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

Vicky, I have never called you stupid. I do not ever argue with stupid people. It's a waste of time. I only argue with smart people. That's why I'm arguing with you. When I get in an argument with say, Ed for instance, I usually lose. He's just better informed than I am. It's humiliating, but at least I can learn something. Christians are humble because Jesus said to be humble. Scientists are humble because the truth is bigger and stronger than we are. If you come back and answer that some here seem pretty arrogant, they're no true scientists.
I apologize if it seemed that I said that fundamentalists want to kill people who don't agree with them. Of course that's not true. Only some of them do. Read Ann Coulter.
We scientists don't listen to contrary views? That's what we're doing here.

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Yes, that's true, and I apologise for my assumptions! I was being defensive. My comments about scientists were however, not entirely serious.

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Aaaarrrggghhhhhhhhhhh! I try not to! Whenever I have read her, the words "mad" and "cow" have come to mind.

I know you recognise that she isn't representative of Christians! It makes me shudder to have people like her associated with religion. I often wonder how Christians on the right wing perceive her... do they realise what a liability she is?

Although people here think I am right wing, I seriously am not - I can be defined as right wing *only* by twisting the whole definition of left to where it's purely social (abortion/euthanasia/gay rights), and exluding socio-political views - such as worker's rights, anti-war and anti-death penalty views.) There are people here (largely the atheists who incorporate into their views this disparate list:
Pro-abortion/euthanasia/gay rights/anti-union/anti-worker, pro-war (at least in terms of the war on terror), anti-welfare benefit...Also, of course they're anti-Muslim, either because they're atheist or because they are enthusisastic supporters of the war on an abstract noun.

In other words, they're what I'd call libertarian-right.

I am not, I am not any sort of right wing. But by their twisted definition, I am a Bush-Cheney-loving, pro-war, pro-death-penalty pyschotic! Bizarre....

Vicky

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Rather like the American right you seem to assume that Barack Obama is a Muslim... I googled and lo and behold, the foaming-at-the mouth all assure me that Barack Obama is a Muslim fifth-columnist only pretending to be a - wait for it - Christian!

Because he is...

http://hootsbuddy.blogspot.com/2006/12/what-is-barack-obamas-religion.html


An example of a foamer-at-the-mouth:
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/0804/0804obamafaith.htm

This should settle it...
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

Moral of the story, Hooray Henry - (a) read widely, and not just right-wing sources

(b) Don't jump to conclusions

(c) Don't let spite mislead you!

VL

Well shows how much interest I take in the religious beliefs of foreign politicians I need to know very little of.

Cant remember ever hearing he was just assumed it due to the name, bad call. However Ive heard little about American Muslims being in hiding from Cheney. If it were the case its the kind of thing Id imagine we would hear about over 1 million people going into hiding wouldnt we?

http://www.religioustolerance.org/isl_numb.htm

Sigh, Blicky - still obsessed with taking absolutely everything as being meant absolutely literally!

You don't have a touch of Aspergers, do you?

You *do* recall my specifying Muslim *fundamentalist* don't you? Or are you just being lazy, and assuming as do your fellow atheists, that all believers everywhere, are fundamentalist?

Vicky

Yeah, Aspergers syndrome laugh a minute aint it.



Well how are they hiding from Cheney then?

I dont know any other context apart from the sporting one where you shy away from a boxing match or tackle in a game.

What do you mean by hiding?



Im not being lazy, there is a very obviuos reason I *dont* recall you specifying anything other than muslims. Look at post 9940 where do you say "muslim fundamentalists" hide from the likes of cheney?

Answer: Nowhere.

Why dont you read what you yourself post?

Coming from someone who bases their beliefs on 2000year old stories involving a bloke who was killed by being nailed to a tree and then came alive again that is possibly the most amazing comment written by anyone I have read this year,

Hi Della

Sorry, coming in on this one a bit late...

"Charismatic or not, the point of religion is exactly *not* doing quote "whatever you want" unquote."

Given the industry of interpretation about say - the Bible, you can pretty much justify any act based upon it, which is why so many dictators and sociopaths can quote it so well.

The cry of 'Gott Mit Uns!' has been heard on just about every battlefield in human history. As with all philosophies it can be used both as a carrot or as a cudgel.

Your holy book would have us both love our enemies and persecute them unto the tenth generation. It justifies forgiveness and cruelty, in the name of a peace-loving, yet vengeful deity.

The difference between theists and atheists is that the latter usually use political or economic arguments for war or genocide, not religious ones.

Go figure...

Blessings,
Matholwch .

Veteran peacenik and ex-serviceman.

Hi, Math. I think I'm the one who started the 'charismatic religion means do what ever you want.' I put the in there to get a response, and boy, did I.

I had a serious purpose, though. The fuel in so much of the flaming in this thread seems to be blaming religion/atheism for all the evil in the world. These are just the coats that evil wears. Good and evil come from human nature. People use scriptures (Leviticus, Marx) to justify what they had already emotionally decided.

The argument over whether or not Hitler was a christian is just stupid. Hitler was a beast. I mean that literally. If you watch a documentary of the Third Reich with the sound off, you will see a bunch of baboons.

Good and evil are largely about the situation that we're in. Hitler would not have been possible without the vengeful stupidity of the victors of the Great War. The situation in Iraq would have been impossible if GW had actually listened to the real Jesus and not the one in his charismatic head. For that matter, it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the vengeful stupidity of Bin Lauden.

All true and sensible but what would people around here argue about if they agreed with you?

You're right, of course. I keep forgeting that this is sport and not to be taken seriously. Now, if I really wanted to get a fight going, I could slag the (your team here) football club.

Correct and thiests will use political and religious ones but wrap the political stuff up in the religious stuff and vice versa depending on the audience.

Hi Tumsup

Indeed you were, but it was Della's variant that tweaked my interest.

I agree with much of what you say, and that Bin Lden would not have happened if he hadn't been picked and trained by the CIA. And that wouldn't have happened without Wahabi'ism and repression in Saudi Arabia and so it goes, ad infinitum, back to the monolith teaching a caveman to use a thighbone as a weapon...

Welcome to civilisation

Blessings,
MAtholwch .

Slightly off-topic'

"Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe"

Novo

All right then, let's consider a couple of quotes.

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- Bertrand Russell

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-Thomas Henry Huxley

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-Albert Einstein

Is an appeal to religious doctrine therefore more to be respected than an independent analysis of the available evidence?

Tiresome conversation, really.

There is thinking and there is believing. Most rational people do the former and the cognitively deficient relax into the latter. And the thinkers are attacked by the mediocre minds who are incapable or reluctant to do their own thinking. That's what dogma is for.

Sad, sad, sad.

Ever since I can remember Ive liked looking at ladies boobies they are lovely

Thing is Ive just turned down the oppotunity to do that.

We have just begun training for a ladies team that will hopefully pick up numbers and skills and start playing rugby games by Sep 2008.

One of the initial players who came to us wanting to join a team is 23 and a lapsed Catholic. Inspite of her one time religious convictions and still remaining faith I was pleased to find out she works for Anne Summers. Good because she can promote the team to broad minded 21st century women and I might get to go down there and do some promotion myself

Most of the other players are themselves actively religious. I get e-mails from one wishing me the bigGs blessings and quoting scrpture as a tag line. I put about the polemics of ChuckD and she hits me with Psalm 23 across the bottom of her messages.

Now Im proffesional at work I think people should be able to be who they are and not have to compete for "breathing space" with the mass medias prjections of how people ought to be just as much as I think people should be able to be free of religious prescriptions about their lives.

Ant road up miss Anne Summers who is a very generously proportioned young woman suggests we do a "cheeky callendar" to raise funds. Inspite of the fact that we have previously put up a callendar of one of the players university teams in not a lot and no underwear in some cases

I said no.

The calendar was for 2006 and featured university students posing with rugby balls strategically or not so strategically placed. On the whole I thought of it as a fine bunch of young women flaunting what nature gave them and having fun. No harm done...

The next year our now thankfully gone female bar manager imposed a "hunks" callendar on us. No fun in those photos. Proffesional models striking sujestive poses that had not so much sexual overtones just a sexual monotone.

Legally and morally there was no issue anyone could brnig about the photos they were as covered as your average male swimmer is and we had previously enjoyed the previous twelve photos on the previous callendar.

I turned down the callendar idea not to avoid offending the sensibilities of the hard core god botherers in the team, but becuase I now think that we should be allowed to enjoy our sport without such ideas and images impinging on our corinthian efforts.

I dont want young men viewing women players as people who need to take of various items of clothing to make it in our sport or for the girls in our club to grow up thinking that taking there clothes of is part of what they are now innocently doing just for the fun of the sport.

I still like taking my clothes off for ladies and vice versa, even better when we do it for each other.

However I have had my road to Damascus moment on this issue we should be promoting other ideals than simply sex sells or titilation can replace the exhiliration of comraderie and equal participation.

Crikey I cant believe this thread finally died, must the the god delusion thread.

Thanks for waking it up, Ferretbadger. I'd abandoned it a while before it died, so I just got "14 new posts".

TRiG.

Coffin lid creaks open and out pops another story:

"Traditionalists in the Anglican Church have been angered by reports that two gay clergymen have exchanged vows in a version of a marriage ceremony."

"The couple are said to have exchanged vows and rings in front of hundreds of guests.

Anglicans worldwide are split over homosexuality and conservatives have condemned the service as blasphemous."

I like this comment:

"Under Church of England guidance, gay priests can enter civil partnerships as long as they remain celibate."

How are they going to prove it? Cover them with tupping dye?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7455187.stm