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

oh hey, just thought you might want to know. The edges of the shroud were touched up in the 15th-16th century, but another carbon dating sample from the middle showed it to be approx. 2000 years old. this is from an EXTREMELY reliable source. the "photo negative" quality is, from what i hear, due to the residue of bacteria in the sweat and/or blood of Jesus, which was pressed against the cloth. Just thought you might be interested.

There are as many theories on the Turin Shroud as there are people who've investigated it. Another researcher just referred me to a book that posits that the shroud covered one Jaques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, who was tortured and killed by the Catholic Church in 1311. I'd be more inclined to agree with the Church's claims about the Shroud if there were any references to it in history thate date before this. As for the study you cite, I'd have to examine their findings myself, and see who performed it. There are tons of quasi-scientific colleges out there sponsored by Christian denominations who are supposedly producing proof of God, such as your Turin Shroud data. However, it has been shown that these people's work is more conjecture than science, and their lab procedures are tainted by their beliefs and by irresponsible practices.

Gargleblaster, earlier in this dialogue you ascertained that atheism, the 'disbelief in any mythology' was the only reasonable stance. I would like you to qualify that.

My own thinking on this subject is that atheism presupposes a commitment to a certain cosmology and in that vein is as unreasonable as any other professed belief. Agnosticism, where commitment to a belief system is withheld, seems far preferable.

Also, the term itself, atheism, means literally 'anti-theistic' and is generally taken to be the only alternative to 'theism' or conviction of the existance of a divine purposer. Perhaps you should consider the 2/3 of the world that are oestensibly nontheistic, that is, divinity is understood to be the ground of being, imminently part of the universe rather than apart from it. I find this to be an eminently reasonable supposition, and am in general awe of the brilliance of hindu and taoist philosophers who centuries ago understood things about the universe that mathematicians and physicists are just beginning to glimpse.

Disbelief is a form of belief. Why should I care what you 'believe' any more than I care what Bill Redneck the christian fanatic believes? Belief by its nature is irrational, and by your own definition it seems atheism is also irrational.

Mythology should not be dismissed. A myth need not be objectively 'true' to be relatively meaningful. Jung built a brilliant career around the study of mythology.

Last but not least, I think it is quite possible to be a Christian and not a Christ-worshipper. Christians concern themselves with empathy and imminent connection to the divine apart from the requirement of an established church's intervention. Christ-worshippers are idolaters who have put the messenger on a pedastal but forgotten the message.

Can someone just answer a couple of questions for me (biblical scolars apply within)
1/ When were the GOSPELS actually writen? I believe I've read somewhere it was about AD150 onwards
2/ When was the BIBLE as we know it put together? The Nicene council spring to mind AD325 approx.
3/ Jesus WAS a JEW was he not?
4/ Finally (for the moment) did anyone ever answer Paul's epistles?
I look forward to some interesting replies.

Hrmmm I'd have to dig around through some old dusty books to answer your questions precisely, but from what I can recall, here's some approximately accurate info.

1> The gospels were probably written in their present form somewhere
between 90 ad and 150 ad or thereabouts. The synoptic gospels (matthew mark luke) are generally conceded to predate the gospel of john. The synoptics are thought to be based loosely on an unnamed document or oral tradition, known as the 'Q' source, which accounts for the similarities. The non-canonical gospel of Thomas, a collection of 'sayings' of Jesus, seems to also have used Q. The gospel of john is generally thought to be pure fiction, written specifically for members of an early christian community as political propaganda. Curiously, the gospel of John also reflects some Greek philosophy, with references to the logos and all that. Nothing mentioned in the gospel of john is thought to be even remotely based on anything historically accurate however.

2> 400 and some AD was my recollection. It's a work in progress though.

3> Probably. Who cares?

4> Good question. I'm pretty sure paul's letters are excerpts from
ongoing dialogues, so I would answer with a hesitant yes.

So basically the bible is a work of fiction, put together to suit the political needs of the HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE,circa 2nd-4th century AD?
Well, L.Ron. Hubbard's getting away with the same sort of thing today isn't he? I wonder what future generations will think of the prevailing sanity or otherwise of the last 2000 years?
All seems rather silly to me.

Disbelief in any mythology is the only reasonable stance, since mythologies have no basis in reality. The are creative and entertaining, which is why I read sci-fi and fantasy. But Christianity and others of that ilk take themselves too seriously. I reread that post, though, and I believe I may have gotten caught up in the moment when I wrote it, since elswhere I've written that the only truly logically defensible belief system is agnosticism.

Atheism isn't really much of a cosmology, though. Too often people assosciate atheism with Big Bang theory. The two are not inseperable. An Atheist merely believes that the whole of the universe was created by natural processes, quite by accident. Further study will reveal those processes, but I do not believe we've gotten any closer to the Ultimate Question than Arthur Dent. As far as Hindu and Taoism, those are pantheistic belief systems completely apart from Atheism. An Atheist is someone who rejects all spirituality.

Your word entymology is way off. The Greek prefix 'a' means 'without.' The Greek prefix for 'anti' is, well, 'anti,' such as in the word 'antipathy' (feeling against, or hate). The same word the 'a' prefix becomes 'apathy,' which I'm sure you know means 'without feeling,' or, more specifically, 'I don't give a rat's ass.' And if 'a' meant what you say it does, then the literal translation of 'agnostic' would be 'anti-knowledge.'

If I believed mythology was useless, I would never have studied it. I've always been drawn to them, since I was 12 and studied the Greek myths in school. Since then, I've covered at least a bit on to Norse, Celtic, Gnostic, Hermetic, Wiccan, and Christian. But I think there is a danger in taking any of these things too seriously (well, except Gnostic and Hermetic, which are harmless enough, and have managed to produce some wonderful thinkers. The rise of Hermeticism and the European Rennaissance are inextricably linked.)

I find it impossible to be Christian and not worship Christ. By definition, a Christian must worship Christ. And Christians cannot be apart from the church. Your suggestion is the very heart of the Gnostic religion, and Christianity wiped it out nearly completely in the 5th century CE for that particular heretical view. I suggest you read my new article on the Nag Hammadi collection for more information.

1. More on Q: Q was simply believed to be a collection of Jesus' sayings. Current scholarship believes that there were three versions, a Q1, Q2, and Q3. Call them different generations of the same material, if you will. The Gospel of Thomas is suspected to be Q2, that is, once removed from the original work, and once removed from the final version that was used by the synoptics.

The first Gospel to be written was (after Thomas, of course) Mark, in 70 AD. Note that this is more than an entire generation after the crucifixion. Mark's gospel can be considered the least mysterious of all the works, his Jesus is quite ordinary compared to later books. Then came Luke, in 75 AD, then Matthew in 85 AD, and finally John, the most spectacular of them all, in the 90's.

2. There's an article on the Council of Nicea that you can find at the H2G2 Historical Society. There's a link to it on my homepage, and in the Post write-up I did for it. 375 sounds about right to me, but it's just a guess. And it is worthy of note that the above publishing dates are merely conjecture, because no copies of the books predate the 4th century. This is because the church didn't want us to know what they edited out.

3. There's arguments for Jesus being a Jew, but I've also seen rather compelling evidence that he was not. He could easily have converted to one of the mystery schools during his stay in Egypt.

4. I must admit some ignorance in the area of Paul, because I believe that when he arrived on the scene is when the concept of Christianity got completely screwed up. Much of my research has been to figure out what the original intent was. I'll be putting together an article on my findings sometime in the near future.

Again, I think 'belief' and 'disbelief' presuppose a commitment to a certain view of the universe, although perhaps this is merely a semantic game. It's one of those words like 'love' and 'god' that simply becomes overused to the point where it becomes meaningless. I believe that the sky is pink. But who cares? Reason things out and hope for the best; as soon as you step into the territory of 'belief' you assume you know more than you do.

I don't think I ever mentioned the Big Bang theory, which I consider to be a load of hoakum. Atheists DO commit to a cosmology; as you said, you 'believe' that the universe was 'created' by 'accident' by 'natural' 'processes'. Define each of those terms in this context; I expect you will eventually find that as you break down your definition you run into the same logical conundrums that Theists do in explaining the where, why, and how of things.

Contrary to your belief we have gotten a lot closer to understanding the universe than we previously have been. The three major contributions of the 20th century to our cosmology have been: Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, and Chaos theory. A whole new way of looking at the universe is unfolding before our very eyes, if only we could shed the prejudices of the past and embrace it.

Rejecting spirituality is fine; I suppose it is a matter of personal experience. I have not known Taoism to be pantheistic; certainly Hinduism does have that aspect. Hinduism is also a complex philosophical system underlying the pantheon however; Hindu poetry is worth looking at; they knew about fractals millenia before Benoit Mandelbrot wrote his book.

I accept the rebuke regarding my word entymology. I'm not sure I readily accept the difference, but I allow the point. I suspect we are delving further into estoric semantic debates that don't further the overall point. Bow.

I never said mythology had to be 'believed in' to be considered a worthwhile study. I'm glad you agree with me.

You can find it impossible all you want. Many Christ-worshippers ahve told me the same thing. Again, it's semantics. But I think I reserve the right to label my own particular worldview however I want; In my view of things, you yourself are a Christian, one who seeks greater understanding. That does not necessitate worship of Christ, or participation in the reenactment of the substitute sacrifice myth. Rather, an appreciation of who he was and what was going on with him seems adequate to me.

I had a good rant, which got waaaaay to long for this forum so I've posted it as an article(A253153) on my home page if anyone is interested.

A few biblical bits of trivia:-

Messiah was a title conferred on the High Priest of the Temple and mean "Anointed One". By default the Grand Rabbi of Jerusalem now bears this title.

The complexities of translation can be demonstrated easily, or not
e.g. Shalom - a little bit more complicated than "Peace". Derived from a root word (Sumerian) translates literally as "May you find peace and harmony in this perfectly balanced world".

And I sincerely hope we all do.

Nag Hammadi sites:-

The Complete Nag Hammadi - http://www.gnosis.org/

Codex 11 Student Research Center - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/9068/

And if you are interested: Hammurabi's Code of Laws - http://www.wnlia.org/hamml.htm

Enjoy.

I think I finally figured out what's been bugging me about this article.

Its author is obviously quite intelligent and has bent his formidable mind towards grappling with key details of an issue he considers important, the debunking of orthodox Christian thinking in its myriad and sundry forms.

In so doing, however, he seems to have built a bridge to nowhere in the middle of a desert. Yes, orthodox Christianity is a bastardized tradition whose practitioners are generally illiterate uneducated peasants. But so what? What's your point? Christ-worshipping fanatics will read this and dismiss it, for they have no reason to place the author's professed beliefs above their own. The author is preaching to the converted as it were. All this article reallly offers is ammunition for aggressive self styled anti-christs to wade into pointless debate about whether god can create a rock he is not capable of lifting.

Intelligence defines one's ability to work within a given paradigm, but being able to reach outside of an idealogical boundary probably has more to do with wisdom or 'emotional intelligence' if you prefer.
This author has turned his considerable intellect towards throwing a pointless tantrum as it were; is the foundation of Christianity's failure really in the details of its misinterpretations? Or is there a deeper issue here the author is overlooking? I suggest this is a subject best broached with some modicum of wisdom.

Well, thank you very much for dismissing four year's worth of study as a 'pointless tantrum.' What's the point? The point is, millions of Christians blindly follow Christianity without questioning it. This article provides a seed of questioning. Those whom I've debated in here are, by and large, educated Christians who have already questioned their beliefs, and have found sufficient answers. These type tend to be less radical, less fundamental, and more tolerant than their brethren. Even still, it is a fun subject to debate, with the right people, of course.

For those who have seen this article that have never questioned, it serves notice to them that there are some excellent reasons to do so. Perhaps these people will begin that journey that will end with them being at least as tolerant as the people I've argued with here.

For those that are sitting on the fence, who are dissatisfied with Christianity but have not enough information to reject it, this article provides them with compelling reasons why they should do so.

For those who have already rejected religion, this article is somewhat of a pep rally. I live in a world where Christianity is the majority, and people are social animals, so it helps to find like-minded individuals. Otherwise, you start to doubt yourself, and say "Maybe they're all right, and I'm just insane."

This article has been an excellent way for me to express things I can't express in regular society, since most everyone avoids the subject in everyday life. This article has provided me with hours upon hours of entertaining discussion, with atheists and Christians alike. I enjoyed writing it, I am quite proud of it, and even though it is sure to be rejected by the editors, I even submitted it.

So now you know my point. If this article bothers you, I invite you to write your own, one that makes up for my apparent complete lack of wisdom, as you say. Or better yet, you can exercise your freedom of choice and ignore this article and anything else my idiotic self may write.

Ah come off it, don't be so quick to take insult. In fact, feel free to drop by my page and sling monkey feces at the writings posted there!

I apologize if my tone seemed dismissive. I had hoped to convey that I respected your ability to pay attention to detail and the facility with which you managed to construct counterpoints... but it might be worth keeping in mind that many of the people reading your piece consider YOU to be dismissing something they have spent their entire lives researching as a crock of total sh*t. This is the trap the mind springs on us... discomfort of a change of paradigm. Wanting to believe we have been right all along. It is not easy coming face to face with the realization that we didn't know as much as we perhaps thought we did!

One other thought... you have taken the onus upon yourself to 'disprove' the theory that Ultimate Reality manifests as a giant, invisible gaseous vertebrate alpha-male with super-powers. I applaud the effort, but perhaps the onus should be on those who are postulating such ridiculous ideas to provide some proof or reason?

True, most people are going to summarily dismiss the entirety of this article. I'm not deluded into thinking that this piece is going to change the world. Mostly it was just for the expression, and if people manage to get something out of it, it is entirely incidental. But it did take finding all of this information for my paradigm to shift to its current position, and I'm sure that further examination will tip it yet further.

I agree that the god-peddlers should have the burden of proof, but they have wind and dogma on their side, not to mention numbers. Thus it falls to the fringe minority (a recent poll showed that something on the order of 89% of Americans believe in god) to provide the proof.

Actually I hear you; I myself am a former Christ-worshipper (and screwed up teenager simultaneously) who found himself rudely awakened when he began to actually study academically the crap that till then had been foisted on him. At times I still get angry and wish I could have my childhood back.

I would guess that we agree on more things than we disagree on, but in addressing you here I have been trying to get some sense of what, specifically, your goals are; to refute the claims of idiots? To seek greater knowledge for yourself? I suspect you might find, at some point, that these paths will diverge.

My own calculations demonstrate that 95% of humans are complete morons. The fringe majority already recognizes this, but convincing the other 95% of people that this is the case might be more of a challenge than anyone can rise to.

This article has met both of those goals; it refutes idiots, and, through the discussions that followed, has brought me some new understandings. 95% of the world is idiots, I agree, but those of us on the fringe who know all the stuff I wrote had to take a painstaking route to discover it. If I can drop it all into the lap of an idiot at once, perhaps I can create sensory overload, short circuit their faith modules, and let a coherent thought accidentally sray across their neural nets.

And for the other 5%, I am contemplating more articles which take this research into new directions, offering them my interpretations of who Jesus was and what he was on about, which differs quite a bit from contemporary scholarship in this area. And if 95% of the researchers on H2G2 call it utter crap, I'm okay with that. I've never tried to be popular, just honest.

Drop by my page sometime, I'm writing about that very topic (in my own roundabout way) and looking for feedback on it. Also I wouldn't mind moving the ongoing discussion out of these forums in case a good point gets made that I might want to keep for posterity.

I've been by there, and I noticed that you're sort of gravitating in that direction, with your God and Religion pieces (and perhaps the Common Sense one as well? ) We seem to have a lot in common, with the most marked difference being that of approach. You seem to be taking the subject by baby steps, and I have leaped headlong into it. Also, your mockery is a bit more subtle than mine.

By 'out of these forums,' I gather you mean take it off of H2G2 entirely to preserve your copyrights (I have a few pieces I've withheld as well). I don't have a problem with that. Whichever method you think works best for you...

Baby steps? ;-P Perhaps. I'm on a quest for knowledge of Ultimate Reality, and I'm pretty sure that wherever that is, it's not in Ottawa. Perhaps Amsterdam. I don't have the patience for detail that you do; I would much rather acknowledge that orthodox Christianity is a sewer and progress to other more enlightening topics, like truth, falsehood, meaning, perception, cosmology, or what have you.

The only reason I was hoping to move this debate to my page is because this damn forum string takes my crappy 486 computer 10 minutes to load. I figure information is for sharing, and have no problem with people stealing my ideas (i mail myself federally postmarked hardcopies of a lot of my writing just in case.)

Actually, I think that original atheists believed it was the seventh day or something like that. I heard someone say that... not too sure, though.

I researched about the Virgin of Guadaloupe thing. One of the scientists that checked it, I said I thought he was atheist but I made a mistake. All it says is that he is not a catholic. There might have been an atheist, but I don't know.