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

You know, but the time I got about half way through High School, I'd read most of Shakespeare, The Bible (King James Version), The Canterbury Tales, 'Intelligent Life in the Universe' by Sagan and Shklovskii, The City in the Image of Man by Solari, The Lord of the Rings countless times and who can remember what other works of science, religion, spirituality and literature. I'd been from one side of this continent to the other and lived in various bits of it.

The wierd thing is, I can remember very clearly how shocked I was to discover that my best friend actually believed in God. I didn't realize at the time that people still did that. And then a short time later I discovered that there was someone I knew who actually 'didn't believe in dinosaurs because they're not in the Bible' (ever since then I wish I'd been less surprised so I could have had the presence of mind to ask whether she believed in trains.)

Now I'm middle-aged. I realize that a whole lot of people actually do believe in God. I realize that a whole lot of people don't believe in dinosaurs. I still don't understand why they do, but I've stopped being surprised by it. What does surprise me and cause me great worry is that it seems that the meanest, most cruel, most violent, most dishonest people in this world happen to be very loud about their religion or their spirituality. It troubles me that those who are most filled with hate are also ones who profess to believe in God and not believe in dinosaurs. It troubles me that good people who quietly try in their everyday lives to make the world a place of greater comfort and happiness and well-being for absolute strangers are maligned, ridiculed and ostracised by rude, loud-mouthed, uneducated, ignorant blowhards who carry great huge metaphorical placards proclaiming their faith, their religion, their spirituality, and their lack of belief in dinosaurs.

I must have led a sheltered life, but when I was young I thought that people should be good to each other because it was good to be good to each other. When I was young, I lived among people who lived exactly that kind of life: no mention of reward in the hereafter or even in the now; no threat of Hell or promise of Heaven. When I was young I didn't imagine that anyone, anywhere would ever object to ordinary people trying to make their community a better place by encouraging everyone to be nice to each other, and I could never have comprehended that such objections would be based on such things as religion or spirituality.

I liked my childhood better.

I lived a sheltered life. No wants, no worries. I know that my parents didn't have that, hell they both died too early. I was a choir boy for Christ's sake, I had conversations with roaming Jesuit monks, we celebrated the wonder of the harvest, the miracle of redemption.. It just seemed that that religion was open and honest and reasonable. I went to Sunday School and evolution was never mentioned. Dinosaurs were never disavowed. Nothing was negative or accusatory or illogical. I'm agnostic now, not believing of even those reasonable beliefs.

It's not religion my friend (if I may call you that), it's the perversion of religion.

I know. Why is it that every athiest or agnostic I've ever known has been a good person? It sure looks like hell is going to be a very nice and happy place.

You'll be in very good company, Anhaga.

good company indeed, I've already reserved a room with a ceiling fan and beer cooler.
I too had a fairly happy mostly secular childhood. I got seduced into going to a pentacostal sunday school for about six months before I realized they were nuts and quit, much to the relief of my parents (I was a theologian at nine years of age). I did a couple of years as a sea cadet, mainly because I liked working the black powder cannon and playing snare in the marching band, before dropping (again to the relief of my parents) that because it was run by a bunch of nazi-wannabes who promoted people on the basis of who the best brown-noser was. I was drummed out of the boy scouts for insubordination at about the same time.
I was not raised to question authority or think critically, I just sort of came naturally to me.

>>Why is it that every athiest or agnostic I've ever known has been a good person?<<

That seems more indicative of a sheltered life somehow.

Most people I know are good, and kind humans, although usually only up to a point. This is irrespective of belief in god or not. But then fundamentalist religious types aren't the norm in NZ. Unfortunately I've known some mean, cruel, violent and/or dishonest people - some have been religious, others not, others I have no idea.

Thinking about it now - most people I have met I have no idea whether they belive in god or not. It just isn't that big a deal here I guess.

>>What does surprise me and cause me great worry is that it seems that the meanest, most cruel, most violent, most dishonest people in this world happen to be very loud about their religion or their spirituality<<

There does seem to be a correlation between the people who need to proclaim their religious beliefs as absolute truth, and those people also having a set of values that is inclusive of violence and dishonesty. I guess if you want everyone else to think the same as you then you have to force them?


It's interesting to read your post on this anhaga. I know for me I have a similar feeling but it cuts across the political divide rather than the religious one. I think in NZ the fundamentalists have ended up in conservative politics only without the religion.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that most conservatives I know are cruel, but certainly their policies are, and it's that area that I often can't get my head around.

anhaga, I am surprised that you were surprised! (To learn that there were/are people who still believe in God..)

Have you not encountered people who believe in God *and* who believe in (accept the existence of) dinosaurs? They outnumber the ones who don't...

I find it very sad that the majority of religious people you meet/have met are the ignorant blowhards. I can tell you that I have met only one or two of that sort in thirty years of hanging around religionists of various sorts, (in contrast to the rest, who certainly believe in and practice "be excellent to one another") and my expereince is as valid as yours, in assessing which types are in the majority...

Adulthood isn't that awful...

<< Why is it that every athiest or agnostic I've ever known has been a good person?>>

Well, here's the thing, and an odd one it is, too. I wish I could say every atheist or agnostic I have met is a good person, but although many have been, a majority (by a small margin) are angry, hostile and in the pursuance of a win at all costs point of view, not afraid to be horribly dishonest on occasion!

As one of my sons used to say, it's "all a matter of point of views" (he was very young then.) In this case, it's a matter of who you meet. NZ is a very secular country, so I don't know why so many atheists feel they have to campaign, as if doing so against the odds, when the odds here actually favour them quite a bit.

Also, good person - people can be good people globally, but on one or two issues, not good at all!

anhaga, there are plenty of good people who believe in God, and plenty who don't. Here in (southern) Ireland, we don't get those crackpot loudmouth fundamentalists that insist that only the King James Bible is the word of God. The Christian Religion, for those who really follow it, is about caring for those in your community and helping them. It seems to work reasonably well. Those who don't follow that religion carry on from day to day being good people as well.

Of course there are evil people. Of course there is crime. But we don't get people telling us that they are good and we are damned.

What I have started to tell these people when I meet them on the Internet, is that the belief that the Bible is the only source of truth is a minority belief within the Christian religion. Most Christians do not believe that it has to be in the Bible to be true.

"Why is it that every athiest or agnostic I've ever known has been a good person?"

Well you've met me (virtually) and I'm an athiest and I'm an utter bxstxrd.

Well, yer a special case, Kerr . . .




az

Personally I don't give a flying f**k what people choose to personally believe in, but as I have said (ad nauseum) on many threads is that I don't want them forcing their beliefs onto me, in terms of laws being made that, for example, support Christian beliefs.

I'm not a Christian. So why should I have to live by their beliefs?

az

Azahar, how would you feel about people walking down the street naked? About a naked man sitting next to you in the cinema?

Do you believe that other people should wear clothes, even though they don't believe that themselves?

I'm not going to try to respond to everybody. In fact, I don't think I'll really respond to anybody. Except Az:

I was simply expressing my feelings on looking back at my life. Seriously, it was 1978 before I realized that people believed this stuff. Since then it's been my sad impression that religion or spirituality or whatever has, at best, no effect on a person's moral behaviour and, at worst, it encourages one to be selfish, nasty, and uncaring. Good people are good whatever their religious or spiritual outlook. Bad people are made worse by religious justification.

The vast majority of people are quietly good people, religious or otherwise.

And, Gnomon: here in Canada we go about naked all the time. Just ask any of the Canadians on H2G2.

"how would you feel about people walking down the street naked? About a naked man sitting next to you in the cinema?"

I think walking around Derby in the snow bxllxck-naked sounds a bit chilly, but hey, if he wants to, that's his look-out. Although given that our local pub used to hold 'naked nights', I've posssibly got a biased opinion here...

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Wearing clothes in public is a socially accepted thing, not a religious one.

In some countries people don't wear clothes, because this is what their society deems as right.

I personally think most people look much better clothed and so I am happy to live in a society that has this rule. But I may very well feel differently if I had been brought up elsewhere.

Not sure what your point is.


az

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I'd say that is pretty much true, anhaga.


az

I know that wearing clothes is a society thing rather than a religious one. But it is a case where we must obey society's rule, even if it is not what we believe. If the majority of a society is CHristian, we may find we have to obey rules for what Christians feel is decent, rather than what we atheists believe.

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The majority of Spain call themselves Catholic, yet elective terminations are legal here and same-sex marriages will be legal very soon. This is because there is a very clear distinction between religion and state here, I reckon. There will also very soon be smoking bans in place in public places.

I'm not an atheist. Nor am I a Christian. I quite like secular laws governing the country I live in. And, sorry, I do not see any reason at all as to why I should have to live by what Christians (or any other religious group) feel is 'decent'.


az