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

Thanks for the link, Jordan. Yep it is rather like being a feral child. I never thought of it in quite that way before.

As for the kids, I find a quick wit helps a lot. My reply would have been to shout back: "Promises, promises", at which point they'd doubtless have run away or pretended not to hear.

Since I've had the beard and specs, I'm often accused of looking like Rolf Harris. I only have to say that I wish my bank account looked like his too and they stop in mid ¬ "Tie me kangaroo down sport"! Sometimes you have to works on the instant replies though. All the best comedians do just that.

LOL. Nice one Az. Boom, boom!

T'ain't just religious teachers, Diversity. We had in Intermediate school (1965, when I was 12) a *vicious* woman who was teaching us Maori pronunciation - she'd whack us as hard as she could, with a 30cm rule on the knuckles if we got anything wrong.
Also, I got strapped (hit with a leather strap) for folding a paper fan in mathematics. That was my fault, mind, because I was deliberately defiant - I *hated* maths! It was worse for the girls - we got strapped across the fingertips of our dominant hand, whereas the boys were strapped across their padded butts. (My brother told me that the boys put exercise books down their shorts. Cheat!)

Hi Della!

Didja ever see the movie 'Life of Brian'?
The scene where the guy is hung up in manacles, and the jailer spits in Brians face and the manacled guy says "Bl**dy jailers pet. OOHHH what I wouldn't give to be spat at in the face!

I am afraid that if we are not careful we may turn this conversation into that scene

Sounds like everyone on the thread has some good @ss kicking stories, might need a few and to compare notes!

How did we ever get to be considered an advanced civilization with behavior like that?

diversity

So, if you don't believe in God, what do you believe in? Reincarnation (oh blimey, I personally wouldn't like to live on this earth again!!!!!)???????

I'm a christian and I believe in God and Jesus, and it is a common myth to think that if you don't believe in God you go to hell. If you read the book of revelation you'll find that those who don't believe will die a second death and become non-existent, but not necessarily burn in hell.

It is up to us if we accept God into our lives and be saved or not. Do you really think that God would like you to burn in hell????

Think again

love dq

crumbs, where do you live 2hot2handle????

Did you ever consider man's doing on this earth????? Cutting down the Rainforests, just to have a more exclusive kitchen than the neighbour. Don't you think it has an impact on climate???? All the toxins in the air, don't you think it could affect unborn babies? All the sufferings are caused directly by man. It is in man's nature to destroy everything around him, including himself.
And if you still think that there can't be no place worse than earth then think of all the good things that have happened to you and that you possess and try to imagine them away..........

Hi Dark-Queen .

Like many newbies to this thread you have missed out about 6,200 posts . Nobody here expects you to read the backlog, though the last couple of pages often brings you up-to-date.

Your statement regarding our eventual tumbling into either non-existence or the lake of fire is somewhat refreshing. Our friend Justin has been trying to convince us for sometime that indeed we are all destined for the latter fate. As are, he continues, all the babies and others who never heard the word of God and thus did not have a chance to be saved. Personally I have booked a nice little place in the lake of fire near a sulphur outfall where I, and a few others, shall be holding babies up out of the heat.

What is your take on all the people who miss out on the word and have no chance to be saved? What does your interpretation of scripture allow for them?

Blessings,
Matholwch the Apostate /|\.

Hello Dark Queen

Maybe it would be a good idea to read through a couple hundred posts. I have shanged a lot of preconcieved notions that I have had, and have also strengthend a lot of my strongest beliefs. Often we accept many things because we respect the person who told us.

Hope you enjoy the thread. Lot of nice people here!

diversity

Nice call, Math. Here's one toxxin that knows its place

Hi Matholwch,

Thanks, I've already noticed that there are posts (I have to admit I didn't read through all the 6,000 answers) between the beginning and my answers. I actually intended to answer to a couple of them directly without realising the would move downright to the arse of it all.
I don't know who this Justin is but I would recommend that he should read the bible a bit more carefully. Then he would see that babies are the most beloved to God and would go straight back to him. In the bible Jesus compares quite often people with children. Also, if a christian prays for another person to be saved, even if the other person is a non-christian, he/she will be saved. The same goes for everyone in the family (including babies and little children).
As for your last question about those missing out on the word I haven't got an answer, but I will see if I can find one and let you know.

hi diversity,

I will read through them in a couple of minutes. I've read about a hundred before answering but they weren't obviously not enough. Sorry, will be a good girl the next time.....

Oh, Jordan, I am so sorry that you had to put up with a step-father like that! I understand how your feelings are so strong...

That poor woman! I am so glad she's alright now...

I have always been depressed - my brother laughs affectionately at photos which show me as a child with what the family call my 'worried look'. There was no trauma in particular, (except maybe that my brother died when I was 3, but I honestly don't think that was all that bad as I am sure I didn't see it at that (bad) at the time!)
Now, my brother suffers from depression which he won't acknowledge - and I am sure that in our case, it's all a matter of brain chemistry. I think that's why I, for one, always see the glass half empty. And with this verdammde kr**g on top of all the rest!

No, I've never seen Life of Brian...I was telling my story, just because I wanted to convey that it happened all over schools in the 1960s and 1970s, and that *kind* of abuse is not the exclusive province of religious, teachers or others!
Actually, the Mrs Ruler teacher of Maori has left me with a lifelong dislike of learning Maori, which is no doubt the complete opposite of what she intended!

It's OK, Della, he's in the past. That's one thing that can't hurt me, I hope. Though, somewhat like your Maori teacher, he left somewhat of a resonance!
I'm curious - is that Africaans? I think the first word is a curse too - would it translate as 'damned/f**king [excrement]'? I'm now off to wash my mouth out with soap.
Oh, are you a StarGate fan, by any chance?

toxx - glad you like the link! It is interesting, though I don't agree /entirely/ with the portrait it paints. I saw it a while ago, and it brought back memories of what it felt like to be on the /other/ side of the divide. My teachers were convinced that I was some kind of idiot - from my past school reports, they'd have been suprised if I got a single credit Standard Grade, never mind a conditional offer for Cambridge! I can tell you, it's not much better there, either.
And I love the suggested riposte - and so does my friend! Thanks!

Oh, and Dark Queen! Welcome to the debate! Please, /don't/ read through some of the earlier posts. I use to post things worthy of note back then, and I'd be embarassed if anybody dragged some of them up! Besides, it'll take you centuries! Just read the last forty or so and dive right in!

- Jordan

Hi Jordan

Verdammde = Damned or Damnable depending on the context.
Kr**g = Krieg = War (or the thing of which we cannot speak).

Personnaly I think that it is pretty rich coming from an organisation that has a 24 hour dedicated TV news channel, two other TV channels that carry regular news, six radio channels that carry news and a multitude of web channels that also carry it, and who are beaming the verdammde krieg at us 24 hours per day, to say to this little corner that we should restrict our conversations about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Children are dying and we are to keep stumm unless we go to a sanctioned side room.

Perhaps we should carry on this conversation in Welsh. That'd fox them, especially as the BBC has more programming in Punjabi and Urdu than Welsh.

Sorry chaps, in a ranty mood this morning .... now where's Justin gone .

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Hi all-a week away from this thread and when I return everyone is Larkin about. I feel so comfortable with this thread now knowing almost everybody else has had similar experiences with their parental types-step or otherwise. Particularly resonant was the points raised relating to those who find it damned hard to put their fingers on what precisely was wrong.

With both of mine it wasn't that we were beaten or abused but simply that we didn't matter enough. We were NEVER hugged, kissed or treated warmly but didn't really have any deep morality drilled into us-so I can't even point to a harsh credo that caused my parents to treat us(self and younger brother)that way. In a way I was jealous of people messed up by their parents deliberately because of some wrong-headed but 'intelligent' reason. We weren't even Christians, communists, militant fundamentalist anglicans.

I also went through a long period of meeting up with them, tiptoeing round my mother and putting up with my bullying beer nasty bigot father until three years ago. I just snapped one night when he was being typically him and told him precisely what an arse he was, for about two hours. This has got to rate as the single most cathartic act of my entire life-I am so proud of telling him, because now he knows that he has totally failed as a father, and I need no longer bother with pretending to be the dutiful son. My brother resents the hell out of them but endures, and is getting more like our beloved father every day.

The effect on me has been wonderful-I now have the benefit of a sunny aspect with no onward chain as it where-I am the start of a new thread, from which flows my children, with little or no hindrance from above-save they still get the odd card or phone call. They are old enough to deal with their grandparents as they see fit, and relate to them in their own way but now it's on the table what weird people that they are. Prior to this I was always given the negative side of any aspiration and generally decided that it, whatever it was, was doomed to failure from the offset. Now, with no 'parental' influence I have sailed through an access course(what us dim old people use to get into Universe City)and am now in Yr 2, doing fine thanks for asking.

They really can f**k you up, your mum and dad-but most have us seem intelligent people muddling through and sorting ourselves out afterwards, don't we?

Hi Jordan. I have to say that I don't agree with the premise of the Prometheus lot. It just isn't meaningful to talk about such stratospheric IQs or people who constitute one in tens of thousands. We're practically down to the level of individual differences, rather than properties of a sample of a population.

Who writes the test material? I don't accept a time stressed method of testing, as intelligence is sometimes to do with slowness when a less bright person might come up with an apparently obvious, but wrong, answer. The word 'satisfice' comes to mind. It's one of my faves along with 'factoid'.

Ok guys, does god exist, doesnt he/it/concept. Who cares. Personally Though a catholic my view of God is that all things in this universe is chaotic but not random. I look up at the stars and I feel a connection. Its like asking a person ife they love their mother or father, the person saying yes and the questioner saying "PROVE IT!" (sorry, knicked from a film but preety accurate"

No God is quite easy to explain.

What is more intresting and far more contraversial which will have women and men at each others throats is this:

WHY DO WOMEN PREFER JERKS OVER NICE GUYS.

Consider this.Women say they want men that care about them, and it makes sense that they should want them. Hence they have been asking us for some time to Look beyond meer physical attraction and to their core personalitys. However why do they refuse to do the same. They are attracted to a mans security quota but not a mans true values, even though in the long term it spells heartbreak for them because how atracted you are to a person is a bad indicator of whether you are good for them. In short We men are meant to look past our our primodial instincts but women can do what they wish.

By security quota I mean

man finds women physicall attractive= physically attractive

woman find man physically attractive = security with peers
woman finds man finacially attractive = security in finances
woman finds man exciting attractive = security from boredom
Woman finds man tough attractive = feeling of physical security
and finally, for when women hit over 25

woman finds man nicely attractive =emotional security (you see it has nothing to do with what he is like really, just how attractive he finds him)

I would like, indeed I crave responses from women as women refuse to discuss this. Why do we have to drop our instincts but not yourselves.
Men. I would like you point of view too!!!