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

toxx, sorry about JR. You've mentioned him before here and, from those comments, I realise his loss will leave a great hole for you.

Sorry to hear about your friend, toxx.


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<> (me)

<> (Della)

Well, I'm sorry Della but your assertion that your God exists is simply an assertion as well. You don't *know* that, but you choose to believe in it.

<> (me)

<> (Della)

Della, regardless of how you might refer to your Christian God, He is always referred to as a 'capital H' He in the all Judaic/Christian/Muslim holy texts. He is the Holy Father. He does have gender.

And while it may be logical that God doesn't have gender, He is always referred to as male.


az

What is a triple-O god? Gah! I can't figure it out. Omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent?

Hi az, and thanks for your remark. I hope Adelaide won't mind too much if I point out that she should have said that God doesn't have a physical *sex*. In other words, He is neither male nor female.

On the other hand, linguistically He usually takes the masculine gender rather than the feminine. Nobody reads much into the fact that, in the French language, the female genitalia are masculine - in the common parlance.

I thought that 'Holy Father' referred to the pope. Or were you thinking of God the Father?

toxx

... that bit about French... that's really weird.

linguistic gender has little to do with anything else.

In Greek, the word 'virgin' is make. It is also the title of Athena, one of the great Greek goddesses. It still remains male. In the new Testament, Luke says the angel Gabriel was sent a virgin (male) and the virgin's name was Mary.

The new testament was written in greek?

That doesn't stop it from being weird.

HS, my lexicon gives 'parthenia' as a feminine noun!

Alji

toxx,

<>

Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy Kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven . . . blah blah blah

It *is* a male father-figure God.

So there.


az

Hello Toxx, Adelaide
Thank you for mentioning JR, and my condolences.

As you may know, HS, I am a Christian who believes in reincarnation! That to me, *is* purgatory, which is an Anglo-Catholic doctrine, not something Protestants are supposed to accept.
The way I see it - those who accept Christ and live accordingly, are 'saved' (whatever that concept might mean to you, I don't know.) Those who do not, have to return to "school" to "resit the class" as do those Christians who feel they failed to live up to what Christians should do and be. In either case, I feel there is plenty of Scriptural evidence for the temporariness of Hell.

Yup, bioCannibal- very new... it was written in colloquial Greek.

Dagnammit, az. Sometimes you get quite scary! I shall argue that God the father is masculine rather than male.

E&C. The expression in question is: "le con".

toxx

Hello Toxx

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since last week... I have looked up some of Richard Swinburne, and very impressive it is too.

<>

Ok. You have persuaded me. I now think that once it is allowed that God *could* do such things (even if the freedom in question is academic), then you and I agree. Like you I think he would have produced the best world possible.


On the other point I wrote, and you responded:
<>



Aquinas was not completely asleep. On the sinless nature of Jesus, although he was descended from our first parents through his mother, the power which fashioned his body was not derived from them, but from the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, whereas we owe our human nature to our ancestors in an obviously causal relationship, and thus inherit original sin, Jesus did not. And neither did he transmit his sinless nature to anyone else.

As to why our later sins and actions do not get transmitted like the original sin, they are personal only. The more serious question is why the original sin was *not* treated as being merely personal, but as somehow belonging to human nature. But in the end it does not seem unreasonable to me, in the circumstances.

The doctrine of an original fall belongs to theology, and I would not advance it as the only possible explanation of the state of things. I aim to do no more than defend its compatibility with philosophy.

I think you are misleading yourself if you believe that the 'religious wars' (I mean any of them) were ever about religion. The Crusades weren't about religion, they were about power. The (mostly Norman) powers had carved out their little empires in Europe and needed somewhere to go and get some more without stirring up a lot of hassle at home, and hey presto, the Middle East calls! On the way over they sack Constantinople (their fellow Christians) and it wasn't over religion, it was about money and power. It has almost always been about money and power. Northern Ireland was about religion? Really? It was (and still is) about power and who wields it. Remember that the 1798 rebellion was led mostly by Protestants, and it is easy to see the 'divide and conquer' thinking going into practice in it's awful aftermath. Also, a world without religion would not be a world without small tiny minds with their blinkers firmly on. People do not need religion to get worked up, in fact ethnicity, gender even football team preference etc. etc. are all that is needed for the worst of humanity to darkly shine forth. So I disagree with you primarily for these two reasons:

1) Religious wars were only that in name. Really they were fought for the power and wealth of the rulers.

2) People are going to be morons anyway.

Maolmuire

P.S. You seem like the right sort, what say we finally attack and kill all the Big-Endian scum?

Hi Esty and Coren,

Yup triple-O means precisely that. Because of this claim that the Christian God is triple-O we can see the lie of 'free will' offered by its adherents.

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Hi Maolmuire .

Excellent to see someone also proposing the argument I used a few thousand postings ago . Any objective student of history learns to look for the money first and the excuse second.

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Thanks, Matholwch.

'religious' wars...

i find it interesting that these days the big conflict seems to be a menage a trois between Jehovah (Jewish), Jehovah(Christian), and Jehovah(Islamic).

Yo, Jehovah!

Make up yer mind, ya flippin' dink!

Just in case you haven't read the Immortal Entities' Handbook, it clearly states in verse Analemma that you may not change your pretext until your old batch of worshippers are dead and forgotten. You are betrayed as an irresponsible dilettante, to engender three fan clubs during the same epoch.

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Is there a god of flatus?