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

Probably been done before, but is there anything that you believe but cannot prove?

For example,

- There is no God
- The Jam were better than The Police
- Every animal has a conscience

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=70,5395,0,0,1,0

When the Flying Spaghetti Monster first turned up I thought 'Wow, brilliant.' As Pastafarianism became more widespread I thought 'Yeah, the joke's wearing a tad thin' but I'm coming to the opinion that Pastafarianism might be one of the most important movements around.

I almost started a thread yesterday with the premise "this house believes that You Do Something To Me is the most beautiful record ever produced", though it's the only thing Paul Weller's done as a solo artist I actually like. It entirely lives up to its title, I think I'm going to have it at my funeral (The Police are *so* better than The Jam though).

I used to believe that dark matter is the protrusion into our universe of matter sent through black holes to the beginning/end of time. Good luck with that!

I also used to believe there could be a mathematical formula for working out the orbital distances of the planets; someone whose name I can't remember had one which sort of worked, until you got to Uranus.

Dr David Kelly was assassinated, Hutton was compromised.

The children are our future http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMK5tmUMwHI

Ipswich Town will make it to automatic promotion this year, Norwich will go down.

I think I'm pretty clever sometimes.

... and Vista Service Pack 1 will solve everything

Natural Selection...

Gravity...

The Big Bang...

I don't believe any of these have been proven, yet.

Oh, and nighthoover, of course.

B

Socks.

Dark matter.

Atoms.

Electrons.

Mathmatics.

Calculus.

Evolution.

God.

BoB.

The eubictinous nature of cheese.

the second coming of the mighty one.

The giant flying spagtti monster; for though I have been touched by his nmoodly appendage, and have proof in my haveing been so of the noodly appendage, I cannnot say for certain that the spagetti monster itself was at the other end of the noodly appendage.

Rock and roll.

America.

Australia.

That 99.9% of all germs are killed dead by a certain cleaning product.

that I exist.

I have but one belief that I am hard and fast with. Hootoo does NOT need another channel or wire for vociferous anti-theists to seek out the rare person daring enough to express a faith.

Yoghurt

Faith, and the mindset thereof, is everywhere. It's about bloody time those of us with some understanding of the world and its wonder made a bit of a stand. The more anti-theist threads the better.

That there HAS got to be a reckoning somewhere, sometime.

So who will do this and on what premise? Whose premise and why do I have to be judged by it?


Seems to me there are plenty of people sitting in judgment already.

And the other 98% of us will be annoyed and bored by the repititions of the same-old-same-old, and simply wander off. Good luck and life to the forums, Roy.

Rev Nick: the world has been run by believers of fairy stories for too long. They have repressed women and maintained bigotry while professing to be the good guys. You might feel that their downfall isn't important. I feel that their downfall is crucial to the furtherment of our race.

Happy lurking.

Nick.

Absolutely, there has to be a reckoning. People must take a stand. But there's the MCB, the General Synod, the Heythrop Institute.

Hacking away at a single loopy New Zealander will not change the legislature of Iran, Catholic doctrine, the mentality of the Sudanese. It changes nothing besides the dynamic of the community.

>>The more anti-theist threads the better.

It's clear you have a personal investment Roy. But I can give testimony to the munificence and decency of a devout Catholic from this community, who supported a young gay woman and helped her back without a note of judgement to a fulfilling life after a very difficult time. Would she count? Tutu? The vicar who set up the Samaritans?

The tone of the anti-theist argument has slid into territory that would too easily evoke Godwin's Law. I've contributed little of substance to this place but always appreciated how comforting and non-judgemental it was capable of being, it was the difference between life and death sometimes. So much of the universes of art and science is availed to us by so many staggeringly literate, intelligent, multidisciplined people as makes my GCSE eyes water. But a lot of the time it feels like it's all on hold for the sake of one person you can't stand. What does it look like from the outisde?

Christopher: your example is of a woman who did the right thing despite, not because of, her religion.

Roy, I know that you and Fanny and a smaller number of folks here have personal reasons for despising the Papacy. And by connection, anyone or anything that espouses a belief in a god or God. Most others like to bash religions and followers for their own reasons. Maybe it makes them part of today's "in" crowd, or allows them to feel big about themselves.

In my day-to-day world, I don't encounter such concerns. Yes, I was military and still work for them to ensure they can do what they must. And much of that is against some who use belief-systems as propoganda. If you truly believe that a faith in a god is the actual reason for many of the woes of the world, then perhaps you ought to look somewhat further than your gawd-Dawkins. The core of such concerns are simply folks that will use any tool that is handy to incite people. Some use a call of Mohomet, some the colour of skin.

Despise those antagonists, but not the simple followers who really don't know better.

Oh, and as many in other threads have said ... Science does not yet know everything. And so it is not yet the true god of the 21st century.

Science is always looking for answers and happy to be proved wrong. Religion is a construct of man that replaces the quest for truth with belief in fallacies. Science will never be a god: it's too prone to change.

And yet how many here stand behind SCIENCE, as the end all and be all of everything? In so many threads, you can almost see the folks bowing and scraping to it.

I won't go further. There are more than enough folks around here with tunnel-vision that only see one thing or another. Faith, science, a flying spaghetti-monster, their own teeny world-perspective. I'll not feed the stuff further.

No.
That isn't waht folk do at all, weather here or elsewher. Your viewing 'science' as some kind of 'enterty', as an 'alternative' to religion, as a differnt 'world view'/'perspective', none of which science is, none of which science has ever been claimed to be, and your viewing of it as such, and misconception that this i how it is used/viewed by those of whom you talk, is a failure in your understanding of waht science is, how science works and waht is means, tells us and this is because you are utterly blinkered to any view not firmly sunk into the quagmire of the narrow minded outlook bestowed by the dogma in which you 'believe', have 'faith in', concepts utterly meaningless to teh vast majority of people as they're utterly irrelivent and don't hae anythign meaningful to offer to any other perspective or view which isn't the dogma itself. With sometime so narrow and small outlooking, it only has meaning whilst and when it is self referncing to its own take on things.

Ah fukkit - I normally avoid this issue.

my

One of the things I admire about many religious people is their self-confidence. They seem to have a contentment: that they've found their answer, they know their place in the grand scheme of things. They don't feel the need to constantly ask "Who am I? Why am I here? What's it all about?" I actually envy them that. Now, some may see that as a cop-out and declare that the answer found by the religious is wrong. But wrong by whose standards? Atheists don't have any answers, only more questions. Why do atheists feel they have to attack theists? Will that answer their questions?

There is a huge jump from personal belief to organised religion. Organised religion bears the flaws of any man-made construct - an amalgam of the myriad flaws within people.

I'm all for criticising religion, just as I'm all for criticising Multinationals but it's as illogical to attack a religious person as it is to attack the petrol pump attendant for his belief in capitalism.

I attack religion but try to avoid attacking religious people unless they use their religion as a prop for bigotry. I'll continue to attack religion as it can be used as such and hinders the progression of our race (which is doomed, but we might as well make the most of it while we can.)