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

god is a fassinating subject, wars have been fought and billions have died defending or attacking a particular belief. here is my opinion...god is an explanation of the unexplainable, it was a primative way to accept something that one didnt understand. i believe that aliens, yup i said aliens, visited this planet long ago. aliens probably would find the abundant life interesting, they may have taken some away with them, they may have left something of themselves here.what if they experimented on some of the life forms they found? like the primates? heh heh. of course once primative humans saw one of these beings doing strange things and flying around in their space crafts its highly probable that man thought it was seeing a god of sorts. i can imagine now...seeing a ball of fire crash to earth, destroying everything around for miles, radiation everywhere. then a being walks right out of it all and looks around at what there is to see. me being a stupid ape barely able think must be in awe of this being walking away from fire blasted hell. it must be a god, hey where are you putting that probe?!!!

since God isn't an earth person then by the definition of the word he/it is an alien!

well who is to say that god inst a earth person? he could be just as much as an alien because we dont know, but also the word alien has MANY definitions so by calling him an alien you are saying hes unwanted in the case of a virus, or somebody we do not know in which case the whole catholic sociey could basiclly be screwed because they are suppose to love and know there god.

Moth. That's an extremely odd thing to say. Surely God created the universe including the Earth, and He is everywhere. I think that makes him an Earth person plus. Then we can add the fact that we are made in His image, and 'alien' just doesn't seem to be correct at all!

Hi Della ,back again briefly from insanely long periods of work....but to business;

"As I understand it, the person you call the 'dangerous doddering old fool' has quite a bit to say about the inequitable disribution of wealth!" ----When was the last time he exhorted catholic politicians to campaign against legislation favouring those who are wealthy and those who are not.

"The number and proportion of paedophiles in the Catholic church is actually considerably fewer than the number and distribution in oh, say, the teaching profession or the Scout movement!"--- What figures do you base this on? Are the personel spiritual guides for the community? Do they condemn others on high moral grounds for the very acts they perpetrate? Are they representatives of an organisation where their superiors ,when finding out of their activities fail to expose/suspend or seek help for them ,because of the damage it will do to their church?

From another post...
"I'v seen a smiliar TV programme - did you know that the doctor's sample size in this study was *six* autopsies? Respectfully, I submit that's just not large enough to prove anything from it."----- what is the number of your sample that leads you to assert that "homosexuals are made, not born." and it just not being "natural" ? While on this point how does your belief stack up against the observations (some being posted here )that homosexual behaviour is a normal /frequent occurance in the animal kingdom?

AHH fudgeit ,I'm not going to convince you of anything you don't wish to believe in anyway...I just don't have the feeling that I have the right to deny people the right to love each other just because they happen to be of the same sex. And it seems to me that all of the religions are exclusionary (is that a word) laying down rules and regulations for all and sundry,yet their own behaviour is not at all worthy of scrutiny let alone mimickry.To paraphrase someone's bible 'by their deeds will you know them'... nothing in the history of humanity leads me to follow or believe in the teachings of any god that has been worshiped .Don't get me wrong their are some fantastic insights into the human condition and how we can live / love and learn to make all of or lives better,I just don't trust those who place themselves in positions of power and I just don't see the need for a / any god.

Now back to work...

yeah i agree, The catholic church or infact any religion has the right to tell you what you can or cannot do. there are somthings tthat are just morally wrong like muder or rape, but who is to say the same sex cannot love each other? it sucks that people are beign forced to hide their love becuase of the discrimination against them.

Hello Happy Door,

So we were feeling just a mite provocative were we? Let us look closely at what you chose to contribute to our little soiree...

"Just a word to the few atheists bothering to contribute here... I know you feel outnumbered but don't give up!"

In fact Happy Door there are a well-informed and very active group of atheists here. They have contributed excellently to numerous subjects the length and breadth of the near-11,000 posts to this thread. They are neither outnumbered nor as beleaguered as you like to believe. I suggest you read some of their words .

"It's up to us to correct everybody else, and atheism is spreading all over the world."

Why? What makes you think you have the corner on all wisdom? This is a very arrogant statement and makes me wonder just to what lengths you are prepared to go to correct us? Have you ever heard that freedom of choice is a cornerstone of a rational state?

"There will be a time in the not-too-distant future when the only theists left will be the uneducated underclasses, and sooner or later, they too will wake up and smell the stinking pile of hypocrisy, ignorance, blindness and bsht that is religion."

Unfortunately this "not-too-distant future" is receding rapidly into the distance my friend. The demographic area of greatest growth of interest in spirituality and religion is amongst the educated middle-classes.

From your tone and some of the phrases you use I expect that you are an admirer of Aldous Huxley's seminal work on personal freedom of belief and action - Brave New World. In this the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons - the equivalent of your "uneducated underclasses" - are indeed released from the bonds of intellectual religion. Perhaps you should read the book to see the end result of this.

As for all religion being a "stinking pile of hypocrisy, ignorance, blindness and bsht" I suggest you look at the alternatives. Where religion has been suppressed and replaced by supposedly benevolent and rational rule, such as; Communist Russia and China, and Pol Pot's Cambodia.

Perhaps it is not religion that tend towards "hypocrisy, ignorance and bsht", but humanity, or more correctly - human society. You note I have edited out the term "blindness", it is unnecessary and possibly insulting.

"(With apologies to the genuinely blind)" - An example of human hypocrisy in action as I seriously doubt that you are in any way sorry for what you have said.

Every now and then we get a statement like this, full of 'moral outrage', but totally lacking in content or reason. It saddens me as I thought the point of this now long and venerable forum was to explore the many and various views on the existence of 'God', and the effect that this existence or non-existence has had on us all, in an atmosphere of intellectual comradeship and mutual respect.

Perchance Happy Door you may wish to contribute some of your reasoning for this short, but unnecessarily unpleasant, statement and let us explore it more fully.

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

"Try Ecclesiastes to get really depressed!!!"

I can't see the point

Hi NTDWA,
Intesting time to be alive,14...my daughter is 13 and 7 months --- she vehemently denies any suggestion of 14 despite my explanations ,and I think this independence is requisite.My step son is 29 and is happy to not be 14,so it's all relative --small

The need for a god or in my opinion an answer, is a curious habit that the human race has formed.It appears to me that, from a general wonderment of the world/observable universe, around them, we developed rationals to explain and understand that which we knew to be beyond us at the time.Perhaps this was an intuitively artistic response to the grandeur of the physical universe.

As we have grown in experience as a race, and as indiviuals, learning on the backs of the discoveries made before us ,so has our understanding,with the need for a supernatural explanation being lessened.Yet this is not true for a large number of us who require the comfort of an answer,or have felt a need of a belief in the existence of something outside/greater than our human/ mortal framework.For myself I am quite happy to accept that we don't have all the answers and just don't know ,that we are at a moment in time and development in learning and discerning the universe around us....I just don't need a god to be the answer,or even a viable part of the equation

Peckish. Lets not equate an answer with God, but just look for an answer to some fact that demands explanation. Why is there anything? Let's at least try to answer that and not presuppose or rule out possible answers.

If the explanation turns out to be God or something like Him, why protest? Surely you wouldn't do that if this were conventional scientific research. Natural Theology aims to assimilate these questions to scientific method. Don't you think that is rather a good idea?

agreed and no doubt better than anything I could come up with!off now for a holiday in the great outdoors.Time to refresh my city psyche with the beauty ,grandeur and simplicity of nature....goin'walkabout.

agreed and no doubt better than anything I could come up with!off now for a holiday in the great outdoors.Time to refresh my city psyche with the beauty ,grandeur and simplicity of nature....goin'walkabout.

agreed and no doubt better than anything I could come up with!off now for a holiday in the great outdoors.Time to refresh my city psyche with the beauty ,grandeur and simplicity of nature....goin'walkabout.

oops!

I don't see them.

Sometimes, when I have trouble doing or deciding things, I recite lists of prime nimbers, or try to factor things to find them. I often start to feel a certainty that one decision is right, or reassurance that what I'm doing is right. I attribute this to the primes, though you would probably think it was Jesus or YHWH, and JEz or Math might think it was one of their gods. Fnord would probably think of it as nothing more than my imagination and more and more these days I wonder if that might be true.

You've got my number down well, Inverted Conspiracist.
A question, then, for the imaginative schizophrenic - your conspiracy of primes. Is it an ironic joke, statement on reality, whatever, AKA Discordianism? Or is it a specific thing you believe? Or is the way you express an intelligence emergent in the universe?

Discrimination? Do we a favour! Last night I were sat watching TV, and watching an innocent programme, I thought, just having a coffee, and on screen comes without warning - massive gay sex scenes! TV in NZ here is full of gay sex, we have Queer Nation, Will and Grace, Shortland Street, and more. I'd bet there is less straight sex, no, I know it!
I have had gay people say to me in the 1980s, that they deeply *wanted* to be 'in your face', now they are. Discrimination would mean they weren't.

>>AHH fudgeit ,I'm not going to convince you of anything you don't wish to believe in anyway...I just don't have the feeling that I have the right to deny people the right to love each other just because <<

Right back at ya, Peckish. I'm not going to convince *you* of anything, since you so clearly have got your mind made up that you *want* to be oppressed, brave though discriminated against etc...
No one's denying you the right to love whomever you choose, just don't make me watch, or listen to you talk about it all the time. (See my remarks on TV shows, to someone else, probably right above this.)

Hi Della

Truly the worst possible thing in this life that can happen to anyone is to lose your child, my heart goes out to anyone who has experienced such a terrible tragedy, I can,t begin to make sense of it, and I would fight to the death to protect my own children, it,s only when you become a mother that you can possibly understand that depth of passion, I guess that becomes your whole reason for existance, to rear your children, so for all single mums out there I have the greatest respect, most of my girlfriends are single mums, with a few exceptions, they chose that path because it was prefereable to being in an abusive relationship that caused pain to the kids, by the constant fighting and arguments.

It is a brave decision to make, and a very difficult one, with a whole lot of responsibilities that have to be shouldered alone, no-one takes such a decision lightly, may I also add that I have the same respect and admiration for single dad,s as well, my brother was one, because his wife died at 29, leaving him to rear two children aged 4 and 6 alone and he did a pretty good job of it, they are now lovely responsible adults, and my brother is very proud of his achievment.

Yes, I do believe that God is my friend, I talk to him as a friend, I believe that he loves each and everyone of us, I also believe that when someone dies that they do not stop existing in spirit, I have personal experience that convinces me that the soul continues, and I do believe that there is something much richer in the afterlife, yet even that belief, that surety does not allow me to accept the suffering and torment of the people who remain on this earth, when the most dearest and loved person is taken from them, when my dad died, I thought that nothing ever, ever could hurt me more, (he was 58), but somehow that is more acceptable, more natural, that your parents would die before you, so losing a child must be almost more than any person can possibly bear, it goes against the whole law of nature.

Jane