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

Your article is well written and I found your views quite interesting. As a christian myself I should say that I didn't find your piece offensive though it did come across that you seem to find the whole idea of an almighty creator of any description rather ridiculous. I can't comment on any opinions expressed about any other deities or religious beliefs as I don't know anything about any of them. I believe that if someone doesn't know what they're talking about they're probably best off to say nothing.
People often disagree with things they don't understand and most people agree that this is senseless, take racism for example, how many of us think that because we don't understand a culture different from our own we should persecute those who do understand it? Hopefully very few.
Anyway, you did point out the religious wars that have been fought over the years but you really can't blame God for religion. The two are completely unrelated.
Christianity is also nothing to do with religion, it's to do with giving a toss about humanity and saying "thanks" to the guy who was shamefully "tortured, stabbed and nailed to a stick" in order that the whole world would eventually be given a break!
I could point out that the only thing I do religiously is put on my mascara every day...and that's to do with vanity.

Anyway, if there isn't a God I've lost nothing when I die and I will have given much and kept my sanity as a result of my faith, and if there is then I'm sorted!!

Conclusion and answer to your question (now the tangent has been well and truly gone off on): Good article but as has already been commented on, there is more opinion than fact.
Bless you mate!

"Your article is well written and I found your views quite interesting."

Well, thanks.

"As a christian myself I should say that I didn't find your piece offensive though it did come across that you seem to find the whole idea of an almighty creator of any description rather ridiculous"

Not so much. My personal view is that reality is a consensual hallucination and that we are all in some sense mighty creators simply by functioning in the role of observer-participants. Probably what you are sensing is my distaste for the way in which people have confused applicable mythology with revelatory cosmology, and in doing so have hypocritically justified a number of extremely brutal and merciless actions.

"Anyway, you did point out the religious wars that have been fought over the years"

No, I don't feel there's any such thing as a religious war. I think we quibble on the definition of religion. I think real religion, in its entymylogical sense, is a very far cry from the cultish nonsense that tends to go around being called religion and being used as a justification for genocide.

"but you really can't blame God for religion. The two are completely unrelated."

If by "God" you mean Yahweh, I am certainly not blaming him for anything, as I don't happen to be in the habit of passing responsibility for human shortcoming to the perview of mountain-dwelling jewish war dieties. If by God you mean "The Imminent All" or the Hindu Brahmin, or the Force, then it would be foolish to attribute blame to such a concept which would have to be functionally amoral. I assume you meant the former, though.

"Christianity is also nothing to do with religion,"

Here we agree. Religion means "re-binding" from the latin root word "ligio" which also became "ligament". My experience with Christianity is that it has been perverted into a series of meaningless cultic rituals which have very little to do with the concept of seeking the depth dimension of one's life.

" it's to do with giving a toss about humanity and saying "thanks" to the guy who was shamefully "tortured, stabbed and nailed to a stick" in order that the whole world would eventually be given a break!"

Well, here again I have to wonder. Given a break from what? From being thrown into a flaming pit by an angry jewish war-god? I think such an eventuality is rather unlikely. And should I be thankful for the crusades, the spanish inquisition, british colonialism, the nazis, the conquistadors, and for the idiots who bang on my door on Saturday mornings to tell me I'll roast in hell unless I join their cult? Should I really reserve my thanks for the people who have made a difference in my life, rather than wasting it on a 2000 year-dead prophet? Should I really give a toss about humanity? Sometimes I feel ready to give up on them. I wish humans would stop casting about for a saviour and save their own damn selves, actually.

I'm not trying to mock you, but I do hope I am conveying some sense of the enormous absurdities that I feel are inherent in modern orthodox theism.

"Anyway, if there isn't a God I've lost nothing when I die and I will have given much and kept my sanity as a result of my faith, and if there is then I'm sorted!!"

Pascal's wager. There's an entry on it somewhere around here. I look at it this way. If I am wrong, if there is an invisible, omnipotent being named "God", who is planning to sort out the whole world in some Zoroastrian eschatalogical apocalypse, in the process sending me to hell for questioning the utter s**ttiness of the universe he created for us, then fine, let him. I hope he feels like a big diety for doing so. But I will never worship such a cowardly, absentee control-freak. If I am right, and I die tomorrow, I will die knowing that I haven't wasted all of my life in obsequeous fear of someone else's delusional concept of divinity.

"Good article but as has already been commented on, there is more opinion than fact."

So what are the facts? Who do you suppose has all the facts needed to write an entry about God?

"Bless you mate"

Well, you too.

Entry on Pascal's Wager? Allow me:
http://www.h2g2.com/A341920

Xanthia - never misses a chance to plug an entry...

Another Christian wants a Word with you

First up, using big words is fine but its "Deity" not "Diety".

Second, Christs' "Deification" is not posthumous but is claimed in the gospels when Jesus uses the expression "I am" - (the name of God) - to describe himself.

Third, Ontology is a bona fide branch of philosophy to which the admittedly great comedian, Michael Palin, has contributed precisely nothing.

And to complete a trilogy in four parts; your own wager with the afterlife is entirely your concern. Like all gamblers you are free to place your bet where you choose. Currently it is possible to obtain odds on the chances of Elvis landing on the Greenwich Millenium dome in a spcecraft. Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock to co-manage the next England football team is 10,000:1 at Ladbrokes. The only difference (and a source of real concern to those who believe) is that the currency of your wager is your own life.

You may not give a s**t about yourself. But, we happen to give a s**t about you.

This post has been removed.

I'll just answer your comments on the Wager, since I have an interest...

> "your own wager with the afterlife is entirely your concern."
How very generous of you.

> "Like all gamblers you are free to place your bet where you choose."
I'm putting mine on the square marked "Discordianism" for the purposes of this argument.

> "Currently it is possible to obtain odds on the chances of Elvis landing on the Greenwich Millenium dome in a spcecraft. Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock to co-manage the next England football team is 10,000:1 at Ladbrokes."

You can even get odds on Jesus coming back to life, and they're exceptionally good odds too. I suspect that Ladbrokes figures that if he does, they won't need to be overly concerned about their gambling debts.

> "The only difference (and a source of real concern to those who believe) is that the currency of your wager is your own life."

Obviously life is part of it - for example, if my bet pays off, you'll be spending the rest of your eternity as a button in the realm of Thud. Which would be unfortunate. And that's before I even mention the Hell Law.

Have you read my entry? If not, please do - I like feedback...

Christian thought is basically an exploration of the following principle.

The truth is simple.
The story about how one arrives at a truth is complicated.

That's why a guide entry entitled "God" is probably going to fail to be as useful as one on pedestrian underpasses of Milton Keynes.

To suggest a way forward for Twophlag I recommend that he cuts out most of his verbosity, admits he is defeated by his subject and submits a guide entry in the inimitable style of Ford Prefect which says the same thing as he was trying to say...

God

"Mostly Harmful"

"First up, using big words is fine but its "Deity" not "Diety". "

Yeah, thanks. My spelling is awful.

"Second, Christs' "Deification" is not posthumous but is claimed in the gospels when Jesus uses the expression "I am" - (the name of God) - to describe himself."

Sorry to say you sound like an idiot here. Spend less time reading the bible and do a bit of research into who wrote it, and when, and why. I recommend the Jesus Seminar notes for a starting point. The fact is, you haven't got the foggiest clue what Jesus said or didn't say, because he said it (or didn't) about 1972 years ago, and the only witness to it is born by the confused documents written by followers of his newly established cult almost seventy years later.

"Third, Ontology is a bona fide branch of philosophy to which the admittedly great comedian, Michael Palin, has contributed precisely nothing."

Yeah, and?

"And to complete a trilogy in four parts; your own wager with the afterlife is entirely your concern. Like all gamblers you are free to place your bet where you choose. Currently it is possible to obtain odds on the chances of Elvis landing on the Greenwich Millenium dome in a spcecraft. Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock to co-manage the next England football team is 10,000:1 at Ladbrokes. The only difference (and a source of real concern to those who believe) is that the currency of your wager is your own life. "

Well, no. My life is going on just fine without a wrathful, gaseous hominid looking over my shoulder checking up on me. What I'm wagering here is my soul, which I don't have any reason to think meaningfully exists at all, so who cares? Besides, if I did worship your God in SPITE of the fact that I think he's a walloping great hideous fake, surely he'd know the hypocrisy inherent in that, being omniscient, and having created me in his omnipotent mercy to be a free-thinking heretic in the first place, correct? So there would be no point. Should I believe in Santa and hope he drops presents down my chimney too?

"You may not give a s**t about yourself. But, we happen to give a s**t about you"

I care about myself not to let others shove their delusions down my throat anymore. You on the other hand don't even know me from a hole in the wall, except that you see an obstacle to your goal of spreading the Christ virus to more hapless hosts, and it drives you up the wall.

Ciao.

"Christian thought is basically an exploration of the following principle.

The truth is simple.
The story about how one arrives at a truth is complicated."

Right, but first off I'm not a Christian, I'm more of a taoist, so other than observing that Christianity exists why should I care what it has to say about God any more than Christians care what I have to say about it?

Also, the truth is simple? What is that crap? Since my opinion of truth differs by about 180 degrees, and actually can be tied into complexity theory amongst other things, It's small wonder I find myself thinking Christianity is fundamentally flawed.

It's kind of you to criticize my writing style as verbose, but that's how I think, and feel, about things, so balls to you, buddy. I don't feel defeated by my subject... I feel defeated by idiots who are afraid to actually think about the subject.

By the way, a 35-year carreer priest read this, and liked it. You'd better go put a stop to his backsliding fast, it looks like one is getting away from you.

If any of this comes across as rude, do keep in mind that you just basically told me that I was going to hell, and that I took it with pretty good grace, you stupid git.

Just remember, when you play Pascal's Wager, you're playing poor odds. You're betting that YOUR version of the Judeo-Christian war god is the only correct one, and that the Baptists, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, Anglicans, Seventh Day Adventists, Calvinists, Lutherans, Catholics, Methodists, and hundreds of other Christain cults are wrong. Then factor in all the dead Christian cults, like Manicheanism, Gnosticism, Albigensianism, etc, and all the Judeo-Christian offshoots of Judaism and Islam. Your odds are actually much better of getting killed by a snakebite or winning the lottery than of going to heaven. Pascal thought it was fifty-fifty, but then, he was playing the odds of nonbelief vs. his specific belief. Which is the logical flaw that everyone since has been sucked into. Scratch off your ticket when you die, everyone, and don't be astonished to find a "Sorry, And You Can't Try Again."

Well, greetings to all...
I seem to have set off a bit of a religious war here myself for which I apologise.
Glider, thanks for sticking up for me mate...
Lucida, I will read your entry post haste and may I say what a superb plug...
So Colonel, I feel I must point out that your reply to Glider ("spend less time reading the bible and do a bit of research into who wrote it, and why, and when")was a bit daft considering the whole conversation we've been having centers on the one who wrote it, God! As a self confessed "non christian" yourself, you cannot be expected to understand or believe anything the bible has to say, I don't get most of it myself and I'm in regular daily contact with him.
However, one point the bible makes is that "the fear of God is the start of wisdom" and I think that whether you worship any deity or not, it is a good idea to respect the most almighty of them all. Now of course we have to find out who is the top man so we can respect him...My husband told me that he couldn't get to grips with the idea of creation as the scientists had convinced him of the big bang theory so we looked into it. Here I should admit that at that time I didn't believe in the scientists train of thought at all but we discovered that the biblical account of the creation and the big bang theory actually went together hand in hand...apart from the obvious 6 day/millions of years problem, which isn't a problem when you realise that man and Gods ideas of time and what is actually "a day" most likely differ considerably. Anyway, I fail to see how Moses (or whichever mortal penned the words of the book of Genesis) could have known the exact order in which a new world is formed unless he was being given a divine message as he was writing.
So if we belive that the world was created by Yahweh, then he is telling the truth in his word.
If you say religion has nothing to do with christianity, how can you then blame christianity for the awful things done in it's name...if I went out and murdered someone because I misguidedly thought they deserved it and I did it in the name of Colonel Sellers it wouldn't mean you agreed with it.
Anyway, I am thoroughly enjoying this conversation so please all of you keep it going...and Colonel, you don't have to give a toss about humanity but remember we're all as messed up in some way as the next man (this has to do with the existence of Satan but this statement could cause all sorts of bother )so I can't help but care about the whole lot of us.

By the way, if any of you would like to continue this via e-mail or get into any other conversations that involve ripping the world to bits, go to my space and link to my web site. There's a mailto link...not to mention some rather cool puzzles!

P.S. Colonel Sellers...I never thought your article was bad, just should probably be titled "Views on relion and cults"!!

No worries - and at least you did it in the right place (I accidentally started one off under an entry entitled "things I wish someone had told me" - oops!)

Even the most devout of people generally accept that God didn't actually have his hand on the pen - that those of his followers did.
You can believe he inspired them, or that he guided their hands throughout the process, letter by letter.
The latter option is less convincing, I think, as different sections of the bible have vastly differing styles. The "Letters to" generally read as, well, letters... while some bits are very poetic. There are other linguistic pointers too.
So I think, at the minimum, you should accept that the people who moved their pens across the paper had some input - though perhaps only in matters of style, not content.
You should also note that it's been translated, and the translators may or may not have been inspired. Mistakes have been made, and in some cases there have been deliberate mistranslations.
So I would echo the colonels comments that to understand the bible better it's worth looking at who wrote it, or who is supposed to write it. God helps those who help themselves, after all.

> "As a self confessed "non christian" yourself, you cannot be expected to understand ... anything the bible has to say."

Hmm - that puts the chances of those who try and turn people into christians by pointing them at certain sections of the bible rather low, does it not?
Surely some things can be understood. The golden rule, for example. And I would suggest that telling the colonel that he does not understand anything would be somewhat insulting to him - you might care to read this entry of his: http://www.h2g2.com/A213247 for some context.

> "I think that whether you worship any deity or not, it is a good idea to respect the most almighty of them all. Now of course we have to find out who is the top man so we can respect him..."

You're assuming there is such a thing as the most almighty of them all. And that it's a male. And that it's worthy of respect.
In my world view, power does not translate into respect. For example, Clinton was very powerful, and I didn't respect him. On a more sombre note, many world war two leaders deserved no respect, and were far too powerful.

> "Anyway, I fail to see how Moses (or whichever mortal penned the words of the book of Genesis) could have known the exact order in which a new world is formed unless he was being given a divine message as he was writing."

The question of which mortal or mortals wrote Genesis is not one I'm an expert on, but I've a feeling it wasn't just Moses... TG or CS may know.

Anyway - on to business...
Genesis 1:11 : plants are created before the sun - this is contradictory too the scientific view.
Genesis 1:30 : all the animals created before mankind were herbivores. Which presumably includes those fierce-looking T-Rexes.

and to quote from the SAB - "The Genesis 1 account also conflicts with the order of events that are known to science. In this account
the earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. From science, we know the true order of events was just the opposite."

Note that there's a seperate account in Genesis 2, with a differing order and it's own problems...
Genesis 2:7 : humans are created instantaneously, but science claims that we evolved. Ditto for animals in 2:19. And note that, contrary to science, humans were created before animals in Genesis 2.

So, um, what am I trying to say? Well - maybe you should write off both genesis 1 and 2 as metaphors and poetic stories, whose purpose is not to be literal truth, but to demonstrate the power and majesty of God? Alternatively, you could become a real fundamentalist, discard science, and believe that the earth was created in a literal 6 days, 40,000 years ago. The choice - is yours.

I guess I should be flattered, but it appears that rasberria has confused me with Twophlag Gargleblap, the author of this fine piece. Still, I am no stranger to invective from the religionist's quarters, so I think I shall have to see about doing something to earn it...

Here is what I know about the writing of Genesis, and I suspect that TG will be able to amplify further, as he appears to be stronger in this area than I. The book of Genesis is based on an oral tradition that stretches back thousands of years before it was actually written. In fact, there was almost no effort to write down the beliefs of Judaism until the return from the Babylonian captivity. When Cyrus the Great of Persia sent them back to rebuild the Temple and reestablish their religion, they were led by a fanatical Deuteronomist whose name escapes me at the moment. The prevalent belief was that they had been destroyed by the Babylonians because they had displeased their god, and so they were determined to do everything to get back into his good graces. Anyway, at this time they began to codify their beliefs, write down their history and folklore, and basically begin to piece together a single reference for their religion. Their religion certainly carries the taint of that time in Babylon, as they borrowed the flood myth and the creation myth, and adapted them to their war god. There are actually two creation myths in Genesis, and they disagree with each other, but they may have been included because they were found in ancient texts. Needless to say, a writer recording an oral tradition generations old is going to make mistakes.

As for the Bible being written by God, this is the most easily dismissed claim Christianity has. Even most Christians don't believe it. If God really wrote the Bible, then God cannot be all-knowing. First of all, he contradicts himself endlessly... the two Genesis creation myths, the two geneologies of Christ, everything that happens to Jesus on the day of the crucifixion... there is no accounting for the hundreds of incompatible things written there by an omniscient being. Then you consider all the rediculous things, like Jacob mating goats while staring at striped rods to create striped goats, or everything about the flood myth, or when God describes insects as having four legs and rabbits as cud-chewers, or the circle where pi=3, or... getting the picture?

Oops!
Sorry Colonel Sellers, you are quite correct...I scanned the name quickly yesterday as my husband needed to be on the net and I was in a hurry, it said "formerly GargleBlaster" and I assumed in my haste it said "formerly Gargleblap".
Anyway, in response to your comment about Pascal's Wager, really I have no need to worry. The reason for this is that I am very secure in my knowledge of God and although most people think that all christians are "sucked into" some kind of cult because they're vulnerable or looking for answers, this is simply not true of me at all. I don't believe in anything that is not real and has not shown itself as real to me...although since childhood I've wished that my mother was less honest about reality so that I could have had a short time to enjoy the thought that fairies exist!
Basically I'm far too sensible to place a bet where the odds aren't totally spot on in my favour (especially with my life involved) and if I didn't know that I'm wholey right about the subject I wouldn't persue the idea of christianity at all.

This leads on to Lucinda's comment about my message being insulting to Twophlag...I don't mean he can't understand the bible (he's obviously a very intelligent man)only that the entire question about whether Yahweh exists is a question of faith and not knowing him personally Twophlag can't be expected any more than anyone else to understand his teachings.

Now Lucinda or Colonel Sellers...PLEASE tell me where I can find a second account of creation in Genesis, I've looked but can find nothing.
Anyway, good to talk to you all again it's always fun to debate such a subject with someone who can be bothered to think for themselves
And Twophlag Gargleblap...you were doing so well until you started chucking insults about, I don't think you're going to hell mate and like I said before the entry was well written just badly titled.

I thought I said?

Genesis 1 is the *first* account.
Genesis 2 is the *second* account.

How exactly did you manage to miss it?

> "Anyway, in response to your comment about Pascal's Wager, really I have no need to worry. The reason for this is that I am very secure in my knowledge of God."

Pretty much the point I made in the article - whether the Wager applies to you depends entirely on your beliefs and 'knowledge'. I think it should be clear that it doesn't apply to us either. Which is, to me, a pretty good reason not to bring the Wager up in the first place, and you started it...

Creation Myth 1: Genesis, Chapter 1, Verse 1, through Chapter 2, Verse 3. This is the famous "seven days" creation story. On the first day, he makes light and dark. Day two, he creates heaven. Day three, dry land emerges from the water, and creates plants. Day four, he creates the sun, the moon and the stars. This is the first rediculous part... light before the sun? Day five sees animals emerge from the water. Day six is given over wholly to man, and the seventh day, he rested.

Creation Myth 2: Genesis, Chapter 2, Verse 4, through Chapter 2, verse 25: This is a narrative account, and states in verse 4 that it took only one day. In this version, God needs to create man to till the earth before plants can become abundant, and so man is created before plants, and then he creates plants, and animals, and then, finally woman.

Raspberria;

I often think it is astounding that Christians are actually surprised when their words are met with open hostility. I think perhaps it would do some of them a bit of good to sit back and listen to what they sound like when they go around talking about their faith.

If I was to knock on your door on Saturday morning and interrupt your breakfast so that I could inform you that you and your entire family are going to be eternally tormented in hell unless you join me in the cult worship of Yog-Sothoth, you might get some inkling. It comes across as extremely hostile, actually.

Also, by innocently proclaiming your utter confidence that you are wholly right in your views on faith, and religion, you have effectively condemned everyone who does not agree with them to hell, including dead babies, for example. People also find this hostile. This is the heart of what I find offensive about the Christian faith; its exclusivity. "I'm right and everyone else is wrong, and I know I'm right because the bible claims to always be right, and the bible is always right about being always right." Well, pretty hard to argue with that, isn't it.

Perhaps I do know "Yahweh". Perhaps I speak to the voice of the Imminent Self in my head all the time. Perhaps I have practised Jungian creative visualisation and can replicate what Jaynes called a bicameral mindstate at will. Maybe I haven't. You never know. But, you are presuming quite a lot in terms of dictating to me what my experience of Diety is, or isn't.

So, to sum up raspberria. You are going to hell, there to have horrible punishment inflicted on you, because you are worshipping a false god and have closed your heart and mind to the true message of the one true God, Eris Discordia. You and your entire family and all of your friends are worthless in the eyes of the universe and deserve to be rent limb from limb by demons unless you read our holy book, the Principia Discordia, and take it at face value as literally true. I know this is the case because I am always, always right. Tee, hee hee. Oh, by the way, bless you!

What I really wanna know is - if my mind is made up of a large number of personalities, and one of those personalities is christian, then do I get to go to heaven?

Howdo!
Lucinda, I never started anything about Pascal's Wager, I had never heard of it until Twophlag mentioned it the other day. And the second chapter of Genesis only says that God formed Adam from the "dust of the ground" at the point in which the earth was still forming, it doesn't change the first chapter's account or sequence. It probably takes quite a while to make a man so he was most likely doing the preparation at that point!!

Twophlag...I have never knocked on anyone's door or tried to convert them to christianity in much the same way that as an omnivore I have never tried to convert any vegetarians back to eating meat! However many non-christians (not to mention loads of vegetarians) have tried telling me that my faith is wrong...well they might just as well tell me that I should get a divorce because my husband is not to their liking. What I am trying rather clumsily to say is that I would never condem you or anyone to hell, it tells me not to in the bible, it's not my business who goes where. So why do others try to change my mind? Live and let live for goodness sake. Also I think that if someone is not called by God then they'd be a fool to believe a book written 2000 years ago that appears so contradictory on first reading.

The thing is, you wrote an article entitled "God" and invited everyone to comment. I suggested that your work was inaccurately titled as it is not an informative article about any "god" but merely your own opinions on religious sects and the attrocities committed in the name of these varying deities.

Maybe you haven't read my comments properly but if you do you may find that I'm not having a go at you (although I'm pre-menstrual right now so you're lucky!), I just gave you some (invited) constructive criticism...or does that make me a door to door evangelist?