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

He was, wasn't he?

Indeed he was! Clever and cunning in the wise of politics. But while he is most commonly associated with evil political manipulation, mhe doesn't always talk such - much of his writings concerns basic principles of being a good Prince and how best to serve them. Not *most*, of course, but...

Mostly harmless. (Redeemable as well, of course!)


Don't be too sure. I know of many priests who aren't Christian. Most of them were when they started, but they changed their views, yet kept on with their work because - well, it's a living, basically.

<'Your God doesn't consider us equal in value for otherwise he would not treat us differently, putting faith in some people's paths and not others, creating an elect to go to heaven and leaving everyone else to die.'>

Sorry to nag, but the faithful and discreet slave of Matt 24:45 is the name for the body of men who write and distribute the biblical literature (since this meets the description in the Bible of 'giving [the other slaves] their food at the proper time').
Those who are to go to heaven have many names - the annointed, the remnant, the little flock (Luke 12:32) - and their role is to assist Jesus in judging and ruling over the rest of mankind, the 'other sheep'. (John 10:16, Rev 20:6, 1 Cor 6:2) And everyone else isn't left to die, otherwise there would be no other sheep for them to rule over!
Acts 2:34 - "David (whom the Bible calls 'a man agreeable to Jehovah’s heart') did not ascend to the heavens."
Matthew 5:5 - "Happy are the mild-tempered ones, since they will inherit *the earth*."
How does God put faith in some peoples way and not in others?


Matthew 15:7-9 - "You hypocrites, Isaiah aptly prophesied about you, when he said, 'This people honors me with their lips, yet their heart is far removed from me.  It is in vain that they keep worshiping me, because they teach commands of men as doctrines.'"
Matthew 7:22,23 - "Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and expel demons in your name, and perform many powerful works in your name?' And yet then I will confess to them: I never knew you! Get away from me, you workers of lawlessness."

'Mostly harmless.'




Don't be too sure. I know of many priests who aren't Christian. Most of them were when they started, but they changed their views, yet kept on with their work because - well, it's a living, basically.

I'd imagine they don't advertise the fact.

'Sorry to nag, but the faithful and discreet slave of Matt 24:45 is the name for the body of men who write and distribute the biblical literature (since this meets the description in the Bible of 'giving [the other slaves] their food at the proper time').'

Thanks for pointing that out, I shall add it to my memorybanks.

Also, merci for locating some more Biblical statements in concordance with my remarks.

- Jordan

Hot Chocolate and Shortcake biscuits

See you all on Saturday.

Pity no-one wanted to talk about ufo's and aliens as gods...

Ho hum...

Jez - who really can't concentrate on this thread when she has to work...

Oh, and is... heathen and witch

Jez
If god is not of this world god must be an.........

Jez,

What I can't understand about so many of these 'abducted by aliens' stories is that they often include, as you mentioned, aliens conducting sexual experiments (whatever that means) on their captives. Why would aliens want to have sex with humans? Surely they'd be more interested in experimenting on our brains to see how we work.

Or MAYBE they were replacing human reproductive organs with alien ones that produce aliens that look human!

Anyhow, if aliens were gods why would they need spaceships?



az

During the latter half of the 20th century there was a sense in which aliens filled some peoples need for a bigG. Some more powerful saviour/destroyerr from another place who observes and is waiting to intervene in the destiny of man. Sometimes visiting individuals from on high or sending visisons direct to the minds of humans. Anyone exposed to enough science fiction books and films might be inklined to attribute any odd experince to alien activity. How many people who see ghosts have some fascination with the subject already?

I wonder waht percentage of them were atheist by upbringing/education/choice and if the incidence of UFO experiences amongst atheists corrolates with the incedence of divine contact amongst God botheres?

As we began to discuss earlier some religious experiences have been attributed to mental illness, halucinations bought on by hunger or injesting natural psychotropics. I cant imagine that the same thing does not happen a lot in relation to UFOs.



Some one said that more than any other religion Christianity has systematically tried to eradicate other religions. Well thats sort of true.

More often than not christianity as an imperialist tool was largely used to inspire awe in people. If you fished with spears and had gods who made it sunny some days and the sea stormy on others and you were suddenly faced with people who have guns and their god can part the sea you might think twice about fighting back.Christian rulers have seen the effectiveness of christianity on their own subjects and clearly tried to graft it into their plans for subjegation of occupied people. This often backfires when some firebrand revolutionary gets hold of a bible and casts the colonists as the Egyptians and the colonised as the Israelites.


Schools in state schooling in Britain was pioneered by the church so its no surprise that education in colonial outposts did the same. In this way British cultural imperialism in places like NZ did have a distinctly christian flavour. The general model is though that christianity assimilated large parts of other religions and cultures changing itself in the process. Do I need to explain to anyone here the relationship between pagan and christian festivals?

Why do aliens fly around in spaceships? For fun of course!

QUESTION ON SPACESHIP DRIVERS THEORY TEST

What do you do if you see a space man?






















Park in it man!

I'd hope I've pointed it out enough, and I think a few other people have as well.
And it's not just the festivals either - some beliefs of many churches are from the same source. I try not to quote our literature too often here, but I feel like quoting this (from a book giving a history of Jehovah's Witnesses) because I was just reading it last night:

As witnesses of Jehovah, C. T. Russell and his associates felt a keen responsibility to expose teachings that misrepresented God, to help lovers of truth realize that these are not based on the Bible. They were not the first to recognize that the Trinity is unscriptural, but they did appreciate that if they were to be faithful servants of God, they had a responsibility to make known the truth about it. Courageously, for the benefit of all lovers of truth, they laid bare the pagan roots of this central doctrine of Christendom.
The Watch Tower of June 1882 stated: “Many pagan philosophers finding that it would be policy to join the ranks of the rising religion [an apostate form of Christianity endorsed by Roman emperors in the fourth century C.E.], set about paving an easy way to it by trying to discover correspondencies between Christianity and Paganism, and so to blend the two together. They succeeded only too well. ... As the old theology had a number of chief gods, with many demi-gods of both sexes, the Pago-christians (if we may coin a word) set themselves to reconstruct the list for the new theology. At this time, therefore, the doctrine of three Gods was invented—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.”

A question to all people who believe in a specific god, or gods, or religion.

How much do you identify with your religion? Meaning, does being a Christian, Pagan, Muslim, etc feel like it is an integral part of who you are and how you present yourself to the world? Or do you see that as a private part of your life and so you don't discuss it much with other friends?

Just wondering about that.

Having included Muslims in the above short list of religions made me realize that we have never, as long as I've been on this thread, had a Muslim here. Or a Jewish person, for that matter. Again, I wonder why? It seems to be always Christians, Pagans, Atheists, Agnostics or Pantheists. Yet the Muslim and Jewish religions are quite big-time religions. Curious.

az

There are marked differences in that across the pond, Dubya is very open about his religion but Tony's a lot more discreet.


Interesting that, isn't it? Perhaps we should advertise.

Excellent post Badge.

We have had one muslim in the past az.
We 'frightened him' away re stone throwing adulterers unfortunately.

The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
-Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

This looks like an interesting discussion, but I'm not sure I've got the stamina to read it through.

Can anyone provide a brief executive summary?

Cheers, Ras

Moth,

very good quote.

So there was a Muslim here once. Why not any Jews?

I mean, if there were more Muslims and Jews on this thread then perhaps the Christians might not feel so 'personally attacked' by others who don't belong to any of the Big Three.

az

hi Ras and welcome!

Well I reckon that if you read the first couple of pages and then the last couple of pages of this thread then you will get the general gist of things.

Otherwise, just jump in and have your say.



az

Yeah nicely said Moth. The problem is that pride tends to get in the way.