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

For example, prepare to be terrified.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rtxipmYm-4


Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGYSpvBYDIA


Part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyuxFd2JpO8

Hi Mar,

>In the case Gif mentions, I have not a clear idea.

Well I would hardly bother asking if the answer was obvious, would I

I mean, I could ask whether the doctrine and practice of slavery by the church is/was moral, but I suspect it would be a short 'debate'...

To me, it seems unfair that the church (or rabbinate) should be able to select who is entitled to an education at the school of their choice. Yet... can we force them to take non-religious people into their schools?

Gif

>> ...insisting on our right to tell others how to educate their children? <<

Our modern western ideas of education spring from the Evangelical Movement of the late 1700s. In was during this same Age of Reason that we saw the writing of the American Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights as well as Edward Gibbon's cool analysis of the history of Christianity (as part of his great 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire).

The Evangelical Movement was the leading edge of the Romantic Movement and put forward many liberal notions of equality, fairness, freedom and justice for all. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

They were especially concerned with providing a universal education for all. But their model for the schooling system was based on a religious model - a group of students attending the lessons of an expert. (A group of empty vessels to be filled with the established wisdom.)

That church model was soon replaced by the factory model as the Industrial Revolution changed social values and the economics of training workers for the new whirled order usurped the idealism of Evangelicalism. Soon they began turning out students in a methodic mechanistic way.

Now in the last few decades the factory model has been replaced by the prison model - security cameras, standards of conformity, restrictions on mobility and expression imposed by a top down authority, zero tolerance for deviance from rules and promised rewards for compliance.

Schools? Don't talk to me about schools!
Schools suck. And not in a good nighthooverly way.

Schooling is what we call brainwashing and indoctrination when it's done to children. It's bad enough we do it to our own; we have no right to educate other people's children.


~jwf~

jwf, have you been reading Hard Times?



Gif

What the dickens...?

http://hightimes.com/


~jwf~

I've just been watching the questions from the Hitchens/Fry debate. I just had to quote this comment from the speaker that I think sums up the attitude in the hall towards the end of the debate:

>Any supporters of the Catholic Church? Sorry, I'm not showing bias, but just to spice things up...

Gif

That was a funny moment in the hall. We all got a good chuckle out of it.

The Catholic side were getting hammered, and the chair sort of pleads with the audience, any sympathetic voices out there?
I seem to remember there was one woman who asked Hitchens about the 10 commandments, and there was this collective drawing in of breath, and there was a nun on the front row, who addressed Fry and Hitchens and it was funny to watch them watching her.

Kind of surreal.

I'm undecided as to whether the stridency of the public atheists is good or bad for the cause of lesser atheists' freedoms. They may either be making all atheists look kind of bad, or they may be opening a space for the friendlier ordinary atheist to say "I'm not like Dawkins, Hitchens and the lot; but I do basically agree with them." Aside from the question of knowing the real truth, it is this religious freedom for atheists that is most important. There are plenty of places--in fact, few the opposite--where atheists better keep their mouths shut if they know what's good for them.

<>

what about freedom of speech????

Speech is only free to the extent that people respect its freedom. Personally, I think Al Gore "lost" in 2000 more because of a comment that atheists should have the freedom to say what they want than any other single thing.

<< I think Al Gore "lost" in 2000 more because of a comment that atheists should have the freedom to say what they want than any other single thing.>>

thats just your opinion

this entry

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A679025

seems to think it had little to do with it and more to the media and election fraud

<>


they have that freedom, its called the first amendment????

Yeah, and homosexuals and Jews have the right not to be murderered simply for being themselves, too. That's the extreme, though. All sorts of mild discrimination can occur despite its theoretical legality, and that's the reason someone like Al Gore felt the foolish compulsion (in retrospect, in my opinion) in our country to say what he did. You have it relatively nice for atheists in much of Europe nowadays. If I were to hang out in large parts of my country and say some of the things I've said in the Philadelphia area, I would have to be willing to take a beating.

legality-->illegality

>what about freedom of speech????

As a very wise man once said:
You have the right to free speech - provided you ain't dumb enough to actually *try* it!

Gif

clive, just watched the heredi thing,

in responce

cut the subsidy they recieve, give them something so fundamental to do, its at the heart of their creation myth

6 days to toil and 1 day to rest......?

the finds work for idle

they are the jewish chav,
dodgy clothes, lots of pregnant women and kids, hanging around in groups and harassing people, living off the state and allways b*tch*ng, not going out to get a propper job

Do they take converts? I could say I was a believer for benefits like that.

A60346082

Gif

A brief diversion, if I may.

This was up on Dawkins.net, but I just finished watching it and it is *fascinating.*


http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge307.html

Interview with Robert Sapolsky - neurobiologist and primateologist.

it's 25 minutes of your life you'll not regret giving up.

Learn about the parasite that makes rats horny for cat pee.

Learn why this may have something or nothing to do with schizophrenia and motorcycle accidents.

and a few odds and ends about stress effects at the level of the chromosome.

In-credible.

Clive, thanks for that link. I knew about the Toxo thing but I hadn't heard such a detailed explanation. The link to schizophrenia for example.

Any crazy cat ladies with motorbikes out there? The US Marines are recruiting.