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

It's okay, Atom_boy, I've asked them elsewhere if they could keep it elsewhere. And so I hope they will respect my request.

I don't mind thread drift, as I've said before, but there is a time and a place for more personal battles. So I have suggested that this isn't actually the place.




az

When i was at school Religious Educaton (RE) as it was then called was the most boring subject of the school week. All we did was watch a rubbish cartoon about a bunch of kids going back in time and wandering around various stories from the bible.

Anyway, sometimes i wish we would have had learnt more about other beliefs and philosophies, whatever they may be. Even though i don't really believe in any religion, i do believe that alot of the hate in the world is born from ignorance. People fear what they don't understand, this fear turns to hate and they become racsits, homophobes and Daily Mail readers.

By reducing the amount of ignorance, you reduce the amount fear and the amount of hate in the world. (in theory at least)

I quite agree, Ged. That much fear is based in ignorance.

I remember when I was a kid and being brought up RC that, during my catechism classes, we had a wonderful French Canadian priest who taught us the bible. And what he did - what I really liked - was to have all of us 'act out' various bible stories. So it became a bit like theatre as well. Quite a refreshing approach.

I came to realise, sometime in my mid-twenties, just how ignorant I was about other religions and beliefs. And I started reading books written by the mythologist Joseph Campbell after watching a six-hour interview with him on television. On the American PBS channel.

What I like about his writing - and what makes sense to me - is that he treats all religion as mythology. So it ended up being quite a good 'course' in comparitive religion whilst also learning about lots of other beliefs that aren't specifically religions.

It also made me realise that, even after reading many of his books, I still only understood - maybe - the tip of the iceberg.


az

Blicky: re: historical reference.

http://www.thinkinginenglish.com/notes.htm

Sources disagree on whether the quote is "attributed" to Goering or Goebbels, but in either case he was merely paraphrasing the original play.

H.

Thanks, Hoo. I also hadn't got the historical reference.

Silly uneducated ol' me!



az

Blicky, it is a reference to a Nazi (Erich Rohm, I think) who said that whenever he heard the word "culture" he reached for his gun...

azahar, I have read about this "fear of knowledge" in the context of American parents, most of whom home school for this very reason, many of them libertarians and/or Republicans, not necessarily "religious"...

NB - this is what Hoo says when he thinks no one else is looking...
<<"Adelaide, dear: despite that, it appears you don't realise it doesn't matter. People - other people, not you and me - see your tagline, then mine. Try to imagine what the effect is. I know Christians, and religious people generally, have a real problem understanding how other people think, and in some cases THAT other people think, in extreme cases that other people EXIST. But try, really try, to put yourself in the position of an external observer. Hopefully then you will realise how humourously irrelevant your defense is. (as well as being borderline incomprehensible...)">>

From F35246?thread=458106
I thought people like Atom Boy might be interested... BTW I changed my tagline, he didn;t change his.

Della/Adelaide/Adele/Debbie/Annie:

Two things:

1. Why, NINE HOURS after I've provided a link showing the quote comes from Hanns Johst's play, do you pop up and state something else - something completely wrong? I mean, can you just not help yourself, or something? Aren't you paying ANY attention? Or do you just enjoy looking ignorant?

2. "where nobody can see it"??? This is a public site. Everyone can see everything. *I* understand that. You, it seems, do not. Please do not project your ignorance where it does not belong. Thank you.

H.

*sigh*

C'mon you guys . . .


Della, it would probably be a good idea if you finished reading the backlog before you started replying to postings. To avoid, well, confusion. And to either mention the person or quote the bit that you are replying to.

Sometimes on fast moving threads your replies - especially short ones like 'I wholeheartedly concur' or 'What do you mean by that?' - make no sense because you are answering someone from two pages back and there is no reference to which posting you are answering and the thread has already moved on. Anyhow, just a friendly suggestion.

Re: 'fear of knowledge'. I was specifically referring to the subject and the article, which talked about religious parents who don't want their children studying about other religions or options in school.

Why do you think parents who 'home school' have a 'fear of knowledge'?



az

Maybe the 'Fear of Knowledge' is linked into the experience I suspect the majority of us had a school (at least in the UK and US), of having the cr*p bullied out of us, if we displayed any intelligence or have the desire to learn.

How this effects children who are taught at home, i don't know. But they are probably teased by brothers or sisters.

I think it is natural for Fundamentalist religeon (or any fundamentalist doctrine for that matter) to fear "Reason" and "Knowledge" as by very definition these things undermine the idea of blind faith.

If you want people to accept the Literal truth of the bible then the last thing you want them to be able to do is think rationally and independantly.

<>
Because I know some of them... Contrary to what Ralph said below, New Age people, or libertarians. They don't want their children exposed to in one case, genetic modification and similar scientific things, or "socialism" in the other case. Plus I have read about *American* families who want their children not to be exposed to evolution or socialism!

<>

It would only work if they'd listen or care. The only way to get people to not use the word "atheist" is to make it politically incorrect. In other words, you'd have to get a lot of people to agree it was an issue worth bothering with. Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I just don't think it can be done. It's a battle that can't be won, and I suspect that getting the average person to use a different word wouldn't actually change their views.



<>

I think the other reason is what people are used to. The words agnostic, atheist, rationalist, ect. have been used as practical synonyms (not to suggest that they really are) for so long that people aren't going to bother changing the word they use to describe themselves. I agree that rationalist and agnostic are better terms than atheist, but (irrational as it may be) you're not going to convince everyone to pick one term just by making rational arguements--you can find people trying to make arguements for other words, as well.

Uniform terminology can come about in two ways--some sort of organization that enforces/authorizes official rules or else a long tradition of a particular usage. The latter clearly does not exist in this case and I think we'd agree that the former is improbable and pointless.

The arguements made in this thread have started to convince me that agnostic or rationalist would be a better word to use, but you're not going to convince people en masse this way and, even if you convinced them not to call themselves atheists, I find it harder to belive you'd get them to agree on a uniform alternative--people'd pick their own things depending on personal preerence and you would just eliminate one term, not make another universal or even much more common.

We might all agree it is more accurate than "atheist", it is less likely that we'd agree both to change the word and to switch to rationalist and not one of the other more or less common alternatives.

<>

In many cases fundamentalist Christains who are afriad that their kids will hear non-Christian liberal ideas at public schools. I don't have the statistics in hand, but I'd suspect a large fraction of home-schooling families in the US fall into that catagory.

<>

Perhaps agnostic or rationalist would be a better description for some, but for others, inlcuding myself, neither fits. I'm NOT an agnostic, indeed, agnosticism is something that can annoy me in many cases. I've never been a fan of that 'well, i don't really know if there's a god, so I'll just say there might be one, just in case' mentality, although it suits some people fine. To each his own, I suppose. I don't call myself an atheist because I'm not sure there is a god, I'm an atheist because the existence of god simply doesn't matter to me, and I strongly believe in the lack of one. How can I believe in something that doesn't really matter to me? I just do, and I do so with more thought and conviction than the christians around me give me credit for.

I'm not a rationalist either because to me that does indeed imply that religion is irrational (as mentioned in earlier posts). I don't care whether religion is rational or not, as long as it doesn't cause people problems in their lives, or at least these problems do not impinge on other people in the world.

I agree with you that "banning" the word atheist in favour of supposedly "more specific" terms would just cause the proliferation of other terms without any more rationality or specificity. For example, I've heard people refer to their religion as "solipsism" but when asked what exactly a solipsist supposedly believes, they haven't got a clue.

It's important, however bad a description of the belief in no god, or the lack of belief in god, or whatever, atheism is, that it is at least explained objectively to students. They shouldn't be told that atheism is evil or perverse, or somehow faulty, just like they shouldn't be told that being religious is the same as being an irrational, racist crackpot. The point, i believe, is balance and objectivity.

Ami of zx

I've been lurking here for months... it's about time I said something else, really. But the fact is, Ami has just beaten me to it. Thanks Ami - you took the words out of my mouth and saved me the trouble of typing them all...

Ivan.

Lazy!


az

Lazy? Me?



It's a fair cop...

Always happy to oblige!

Ami of zx