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

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This is silly. In London alone there are homilies in Polish, Italian, French, Portuguese, and quite possibly even German...

Um, I mean, people debate the existance of deities but I'm wondering if since the concept of religion is a human made one if then its existing might be decently debatable too by that logic.

*shrug*

Sorry, I was so tired right then, looking back on it right through there... my word so many bias. On my own part.

Anybody know or willing to share a little bit about/on what deism was?
I've been curious about that one for awhile.

Re 26281 just in case anybod joined us there - it's not the law - it's just a right-wing proposal. It's very silly. The one who proposed it is famous for hie advertising poster depicting a cathedral over his right shoulder. The church was conspicuous by its silence and then its eventual lethargic half-hearted prostest against the poster. C'est la vie!

huh/hmm...

Easter on the horizon and I still don't really know what it's all about. This man 'died for me' and 'went to heaven' so they keep telling me. What's it mean this 'died for me' when I wasn't even born 2,000 years ago (have never understood that aspect) and 'heaven' what's that and where's that? Did he actually say much about it? What it's like? Where it is? ... and so on. I'd really like some straight-talking answers!

Heaven is going to be a new earth where there is no pain or suffering. there will be no tears and everyine will be happy. the best bit will be our perfect relationship with God. we will be with him for eternity.

Our sin seperates us from God, it means we can't have a perfect relationship. for God to be just, he needs to punish us for our sin. the punishment is death. when Jesus died he took on the sin of the world. all those who believe and trust in him are free to have a relationship with God because Jesus has paid the price for our sin. It cant be punished twice. by saying he died for you we are saying he died as the punishment for your sin so we can be reunited with God and have this relationship.

"Heaven is going to be a new earth ..."
It takes billions of years to create a star system with planets. In the gas clouds of places like the Horse's Head Nebula star creation is actively underway. ok so far...but a long time off, perhaps. And how are we all going to get there?
But you say "where there is no pain or suffering".
The rules in one part of the universe, say the 'hh-nebula', cannot be different from the part where we are. Animals will feed on each other. Intelligent beings evolving in 'hh-n' will fight, get ill, work, cry, die. Not all will choose the right path. That's simply how it is - everywhere.
You imply that there is perhaps an artifical world somewhere - maybe a kind of gigantic space station - where admittance is only available to those who obey the rules or a place that we can go to in another dimension that is outside of the known universe. But what are the rules? Where can we find these rules of admittance????
"everyone will be happy"
I don't think I could be any happier than I am at the moment. I am perfectly content and happy with my lot. As happy as any normal well-balanced human entity can be. I can't imagine that I would be happy in heaven "for eternity". I would imagine it would get pretty boring.
"Our sin seperates us from God...he needs to punish us." But I see that he punishes people who cannot help sinning, who are born that way or are brought up that way and have no opportunity to live in a sin-free enivironment. Where's the justice in that? He doesn't sound like the kind of God I would like to get too close to. He sounds more like a dogmatic dictator.
"Jesus has paid the price for our sin" What does that mean exactly. Does it mean we can commit all the sins that we like and lay it all on Jesus? How can he "pay the price" for people not yet born? What's it really mean anyway "pay the price"?
What's it mean "reunited with God"? The fact that we exist at all must mean that we are united with him already mustn't it?

Could you point me to the place in the new testament where Jesus actually says any of this?

Prefereably with quotes, or I am going to have to find an online bible to look it all up?

And I don't mean the OT or Acts, or Letters, or Revelation, I mean Jesus' reported words in the four gospels...
--

Jez

Matthew 5

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=47&chapter=5&version=31&context=chapter

that refers to the old testament prophacies

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=47&chapter=10&version=31&context=chapter
matthew 10: jesus talks about achnologying us to the father

you can get most translations of the bible on there. chapters 10-16 ish talk about heaven. the last few chapters talk about Jesus death and resurrection and what it means.
be careful not to pick passages out of context and be aware that somethings Jesus said require looking back to the old testament and the prophacies

apologies, its sunny and my spellin is really bad

Why does the sun affect your spelling?

So basically, the idea of 'family values' is not Christian, the idea of preaching to the gentiles is not Christian, and the person following Jesus was supposed to be a Jew going back to his/her roots?

Jez

Do you really believe that someone else can die for your flaws and that counts? Is that sense? Is that justice?

I don't see how it matters whether I belive in Yahweh (god) or not. I'm not Jewish and he is the god of the Jews. He's very big on this point in the old testament.

Jesus, the son of god? Gimme a break! Even supposing he is I can't imagine old Yahweh being too happy about him walking around earth spouting all this love and peace hippy nonsense!

Pow*

So what evidence is there for anything in post 26287?

A series of assertions with nothing to back them up simply *can't* be taken seriously. If they were all completely false nothing in the world around us would change. Only the belief itself makes things different to how they would otherwise be.

Noggin

Old Testament is recently mentioned above. It's puzzled me on and off for years why God gave Adam the curiosity and ability to eat from the tree of knowledge and then got angry when Adam used his given talents. The idea that this is how the Creator operates is patently insane.

I read somewhere that god is like someone who would leave a brick under a hat on a pavement. Sooner or later someone is going to kick it! It's like he deliberately set out to trip mankind up.
Of course, if it's all made up by said mankind, then it gives us a really watertight excuse for everything!

Pow*

I offer for discussion: http://www.religionnewsblog.com/17927/hot-cross-buns

They're censoring Easter! No, it was just a mistake. But we'll get in a tizzy about it anyway.

TRiG.

Oh dear, what a shame...

You mean the christians are now getting uppity after they spent the last 1,500 years trying to rename, replace or repress the native traditions of the British Isles? What goes around comes around mate...

Winter Solstice/Saturnalia -> Christmas.
Ostara -> Easter.
The Spring Hare -> Easter Bunny.
The Goddess Brigidh -> St.Bridget
Imbolc -> Candlemass.
Samhain -> All Hallows' Eve.
Mithras -> Jesus... oops, that's a biggy

I could go on but I'm sure you get the point, and I wouldn't want to be accused of trolling.

Blessings,
Matholwch .