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

<>

That was intended as a general remark about the problem of definitions. (If you don't believe me try to say what it is that all examples of games, and nothing else, have in common ).

Noggin

Noggin,

Oh, I do believe you that one cannot describe the word 'game' easily. My point was - what does this have to do with religion?

What do all examples of games have in common? That they are played by people who want to win?

Oh.

az

Exactly.

The problem is that most religious terms are like this, too; it's just easier to see if you can see the general principle first. At which point I'm going to have to reread a post or two to see what the main plot, rather than subplot, was actually about.

Noggin

For a supposedly free-from-faith group, we sure do seem to spend an inordinate amount of time discussing addicted-to-faith issues!

Azahar wrote:

"[Christianity is] a bit like never leaving home to become an independent adult responsible for your own actions. "

Hmm. So you're saying Christians are basically immature adults who don't have a true sense of responsibility for their own actions? Indeed, that their religion encourages this?

Now... can anyone think of an example of such a person, I wonder...

Adult... Christian... no sense of personal responsbility for anything they do...

How long have you got?

Name:logicus tracticus philosophicus

Chair title:legion

Any beliefs you'd like to list so we can make fun- er... discuss them:
see my temple of disorganizes reorganized chaos

We poorly labelled! This is not so much a freedom from faith forum as a freedom from dogma forum.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I'snt life strange here was i cruiseing around lurking ,post to join a club by way of book mark!
poof.>no other reference other than "Harry pooter" bllszbob sort of reference,well my name is legion,and i end up here.

Faith
That must be the believe that a unfounded promise will be fullfilled.
Rules these are fine in princible but the problem is in the interputation of those rules.
thou shalt not................unless............on the other hand...
Religeon
a get out clause for wrongdoing.
was more but only scanned backlog

hi logicus!

Nice to see you here!


Member,

<>

In a sense I think this is true. Perhaps not as how you mean it, but I think that when you give up your personal responsibility to any organization that says it will take care of you if you only do such and such . . . well, then *what happens* to one's sense of personal responsibility?

When I was a child I lived for awhile in a mining town in northern Canada. A very bleak place. Aside from some service industries *everybody* worked at the mine. And it gave me this same sense, that it was like never leaving home and growing up. The mine took care of you. The mine fed you and clothed you and provided a roof over your head. As long as you continued to work for the mine and do what they told you to do. That left a very strong impression on me when I was growing up. At the time I was also forced to be RC because of my parents (though they never went to church themselves).

But even at that young age I saw that what I was being told and what was the reality of things were very different. And I could see that living and working for the mine was like never having to 'leave home'. Because someone was saying they would always look after you. And that is how I felt the RC thing was too. Except I saw it as something I didn't want at all. Even when I was 10 years old.

I wanted my own life.

az

>"What do all examples of games have in common? That they are played by people who want to win?"




Not necessarily. There are zero-sum games, in which there must be a winner and a loser; and non-zero-sum games, in which 'win' and 'lose' are rather meaningless terms, because players can actually gain more if they work together rather than competing with each other.

The following probably works better as a general principle for 'game': an activity involving one or more players, defined by a) a goal that the players try to reach; and b) some set of rules that determines what the players can and can't do.

I didn't make that up myself, by the way. Credit where it's due: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game

I mention this partly to illustrate the inherent difficulty of definition: no matter how accurately one thinks one has defined something, someone else will inevitably some along and incorporate some element which one has not thought of. Mostly, though, I mention it because I'm in a bit of a smart-alec kind of mood today.




Lear

Hi Lear That's pretty much what I was getting at.

Welelcome aboard LTP. Haven't seen you around much recently.

Noggin

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls:

A great big non-dogmatic welcome goes out to...

Logicus Tracticus Philosophicus L.O.O.N., now occupying the FFFF Chair of "Legion"



Welcome aboard, LTP. Feel free to dive into the current melee, whatever that seems to be. I hope you find our forum to be a comfortable place for stimulating discussion. And please pardon the mess - we had to let the janitors go some months back on existential grounds, namely, we never really had any.


GTB

Hello.

GTB: <>

Az: "Then why even bother believing in the rules?".... "Why bother having a religion at all if you are not going to follow its teachings and live by its rules?".... "What is the point of calling yourself a Christian if you go around doing very un-Christian like things?"

Fair questions, Azahar. Why someone would be a hypocrite, I do not know. Why someone would believe that they *should* behave one way and yet carry on behaving another way, I do not know. How people can be so darn comfortable with high levels of cognitive dissonance, I do not know. But they are, they do, and they can!

(And who here can say I haven't just described them, at least to some small degree? I'm a hypocrite, sometimes - I wish I could stop forever!)

Many people have ideas about "right" and "wrong". Many people will acknowledge that some, or many, of their actions are "wrong". If you use a Christian ethical system to decide what's right and what's wrong, perhaps because it's what you've always been taught, then that's kind of Christian. When you go on to do things that you believe to be wrong, the type of guilt you may or may not experience is Christian guilt. Maybe you reject guilt feelings, and are defiant about your actions. Then you're defiant within a Christian framework, which is different from rejecting the Christian ethic, adopting La Vey Satanism, and saying that your actions are actually perfectly acceptable, and not "wrong".

That's what I was trying to point to. Someone might consider themself a very, very *bad* Christian, and still consider themself a Christian, fully expecting to end up in a Christian hell when they die. I don't choose to live that way, but some do, I guess.

Is Satan, as traditionally imagined, a Christian? Maybe so.


GTB

___________________________________________________
| Name: Traveller in Time <42
|
| Chair title: Nothing in particular
|
| Any beliefs you'd like to list so we can make fun-
| er... discuss them:
| I believe in Chaos and in Order in any chaotic order.
|
|__________________________________________________

"Well, this appears to be the longest thread dangling on this forum, I will read the backlog (ever) and probably most of the other threads. Most of the library looks familair "

>"Why someone would be a hypocrite, I do not know... ... But they are, they do, and they can! (And who here can say I haven't just described them, at least to some small degree? I'm a hypocrite, sometimes - I wish I could stop forever!)"


There is a theory - I think it comes from evolutionary psychology - that humans have an innate tendency towards self-deception. I presume the theory states that it gives us some sort of selective advantage to be able to do that (though I'm not quite sure what that advantage would be, off the top of my head).

If that theory is correct, then it is reasonable to think that all of us will slip into hypocrisy from time to time. I don't think it's possible to avoid doing so, in fact; the best we can hope for is to try to become aware of our prejudices and blind spots, and try to factor them into our judgements. That would be closer to my understanding of 'personal responsibility', than an expectation that all people will match up to their ideal behaviour all the time: that, in my view, is impossible even in principle.

The problem, then, is not so much that people fail to match up to their own standards (ie, that they behave hypocritically) from time to time. The trouble starts when they refuse to admit this when it is pointed out to them; and some even go so far as to persecute those who point it out to them. These are the people that we call fundamentalists.


Lear

Az:

You mean like your family, or your tribe, who agree to take care of you if you will be a good family member or tribesperson in return? Despite appearances, humans are social animals, and nothing could be more natural to us than arrangements such as this.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

<>

Giving up personal responsibility?

az

Partly giving it up, yes. Your family/tribe takes on some responsibility for you (and you for it ) in return for your participation, doesn't it? I was thinking more of shared responsibility than avoiding responsibility.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Personal Responsibility (for family)churchfamily offspring/parents

A supostition, responsibility for your actions, given that i had no choice when i was born,those of you who use "it" as a argument ,must realise any blame or comeback for my actions should in my case rest with my parents.

I did not ask or design my birth, if you believe in "god" or a "planned excistence" it is "they" who are responsible .Not you

I commented once on another thread we are all gods .Why
Okay if I then have childeren then I would be held responsibilty for there actions, but until then , the only responsibilty I have is to my self
Or any one I chose to bond ally with.
And this is what has happennend in my mind since "We as a species" since the first thought with regard our identitie/ self/ id whatever......
Therefore we are all God or demigods in our own right.



Now

<...until then, the only responsibility I have is to myself>


Then you'd better hope we (society) don't 'call in our dues', or you're stuffed!


Existence as an individual in a 'modern' western country isn't possible. There is so much that others must do (for you) before your life becomes even *possible*. I am stunned at the level to which the worship of the individual has been taken. I suspect that humans may never have been as dependent on each other as we are now, and we carry on trying to pretend we make our own decisions, and live our own lives. , I'm not convinced.

No man is an island, and all that sort of stuff....

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"