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

That's why I've not visited for a while...

I was thinking about your dad, Malabarista, and you know what? My dad was a lot like that until I had my daughter...suddenly, I was an adult, whatever that means.

Of course, I'm not advocating that you rush out and have a child just to make your dad stop, but have you really talked to him about this? It seems a bit, well, over the top...

Okay, downright weird.

The problem is that his mother was very clingy because she lost all four of his siblings as infants... Talking won't help, he has the strange problem that he can't remeber actual conversations, only the emotions they caused; that makes it very difficult to have rational discussions!

The problem is that his mother was very clingy>> yep but you can be to clingy which can also be a problem .

I agree, that woman was a bit batty. But I think anyone would be after losing four babies for reasons they weren't able to explain back then (Rhesus factor/blood group conflicts)

very true

tangents again I';m afraid.
Have had several interesting conversations with a security lad at our place. He's a 20-something (i'm no good at judging age!) muslim british asian (his words) from birmingham.
We agree on a lot of stuff about life, tolerance, being yourself and so forth.

But today we were discussing paths in life. He saw three pats in life, Religion, Education and Politics. Interesting choice there.
Of the three, he seemed to have the most disdain for politics,. as I think he saw this as the manipulation of society for the needs of the manipulator.

I just thought that his choice of three areas of choice was interesting.He fully agreed that one of the problems that he saw was that kids growing up didn't think that one could integrate all three.
Next time I talk I'll introduce the idea of science, but I wonder if he equates science with education.

maybe in addition to science you could ask about technology/industry?

Yes, that's true, does he see a difference between applied science (technology and medicine etc.) and theoretical science?

Morning Ictoan



I think that is to be expected. If he is 'strongly' Muslim then for him it is Allah who sets the rules for his life and how he lives it, - not some politician who thinks he/she ( even worse) knows better.

Novo

Speaking of the Belfast Gay Pride march...(but not having caught up with the other 150 backlog)

I heard something about a Norhern Irish minister who claimed there were '...only about 200 gay people in Northern Ireland.'

This prompted the response 'Jaysus! Were all of us at [such-and-such a club] last Friday night?...And who were the other 500 people?'

keep them there then

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4136690.stm

Good old Shrub eh?

When will it all end? I have no problem with the concept of intelligent design, how can we be 100% sure that a higher being didn't guide the development of life on Earth? But it's not hard science and should therefore be taught as part of Religious Studies.

Never mind hard science, ID isn't science at all. Simply saying "I can't imagine/understand a natural explanation for X, so it must have a divine origin" is no more scientific than saying "I don't/can't/won't understand how a computer operates, so it must be by magic".

http://www.ucomics.com/tomtoles/2005/08/29/
http://www.ucomics.com/tomtoles/2005/08/23/
http://www.ucomics.com/tomtoles/2005/08/09/

Personally, I would prefer that Religious studies (Intelligent design et al) were not taught at school, period. I would prefer my children make that decision to learn about it when they are old enough to want to, rather than have it rammed down their throat.

I totally agree - being *brainwashed* into believing that b*llsh*t made me resentful towards Christianity after I learnt to think for myself.

can you tell?

Sorry, rant

I think religious studies should be taught, but it should be religious *studies*, i.e. the study of religion. What they believe, what matters to them etc, in an objective way. Religions have had such an impact on humanity that it behoves us to understand them to understand ourselves and the world we are in.

Oh come on! Religion is tolerable as a hobby for the deranged, but it has no business being taught at schools. It's currently popular, though, as a soft option for GCSE.