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

Actually I have noticed the western bias here as well. I'm not even remotely up to date on my knowledge of eastern thinking but I do know the basic tenets and concepts, have spent time reading Tao Te Chiang etc, and found it very eye opening; I concur that it is a shame that so many rabid atheists are basing their rejection of religion on a rather narrow view of the subject; althought the practitioners of various religions do this too. It's a bit of a shame that h2g2 editors help promote this western bias though; this guide is looking more and more like 'a guide to life in england' than a 'guide to life on earth.

I do occasionally notice an England bias... Maybe I'm just reading it into things, but every once in a while I sort of get the feeling that the writers, no, they wouldn't, well, maybe they tend to be a little biased in favor of the UK. But perhaps I'm paranoid.

Anti Jew? Shouldn't that actually be anti-semetic, ie Hitler's viewpoint. The reason most anti-God viewpoints are anti Christian is because all other viewpoints can be seen as being racially prejudiced - Although all religions are in theory open up to anyone, only Christianity and Buddhism actually manage to cross the race boundary with any sense of permanence.

I dunno...... see what trouble you can get yourself into by being anti-things.

As someone said: "Love is the Law." I like that. Don't be anti-Christian, be pro-atheist/agnostic/new-age spirit-seeker.

McD

My favourite font name is "pastor of muppets." I only downloaded the font because of the name. It reminds me a bit of Flash Gordon.

Anyway, if you are anti-Jew, doesn't that make you an anti-semite, on a par with Hitler? The reason that Christianity is easy to reject is that, along with Buddhism to a lesser extent, it has crossed cultural and racial boundaries. If you criticise Islam, it can stil be taken as a racial slur, therefore it's not done as often, because the political-correctness of many people leads them to not wish to offend races. There is no "race" associated with Christianity, apart from White people who you cannot be racist towards (that's the law), so it's easy, politically correct picking. Buddhism is also a bit multicultural, but is nicely atheistic and wierd, so atheists can't really go near it, unless they are criticising all spirituality.

Love is the Law. I like that

McD

I posted twice. I didn't want to, but my connection stopped and I thought the first one hadn't gone through. Sorry

By anti-Jew, I just meant someone who'd rejected Judaism for Atheism. Antisemitic? Hardly. I go to a Jewish school, where me and my Jewish friends have three Jewish classes a day.

-io-

God.
http://www.theonion.com/onion3124/lordprovide.html
-io-

Sorry I'm arriving in this conversation a bit late, but I passed through this article when it was all fields...

The proper term for that sort of Persian system of a good and an evil god is called "dualistic." It's not a system unique to Persia, but because Zoroastrianism is one of the better known ones, it's easy to credit to the Persians. There are a pair of articles on the Freedom From Faith Foundation link library that deal with dualistic systems. "The Nag Hammadi Codices" touches a bit on Gnosticism, but not really in depth, since it's more about the books than the actual people. "Alchemy" is a more in-depth look at Hermeticism, a dualistic system which is quite harmonious with Gnosticism. In fact, some of the "Gnostic Gospels" were more Hermetic than Gnostic, but I'm babbling on. They're both somewhat Western, but one can only write what one knows.

As far as Western ignorance of Eastern religions, it's easy to explain. Our religions are so intolerable, they put people off them entirely.

Thank you.

One reason I like Zen is that it's a philosophy rather than a religion.
LOVE IS TH LAW,
Mordek93

You guys should see the flippin rejection slip this piece got. Something along the lines of 'this is superb but too short. Please resubmit as I want this to go in very badly'. Grumble. The thing is, I usually find that quality (at least, in my writing) is found in conciseness and precision, not in elaboration and prolonged demonstration.

Oh well. Anyone want to volunteer a guess as to where it's coming up short?

I don't think it's short at all... who needs to turn every article into a novel? It covers a wide range of interpretations of the word without wasting time telling us a whole lot of things we already know about each. It's been my experience that rejections are sometimes completely arbitrary... resubmit it without making a single change, and see what happens. I'm conducting the same experiment with another of my articles.

"Yes... the subs would have to be a little touched to turn down this exceptional piece." said Sporky.

I like it, though, which is obviously all that matters.

How do you do that? Once an article has been rejected, the "submit" button disappears, in my experience...

My apologies - the button's just moved... It must have moved about 10 months ago, when the only article I submitted was rejected, and I just assumed the two things were connected in a mechanism to prevent resubmitting the same article after rejection. Sorry - I must stop making these assumptions!.

ok i just rewrote this thing, let me know if I went too far.

Still good, but a bit solid to plough through... Perhaps if you were to split the various viewpoints onto different pages, with an overview and menu on the main article it would look a little less imposing?

I think a couple of headers here and there might help break it up a bit. And that bit on Christian idiocy is quite a long paranthetical remark... I would remove the parenthesis and just transition it into the rest of the body. Good job, overall.

yes! (again) We likes it.

(Notably, Judaism didn't f**k up until some king, Josiah I believe, happened to "discover" a book in the temple at about 2 Kings 20 which "inspired" him to do a whole lot of "reforms" which were curiously resembling what the priests wanted, which was quite funny seeing as how they ran the Temple.)

Ah, about time I showed up. Sub-editing wise:

Resubmitting is possible (as you already know) and your article will likely go to a different sub-editor. It is possible that this sub-ed will put in the work they see as needed for the article (if any) and approve it, or they may hate it and reject it. Occasionally the sub-ed rejects arbitrarily rejects and gives a formula rejection reason.

Perhaps the sub-ed thought something was missed on the point of God. If so, I didn't notice.

-jb