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

I don't quite see what God has to do with it. Mammon is more like it.

In terms of the UK, we are usually quoted as the fourth biggest arms manufacturers in the world I think, behind the US, Russia and France. We don't have much manufacturing industry to speak of left really besides arms, and the financial sector of the City is presently ****ed, so were world peace to break out things would go pretty much down the toilet terminally for everyone here.

>>looks like we've gotten a peaceful resolution in Northern Ireland,
so maybe there's hope for other places too.<<

I think that's a very constructive comment from BouncyBitInTheMiddle.
Yes, I do wish Ireland the very best, in its future.

Do you think that it would be possible to solve the current 'conflict' in Afghanistan,
which the UK is directly involved with at present, by similar means?

Apples and oranges, I would think. Afghanistan conflict is more tribal than religious as far as I see it, the West interfering makes for a good excuse to blame religion but the opium trade is in the forefront. The godless Soviets couldn't conquer them so how could fundy Bush and (now)Catholic Blair? Anyway, it isn't the first time- they gave it a go in 1839 and 1878 with no particular religious overtones, just another power grab by some more *Defenders of the Faith*.

Peace and war don't seem to be particularly attached to religion, sometimes it just seems to help or just get in the way. Money and power, money and power. As for god, since he's omnipotent and all-seeing, what's he got against all those dead and wounded people, anyway? Since he knows the ending, why does he bother to watch the show?

What has god got to do with it? Or to put it another way, why do you need to bring god into it in the first place?

So, most people responding so far, don't think God comes into it.
May we have a more serious subject title than the last post, please ..

Err ... no. I have no respect for either the concept or the object. Humour is the only reason I can put up with this thread, serious comments I have made included.

Warner you strill havent mentiomned the reliable index you read tat shows the world is as you claim more environmentally out of balance and more politically unstable than it has been previously.

Without quoting you sources for this information Im afraid the whole debate is basedon on nothing but your opinions and Im growing tiredof them as you have nothing new to say and when what you do say is challenged you simply squirm away from the question post some tangentially linked other opinion of yours or make a direct quote from or allude to a holy book.

So how do you "know" the world is getting worse?

one love

?

If the majority of people on h2g2 think world war III is a joke, then I'm lost for words.
I thought that 'the Forum' was supposed to be a serious area of this site.

I don't see many MP's laughing at the prospects of serious conflict.
There is, of course, room for humour but ...

Wars are not caused by religion. They happen because humans have evolved a seemingly overpowering tendency to tribalism. The gods are just the totems of the tribes, like sports team mascots.
There will never be world peace until enough people see themselves as humans rather than as (insert your nationality, religion here)
I suggest that you can't have world peace until you stop saying that your god has revealed to you the truth and then at least try to listen to the debate.

Here you go, Blicky. No smaller brain than that of Pinker describing the clearly (negatively) acceleration of violence in the human world:


http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html

"If the majority of people on h2g2 think world war III is a joke, then I'm lost for words.
I thought that 'the Forum' was supposed to be a serious area of this site."



World war three? Who mentioned world war three?
Yes, the forum is ment to be an area for more serious discussions, but ocasionally someone starts a thread in it about their irational belief in a magical being.

This post has been removed.

-Dont equate noble institutions like sports teams with religions. I have never seen in the constitution of a single sports club reference to killing other fans.-

This is true, and Jesus said to love your enemies.

The point that I was trying to make is that this debate keeps going round and round on this and other threads as though the specifics of the scriptures had something to do with how people act. I think we need to get past that and go deeper into human psychology to find the answer.

I'm particularly impressed by Frans deWaal's writings where he shows that our cousin chimps act like we do, in both peace and war, yet they can have no belief systems.

Unfortunately Jesus isnt the only character in the Bible.

It like so many other books deliberately glorifies violence and even instructs people about being violent.

I think people are responsible for their own actions and can do both good and bad things regardless of belief systems but that doesnot changethe fact that people have been killing each other because of religions for thousands of years. Not just in wars but in peace as punishments of not followingthe right belief system.

Any book that advocateskilling is abhorent in my opinion even ifit does say "love thy neighbour" aswell.

'our cousin chimps act like we do, in both peace and war, yet they can have no belief systems.'

They can't?

"Religion is not evil. Humans are. End of story. God has nothing to do with it, He/She/It is merely the excuse." -- Mr Dreadful

Really? Religions promote wilful ignorance - faith - they promote subjugation one's own will and reason to "authorities" within the faith putting the credulous at risk of abuse and "higher powers" that go unobserved but to those that charmed enough to hear voices or see they're hand in hurricanes, earthquakes and genocides. They manufacture bogus notions of absolute morality and attempt to deny other people freedoms based on these queer ideas. They teach the inferiority of woman, races and sexualities.

A religion is as evil as what it teaches and evils that people try to do and get away with doing in it's name or succeed in hiding from secular justice through it's institutions.

Religions are the product of people. Many of them primitive peoples. Gods are indeed the excuse, the excuse for keeping the teachings of these tracts of manure alive and reeking their stench across our laws and government actions.

A god is as evil as the acts that it's adherants attribute to it, the dogmas it's churches hold true and evils promoted by the unholy pages of books it divinely inspired.

"God has shown itself remarkably unwilling to interfere with our free will..."

Yeah, apart from when he hardens Pharoahe's heart so he could show off he awesome infanticidal powers.

I seem to remember seeing a nature film that dealt with a some chimps that live in one area of Africa that have a very different behaviour social behaviour pattern from chimps living in other parts. Presumably if they are still actually the same species it could almost be thought of as having a different 'culture' in some ways. Sorry, can't give any specifics. I don't know if anyone else has more knowledge than me about different behaviour types of chimps living in differnt places. I think Dolphins also exhibit different social patterns of behaviour in different parts of the world.

I reckon we still have much to learn about just how 'conscious', for want of a better word, other mammals with highly developed nervous systems might really be.

Sorry for the wooliness of the post.

Effers, you make avery good point there. In my earlier post I think I went a little too dogmatic for rhetorical purposes.

Other animals do have very flexible minds and culture does seem to inform some of their behaviour.

My argument is that instinct, true instinct of the inherited kind, drives our passions. Some of us grasp at that and then present as evidence things that in fact make no sense.

If a bronze age imagination gets set down in writing then a modern person will grasp it if it conforms to his imagination. Which it will since there has been too short a time for any meaningful genetic change since then.