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

This is definitely one of my favourites... lol

http://azahar.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/lolangel.jpg


az

can those pages be yikesed, they are making fun of peoples deeply held beliefs after all.

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I have put my views 1000s of times in the more than 7 years I've been on h2g2. Your asking for my views, is simply the usual trap-question, and I've learned a bit since 2001. I'm not falling for the usual trap...
<< If you explain what you believe people here will listen. If you discuss, people will discuss with you. >>

Manifestly not! That's not been my experience anywhere on h2g2 since the curse of SorB and his acolyte Blicky in 2004. Since then, there's been no discussion, just attack.

<< I've certainly never posted a link and said 'please watch the videos on this site'): >>

I've never linked to any videos. I'd never be so inconsiderate.

<>

I gave you three links. I said the same thing three years ago, and gace a link to a particular site then. S*** (azahar) ranted and raved and screamed and distracted everyone sufficiently that my proof was forgotten. Very effective tactic that! No wonder name-change-guy loves it so much!

I would say they are about as culturally similar as Australians and New Zealanders, or Scots and English. >>

Don't kill the messenger, I was quoting a Canadian (here in New Zealand, he's not online so you can't attack him) when I said that.

What a positive feast of childishness ensues for this and the next four posts...

What very grown-up people you rationalists are!

Its called having fun Della Dearest.


So you have proof that Bush is not a Christian!?!?!?!?

OK I wont ask you to dig it up for us but would you go so far as to give us a pointer in the right direction.

>>I have put my views 1000s of times in the more than 7 years I've been on h2g2. Your asking for my views, is simply the usual trap-question, and I've learned a bit since 2001. I'm not falling for the usual trap...

Ah, but this is just it?...I don't think that Christianity or any relion *are* coherent sets of vies. They may think they are, but they're not.

I should say that I don't think it's possible to have a comprehensive theory that encompasses how the universe works and how we're meant to behave towards one another. We're only capable of understanding bits of the universe at a time. On how to behave - we have to make it up as we go along. But religions pretend that there are Big Answers. Don't they?

So we should let Vicky off the hook here. She's no more capable of summarising her views than I am.

Ed:

with all due respect,

This thread is discussing the existence of those Big Answers. One poster insists that she has them. When pressed, she claims that she's being attacked or persecuted.

If she claims to have the answers, are we not entitled (in this context) to examine them?

If she's lying (heaven forfend!), and just trolling, maybe she should just take, as suggested elsewhere, a long, lonely hike.

I, you, and most of the rationalists here don't claim to HAVE the answers, we'd just like to scrutinise the pretenders to the throne before falling on our knees.

-I, you, and most of the rationalists here don't claim to HAVE the answers,-

That's what we've been saying all along. Why is it, when you're looking for something, it's always in the last place you look? Because when you find it, you stop looking.

Faithers have found something that is good enough for them so they don't have to make any more effort. The rest of us keep finding more and more amazing things, but still not the big answers. I, for one, am pretty sure by now that the universe doesn't revolve around me, but that doesn't mean that I can't lay claim to the seat that I have. It's a pretty good show.

So we keep looking.

Indeed!

And that's why, particularly on a thread like this, we ask the hard questions.

That's why we ask people who claim to have the Big Answers to explain them and that's why we challenge preconceptions and put questionable propositions to the test of logic, reason, empiricism, and probability.

That's not persecution; that's due diligence.

Yes. The biggest question is....How do you know? If someone says to me that the answer is 42, I respect the person but I can't accept the answer unless they can say how they came to that conclusion. If they say it came from some book, I ask how the book came up with the answer. I can't accept someones unsupported opinion and the argument from authority is just someone elses unsupported opinion.

I think some people mistakenly believe that they are being attacked personally when their beliefs are questioned because they have so little sense of self beyond their personal need. The Buddha had a good line on this phenomenon.

I'm right now re-reading Elmer Gantry. I had forgotten how funny that book was. Elmer makes all his decisions based on personal convenience. As though god were his servant and not the other way around.

I think that's a fair description of the use most faith-based people put their chosen deity(ies) to.

Create a god (or select one off the peg...there are plenty), make sure the scriptures, gospels, doctrine, and writings are voluminous and ambiguous enough to support pretty much any interpretation, then use that religion as a convenience for a multitude of intellectual and moral faux pas.

Hi Vicky,

'I have put my views 1000s of times in the more than 7 years I've been on h2g2. Your asking for my views, is simply the usual trap-question'

Not to me you haven't. Oh, of course, I forgot, I'm 'the same' as everyone else on this thread, so if you've explained to them, you've explained to me. Silly me.

This is not a trap. I suspect that I would disagree with your answer, since you're a theist and I'm not, but that's what you get for joining a debate thread, especially if you join an atheist thread from a Christian perspective. If you're not prepared to explain your views, why are you here?

<< I've certainly never posted a link and said 'please watch the videos on this site'): >>
I've never linked to any videos. I'd never be so inconsiderate.

OK, my mistake. But you do frequently link to websites and say 'please read the articles on this web-site', without giving any indication of which article or what we should be looking for. Sometimes they're not even in English! And if we don't read the entire website, you feel free to make deductions as to our political views.

Often, the sites you link to have no relevance to the point you're making. For example:

'<>
I gave you three links.'

Yes, but none of those links even mentions Bush, much less claims he's not a Christian.

Gif

I'm sure you'll all appreciate that there's often a degree of irony in my posts.

It may well be that religious people *think* they can put forward a coherent and comprehensive statement of belief. But oftentime that boils down to something along the lines of 'Allahu Akhbar' or 'Jesus Saves' (but Rooney heads it in on the rebound - etc. etc.) So I'm sure that, eg, Vicky genuinely believes that she has explained herself adequately.

In my opinion, it is incumbent upon Atheists not only to question the detailed consequences and corrollaries that follow on from the religious fundamentals (*obviously* god didn't create species by evolution; send us an infallible, written guide to life; decree that Adam shall not lie with Steve; etc. etc.), but also to question whether the fundamentals are at all helpful or even meaningful in the first place. This means pointing out that the fundamentals offer no guidance whatsoever ans can thus be used as the foundations for whatever house of cards suits the individual believer's preferences.



I've questioned whether Bush is a Christian. I recently quoted Molly Ivins' suggestion that:
"'Born Again' is just a polite Texan term for 'Recovering Alcoholic'"

On the other hand - I don't think that anyone can deny that Blair is a sincere Christian, or that his version of Christian thought was fundamental to his decision to support Bush.

Get out of that one.

Anyone who's upset by the idea that atheist might enjoy the odd snigger, look away now.

Anyone else, click on:

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2008/01/top_fifty_atheist_tshirt_and_b.php?utm_source=mostemailed&utm_medium=link

For my top five, see F79732?thread=5020027&post=58419496#p58419496

Gif

Thanks guys and Vicky. I stand corrected and I've learned something.



F

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Sorry, that's nonsense... I've never asked anyone to read anything not in English. All I can think of is, that during a brief truce with Effers, I gave her a link to the science fiction site I go to, because she *seemed* interested.
I always make it perfectly plain what articles I am asking people to read.
'<>
I gave you three links.'

Yes, but none of those links even mentions Bush, much less claims he's not a Christian.

That's where subtlety comes in... I thought you'd be able to grasp the main point - that not only not all Americans, but especially not all Christian Americans believe as Bush does. If I could find the link I provided for S**** in 2004, I'd give that. But I can't.

Vicky

Does anyone think that all Christians, American or otherwise, think as Bush does? I'd be the first to argue against that.

Still...at least I detect an implicit admission that these people *are* Christians after all.

And from that it follows that any moral guidance provided by Christianity must be unreliable at best.

I think that's abundantly clear.

We can accept that christian morality is a) simply disregarded most of the time by those calling themselves christian, or b) christian morality allows for the sort of behaviour that is abhored by civilised people.

Either way, it suggests that, as you almost said, christianity as a moral guide is worse than useless.

I'm not convinced of a). If morality is to be found in any version of Christianity, it's human morality read into it by moral humans.

Hey, I'll let you know when I see a funny one! (The T-shirt and bumper sticker thing.) So far, they all make me think of Dawkins and his "bright" idea. Self-love and insecurity wrapped in an unattractive package with anger and fear...

I notice you don't cite these in your other thread Gif... They make her not look quite so such a sweet nice "gurl" right?

<<4. Too Stupid to Understand Science? Try Religion.

21. God Doesn't Exist. So, I Guess That Means No One Loves You.

26. *Science: It Works, Bitches.

33. Praying Is Politically Correct Schizophrenia (Perhaps the nastiest... How do you think people with schizophrenia feel about their condition being used to attack others all the time?)

44. WWJD = We Won. Jesus Died. (What a *lovely* loving woman she is!)

Of course there are the out-and-out blaspemous ones. Links like that remind me, that the "humour" of atheists is often like that of the Libertarian right - hectoring, angry, based on spite and deeply, agonisingly unfunny.