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

yes 18000 posts is a bit much but ,could be a whole thesis
soon. perhaps Myndkandi,might skimm though and let us know if we have missed any points or views. must get back to previous post

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That thought had occurred to me, especially when I came across a Right-wing site (US based) referring to the Madrid bombing as 'The 3/11' on analogy to America's 9/11...
<<. I would be delighted (But also amazed) If I were to hear that the US was devoting the same level of funding to research into the causes and prevention of violence in all aspects of the world social context as the put into their military expenditure each year, we might stand at least a small chance of solving some of the problems we face.>>
Yes! I concur.

Right wing people here in NZ are already calling the Spanish *cowards*! That is an absurd and ridiculous insult...

Myndkandi, I find your posting a wee bit hard to understand - you seem to contradict yourself a bit...
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As a Christian, I take great exception to that comment! Not all Christians are the same, we're not just big monolithic lump. We have strong beliefs, but while *some* might be closed-minded, others are not.

Yes it is easy to ramble on isn't it!::

I.R.A ,Been at root of trouble in Ireland for last 100+ plus years,
half of what they have done under the guise of gaining whatever aims
the origonal greivence was about will never be known.

UK citizens lived under the fear of terrorism ::
Would disagree with that, it is because of well for 50 years i have grown up like a lot of others ,with Irish troubles , lately it has diminished, but that does not mean its finished.A straw poll i think would confirm awareness but not terror ,amonst the natives of Belfast
and Londonderry would be different yes but mainland britain i doubt it.

America has a large ira presence along with mafi triad and every other of that type of organization,and i suspect more than half funds come from there as well!

Americans also its home grown Klu Klux clan for example, far more scarey than at lot of other terrorists as they lived among "us" the CIA FBI cover ups (macarthyism/kennedy/) (pre/post/dureing vietnam)
weapons supplies to various groups.

Ten years or so ago big hoo haa about METAL PIPES other wise known as gun barrels,

Also concerning Spain it will be interesting to see what happens with Gibralta in light of "morrocan" connection or algerian or whoever they eventualy decide is responsible.

P.S 911 Lockebie being one of many ,grand hotel, Mountbatton ,Sefton.
not the same amount of death but over so many years.............never ending..............like this thread.!!!!!!!!!!

Somewhat, yes.

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In Europe it would actually be 11/3. And in Spain the abbreviation used by the newspapers is 11-M. The coincidence of this happening on the eleventh day was 'explained' in the videotape - apparently it was specifically to remind people of 9/11.

az

i'll go pne step further and have long surmised that dubya was involved with th the world trade center in order to drum up support

Although there are still plenty of unanswered questions about who knew what, and when, on that one, it's unlikely, IMO, that the US was involved in the actual planning aand execution of 9/11.

Noggin

i find it interesting that the madrid incident occurred exactly 911 days after the world trade center

Have you counted, crazyhorse? I heard that February 29 hadn't been taken into account, so in fact it was 912 days. But I haven't bothered to count either.

az

semantics you ca can use the same argument for the julian calender as it was adjusted by the romans bush was selling cocaiocaine at the same timeime he was declaring his"war on drugs""

I find it pretty hard to understand how so many different poeple of all different faiths are able to believe so strongly in something ('God') which has never been seen.
Take the bible, who is to say it wasn't written by the William Horwood of the time, who fancied writing a nice fairy story? Yet a huge amount of people beleive it! If you were to read in the newspaper tomorrow that someone had walked on water, you'd think it was April fools!
Also, how can something that has caused so many wars in the past be seen as great? Not to mention famine, drought, disease........

Hi, Emma. Nobody has seen an electron or even the wind. That doesn't stop us believing in them. OK, we see their effects. But we see the whole universe and need to explain how that got started. It's no use saying 'it just did' or 'there was a big bang' which amounts to the same thing. We need something or someone to have started it unless it has existed forever, which is impossible as I think I can prove.

toxx

toxx

You may find A2421208 of interest (No, it's not mine), especially the bit about ideal concepts.

"An ideal concept is one which can be referred to explicitly, but for which there are no explicit rules for usage. The general situation is as follows; we have a concept which we feel we can apply in specific situations, but which we are unable to account for in general."

Noggin

Thanks, Noggin. I get the idea I think. A 'good' bicycle etc. I'll hit the link.

Cheers, toxx.

god is a concept by which we measure our pain

Pain is without doubt linked directly for human personification of god, though I find the Buddist perspective attractive. i.e. Life=Suffering.

I would be inclined to relate sufferring to need.

It seems to me that God is fundamentally a product of human need, we feel we need an explanation for those things we don't understand and God comes wrapped in an all questions answered packaging.

The problem from my point of view is the packaging, the commandments edicts and laws laid down by 'god' were all heard by humans and written by humans (Mainly men, which probably explains the frequently patriachal point of view 'God' appears to talk to humans from)

Personaly I find it much more straighforward to view God as the embodiment of all the forces of the universe which I either don't understand or have no control over, I find it very difficult to personify it, and find polytheism attractive as it allows me to understand the points of views of others better and seems a better representation of what appears to me to be going on on a day to day basis.

Certainly Princess Diana appeared to take on a role in the public imagination of a kind of Dyonisis figure and other 'Famous' people appear to become associated with attributes that in Roman times would have belonged to one or another demi-god.

The deification of roman emperors may well be the historical antecedent of this as it made it possible in the popular imagination for living or only recently deceased people to be worshiped as if they had been gods, Elvis Presley for instance. Allthough I think this is over the top, it seems to make more sense to me than some of the assertions of christianity for instance.

And the parallell process between the deification of Roman Emperors and the development of Christianity is an interesting coincidence.

Humans being made into gods and god becoming human, seems almost like a reactive cycle to me. Particularly since the 'deification' of Christ only appears to have truly happened in the early 4th century and was probably more about Constantine wanting a symbol of absolute authority than about the truth of the son of the Capernaum Carpenters life. In this context the human need being met was Constantine.

bush was selling cocaiocaine at the same timeime he was declaring his"war on drugs""

I have not heard this one before please tell me more?