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

(aye, Hoovooloo.)
What, then, was the lot of the pre-Reformation population of Christendom? since their religion was basically Catholic (and far more complicated than today's), I assume they were not Christians and therefore had an unpleasant fate. However they had no means to seek 'true' Christianity due to ignorance, illiteracy, widespread corruption etc. and mainly the lack of an alternative.

Never mind the the pre-Reformation, the Church of England and the Church in Wales is catholic and apostolic as is the Church of Rome. Justin does not believe in this form of religion. He claims that Islam is pagan and the only was to live is his way.

Alji

Shame.
To me, no organised religion is pagan, since by that definition they're disorganised.
Which is how I prefer it.

Mandragora,

Hello. One has to remember that the Lord Jesus gets His chosen ones anyway, but for the rest darkness was their lot before the Reformation.

You have to understand that the Reformation was only partial, but it served to put a barrier between the Christians and the Al Queda of the day, the Catholics. For centuries we have religious freedom in this land bought by the blood of those who would not have popery, I fear it is being reversed today under the guise of 'tolerance', whereas tolerance is not a quality of Almighty God when it comes to sin.

All those who die outside Christ will burn. You need relgion about Him like a hole in the head, but you need Him like your next breath.

Justin

Mandragora, (again)

Real Biblcal Christianity is, to the outside eye, completely disorganised. What you see everywhere is not God's ordinance, but men's ideas, despite the fact that God has clearly said He hates that sort of thing.

You can have organised paganism or disorganised. Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism etc are organised are they not? They are as pagan (contrary to the will of God)as the come!

Justin

"the Al Queda of the day, the Catholics. "

Brilliant! It's "al Qaeda" - small "a", no "u" (Arabic, in case you didn't know) by the way. Not a big thing, but it does sometimes help to read something written some time within the last thousand years (like, say, a newspaper) so as not to drop little clangers that can make you look ignorant and blinkered. I'm sure you don't want to give that impression.

"For centuries we have religious freedom in this land bought by the blood of those who would not have popery, I fear it is being reversed today under the guise of 'tolerance'"

OH NO! Our freedom is being taken away and replaced with tolerance! Eh? Oh, of course, sorry. You mean "freedom to persecute and harass those who are different from ourselves (no matter how small the difference)." How terrible, that that freedom is being curtailed.

Actually I seem to remember that the big rejection of "popery" in this country came about because our King didn't get his own way in matters marital. Hardly "bought with blood", unless mean the blood of people like Thomas More.

"All those who die outside Christ will burn. You need relgion about Him like a hole in the head, but you need Him like your next breath."

Justin: YOU need him. You are welcome to him. Lots of people need all sorts of things to get them through life - God, religion, drugs, alcohol, sex... You need God, and you've got him. Great.

I don't need him, because apart from anything else, I have NO reason to believe he exists. I don't hear his voice speaking to me, and if I did then I know there are drugs available which will reliably correct the quite-well-understood neurological disorder which causes that kind of hallucination. If you want to believe I'll burn, good luck to you. I believe you won't, but not for the same reason you do...

H.

> "Catholicism, Islam, Hinduism etc are organised are they not? They are as pagan (contrary to the will of God)as the come!"

If you want to understand what Mandragora means by 'Pagan', you could read A563834. It might give you a little knowledge.

-X

Hoovooloo,

Well it was only a stab at it, thanks for the spelling lesson anyway!

I am sure you know I did not mean that.

Indeed circumstances, as God allowed, brought about the change, but there were people like Latimer and Ridley, and the rest of the approximately 288 burned alive at the stake, and many, many,more.

I am afraid you do believe He exists. The reason why you do not wish to acknowledge that at the moment is that you are comfortable. You do not think you need Him, and in one sense that is right. Until God allow our sins to come home to roost we do not see our need.

When an aircraft is falling out of the sky they are all crying out to God, everyone knows He is there. You are going to meet Him.

Hello Lucinda,

I am sure I know what Mandragora, as I live not far from Glastonbury, and I see the Pagan message board on the BBC too. To someone who is the Lord's though all who are in anything other than Christ is pagan.

Nice to hear from you, have you been here long?

Justin

Hello Lucinda,

I am sure I know what Mandragora means, as I live not far from Glastonbury, and I see the Pagan message board on the BBC too. To someone who is the Lord's though all who are in anything other than Christ is pagan.

Nice to hear from you, have you been here long?

Justin

(I would be interested to hear your views on the Christian Humanists' contribution to the Reformation, btw.)
If 'darkness was their lot', who followed the 'truth' from whenever Christ's original setup went wrong until after the Reformation? and during- what of those who approached it, but didn't quite go all the way?
re. Ridley and Latimer: most of the English protestant martyrs were
made a political example of. Queen Elizabeth I had slightly more about her than Mary and knew that such displays would create more dissent than they were worth.
re. falling aeroplanes- they'd call out to who/whatever they put their faith in.

<>

Oh come on, you can't be serious. I'm sure the real reason why many people turn to God as their aeroplane plummets towards certain death is that they want *something* to comfort them. Whether God is actually present, or even if He exists is not relevant, but such a belief provides the people on the aircraft with hope, and the feeling that their death is something other than the end. This is why so many people 'find God' before death. Just by looking at Pascal's Wager(A517646) you can see the 'reasoning' behind the doomed people's actions.

If they have faith in something that is what they would appeal to, not necessarily the Christian God. If they're not, that place would be filled by whichever deity/force was the default in their society.

This post has been removed.

"There are no atheists in foxholes". This is not an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes.

Oh, and Justin... are you coming to the meet?

H.

Mandragora,

Good afternoon.

I know nothing about 'Christian Humanists', as far as can guess it would be a contradiction in terms. Perhaps you would like to tell me who these ones were.

As for the Reformation; God is in complete control, and the Reformation was not a work of men. It set the Christians free, and dispelled the Roman Catholic Dark Ages when the Word of God was kept from people. It put the very useful buffer (currently being removed) in between the Catholics and the Christians whom the Catholics would rather see dead if they won't join them.

I did say to you that the Lord Jesus received all that God gave Him during that time, whether they stayed with Him, having come to Him in the first place is another matter, but no one who was elected to salvation by God failed to come to Christ in that time.

Latimer and Ridley were, superficially, political martyrs, but the reason why they were murdered was becuase of popery not politics. We see the old pope trying to re-establish the murderous unholy Roman Empire at the moment with the EU. Those stars on that flag are nothing to do with nations, they are the same stars you will find on the window of Strasbourg Catholic Cathedral. They just didn't put into it the Catholic goddess as it would frighten off the Christians. Their way is, after all, softly, softly, catchy monkey.

Elizabeth 1, was a Protestant, it was nothing to do with politics.

I disagree, everyone knows there is a God, the person who made them. It is often not a concious thing, but deep gut level instinct. They all know, and so do you.

Regards, Justin

> "To someone who is the Lord's though all who are in anything other than Christ is pagan."

I'm glad you understand what Mandragora means by 'pagan'. Why am I not surprised that you hang out on the BBC pagan message board? This from someone who has an anti-evangelism request on his home space. Good to see that the grand tradition of hypocricy in the xtian church continues apace.

May I humbly suggest that the best term to describe those who are not 'in christ' would be 'non-christian'? Trying to subvert 'pagan' to mean 'non-christian' isn't going to promote clear communication between christians and non-christians, is it?

> "When an aircraft is falling out of the sky they are all crying out to God, everyone knows He is there"

Ahh, the "there are no atheists in foxholes" fallacy.
Unusually for religious arguments, has been conclusively disproved: there are lots of documented cases of people keeping their atheism as they stare down certain death. And lots of cases of people turning to religions other than Christianity, which is arguably more important.

I could provide links, if you promised to actually read them?

> "Everyone knows there is a God, the person who made them"

Not quite as deeply as they know Goddess, given the greater impact she has on our lives. Who do you think delivered you into the hands of your precious Christ?

-Xanthia

Justin wrote:
"everyone knows there is a God, the person who made them."

I read that and thought "how do *you* know that, moron? Did you ASK them? EVERYone?"

But then I read the next bit.

"It is often not a concious thing, but deep gut level instinct. They all know, and so do you."

Which just goes to show that even if you DID ask everyone, and every single one of them told you "no, I don't believe" - as I have - you'd simply ignore them, and *still* know they did believe.

Lucinda wrote:
"I could provide links, if you promised to actually read them?"

Nice try, but it's very, very clear that this is not a thinking being we're dealing with here. Presented with a plainly stated fact, it chooses, deliberately, to vehemently state the exact opposite. Is there any point even attempting to talk to such an object?

No "conversation" is possible, obviously. You will merely be providing seed stimuli for this machine to regurgitate words at. It can construct sentences, it's true (although quite poorly spelled ones), but can you pull an original thought out of any posting made by this thing?

There's very clearly no more thought going on than there is in the simplest conversation simulators of the "Eliza" mould. Stimulus-response... what you're dealing with is a cabbage that can type. I'm wasting no more energy on it. If talking to machines floats your boat, enjoy...

H.

PS If the programmer who wrote "Justin" is interested, there's a project on "Artificial Intelligence" at A761762. You may be able to contribute some ideas on Natural Language Processing - although I have to say your creation's comprehension of English is rather poor, its spelling is erratic, and its attention span rather short. I applaud the selection of a Christian fundamentalist as a subject for simulation - its responses are very reminiscent of the well-known early AI "Parry", which simulated a paranoid schizophrenic quite convincingly (interesting that you should choose to simulate a similar form of neurological dysfunction, "voices" etc.). Their thought processes and responses are bound to be more restricted and therefore simpler to simulate than a normal person's, but I'm afraid this version doesn't convince for long. Nice try though, this is certainly an above average AI simulation. Do try to get hold of a spell check dictionary for the next version though...

IMHO, Justin the Preacher is a deluded, mentally-stunted religious fanatic. Hoovooloo is correct when he said that no conversation is possible. There is no convincing a fool who during an argument has the gall to say "ah, but I know you know different" and offers nothing beyond that. Where is the debate? Where are the comments upon what was said previously? There is absolutely no point in trying to convince Justin, it is clear that it's doomed to failiure: You cannot win an argument when there is none there in the first place.

At least you felt with Josh and Caleb that there was some hope, some glimmer of intelligence, but with this guy there is nothing. I suppose he adds some spice to the site but it's very depressing knowing he's around harrassing ("evangelising") and insulting people whereever he goes.

So, I would suggest that everyone just sit back and royally take the p*ss for a few months to try and extract some droplets of comedy value out of this moron.

I think he doesn't debate because deep, deep down he's in possession of the truth. That there is no god, just an empty, meaningless, pitiless void, sparsely speckled with some atoms and molecules. He has built his life up around a lie to much that if he now abandons his personal doctrine his life would come crashing around him like a house of cards. Any questioning of his zealous beliefs are met with "No, you're wrong" and nothing else. Any other response might bring the truth to the fore and that would be enough for a complete emotional, physiscal and nervous breakdown. Pathetic, truly heart-wrenchingly pathetic.

Justin, I pity you.

Ste



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Buddhists neither believe nor disbelieve in a god, they say it's irrelavant because the existence or nonexistence can't be prooved.
They believe in the Four Noble truths;

The First Noble Truth - Life is suffering. To live, you must suffer. It is impossible to live without experiencing some kind of suffering. We have to endure physical suffering like sickness, injury, tiredness, old age and eventually death and we have to endure psychological suffering like loneliness, frustrations, fear, embarrassment, disappointment, anger, etc.

The Second Noble Truth says that getting what you want does not guarantee happiness. Rather than constantly struggling to get what you want, try to modify your wanting. Wanting deprives us of contentment and happiness.

The Third Noble Truth - Suffering can be overcome and happiness attained. This is perhaps the most important of the Four Noble Truths because in it the Buddha reassures us that true happiness and contentment are possible. When we give up useless craving and learn to live each day at a time, enjoying without restlessly wanting the experiences that life offers us, patiently enduring the problems that life involves, without fear, hatred and anger, then we become happy and free. Then, and then only, do we begin to live fully. Because we are no longer obsessed with satisfying our own selfish wants, we find that we have so much time to help others fulfil their needs. This state is called Nirvana. We are free from psychological suffering.

The Fourth Noble Truth is the Path leading to the overcoming of suffering. This path is called the Noble Eightfold Path and consists of Perfect Understanding, Perfect Thought, Perfect Speech, Perfect Action, Perfect Livelihood, Perfect Effort, Perfect Mindfulness, and Perfect Concentration. Buddhist practice consists of practising these eight things until they become more complete. The steps on the Noble Eightfold Path cover every aspect of life: the intellectual, the ethical and economic and the psychological and therefore contains everything a person needs to lead a good life and to develop spiritually.

Hindus believe in all gods but believe there is only one uncreated god Brahman. Hindu concept of time is cyclical and is reckoned as the continuum of the day and night of Brahma, the creator; the day is kalpa (creation) and the night is pralaya (deluge).

One day (kalpa) of Brahma is further subdivided into 1000 maha_yugas or 14 manvantaras (or the periods of Manu), and each manvantara comprises 71 maha_yugas. One Mahayuga (4,320,000 years) is made up of 4 yugas, and each yuga comprises many earthly years : 1. Kritayuga = (432,000 X 4) years; 2. Tretayuga = (432,000 X 3) years; 3. Dwaparyuga = (432,000 X 2) years; 4. Kaliyuga = (432,000 X 1) years.

According to the Hindu calendar, mankind has completed 5100 earthly years during the Kaliyuga and the year 1999 CE marks the 5101st year or the 52nd century of that yuga.


Alji