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

well...i dunno, but it all sounds like a load of ol' mumbo jumbo to me.
nonetheless, i spose someone has to get the ball rolling and since mr jehova ain't around to do it, it'll have to be me. i spend a lot of time in my garden here in beautiful suffolk england an' i see nature in all its colourful loveliness. god? all around. not a 'onegod' god but an everywhere allthetime god. not a mankind god but an all creatures god.....so come on mr freud, give me a break, there ain't no adam nor eve....just love peace and revolutionary class struggle.

I don't know about this adam and eve stuff. I suspect that your long lost ancestors and mine created and invented this God to help explain the unexplainable and that them and some of their friends got together and wrote this In the Beginning story and about adam and eve and the snake and the ball just got to rolling and the first thing you knew, we had a bible and a Karan and several other holy writs and we had Jews and Muslums and southern baptists and things somewhere along the way things got out of hand and we learned to hate and we had wars and holy wars and now we are all unhappy. I don't think our ancestors knew what they were starting or getting us into, do you?

People come together through hatred. If it wasn't religion it would just be something else. But most religions teach respect and love for others, whether or not it's adhered to.

That’s a rather big “whether or not” if you ask me, besides beyond explaining the unexplainable, and instilling good moral fiber it is important to remember that the main function of any organized religion is to control the masses. That which seeks to control inevitably seeks power, and nothing pure can exist within a system which seeks power. Furthermore aren’t we as a race (humans I mean) a little old to believe in fairy tales of lost gardens and old wizards with gray beards sitting in crystal spires in the sky controlling and judging the comings and goings of mankind?

I think David Cross said it best when he said the bible was the funniest book he’d ever read. It really is a good little bit of fiction; though a bit slow in some parts, but it’s just a book written by men who’ve been dead for over two thousand years, surely we can find some thing a bit more relevant and up to date.

The David Cross quote is nice and pithy, but frankly, that's his job. The fact of the matter is, as long as so much of the world is reading the bible, and taking it as more than just a work of literature, it is an important issue and should not just be written off.

This entry seems to imply that Adam's trouser snake is the root of all evil. Seems to me it's been interpreted rather the opposite way around all these years.

Interesting article, and well written. Particularly good point about paternalism and growing up. I agree your Freudian interpretation of the apple, (instead of a knowledge based one), has the disadvatgae of not aligning with some archtypyal behaviour, (traditionally men initiate things, for example). To me what stands out is the sheer number of plausible non literal interpretations of fables like this.

MrRollyPollyCat,

Ever lingering nuisance, ok. Important issue? Please. I’m sorry but if half the world can’t seem to manage to look around the universe in which we live and accept the burden of evolving beyond such childish comforts and moral guidelines, I simply cannot be bothered. Having been raised in a Southern Baptist home, I fully understand how hard it can be to accept the reality that there is no supreme judicial force punishing the evil people in the world and giving us something more to look foreword to when we die than oblivion, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to lose sleep trying to figure out how to help these poor deluded people see the light (or lack there of). Besides I think the vary function of the article was (aside from presenting an idea) to remind people that the bible is a collection of fables and parables which are more than open to interpretation.

Voon