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

It's not justice, Davius, because he's punishing people for not understanding "the truth", but they don't understand it *because* he made them stubborn, or whatever.

If God is perfect, why does 'He' have this violent (violent meaning disobediance is punished by eternal damnation) need for recognition, praise, ego-boosting, and so on? I'd like to think "He" would be above constant need for gratification.

"it's a matter of truth and falsehood."

How do you know?

A - the Even Newer Covenant... that's Islam

B - I can translate from the original hebrew any section of old testament you'd like; I can probably also get you the email address of some Rabbis who's love to argue with you, MRD

and C - I have read it, really read it, again in the original. Explain to me why God feels the need to prove 'Himself' to Satan?

That'd actually be vaguelly handly - I'm kind of sick of christians saying "no other religion has any real evidence for it". On the other hand, I think my religious interest isn't really serious enough to bother rabbis with - I'd prefer some people slightly less far down the path to enlightenment... I'm sticking at the level of interested amateur.

Since you appear to have the source of such knowledge, what's the position of Judaism on the redemption through faith/redemption through works issue? Oh, and what do they call the Old Testament, so I can order it from amazon... (uncorrupted by any Christian "fixes"... *grumble*)? Preferably in English with explanations where there are multiple meanings to the Hebrew - my foreign language skills aren't that good...

I don't quite get who you're lookign for...

Judaism doesn't focus much of afterlife, redemption, and so on. But, you all can go to heaven too - nonjews just have to obey the seven Noahide laws, which are like 'don't murder' and something else, and you get judged on your works like the rest of us.

The Old Testament is the "Tanach"... I'm trying to think of a good bible with translations and explanation... let me get back to you on that one.

Oh, stop. Maybe I am growing a little weird. However, the rainbow bit seems like a side topic to me; however it got there, it's there now. Isn't the real question whether or not God exists? (A question which is theoretically unsolvable by science, but my experiences and things I've read cause me to believe otherwise. Too bad one can't initiate a miracle in front of the scientists...)

Here we go again with 2 responses at once...

RedDice.

That's fine, it's just hard to express inflection in cyberspace. I suppose I shouldn't be in such a serious mindset while I'm doing this stuff.

Christians don't just wander around slapping people with scripture. Just today I read about a Cambodian refugee who was turned on to the faith by the love he recieved from Christians. And the theory of evolution just uses science teachers and professors instead of pastors and missionaries.

The "unto the X generation" bits come before the incarnation of Christ. They're Old Covenant stuff, and no longer valid.

Ioreth.

You're absolutely right. This forum has covered more stuff than I could pull out of a hat for an English essay.

As has been mentioned, Old Covenant times are known for the carrying of the father's qualities to the kids. Also, don't forget the scourging with scorpions that Rehoboam promised.

God gives us plenty of warning. (At the risk of sounding both holier-than-thou and concieted, take this forum as an example.) However, if we don't do the simple thing He tells us to do (see the story of Naaman for another example of this), He is bound to fulfilling the promises He made and giving us our consequences.

What does AFAIK stand for? I agree that it would be amazingly cool if SETI found something irrefutable.

Now, is it possible for life to develop from non-life? Assuming that these self-replicating chemicals do, against all probability, come into being at random (maybe the Heart of Gold took a little side trip?), and replicate to their nonexistent hearts' content, that's still not life. And it would seem to me that modifying one of these self-replicators in almost any way would cause it to lose its ability of duplication, no?

You're welcome. I've heard that a hangover is not a pleasant experience, though...

Yes indeedy doo. God did command the sacrifices. This is because sin is punishable by death (Romans 6:23), but to avoid killing someone on their first "little white lie", God allowed the people to sacrifice a perfect animal (i.e. not maimed, scarred, etc.) in lieu of themselves. The whole process is explained over the course of Leviticus and the tail end of Exodus, among others. Jesus, obviously, counts for a whole lot more than a goat, being the Son of God and all. (This, by the way, is why the devil tempted Jesus in the desert - if he could get Jesus to sin even once, He could only die for His own sin and nobody else's.) Therefore, the sins of the world were paid for by this perfect sacrifice of God's Son, and no more livestock combustion was necessary.

Why is it important? Let me quote you...
"It is well known that ancient civilizations made up their gods to explain what they couldn't understand."

Things they couldn't understand, like... the rainbow!!

We just want you to apply the same credibility filter to your religion as you do to the Greeks.

AFAIK = As Far As I know. So would I, though I'm not getting my hopes up. I'd give it a one in a million chance (cue Pratchettesque quote).

Don't overestimate the probability that these replicators couldn't be created by random chance. They had billions of years, throughout the entire universe, to do so. According to some theories, an infinite number of universes too...

Read your own words - "modifying one of these self-replicators in almost any way would cause it to lose its ability of duplication". The keyword there is *almost*. Yes, for any given replicator, the odds may be against it, but we have a whole Earth-full of various types of the critters. Nor should you think that all these replicators are completely different - many of them will have common features, just as many computer viruses have common features, because they perform the same task.

Consider this early Earth, teeming with these replicators. Probably a mono-culture, since the first replicator to get lucky gets a huge edge. Then one replicator gets created which loses a couple of carbon rings. This has happened millions of times, and most times the new child is inert, or useless, but this one is still self-replicating, and it is smaller, so it replicates faster, and in conditions where there is less available power. It starts to beat the first generation by outcompeting it for resources and space. Another mutation creates a co-operative relationship - a replicator mutates and it's children look completely odd. Again, this has happened before, but this time the child chemical catalyses the father chemical, and the father catalyzes the child. A little further on, you see the first predator, mercilessly destroying the smaller replicator by taking it to pieces, and storing the energy. After it has killed a couple, it can use the energy to make a replicator of itself.

Eventually, one of these chemicals, which are about as complicated as what we call "enzymes" when they are in the bloodstream, 'invent' RNA, or a simpler derivative. The 'inventor' gets a huge edge, as it can mutate (at each generation) easily in tiny ways, and thus avoid its predators, while adapting to take out variations in its prey that would otherwise destroy it. Pretty soon, RNA parasites come along, though, and there is a vicious evolution war between the mechanisms to safeguard the RNA, and the mechanisms of the parasites to get into the RNA and get copied for "free". DNA is the final word in this war, and by and large secures the future of DNA/RNA based chemicals.

myre - have you turned the creation of life into a B-movie today?

Sure, but evolution doesn't include the requirement to be passed on *within the idea*. That's what I'm trying to say, and probably saying badly...

Why was it *ever* valid? Why did your God change his mind? If he's perfect, how come he got it wrong?

It is actually possible to get drunk without having a hangover... the tricks are well-known: drink plenty of water, don't mix your drinks, and don't get so drunk that you forget the preceding two. Anyway, you should never be more afraid of pain that you are excited by pleasure - or you'll never leave you room...

MyRedDice - flashbacks to younger days and falling into a drunken sleep with water still pouring into his mouth.

Old Covenant times, though, are also run by God, are they not?

The scourging with scorpions is a different story. Rehoboam (that looks so weird in english) was trying to retain a grasp over the kingdom of Israel, which was rapidly slipping away (thanks to his dad). His elderly advisers told him to make lots of concessions to them in hopes of convincing them to stay. His younger advisers said, no, don't let them think they can push you around. Come down hard now, so they know you mean business, and later let them be.

But again, we are specifically told that the punishment was brought on him by solomon, and that solomon's good life was brought on him by David. It is very, very clearly spelled out.


He gives, say, me plenty of warning. (Although this, too, is debatable. You were brought up believing in jesus... I was brought up beliving that jesus was made-up and idolatrous, so you get a whole hell of a head start.) What about people who've never had the 'good fortune' of a meeting with missionaries? What if the missionaries they did meet were assholes, that turned them off to Jesus? What kind of loving God condems people for rejecting the truth while being rather stingy in showing them that it's truth? As had been said, Jesus and Allah and all the others all want you to believe in just them. How are we supposed to know that they are the one and all the others who claim they're the one are wrong? And if god loves us so much why does he let all these false gods put out convincing claims that they're the one, deluding our ignorant souls into hellfire?

And why is it so important to him that we know the truth anyway?

Ok I'll bite; I can't pass a sacred cow without being overcome by the desire for hamburger.

So this loving super-powered invisible uberbeing called 'God' (which means loud noise in the sky, literally) needs blood so that he can overlook 'sin' (which means human shortcoming, literally), even though he created these beings in his omnipotent glory to be 'sinful' in the name of 'free will'; this blood coming from goats or avatars of himself. We know this because it says so in the 'bible' which is always true even when it contradicts itself. This bloodthirsty judaic war diety intends to eternally torture anyone who may live their life without having a chance to participate in this substitutionary sacrifice as part of his 'mercy'. Also, he created a 'devil' to go around driving people away from this merciful salvation of his. Now that this avatar has been nailed to a tree, every human shortcoming has been eradicated, and this loving space-patriarch no longer feels the need to periodically attempt to blast humanity off the face of the planet with natural disasters as he was wont to do through most of the Old Testament; all people have to do is worship the totem of a dead jew on a stick and they will have an afterlife of loving communion with a God whose thirst for blood has been sated. As for the hindus, buddhists, muslims of the world; f**k em. They can go to hell.

Am I following your line of reasoning correctly? People say I have a dim view of the world...

Maybe not as gentle as I would have been, but good call, TG

*Between kicks and howls of laughter...*

Well said, Twophlag!

I second that! Nicely summarised, Twophlag!
If there is a god, we're certainly all going to hell now!

Tee-hee-heeee. Twophlag, I gotta hand you that one. Move over, Monty Python!!

One point to differ on; the Devil. There's an odd one. My understanding is that God made him good (he was an archangel, after all) but through "free will" (another of God's lovely gifts), he CHOSE to go his own way, he dared to question the power of God. And THAT is what made him "evil." Questioning God's power. Little subtle guilt trip there, eh...? Well, it's the bedrock of Christianity, isn't it? Guilt.

Any way we could move this WHOLE forum elsewhere? It's so long and disjointed that I am having trouble keeping up.

Oh, and Davius, somewhere WAYYYY up there, witches were mentioned, and you brought up Salem. I think the point was more about the witch trials in Europe in the Middle Ages (see "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"). There are those among us who read less "traditional" histories (i.e., those not written by white men) who have found evidence to support that most of the women burned as "witches" were actually those who clung to their old beliefs (i.e. "pagans"). Many were women, and many of these women were healers, midwives, etc, who had status in their old culture. Needless to say, they were none too keen on giving this up to "love, honor, and obey" in a marriage under a God who foretells in the Old Testament that the pain of childbirth is punishment for original sin.

There are records, my dear Davius, of villages where no women were left alive. Records, too, that indicate that the children of these women were often flogged in front of the pyres where their mothers burned. All in the name of spreading the word.

Does this prove or disprove Christianity? No. But let me say that if your God DOES exist, then I want no part in a heaven where God allows these atrocities to be committed in his name. And if He DOES exist, than surely he will forgive those of us who doubt the Word, based on these sorts of situations.

I'll ask my friendly local brainwashees what they think of the devil - they've been remarkably silent on the topic so far. I suspect they see him as a personification of man's desires, rather than an actual entity, but it'll be interesting to find out...

Question about free will and the Devil: God did not create him evil. Okay, fair enough. God gave him free will. fair enough on that point too. God knows everything. Now here we run into a few problems. If God knows everything, surely he also knows the future. If he knows the future, he knew when he created this particular archangel that he would eventually turn into the Devil and become the personification of all that is evil. Yet he still created him. Therefore, God knowingly created evil, the devil, and generally all that is s**t in the world.
What a nice guy.