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

Ahhhh now I understand. She's from Cardiff.

I'm misunderstood so often and by so many different people that it must be my fault. Really. So I'm saying this slowly and clearly for my benefit, more than yours. I don't like thinking that my writing is unclear. I don't worry too much about being misinterpreted in person, but I thought of myself as a good writer with a way with words. That illusion has been frequently shattered. A pity. Maybe I'll improve.

Right. The point:

I said: "I've always seen it that God's law is there for me to follow. What other people do is not my problem or, indeed, my business."

I thought that this was a nice, understandable, and tolerant position. I am willing -- eager -- to talk about my beliefs, but I certainly have no interest in forcing others to live the way I do. Why would I? You live your own lives. If I choose to follow my beliefs and to abide by God's laws, then, as long as I do no harm to others, that's my business. You are wellcome to try to change my mind, but you have no right to force me to change my behaviour, just as I have no right to force you to change yours.

You replied: "God's *imagined* law by those who choose to interpret it in whatever way serves them."

This is a bit of a non sequetor. It has almost nothing to do with what I wrote. It's also more than a little insulting, as it's a simple declaration that I'm wrong, with no reasoning. I know that plenty of reasoning has been provided elsewhere, by you and by others, in this conversation and in others, but even so, your remark was a bit sharp. I'm used to that, and it doesn't bother me much. My reaction was more surprise. I know you're not afraid to express your opinions, but I'd've expected your reply to focus on what I was actually saying, which I think is something you agree with. (Compare that other conversation, from which I here recalled your position inaccurately, for which you quite rightly administered a rebuke.)

I responded: "Possibly, az, but that's hardly the point. Not just here it isn't, anyway."

Yes, I was brief, because I was in a hurry (which is what the run smiley usually means when I use it). But I thought that you'd be able to see what I was saying. Sorry. I misjudged my clarity. I hope that this post, though verbose, will serve to compensate.

What you said *is* hardly the point. Take the paragraph above -- the one that starts with "I thought that this was a nice, understandable, and tolerant position" -- and insert the phrase "what I imagine to be" before the phrase "God's laws". Now, does the paragraph still make sense? Yes, it does. So your remark was irellevant. That's all I was trying to say.

In your next post, you write, "Cultural competition between various religious traditions doesn't involve you expressing that you are simply following your god's will?"

Now it's my powers of comprehension that are failing me. I'll come back to that one in the morning, when I'm awake.

You also said, "posting a cute 'run-away' smiley doesn't excuse you from explaining why you so offhandedly write off the ill-treatment of women and homosexuals at the hands of religious zealots."

Huh? I never mentioned the ill-treatment of anyone. Nor do I condone it, since you ask. All I was trying to do was to say that it is possible to be very religious with a clear list of right and wrong and yet *not* to be a zealot.


Does this work? Can some neutral arbitrator say that I've explained myself, and, if it were needed, excused myself from whatever it was that az was accusing me of?

Yours, in some trepidation lest I've failed again,

TRiG.

I am hardly neutral, TRiG, but I would say that you have explained yourself admirably!

Flakey, a lot of those kind of reports about Nativity scenes being banned are innacurate. What typically happens is that a business (or a local council, or a school) decides not to have a Nativity scene for whatever reason. They are free to do this. Apart from limitations for taste and decency, a business can put whatever it likes in its shop windows, and if it judges that having another Christmasy scene will make it more money, surely it's their choice?

The point is that this is *not* a ban, no matter how it's reported by the Daily Hate and other newspapers with a similar agenda.

<<"Homosexual sex is wrong? Don't do it."

I've always seen it that God's law is there for me to follow. What other people do is not my problem or, indeed, my business.>> (TRiG)

Perhaps I did misread that, TRiG. At the time it seemed to me that accepting 'God's law' must include accepting that 'homosexuality is wrong' since this is a part of the law of which you speak. But again, fair enough if this is simply a personal opinion and not something placed on others.

I didn't really mean this to come across as an 'accusation' - more of a challenge. Apologies for any sloppy writing on my part.

az

Homosexuality was an example I pulled out of the ether to contrast with abortion in an earlier post. I also mentioned women wearing veils, which is not part of anything that I'd understand as God's law.

In general, I disaprove of what I term 'pick-and-mix theology'. If you accept a certain religious position, if you accept that religion's explanation for why the world exists and why it is the way it is, you should also accept all the consequences of that position. If you believe that there is a Creator(s), and that he/she/they has/have the authority to impose rules on his/etc creation, and that you have received an accurate record of those laws in some book or from some teacher or by some personal revalation, you are obliged -- by basic laws of personal integrity -- to keep those laws, whatever they may be.

I'm not sure whether you've noticed this, but most of my postings on religious/moral topics are an attempt to show religion in a better light than it sometimes is. I focus on revealed religion, because that's what I understand, but I rarely home in on my own faith. Just abouts anything I've said in this thread could have come from any Christian (with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church, but that's only because I specifically distanced myself from them) or indeed a follower of any other revealed religion. (Islam and Judaism spring to mind, but there are also the Ba'his (spelling?) and others. Hindus have sacred texts, and a highly complex theology (which I know little about, I must admit). Tribal religions are usually more shamanistic.)

TRiG.

Coincidentally, my Dad picked up a couple of old Time magazines recently. My Mother this evening (after dinner, and since my last post on h2g2, which was an hour ago: most definitely since my last post in this conversation, which was seven hours ago) pointed out an essay in the back of the May 15, 2006 issue. It's archived on the web at http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1191826,00.html , but you need to pay to get it.

A Google search http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=christianism&meta= gives this as a good source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/8/15142/4388 , but this differs from Andrew Sullivan's definition in Time.

However, there is another movement in this nation, which I refer to as Christianism. The term is dervied from "Islamist" -- or those people who claimed to be followers of Islam, but are nothing more than terrorists who do not follow the principles of Islam. There are those "Christians" who do not seem to be following the principles of Christianity -- thus the term "Christianist".

--Daily Kos.

The distinction between /Christian/ and /Christianist/ echoes the distinction we make between /Muslim/ and /Islamist/. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favouring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda.

--Time.

I'd like to quote more.

We seem to have similar opinions. And he's a better writer. It might be worth paying for that article.

TRiG.

On the Kos thread, I found this comment:

christianistas."
though i have referred to them as "jesus freaks."

and here's my explanation as to how jesus freaks are different than christians:

a christian is someone who accepts jesus christ as his or her personal savior.

a jesus freak is someone who accepts jesus christ as my personal savior.

skippy the bush kangaroo - the "with" in "filled with hate!"

by skippy on Mon Nov 08, 2004 at 05:37:37 PM PDT

I always thought a Jesus freak was someone who wore those silly sandals that strapped up round the ankles. The men often have funny goatee beards, and the women wear silly smiles and look like they're about to burst into something happy clappy.

Aye. That's how I understand the term too.

In the original Kos post from skippy, which I quoted, the word /my/ was in bold type. I should have emphasised it here, too:

"... *my* personal saviour."

TRiG.

Well what happens if it turns out that Jesus is actually really irritated by fanboys?

Reply to post 237.

Excommunication.

It's happened.

I really shouldn't dig up old threads back from when I was religious. It's embarassing.

TRiG.

>> I really shouldn't dig up old threads back
>> from when I was religious.

Why not?

Is it because you fear spending all of eternity simmering (if not burning) in a sea of basil and tomato sauce?

It's just very weird to reread stuff that came from my keyboard and to profoundly disagree with it.

TRiG.