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

'[For Hitchens]...The Dalai Lama is "a medieval princeling" who, whatever his charm and presence, is the continuation of "a parasitic monastic elite" and who "tells us that you can visit a prostitute as long as someone else pays her." '



http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/cl-bk-miles29apr29,0,3451699.story?coll=cl-bookreview

I do like an nice polemic.

You could make a case that the Chinese have made him a saint. On the other hand, he does come up with good stuff.

His outsider's view of Christianity is utterly fascinating: "The Good Heart".

It's not really my intention to use this thread to shoot fish in barrels, but here's a nice example of idiocy:
http://scienceblogs.com/strangerfruit/2007/05/_its_time_to_stomp_out_atheist.php

And while I'm at it, Radio 4 had a documentary last week about the BNP and its claim to Christian roots:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/pip/biz61/
I don't necessarily suggest that you listen to it...especially if you've just eaten...but the bit I liked was when a respectable suburban was challenged about the party's reputation for thuggery.
"Oh no," she said, vehemently, "They wouldn't do anything like that. These people are Christians. They're not *Atheists*!"

But just to show they're not all such a bad lot:
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featuresopinon/display.var.1395270.0.0.php

Kirk elders (turned away from Heaven's gate, for the sin of inflexibility): "Ach, Laird! We didna ken! We didna ken!"

Voice booming from within: "Weel, ye ken the noo!"

Religion's saving grace that it is 'A Comfort'. Or is it?

The awful torment that believers can impose upon themselves:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/religion/pip/s7m8g/

That kind of stuff is so transparently awful, how did people ever sign up to it??

Our parents, teachers and the local clergy signed us up for it.

Signing up... you mean for the catholic church? I'm a heretic with my roots in catholicism . Recumbentman and Woodpigeon, you're both Irish, aren't you? Is it still correct to assume Irish=roots in catholicism? Or is that now rather a thing of the past?

It's true for 95% though there may be more mixtures in there than we hear about.

Wow, that's still a lot. I'm sorry if I go off topic, but I'd be interested: do you get a lot of immigration now? If so, from which countries? Is the Irish labour-market open to the new members of the EU: Poland, Slovakia, etc.?

<>

That was certainly my case and I remember awful nightmares as a small child about going to hell, and also having to make up 'sins' to tell the priest every Sunday in the confessional.

And the worst of it was both my parents hated how the priests and nuns had abused them as children and yet they still made us go through all that while they stayed at home on Sunday mornings.

az

Absolutely! My local shop and all restaurants are staffed by courteous workers of Chinese, Polish or other nationalities, and the building sites are largely Polish, Latvian or Lithuanian speaking. Emigration has gone full throttle into reverse. Funny old world.

>also having to make up 'sins' to tell the priest every Sunday in the confessional.<



Our semi-delinquent crowd would have contests to see who could invent the most outrageous, yet sufficiently ambiguous sin...

I suppose in a way it was an intro to creative story-telling

Ireland (Republic) is still a largely Catholic country, although mass-goers are fewer (down about 40% since I was a kid). Even still, there are still a lot of people who turn up for mass at Christmas Eve and with their kids in preparation for Communion. Many people of my generation would regard themselves as "lapsed" Catholics, which isn't to say they have totally renounced their faith, but are not so much into the mass/ confession/ sacraments thing as their parents might have been. Few enough of my peers would call themselves atheists.

Yes - we have a lot of immigrants coming in at the moment - particularly Poland and Lithuania etc. They are integrating quite well from what I can see. I'm currently on holidays in Toronto, and if there was a model city for cultural integration this would be it. There is an Ireland Researchers group (A1002259) where we could discuss further.

I suppose an example of the continuing Catholic influence in Irish affairs is the recent case of an attempt to deny a young woman of her rights as a European citizen:
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2527725.ece

This is not to say, of course, that all practicing Irish catholics are illiberal or blindly follow their church. Same as in Germany.

This unfortunate case seems on the face of it not to be exactly a question of curtailing freedom. No one would have stopped her going for an abortion, but the social services couldn't legally go so far as to fund her. I haven't followed the details but it wouldn't surprise me to find that someone persuaded her to demand her rights, in order to point up the absurdity of the law as it stands. But that's just speculation.

I'm really not sure that's right, R. From what I've read, the grounds which were tested were regarding travel. I've not seen funding mentioned. All I've read is about her being in care, and I'd assumed it was the care authority that was stopping her. In the UK, care and health funding are separate, Is that the case in Ireland?

I'm speculating...I know for a fact that some Irish voluntary organisations fund UK abortions. Is this what the Irish FPA were doing? In that case it doesn't sound to me like they were using her as a convenient test case.

I imagine that what with flights to Britain and Spain, Michael O'Leary must be making a fair bit from abortion.

Back to an earlier topic...

In my Children's Panel training, we've been given various issues to ponder. eg:
- Nature vs Nurture: Are some children simply born evil?
- Free will: Do some children choose to bad things?

The expected answer, in line with the legal philosophy, seems to be "Who cares! Your job is to look after the child's needs."

I'm astounded that our system is based on such admirably secular principles.

Quite right! The jury is still out (fairly literally) on whether people who are genetically disposed to evil should be punished all the more, or excused on account of it. Apparently the two alternatives are applied in different American states.

But you are (fortunately) not required to make that judgment.

I say it again...I unexpectedly find myself proud to be a Scot.

(It's different in England and Wales, I think)