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

See, I used to think that things like hmm...faries, say...do they exist? It seems that more or less every nation has some stories involving something vaguely fairy-like and these stories originated before anyone knew there was anyone else in the world to know about. So with again, a lot of nations having some idea of a God-like thing, it suggests somewhere behind it there is truth. Maybe there is.
Like Faries though, whatever truth there ever was has been distorted like in a game of chinese whispers so the whole world ends up with this different perspective on things. Some time ago though, they all had the same idea again before anyone knew that there was anyone else to know about.
Maybe there is something that is God but the beliefs we have associated to that today are distorted from how it started out.

(See one minute I say there isn't, the next I say there could be! Whatever I say or believe I never think it is right, it's just what I think which in the end amounts to no more than what the Total Perspective Vortex would say hehe)

It seems likely that something like religion, that means a lot to a lot of people, isn't going to go away; so if we don't like it we'd better get used to it.

The laws of the country may be in a book as far as they are in written form, somewhere, they are not as the laws of a holy book. Anything can be transcribed in text but that does not put it on equal terms with literature. Its own intrinsic value is the issue; some holy laws IMHO lack this, others have it in spades. Making them equal is inconsistent. Also, national laws are revised and often discarded when they are no longer relevent, whereas holy laws are meant to stand forever (even if they are no longer relevent, which also IMHO makes them slightly suspect.)

Does it matter what the *original* truth was, as long as what someone believes now is sincere, valuable to them and satisfies their curiosity?

Laws change. It's just the holy Law which doesn't...

OK, I'm not intentionally obfuscating the issue, so I'll expand. The law against /committing/ adultery still exists. It's still wrong to pledge yourself to one person and then 'give' yourself to someone else. But the law about /stoning/ adulterers as punishment no longer remains. It's no longer useful to a society that doesn't consist, as is often and gleefully pointed out, of nomadic desert-dwellers. That was a Law which the people of the time needed to ensure coherency, and now (I hope) we've progressed to a level where we can survive without inflicting horrible punishments on people who are different.

IMHO, the laws that were laid out in the Old Testament were made for the people of that time, and not for us. If you believe Jesus, that is. Of course, a lot of Christians out there don't, as Matholwch has made clear, and that's their perrogative. Good for them. Now perhaps they can make a quick animal sacrifice (as Sellers(?) pointed out, the sweet scent might be pleasing to Jehova but it certainly won't be to their neighbours, or for that matter their bedclothes!) and then happily stone a few Wiccans, before conscienciously murdering a few homosexuals and anyone who was ill last Sunday, and perhaps wake up the next morning to find themselves in a high-security prison. I'm tempted to say that they ought, hopefully, to discover the joys of picking up the soap, but that would hardly be Christian, would it?

So: laws from a book are valuable to the people they were wrote for, but the real Law never changes - as Jesus said: love thy neighbour as thyself.

Yep, I'm just an NT hippie at heart. I don't see how there can be any other type of Christian, for that matter...

- Jordan

Actually you sound very Islamic there. laugh. Islam believes that God sent thousands of messangers out to show people the way and what happened was that over time people distorted it. Then God gave us the Quran via the last prophet Mohammad (pbun) which will never change. An so far in over 1400 years not one word has changed. They have compared a Modern Quran with that of the three oldest Qurans in History and not so much as one letter is different in it. So far Allah has kept his word. Note that this is only for the Arabic language bacause if you change one word in arabic the whole sentance goes to pot.

Adib

I though we had gone through the stoning thing before. This was introduced after the time of the prophet and is cultural. Stoming is not mention in the Quran or Hadith or Sunnah but the penalty for fornication and adultery is 100 stripes with a whip.

Adib

Bloody premoderation... Are they /ever/ going to get you off of it?

- Jordan

And is this punishment also cultural? (The 100 whips, I mean - it sounds rather excessive! )

- Jordan

No its not cultural. The reason its excessive is because the most important thing in Islam next to faith is the family unit. People sleeping around distroys the family unit, increases diseases going around through sex and leads to children growing up who do not know who there farther is. In Islam this is seen as very wrong and should not happen.
There are other reasons but I can't remember them all.

As for the moderation thing maybe the moderater can let us know when I am coming of it.

Who knows. Going to bed now talk to morrow. Good night

Allah hafiz.

Adib

Adib. The last part of this rings such a strong bell that I am oh so inclined to accept the rest:

"Muhammad taught in Volume 1 Number 28 that the majority of people in Hell were women.

The Prophet said: 'I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful.' It was asked, 'Do they disbelieve in Allah?' (or are they ungrateful to Allah?) He replied, 'They are ungrateful to their husbands and are ungrateful for the favours and the good (charitable deeds) done to them. If you have always been good (benevolent) to one of them and then she sees something in you (not of her liking), she will say, 'I have never received any good from you.' "

That last sentence is spot on.

While we're still here, is this correct?

Stoning to death for adultery
Volume 3 Number 508

The Prophet said, 'O Unais! Go to the wife of this (man) and if she confesses (that she has committed illegal sexual intercourse), then stone her to death.'

And how about this:

The Noble Qur'an An-Nur 24:2-9

2. The woman and the man guilty of illegal sexual intercourse, flog each of them with a hundred stripes. Let not pity withhold you in their case, in a punishment prescribed by Allâh, if you believe in Allâh and the Last Day. And let a party of the believers witness their punishment. (This punishment is for unmarried persons guilty of the above crime but if married persons commit it, the punishment is to stone them to death, according to Allâh's Law).

No longer here... (Technically.)

- Jordan

Steam engines still do exist

Toxx
Yes you were the first to mention the illusory nature of money, did I say you weren't?
That's why I said 'snap'

Whoops did it again. that's what happens when you turn up and find loads of posts and answer them as you read them, instead of reading to the bottom.
The mind believes the train is real. the mind makes it real when it hits you.

Europeep
In the north there lived a race of people called picts who where different to other people . nothing very much is known about these people, they did not leave much history. Some standing stones, a few bits of carving. They were supposed to be short dark people who lived in small round houses part of which was underground, like burrows, (sound familiar?)they tattoed their bodies and were very fierce. Their society was matriarchal .The romans found them very troublesom.
Because they were different from others the word picts was also be said as pixies. So the word fairies could also have been proscribed as a race of people who were different in some way. So that they did exist but not in the form we now give them.

Yeah, that's kind of my point. Faries was maybe a bad example, I couldn't remember something that loads of nations had an idea about. I've been to the Pictish museum in Brechin...didn't learn any of that though because the museum is a rip off.
But yeah, that's my point. They were a race of people that had this idea attatched to them and this idea got distorted and varied as time went by.

Maybe God is the same. What we believe now, is not exactly what was meant in the beginning. The idea of God could have been applied to something completely different to what our idea of a God is.

Europeep aka Lorna

Mohammad taught in volume 1 number 28. Sorry this is irrelevant. Which Hadith book are you referring to. Which auther. Its alwell saying book 1 but there is a book one from several different authers and so I can not refer to what your saying. Plus who reported it and how strong is this Hadith? Stoning is not a Islamic punishment. For example there is a hadith that says about female circumsition which I mentioned a while ago and this was a weak hadith. Plus it was not supported from the Quran. As physical mutilation is not allowed.

Adib

See above.

Adib