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

You forget that humans survived for millenia before the standards enforced by social awareness came into play. Years ago, do you think that a community of people with a life expectancy of 30-40 could wait until they were nicely settled with a good husband etc until they had kids?

thats how we evolved - survival of the fittest by natural selction.

It depends the age and level of development of the teenager. An age doesn't make someone ready for parenthood. In the same way that turning 16 doesn't make you automatically and suddenly ready, physically and emotionally, to have sex. Some are ready at 14, or even 13, some aren't until they're in their twenties. Its choice about having children - yes, some accidents may occur to a 15/16 year old, but if they're past 72 hours, are you saying they should abort a child? Are you saying that, though they're not ready for the responsibility of a child, they should have to go through the pain and trauma of adoption?

You are against teenage pregnancy/parenthood. You have made sweeping generalisations. What do you think people should do about it then?

The child has a right to be bought up in a well equipped family. What about a loving family? No deceit? Mistakes happen, what we, as a country, should be doing is being supportive.

*Note - I am not condoning the deliberate pregnancy attempts of people who cannot bring up a child, I am supporting those who choose to do it in the right environment, or those who cannot help it*

Hasslefree
"Typical English overstatement for affect !"
Yes, I figured as much. You seem more likely to spoil someone than to bloodshed someone. That's a good thing, of course

Jordan
"Can she do brownies?"

Yes... heavenly!

(like how I tied that in with the thread?)

Della
I thought about it before and thought about it a lot more afterwards

Somehow, Jordan, the temprerature seems to have been raised to flaming from a little light trolling. I guess it's only silly to take seriously that which is itself silly. Then we can all be fools together.

All;

Do you think it's possible for God to create a stone that not even God can lift?


throw that one into the face of omniscience!...i await the fumes...

Mike, nice site! very well instructed. i pose a question to you, tho all may reply: do you think science will be the end of religion?

put some gravy on it!=)

Toxx

On what type of instrument would you like to hear this inversion? Since you only get 3 inversions of the same chord might i suggest an instrument with a wide range of registers? Myself, i would like an orchestra starting with the first inversion just cuz i have the weird affinity for the E note...(highly orgasmic, Jordan! tink tink!) Although if G# is your thang i wouldn't crucify you for it, not yet at least...
i like a healthy mix of B in the lower octave to FATTEN up the chord and add a little backbone...Paganini wrote Caprices 3 & 15 with this rambunctious little chord in mind!...(what a freak!)

Paganini, not You!

...and "no" i also don't mind talking to myself...do it all the time!

diversity....


what a divine use of words you command...

can i have a brownie???

Ahh...i see my God/Stone paradox has you all stumped! Oh well...i'll pop back in later...

......i just love elipses.....


(they're like a period with an identity crisis!)....

Wurfle

Wurfle, you put "can" instead of "can't". Not much of a paradox there. We've all heard it soooooooo many times before.

No you didn't. I missed the 'not'. It's a bit late!

You did say 'omniscience' instead of 'omnipotence' tho. I'll settle for the keyboard of your choice.

God does not create a stone it cannot lift.
The universe is created and maintained by thought.
As such your heavy stone is actually an illusion, and as such nothing is too heavy or too light.
It is simply a bunch of atoms arranged in a manner that appears as a stone.
Since God created the illusion, he has control over physics, which mankind does not have...as yet.

Move the atoms of any singular object and any object becomes movable.
Manipulate atoms and they become something else.
Eg. Manipulate the atoms of air, dirt and water and you have a potato.

There is a thread about omniscience/omnipotence: see A898680

Let's get back to the original question: "God: fact or fiction?"

Will someone dare to attempt to distinguish between the two for me? Just what is the difference between fact and fiction?

Before you start giving obvious examples, consider this: Is your personality a fact or a fiction? (Mine or anybody else's included.)

The line between fact and fiction gets thinner as you get into more complex "facts", and I believe it peters out entirely long before you are talking about anything remotely interesting.

Hi Kirp .

Welcome to the debate!

Just one little niggle:
"a community of people with a life expectancy of 30-40".
The problem with this common misconception is that it is based upon statistical analysis of grave markers and parish records, but is not borne out by the archaeological evidence.

The fallacy of most working people dying in their thirties is caused by the statisticians including all the infant mortality figures in their averages. Anyone who survived to seven years old had an evens chance of reaching sixty. The chance of getting to seven though was only 70%.

You will note that the authors of the Old Testament expected people to live three score years and ten. Also Roman Army records show that over three quarters of Auxiliaries (non-Citizen troops) survived to get their reward of full citizenship after 25 years of service despite losses to battle and disease. Only then could they settle down within the Empire, marry and raise children. Quite late to be starting a family if the average death age was 30 or 40?

One of the reasons for this amazing longevity of our ancestors is diet. People up until quite recent times had almost no refined sugars and precious little extra salt or other preservatives in their daily food. The amount of meat they ate was limited, especially amongst the working classes. People ate a mostly vegetarian, fresh, organic diet, which combined with lots of physical exercise and good water kept them healthy for many years. Examination of the dental condition of ancient corpses has shown that there was almost no dental decay or abcesses and most people had a full set of teeth well into their sixties, though the teeth were well worn by the gritty flour they ate.

People were also exposed to a wide range of diseases at an early age building robust immune systems. Something we don't have now thanks to the over-use of vaccines and anti-biotics. Ancient peoples were also wise in the use of effective natural herbal remedies including anti-fungal preparations and antiseptics.

The one thing that could decimate a population was exposure to a disease strain previously not experienced by them. Such as the Black Death coming into Western Europe from the Far East in the Middle Ages, or the Plague in the Seventeenth Century.

It was common amongst our forebears for men to wait until they were in their thirties to marry. By then they had normally inherited their families farm or business or made enough money to support a family. Girls were married a few years after they had 'matured' into full grown women. This varied from fifteen to nineteen. Recent research has shown that a girl tends to go through the change of life only once she has reached a certain body weight and size. Our obese society (and some say the overuse of antibiotics and growth hormones in mass produced meat)is causing many girls to mature at much younger ages. Examination of Medieval Books of Hours shows that most girls were not expected to become women until well into their teens.

The mature men, of whom we spoke above, would choose wives from the teenage population because they were fitter and much more likely to be able to survive successive childbirths than an older bride.

Blessings,
Matholwch the Nitpicker /|\.

I'll happily take that on, Lier. Let's take it that fact=truth and fiction=falsity. Truth = to say of what is, that it is; and to say of what is not, that it is not. My personality IS. No problem there except exactly what the word 'personality' means. Does it mean Kylie Minogue!?

Math. Change of life? You mean menarche not menopause! I think Prik, oops - Kirp means literally millennia ago. Neolithic stuff. You're sure right about bimodal distribution of mortality stats.