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

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Sorry.

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I actually read those books, but I didn't notice the day of the week.

While in the pub, Arthur says, 'It must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.'

This has become a famous line.

I suppose I should have reread the books when I started my account here. Perhaps it would have saved some confusion.

I wouldn't worry, rumour is there are members who have never read any DNA at all

I wouldn't worry either. It's not a fan site or anything, after all, despite the misapprehension of some Researchers who submit entries to Peer Review (rolls eyes).

They're damn good books, though, and the radio series is even better. Movie's not bad either, despite the criticism of the 'purists'.

Right on, Echo!

<<>

Sorry.>
No offense taken.


Exactly.



It WAS started as a site for DNA's readers, as an attempt to create a REAL guide to Earth that anyone could access and add to. and the 'purists' can go stick their heads in pigs [another line from The Five Books of Adams]: there are lots of differences between ALL the versions. DNA joked about this at his live readings, in interviews and in his introduction to the introduction of the single edition that contained all of the Five Books of Adams as well as the short story Zaphod Plays It Safe. There's also a current radio show production going on that's supposed to continue through to the end of the last book.

<got yours?

Yes--completely unmodified, though; not even reinforced seams or dissolved nuetrient broth to suck out.

Slight contradiction in your post there Dr J.

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Was it started as a site for DNA's readers or as an attempt to create a guide that anyone can access and add to? Don't think you can have it both ways.

<< As in Farah Faucet-Majors>
That should be Fawcett and there's no more '-Majors',...>

Oh please! Can't you tell when a guy is joking?

Toxx, my new best time for Ruscell is 1 minute 43 seconds.

I don't think I'll do much better than that.



alji

Toxx--lemons aren't impossible to eat, just ask Stonewall Jackson!

It's just a quote, LB. Here's another one: "You can always squeeze a lemon. Ever tried to squeeze a peach?"

toxx

Pee S. How goes the distance record?

Organised religion arises from a wish to exert power and to acquire status and material goods. It has been spectacularly successful in achieving these aims.

In more primitive societies, people had three choices - fight (take what you want by force from others), dig or hunt (till the land or hunt game) or pray (persuade others to support you because you tapped into some invisible higher power). Eventually the fighters and the priesthoods combined to oppress and subjugate the diggers. (They still do - look at the religious right in contemporary American politics.)

When organised religion has power, it oppresses. When it is weak, it is humble.

Religion invites mankind to reject commonsense thought for the acceptance of the irrational - that is why religious thought (and I include within this ideologies such as communism and totalitarianism of whatever colour) has produced the horrors it has thoughout history, and continues to do to the present time.

Fortunately, this has been counterbalanced increasingly by secular thought, and organised religion in the West, at least, has been reduced to a cosy social activity with emphasis on good works. However, the old fundamental conflicts still haunt the world, and are responsible for most of its current troubles - Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Northern Ireland. The people of the Book (Christians, Muslims and Jews) cause most of the trouble through their extreme wings - to date, only Buddhism has been relatively free from the generalised religious tendency to attack, oppress and butcher those who don't agree with a particular narrow world view. The great atheistic religions of communism and fascism and their offshoots have certainly caused the greatest number of deaths in the twentieth century, aided by modern technology.

Religion demands the suspension of rational processes of thought. It will argue rationally until seriously challenged, then will retreat into faith - "You must believe me because I have a hotline to how God thinks -" This can be seen most clearly in the religious response to the problem of explaining how a benevolent, omniscient and omnipotent God permits appalling things to happen to innocent people, e.g the tsunami. If they cannot blame it on the people who are injured, they blame it on original sin, free will, or offer the ultimate religious cop-out - it is a mystery beyond our understanding. All good things are attributed to God, all bad things to a power of evil or to mankind.

What religious people argue as the virtuous impulses of religion - selflessness, caring for others, love, valuing the beauty of the universe, etc - are in fact deeply human instincts that have nothing to do with religion, least of all with organised religion, and religious people, when they display these virtues are being human, not religious.

It is manifestly possible to hold no religious beliefs, yet believe in manknind, in a common purpose of humanity, on the beauty and fragility of our delicate planet, and to believe that humanity can evolve towards a higher purpose and level of being without the intervention of an imaginary Deity.

Our hope lies in each other, not in mythical beings in the clouds.

Not so. I can argue for religion rationally - based on the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) and, admittedly, using the freewill defence - which is a rational argument.

OK, this probably isn't religion but 'natural theology'. Maybe your sentence that I quote above approaches correctness in the context of the more formal religious orthodoxies.

toxx

Why include communism as religous thought. It is not really religious and had communism been carried out I'm sure it would have been good only problem is it hasn't had a fair test I.e. not been hijacked for power.

Siggi: you're gonna hafta give us your definition of 'religious' and then explain why communism doesn't fit it.

toxx

No better way to start off than with a clean towel; do you recall what happened when Zaphod sucked on someone else's?


<Slight contradiction in your post there Dr J.

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Was it started as a site for DNA's readers or as an attempt to create a guide that anyone can access and add to? Don't think you can have it both ways.>

I don't see a contradiction and I didn't make the statements that led to the comments I made, they were gleaned from an interview with DNA or one of his introductions. To find the answer you will need to consult a medium and contact DNA yourself.

The history of 'the giude' is long and confusing: the radio show, the record album [do you remember, or know what vinyl records are?], the first book, the PC text adventure game, the TV show, more books, a play, more radio shows and now a movie [likely NOT in this order but this is generally correct]. Each one slightly different from another. Somewhere in this timeline h2g2.com was started, and if you didn't read his books or play the pc game or listen/watch the shows you'd be clueless as to what h2g2 was all about. This thread is merely a conversation, and not really related to 'the guide' at all since the book mentioned in the stories has no such place: no conversations, no debates, nothing like this thread at all.

<<< As in Farah Faucet-Majors>
That should be Fawcett and there's no more '-Majors',...>

Oh please! Can't you tell when a guy is joking? >

Yes, Toxx, that's why I made the comment about the bionic man; this is still a family-rated conversation otherwise I could have run away with that opening line. I guess my humor flew like the plumbium balloon that time, eh?

< "You can always squeeze a lemon. Ever tried to squeeze a peach?">

I thought that's what faucets were for...



Oh yes, all those Christian and Jewish suicide bombers-why they're in the news every day. [BURP!]



Yeah, especially those Hasidic Jews, those Seventh Day Adventists and the Protestants-they are all butcher-happy when you don't fly by their rules. Boy, oh boy, you just say one wrong thing on the Sabbath and Shlomo is after you with a machete like white on rice. And don't get under Patrick's skin about which conception was the immaculate one, he'll lop off your head in a heartbeat, and THEN the God Police will lock your family away forever so they can't continue to corrupt the truth. [BUUURRRRRRPP!!!]

Which planet are you from, anyway?

"Squeeze me baby - till the juice run down my leg." Led Zeppelin, I think.

toxx

"My name is Eugene, I stick my hands in fans for fun.", Frank Zappa.

It must have been a Thursday for Eugene.

well I have read the books, seen the TV series and listened to the radio series
it doesn't really matter that it was DNA who said it, there is still a contradiction between saying it was created for his readers and for everyone