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

Western theology shouldn't get any special treatment, but it is the bit I know the most about, being brought up in the first world, so it is the bit I can concentrate the most on. Reading the Entry again it doesn't really deal with God at all, it is about religion, what the followers of a particular deity did, tried to do, or wanted to do, not really about God and to do it justice you would have to tell all the stories, the culture and the history. A books worth. A clever gadgee that Twophlag. Woohoo, hometime Until later....
BCNU - Crescent

I liked it. It's funny, and it's rather accurate, from a certain point of view, Reads somewhat like Douglas Adams' guide passages in the books. If you have the time & knowledge, it could use some more comments on Islam, more details on the Eastern religions, and perhaps a few of the other neo-pagan traditions. (Discordianism being only one of many.)

another typo. "Gnostics, or those..." -> should be "Gnostics, for those..."

Well, re-writing continues apace. A good deal more history is included now. I wonder if everyone is really happy with how boringly long this is getting.

Excellent work! I like this article better every time I read it. The Cyrus stuff was very funny... "he set out to annhilate them."

I do have yet another nit to pick, though. The bad thing is that the book I have that goes into detail on this particular issue is on loan right now, so I can't verify it and give you specifics, but here's what I can recall off the top of my head. There were three temples of Jerusalem. The first was Solomon's and was destroyed at the beginning of the Babylonian Captivity. The second was built after they were returned from Babylon by Cyrus the conquering hero... and I don't know how long that one stood. But I do know that the third was called Herod's Temple, built by the Romans, and then later destryoed by those same Romans in the Jewish Revolt of about 90 AD. It was Herod's Temple that the Templars excavated, and the book went on further to discuss the Templars... doesn't every book which starts out as an impartial history of religion spin off in that direction?

Anyway, my point is that you have Cyrus' Temple standing until 90 AD, which cannot be the case.

Heck, if you keep editing this thing TG, the poor sub who gets the article is just gonna have to put in tags. And where's the fun in that?

-jb

Or, rather, only going to have to put in tags. There.

-jb

Thought I'd drop in and see how near this was getting to submission - good for you Crescent! It's important this entry gets in.

Just a quick couple of questions from earlier postings. By "Orthodox" do you mean that branch of Christianity practiced primarily in Russia and Greece, formed as a result of the Schism from Rome, and based on the Byzantine tradition?

Or do you mean "mainstream"?

By "orthodoxy" I mean "right-believing", which is what every chuch of course claims to be. The Orthodox Russian church is just a bit more blatant about it by using the word as a titular claim. Orthopraxy, by comparison, means "right-practicing". Orthodox is a word used by most Christian churches to stamp beliefs as "official". I don't see that there should be any confusion here, as any surviving Christian church can trace its history back to Catholicism, and are for the most part equally silly.

CS - good catch on the temple reference. I was aware of that but had somehow forgotten it, or misremembered it. Maybe I'm just talking out my ass. Anyways, I have changed the reference to be a bit more ambiguous.

Wow.

Twophlag - I know that you feel this article's getting more and more cumbersome. It's not. You've managed to fit the comments that previously seemed ascerbic into a factual comment on the subject at hand. The history that you've added has only illuminated, not confused. This entry's easier to read now. It's not that you've used smaller words; the construction of the sentences are less scholarly and more conversational.

I think you need to take the final step and admit that this article's about the Christian concept of God Remove the references to Discordianism and Hail Eris. (Unless you can make them relevant somehow!) H.P. Lovecraft doesn't really go here, either, being a totally fictional god. Tiamat needs a stronger link to Judaism - and I think the reference to the nam-shub of Enki could find a place here. With a little rearranging, this could be one of the most clear-headed treatises that I've ever read about religion. I especially liked the comparison between the ancient barbaric practices and the modern version of Hell.

Maybe:
1. Sumerian religion and its influences on the beginning of Judaism
2. Judaism and the influences of the Deuteronomists
3. Jeebus
4. The Gnostics
5. Paul and the Deuteronomists again
6. Big Scary God, cannibalistic practices, and Robert Heinlein

Remember: articles that aren't half as good as this one are already in the Guide. I just can't help thinking since this is already so good, why not take it the rest of the way?

TG, I have just read your latest version. As a sub who accepted this yarn for inclusion in the guide a few weeks ago I believe it still won't be accepted by TPTB without some sort of name change.

You will never convince the people who make the editorial decisions that this is the definitive article on God and that it should be published as currently written under the current heading. I believe the yarn is being rejected not because of the content but because it is not a balanced view of the subject whose name it is written under.

In short, your yarn is, in the main, a subjective VIEW of God. The views espoused by your article are not the only views. Other people hold other views (rightly or wrongly).

Solution? Change the heading to something like "Views On God" - or something like that.

Good luck

Loony

Point of explanation for other readers. I accepted this yarn and subbed it. After I sent it back to h2g2 headquarters the paid staff rejected it.

Hi Looney

I do see what you're saying, and others have said it. My view of the situation, though, is that any entry submitted to the Guide will be, in the main, opinion. This restaurant is good, this city is fun, this recipe for cake is nice, blah blah blah blah. More to the point, there are no "facts" when dealing with ineffible topics, (or in my view, at all, actually).

So, given that this is the case, what should a good Guide Entry have going for it? Well, as a Guide researcher, I would guess that an entry like this should be researched, which it is. As a person who values intellect, I think an entry like this should strive for intellectual integrity, which it does; I don't present anything in the article I can't back up with a bibliographical reference, although perhaps one problem is that people object to me reading books other than the Bible while researching this work. As a person who enjoyed Doug Adam's irreverant but light-hearted way of turning people's day-to-day silliness on its ear as he went about writing intelligently about things, I think an entry like this should be funny, which I am told it is.

Is it opinionated? Yes; I have opinions. What I have avoided expressing in this article are beliefs, which is precisely the tactic that I think is preferable and even necessary when dealing with this sort of subject matter.

Is it balanced? I think so. I have remained pretty neutral about the overall concept of divinity. I have looked for common threads running through different cosmologies and tried to relate them to each other. I have eschewed the pointof view that takes mythology literally as revelatory cosmology, because to do so would be intellectually dishonest, given what my research into the subject matter has demonstrated to me.

What you are getting at is that there is no room for an entry on "God" in the official guide to life on earth. By changing the name of the piece, I concede being defeated by the subject matter, but I don't feel that I am, at all.

I might refer you to the various edited entries on particle physics that litter the guide. Very few of them are exhaustive, entirely factual, or definitive. Yet they remain informative and interesting. Theories of physics are hotly debated by people with strong feelings about which one is more or less true. And yet it has never once to my knowledge been suggested that any of said entries be retitled during editing to read "Humble but opinionated subjective thoughts on Quantum Indeterminacy, if everyone is completely alright with that".

I recognize that the Guide is a business trying to cover its own ass. That's fine. But that places no onus on me to aim my writings at the part of the Guide's readership that happens to have strong feelings about worshipping a mountain-dwelling Jewish war diety or his Avatar. I recognize that this refusal to bend may mean that the entry never sees Edited status, which is in some sense unfortunate. But I would rather have that happen than compromise the piece in a way that I am unhappy with, and then have to go around having my name associated with something I didn't write.

Lentilla;

I appreciate the commentary. I disagree with you on some points, and I'll try to offer why.

"I think you need to take the final step and admit that this article's about the Christian concept of God "

Well, that wasn't my original intent with the piece. Unfortunately, because it is mostly Westerners reading and criticising this piece, I find myself rewriting the part of it dealing with Western theism in an effort to establish the veracity of (and fend off the howls of outrage concerning) what I am trying to say about it. I could do somethign similar for Eastern theism, but not surprisingly, everyone seems quite willing to take my word for it that I know what I'm talking about there.

So the way the article is turning out is in some part growing out of the way people are reacting to it. But I have no interest in removing the references I have included to other visions of diety. I have included what I have in an attempt to hit on the themes and archtypes that in my opinion are important to grasp for a relatively complete understanding of the subject matter at hand, and yes, this includes Discordianism and the writings of H.P. Lovecraft (which incidentally are often seriously studied and written about by students of theology).

I intend eventually to write about the Sumerians themselves, and I may include some information there on the Nam-Shub of Enki as soon as I finish this interesting book that pattern-chaser recommended to me (thanks, dude). Overall, though, I think the changes you are recommending would take the piece in exactly the opposite direction of where I want it to go.

Someone said earlier in this thread, or elsewhere, that no book, let alone guide entry, on God, could ever cover one thousandth of one percent of humanity's thoughts on the matter... so why is everyone demanding exactly that? It is interesting that readers of this piece are demanding so much more of it than they are of other Guide entries. The ultimate primate heresy is to poke fun at the tribe Alpha-male, right? Perhaps it is not that I am defeated by the subject matter, but that everyone else is afraid of it.

Hail Eris.

TG, just a thought, have a look at this (upcoming) entry entitled "The Life And Times Of The Sun" http://www.h2g2.com/A419230

By no means exhaustive, far from it, it works and was accepted as an Edited Guide Entry despite its somewhat grandiose, uncompromising, heading. There is even another entry about the Sun in the Edited Guide. This happy sequence of events occurred, in my opinion, because of the yarns structure and layout.

Maybe it will give you a few ideas on how to re-present your article so it has more chance of being accepted. Even if it doesn't the Sun yarn is a ripping good read

Loony

Ho Looney,

Good work on the Sun entry, as always.

Still, let me apply some of the sort of criticism that I am finding applied to my piece, and let me know how you would resolve the problem, or if you even think it's an issue to try and do so, and why it is or isn't.

"Thanks for submitting the entry The Life and Times of the Sun for consideration! Unfortunately, it hasn't gained the approval of the editorial staff for the following reasons:

First off, it is violating the beliefs of a sizeable majority of fundamentalist protestants, and even some Catholics, who insist that James Ussher's calculations placing the age of the universe at 6000 years are correct, and take that as an article of faith. In a sense, this piece makes a mockery of their beliefs by presenting only the 'scientific' history of the sun.

For balance, the piece should also focus equally on the theory that the universe was created, as stated in the Babylonian myth that leads off Genesis, in seven days, ex-nihilo, by the God worshipped by the Jews.

There is brief mention that the sun was worshipped once upon a time, but I think it is necessary to have a complete and factual history of sun-worship that involves no statements or implied ideas that could be construed as value judgments upon the practice or its relative applicability to modern life."

You see where I'm coming from? Because most of us pretty much know, in this day and age, that the sun is a nuclear reactor that our planet orbits around, applying this sort of criticism to the piece in question seems ludicrous. But because most of us don't know very much about "God", and therefore make assumptions that we go with, applying reason and insight to that topic comes across as heretical.

I think I can see what it is in my own entry that you think is defeating it; the stuff about the Prince of Peace, the angry judaic war-god, and all the other stuff that could be construed as offensive to someone who takes such ideas very seriously. I would submit that if you re-read the piece carefully, you will find that I have taken pains to avoid attaching value judgments to such statements. Of course, my personal biases or opinions or whatever can still show through in the way in which I choose my words, but that happens everywhere, sir. Perhaps readers are more sensitive to it because of the touchiness of the subject matter, but again, it is up to the reader to read it and deal with his reactions on his own; as long as I am confident that I have relayed what I know to be the closest approximation of "truth" possible based on my research, my conscience remains clear.

Now if you can point out passages to me that you think are particularly biased and not supportable, I would be happy to look them over and make some changes.

The Towers charge that this piece does not achieve balance. I beg to differ... I find it refreshing that TG has managed to show complete indifference to every incarnation of God he discusses. In this way, he shows absolutely no favoritism to any. Many Christians have already looked at this article and stated that they find nothing offensive in it, so who are we afraid of offending? The Discordians??

Well said Colonel. I said my piece on this article many moons ago and still believe it is a fine, thoughtful, stimulating and unoffensive piece of work. Good on you Twophlag.

A major challenge so far has been to get people to point out exactly what they felt was unsupportable or biased, and engage me in a discussion about it such that I was convinced. Anna took a stab at a couple of ideas but didn't stick around to hear me out about them.

Looney, if you are still interested in subbing the piece, perhaps we can support the nasty offensive bits with amelliorating footnotes that explain the thinking behind them in more detail.

Twophlag: The reason I mentioned changing the focus of your piece is that you seemed unwilling to add more gods to it. I thought you might be better off with only trying to define the origins and characteristics of the western Jewish/Christian god, rather than all gods. Especially since there's still several religions that you've left out. I still don't see the Hindu gods represented in this piece - and there's a lot of them! Allah needs a mention because of the influences of the Old Testament on Mohammed. What about Buddhism? Then there's ancestor worship in China/Japan, Native American beliefs, and the aborigines of Australia. The question you have to ask yourself is: am I trying to define God in every culture, or just in Western culture?

This is why I have considered it biased. At first it came out sounding bitter and disillusioned, which was probably not your intention. As the piece developed further, you never expanded its focus. Any proper definition of god would define it for all cultures, not just Americans and Europeans. This would mean your piece would be much shorter, because you'd be forced to make a more general definition and support it with examples from different cultures. Or, it would be much, much, much longer. Your choice!

This is a great piece. Obviously you have quite a lot of facts at your command. I would love to see it in the guide, but I still have to consider it incomplete because of the subject you've chosen to cover. I'm sorry, I'm not out to get you - like I said, I think you'd be much better off narrowing your focus. Good luck!

- Lentilla

"Twophlag: The reason I mentioned changing the focus of your piece is that you seemed unwilling to add more gods to it"

I'm not trying to create a definitive catalogue, I am trying to deal with relevant archtypes. This should be pretty clear.

"I still don't see the Hindu gods represented in this piece"

I refer to the Brahmin several times, discuss the roots of their pantheism, and make one later reference to Shiva.

" - and there's a lot of them! Allah needs a mention because of the influences of the Old Testament on Mohammed."

Allah is mentioned briefly. I prefer leaving it at that, because as an archtype It doesn't appear to me that Allah is conceptually that far removed from the gaseous vertebrate worshipped by the Christians and the Jews. If you re-read the section on Western theism carefully you'll see that most statements are constructed to be inclusive of Allah.

"What about Buddhism?"

Lumped in with the other eastern belief systems. Buddhists don't really worship a deity as such, although Nirvana could be compared to the Hindu's Brahmin. Again, I am dealing with archtypes, not specifics. That's the intent of the piece; you may disagree with it, but it won't change.

"Then there's ancestor worship in China/Japan, Native American beliefs, and the aborigines of Australia."

And the Sumerian pantheon, and the Aztec deity Quetzlcoatl, and the Polynesian myths, and Odin and the Norse divinities, and on and on. I know something about most or all of these, but my knowledge is by no means comprehensive, as I am currently too busy working to study for the two or three PhD's I would need to obtain such knowledge. But as I have said, I am not aiming to write a book. I think I have said this several times, in fact.

The question you have to ask yourself is: am I trying to define God in every culture, or just in Western culture"

I am trying to define God for myself and for my readers, most of whom need to be pointed beyond their assumptions about the subject matter (sometimes by being beaten savagely on the head with the stupidity of such assumptions) in order to grasp some of the intricate beauty that other cosmologies have to offer. I am, once again, interested in archtypes, less so in specifics, at least for the purposes of this entry.

I wonder if a massive collaborative entry is the way forward...