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

Traveller in Time somewhere in chapter one
"Better to worship an imaginary god then someone alive, they may create just another religion. "

Would that be like proof # 24?

ARGUMENT FROM GUITAR MASTERY
(1) Eric Clapton is God.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

Once more, the evil secularists strike at freedom of religion in America...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7104832.stm

Gif

Clapton as God! Heard it many times, but never really considered it seriously before.....You know, that's the first time I've even been persuaded of the existence of a divine being? I like it. I like it a lot because it permits God to be flawed, to have off days, to be full of shite on others and still be god.

Plus it opens up real debate among competing theologies. Some might opt for Jimmy Hendrix. Then god would be dead, I suppose.

Ed the B. You have to be persuaded now! I knew it was possible!

But then maybe you'll convert to a more cerebral and somewhat (in some people's estimation) heretical sect. Bob Dylan, after all, is the one, true god. Good harmonica, second rate guitar, lyrics ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous....now that's a god I can get behind! Plus I really like the fact that when he was appraised as being beyond the normal (supernatural, by definition) he responded...."I'm just a song and dance man, ya know!"

Humility from the supreme being? Wow! A quality Della's god insists upon from his acolytes but has yet to show the slightest iota of. No, I think I'll go with Bob.

Or can a guy with the last name of Zimmerman ever be taken seriously as anything but a christ killer, Vick?

And incidentally. If a person who thinks as clearly as some our posters on this thread have mild dyslexia, you have to be special kind of vicious bigot to make fun of and keep harping on it; why don't you just hear what he says and let the spelling slide? Most people of average intelligence don't need to have that brought to their attention....seems you do.

Good point, Omongkosong!

Which doctrine works better..."Layla! Ya got me on my knees, Layla!"

or: "'scuse me while I kiss the sky!"

or "the slow one now later be fast as the first one soon will later be last..."

All clearly words that a reasonable theist could live with and attribute to a divine creator..."for the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls...and tenement halls...."

Oh hell! Can we have a joint godhead? It would seem a reasonable division of labour, after all. Simon on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; Garfunkel(le?) on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. And of course they rest on Sundays.

And I also agree that DA ought to listen to Blicky (I don't always agree with him either) but don't trash someone with his wisdom and soul for coping with a difficulty and managing very well to accomplish with difficulty and elegance that which you accomplish with ease and boorishness.

One love.

Unless you become theistic and adopt hatred as your paradigm.

Hi Vicky,

Another long post, sorry. You've finally given an answer to my question, for which I thank you. Sadly, I don't understand it. You said:

>Do you remember the "wormhole aliens/Prophets of Bajor"?

No, sorry, I'm strictly Doctor Who. I don't hold with these heretical offshoot TV shows . It seems to me that - outside of fiction - intelligence implies complexity. The God you are talking about is intelligent - in fact, more intelligent than any human. Therefore the God you are talking about is hugely complex.

Clearly you disagree, but can you tell me why?

If I've understood you right, you are saying that it's more likely that something we have never observed (something that does not obey the laws of physics) is more likely than something we observe every day (that chemicals follow the laws of chemistry). Could you explain a little how you come to this conclusion?

Or in other words: "Why is it less likely that inert chemicals followed the same laws of chemistry in the past as they do today, leading to the spontaneous creation of life over billions of years; than that an infinitely powerful, highly complex divine entity exists spontaneously in contradiction to all known laws of physics?"



>There's a qualitative difference between life and non-life, which your inability to see can only be understood as a refusal to see

What is this 'quality' that makes the difference? As far as I can see, there's only a quantative difference. It's like red and green - they're clearly different, but there's no cut-off where you can say everything is either one or the other. Some colours are just kind of yellowy.

For the umpteenth time, if this 'qualitative difference' is so obvious, would you mind pointing it out to those of us who are 'refusing to see' it? What is this actual 'quality' that life has and non-life does not?



><< Just out of interest, have you ever asked your son what the definition of life is? >>

>I asked him on the weekend, and his answer was MRS GREN.

So in other words, he disagrees with you when you say there's some magic 'other' that chemistry cannot explain?

><>

>I think you had a bit of grammatical brain-fade there, Giford..

I'll rephrase then. You used 'my son is a nurse' to argue against the idea that life is purely chemistry, and to insist that there is some mystical 'quality' that separates life from non-life. It turns out that your son thinks life is defined simply by the 'MRS GREN' rules, which plainly apply to chemical systems and do not require 'magic'. So you're using that fact that you know someone who disagrees with you to try to support your argument!



><< Experts say that life is chemistry - just chemistry, only chemistry, purely chemistry. >>
>Some experts, not all of them.

Please name one qualified doctor, chemist or biologist who says otherwise.



>Dawkins himself has certainly never said that evolution disproves God.>>
>Of course he has, in the very chapter you insisted I start with.

Wrong again. Try reading the chapter title. How many times in that chapter does Dawkins state that there may be processes other than Darwinian evolution that we don't know about that could produce complexity?

I see now why you were unable to comment on TGD other than 'is that it?'. It's clear that you have not, in fact, been able to understand what you have read. Or, more likely, you have chosen not to understand what he says.



>A secular country such as this has bookshop shelves literally groaning under the weight of all the Dawkins and Hitchens book, but McGrath has to be 'special ordered" because he's "controversial" or so the guy at the huge American boolshop chain told me the other night.

Funny, here we have whole chains of bookstores dedicated to fundamentalist literature. Even 'secular' bookstores have a 'religion' section, and most also have 'mind, body and spirit' - and on top of that,a lot of their 'philosophy' section contains religious writings.

Has it occurred to you that this hideous ogre of a man may simply have been recommending a related book he thought you'd enjoy? That he might, in fact, be an ordinary guy that you feel threatened by, rather than the gargoyle you describe at such length?



>your arguments and your tactics are all so very predictable and so very 19th century!

Glad to hear we're a good couple of centuries ahead of McGrath then. We can move on to how 20th Century science makes the existence of God even less likely if you want. 'Many worlds', relativity and neo-Darwinism all spring to mind, to say nothing of chaos theory, textual analysis, archaeology and biochemistry.



>You should really try reading McGrath

I probably should, but life's too short. I've read (on the recommendation of theists) books by several major theists - Blanchard and Johnson spring to mind. I've not yet got round to reading McGrath or Lewis or McDowell (though I'm pretty sure I know the major themes of their work), but frankly when those I have read are so poor, why would I waste my time reading more of them? If they have such great arguments, why do theists waste their time recommending the type of drivel that Blanchard and Johnson write?

Put it this way: if you disagree with Dawkins, do you feel motivated to go read Hitchen or Harris?

What I have seen of McGrath I've found distinctly unimpressive. As I said, never mind '18th century', the problem of suffering goes back millennia - yet in his debate with Dawkins, McGrath just doesn't seem to have thought it through.



>society and history have both moved on, cos it's the 21st century now [...] You're using out-dated arguments for out-dated reasons [...] the Bible is accurate, up-to-date



>Michae1 has pointed out on the NT thread, we have more confidence now in the integrity of old manuscripts than anyone in the 19th century ever had."

I don't know what thread you're reading. The NT thread that I'm posting to currently has Michael trying to defend just two books of the NT as reliable, and yet unable to explain why Luke got 50% of his historical titles wrong - and why Christian websites try to use that as their best evidence that Luke is reliable!

You personally may have confidence in the NT documents. If you do, it appears that that confidence is misplaced.



There are about 50 posts since I last checked. In 4 of them - 8% - you've complained about someone else's grammar. That's not 8% of your posts, it's 8% of this entire thread. Vicky, if you want to turn this into a game of 'I can spell better than you', go ahead. You probably won't come last, but I seriously doubt you'll win, with your 'boolshops' and your mismatched single and double quotes, your use of 'book' as a plural and your misuse of the word 'literally' (and that's just in one paragraph). What I can say with certainty is that no-one here will learn anything about God (or Richard Dawkins' book 'The God Delusion', for that matter).

Would you mind explaining why, whenever you are asked an awkward question, you complain about spelling or grammar, then complain that no-one listens to you? Do you really think we'd think less of you if you admitted to not knowing the answers?

Gif

"Good point, Omongkosong!"



It's good to know that someone agrees with something on this thread.

Even if it's only themselves.

Gif

Jeez. Omomg, you really want to check out the Dylan lyrics!

If there's one thing that religions never do, it's misquote the direct spoken words of their prophets or gods!

The sentiment seems good, but we true believers accept only the literal words and you better check with ASCAP before you start quoting. Heretic!

And by the way...you don't seem to need my input. Your conversation seems to hold its own with no help from the rest of us!

>><>

>>Highly unlikely, while you resist even *listening* with all your considerable will...

You know what, Vicky - you are absolutely right! As soon as I stop bleating on about needing evidence, or even reasoned argument...you start to make perfect sense! I really don't know what I was thinking! I should stop listening to Hoo and the Axis of Weasels and 'Fanny'. Apart from anything else - they're all so fat!!! And they're grammar is poor! And they make mistakes in their typing! How can I take such people seriously? I'm just so glad that your mockery and goading have hit home. Tough love, eh?

But it's right what you've been saying. Of course The Bible's a trustworthy source. It's there in black and white! How many other books can we say that about?

And this stuff about life being just chemistry. How silly! There simply *must* be something to give us all thses MRS GEN features. Unfortunately I've only been reading the biased, atheistic books by these so called 'scientists', so I'd appreciate, Vicky, if you could fill me in on what this thing is? Maybe we could get a nurse to help us out?

And as for homosexuality...obviously a vile perversion performed by damaged people. I mentioned this to some of my gay friends, but they insisted that they are happy an well adjusted (one of them even suggested that if I tried his vile perversion for myself I'd see how nice it really is ). So you'll have to help me find the arguments to convince them that, much though I love them and will continue to pray for their filthy, debauched souls, it's not natural. For example - what do we mean by 'natural' in this context?

You really will help me out here. There obviously is an atheist conspiracy against the dissemination of the truth. On the way to work, for example, I called in to a shop and asked if they had a copy of McGrath, or even Thomas Aquinas. The guy told me to bugger off! Surely tese are books you'd expect tom find in any greengrocer's?

I really am glad I've seen the light and found God now (note that I'm even using a capital G). And if anyone doubts the miracle of my conversion - shame on you! The evidence is here for all to see.

Hi Gif,

I see that as usual you've made a really long post and not read it through properly.

>Please name one qualified doctor, chemist or biologist who says otherwise.

I think you meant to add 'for evidential, rather than religious reasons' to the end of that sentence. I'm sure there are any number of doctors who believe in 'souls' because they are religious.

And then you have the hypocrisy to complain that others talk to themselves in postings. Shame on you!

Gif

Hi Ed,

Your whole post is invalid because you put "Surely tese are books you'd expect tom find in any greengrocer's?"

Two typos in one sentence proves that everything in your whole post is false, without the need for any further comment.

Gif

That's a ridiculous argument, obviously. Why, if we were to judge The Bible on its mistakes and inconsistencies, we'd have to conclude it was untrue, and obviously it isn't. They weren't typos - they were metaphors for human faliblity and the perfection of God.

>>They weren't typos - they were metaphors for human faliblity<<

Priceless

Now that Ed has converted, at least we'll be hearing no more of this obviously false claim that Christians are obsessed with gay sex. After all, you can't argue with statistics like these:

http://www.conservapedia.com/Special:Statistics

Gif

Gif

I'm suddenly feeling quite scared. I'm always a sucker for anyone with intelligence, and now that Ed has changed sides, I feel quite vulnerable. All the time theists here spouted nonsensical burble, as is the norm, I felt completely safe in my atheism. I need to really start putting my thinking cap on now.

As a serious aside whilst watching my latest obsession, which is Roy's link on 'intelligent design', I was intrigued by just what a term of abuse, 'atheism' is in the US, outside the main cities on the east and west coast. There are interviews with the science teachers, and parents at the school, who objected to intelligent design being taught in science classes, but still consider themselves christians. One of the things they were clearly quite upset about was that some of their neighbours had started calling them 'atheists'.

I'm feeling quite worried about Ed's suggestion that 'McGrath' should be sold at the greengrocers. People are bound to have their attention directed towards his books after perusing the cabbages and the turnips. But actually thinking about it more deeply, I reckon they'll quickly give their attention back to the cabbages and turnips, as far more worthwhile things to spend their money on.

Well that I can understand. You don't need to be an atheist to accept that evolution is real, and I can see that if you're not an atheist, it would be annoying to be called one.

That said, you're right Effers, it is a word with a much greater negative meaning in the US (hence the 'brights'). Here's some scary statistics for you: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2007/02/black_president_more_likely_than_mormon_or_atheist_/

Gif

>>Well that I can understand. You don't need to be an atheist to accept that evolution is real,

Well of course not! Obviously God created evolution and controls every step. I'm not exactly sure how, but I'm sure someone can give me the correct theological explanation. After all, there are many, many scientists out there who are also devout Christians, so evolution and Christianity *must* me reconcilable. Surely at least one of them must have written about precisely God is involved in evolution? That awful, shouty Dawkins man has written in some detail about the biochemical processes but, being biased, hasn't felt the need to mention God. I'm sure there must be Christians who are able to provide similar detail and a similar level of evidence.

Anyone? I'm praying for some answers.

'The thing Einstein failed to understand is that God *does* play dice. So chance mutations occasionally leading to evolutionary development are entirely in keeping with the likelihood that the divine overseer was almost certainly a compulsive gambler.

I've heard it said that plenty of christians do the lottery in imitation of the latest 'thinking'. Well actually since christians started thinking at all.'

The above is what my friend's physics teacher told her, after wrestling for many years with her conscience and her fellow biology teachers. Apparently the teacher said she finally came to this conclusion after getting a bit jittery as she got older and closer to meeting grim reaper.

Well there you are! Some people say it's silly to play the lottery because you'll never win. But guess what - somebody always does. Nearly every week. Just like God obviously knew that all those chance mutations would lead to us.

Thanks for the explanation. I'll pray for your (only semi-besmicrched) soul.