"Religion is a hypothesis about the world: the hypothesis that things are the way they are, at least in part, because of supernatural entities or forces acting on the natural world. And there's no good reason to treat it any differently from any other hypothesis. Which includes pointing out its flaws and inconsistencies, asking its adherents to back it up with solid evidence, making jokes about it when it's just being silly, offering arguments and evidence for our own competing hypotheses...and trying to persuade people out of it if we think it's mistaken. It's persuasion. It's the marketplace of ideas. Why should religion get a free ride"

Greta Christina

Monday, 27 June 2011

This is sweet

This is a cute little story.Five Norfolk parishes are to install beehives in their churchyards in order to help the environment in response to the decline in honeybees.
Naturally they are also using this as a way to “…bring the local community together”, for which read create an opportunity to evangelise. Well O.K, you can’t blame them for that and the project is of itself a worthwhile one, however I couldn’t resist a wry smile at this…
"If we can get people together to look after bees... barriers can be brought down and people might feel that it's safe to come into church as well."
I wonder in what sense people feel it is not safe to go to church, other than maybe they’ll get suckered into believing a lot of mystical nonsense and end up crooning hymns to a long dead Palestinian every Sunday. Sort of the same reason people don’t feel safe attending timeshare presentations, they know there is a danger they might end up buying something they neither want nor need.
Whatever, I wish the church well with the bees and hope the locals will still get involved while avoiding the obvious sting.

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