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

Hi toxxin,

Actually, holding one's breath for a long period could be a very good way of providing the proof that people are after.

Now if we can just around the pesky matter of not being able to communicate the experimental results back to anyone else...

AM. Moth used to join us here. She has had a Near Death Experience, which is perhaps the closest thing to data that we will ever get!

toxx

They fit in, I feel where gods and oobe do, ghosts that is, "people" on the other side trying to contact us.

All the experiences I have heard personally and seen on tv or read about are so similar that they have to be *real experiences*. Whether they are really what the subject thinks they are is a different matter. The some common details in experience seem to differ from culture to culture. It may be that the subjects are subconciously adding to the reality or as I tend to feel that that they have internally generated those experinces and thus they are true human experiences but coloured by the subjects own culotural perspective.

In short at times of stress our central nervous system creates messages (somewhat like feedback or static) and still processes our surroundings despite us being unconciuos and "near to death". Afterwards thiese memories are attrinbuted to etherial interactions.

one love

"I don't really know how to respond about your particular experiences and the fact that your notes compare. I would say that it's either pure chance and coincidence and that maybe its what you want to see."

As you wish, Vix. Though, once the coincidences begin to pile up, one begins to wonder whether 'coincidence' is another one of those meaningless words used to explain away rather than explain.

"Mebbe and this is far fetched - but I wouldn't scratch it off entirely....that you are telepathic or something of that nature and your friends"

That wouldn't explain a similaity of a past experience with someone else's past experience, both occurring before we met.

"What is the word wight derived from?"

Anglo Saxon 'wiht' (pronounced the same way. For example, our word 'night' was 'niht' in AS. Tonight is Frigeniht (Fri-night or Fri-eve) and tomorrow will therefore be Frigedaeg (Fri-day) as day follows night) . The word means 'creature'.

"Are you saying that you believe in nine worlds in a philosophical sense or nine worlds that contain different spirits/wights and one of those worlds is us?"

I think I may be saying both, but you'd have to explain what you mean by the former for me to be more confident.

" You can compress your beliefs?"

It was an expression of thought. Ignore it.

"Why only nine worlds? Where did that number come from exactly?"

These are the worlds mentioned in the Eddas. The cosmology is not always exact and can shift, though the number never does.

"Are you saying I'm a heathen?....*chuckles*"

No, sweetheart; just teasing.

"I suppose that would be a correct assumption if I considered myself unreligious as regarding religion, but being as I have no stand in either court...umm..."

I'm a Heathen and I am very religious. So, unless you use the word in the derogatory Christian sense aimed at calling people who believe the sorts of things I believe unbelievers, irreligious, ignorant and the like (in which case, preferably not on these boards in front of me ) your usage makes no sense to me.

"anyway you get my drift?"

I do indeed, Vix, and it's a very good argument.

I haven't tried asking all the polytheists I come across how they view a particular god. I've only ever shared my personal description with one other person, and it married hers exactly. and she tells me it also tallies precisely with that of a third friend of ours. I haven't discussed the matter with the third friend.

I agree that doesn't prevent it being a coincidence. but I stopped believing in coincidences when I was about 20, because the word ceased to have any meaning for me. I understand the principle of statistical probabilty though (unlike Jez and some others on this list) I'm no mathmatician and cannot calculate them. All I possess is a strong sense of the religious and an equally strong forensic ability.

MV

>>I do find that miraculous that both you and Jez have compared notes with others about 'wights' and as a result discovered experiences that are similar if not the same.<<

Well, it's true - and not just two of us, whole groups of people, meeting for the first time either on the web or in real life, finding too many similarities and startling coincidences. Often these coincidences (I use the word to ensure a neutral feel to the experince) have been the direct cause of our meetings. Sometimes, especially recently, we have been finding the same experiences reported from people from differnt pagan traditions - for instance, witches and druids, experiencing wights in the same way as the heathens, but without the same cosmological twists and turns in their backgrounds...

It's one of the reasons I am heathen, and that when I talk of my religious experiences, I usually say "I know" rather than "I believe".

As for being telepathic - well, that might explain things such as shared experience when we are friends and/or close in time or space, but it doesn't work to explain - or explain away - things which have been emerging in shared background experiences before we met or, in some cases, before either of us were involved within the same pagan communities.

Jez - heathen singer and folk-witch

R. D O

>>"Confused yet?"
Yes. But Jez's responce makes me even more confused.<<

I do my best

Jez - singing poet and ambiguous heathen

AtheistM

>>I was just innocently expressing some Alyson Hannigan fandom.<<

Hmmmm....

Jez - non-Buffyist witch

MVixen

You score one with my mum,

Whereas Sceptic and I shocked each other into silence when we described our mutual friend, and have met others who know Him as well as we are honoured (carefully-chosen words) to do. And His poetry is pretty unmistakeable as well.

But, as we all know - and as I posted to a friend in an email recently - if you have been picked up and shaken by a god and had your life thoroughly ruffled, then you have little choice but to 'believe' in them. If you have not, then you have the luxury of doubt

Be very grateful Or immensely sad.

Personally, I wouldn't have missed it for the worlds - all nine (three) of them

Though at the time, it was - interesting - to say the least.

BBC - h2g2 - In fond remembrance of an interesting summer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A1903303
--
Jez - heathen and witch

H.S and Jez....

I thank you for your time and patience thanks for sharing ....as for my...uhhh...other statement the 'I am neither religious or unreligious', it wasn't really important... I saw you were teasing me....I am such a heathen infidel at times



Rudest Elf, interesting thing to say.......

Sorry to barge in again like this, but the door was open.

Thank you, Vixen; your comment (or, more accurately, your commenting) pleased me enormously. Thanks too to those others who permitted me to pass, unscathed, across this thread.

I was only teasing Toxxin, of course.....I'm certainly not equipped to engaged in debate with you guys; mind you, suffering far less from the effects of 'knowledge pollution' does have its advantages.

Oh and Toxxin, you are welcome to visit the anagram zone, whenever you wish, but why not leave us an amusing setting next time?

Noggin- Vice versa? Why? Of course we would all apply to God's notions, or I'm misunderstanding what you meant. Which is a distinct possibility.

It is not that God does not apply to ANY of our notions, it is that God would apply to ALL of them, and all the other ones, too. The essential cancellation of two opposing ideals does not alter the fact that they both apply equally to God, which is what I meant to say when I said, "God embodies all things, contradiction included." And if I haven't said it yet, I'm saying it now. I'm not reverentially backing away from formulating a potentially faith-shattering position; I'm of the opinion that there is no god, are no gods, is no spiritual connection to reality. This is my spectulation on any god-figure; that their divinity is a product of their ultimate inclusiveness.

Which creates an awful lot of interesting concepts. God would have the capacity for evil. Of course it would. Limitations immediately revoke your Godhood.

Elf. I've since discovered the cryptic clue zone, which beats the excrement out of the anagram zone.

toxx

Apatheologian

You said <..is that god is not applicable to our notions.>
And I added vice versa - ie our notions are not applicable to god.

I'm honestly not at all sure what your line of argument is trying to demonstrate, or indeed that it's anything more than word games. You say you are of the opinion that God does not exist. So what's the point of formulating a definition of him that's in any way different from the accepted one? What's new that's so potentially faithshattering?

Noggin

Good morning everyone - how about raisin and lemon pancakes, dripping with butter and honey, served with coffe of every sort and a selection of other drinks?

Jez - who is having a cup of and a smile, then going out to look for goshawks in the rain.

This may come up twice - I had an error message last time

I was just providing breakfast, however, not making a deep philosophical point, so I am not bothered that I have lost it - good morning campers!

Lemon and raisin pancakes dripping with butter, and a selection of drinks - I am having

az?

Jez - thinning heathen and walking witch - goshawk-hunting again this morning

morning Jez!

You're too late - I've just finished my muesli. But I'll have a with you. What are goshawks?

az

"What are goshawks?"

Ah - ancient Derbyshire rite. Totally illegal, but some of the local farmers still do it. Cross geese with falcons and you get a particularly large and fierce bird which is used to protect property. Not very good at flying, but vicious with burglars and rats. Better than cats or dogs. But not so good when they go feral and breed up on the moors. So each year about this time the locals organise to go up hunting for the chicks, before they get too large and nasty, round them up and hand them over to sanctuaries. The adults are known as gawks, false or cods, but the chicks are called goshawks.

...I was given to believe that goshawks were a completely separate species?

I did a search on google, and their Linnaean classification is 'Accipiter Gentilis' - 'accipiter' refers to their exceptional flight abilities, which include being able to pick up prey on the wing, and 'gentilis' to the prescription that they should only be kept by nobles.

Is that some kind of legend? I can't really see how you would get a goose and a falcon to crossbreed, where they would get the falcon from, for that matter, and I'm not sure a goose-falcon crossbreed would be possible, yet alone reproductively capable!

- Jordan