14.1 million people of no religion compared with 7.7 million a decade previously. This represented a rise from 15% to 25% of the population. It also showed an increase in the number of Muslims, with the proportion of the population in 2011 standing at 4.8%, or 2.7 million, up 2% or 1.5 million in 2001. The Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and Sikh faiths all registered increases. There were 817,000 Hindus in 2011, a rise of 264,000 since 2001. The Jewish faith also rose by 3,000 over the last decade from 260,000 to 263,000.Ah, the sigh of the oppressed, the soul of a soulless world. It takes many forms.What I'd like to know is, did all the Vikings who went to Valhalla transfer to heaven at some point, or achieve a state of Nirvana? If not, where are they now?
I agree, a good article.I like the comment by MrsBoggitt too – gives the lie to the notion that people aren't prepared to work voluntarily, and makes the comment that some jobs that used to be paid are now done for nothing.If we take Todd's figure of 70% as being more or less correct for people who identify themselves as working class, then we have hope of appealing to a majority even discounting the so-called middle class. I think this may be important, because many of the top 30 percent or so will be too complacent or will see socialism as taking 'everything they've worked for' away, even though they're not in the capitalist class.This is where I sometimes think our frequent comparison of the top 2 or 3 percent with the poorest can be a little flaky. Of course socialism will (hopefully) benefit all but it could well be a lot harder to convince the most well-to-do 'workers' that they'll be better off without their biggish incomes and accumulated savings, and the social status that often goes with them.
robbo203 wrote:Exactly. Which brings out another point which i think Ozy is entirely missing: dont judge a book by its cover, Dont be fooled by mere appearance. I dont imagine for one moment that in my line of work (garden landscaping cum ground maintenance ) , for instance, any of my customers have the foggiest idea of my political affiliations and would probably be horrified to discover I was revolutionary socialist. There is one very nice couple I work for – both stalwart Labour Party supporters – who love to engage me in political discussion but I find I have to very often bite my tongue and be circumspect. I dont want to risk antagonising them for obvious reasons so have developed a kind of oblique way of talking politics with them. From their point I probably come across as a relatively non committal, mildly left of centre person. Im sure many in the SPGB must often find themselves in the same boat.You have to be careful with the people you deal with regularly. Having said which, if you do start talking politics, they are often far too intent on speaking rather than listening. On one notable occasion when I brought up the subject of a moneyless society with my car mechanic, a one-man business, after he'd started grumbling about banks etc., he spent about an hour and a half telling me why it wouldn't work. Benefits scroungers, greed, etc. I could hardly get a word in edgeways and I wished I'd never bothered, I just wanted to get home. He's a reasonably intelligent man and probably thought I was on the side of the idiots.
