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

>So form this we can say that all faiths contain some truth.

Why do I say this! If you beliave God to be all-seeing, all-knowing, all-power etc. then if you are looking for god you will find whatever you believe God to be.
Jesus gave instructions as to how this should be done;

Matthew 6:5
"And when praying, you must not be like the hypocrites. They are fond of standing and praying in the synagogues or at the corners of the wider streets, in order that men may see them. I solemnly tell you that they already have their reward.

Matthew 6:6
But you, whenever you pray, go into your own room and shut the door: then pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father--He who sees in secret--will recompense you.

Matthew 6:7
"And when praying, do not use needless repetitions as the Gentiles do, for they expect to be listened to because of their multitude of words.

Matthew 6:8
Do not, however, imitate them; for your Father knows what things you need before ever you ask Him.


As for where to look He said;
Luke 17:21
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

A Mystery
Mark 4:11
And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all [these] things are done in parables:

Philippians 4:8
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are honest, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report; if there is any virtue, and if there is any praise, think on these things.


Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

If you don't know what creation science is all about then look @

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/

It's worth looking at even if you do think you know!


Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Posting 390: We'll presume then that the creator is an existence of some kind. Therefore, existence is, in itself, evidence of an existence of some kind. True; but seriously unhelpful and non-explanatory.

<> No you don't. You know perfectly well I was being satirical. I hope. If not, LIGHTEN UP.

Posting 392 and reply posting 393: I wasn't really meaning to imply that you could judge a person's intelligence by their religion or lack thereof. I think FW's reply was pretty fair.

Posting 393: Here I have to part company with you. Science is a tool. It HAS provided us with the means to improve our lot. It DOES tell us a lot about how we came to be what we are. But science is embedded in a wider culture. And "ideal worlds" are cultural concepts, not scientific ones.

Creationism: Insight, I've noted from this and other threads that you don't subscribe to a "seven days in 4004 BC" version of creationism. This presumably gives you some leeway on the question of fossils and geology. The sticking point would seem to be the mechanism of evolution. Is that a fair assessment? If not, correct me. It may help to focus the debate.

Paths, forks, angels, devils and consequences: There was a lot of this a few postings back. Hands up who thinks this is a METAPHOR. And who thinks it's LITERALLY true?
We teach our children metaphors like this in the hope they will come to understand the concept of consequences. When they do we expect them to discard the metaphor as a means to the end.

Noggin

Allegory and Metaphor.

If faith is so weak that it is destroyed by a few words not being the absolute truth then it is not true faith.

Native Americans have some interesting Flood Myths;
The Okanagan people tell of a time before the Flood when their ancestors lived on "an island far off in the middle of the ocean."
This island was called Samah-tumi-whoo-lah
and there came a time when the people saw "that their island was about to sink" so the escaped across the ocean to their new land (British Columbia and Washington).

And the Aztecs of ancient Mexico tell of a time before the Flood when their ancestors lived on the island of Aztlan.
They describe Aztlan as "located beyond the waters, or surrounded by waters; and the first stage of the migration is said to have been made by boat."

And Plato wrote about a war which took place 11,000 years ago;
The story is about the conflict between the ancient Athenians and the Atlantians 9000 years before Plato's time. Knowledge of the distant past apparently forgotten to the Athenians of Plato's day, the story of Atlantis was conveyed to Solon by Egyptian priests. Solon passed the tale to Dropides, the great-grandfather of Critias. Critias learned of it from his grandfather also named Critias, son of Dropides.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

I've been looking up some translations of the Bible;

The Cotton Patch Version is a local dialect version for the southern United States, particularly the area around Atlanta, Georgia.
Matthew 3:4-6
This guy John was dressed in blue jeans and a leather jacket, and he was living on corn bread and collard greens. Folks were coming to him from Atlanta and all over north Georgia and the backwater of the Chattahoochee. And as they owned up to their crooked ways, he dipped them in the Chattahoochee.

The Gospels in Scouse is a vernacular version from the Liverpool area translated by Dick Williams and Frank Shaw in 1967, revised in 1977.
John 1:14
So wot I’ve bin saying, like, is this. God’s ole attitude to the werld became flesh. All wot God’s got ter say about man became a man -- Real Man. An de Real Man l ived among us. We could see just exackly wot e was like. An e wus terrific! An you could see e wusn’t juss on’y the truth about man. E wus also the truth about God. you could. Honest.

The Bible by Andrew Edington, called The Word Made Fresh, was published in 1975.
Malacai 1
What do you do wrong? I’m glad you asked! For one thing, you bring gifts to the church, leftovers to the family night supper, and stale bread for the communion table. How does that grab you?
What’s more, you pay your church pledge with blind animals, or sick doves, and you claim more deductions than you give. You wouldn’t try to cheat the IRS, would you? Why then do you try to cheat God?

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

The widespread provenance of flood myths is certainly interesting, but in the absence of archaeological evidence it's a bit like trying to put together a jigsaw out of a few pieces when you can't even be sure they belong to the same jigsaw.

Our familiar flood legends may, or may not, derive from the global rise in sea levels at the end of the last ice age, the filling of the Black Sea, or from whatever event deposited the thick layer of mud that Woolley found at Ur. (The Noah legend is related to the flood myth in the Epic of Gilgamesh; not surprising since the Jews originally migrated from Mesopotamia.)

The Aztec capital city, if my memory serves me, was on an island in a lake. Does the location give rise to the myth, or the myth to the location? Plato's Atlantis myth has been linked to the eruption of Santorini on Thera; after temporarily falling out of favour this theory has had a renaissance with new geological findings that show that immediately prior to the eruption Thera consisted of a central island in the middle of a circular inlet from the sea (in an older chaldera), surrounded in turn by a circular island (the remains of the older volcano), a configuration that bears a striking, though less elaborate, resemblance to Plato's description.

In all these sorts of cases the problem is to separate mythological accretions and syntheses from any underlying historical material (if any).

The same problem applies to many of the books of the Bible (and doubtless other sacred texts, too). But the relation of the various aspects can only be understood in human terms. To abandon this is to abandon critical engagement and understanding in favour of uncritical dogma, and to become alienated from the human condition.

Noggin

Science and the ideal society (can you tell I don't bother quoting as much as I should?: I agree with Noggin - science is embedded in a larger society. Science and ethics are not united in the search for a better society. They are being used as tools. Additionally, science gives us no /reason/ to look for a better society. That was implicit in my statement to ther effect that human life is as sacred as a stick of chalk to science.

Has anyone looked up some of the 'tower of Babel' myths? I recall that there are several from many different traditions. Most of them speak of a deluge/flood, followed by the building of a tower and the confounding of languages/scattering of peoples of the earth, by the powers of a God/gods. Also, many mention a race of giants. In some, the purpose of the tower is to escape another flood, as in the rabbinical tradition. See http://www.varchive.org/itb/confus.htm for more.

The question is, does all this relate to a common historical root, or (as I believe is the case in the Celtic connection - see http://realmagick.com/articles/30/2130.html ) are they the result of a collaboration of mythologies?

There are a whole load of other weird concurrences in the mythologies of the world. I suppose Jung would say this was to do with some common factor in man's use of imagery, but I personally think that there could have been communication between the cultures, either due to shared history or adoption of elements from other cultures upon meeting at a later date. Aside from the above example, I wonder if it is possible that this might have been partly due to the influence of the early settlers, explorers and conquests?

Any analysis I could make on this would be speculation, since I do not have any formal training in forensic history, or enough knowledge to come to an educated conclusion; I would, however, appreciate it a lot if someone more experienced than I could clarify?

- Jordan

Jordan and anyone else try this site;

http://www.flem-ath.com/articles.htm


Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

While we're on the subject of talking b******s (Creation Science: an oxymoron if ever there was one, but some people wouldn't recognise an oxymoron if it hit them smack in the mouth), I'd just like to chuck my two-penn'orth into the debate:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=000D4FEC-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588EEDF
I don't think that Creationism deserves *any* serious time. Avoid it like you would a roving band of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Jordan, I first read Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision when I was 14, that's 42 years ago, BTW thanks for the link! The first page is @
http://www.varchive.org/itb/
And for those that don't know Velikovsky, it has nothing to do with creation science.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Thanks for the link FM. It makes for a great read. It is a quite a comprehensive list of creationist garbage and makes it quite clear exactly why they are mistaken. I particularly loved the graph on top of page 3.

I'm getting really tired of arguing against creationism, it *has* taken up too much of my time. Why can't they say "I think life in its current form was created by God because my religion says so"? Then there would be no argument. Why do they have to try and get scientific justification using backhanded tricks, misleading and downright wrong statements? Why do I repeat myself endlessly? I know I'll never get through to them because that section of reasoning in their brains has been bypassed by their faith, I know I'll never win because of this pig-headedness and the lack of ability to learn. It just annoys the hell out of me when people attempt half-arsed explanations saying that they don't believe evolution occurs because x is impossible, when they don't even understand, or made the effort to comprehend x or evolution in the first place! Every so-called rebuttal of evolution that I have seen from a creationist comes from misconceptions about evolution, no doubt taught to them by irresponsible or mislead religious folk who they unfortunately think speak more truths than an entire body of scientific literature (which, incidentally, they haven't bothered to look at).

What shall I do instead of argue against creationism? Oh, I think I'll try to spread the word of my new "gravitation science" religious sect by proving that the theory of gravity is wrong. I aim to acheive this by showing that apples don't fall to the ground in a straight line because when you drop them out of a window of a moving car they go *at an angle*! And sometimes apples can be found of the floor, so how can they fall?! Thus proving that my religious belief is justified in the eyes of the scientific community.

Ste

Ste, try this one http://www.varchive.org/ce/cosmos.htm

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Thanks Alji. Expect a rebuttal disproving this paper with regards to the values electromagnetism must have been tweaked by a God who lives in the centre of the earth. Otherwise, gravity would be impossible. Or something.

Ste

I read Velikovsky a long time ago, too. "Worlds in Collision" doesn't stand up to scrutiny, but the separate reconstruction of history, "Ages in Chaos" and its sequels are much more of an open question.

The Tower of Babel myths probably derive from the building of Ziggurats in Mesopotamia, but pyramid style buildings are almost ubiquitous in any culture that gets to monumental architecture. Chronology and evidences of internal development suggest that most of these arose independently.

Noggin

I still thnk it's a good read!

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

BTW it does not matter if its true or false, what it shows is the variety of myths and stories that abound.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

< person who was brought up believing in Christianity and who believes it firmly without being able to provide evidence looks exactly like a Hindu brought up with Hinduism who doesn't question>

Greetings, Freezing Weasel from freezing NZ!

I know the above remark which I have copied doesn't apply to any one person, but generally, still, I want to say, that *in my case* it doesn't apply at all! I was not brought up Christian at all! One of my parents was an avowed atheist and the other a 'social Christian', because her society was said to believe. (BTW, they both changed, but not until I was long gone from home.) My point is, that I chose to be a Christian, and can provide reason, if not evidence. (By definition, no one can supply evidence.)

Marvellous, Alji! I especially like the Scouse one, being one (a Scouse, that is.. Well, by recent descent) Thanks for sharing that.

Greetings Felonious!
Why do you avoid "wandering bands of JW's"? They are just endless fun. My wife sighs whenever they come onto our street because she knows that they will leave an hour or so later in complete disarray.
It is amazing how little preparatory training the poor Witnesses get before they are released into our tender clutches . I have begun to get the feeling that the local JW's regard our little street, containing as it does one confirmed atheist-communist, a practicing Witch, a former Catholic Nun and then me the jesuit-schooled Druid, as Damnation Alley. "Go on lads, if your faith can survive that street then you're ready for missionary work in Bagdhad".
Mormons, however, are much more challenging. Young, American, well-tutored in scripture, it takes me ages to find a hole in their circular arguments. Simple biblical errancy doesn't work, I have to delve into the 'omni' theory (discussed previously here).
Sorry to the Christians here, most of whom are the type I like (i.e. fairly open-minded and feisty with it), but if you come knocking on my door trying to preach the word of your God, I reserve the right to preach my beliefs back.
Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Greetings Mathlowch!
Yes, I agree, they are funny. Sometimes they are also very nice people as well. I have quite a few friends who are Christians (I'm not, if you haven't guessed already), but I respect their 'faith' from a Kierkegaardian perspective: the 'Leap of Faith' and all that, and wouldn't dare to proselytise. Generally when I smile at my doorsteppers and gently point out that I have thought an awful lot about these issues and am a lapsed Protestant myself, they say thank you, smile and leave without question.
I have far greater problems with political people, mainly the Green party who have some very entrenched views on some very controversial subjects. I think that they have now declared my street a no-go area after the last few 'discussions' we had.