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

Hey, it's a bit quiet round here. OK I realise that may be an improvement on rabid arguments, but a few friendly conversations would be nice.

Indeed, and I didn't know that there were pews here *looks around* but my are they empty.

Um, what exactly is supposed to be happening here?

Christians...
Meeting...

Hello! Mission Accomplished.

Hey, Ddombrow, I just finished reading a bunch of conversations where you were arguing with Gargleblaster about Christianity. Just reading them made me both frustrated and sad. I can't imagine what it was like for you! Anyway, I'm new here, but from what I've read so far, it's sure nice to see a real Christian rather than yet another athiest!

Hi, nice to meet you too. Yep, arguing with GB was a pasttime for me (still is). I ordinarily don't like to argue a great deal, but it's very hard to keep quiet when things I stongly disagree with are said (maybe I do like to argue just a bit).

some other notable christians I have met on h2g2:

Peregrin
Doctor Smith
Bluebottle
Big Mad Mr. T
Amy †

They're nice people, too. Nice meeting you, BTW. If you ever need anything just drop a line on my page, I'd be happy to help.

Oops! that's Amy with a cross after her name rather than that wierd bit of text.

Cross meaning an h2g2 saint, and not a secret symbol for Christians as I thought it might be when I first saw one. The fish symbols didn't catch me out though as when they're seen in real life, they're usually undertaking you at 95mph.

I don't get it... you saying that most Christians speed?!? (I would never speed...)
Rebecca

Hi there--nice to find a serious group of Christians here!!! Rebecca--yes, Christians speed,(though they shouldn't) and you too, perhaps?

And those with the badges rarely seem to be demonstrating unconditional love for their fellow road users.

Me speed? Never . . . I'm a perfect little angel!Rebecca

Um, no you're not.....that's your sister!

Since I'm new, I was wondering, what are some typical types (or subjects) of conversation in here?

Well, given that only two threads have had posts added for almost two months, I reckon your guess is as good as mine.

Any good ideas for a new topic?

Doughnuts?

I had an email from my old friend Bob Jones in Brisbane, Australia. Bob's a bit worried about his mortality. People of his own age, and younger, are dropping like flies. "We are," he wrote, including me in this dire prognosis, "in the death zone." Death is a no-win situation for the atheist if you're right, you don't get to tell anyone; if you're wrong, everyone, including God, gets to tell you. That's the scary bit. There is of course an upside to being right - you don't have to worry about being tormented for eternity by some divine psychopath. The downside is that you are inevitably going to find yourself, like Monty Python's Norwegian Blue: "stone dead, demised, passed on, no more, ceased to be, a stiff, bereft of life, snuffed it, up the creek and kicked the bucket, extinct in its entirety, an ex-parrot".

Death is first and foremost an affront to the ego. It's not the fear of eternal damnation that bothers me about dying, not even the terror of the unknown; it's the "no more, ceased to be, extinct in its entirety, ex-parrot" bit that gets up my nose. How dare things go on as usual with me not there! How dare the Earth presume to turn, the sun to rise, the moon to shine, flowers to grow, birds to sing, TV's Judge Judy to smite the wicked! How dare people continue to conduct conversations without seeking my opinion! How dare there be newspapers and magazines and books and radio and television and the Internet and yet-to-be-invented forms of mass communication without my being in or on them! How dare I not exist! "Vanity of vanities," saith the Preacher, "all is vanity." And mark that fellow down for the sin of pride.

There is a view among my religious friends that I will undergo a last-minute Road-to-Damascus-style conversion. I doubt it. If there is a god, I'm sure she's not going to be fooled by a piece of self-interested, panic-induced hypocrisy like that. And anyway, I just couldn't do it. No need for any sophisticated dialects here. Belief in god or an afterlife just doesn't make sense. Homo sapiens have been around for four or five million years. Billions and trillions and zillions of us have been born, lived and died, and there isn't a single verifiable example of survival after death, not a shred, not a scintilla, not a scrap, not an iota, jot or tittle of evidence of the existence of a divine being.

Thank god for that! The versions we've made so far in our own image haven't been too attractive. Still, there could be an argument for hedging your bets, just in case. Trouble is, it's not a two-horse race, not just a simple choice between believing and not-believing, between theism and atheism. It's the Everlasting Cup and there are a stack of runners. Put your money on the wrong nag - Muhammadanism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity - and you're a gonner. "You know the odds," says the celestial betting shop, "now beat them!" I prefer to put my money on the nose. Win/lose. No great dividend either way. But whichever horse romps home, I'll still have kept my dignity and self-respect. Imagine for a moment that I'm right, that there is no god. Imagine that every time you get down on your knees to pray, you're actually talking to yourself. Imagine that each time you call on god for help in time of trouble, only the wind hears your entreaties. Imagine that for years you've prostrated yourself before, glorified, worshipped ... no one.

Imagine that the guilt, the self-denial, the adherence to a set of arbitrary, illogical and often punitive tenets have been totally without point or profit. Imagine that the centuries of ecclesiastical ritual, the pomp and circumstance were all mere dressing-up and play-acting. Imagine that the churches, cathedrals, synagogues, temples, mosques are nothing more than monuments to man's despair and delusion. Imagine that all the martyrs to religious belief, all the victims of religious persecution, died in their hundreds of millions for ... nothing. Imagine that everything you were taught, believed, clung to for meaning and comfort is wrong. Imagine that it's all been the most terrible joke, the most cruel hoax conceivable, and you the butt of it.

Doesn't bear thinking about, does it? Which is why so many people don't. On the other hand, I could be wrong. God may not be non-existent, he may merely be painfully shy. And if he does exist, there's just the possibility that he may be assisted by a devil with all the wit and style of Rowan Atkinson's "Toby", as he welcomes the latest batch of newcomers to Hell - murderers, looters, pillagers, thieves, bank-managers, adulterers, Americans, sodomites, Christians ("I'm afraid the Jews were right."), everyone who saw Monty Python's Life of Brian ("He can't take a joke after all.") and atheists ("You must be feeling a right lot of charlies! "). Well, that would be embarrassing, I admit. But I'm betting it's never going to happen. I'm betting that god doesn't exist. And have you never had a moment of doubt, Loonytunes? Oh yes - as a 25-year-old drunk, standing under a tree outside a beer-tent during a thunderstorm in Munich with lightning strafing the rain-sodden pavement less than a metre from my feet. I did have a moment of doubt then. We atheists hate lightning.

So what you're saying is, it's foolish and impractical to believe in a God?

Oops I ought to check this page more often!

Hello to anyone new here, I'm the bloke who started up this page and then promptly forgot about it... feel free to contact me (as you as you don't intend to start a full blown argument with me!)

Hi Loonytunes, I sympathise with your comments and feelings. Regarding Hell, though, you've been taught (as all of us have) the classic misconceptions of a God-appointed devil presiding over Hell and eternal torture. The reality of it is (according to the Bible) that Satan is not the overlord of Hell as we are taught - he will be banished to Hell as a punishment. God never appointed Satan to do anything - except in the very beginning, he was appointed as an angel in Heaven. Satan decided that he wanted to be greater than God, and attacked God, and was banished from Heaven for that reason. He chose by himself to become God's enemy.

Hell is very difficult to define, as it is a concept way beyond our human imaginations. Suffice to say that it is not a pit of fire with lots of devils with pointy forks. My interpretation of the descriptions in the Bible is that Hell is simply the state of being cut off, permanently, from God. People who go to Hell go there because they have effectively chosen to; for example, a full-blooded atheist has chosen not to have any links to God, and never to worship God, effectively to cut himself off from God. And so God fulfills their wishes. Being cut off from God is more serious than you may think: God is what gives us life, light, and the ability to love, to name just a few things. So if you were cut off from God, you would basically not have anything good about you or around you any more.

It's your own choice, God gave us all free will.