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

I think Darwin didn't mention humans because he knew he'd get into noend of trouble with the Church even without it, which he did of course.

Hi Wonko!

"Actualiy I'm a long term egoist, which is about the same as an altruist (hope the english word is right, at least the german is) and exactly the opposite of an egoist."

Well, that certainly explained your unselnes! Here's to you

MaW said "To be an atheist you have to absolutely believe there is no God..." Yes, indeed!

Atheism is as much an act of faith as theism, as it involves accepting as true something which cannot be proven (or disproven). For this reason, I have always grouped Atheists with Believers, and placed agnostics on the other side of the fence. Alone... In the cold and dark... Miserable!

Pattern-chaser

I like it out here in the dark... when you're in the dark, you can see into the light very well, but if you're in the light, the dark seems totally inpenetrable...

As an analogy, consider standing on a stage in the theatre. You can barely see the audience due to the glare of the spotlights, but they can see you perfectly.

The audience are the agnostics, out in the dark looking in with great clarity. Everyone else is unable to see out of their own realm. Which might be a good thing for them, since some people are genuinely happier having committed themselves to a belief and rejected the others. Good for them, I say (provided that belief isn't "I shall kill all children" of course). But I'm quite happy out in the dark looking in and thinking "Hmm, well that's interesting, and they've got a good point there, but that's just absurd." (some of my thoughts from my recent investigations into Christianity. I'm now moving on to other religions, probably with Wicca next as Christianity seems to think witches are really evil people, which is patently untrue as far as I can see - it's one way of choosing my next target anyway).

Here's to us,
and those like us.
Damm few of them,
and all dead.

Prost, Pirate.

Just a quick note to say that my last note was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I wasn't actually attacking agnostics (well, not much!) - this is the FFFF, after all!

MaW: I like your extension of my mischievous analogy, of the audience being out there in the dark and so on. A nice way to make your point.

"Everyone else is unable to see out of their own realm." Isn't this quite a good definition of subjectivity, the state we (humans) all find ourselves in? I don't think this is directly related to being religious, or not.

An open mind is, of course, a Good Thing, and so I suppose anything that encourages an un-open mind has to be a Bad Thing. Or does it?...

Pattern-chaser

When I'm in the audience of a play I'm always in the dark...

Oh, we go through a whole lot of philosophies just now. All these lovely versions of Utilitarianism (*E starts humming*and another -ism down, another -ism down, another one bites the dust): Egoism, atlruistic egotism, egoistic altruism, alteregoism, and and and, well, the need for a lot more definitions. I got a bit outdated history of philosophy, that was on offer in the "Weltbild-Katalog", a german bookclub kind of... There is so much to read about the stuff, I always feel like I havn´t yet had enough time to argue with my own multitude of selfbeliefs etc. Mindboggling. And well, it realy is difficult if you want to be a follower of the Whole Truth. I just couldn´t stand being on the "wrong side". I want to be with John Wayne and the "Goodies!"

Fancy fighting the good fight against some truly appalling born-again bigots, right here on h2g2? Then step this way: http://www.h2g2.com/F58078?thread=88492 . There you will find one of the threads stemming from the Talking Point feature on abortion. It was going fine until until it got invaded by a person of questionable mental stability named Anthony, who has been spouting far and away the most disgusting, grotesque religious right crap I've ever seen on h2g2. As he was losing the argument bigtime, he threatened to round up his pals to back him up, which they have now started to do. Interestingly, said pals all appear to be new Researchers who have posted little or nothing else, which strikes me as somewhat suspicious. But whatever - if he can call in reinforcements, then so can I! So come on in - the blood's lovely! ;-)

Isn´t it a pitty, that the best way of dealing with these kind of attitudes is, igonring them? Every onlineminute argueing with a rightwingfundamentalistchristianselfconvincedandsurehewillgettoheavan-type is lost money. (Das ist fast so schlimm wie mit mir über Männerbewegung und Frauenbild zu diskutieren, gell Wonko?)

No, Engländer, it's fun to discuss things with you!

Yes, but as Engländer rightly pointed out, getting in a snitt over male/female viewpoints and so forth is utterly pointless (assuming of course I translated that correctly without my dictionary!)

Oh, something else to add to the audience in the theatre analogy for agnostics (or did I say this already?). Agnostics are out there in the dark, in the audience, but because it's dark they can't see each other, only look into other faiths and see what they hold. So they float around in the void independant of each other, forming their own beliefs and worldviews, looking in on religion (yes, Atheism is a religion by my definition, if a rather unusual one). But do agnostics talk among themselves? A friend of mine (who is incidentally a committed Christian) keeps mentioning to me the so-called Agnostic's Prayer, which involves praying to a God who may or may not be there, with lots of "if"s and so forth in it. I must say this is rather silly... if an agnostic wants to find a God, all they need to do is come out of the audience and join the people on the stage. It's simple, if they want to do it.

I don't. I've spent some time looking at Christianity largely because most of the friends I've made at University are Christians, but in the end I've come to the same conclusion as before - it's not for me. Although I do understand it better now. Which is why I'm moving on to look at other religions. Understanding is _never_ a bad thing.

I may be in the dark, but I'm certainly not miserable. Not because of that anyway.

Some of you may have sore throats though. I've never seen a threat so filled with words and so empty of . So here's to you:

I'm not unhappy.

I'm very happy.

I'm quite fond of the dark.

What threat?

You made a point, there MaW, but I was refering to a petty argument I have/had with Wonko concerning our different viewpoints on the issue.

At the Community Feedback page there is an excellent discussion concerning bigots and bigotry. Look for bigot.com

Bigotry - I don't like it very much.

That's an extremely bigoted response... anti-bigots are like art-lovers - they don't know much about the subject but they know what they (don't) like

The extremely lucid (so far) forum discussing bigots can be found at http://www.h2g2.com/F55683&thread=90110&skip=0&show=20