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

No, Jews don't recognize Jesus "Christ". Far from it!

Have you met the religious right in America if we were to make contact with aliens not only would they try to convert them, but we may kill the ones that don't agree

Doubtful, saintmastershake! The 'religious right in America' are as much a bogeyman for hootooers as OBL is to the aforementioned 'religious right'. It is amusing to me to see the kind of attitudes and actions attributed here to the 'religious right', when the RR is actually more complex than h2g2 people ever understand or appreciate... Also, by some of the people h2g2ers choose to lump into the 'religious right' category! (Anyone they disagree with, basically.)

With the religious right I have only one problem.
It's not the right
It's not the religon
It's the hypocrisy.

These are the same people who are against all matters of death...

Abortion
Suicide
Assisted Suicide
They even think the morning after pill is outrageous
But yet the death penalty is o.k

To me eveyone has the right to their opinion...... Just be consistent

SMS

Is that right? How odd and indeed, as you say, incredibly hypocritical. I'm certainly anti- death penalty, but then I'm British and although I'm a Christian, I can't imagine anyone ever labelling me as a member of the 'Religious Right'.

David

saintmastershake, I'd like to see someone here define religious right... Because, I am a socialist par excellence, anti-war marches and all, but I've been lumped in with the 'religious right', by an angry American (which would be hilarious, if it weren't so sad.)


If you realised that the 'religious right' aren't monolithic, and that many people labelled that way, aren't, you'd discover that a sizeable chunk of them are actually as anti-death penalty as they are anti-abortion.

For instance, take Catholics. Defined on h2g2 as religious right, actually statistically far more likely, even in the USA, to be leftists, fiercely anti-capital punishment!

See people have the wrong impression about me and others of the same.
We are not an angry youth, we are just jaded. In the states we have two choices the far left and the far right, either way they have gone too far. There is just no room for a centrist here. I personally dont care what the mainstream deem to be acceptable in this country anymore. We have people like Rush Limbaugh who say that anyone caught in this country with drugs deserve mandatory prison sentences all awhile he is taking oxycontin like they are candy.

To sum up I guess it all boils down to one simple problem on either side of the aisle, you can't legislate morality. What one finds reprhensible is thier business but it is also my business to ignore them and continue to due as I please.

I do agree with you, about the impossibility of legislating morality..

Its all a bit odd really.

I've never been classed as 'Religious Right' Though I am British, and am partly socio-communist, mostly anarchist, so I doubt I'm overly well-represented when it comes to political issues. I guess what I am most against is authoritarianism. Unfortunately, the West is pretty keen on authoritarianism, and capitalism for that matter, which is a shame, becuase the worst governemnts in all of history were too authoritarian, eg. Nazism, USSR communism, Maoism, Roman and indeed all imperialism, and that goes along with all those military dictatorships (you can tell when the country has "Democratic Republic of..." before its name).

What do I think of the western civilistion. Well in the words of Ghandi, I think it would be a good idea.

we as a species have seen terrible wrongs, we have also seen spectacular triumphs. if we ever meet annother society(not very likely in our lifetimes)then our first problems will come from finding a common language.
whether or not some unknown form of life exists should be secondary to the fact that it does.
i'll not quote scripture, or hide behind teachings. math and science say that such things are probable. whether or not they are true makes no difference.the only thing that is truly important is correct living. we are all i believe, born to pursue that. we all can discern between right and wrong. even the worst of us knows when they do wrong.
as to whether or not the existance of life on europa would have any effect on the real meaning if religion amongst us lumps of flesh...why the hell SHOULD it?

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The problem is that you've defined god a sense that it only has in monotheistic religions. Polytheistic religions don't tend to consider their gods to be omnipotent, omniscient, "ultimate" beings. However, in a monotheistic culture, it is natural that monotheism would come to shape the way the word god is generally intepreted. But that doesn't make polytheism inconsistant.

But what does that make God's then? Just some other species? Surely that does not render them worthy of worship.

Supernatural is not equal to ultimate. Why does being ultimate make something worthy of worship when it wouldn't be otherwise?

Reasons polytheistic gods might be worthy of worship:
1.) perhaps they created life/humans, even if they did not create the universe--ie it existed naturally without divine intervention
2.) perhaps they did create the universe--and if you want to claim that this makes them ultimate, well, that doesn't mean that one of them is supreme above others--it is not inconsistant to think that creation could have been the work of multiple gods.
3.) perhaps, even if the universe and life are natural in origen, they interfere in human affairs, which might make them deserving of worship if their interventions were benevolent--but even if their interventions aren't necesarily benevolent, worshiping them would still be rational if it affected how they intervened.

Also, you've misused an apostrophe in your post.

Indeed I have.

My point is, that... Hmm, I'm not quite sure what my point was really. I guess I just feel that if you have a pantheon of gods then it seems to me that 'really really good' isnt quite good enough. If they arnt the cause of everything, and indeed if they were caused themselves, then I cannot see any real difference between them and... the sandwich I am about to eat. We're all created beings, and to say that gods can be created is to put them on the same level as other created things.

But if, for the sake of argument we say that an uncreated imperfect being could exist, surely that would make them a necessary being, ie, that they cannot not be. Is it possible that you could have an imperfect necessary being?

Define necesary. What makes a perfect being more necesary than an imperfect one? What makes any being necesary.

We're only created if there is a creator--if there is none then there aren't two levels of beings defined as creator and created.

Why do creators deserve to be worshiped while created beings never do?

I really don't see how you can define whether or not something could not be. Other, I suppose, than that if something it did exists, it must exist. But by that standard, I am necesary since if I didn't exist this post couldn't exist.

My point here is strict philosophical necessity. I apologise for not being clear, though I did give my definition:

Necessity: That which cannot not be.

This is opposed to contingent beings, ie. Beings which can not exist (ie. There is a possible world in which such a being does not exist). Your example of you and the post is incorrect. The post is contingent, as are you, therefore just because the post exists does not mean that you must exist. In other words, there is a possible world in which neither you, or the post exist.

Now, on why a necessary being is worthy of worship. I guess my feeling is that if a necessary being exists, then all that that being creates is dependant upon that being. This is my reason for that being being worthy of worship. A there is no such dependance on a created being (and here I mean ultimate dependance, if we are dependant in some way on created beings (like our parents for example), this is immaterial as all creation is dependant upon the necessary being.

Anduril

Just because an ultimate being may exist in this world doesn't mean one must exist in all worlds--so even an ultimate being is contingent. Our would may be created by a theistic God, that in itself doesn't prove that there isn't a possible world that is not. So, to claim that God is necesary, you have to have a proof of Her existance that applies to all universes and not just this one--for example, if the Intelligent Design people are right, they may have proven that this world was created, but not that one couldn't have a possible world without one.

I don't see why it matters whether a being is necesary or contingent if your existance is contingent on them--in other words, unless you assume predetermination, the fact that the First Cause is necesary for everything else does not make it responsible for everything else, thus intermediate causes--things necesary for your existance but contingent on the First Cause's existence are still just as necesary for your existance as the first cause's.

You have claimed that to be necesary, a being must be perfect. Define perfect. The definition I use would exclude theistic Gods, so clearly it is not the one you're using.

How does dependence result in worthiness of worship. Even if I was to accept your claim that intermediate dependence is irrelevant and only ultimate dependance matters (which I don't), then how does dependence result in worthiness of worship?

Incorrect. Kripke defined necessity in terms of that which must be in all possible worlds. If a necessary being exists then it must exist in all possible worlds. If we are talking of an ultimate being, then generally necessity is considered part of that ultimateness (ultimatum?). 'A contingent ultimate being' is oxymoronic. I am claiming God's existence a priori, though I never considered such a claim to be a proof. Indeed, I think the ontological argument is a load of bunk... at least I think I think that... hmm.

I am claiming that nothing is necessary aside from God, not even the first cause (God is a being, not an action). So anything deriving from the first cause does not have necessity in its being. If you lay aside predeterminism, as you said you were, then there are no necessary actions, as for any actions to have meaning in terms of free will, there must have been the possibility of an action being done in anoter way.

Forget perfection for a while. Its not actually relevant, if we stick with necessary then that should be just fine. Actually, while were at it, forget worthiness of worship as well. I was just using a term Bertrand Russel uses at some stage, pay it no mind.

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It makes little sense to say that something is ultimate in a world, but its existance depends on something else in that world, agreed. But that doesn't mean that ultimateness in one world implies existance in another. So how does being ultimate in one world imply something is necesary in all worlds?



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In that case, why is a necesary being necesary for my existance more important than a contingent one? After all, if both have free will and both could have acted in ways that would have prevented it, they are equally essential, making them equally worthy of worship. But if you want to drop the worthiness of worship discussion, ok.