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

Saturn
Density:........ 0.706
Surface gravity: 1.159

Jupiter:
Density:........ 1.33
Surface gravity: 2.643

I had to strip down my 'puter yesterday, it was crashing every 5 minutes. I found the CPU was over heating. It has been driving me to distraction(and my wife) for months but it was so hot yesterday and the day before that I couldn't stand it anymore, I had to take drastic action. Over the last few months I have upgraded the memory, hard drive, changed my mouse and tried umteen other things to cure the problems, locking up, restarting in the middle of posting, etc.

Alji

Bod. I've told a Jewish pal of mine about my interest in natural theology. He says the Jews have a similar tradition, and he believes that the religious view and that of science are reconverging after that split that occurred during the 'enlightenment'. If religions can converge too, maybe there could be unity! I shall do what I can from the natural theology side, anyway.

Alji. Thanks for the Stats. You see that Saturn would easily float if we could find a big enough ocean!

I guess all you need to be told now is that all along you had a software problem! Stranger things have happened, or perhaps it's the trickster..........

Hello again Toxx. Happy 10,000+th.

"I'm enjoying this argument"

Fantastic - me too! I really appreciate having friends to explore the intricacies of the Problem of Suffering (fomerly known as the Problem of Evil) with me; it's that sort of area which drew me to the this thread in the first place.

Concerning the "God can't intervene to stop suffering for to do so would be to remove free will" argument, God (if he exists) DOES intervene, even if only at the point of creation. I cannot fly without mechanical assistance, for example, no matter how hard I will it. God has, through his intervention, prevented me from doing things I would like to do.

This raises the question, why has God chosen arbitrary points of intervention which prevent me from flying but allow Sierra Leone soldiers to gang-rape and mutilate thirteen-year-old girls?

Surely an appropriate intervention strategy would be to prevent consequences which worsen the happiness/suffering strategy and allow those which improve it?

Bod

Toxx.

"Therefore, He cannot make Origial Sin not to be hereditary. Original sin just IS hereditary sin. If it ceased to be hereditary, it would cease to be original."

Why? It would be original and left in the past. What's wrong with that?

Or if you mean that "Original" = "Hereditary" for this purpose, what's wrong with just ending it?

"If it ceased to be hereditary, it would cease to be original."

Good. Let it cease to exist altogether.

Bod

Hi Moth,

Not ignoring you, just haven't got to you yet and now have to go.

See you later, friend.

Toxxin:

"God cannot do what is logically impossible."

Are you not applying limits to what God can and cannot do? Is God not therefore omnipotent after all? If God created the universe He also created logic, mathematics etc and the rules therein. Those are His rules to break as He sees fit. If he can't break the rules of logic why do we suppose He can break the rules of physics, say, his wonders to perform?

F

Congrats to all posters past and present, and esp to you Bod for contributing an appropriate 10000th post.

OK, God cancels out original/hereditary and we're just left with sin. He can't get rid of that without losing freedom of action. Baby/bathwater time again!

No Toxx, not software, I know the name of this trickster.

I've had it switched on since twenty past six this morning and it is still running OK (touch wood). It's 16 July 2003 11:31:38 AM now

Alji

Bod.



OK. Now we're back to the initial conditions of the universe at the time of the big bang, are we not? This is a fair point, and with all the variables that need to be juggled, can you really say that this isn't the best of all possible worlds? Can you say whether things would be better or worse if Planck's constant were a little different?

On the other hand, you can't make it such a 'good' world that there is no freewill, if freewill is a greater good. B/b, tradeoff, compromise. Paradoxically, perfection is not good enough!

Fathom. We created logic and language. A logically impossible statement is one that has no meaning. It is therefore not God's fault that He can't do something that is unspecified.

For example, God can't draw a round square. If it could be done, a child could do it; but it is meaningless. God isn't powerless to do it, there just isn't anything specified to be done. It's no use complaining that God can't find the integer that is the square root of eleven. There isn't one!

Insight
"Who requires you to surrender your free will? You may want to be an artist, a scientist, an actor etc. There are thousands of jobs you can do (not to mention hobbies you can do, and people you can befriend) without offending Jehovah, and you're free to choose to do any of them."
no this isn't free will, it is limited free will/action
so it appears to follow that this particular God offers free will with limitations.

Since we've reached 10000, it would seem an appropriate time to ask what, if anything, everyone thinks they've learned from this thread.

Also, since Jordan said he was planning something special for that post, it seems an appropriate time to ask if anyone knows where he is? He was supposed to be visiting me a week ago, but he didn't turn up, and for the days leading up to the arrangement, and ever since, whenever I try to phone him I get 'It has not been possible to connect your call, please try again later.' My last contact with him was when he phoned me three weeks ago and arranged to come round. He hasn't posted here, and I haven't received any email from him, in about the same amount of time. Does anyone know anything of him? I'm starting to think he's had an accident or something.

Insight
Your parents did, as their parents put it in them, and as you put it in your own children. What sense would it make for him to have to make a sacrifice to remove something that he himself put there? He would be cutting off his nose to spite his own face (if I understand that expression correctly).
so who gave the 'original sin' to the first humans, who had no parents?

Toxxin

>Yes, that's exactly what I meant by what you quote. So you too believe that Noggin's assertion was false. Cool. <



I'm glad I finally believe something, I was begining to wonder if I ever would!


diversity

bod
Yes have heard original sin is karma, ie not a bad thing as the word sin implies, but a set of consequences for behaviour.
we are all born then with a set of consequences not sins.

Mornin' toxxin!

>Yep we know a lot about the planets<

toxxin... we have OBSERVED and SPECULATED a lot about planets! Through ASSOCIATION we have CONCLUDED a lot about the planets. The US has spent millions trying to decide if there is water on the top of the nearest one, and still get all excited when a deep space probe 'passes within range' of a planet, so they can collect more evidence and rewrite science!

>observations are interpreted<

ahhh, so you support my point! Thank you!

diversity

Something that just dropped into my email in box;
"I was born and raised a Roman Catholic, so I know something about suffering. At least, I thought I did.
Suffering, I was told when I was a child, is something that we should expect in life, and when it occurs we should "offer it up" for the poor souls in Purgatory.
Catholic theology taught me as a child that Purgatory is a place where souls go that are not sent straight to Hell after death. These are souls with no "mortal sins" and so are not consigned to Everlasting Punishment. But, they are not perfect, either, and so must be "purified" before entering Heaven. Hence, they
serve a "sentence" in Purgatory.
I was told in my catechism class that this "sentence" can be reduced by people
here on Earth who "offer up" their suffering on behalf of a particular soul,
thereby lowering the amount of suffering that the soul itself must endure in
order to reach purification and be eligible to move up to Heaven.
So, in this sense, suffering was good, and anything that made one suffer while
on Earth could be used as a tool to get Grandma, or some other loved one, out of
misery and into Heaven faster.
Yes, believe it or not, whole theologies are built on such ideas of a God who
would require souls to suffer in order to get to Him, but who would reduce the
suffering that is required by the amount of suffering that is being visited upon
a soul still on Earth.
Because I believed this so strongly, I actually welcomed suffering. And indeed,
as a devoted Catholic child I sometimes actually created suffering for myself in
order to have it to "offer up" to God.
Monks, nuns and devout lay people often do this kind of "penance" as part of
their discipline. In Ecuador, I stood at the bottom of the concrete steps to a
cathedral and watched pilgrims make their way up those steps on bloody knees as
a form of deliberate suffering.
That anyone would think this would please God is incredible-but millions do, and
I did, as a child.
Other traditions have also created an interesting set of thoughts around
suffering, including Jews and Buddhists. Many Jews seem to think that suffering
is simply their lot in life, and some Buddhists believe that life IS suffering,
plain and simple.
So it is not too strange to me to observe that many people have an inaccurate
concept about suffering.
As with many of the other things I believed or thought I understood about life, my thoughts have
turned completely upside-down all of my notions about
suffering.
It said, first of all, that suffering is not necessary.
Second, that God does not want us to suffer, nor does God require us to.
Suffering is something that humans inflict upon themselves. It is not
even a normal part of life.
Pain is a normal part of life, but suffering is not.
Pain is what’s happening. Suffering is our judgment about what’s
happening.
Plenty of people experience pain but do not suffer from it. A mother in
childbirth is one possible example. The woman may be experiencing pain, but she
may not be suffering at all. Indeed, she may actually be rejoicing.
A man getting his tooth pulled-a tooth that has been aching for days-could be
another example. The tooth extraction is painful, but the experience may not be
filled with suffering. In fact, the pain could actually be experienced as a
relief.
What creates suffering is our point of view about some emotional or physical
pain that we are experiencing.
There are some people who actually enjoy pain. They are called masochists.
I do not suggest that we all become masochists, but it I
do say that suffering is not necessary, and that every time we suffer it is
because we have a point of view about some pain we are experiencing that calls
that pain "bad" or "not okay."
If you thought you were going to die, but could be saved by a simple
inoculation, you would say, "stick the needle in!" And I can guarantee you that
you would not "suffer" from the pain of the injection.
The next time you are feeling some kind of pain, physical or emotional, try
changing your idea about the pain. Try altering your point of view. Imagine that
the pain is actually doing somebody some good. Maybe even yourself. Then see
what your experience is.
This is no doubt why the Catholic Church taught us to "offer up" the suffering
for the poor souls in Purgatory. I’m not sure that it really did much for the
dead, but it sure did a lot for the living. For some, it actually made the pain
they were going through tolerable. Others, as I mentioned earlier, actually gave
themselves pain in order to free some soul in Purgatory. In such a case it could
be argued that the person having the pain was not suffering at all, but getting
exactly what he wanted.
The above reasoning may not seem so outlandish when you consider that it is the
exact reasoning used by spiritual masters when they overcome and eliminate
suffering from their lives.
Spiritual masters do not suffer. They have pain, but they do not suffer. And the
reason they do not suffer is that they realize that they are getting exactly
what they wanted. And they realize this because masters know and understand that
nothing happens to anyone-nothing-which is not created by that individual. There
are no accidents, and nothing happens by chance. Everything that comes to you
comes through you.
A message that tells us that there are no victims and there are no villains.
Everything that is happening is happening exactly the way it is supposed to, and
no one is at cause but us.
This is very difficult for many people to believe, but it becomes easier to
understand and accept when we get back to the idea that : We Are All
One. If that is true, then we are One with God, and given who and what God is,
it is impossible for God or us to be victimized, or for anything to happen to
God or to us which is not self-created.
This is a high level of metaphysical thinking, but does it have any
applicability to every day life? You bet it does. It can change that life."

Insight
I have learnt a lot about myself from this thread.
It's been very hard to attempt to describe a belief system, and yet in attempting to do so, to those who can see it and those who cannot, I have crystalised what I actually do believe in to myself.
I believe that the thing we call God in many different shapes and forms, is that thing which creates and maintains the Universe and it's contents through an act of will formed by a desire to know itself. one can only observe the 'nothing' from the vicinity of the 'something'!
Consciousness is the building block of 'everything'
I believe that God has no needs or requirements, particularly the need of worship. The only form of worship God 'enjoys' but does not need, is that we love one another as the ONE thing we all are IN God. From God.
I believe we are all the son of God/Man with our own journeys in the desert and our own crucifixions and redemptions.
Our own moments of 'forsakeness' and doubt. Our own temptations and deliverances.
I have discovered that any belief system MUST satisfy the intellect and the heart simultaneously.
Those that do not do that for me I reject.
I do not believe in something that has to do with complete unquestioning faith in the perceived illogical. I do not believe in any belief system which advises killing for saving or that rationalises the obvious message that we can be superior to others by naming ourselves a particular religion, sect, organisation or cult.

If we pray to God, say for a way to London, and God tells us the shortest way, we can choose to ignore the answer and go all around the world and still achieve our destination.
We may have had some good and bad times on the journey and blame God for both, but we haven't listened to the directions, thinking we know better or that the shortest route is not the most scenic or doesn't make sense to us.
God meanwhile is aware that we will ultimately achieve our destination whether we listen or not, God just knows that we will have had the experiences of difficulty and being 'lost' in the process and this will make new people of us.
I have learnt that there is but one eternal message at the very foundatrions of all religions, cults , organisations and sects, which has been warped with time to become a very human control mechanism.
if there is one thing that humans 'enjoy' it is control over others to ensure their own survival. This is how it was meant to be to make the World function within free will.
Without freewill and the choices we are able to make, without the choice of good and evil, we have no testing ground. We have literally 'heaven on earth' which given that there is already a place we can perceive as heaven would be duplicating an environment.
Heaven already exists, we don't need two! both places fulfil different functions. One cannot exist without the other.
If all places in the Universal consciousness were likened to Nirvana, then how would we perceive it to be Nirvana?
"Oh this is nice, it must be Nivana..except what is nice since I am unaware of not nice.

Toxx, original sin just IS hereditary sin. Original sin is a myth and as Math pointed out, either means God was the originator of sin or God is not omniscient.

Shamanism:
Was Jesus/Paul a Shaman?

'I was told that people about to become shamans have fits of wild paroxysms alternating with a condition of complete exhaustion. They will lie motionless for two or three days without partaking of food or drink. Finally they retire to the wilderness, where they spend their time enduring hunger and cold in order to prepare themselves for their calling.'

THE SHAMAN'S VOCATION;
'When I was twenty years old, I became very ill and began "to see with my eyes, to hear with my ears" that which others did not see or hear; nine years I struggled with myself, and I did not tell any one what was happening to me, as I was afraid that people would not believe me and would make fun of me. At last I became so seriously ill that I was on the verge of death; but when I started to shamanize I grew better; and even now when I do not shamanize for a long time I am liable to be ill.' wrote Tiuspiut ('fallen-from-the-sky'),

Shamanism is probably the origin of all religions.

Alji