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

Okay, I didn't really have anything to say, just the other thread was taking to long to load. Carry on...

Oh, believe me, I've been in some mothers of a big thread.

Uh-huh, methinks I'll wait for the rest to turn up.

Just a bookmark...

Uh, well, I hope that everybody isn't going to be doing this!

Call to arms! Somebody, anybody, start this conversation back up!

Was there anything left unfinished in the other thread?

I don't think so.

Damn.

Perhaps this'll help, the newest addition to my list of external links: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

Peruse. Discuss.

Just thouht I'd pop in and say that that page is great, it'll probably take a while to look through though, but what I've read of it so far is great stuff.
Here's the titles of two Mark Twain books that I've read that also point out some of the inconsistancies of the Bible, Letters From the Earth and The Bible According to Mark Twain. Their both great books and I thought that you would be interested.

I've read Letters From the Earth, and I suspect that The Bible According to Mark Twain is a collection of short works, most of which I would be already familiar with. It's another reason to love the dude. Every time I think I'm being a little to tough on the xtians, I read a little Twain, and my conscience is restored.

I think his best piece on religion is Little Bessie. Bessie is an honest, earnest, pure-hearted little girl who has been speaking to a lowdown, no account atheist, and coming back to her mother with all sorts of questions that momma can't answer. The story consists of the dialogues between Bessie and her mother. High on humor value. Here's a little snippet. It follows her asking why bad things happen, and mother gives the standard answer about God sending this stuff to discipline us and make us better xtians and all...

"Mr. Hollister says there isn't a bird or fish or reptile or any other animal that hasn't got an enemy that Providence has sent to bite it and chase it and pester it, and kill it, and suck its blood and discipline it and make it good and religious. Is that true, mother -- because if it is true, why did Mr. Hollister laugh at it?"
"That Hollister is a scandalous person, and I don't want you to listen to anything he says."
"Why mamma, he is very interesting, and *I* think he tries to be good. He says the wasps catch spiders and cram them down into their nests in the ground -- *alive*, mamma! -- and there they live and suffer days and days and days, and the hungry little wasps chewing their legs and gnawing into their bellies all the time, to make them good and religious and praise God for His infinite mercies. *I* think Mr. Hollister is just lovely, and ever so kind; for when I asked him if *he* would treat a spider like that, he said he hoped to be damned if he would; and then he-- "

Future Prediction was sort of still going....i think.

GB - Good idea to move to the new thread, btw

That website was so great. I looked at a good bit of it.

Christians have smart-ass answers for everything. I wonder what their response would be to that stuff?

'Little Bessie' is in one of Engels42's books. It just happens to be over at my place right now.

Off to check that site...

-jb

Oh yeah, the Devil's Race Track, I had almost completely forgotten about that one. It's also a great book of short stories.

Nice site. Gonna have to put it on my page. It's really neat because I just started reading my copy of the St. James (detestably stilted language). It's good to have a reference that's reliable. Thanks for that referal.

-jb

this is just to get this thread on my page.

Engels42: Looking forward to the book reviews on the tomes mentioned above that will be posted in the Hall Of Records post haste!

In the book I'm currently reading, The Secret Chamber by Robert Bauval, it makes repeated mentions of the plans that the Egyptians had to celebrate the turn of the millennium. One was to place a gilded capstone on top of the Great Pyramid, whilst the other was to open the 'door' at the end of the tunnel in the selfsame pyramid. In the book they talk about showing it live on TV. I fear that if this went ahead, it was lost over here in Blighty because of the coverage of the much more important fireworks. Does anybody know if these plans went ahead?

I read also in The Express this week the reporting of a speech that the Pope makes in which he apologises for all the distasteful things that the Catholic Church has done throughout the last two thousand years. Well, I for one feel better for hearing that, and no doubt all the midwives that were burnt at the stake for relieving the pain of chilbirth - to use just one example - feel much better also.

I heard a short article on the Radio too that says nunneries in England are having a recruitment drive to boost the number of new pledges, or whatever they're called. Now, I can't decide what format the TV adverts should take, but I've come up with some suggestions as to certain aspects which I thought I'd run past you guys. Once we come up with some good ideas we could even mail them to www.nuncentral.com, or whatever their home page is called.

I see the soundtrack music as being from either Moby's "Play" album, or "You've come a long way Baby" by Fatboy Slim. Starring as Mother Superior, Madonna. Trying to gain access, I see the likes of Geri Helliwell, Mariah Carey, Jennifer Love Hewitt... ooh, and Denise Van Outen as the one running round going, "naughty Zoot! You must tie us all up and spank us!". Directed by, I don't know, Spike Jonze? Michel Gondry? Hype Williams?

Really!?! My house backs on to a nunnery - maybe I should go and apply

For the advert, the theme music could be 'Sisters are doin' it for themselves'. Maybe they could make it a sort of action advert, like for the TA, showing lots of nuns running through a field with rifles and explosions going on around them. Maybe with the hookline 'Nuns - We're God's Army'.

Or maybe make it like one of those latenight chatline 'catering for those who have just stumbled in from the pub' adverts. "Call now, and talk to Nuns you'd like to meet..."

Somebody sent me the following today. Unfortunately there was no source, but I thought it was so funny I thought i'd post it on here anyway. If anyone knows who said this, please let me know. Mo Mowlam or Peter Mandelson, possibly?
"When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an
atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but
is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants
in whom you don't believe?"

Here's a little something for people who think Christianity is 'Mostly Harmless': http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000318/ts/uganda_cult.html

Well, if the more unstable ones insist on culling their own masses...

That is a horrible abuse of power.

-jb

Hey, remember those people can't -possibly- be christians if they think about killing their own creed (wrong word but I don't care)! If they ever think nasty/idiotic thoughts then they are -never- christians to begin with!
Don't you see? Only -nice- people are christians. True christians -never- do cruel, stupid things...