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

Interesting. And how would you define 'hope'?


Geggs

>>Or In short: people use the word 'faith' in incorrect contexts...

Nope...as an amateur linguist I must disagree with that. "Words, said humpty-dumpty, can mean whaever I choose them to mean." There is no 'correct' definition of 'faith'. People use it in different ways. The trick is to look at the context and separate out those meanings.

The school Divinity teacher who turned me into an Atheist - accidentally, one supposes - used to illustrate the concept of Faith by saying 'If I sit down on a chair, I have faith that it won't break. I don't have to question that every time I sit down.' Well, even at the age of eleven, I understood that all we're actually doing is making a convenient assumption that chairs don't break, based on past knowledge that usually they don't. Sometimes they do, of course - but we judge the tiny risk of that as not worth the bother of checking. If we're really to judge god by the same standard as we judge chairs, this raises all manner of interesting questions.

(Such as whether you can buy cheap gods from Ikea?)

It has just struck me that the word the speaker should have used is 'trust'.

You trust in schools, chairs etc because from experiential fact you know that, apart from mistakes, wear and things just going tits up, you know what will happen. This is not faith-based but fact based. Yes, things may go wrong but based on cogent risk factors you know 'whatever' will be OK.

I do not need faith to know that when I jump up into the air I will come back down again. I know enough about gravitational theory and past experience to know that I will. There isn't even any trust in that action.

Bother. Ed's said what I was going to. Yes, the speaker is getting into a muddle by underestimating the flexibility of language. It's like those people who say that laws require a lawgiver, and therefore the law of gravity demonstrates the existance of God.

TRiG.

Novo

I think Ed wraps up this TFTD discussion...apologies for poorly repeating what you said!!!

I am working on Thursdays TFTD now: which is very apt considering the letter from the 1000's of Imams saying that CHristianity and Islam are saying the same thing basically...oh apart from Jesus NOT being the son of a god but just a prophet...

Title: Faith speaks to faith in different ways.

Thought for the Day, 11 October 2007
Dr Mona Siddiqui

This weekend, Muslims all over the world will celebrate Eid, the day which marks the end of the month of Ramadan, the month of fasting. When I was at school, I used to tell my friends that Eid was like Christmas ok it wasn't about tinsel, turkey and trees but it was about family, friends and food. Through such conversations, my friends made a simple but important connection - that however different, religions are marked by rituals and sometimes these rituals can be quite similar.

To one standing outside a religion, a ritual can be an idiosyncrasy. It marks, separates and identifies a community of believers but it conveys little meaning. For the believer, participating in a ritual is about participating in a profound truth. So Ramadan transforms itself from one reality of hunger, restraint and patience to another reality of intense spirituality, worship and remembrance of God. Infact as is often said, Ramadan is about fasting from everything but the presence of God.

But if ritual binds, it also separates. Once my friends had satisfied their brief curiosity about Eid, they would often look at me with pity because I couldn't celebrate Christmas. What did I do on the day, how did I get through the euphoria without being part of it? Why didn't I have twinkling tree - surely that had nothing to do with Christianity, it was the legacy of some pagan ritual etc. My own parents would often find themselves in deep discussion over how far one could go? How far can you share and be part of another faith's rituals when you don't believe in the essence of that religion? Did taking part in another's ritual compromise one's own religion?

I'm not sure that when we gave and received presents at Christmas, we ever thought of it as a compromise. Giving and receiving was symbolic of divine generosity and always worthy. In the end the best rituals of any faith are the ones that make us reflect profoundly upon God and challenge us to keep this reflection meaningful in the banal events of our daily lives. Faith speaks to faith in different ways. At times, the only way to view another's ritual is through respectful observation, at times one is drawn to the simple fact that the dignity and silence involved in many rituals can often speak louder about a faith than any words.

I'm reminded of Paul Coelho's piece about a Japanese tea ceremony in which the tea master told him that the ceremony was like communion with the universe. If a mere cup of tea can bring us closer to God, we should watch out for all the other dozens of opportunities that each ordinary day offers us.


copyright 2007 BBC

See..Mona talks sense. She's not asking anyone to have her faith. I don't agree with her, but she doesn't annoy me.

ED

No she doesn't talk sense, she says:



She says rituals can be quite similar like:

Jews-Passover
Christians - Lent
Muslims - Ramadan

Jews - Yom Kippur
Catholics - Confession
Muslims - Ashura

Jews - Kosher
Muslims - Halal

They are the same...they are copies...like Romeo & Juliet and West Side Story...same but subtly differently changed.

What it shows is that The Christians...who were Jews simply took Jewish the Jewish customs and twisted them. The Muslims, who IMO though Christians were too wishy-washy, went back to Jewish religious law and copied what they were doing.



Yes, but the universe is real and exists and even if the tea ceremony is an extension of a contemplative relaxing ritual it doesn;t signfy anything to do with gods.

so the title: Faith speaks to faith in different ways.

No, it simply shows that the main Abrahamic religions are based on exactly the same text has has just been copied and twisted slightly for the needs of those people of that time.

Why would some perfect god keep coming down and talking to 'prophets' and telling them to do subtley different things to the instructions he told his last prophet. You would have thought after telling prophet Jesus(Islamic belief) to create the 'new covenant' and the trouble that caused that he wouldn;t come down and tell some other guy who had been starving in the desert for 40days and 40 nights somethin different. You would have thought an omniscient bring would have either got it right first time or learnt from his last mistake..but no..so where sdoes that leave the Abrahamic god apart from looking like an indecisive fickle d*ckhead.

Back to faith.

Faith is rubbish and useless. unless you are aiming for a life with you headin the sand in which case its fantastic there is nothing better for replacing or sheilding you from reality than faith.

The speaker talked about faith in the school and her sons ability.

I think she's a liar. If she really has faith she wont fuss herself with going to parents evening and asking how her son is getting on. Or ask her son how his first day went because she has "faith".

What utter cobblers.

I have faith in my tyoing and NEBER use preview. Let that be a wrning about faith.

So Mona Siddiqi is talking rubbish silly when she says that unfamilar Muslim rituals are no more scary than the nice, familiar Christian ones?

(delete silly)

Hi Blicky





I have always troubled over this point. Are they liars or truly deluded: and which is preferable? Looking at her 'impressive CV' if you google her she has a history of being on lots of prgrammes and boards etc...but of course has she really been properly challenged...probably not.



Playing Devils Advocaat: if one had rational trust shoudln't one not bother going going to parents evenings as 'in all probability' based on fact everyone should be trained enough to get the best out of ones child...but rational human beings know that human beings are crap so we do need to check that everythingis going OK.

Thought for the Day, 12 October 2007

The Rev. Dr Giles Fraser

Battlefield ethics are not a contradiction in terms.

Over the last few years I've had the enormous privilege of lecturing at the Joint Services Command and Staff College at Shrivenham in Wiltshire. On Wednesday, I was asked to address 200 officers about to take up command responsibilities, many in Iraq and Afghanistan . My subject was ethics and the question was this: does ethics really have a place on the battlefield, or is the soldier who acts ethically at a serious disadvantage in the midst of a vicious fight?

In his classic study, On War, the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz argued that battlefield ethics is a nonsense, like trying to fight with one hand tied behind your back. According to him, the soldier who triumphs is the one who's prepared to go further, to be more brutal, to do whatever it takes. Anyone trying to modify or limit the way a soldier fights is effectively helping the enemy.

The thing most misguided about Clausewitz's approach is that it presumes ethics is first and foremost about limiting behaviour. I guess this is often how we teach small children: "no, that's naughty", we say; "you mustn't do that". It's also how many think about religious ethics, the Ten Commandments all famously beginning: "thou shalt not".

And if ethics really is all about saying no, it's easy to understand why soldiers might secretly think of it as some sort of ball and chain. But the truth is, the fundamental basis of ethics (religious or otherwise) begins not with what we are against - not with the "no"s - but with what we're for. "Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!" is how Henry V's positive moral vision is famously rendered by Shakespeare. The king is crying out that God and country are things worth believing in and fighting for. His soldiers are inspired to follow him into battle.

Of course, we'd probably now have a very different set of moral priorities: liberty, human rights, democracy, religious toleration. Perhaps we await a modern-day Bard to give these ideals forceful and poetic shape. But even without this, it's clear these ideals represent something worth struggling for.

And this is the point where the "no"s all come back in. For the reason we say a moral no to hooding prisoners and a moral no to the indiscriminate use for force is that these things actually undermine the very ideals for which the armed forces are fighting in the first place. The "thou shalt not" side of ethics is something that serves simply to protect what it is we believe in and are inspired by.

This positive moral vision is not some sort of handicap, as Clauswitz would have it, but essential to the very purpose of the British armed forces and, furthermore, vital for effective leadership. The book of Proverbs makes it pretty stark and clear: "where there is no vision, the people perish".

copyright 2007 BBC

My question here is: were they forced to listen to this person talking about 'ethics'?



And yet the OT is full of reports of the Abrahamic god and Jewish armies smiting, destroying and doing harm to others. Where are the ethics in that? What can we learn from a god telling us 'thou shalt not kill' when he is doing just that a few pages later and before in the book of the OT.

<"Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!" is how Henry V's positive moral vision is famously rendered by Shakespeare.>

Giles, that is a line from a fictional play.



But you have not defined what 'we' believe in' and who believes in it: Muslims believe that Jesus was simply a prophet; Christians believe Jesus was the son of the Abrahamic god...and as muslims came after Christians should we not believe the Islamic view of that certain Jesus?

And when it gets down to it, the majority of grunts in the army join because they a) can't get any other job, b) their family have gomne into the forces before...because they couldn;t get anotehr job or c) can get into Sandhurst and will probably not here a bullet pass by their head.

The ethics of war is not to get killed. It's all very well some guy rabitting on about ethics when they aren;t facing death...or if they do they TRULY believe they will go to heaven...I would hazard a guess that the majority of those ducking bullets in foxholes aren't thinking thath if they die in theier duty they will meet thier god they are thinking they will not meet their girlfriend/wife again and they will most likely die in pain. So, screw ethics its kill or be killed.



Only if you a) have no problem in dying and that's it or b) 'know' there is something past this life.

Thought for the Day, 8 October 2007

The Rev. Dr Colin Morris

"Christianity has always been ambivalent about military force."

I have precis'd this entry to this one sentence which is also the title of the piece. All I will say is: What about all the Christian Crusades?

Once again selective memory.

"And when it gets down to it, the majority of grunts in the army join because they a) can't get any other job, b) their family have gomne into the forces before...because they couldn;t get anotehr job or c) can get into Sandhurst and will probably not here a bullet pass by their head.

Steady on!

You do know you can make yourself *very* unpopular with that kind of talk.

It's certainly true that Christianity has been far from ambivalent about warfare. However: I would just like to go on record and say that I am not a pacifist. Is anyone here? Armies are like sewage systems: an unfortunate necessity. And, of course, we shouldn't let the s*** spill out into everyday life.

(I'd have preferred not to use asterisks, but it seems the weekend mods are in a daft mood)

Yes, I know, Blicky, but the, almost truth, sometimes hurts (thread drift a little from TFTD but) I do battle against the two differing thoughts of 'you joined the army where you expect to get bits of metal thrown at you to kill you so what do you expect?' and 'these people are putting thier lives on the line to protect us'. The real problem is that the recent 'conflict/invasions' are political and are not really protecting us and...in this day and age who would join the army as a long-term profesion?

I do know if people who have spent virtually all their military career learning how to scuba dive and swim in pleasant places and not seen any action and...good on them because next week they migh be dead...that is the RISK they take and if they happen to join when the residual risk of getting killed turns out to be zero and they have a damn ball of a time on my tax payers money then thats fine by me because 10years either way my tax money might be funding the bullets they are firing just before they get a bullet through the head...but over all my previous comments stand..it's all down to risk and social standing. If everyone in teh Uk was qualified and could get jobs that did not mean shooting at other people would we have an armed forces?

>>If everyone in teh Uk was qualified and could get jobs that did not mean shooting at other people would we have an armed forces?

Well, it would obviously be harder/ more expensive to recruit. But a far more interesting question is, 'Do we need armed forces?' Any takers?

<>

Christian pacifist here... Christianity has *always* been pacifist, and if the best you can do for a counter-argument is the Crusades, which all but the angriest atheists now admit were political, and had nothing Christian about them, at all, then I am sorry for you!

Vicky
You will recall (although at the time you probably deliberately didn't notice) that the previous Pope was adamantly against the invasion of Iraq...