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

Here is a video synopsis of many basic questions and points
that have been made in this thread over the years. It is aimed at
being friendly in a mildly paternalistic way that may put you off
if you are not young and open-minded but please bear with it,
if only for the many rare and wonderful video clips of various
religious practices whirled-wide. Lots of surprises.

Did you know there are 45,000 Christian denominations?

http://youtu.be/XYsRqf0tDm4

After making it clear that religion doth sucketh it then makes the
mistake of putting forth 'capital S science and Atheism' as the only
true answer to the questions of life, the uni et al.

Curiously it is a translation from an original in one of them forrin
squiggly languages but nicely rendered into class-room English.

None-the-less - one of the best atheist videos I've ever seen
and well worth watching and passing on especially to children.

~jwf~

I doubt it was translated *from* "one of them furrin squiggly languages" but rather *to* Arabic.

It's an interesting bit of Atheist propaganda. It is quite odd when I see atheists proselytizing. The way the narrator says, "dear believer" sounds a bit condescending.

Any true believer would dismiss this off-hand at best, and call for the head of the producer at worst.

But I can see that it might be useful to someone who is already doubting. It does touch on some good points (and many well-chewed talking points.) But I suspect this was mainly made for internet atheist "karma points".

When I was young, the only atheist I'd ever heard of was Madeline Murry-O'Hare [sp?] and the only times I heard her name was from preachers cursing it. I was probably an atheist pretty early on, I just didn't dare admit it to myself. It took many years of studying different philosophies before I openly disavowed my Christian upbringing. For quite a while I referred to myself as an "Agnostic/Taoist".

I wonder how a younger me would have handled such atheistic propaganda? Would that have "saved" me from years of searching? Or would it have deprived me of it?


Just some thoughts...

I bet that narrator bloke dude only says that cos he was born into a secular atheistic Dawkonian individualistic commy disunity.

I agree with Baron - it was just a little too patronising & authoritative for my tastes, it makes me wonder about image rights ... the images of identifiable people being exploited & them made out to be perhaps narrow minded and deluded for the purpose of promoting the atheist viewpoint. There were also several important errors and many generalisations. However I thought the jist of the video was fair and although patronising and labouring the same point it was not threatening & it put forward the case why some turn to atheism. If I was to generate a promotional video for atheism I would do it differently although the accidental nature of one's specific religion is a valid & worthwhile point.

I don't mind what people believe. What scares me is when they combine in organisations that are strong enough to threaten me. And that includes Athiests (or even athiests of which I am one).

It seems to me when big money & rights to access to natural resources (oil etc) are involved, religion takes a back seat to go old exploitative capitalism. Example is Saudi Arabia most favoured nation status despite having a regime & political system identical to the one in Taliban run Afghanistan. Even the Saudi Arabian elite don't pretend to practice what they preach with their playboy lifestyles (suite of sports cars etc). Anyone with a brain stem knows that fundamental Islam arose as a backlash to Western pressure to open up global markets & to access & exploit global resources. Similar the militant atheist approach just makes the fundamentalists and moderates more hard-line ... it's basic psychology.

But as I say the video although patronising & imperialistic in approach is much better than what else I have seen out there ... including advocation of "genocide" based on religion & location ... but yes there are plenty of nuts out there.

Plato:
Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.
Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

He later modifies his view: Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.

Question for Julzes - have you come across the concept of Frank Tiplers "Omega Point" and if so what are your thoughts on the matter? The topic came up on another thread and it seemed to me that since you have a mathematics background and since some of your ideas seem to parallel Tiplers maybe you have some thoughts on the matter. As far as I can tell I think the basic concept is that during the initial expansion phase of the universe information and intelligence evolves while during the collapse phase of the universe the intelligence is able to coalesce and combine the collapsing matter into a supra hive mind type entity - so that the entire universe becomes a supraentity upon collapse - the omega point.

This theory requires a closed universe but it seems that the latest cosmology suggests our universe is open.

Whenever anyone opens up the can of worms that is the open vs closed
Universe my mind flips to the old 'halfway theory' in which it is proposed that
if one steps halfway toward a given point and steps halfway again and again
that one will never reach the destination but always be only halfway there -
ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

Being one of them wishy washy compromising Canuck types I find great comfort
in the idea of always being en route to an unreachable destination.

In conclusion it can be safely assumed that the general answer to the ultimate
question is very likely 42 plus or minus such an infinitesimal variant as to be both
irrelevant and incalculable. Or at least someone else's problem (SEP).

~jwf~

>> I find great comfort in the idea of always being en route to an unreachable destination. <<

Well if you had subscribed yourself to one of those ivory towers rather than what theorist disparagingly call the real world - you would know that in mathematics one says we tend to a limit or tend to an asymptote. Anyway according to Tipler the supraentity slows down time so that it avoids the big crunch and hence has an eternity to contemplate its own navel, but there's more - it can go beyond it's own space time to actually ensure it's own creation ... and mathematically it seems maybe possible. So God lies at the end of space time and reaches out to the beginning to pluck a so called plum out of nuffink to ensure it's future existence. Anyway I am not one of those mattiticians or cosmo-fellows - but a few of them do believe it could be pessable.

Post 30411 >> Saw this on the FB Philosophy group page. It seemed germane to our main topic here.

http://atheistfallacies.wordpress.com/2013/10/13/the-atheist-psychosis-delusional-about-people/

"Atheists seem to think that it is virtuous to be non-delusional about facts but accept being delusional towards people." <<



I like consistency in people. Let’s have a look at that link & the author:

October 13, 2013 by Joxua Luxor author of short essay "THE ATHEIST PSYCHOSIS: Delusional About People"
“...I ... my ... I … Being delusional towards people, means to not understand people and to not communicate correctly and to not relate to people correctly. … I ... “

Comment by John Richardson: “You coined the term “factoid”?! If you’re not Norman Mailer (and so, dead), your pants are on fire ”

Response by Joxua Luxor: “learn to detect your horse sheet* sir. is his definition the same as mine??? no it is not. Take a class on linguistics idiot.”

*facebook allows more colourful language than would pass through the h2g2 filters.

Hmmm it seems to me the person making the sensible comment that ultimately reveals Mr Luxor own inconsistency (& possible psychosis) is none other than that other great canuck (?), artist & linguist, who no longer spends time on h2g2.

I have taken a look at the titles of some of Joxua Luxors short essays and have read another one of them: "RICHARD DAWKINS IS AN IDIOT" - which seemed promising ... and I'll agree he does make some sense and fair points ... and it is interesting reading ... but at face level he seems just a little hyper & perhaps a bit self-focused that leads him to display symptoms of slight megalomania resulting in some errors and inappropriate responses as exampled above.

http://thoughtuncommon.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/richard-dawkins-is-an-idiot/#comment-440

>> none other than that other great canuck (?), artist & linguist <<

You may be right! Same name, same impatience for stupidity.
He suffereth not the fools or their foolishness.

Thanks for noticing that - I've spent so much time on h2g2
I hardly notice names online anymore because they usually
contain no useful identification data and change so frequently.

As a follower of the FB philosophy threads I will keep an eye out
for other indications. I am there as me the same as here.

~jwf~

Aha! Here we have the Dicky Dawkins hosting the Dougie Adams
reading from his famous book about Hitchins and Hiking.


http://youtu.be/G45ptqdjclU


~jwf~

I'll give a detail numerological on this in a couple of days, but I have 'been induced' to start some kind of personalized calendrical system with 33-day months, 5-day weeks, and inner and outer offdays (Since I don't already have more detail than that, some might say it's already personalized simply by being vague, so I'll try to get a little more concrete (but don't expect that quick, as I'm loaded down with thoroughly enormous coincidences)).

Dawkins will be featured on the next Nightwish album.