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

<< a person or pet is no more likely to be rescued from a burning building>>

i might go in for a person?, depending on the circumstances, for an animal.....not a chance.!

get some perspective people

Fords.

But the operative word is 'often'. Certainly often a person's nominal religion has little effect on what they do, but . . .



Would those buildings in Manhattan have fallen if those particular young men had been atheists?

Sadly the rare moment of religious influence can wipe out so much of influence o peple just trying to get along with each other.

Taff: I understand you're making a difference between people and animals. Some people do not if they feel their chances of success are good. I was not positing that only rational people take these risks. There's no accounting for the irrational villian or hero.

Anhaga: I'm not so sure that the operative word is 'often'. If religious and ethical beliefs really held significant influence on one's actions, we should expect a certain amount of consistency in their responses. What I was pointing out is that this consistency is lacking in the data.

As to the buildings in Manhattan, I mentioned that there is no accounting for the irrational, villian or hero. And, yes, I agree that it is especially sad when religious or political influence induces counter-productive, counter-constructive behaviour.

As many learned persons have long pointed out, religions have been the cause of more and bloodier wars than any other single factor, even when they were used as ruses for political expediency or struggles for resources.

There is no defending or excusing what happened in NY, but I can't say for certain that its impact was any worse than the impact of the Crusades or the Spanish Inquisition. ALL unprovoked violence is wasteful and counter productive. It always creates more victims and, therefore, more devotees of revenge.

<>

the crusade was not unprovoked, it was a response to an apeal made by the byzantine emporor, for aid due to an invasion by the turks

I think we're agreeing Fords.

religion doesn't really have a big effect on most people. Religion is used by nasty people to do nasty things


but


I think that far too often nice people are duped by means of their religion by nasty people to do nasty things.

<>

animals are far more resoursefull than people think

how many times do we hear stories of animals getting into trouble, only for a human to try and rescue them, lose their lives and then the animal walks away un-harmed

My first thought was 'too often', but perhaps that's a part of their master plan!

This thread is...eight years old???

8 years and still no credible debate from the god squad????

I suppose it's hard to give reason-based evidence for something faith-based.
Maybe both sides should agree to disagree.


AND THEN GIVE THEIR FINAL KILLER EVIDENCE RIGHT WHEN IT'S LEAST EXPECTED!!!!!! MWA HA HA HA HA!!!!

God or Gods are a very understandable fiction. It is easy to put yourself into the mindset of early Homo Sapiens. The beginnings of family or tribe, mates & children etc. When somebody spends a lifetime working hard for the good of tribe & family and the inevitable happens. The rest of the people have a dead body that will rapidly turn disgusting and dangerous. It happens to everybody young or old.
What kind of reward or return on investment is that?
There must be something more, surely.
It is very hard, even impossible for some humans, to imagine that whatever is actually them can just end. So the rest just inevitably follows, god, someone to speak to god, somewhere for the essence or soul of mortal man to go after death.
Gods have to be all powerful to have created all that we could see around us. Nature, trees, animals, fish etc.
Naturally my god is stronger than your god and he will give me the strength to defeat you and your god. And so the cycle is started one god against another. It is all so easily plausible if you cannot think that death is the end.
If you don't end you must go somewhere. Somewhere where there is no toil, no sickness, no death. And it all goes on forever. All built by a benevolent god who should be adored forever. The same one who sent the drought and disease and volcanoes.
But we are not privy to his plans. We just die and await eternal salvation as long as we do as the priests and clerics tell us.
Slowly very slowly as we learn more and more about the universe about us, it is becoming clear that we are in the middle of chaos and chance. We are no more special than any other phenomenom in the universe. For some unknown reason we developed a sense of our own existence and have struggled with it ever since.
God or gods are a sympton of that struggle which we must all come to terms with. Let us hope that more and more people will actually think about their existence for themselves. If we can prevent the god people indoctrinating our young people and give them all the possibilities of the reasons for our existence we may eventually live without the tyranny of gods and the people who believe in them.


sceptic

One problem with that viewpoint is that animists and/or polytheists don't tend to do the 'my god is bigger than your god' thing. They just add another statue or painting to the altar, and another title to the names they call upon

A little quote from the New Testament:
But speak thou the things that become sound doctrinee; that the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, In charity, and in Patience.-Titus 2:1
I forget who said-"If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him" for it is only our relationship with Him that allows us to keep our baser impulses in check and be like the man referred to in Titus.

Well, since there are many, many moral atheists, agnostics, animists and so on, that theory goes out the window straight away.

Who told you that Shagbark? Shows a real lack of introspection and thinking things through.

Long time no see, Jez. How's things with you?

Noggin

Hello Nog - I've been keeping up with az a bit through her blog, but you only get occasional mentions now

I am better - coping with the depression changed my life, and I never went back to work. Now I make things and live on my savings, and have Math as a lodger!

Have you got my email? If not, PM me and I'll bring you up to date. i haven't got yours, I know, since I had a new computer after a burglary and never got the old address book back.

R Post 27095
Who told me that?
A. God did. Now if he were fiction he couldn't have done that.

did he tell you or did you read it??

Deary me, Shag bark.

God told you, did he?

When my gods tell me things, /you/ say it is all a delusion...

And yet, by your logic, since I am told things by many deities (being a polytheist) I must be many times more believable than you, who only get to talk with one god.

Do you think it is that no-one else /wants/ to speak with you, or that you have spent too long with your fingers in your ears shouting 'La La La' whenever the voices told you that the bible wasn't the only truth out there?

He told me to read it.
God speaks in a still small voice that only believers can hear.
while others are listening to Wall Street , or 10 Downing Street, or
the British Petroleum Corporation, I choose to listen to Him and he audibly speaks to me.