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

Ummm....*raises hand, tentatively*


<>

I don't get it

The nature of a personal god - lets just say purely hypothetically I have a personal god/s and their natures are well kind, friendly, mischevious and helpful or whatever...

....because it is classed as your basic supernatural being I can't actively explain why its there or prove its there even..does that make me a natural being with supernatural tendencies....

Ahhhh I geddit.... I think.....

Stoney. For once, I agree with you. Things can have a supernatural nature, in the sense referred to, without logical contradiction. However, I don't believe that anything does have such a nature!

I take the view, I think in common with Noggin, that if something is real, then it's natural. Are there explanations for supernatural things? Or do we just throw up our hands and say: 'Hey! It's supernatural'. I hate the idea of giving up on explanation in such a strange way. Surely it is better to seek an explanation rather than to rely on this 'supernatural' tag, which seems to me to be a licence for ignorance!

toxx

AtheistM

>><>
Oh now *that's* a damned shame! <<

In what way???

Jez - definitely /not/ Willowesque... Ask anyone who knows her

Rather than use such a term as supernatural, mebbe it would be better to use something like 'unusual' occurence....there seems to be so much divine stuff and stigma references to 'relating outside the natural world' which just exactly means what? It seems to depend on what kind of beliefs a person has, interpreting the word 'supernatural'.

Mars is nowhere near our natural world...pliaedes is just a few light years a way and again isn't near our natural world, does that make it supernatural in that we don't know all the information that can be gleaned about them....

Afternoon Toxx
Greetings Stoney

Vix. In philosophical thinking 'world' is a 'term of art'. It refers to everything there is, not just the planet Earth. If the remarks you refer to were intended in the latter sense, then I guess you'd be correct. However, I'm pretty sure that they weren't!

toxx

I was thinking in laymans terms as the 'world' meaning this 'Earth' we are currently on right now...


If we don't know where the 'world' (term of art) ends, then how do we know that there is exsistance outside of it (supernatural) and if there is, doesn't that then make it inclusive and not supernatural at all, but a part of the very nature of the world...

*phew*

I generally didn't really have much opinion on how the way the word 'supernatural' was used, until I started reading what ppl had to say on here... I generally wrote the word off as something that ghostbusters would use, and found it mildly amusing, when hearing it used..

Yo, Vix. Hey, just by mentioning that other meaning I've got you thinking philosophically. Great stuff.

We may think that there's a God who created the universe, and so isn't part of it. Note the cheating by not using 'world'. We may also think there are some very odd things going on, but assign them to some kind of mystical realm, even though they might be real. In fact, I tend to agree with you.

toxx

*puffs up and looks important*

heh!

I think #17687 catches the gist of the argument quite well, vix.

Noggin

Oh, and the use of "world" as a "term of art" comes from the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (in the tractatus logico philosophicus, which is a clue to the nickname of one of our contributors) who wrote "The world is all that is the case" in the sense - all that is the case is (constitutes) the world.

Noggin

Nogg. Think we have a recruit to the philosophical ranks? Dammit, we both agree with her!

toxx

It's the moment that opens the door to another dimension.

Noggin

oooooo....

Thanks..... *takes a bow*

Try to look nonchalant about it all...

"I think with so many wights to meet and so much to do, the 'time' leading up to Ragnarok will fly past "

Sorry, I forgot (but should have known) that your cosmology has an end--it isn't open-ended eternity.

But doesn't Baldour not die until just before the end? (Sorry for the way that question is phrased, it is not intended to be a challenge.)

"I have read that even the gods are subject to Wyrd. (deserves the initial upper case, surely)."

Indeed, they are, toxx. Everything is. But that doesn't prove the case for Wyrd having morality.

I can easily see that Heathens who have become Christians might liken the two, in order to explain Providence to other Heathens. But that doesn't mean that they were the same in this respect. It was the nearest compatible concept in Heathenry that Christians could use. In the same way, C S Lewis used the vegatative sacrificial kings as a concept in his apologia to explain how God might have used 'pictures' as he called them, to effectively prefigure the concept of Christ's sacrifice. But that doesn't mean that Lewis meant that the pagan kings sacrificed for the harvest died to expiate original sin for all mankind.

"it is a myth that unbaptised babies go to hell."

Unfortunately not so in Catholic doctrine, Della

See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02258b.htm#IX, especially from line 20 onwards.

Hi, Matholwch - baptism...
Well, it depends! I started off in the Open Brethren, who don't do infant baptism, and then went to the Salvation Army who don't do it at all. (Complicated history - they got rid of all sacraments, because Communion was causing problems with the alcoholics they ministered to.)
Now, I am Anglo-Catholic, and the belief (that I'm not 100% sure I understand)is that baptism is an efficacious sacrament.
No, I don't think your Christening would carry any weight (I was Christened Presbyterian in hospital, because I was expected to die, but obviously didn't.) Correct me if I am wrong, confirmation is at 12 or 13, so you'd have assented yourself - that being the case, God could get you for going back on your word - as 13 year olds are morally responsible.
Leastways, that's how confirmation works in the Anglican church. (I was confirmed in 1987, at 34, when Jimmy was 8 months old.)