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

Well although I'm a non-Christian (actually a devout Agnostic), I didn't get further than the first part on the Old Testament, where the author talks about Christians not killing people on Sundays despite it being part of the Old Testament.

If the rest of the article relies on this sort of logic then I believe it needs some serious rethinking. It is plain that Christians will accept the Old Testament as the word of God, but they will follow the New Testament's teachings before reverting to the Old Testament. That's what makes them Christians!

And in any case, Jews also do not kill anyone who works on a Sunday but there is no mention of that here!

As for the bit about idols...does the author understand what he/she has read? It was only idols to false gods that this commandment was concerned with; Christians can hardly be blamed for worshipping the god who made that commandment!

Please think about even these obvous points that I can see instantly, and try to correct the doubtless many similar gaping holes in the logic of the rest of this piece.

This posting also says much about the writer... it is condescending, haughty, and betrays a minimum of reading comprehension.

The first section is a metaphorical slap to the head, to get the reader thinking about the ethics contained in the Bible. Jews today do not practice Judaic law, because secular authorities would not permit it. In all likelihood, those practices disappeared when they found themselves under secular or Christian legal authorities.

However: Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. (Ex. 31:15).

And as regards your idols, there is *nothing* in the second commandment that excepts the OT god, which forces me to conclude that you have made it up: "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." (Ex. 20:4)

I will be the first to admit I haven't studied the Bible, but if you think that you are the first person to think of these problems and it is your mission to convert Christians back to some sort of empty materialistic life then I think you are being hopelessly optimistic.

In such a huge series of books, written 2000 years ago by many different authors you are going to find discrepancies. Congratulations. Don't insult Christians by telling them these little details as though this is all their faith is based on. If this article is not trying to do that, then what IS it attempting? To stir up a little contempt for Christians? If it is then that is even more pathetic.

There are lots of other books, articles and the like of this nature; all are full of nit-picking little arguments which manage - fantastically - to miss out on the rest of the Bible, all are spurious, and all can be ignored.

However, in the interest of your eternal soul (if there is such a thing), I suggest you read "Who Am I" by Russell Stannard, a prominant physicist who has written books for children about relativity and the like. This book for children which deals with Chirstianity vs science and other topics should help you alot, it certainly helped me clarify a few things when I was 12. Although I wasn't arrogant enough to suggest that what I thought was right and 2000 years of Christians were wrong, I merely wasn't sure about alot of things.

"In the interests of your eternal soul" - Are these the words of a self-professed agnostic? I would assume an agnostic likewise had no position on the existence or nonexistence of such a thing... after all, there is no reasonable evidence to support it.

And, as you have admitted that you have not studied the Bible, we obviously have nothing to talk about. Your questioning my motives is an ad hominem attack, and I do not bother to address logical fallacies, other than pointing them out. If you decide to discuss this in a reasonable, adult manner, then you may go study for a few years, then come back with a modified tone.

Not wanting to point out any more fallacies in your arguments, but when you say I shouldn't believe in an eternal soul, I ask that you at least take the time to read the bits of text in brackets (like this).

You see paranthesised text straight after a phrase can refer to said text, so when I say "However, in the interest of your eternal soul (if there is such a thing)", I am referring to the concept of an eternal soul when I say "If there is such a thing".

As fro "We have nothing to talk about", if that post was the best answer you could give then quite frankly you're the one who needs to do a bit of studying.

Go troll someone else.

Heh well since you have no argument left I'll comment on other articles, but so far every other article I have commented on has been really good..no trolling needed there. I'm not out for an argument, but of course if you make an article like this in a website that has alot of intelligent people reading it you've gotta expect opposition man.

Opposition I expect, and welcome. But if the opposition has to voice it in ways that are inflammatory and insulting, then there is no point in engaging. If you'd like to come back later and offer criticism in a tone that is less disrespectful, and which discusses the subject matter and not my person, I would be willing to engage.

<"In the interests of your eternal soul" - Are these the words of a self-professed agnostic? I would assume an agnostic likewise had no position on the existence or nonexistence of such a thing... after all, there is no reasonable evidence to support it.>
The Bible doesn't teach that we have an eternal soul anyway, so it is irrelevant to this discussion, but I think there is reasoning to suggest that a soul of some kind does exist (The Bible doesn't say whether we have a soul or not, but if we do then it can't be eternal). Have a look at my unfinished article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A757505


Actually, God did punish his people (it was even at the time that Moses was up the mountain receiving the commandments) for making an idol that represented him. There is no excuse for the idols in catholic etc. churches. But the fact that some Christians disobey the Bible doesn't mean that all do.

Correspondents may be interested in the following news (plus comment) posted at the website 'Chris Brand -- Psychorealist'.

SEXCELLENT NEWS AT EASTER! According to the Times (20 iv 2003), a new book (by a London authoress known for spectacular historical speculation) confirms long-standing suspicions (publicly aired in Nikos Kazantzakis’ film ‘The Last Temptations of Christ’) that Jesus had a girlfriend. Mary Magdalene, who apparently was no prostitute and came from a nice family in Ethiopia or Egypt, may even have been given the mission of carrying on Christianity after Peter’s betrayal of Jesus (‘denying Him thrice’). The new book is Mary Magdalene: Christianity’s Hidden Goddess, by Lynn Picknett, London:Carroll&Graf. (In her other works, Picknett thinks Jesus had an Egyptian upbringing and took Mary Magdalene as his "sacred wife" to play the ritual role of the goddess Isis to his incarnation of Osiris, the Egyptian deity who died and was resurrected every year.) {There are certainly many sculptures that are arguably of a Black Mary Magdalene (often swaddling a baby), but the Roman Church has always insisted these were instead ‘Black Madonnas’ and denied stories that Jesus had a child by a girlfriend. Even if only partly true, the story will give Christianity the chance of a second Reformation allowing it to place sex, love and the (neo)family in the central position they deserve. Such a positive approach, obliging the Church to acknowledge the West’s major discoveries since the days of Abelard and Eloise will surely be more productive than that of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, which is preparing missionaries to be sent to Iraq and whose Jerry Vines, the group’s former president, has denounced Muhammad, the founder of Islam, as “a demon-possessed paedophile who had 12 wives”. (Times, 20 iv). Rather than perpetuating guilt about sexual matters, the Church should concentrate on pointing out that Jesus’ message was one of divine forgiveness – definitely for adultery [thus overturning the injunction of Deuteronomy xxii 22 that adulterers be killed] and surely for literally harmless and voluntary sexual activities, since Confucius, Saint Augustine, John Knox and Rev. Martin Luther King also had under-age sexual relationships and Jesus himself is recorded (in the 1973 discoveries of fragments from the original Secret Gospel of Mark) as having spent at least one night with a scantily (or possibly not-at-all) clad “young man” [“the young man went to him, dressed only in a linen cloth”]. It is time for the Church to recall that even St Paul allowed freedom in sexual matters so long as the conduct was not harmful or [as is said today] obsessive: “"Everything is permissible for me"– but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"–but I will not be mastered by anything.” (I Corinthians vi 12, repeated I Corinthians x 23). This a key permission that the Fathers of the Roman Church forgot to excise from the New Testament. Bachelor St Paul went on to add (I Corinthians vii 7): “I wish that all men were as I am {i.e. celibate}. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.” Or, as Martin Luther put it, pointing to how Christianity liberated people from Judaic Law, “Sin boldly!” – Luther also believed both that Jesus “must have been guilty of fornication” and that “it is not forbidden that a man should have more than one wife.”} {That Mary Magdalene was the concubine or wife of Christ was the devout belief of the Cathar people of south-west France until they were exterminated by the Catholic Inquisition in the 14th century. One possibility is that Mary helped Jesus take over the cult around ‘John the Baptist’ by her (or Salome’s) dance for Herod after which she (or the pair) asked for John’s head on a platter. Some think Mary was the ‘Beloved Disciple’ of Jesus and that it was she who wrote the Fourth Gospel. There is a secret tradition of the Priory De Sion claiming that Jesus not only escaped the crucifixion but immigrated to southern France, where he married Mary Magdalene and raised a family (first a daughter, Tamar; then a son, Jesus). Leonardo da Vinci, who was a member of the Priory, included Mary Magdalene in his paintin of The Last Supper (pretty, with red hair, and seated immediately on Jesus’ right hand. The respected Anchor Bible Dictionary (vol. 4, pp. 580-581) notes: 'In the late third-century {Gnostic} Gospel of Philip, Mary Magdalene is called the companion of the Lord and described as one who always walked with him. She is portrayed as one whom Christ loved more than the other disciples and as one who was frequently kissed by Christ, provoking the other disciples to ask why Jesus loved her the best. Another possibility is that Mary’s anointing of Jesus with precious ointment was in fact the pair’s wedding ceremony.} {Stresses on I Corinthians vi 12 and on Jesus and Mary Magdalene having sex frequently were central to the ‘Children of God’ cult founded in California of 1968 by David Berg – subsequently renamed The Family after allegations of tax avoidance and child abuse. Berg’s literature portrayed the Holy Spirit as a semi-naked voluptuous woman and said the Holy Spirit was left by Jesus to enable “spiritual orgasm.” But today, ten years after Berg’s death, The Family’s website is pretty bland apart from millennialist speculation.}

Interesting stuff, Lanky. A lot of this information is already included in this article.

One problem I have with this summary is the bit from the secret gospel of Mark, which I have also referenced in this article, so I am familiar with the text. Jesus' encounter with Lazarus (the "young man" in question) bears a remarkable similarity to the sort of Osiric (is that a word? it is now) resurrection ceremony the writer attributes to Jesus and Mary. I think the Lazarus episode was this type of ceremony, and not necessarily sexual in nature.

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Jesus, in the New Testament was constantly being attacked for Sabbath-breaking - and he said "Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man."
I am quite sure you knew that, if you are the expert you claim to be, but chose to ignore it.