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

Della,

And so we come back, yet again, to the central doctrines of Christianity:
1. that we are sinful by our very nature,
2. and that can achieve salvation only through God.

‘Sinfulness’ is not ‘part of the human condition’. Humans are far too complex to be accurately described by as simplistic a term as ‘sinful’. Within each person is the potential to be kind or cruel, honest or deceitful, peaceful or violent. If sin were a given then the balance of humanity would be towards what many Christians quaintly call ‘evil’.

I believe I have met as broad a range of humanity as most (having lived in eleven countries and worked in three times that many) and I am yet to meet someone who still does not have that range of potential. To quote Sting “Russians love their children too”.

How we deal with that potential is the key. To rely upon divine salvation, forgiveness or absolution is a flawed philosophy that begets abdication of responsibility. The belief that we are ‘naturally sinful’ is similarly flawed for it places responsibility for our sinful condition upon a distant ancestor or upon God himself.

As humans we can choose how we wish to face the world.

We can hide behind our gods or honour them by our actions.

We can approach life with awareness of the consequences of our decisions and actions, take responsibility for these consequences, and develop the courage to face and overcome them. A triad I call ‘Duty’ (see my home page for more).

This way of facing the world is typical of druidry and heathenry, and no doubt some other faiths of which I am not fully cognisant.

To a pagan such as I, those that rigidly adhere to the central doctrines of Christianity are at best lazy, and at worst cowardly. Sorry to be blunt, but there you have it. Before everyone piles onto me, I know that this really applies to those that have the freedom and education to consider their theology in any depth (thus excepting the majority of those in impoverished nations whose only hope is salvation). However, no-one here has that excuse, nor do the priests and ministers of the Christian faith.

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Hi Heathen,

In answer to your question earlier, honestly, I don't know. What I am sure of is that violence only begets violence. The Near East (it's proper name, I hate it when they call it the 'Middle East') is proof positive of this.

Political leaders seem quite unable to consistently motivate their people towards peaceful coexistence, thus it must fall to their only alternative - the religious leaders. No other people have as large a constituency.

However, the philosophies and ethics of the three Abrahamic religions militates against this ever being possible. So perhaps we cannot achieve lasting peace until these religions are either redefined or overthrown. To do this we must provide a better, more appealing alternative and that is where the old religions may come in...

Interesting thought huh?

Blessings,
Matholwch /|\.

Well, I'm mostly waiting to find out how I can *will* a bottle of wine to appear!

az

Moth:

> It hasn't got the complete answers either.

That's not the idea.

> No I think the outcome of experimentation in this cause is more
> than faulty proceedure.

You'll have to be a bit more specific - I'm fairly up to date with the state of the more popular quantum experiments these days, and have a passing acquaintance with some of the the earlier misunderstandings and misinterpretations (e.g. the 'Romantic' Copenhagen interpretation, etc.), and I don't recognise your description as something of current interest/concern/relevance.

> Alice; see former reply.

>> Needing to look at things from another perspective?

OK, but what perspective - a Wonderland/Looking Glass perspective? Chess? The Red Queen (mirror-images and logical inversions)? The White Queen (living backwards), The Red King (dreaming the world)? The caterpillar (drugs & perceptual distortion)?, Humpty-Dumpty (semantics - it means what I choose it to mean)? Or Jabberwocky (nonsense)?

None of the above?

Higgs,

Perhaps a not entirely 'of this world' experience as most people see them.

az

Its not if God Exists, Devil.

Relegion is all about how you wish to think of Death.

Relegion just gives You/Me a way out at the point of death, If you live life believeing in a GOD you are allowed into a wonderfull place at death.

And if you dont you wont,

However as no one has ever come back to report on if it is a wonderfull place.

So bottom line is
1. Buy Life Insurance so who you leave behind have a "Better place".
2. Believe in a GOD and it might be YOU.


So on and Odds Baises I go for 1. and God is just a Figment of Man's imagination.

Nonsense God exists wether you believe in him or imagine him.He is 'Iam'.He existed before this world was created or colonised and he still exists now.You agnotics make me mad.

hi ajrsearjse,

People buy life insurance all the time.

I'd actually go for your 2) option. That my god concept is actually me. If that is what you meant. In my case there is no 'might be ' about it.

I believe that everyone on this thread are their own 'god'. They just have various means of expressing this. And sometimes they are more comfortable with creating an exterior god for them to believe in. No harm in that. Though I often cannot personally agree with some of the religions people subscribe to I don't doubt their belief.

My favourite icecream is vanilla. If someone else prefers chocolate then that is their right.

But if someone tells me I *have* to prefer chocolate or be damned for all eternity, well, that's just a bit silly.

az

toxx:

'I'm inclined to say that spatio-temporal continuity is what identifies the same person at different places and times. I'm not sure whether this is a defining factor or a contingent criterion that happens to do the job.'

If I could move every atom of you from one place to another through, say, some sort of weird wormhole type thing, you would not have spatio-temporal continuity. Yet I say you're the same person. Likewise, if I replaced each particle in your body with another, identical particle, I'd still say you're the same person.

If we say that spatio-temporal continuity is a necessary condition for being 'the same person,' then we're saying that, by definition, any duplicated or teleported person is immediately a different person. It's defining 'same person' in a way that makes my argument false by definition. What reason do we have for accepting this?

'Clearly, if I move a distance shorter than my own dimensions then this criterion is satisfied, since two of us could not occupy the same space.'

I'm not sure precisely what you mean by this.

Are there any issues I have failed to address, or which I have addressed but you can disprove?

- Jordan

'May I say you've done a sterling job so far running over the old ground I explored with toxx and taking the discussion on.'

Thanks, though we seem to be stuck in a rut at the moment...

'I don't think you're going to get anything constructive out of toxx, but he's a good foil for developing these ideas...'

That's a bit unfair! He seems to be certain of his position, but I'm sure that if my argument evolves to a point where it satisfies him he'll rescind.

I was enjoying developing them, though.

- Jordan

I'm glad you agree, Della! I've been labouring over this for a while. But... do you think that they are different persons at the instant one is duplicated, or only once they have had time to change?

I'm arguing for the latter.

- Jordan

Hi Math!

"However, the philosophies and ethics of the three Abrahamic religions militates against this ever being possible. So perhaps we cannot achieve lasting peace until these religions are either redefined or overthrown. To do this we must provide a better, more appealing alternative and that is where the old religions may come in..."

You will be aware that our paths have their own problems: you probably suffer more fluffies than we do, whilst we have our 'folkish' elements to contend with (thankfully a hitherto very minor element in the UK). But what we do have, as you say, is a strong sense of personal responsibility, not only for accepting the results of our own actions, but also in trying to work in partnership with the unseen world to honour the worlds and the way they are without pillaging them. (Nice word for a Heathen to use, huh?)

The Abrahamic religions seem to me to suffer from two major problems: the organised parts of the religions are hand in glove with politics and big business and their honour has been destroyed as a result. The charismatic and anti-establishment elements are fundamentalist in character and will not honour the ethics and beliefs of anyone else, even to the point of seeking to harm those who express dissent from what they say (but they hold that in common with the organised parts of their religions).

As ever, it is those who refuse power who hold the promise. But this is the message anyone who seeks power has failed to grasp: that the ability to change things for the better can only come about if you deny yourself the power to force such change.

Hi, Jordan.

I'm not sure that those examples violate spatio-temporal continuity. Do my atoms remain connected while going through this wormhole thing? There isn't enough detail about the process for me to judge. Serial replacement of the body occurs in the normal course of life so I'm happy enough with that.

I said that I think s-t continuity is a criterion, not a necessary condition. Hence it doesn't beg the question. I suspect that the really necessary condition is causation by the person of the future person.

If I move just a centimetre or so, my new position occupies most of the space I previously occupied. No person other than myself can do this without two bodies occupying the same space. Hence the newly located person is me. This isn't an important point though.

Sorry for the typos. I try to keep them to a minimum, and don't make them on any PC but this one, on which I do all my (quickly denounced as valueles by punative journalists) coursework, and has consequently had a large amount of late-night coffee and pot noodles spilt on the keyboard, and keys often require repeated hammering to work.

Upping the ante would be nice, if it could be accomplished without seeming like a grumpy atheist...

"30 philosophy students?" Trust me, some of the students in my class are very, very normal, and represent a wide demographic, from the Sun-reading idiots, to... me!

"Understood - I sometimes like to think that's my position too..."
Unfortunately, that excuse can be made for a wide range of things. Being a neurological model agostic gives me an even wider range for excuses, too.

Well, then, the soul, if you believe we have one, is what makes us different; if the original has to have it in order to exist as it does, then the copy needs one, too. However, since I don't believe in such a hypothetical and unobservable appendage, there is no other difference.

>>"I am a Christian because we are offered salvation"
Salvation from the sins the church has told you you own? <<
Moth, I said that about being a Christian because we are offered salvation, because in his challenge, Matholwch insisted that that's the *only* reason anyone *is* a Christian! I was saying that it is one reason, but not the only one.
No church told me I owned any sins. I became a Christian when I was 19. I had gone to Sunday school when I was 5, because I wanted to, and because the parents wanted a lie-in of a Sunday morning. Sunday school disappointed me, we learned nothing about God, we just had flannelgraph stories about the Old Testament, which were never made relevant to our lives in NZ in the 1960s. No church I went to ever mentioned sin, until I went to the Brethren in 1973. I had been aware all my life, of shortcomings, and aware of a need for a way to overcome them.
George MacDonald, who was among other things, a fantasy author, talks about the offer of salvation *not* being about escaping punishment, but about being salvation from what he calls 'live sins', the tendencies and temptations we are presently struggling against.
(That struggle is the meaning of the word 'jihad' Muzaakboy said once.)

Oetzi, dear... I do wish I knew what you are talking about! It all sounds very painful, whatever it is.

Brillaint, Alji. I'll get my brother to take a look. He is a photographer, and will especially like the historical stuff.

I think probably only after they have had time to change, but that could be a very small amount of time! Any significantly different experience would do it...

Thanks Della, did you look at the galery page?

Alji

No, but I'll go have another look.