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

He has a more irritating accent?

Who, George? Well, also a worse haircut, but really . . .

az

Name:
Chantel

Chair title:
p'zhalstuheespuhseebuh
Any beliefs you'd like to list so we can make fun- er... discuss them:
I believe I'll have a beer. Is there anyone who'll join me?

Hello Chantel, and welcome to the thread!

Won't join you in a beer since I prefer myself, but we can raise our different glasses together and say cheers!

az

What's the difference between GWB and OBL?

At the moment, the US constitution.

The way things are going it will become - GWB has more and scarier weapons.

Noggin

One more 'good book' to recommend - - - Your Sparkle Cavalcade of Death. It is a wonderful book in every sense of the word.

It's far more sinister than silly, if you ask me. The three thousand year old plague spawns a two thousand year and a one thousand year plague. Who knows what's next - - - a five hundred year plague?

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Which is changing almost daily, it would seem . . .or at least certain laws are that infringe on basic constitutional rights.

And yes, much bigger and scarier weapons. Clever to try and get the rest of the world to agree to taking away all weapons from other countries the US wants to invade . . .

az

No, MaW, I wasn't brought up Christian either... I chose to become one when I was 19, and have never seen any reason to change my mind about that, although it hasn't always been easy.
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It does refer to what we do/have done in this life, also, but it's still not a reason to assume that Christians (can, are permitted to) do whatever they feel like doing. There was a sect in Russia in, I think, the 19th century (it might have been earlier) called the Bogomils who took Paul's words about 'where sin did abound, there grace did more abound' as meaning that they had to take the fullest advantage of garce by sinning to the max. This was missing the point in a big way! We don't earn forgiveness, we ask for it, but that doesn't mean I can go slap my next door neighbour for stealing my recycling bin, cut the hose of my car-washing neighbour and rant at the noisy children next door and expect that there will be no consequences, either temporal or spiritual! Christians have a responsibility (and are enabled to) behave better than they otherwise would, rather than worse, if only for the sake of not putting people off.

Della

You have a different view of being a Christian to others.

There are those who believe that faith=salvation, irrespective of their past or future behaviour. Justin was a case in point. You are both labelled as christians by those outside of your faiths or took the label for yourselves, but neither of you could agree that the other was a christian by your own standards (at least I don't think you ever really agreed, did you?).

Madent

Me agree with Justin? No fear. When he first came along, I went and suggested he lighten up, he called me an heretic, and that was that.
AFAIK, the best way to tell a Christian is by their behaviour - "by their fruit" and all that. That being said, being a Christian is voluntary, and someone brought up in a Christian home doesn't qualify unless they make their own commitment, "God doesn't have grandchildren" as one guy in our church said to me once. But it is purely voluntary, there aren't any membership requirements as to ethnicity etc.

This is more or less as I see it for any religion. You can't be a member of that religion unless you've really taken the choice yourself to follow it. What you were brought up as is irrelevant to that - until you commit for yourself then you're not really a part of it, I think.

That shows up a lot when you talk to Pagans who have children - it's generally accepted that the children aren't Pagans until they make their own commitment to the path which suits them, which is of course not necessarily going to be the same path as their parents. That's assuming their parents even follow the same path in the first place.

Paganism's like a plate of spaghetti in that regard.

Check this link out.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4693430



now THAT's entertainment.

Seems like this "God" has a penchant for eternally tormenting those who might happen to disagree with Him, sort of a strange notion of free will. If I threatened to kill you slowly with a blowtorch as an alternative to making a commitment to me, just how much choice am I leaving you?

I just bring it up because the hypocricy is the one thing I truly can't stand about most religionists. They talk about mercy while condemning everyone, they talk about free will while supposing one path to truth, they babble about eternal life while obsessing over eschatology. It's the most diabolical nonsense humanity has ever invented.

Hi Twoie

Why would we expect any less from this po-faced, nihilistic excuse for a faith?

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

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It's just a different form of the tribal patriotism disease that we chimps seem to have so much of. Common chimps are among the very few species known to commit genocide--they wipe out other bands of chimps for their own benefit. Human rules of warfare always allow things to be done to the enemy (mass murder, rape, pillaging, enslavement, ect.) that one isn't allowed to do to one's own tribe, nation, ect.

So its natural that this continues into religions--gods must be merciful to their people (the faithful, the tribe under his protection, ect) but they can do whatever horrible things they can imagine to everone else.

The world is divided into two groups--fellow tribemembers and animals. You must be polite to your fellow tribemembers, but you may tourture animals. This is the traditional idea of mercy, so it is natural that human-invented gods obey it.

This is mostly true.

Xenophobia is intrinsic to the pack hierarchy archtypes that drive instinctive primate social behaviour. There is our tribe, and there are the sub-humans.


Discipline and education can allow us to condition ourselves to a broader definition of 'our tribe', but everyone is to some extent a racist, nationalist, moralist, etc. The lines are always drawn somewhere and it takes people of courage and thoughtfulness to extend the borders.

Most religious concepts tend to be bracketed in a particularly virulent mimetic carrier code that overrides reason entirely and resonates deeply with our instinctive archtypes. That being said, the deistic ideas prevalent today don't seem to have changed much in 2500 years. Say what you want about communists or nazi eugenics nutcases, but at least they've set one foot outside of the 15th century.

Yes, indeed. I am at a loss to know what that church (if that story was genuine) was all about...

Christianity has moved beyound being a tribal cult, and IMHO the Old Testament and the New cannot really be reconciled.
As regards hell, IMHO there is a whole lot of misunerstanding and mistranslation going on. There is plenty of evidence that hell is remedial, not eternal. Everyone knows that they have failed (by their own standards, if not by anyone else's) and no one is ready for eternal communion with each other when they first die. Maybe it's time for purgatory as it is properly understood, to be revived as an idea...

or as somebody or other put it,"Hell is the absence of God"