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

it is always pretty hard to focus on the themes that come up here.

I always like this forum best, as it very much apeals to my " I have got a theorie I would like to shatter"- side of life. The ideas taken from here are part of my meditation while I drive through the black forest to my working places. Having to drive aprox. 1 hour daily gives a lot of time for meditating, as I nearly know my way around the place by sleep ( den Weg kenn ich im Schlaf).

Thats the fun about this h2g2-thing. You have the real downright interlectual thinking stuff and the flipped off rest as well!

Lets keep it up that way (*Engländer being "needlessly messianic"*)

And now for two shameless plugs. First, my old Agnosticism entry was indeed featured on the main page today. Do visit it, if only to see the amazing graphic made by h2g2's graphics team: http://www.h2g2.com/A446339

Also, I've begun a stint as a virtual bar pianist at Englander's tavern. Stop by if you're interested in seeing a description of how I would play your favorite tune: http://www.h2g2.com/A392339

Thanks for the updates on the status of the various articles, everyone. The page will reflect the honor of these rejections shortly.

For my own personal meditation, my first choice is music... something that closely reflects either the mood I am in, or the mood I want to achieve. When I need to work myself through some unpleasant emotions, then I bury myself in something athletic. Meditation is basically all about managing those mercurial chemicals that slosh about in your brain and trigger emotional reactions, after all. I rarely do it just to do it, like a Buddhist would, because I think I can achieve clarity most of the time.

Here's the scary part of that, though. Prayer is a form of meditation. And faith is an intense focus. When people say they've had "a personal experience with gawd," that's exactly what they've done. They focused on meditation, they achieved a result that equates to bliss, and then they credit that bliss to the external belief that was the source of the focus. I can still achieve that effect, to some degree, but it has obviously diminished since my faith did.

God Wondering Whatever Happened To That Planet Where He Made All Those Monkeys

HEAVEN-- Reminiscing Monday, God wondered aloud what happened to "that one planet I made, like, four and a half billion years ago, the one with all the monkeys." "Man, I haven't thought about that planet in forever," God said. "I have no idea why it suddenly popped into My head. I remember it was really crude, one of My weaker early efforts, back when I was experimenting with the oxygen atmospheres and those ridiculous carbon-based lifeforms. And I was on that whole upper-primate kick. Huh." God said He couldn't remember the planet's name but was pretty sure it was "something like Ursh or Orth or maybe Ert."

Fart, maybe? Or is that the people who live on it?

Englander : I find it's usually the same people who are doing the intellectual thinking stuff and the flipped out stuff. That's what makes them / us interesting, from my point of view. I've 'travelled' around a bit on h2g2 and I've found that, much like society in general, most people seem rather afraid to do either. That's my view anyway...

Yes, I can see the point. It realy is difficult to accept that there are more than one kind of thinking and feeling inside yourself. I was at a Butchers in a little village not to far from my place, that opens as a pub in the evening. I went there with a friend who is very esotericalyminded. Quite a good chap to talk to. They had the kind of german birthdayparty-pub-games going. A Mister-Village vote, starting with drinking a Jägermeister-Schnaps through a straw, then you had to blow up a baloon with a pump sitting under your ass (you know, very rude kind of movements and all the women (there were 3) cheering). This was absolutly under my niveau, and the talk with the people was apaling. there were two bums hanging out claiming that living on the street the need 48 halfliter beers per day and such like. Well. This friend of mine just loved it. And afterwards we went and took it apart on the toplevel intelectual level. And we only got to see, that he kind of likes doing these absolute nonsens kind of thing to relieve th part of him that needs it.

*Engländer hoping he worded this thing right*

Englander, you worded it perfectly. An article about a butchers shop that doubles as a pub must be worth an h2g2 guide entry. I look forwatd to reading it. - you have already made a great start on the introduction...

People, please feel free to replace the "word" forwatd with forward in my previous posting

Hear hear. The two bums alone could merit a short story or two. Nice bit of social observation...

Err... That was a reply to posting number 188, rather than the one directly above it.

CS, TG's Belief article was accepted some time ago. I deleted three words when I edited it. The higher-ups added a few words (not terribly many).

The h2g2 page:

A378254

-jb

The "Shinken-Besen" article is on its way. It will still take some time, as I want to get a brochure of the place and scan in some pictures. So keep watching, Loonytünes>>

I spy with my little eye....

Hello! I have applied for the job of "Investigator of the 7 favorite hobbies, er.. deadly sins" and was told to come into this forum and introduce myself. I should have done this earlier, but I'm working on Sloth right now. My vital info is on my page. My favorite sins are: Gluttony, Sloth, Pride, Anger...um...Dopey, Sleepy...er...Prancer and Vixen? I forgot what the rest are. Can anyone name the 7 deadly sins?

It was always my understanding that Catholics hate anything fun... which explains their services. So, if I can recall from my Catholic upbringing, the seven deadly sins were:

Sex
Drugs
Rock n Roll
Beer
Football (which explains why they always have their services on Sunday)
Sleeping In (again with the Sunday thing... don't they know it's a day off, for chrissakes?)
Roller Coasters

I may be a bit off on a couple of these. I wasn't a very passionate student at Cathechism. Can you believe they do this to kids? Five days a week at school, and what do they do? Cram them into a schoolhouse on Saturday for Catechism, or, as we liked to call it, catchacatandkissem. Then they shove them in a church on Sunday. In that lifestyle, the deadly sins, as far as I was concerned, were Saturday, Sunday, Monday...

catchacatandkissem?

Sounds like a fun game...

What are deadly sins? Aren´t they the things that stop us having an afterlife (e.g. a life after anything I have done just now?)

I suggest: Going to church
Believing anything I am told is true, just because it is written in a book and the book is called bible.
Not evolving in my personality
Not having guests and making them feel at home
Being racist
Being stupid
Forgetting where I had put my glasses

That's a pretty good list.

By the way, this is me in the vague and uncertain assumption that I'm the Advocate for Everybody Having At Least One Faith Each. Cool title, huh?
There is a philosophy behind it, if anyone's interested.

There's another deadly sin to add to that list, though:
- believing anything anyone else tells you

But you shouldn't believe that.

There is an article about that one, somewhere. It´s this cool question with the chap saying every greek is a liar and so on, but it´s just to late to go into those details, evan if I seem to be not sufficiantly educated...

Hmm, there probably is. Does that mean it's a common point of view and therefore I shouldn't encourage it? No, because I also encourage the common point of view that it's bad to murder people.

Am I being hypocritical?