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

I can say something provocative, but noone must yikes me (It should be within the rules though)

Provocative, not rude!

Go on then. We'll see if you can provoke me.

Allright then, you baby eating sataninst,

hmm provocative, provocative....

nope, can't think of anything provocative at the moment

That's not provocative.

I have better things to do than eat babies.

Wanna go bug JtP?

Does he still use this site?

I think he only talks to people who leave him messages on his page, he responded to my Evolution question about 3 days ago.

Oh, I got bored and sickened when his identity was exposed a little bit more than I imagine he would like it to be.

And all 6 of my posts were moderated out...

What is he Somebody famous? Or just where he lives, works, buys adult videos?

What's wrong with adult video's?

No. Just details of his life that made his weak abhorrant little views even worse in my eyes. Won't repeat them - but they are easily accessible on the 'net.

I don't personally ever guff with them, but nothing, I can just see him as one of the regular users of the "Veiwing Booths" but we should stop this soom before we (by this I mean me) get Yikesed.

You don't watch porn?

What kind of teenage boy are you?

As much as I hate to drag this back on topic... I wasn't able to access the site yesterday and I'd hate for anyone to think I just came here to speak my piece without hanging around to see what others had to say. So I fear I may get long winded again, but I have a few comments.

Geoff
You remind me of an ex-smoker in a crowded smoking lounge

RMF
"How come it is ok to say "Cristians can do what they want as long as they dont push their Ideals for me?" but it cannot be applied to atheists?"
It can be applied to Athiests. It is not against the law for Christians to go door to door "saving" people, it's just annoying when they come to *your* door. They, of course, have the freedom to speak their minds, just as you have the freedom to not subscribe to their beliefs.

Mandragora
I fail to see what celibacy for male priests has to do with there being female clergy. Can you explain?

Amy
"there's more basic belief than the existance of a God.."
Of course. I was over-simplifying to make a point, my apologies.

"As I understand it, most of the divisions in the church are related to ceremony and doctrinal *stress* rather than actual theology..."
Does this mean how their services are held and how their followers are instructed to conduct themselves? I've always wondered how there could be so many different interpretations of the same book... literally hundreds. Was it really so ambiguously written that the only thing that everyone can agree on is that Jesus lived and we should follow his teachings, even if we can't agree what they were?

"I have no idea why Catholics are so seldom considered to be Christians.... Maybe because when you ask a Catholic what religion they have ties to they'll say Catholicism, not Christianity"
Maybe this is because calling themselves Catholic, as opposed to Christian, more accurately identifies their beliefs. When I was a church-goer, if anyone were to ask me my religion I would say that I was Methodist, not that I was Christian. But no one ever had any doubts that Methodism was a Christian religion.

Perhaps it has more to do with Catholics not recognizing other religions. My ex-husband was Catholic and his church would not recognize his marriage because I was not. They also don't acknowledge our son because he has not been christened Catholic. On the plus side, they don't recognize our divorce either.

"I think in certain realms there *are* no answers - why did God even bother to create beings He knew would cross us? Why didn't he just destroy evil when it started when Satan fell? Why did redemption require a blood sacrifice?... I accept them as unknowns that I will eventually understand"
Would it upset you to find the answer to be 'It was a set up. I got bored with humanity really quick and just wanted to have a bit of fun with it.'? Just curious.

I'm not picking on you, Amy, really... your comments just pique my curiosity more than some others

Ok - I'll see what I can do to answer. I've only got 20 minutes, though, so I might have to finish later.

"As I understand it, most of the divisions in the church are related to ceremony and doctrinal *stress* rather than actual theology..."
Does this mean how their services are held and how their followers are instructed to conduct themselves? I've always wondered how there could be so many different interpretations of the same book... literally hundreds. Was it really so ambiguously written that the only thing that everyone can agree on is that Jesus lived and we should follow his teachings, even if we can't agree what they were?

I may be wrong - but most of the differences that exist between the denominations are things that have very little to do with the actual canon of the Bible as it was originally set up (though Catholics use a few extra books and Mormons have a completely different belief system because of one book). The only *real* difference I've seen in attending different services by different denominations is ceremony. The catholic service I attended was full of almost unconscious responses from the congregation, and had much statuary and reference to saints (the praying to saints is an anomoly to me in Christianity and I'd love a Catholic to explain it to me). My grandmother's methodist church does away with the statuary and saints, but keeps the responses (though they're printed in the bullitin). My own baptist church does none of these things. None of these things are set out in the Bible as things to do during a worship service, but rather they are a modernization (or lack thereof) of a Medieval mass.

I think. It's early and I'm not entirely sure.

"I have no idea why Catholics are so seldom considered to be Christians.... Maybe because when you ask a Catholic what religion they have ties to they'll say Catholicism, not Christianity"
Maybe this is because calling themselves Catholic, as opposed to Christian, more accurately identifies their beliefs. When I was a church-goer, if anyone were to ask me my religion I would say that I was Methodist, not that I was Christian. But no one ever had any doubts that Methodism was a Christian religion.

Interesting. Maybe that was too much of my own opinion in there - if I were asked, I'd respond Christian rather than baptist. I've been brought up in too many different churches for me to totally identify with one; it's simply the label on the one I attend.

Perhaps it has more to do with Catholics not recognizing other religions. My ex-husband was Catholic and his church would not recognize his marriage because I was not. They also don't acknowledge our son because he has not been christened Catholic. On the plus side, they don't recognize our divorce either.

Perhaps. An old youth group leader of mine was excommunicated from the Catholic church because he did't marry another Catholic.

"I think in certain realms there *are* no answers - why did God even bother to create beings He knew would cross us? Why didn't he just destroy evil when it started when Satan fell? Why did redemption require a blood sacrifice?... I accept them as unknowns that I will eventually understand"
Would it upset you to find the answer to be 'It was a set up. I got bored with humanity really quick and just wanted to have a bit of fun with it.'? Just curious.

It wouldn't so much upset me as surprise me, because that kind of attitude wouldn't fit in with the God the rest of Christianity supports. It's perfectly possible it could happen, in an infinite universe, but what little I know seems to point in quite the other direction.

Amy, though it's only guesswork, I suspect the prevalence of saints in Catholicism may have something to do with the long existence of the Catholic church. The likeliest explanantions I can think of are:

a) The large amount of time during which martyrdom was promoted, with sainthood being seen as a reward for the devout.

b) The competition between numerous places of potential pilgrimage all over Europe - having a bona fide saint was clearly good business, so even without the need for ulterior motives, once sainthood of any kind was available to be used as a promotional tool, many places would be pressing for their recently deceased local devouts to be canonised, and the church had few reasons not to comply if they didn't have enough information to the contrary.

c) For much of the church's existence, the mass of the population was illiterate, (and knew only what they were told about the Bible) and saints were useful half-way houses between people and God. God was responsible for everything, but Saint whatsisname might help out particular kinds of people, or people in particular situations.

Once people started reading the Bible for themselves, there were enough stories within it for them to consider for them not to need (or have room for) all the later saints, so the various Protestant religions generally discarded them.

PS
Sat - I don't understand how it took you so long to get fully bored with JtP, and looking at the page you mentioned I didn't see anything surprising given the info available on h2g2 - it was pretty ovbious nothing could have been his fault - either Satan's work, or God's great plan.

It doesn't really (celibacy and female ordination, that is) but I was responding to the idea that ordaining women was something the Church had done in response to progress in society. It's in the preceding posts somewhere...

course, celibate male priests implies it's the sacrament that makes them special and untouchable (which is how it is 'explained' generally) and women cannot receive it.

>>I have no idea why Catholics are so seldom considered to be Christians by the masses. Maybe because they seem to live in a world all their own with the Pope and the Vatican and all that. Maybe because when you ask a Catholic what religion they have ties to they'll say Catholicism, not Christianity. Whatever the reason - once and for all - Catholics ARE Christians. It's a denomination, same as Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, Pentacostals, Mormons, 7th day Adventists, and everyone else. <<
Bless you Amy! Just what I have been trying to say, and you put it so much better...
Re Mormons, they are here in NZ a lot! They have a reputation for being very dogmatic, and once, back in the late '70s, I lived across the road from a Mormon couple I babysat for. She *knew* that 6pm was prime baby-bathing and dinner getting time, but she sent some missionaries across the road to see me. I gave them an earful, when I answered
the door with a dripping wet baby in my arms and burning vegetables on the stove!<

As far as annoying evangelizing goes, they're almost as bad as Jehovah's Witnesses...

I met some fairly nice Mormons in Bath (UK) - they called round once where I lived but realised I wasn't *ahem* exactly ripe for assimalation, but I met them on various occasions on the long walk back from work and they were always really pleasant and chatty - if anything a bit *too* nice, (i got the feeling they'd been dumped in the area with a target for conversions) but the excessive niceness was the only immediate thing that made me feel a bit confined, though had we been long-term neighbours, who knows (given most places I've lived, I'd probably never had any idea who they were at all...)

On the other hand, more than one lot of JWs who have left my doorstep *promising* to return and discuss later somehow never seemed to find their way back - maybe my asking their views on women in the church/wider society made them feel I was a lost cause?

In fact, as far as religious doorsteppers in general are concerned, "We must come back and talk about thhis further" does seem to mean "We'll mark you down on our skeptic/satanist blacklist".

Maybe it's genetic - I remember my father selling a hapless door-to-door salesman one of the leaflets from the Inland Revenue that he was using in his lecturing, while not buying anything himself. Neither of us are salesmen in any way, but backed onto our own territory, we can both be very plausible and can get quite creative.