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

Hi Albaus

This may take a while.

First let's get this discussion back into it's original context. P-C posted a link to an interesting article that sugests that there is a relationship between group survival strategies and religion.

I see this as a logical argument. The existence of a group survival strategy seems self-evident, when it is considered, and furthermore in human terms, our group survival strategy would be some form of moral code, a framework for handling interpersonal relationships. Since Judaism, Xianity and Islam deal almost exclusively with morality, the link seems even stronger.

Now while I am more than willing to concede that the factual basis of the Bible is more than a little questionable in places, being the open minded chap that I am, I also try to remember that some parts of the Bible could actually have been written by pretty fair scholars and intelligent men to boot.

Plus if one is looking for an historical document that goes back several thousand years, then one isn't spoilt for choice. The Bible is as good as it gets.

So, if we are looking at the Bible as a say an historical record for evidence of a particular group survival strategy, then one rapidly comes up with the two sections I've already mentioned.

So look at the ten commandments in context. They were the instruments of a religion, ergo the first few deal with defining and identifying the group concerned on the basis of their particular religion. The rest provide a simple framework for a group to manage their particular interpersonal (and intertribal) relationships.

Given this, why dismiss them as a joke? Your interpretation and subsequent disection of the commandments is based on your personal prejudices. My support of them is based on the presumption that they were a valid group survival strategy.

As a starting point they aren't bad. They are simple (there's only ten and four of them say much the same thing) and they are direct. If you have a fractious bunch of people stuck in the middle of the desert the last thing you want is open tribal warfare, or theft.

You then choose to make some distinction between various forms of theft.

Now this is where the first bunch of crap (Deuteronmy) comes from. The moral code was written for a specific purpose - to get the Jews through the desert and set up in Canaan. The laws, were written afterwards as a way of trying to step around the commandments because they were no longer applicable to the new society. Hence we distinguish between theft, libel, abuse, GBH, ABH, fraud, deception, etc. One law does not fit all in our modern society. It could well have done in a smallish nomadic tribal group.

However as we have already said, the ten commandments aren't perfect, but they were a starting point and they predate just about anything else.

The philosophy espoused by Jesus, is much more promising. And I agree, he wasn;t the first to say it - he was just the first Jew. His approach (although borrowed) cuts through the crap of law and gets right down to real morality. It seems that the really deep thinkers understand that as group survival strategies go, do unto others etc. is a much more successful approach than anything that can be embedded in law. It is an ideal to aspire to.

As for your own second commandment (MYOB) I'm sure that sooner or later you will appreciate the flaw. This forms no part of a moral code, much less a successful group survival strategy.

I'm sorry if you feel that I have ignored salient points in any of your arguments.

Hopefully you will see from the above that I'm was considering this debate in the context of the link provided by P-C.

Hence while your disection of the ten commandments was entertaining, it was largely irrelevant. I know as well as you that they aren't a suitable long-term moral code. You ably demonstrated that they don't work when taken out of context.

Madent (a he not a she)

Hi BtM

I probably shouldn't have written a reply to both youself and Albaus.

I noted your strong objection, to whit -

Me - The inconsistencies you describe have been introduced over centuries and millenia by the church, which has indeed become like a grocery store.

You - I strongly disagree. The inconsistencies are inherent into the book... though the church did introduce more inconsistencies, there are plenty enough that were already there. The Bible started as an oral tradition of stories from many different sources and basic philosophies. The Hebrews collected them together, and that's the OT. It couldn't possibly be consistent.

You are quite right. What I meant to say (if I haven't already) was that a lot of the inconsistencies in what we laughably call the Bible, were written in by the original authors. For example the laws of the Jews based on Genesis, Deteronomy, Leviticu, et al contradict their own commandments. This is besides any further editting of the text by the RC church.

At the time I was thinking that church = all the original authors, plus subsequent editting.

Hope that clears that up.

Hello there azahar,

I think we may have been at crossed purposes with this: I said: "I think it was indeed necessary as it is rude to completely ignore salient points in a debate and to keep repeating points which have been dealt with previously. I think this is poor etiquette and shows an inability or refusal to think through the issues." Then you said: "Sorry, I disagree. It is never necessary to be rude."

My point was that Madent Was being discourteous by deliberately ignoring what I had said. I pause at this point to feel some sympathy for Madent who is going to have to wade his way through all these posts with me saying this and you and Blatherskite saying that.....he'll hardly know where to start .

>You might imagine someone else being rude to you by not replying in a way you had hoped for - but that is also not rude, just you feeling disappointed.

Not at all, there is no imagination involved. A large part of his/her post was based on re-iterating points that I had already contradicted. At the very least he should have replied to my many points before reiterating what I had clearly and effectively argued against. I was not being rude, I was merely responding in kind to a lack of courtesy, albeit in a not particularly friendly fashion. If I were talking to Madent, and I said something, several times and in several different ways - and he/she ignored it and continued to repeat what I had clearly refuted - I would consider that discourteous. Just so in a reasoned debate. I would have understood if it had been one sentence or comment which Madent had neglected to address, as it might have been overlooked. Hardly the case here though. He/she saw what I had written, but it did not fit his dialogue, so he/she ignored it. I chose not to ignore being ignored. I do not consider that rude, perhaps overly assertive and not particularly friendly - but not rude. Again, I will have to think about my responses in future and I thank you for pointing out how it came across.

>Perhaps I could have been a little less biting - I do have a tendency to snap when irritated.

Yes this is true. I don't suffer fools gladly. And sometimes I don't suffer people who may not be fools but have said something foolish gladly. I recognise this is a flaw in me, as I also occasionally (but not often! ) say something foolish.

>everything discussed on every single thread here on hootoo matters not at all in any real way.

I couldn't agree with you more. It just keeps the brain ticking over. In the grand scheme of things, if there is one, this matters not a jot. Having said that, there is no point coming to the debate feeling it doesn't matter as there would be no debate.

>But I still hold out for basic good manners and treating people with respect.

As do I, as did I.

>Don't worry - am not singling you out or saying you are specifially rude

I'm not, lol.

>I try to get people to treat each other 'excellently' - though more often than not I end up with loads of people telling me to go to h*ll and mind my own business.

Bill and Ted was one of my all time favourite movies.

>Anyhow, none of us are 'right' about anything. We just have our opinions. Which we are sharing here.

I agree with that, to a point. It might not be possible to be right, but I believe it is possible to be wrong. And that is when you try to control other people's lives - as do many and most religions. There is only one "sin" and that is to deliberately hurt other people - as the Jehovah's witness lady I had at the door a month or so ago was most disgruntled to hear....

Regards

We're on the same page, then, Madent.

Incidentally, I don't really consider the OT authors to be authors, but editors. They took different bits and pieces of oral tradition, and tried to put them together in some kind of coherent form. Those traditions had had a few millenia to evolve, so they probably only loosely resemble the originals.

I think the editors were trying to be faithful to those differences. For instance, they could have decided to choose one or the other of the creation stories, but they chose not to. They decided that both creation stories were part of their cultural heritage, and so recorded both.

At the risk of being perceived as anti-Christian ... how anybody ever decided that such a work should be considered the inerrant word of god is beyond me. Clearly, they missed the point.

Hi Blatherskite,

Re: >I think a good general rule is when you start talking about the person, rather than the topic, it has become an argument.

I don't believe I was talking about Madent, only about the fact that I didn't like repeating ad nauseum what he had chosen not to address.

>I think Madent took on board your criticisms, and he took the argument in a different direction.

Really? I think Madent took the argument in a different direction because he had no response to my comments and it was only after that that I made any criticism.

>My overly simplistic interpretation of this conversation, as it has developed so far, goes like this

Not bad actually, a fair synopsis.

>A more appropriate response may have been to discuss the 10 commandments in the historical background in which they were introduced. Or a discussion of how we have evolved beyond them.

No, this was the entirely appropriate response. I had told Madent that I found the 10 c's nonsensical (can't recall my exact words, can't be arsed looking ). He said please elaborate - I did. It was neither relevant or necessary at that point to give any historical background or discuss the evolution from them - and I am sure if you re-read the posts this will be clear. He asked, I answered. In addition, under any historical circumstances and background they would still be nonsensical - for the present, and it is the present that was relevant. We can talk about the relative historical or literary merits of the ten c's separately if you really want to - but that is not why the ten c's were brought up by Madent and it is not what I was responding to.

Cheers

I give up.

I GIVE UP.

You guys do what you want - and I am sure you will!

I'm going to bed now.

very azzzzz

Az

For someone who is going to bed, you seem reluctant to sign off.

The eyes give you away....

Hello Madent

>that sugests that there is a relationship between group survival strategies and religion.

I answered this in my post to FM. I have already said as much.

Let's just remind ourselves why I posted my response to you at all. You said the following: "What I was trying to indicate was that when you cut away the cr*p from the *Good Book*, you are left with two simple passages; the words of two men, centuries apart. The first passage is the ten commandments"

And I responded with: "I disagree entirely with your idea that the ten commandments have any merit as a set of guidelines for any society, nor do I believe they even have as much merit as the statement "Be Excellent to each other".....I'll go over it in more detail if you wish, but I thought I'd spare you all from my stating of the obvious.

Madent's response was: "Please elaborate."

So I did.

You did not like my explanation and had no argument when faced with the how useless these "commandments" were, hence the attempt to sidetrack the debate.

However, I have absolutely no intention of giving the bible any more merit than I would any other book. I don't live my life by Moby Dick and I won't be doing it by the bible either. It is a book, just that. Some of it is interesting, some educational and the vast part either dull or violent and frankly repulsive.

>I also try to remember that some parts of the Bible could actually have been written by pretty fair scholars and intelligent men to boot.

Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Einstein, Socrates - to name but a few. Interesting, intelligent and probably educated men. Should you live your life in a certain way because they say so? Hell no. Work it out for yourself, anything else is based on laziness and/or fear.

>So look at the ten commandments in context.....Given this, why dismiss them as a joke?

Because they are a joke, if you are trying to say (as you were) that they are any sort of a guideline for life. At best a joke. In a historical sense they might be interesting, but they have no merit whatsoever as a moral guide.

>Your interpretation and subsequent disection of the commandments is based on your personal prejudices. My support of them is based on the presumption that they were a valid group survival strategy.

My interpretation is based on years of learning and free-thinking without the shackles of religion. Your support of them is based on the fact that you were potty trained into believing in them or something similar many years ago and haven't managed to break the habit yet.

>As a starting point they aren't bad. They are simple (there's only ten and four of them say much the same thing) and they are direct.

They are not only bad they are dreadful. Most of them are an absolute waste of space and time. The ONLY validity these rules have is if you believe they are the word of your god. If you don't believe that, they have no validity at all. If they are the word of your god, you need to get a different god.

It is that simple. Really.

>If you have a fractious bunch of people stuck in the middle of the desert the last thing you want is open tribal warfare, or theft.

You keep coming back to this, but killing is not murder and theft can be justified - in a bunch of people stuck in the desert or anywhere else. They are we and we are they, the only difference is geography. I have explained all this. This is what I mean about re-explaining myself ad-nauseum.

>You then choose to make some distinction between various forms of theft.

What on earth does this mean? I make no distinction. Nor does your god. Your god says thou shalt not steal. I say No rape or child abuse. Can you honestly not see the difference?

Did you even try to read the link I put in my last post to you? It has all you need and more. I have absolutely no intention of debating the wholly babble as though it were anything more than a book written by a bunch of dead guys. There is nothing I could add to what Robert Ingersoll has said, he says it beautifully.

>As for your own second commandment (MYOB) I'm sure that sooner or later you will appreciate the flaw. This forms no part of a moral code, much less a successful group survival strategy.

Again, it turns out that saying it is so doesn't make it so, so instead of making statements without any foundation because you wish it were true, how about supporting your comments? I can certainly support mine. MYOB is a beautiful rule and should be applied throughout all societies in conjunction with Do Unto Others..... If you disagree, explain why.

>Hence while your disection of the ten commandments was entertaining, it was largely irrelevant.

Glad it was entertaining, I aim to please .

As I pointed it out it was entirely relevant since it was a direct response to your request to elaborate. It is also relevant to anybody who might be under the misapprehension that the 10 c's are worth a second look for a moral guide.

Basically, you asked, I answered. I realise that my answer didn't suit you, so it would be easier for you to ignore my answer or move the debate away from it, but I am rather tenacious that way - I like to stick to the point.

>I know as well as you that they aren't a suitable long-term moral code.

So why did you indicate that they were?

>You ably demonstrated that they don't work when taken out of context.

No, they do not work at all, they are narrow and almost without merit. In any society they would be the same.

I hope I don't have to repeat all this again.

Exhaustedly...

hi Madent,



It's true, started chatting with a hootoo friend on msn. Going to feel like total sh*t in the morning.

az

This thread just gets more and more interesting. If only I hadn't agreed not to post here... alas!
(Madent, the online eyes merely show who's posted in the last fifteen minutes, unfortunately...)

Hi Fnord

I don't remember you agreeing not to post here? Seriously, I don't. Even if you did, what the heck, rules were meant to be broken (especially that one about not taking the lord's name in vain ).

Your input would be welcome, whatever your beliefs or lack thereof.

Cheers

Fnord is just being over-sensitive (I can tell because I am the over-sensitive queen on hootoo)

Anyhow, he's also a big fat liar because he just posted, didn't he?

No use stopping now, Fnord!

az

(who seriously should be in bed . . . )

As my friend Debbie used to say "sleep is for weak people". I have been up most of the night with a sickly sprog and as I also tend to suffer from insomnia I have had maybe 2 hours sleep in between posting on here. It's daytime now, so what the heck, I'll catch up later....

Meh, maybe you're right, Az.
Albaus - It's on my personal page, thread "A sad first". A few pages back someone (I think it was Az) said they'd leave, and I was in the middle of a debate with Pattern-Chaser with them at the time, so I said something along the lines of "Oh no, (user), don't leave! It'll be much more boring around here! And I need someone to help me challenge P-C!", and P-C took exception.

Or there's that other one - 'you'll have plenty of time to sleep when yer dead!'

I am also quite the insomniac. Though it usually doesn't take this particular form - me staying up too late. Normally I can fall asleep just fine at a reasonable hour, then about 2 or 3 my eyes fly open, my heart starts beating madly and I realize - I AM AWAKE. And usually for the rest of the night.

Thought about setting up my computer next to my bed but - nah. Then I might not ever sleep.



az

ps
hope the sprog is better soon

That does ring a vague bell actually - scurries off to have a look at your personal page....

Hi, Albaus

>>that sugests that there is a relationship between group survival strategies and religion.

>I answered this in my post to FM. I have already said as much.

Yep, you did in post #3436 where you said, "Yes I get that point". So exactly why are we having thios discussion?

>>Let's just remind ourselves why I posted my response to you at all. You said the following: "What I was trying to indicate was that when you cut away the cr*p from the *Good Book*, you are left with two simple passages; the words of two men, centuries apart. The first passage is the ten commandments"

>And I responded with: "I disagree entirely with your idea that the ten commandments have any merit as a set of guidelines for any society, nor do I believe they even have as much merit as the statement "Be Excellent to each other".....I'll go over it in more detail if you wish, but I thought I'd spare you all from my stating of the obvious.

I suspect that "I disagree entirely with your idea ... ten commandments ... any merit ... for any society", means that you are putting words in to my mouth. In the context raised, my main proposition was that the ten commandments had merit for the society in which the were derived. I'm sorry if this has caused confusion, especially because of all of these really long posts.

>Madent's response was: "Please elaborate." So I did.

And thank you. An illuminating elaboration.

>You did not like my explanation and had no argument when faced with the how useless these "commandments" were, hence the attempt to sidetrack the debate.

Sidetrack? The context of the discussion was already set. So who is sidetracking?

>However, I have absolutely no intention of giving the bible any more merit than I would any other book. I don't live my life by Moby Dick and I won't be doing it by the bible either. It is a book, just that. Some of it is interesting, some educational and the vast part either dull or violent and frankly repulsive.

You are entitled to your opinion. Some people feel that there is too much of a self-help book culture prevalent today. However there is guidance within some books that is demonstrably useful.

>Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Einstein, Socrates - to name but a few. Interesting, intelligent and probably educated men. Should you live your life in a certain way because they say so? Hell no. Work it out for yourself, anything else is based on laziness and/or fear.

I take issue with what this viewpoint suggests. Language and communication are a fundamental element of learning. If one is not to learn of differing viewpoints through reading and either agreeing with or rejecting the conclusions, allusions and metaphors of the writer(s), how can one expand on one's own personal experiences sufficiently for one to form meaningful conclusions regarding one's own manner? We learn through not only our own experiences, but also the experiences of others. Should I reject Einstein, Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Da Vinci, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes just because I have failed to experience the things that they experienced?

>>So look at the ten commandments in context.....Given this, why dismiss them as a joke?

>Because they are a joke, if you are trying to say (as you were) that they are any sort of a guideline for life. At best a joke. In a historical sense they might be interesting, but they have no merit whatsoever as a moral guide.

I take it that you chose to ignore the context.

However, I maintain that my original proposition was that the commandments were a relevant moral code for the time in which they were written. My apologies if this continues to be misunderstood.

>>Your interpretation and subsequent disection of the commandments is based on your personal prejudices. My support of them is based on the presumption that they were a valid group survival strategy.

>My interpretation is based on years of learning and free-thinking without the shackles of religion. Your support of them is based on the fact that you were potty trained into believing in them or something similar many years ago and haven't managed to break the habit yet.

*&ll&£$%. Please pardon the language. [At this point I really tried to take your post apart so that I could make my response easier to read, but was stuck with >> for me in an earlier post and > for you in your last one. Sorry if it's hard to follow.]

>>As a starting point they aren't bad. They are simple (there's only ten and four of them say much the same thing) and they are direct.

>They are not only bad they are dreadful. Most of them are an absolute waste of space and time. The ONLY validity these rules have is if you believe they are the word of your god. If you don't believe that, they have no validity at all. If they are the word of your god, you need to get a different god.

>It is that simple. Really.

>>If you have a fractious bunch of people stuck in the middle of the desert the last thing you want is open tribal warfare, or theft.

>You keep coming back to this, but killing is not murder and theft can be justified - in a bunch of people stuck in the desert or anywhere else. They are we and we are they, the only difference is geography. I have explained all this. This is what I mean about re-explaining myself ad-nauseum.

I agree. So? Killing is not necessarily murder; self defence seems pretty good to me, and I wouldn't count it as murder. Theft to feed starving children might also carry some weight.

But for a bunch of nomads in a desert any killing might be best pre-judged as murder. The punishment might be extreme (death or exile), but would potentially be a better deterent than a slap on the wrist for justifiable homicide. As for theft, for a bunch of nomadic tribes, the admonition against theft and jealousy takes on a new dimension (at least for me).

>>You then choose to make some distinction between various forms of theft.

>What on earth does this mean? I make no distinction. Nor does your god. Your god says thou shalt not steal. I say No rape or child abuse. Can you honestly not see the difference?

Have you not read my postings? Of course I can see the difference! The pertinent question is whether the Jews of Exodus could see the difference, or rather if the difference was relevant to a bunch of nomads who were dependent on each other for survival? Problably not. A child abuser would be as much a threat to group survival as a thief.

As to my god? I'd refer you back to an earlier dialogue between myself, P-C, BtM and agcBen, but I wonder whether the concepts would have any meaning ... at all.

>Did you even try to read the link I put in my last post to you? It has all you need and more. I have absolutely no intention of debating the wholly babble as though it were anything more than a book written by a bunch of dead guys. There is nothing I could add to what Robert Ingersoll has said, he says it beautifully.

I read it and I'm sorry if this is the foundation of your argument. As an example - "All the laws found in Exodus, including the Ten Commandments, so far as they are really good and sensible, were at that time in force among all the peoples of the world." - is this a condemnation of the ten commandments? No. To me it reads as if Ingersoll has at least grudgingly accepted that the there is some merit in them - that they capture literally some aspects of what were at that time generally accepted tenets of a moral code, i.e. group survival strategy. His further disection of the other books of the bible does little to support your argument and lends further weight to my own.

>>As for your own second commandment (MYOB) I'm sure that sooner or later you will appreciate the flaw. This forms no part of a moral code, much less a successful group survival strategy.

>Again, it turns out that saying it is so doesn't make it so, so instead of making statements without any foundation because you wish it were true, how about supporting your comments? I can certainly support mine. MYOB is a beautiful rule and should be applied throughout all societies in conjunction with Do Unto Others..... If you disagree, explain why.

Fair enough. So when you are lying, broken, in the midst of a car crash, I'll just drive on, shall I? MYOB in action. If do unto others is a valid moral position, then one cannot wander through life ignoring the situations of others. One must be prepared to lend unconditional aid to those in need, which means keeping your eyes open, not shut.

>>Hence while your disection of the ten commandments was entertaining, it was largely irrelevant.

>Glad it was entertaining, I aim to please.

>As I pointed it out it was entirely relevant since it was a direct response to your request to elaborate. It is also relevant to anybody who might be under the misapprehension that the 10 c's are worth a second look for a moral guide.

>Basically, you asked, I answered. I realise that my answer didn't suit you, so it would be easier for you to ignore my answer or move the debate away from it, but I am rather tenacious that way - I like to stick to the point.

Stick to the point? Which was?

>>I know as well as you that they aren't a suitable long-term moral code.

>So why did you indicate that they were?

I didn't (or least certainly didn't intend to, even if I did). However, what I do recognise is that there is a certain level of insight required to arrive at them in the first place. It is this that particularly interests me. Not what was actually written (which would be shaped by the language and circumstances of the person at the time), but what they were actually thinking and feeling at the time. I suspect that Moses had reached that point that Fowler (see A937767 for an overview and most of the rest of the Belief project) might have described as Stage VI in his thinking, but would have had to frame his personal opinions in a manner that could be understood by others who were largely Stage III and below.

>>You ably demonstrated that they don't work when taken out of context.

>No, they do not work at all, they are narrow and almost without merit. In any society they would be the same.

I disagree. They may be without merit in modern society (I say may but I suspect that we would both agree that they ARE without merit in modern society) and your advocate Ingersoll agrees with me that they had merit at the time they were written. So would you like to reformulate your position or, shall we call it a day?

>Exhaustedly...

Ditto

Albaus, Madent . . . .

well, I can see my work is done here - well done both of you!



az

buenas noches!

Name:M.A.L -3

Chair title: The Chair of Polished Wood

Any beliefs you'd like to list so we can make fun- er... discuss them: Negentropy and Adolation of the Teletubbies for Semantic Decontamination.