h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"compassion = more advanced form of oppurtunism"?

First of all: I mentioned opportunism a part of symbiosis, not a part of compassion, but I see a valid point there.

You might say that our compassion has GROWN from opportunism. But I certainly hope that opportunism isn't the only ingredient to compassion.

We don't only extend our compassion to people that we need, do we? Compassion comes in where someone need us. We care for the weak, because we have compassion for them. Not the other way around.
However, there is some instinctive expectation that when we become needy ourselves, someone will also for us. And that someone does not necessarily need to be a person we cared for earlier.

Exactly! Then perhaps we are all motivated by self interest in the end.
The major cerebral advantage of mammals over other animals is our ability to plan ahead, i.e. insight. Put a chimp in a room with some food that is dangling, out of reach, from the celing, with boxes on the floor, and it won't take the chimp long to pile to boxes into a tower so that it can reach the food. A seemingly pointless action leading to favourable consequences. i.e. forward planning. Regarding your comments about caring for the weak, does it seems likely that this sort of compassion is just an advanced form of planning ahead, i.e. years instead of minutes. Perhaps the same could be said of international aid, etc.

My main 'problem' with Agnostics is that I'm concerned that a born-again preacher will get to them, and convert them to some mad religion like Heaven's Gate or Scientology. And that they won't have the mental ability to reject it, simply because their mind has neither the antibodies given by Atheism (it's all bunk), nor those given by xtianity, Islam, et al (it's all bunk except this one .

Atheism may not be logical, but it makes a lot of sense.

The "Virgin" birth is a mistranslation/misunderstanding of the original phrase. Really, it should have been "unmarried".
Or so I'

The "Virgin" birth is a mistranslation/misunderstanding of the original phrase. Really, it should have been "unmarried", but that's not as profound or divine, somehow... Or so I've been told - hey, I'm sure xtians don't have a monopoly on lies
(and I'm not sure if this got double-posted - sorry if it did... )

So good old Jesus was a bastard? - That's a good one .

The most successful of monopolies are based on lies and misinterpretations and are corrupt and hypocritical. Soviet USSR and Chrisitianity suddenly seem to have a lot in common .

If you see evidence for a God as your reson for thinking it exists, you don't believe in it. Belief involves faith. Thinking there is a God based on evidence, but not faith, is not belief.

Though most would consider me an agnostic, i believe i am an atheist, this is due to the fact that i am open to the posibility of the existance of a god of some form, and am aware of the fact that we cannot prove his/her/it's existance, but at this moment in time, and considering evidence provided to me, i choose to believe there is no form of deity. from what i have read/herd many athiests are as blind as many theists, they are not open to the discussion or the posibility that they might be wrong. most humans don't like to be proved wrong.

having not read the backlog here and only the first page, it seems that you were all saying the same things i've been thinking about 6 years ago. I have an essay type thing which i drafted in my spare time, i was thinking of submitting it to the PeerReview, which as far as i can see blows the 'need for [a] god' out of the water, i'll do it when i get home i think... if i remember.