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

>You'll get me started on Social Devi*A*ncy Theory next. This is what happens when you talk to *S*omeone who's typed up his wife's criminology MA thesis.

I hope she's not being marked on her spelling. Yours deviates from the divinely ordained spelling handed down from God. (I mean, it must have been - otherwise we would all be free to choose our own spellings for every word and we would end up lksfduh lkdfhd d g sfgjhbfg szfdg.)

Gif

God gave me fat fingers.

<<to rephrase, without, I think, removing the meaning:



Now substitute any religious or ethnic group you choose for and see how people react.>>

I really don't think Mikey was singling out atheists, and therefore I don't think your paraphrase was accurate, trunt.

<>
I really think everyone is capable of shocking behaviour, we've all felt that, haven't we? So much rage, so much pain, that we'd do anything at all, to get revenge or relief?
<< and *that* is the most frightening thing -- that someone can have no restraint on their behavior except the fear of a god they've been told about.>>

In Mikey's case, and mine, it's more than just *having been told about God* - it's a matter of knowing God, or at the very least, having allegiance to God. A good analogy is, God is a parent, and one doesn't want to disappoint one's parents or cause pain to the parent by harming one's siblings!

All people are God's children, but not all people accept that. Therefore Christians are under an obligation to *harm no one*

Vicky

Hi Vicky

<>

Thanks Vicky, you're right, it wasn't aimed at atheists. I should have made that clearer...I wasn't thinking.

I should explain that I do try to believe the best in all people, whatever they believe or disbelieve.

mikey2

So, when you were talking about people from whom the fear of god had been removed, you were talking about Christians? You were talking about people who believed in god, but didn't fear him?

I find this all to be shifting and backpedalling ending in meaningless gibberish (and starting in ill-considered bigotted drivel).

Once again trunt, I can only apologize for not having thought through the implications of what I posted.

I don't mind if you want to call it bigotry, backpedalling, shifting and gibberish. I quite understand.

I believe that humans are capable of very great good and very great evil; that must be indesputable.

Britain used to be a nominally christian country in the not-too-distant past. (you might call it a 'God-fearing country' back then) In my mother's youth, in the 1950s, she used to be able to travel up to London from Croydon on a Saturday night by train and not even have to consider personal safety.

How things have changed in such a short space of time! We've got used to patterns of behaviour now that would have seemed abhorrent in those days. I reckon that if people feared God today (i.e. a sense of right and wrong as opposed to comparative morality / believing that one day we will have to account for our actions) life would be better for people. I'm told that statistically, Britain is measurably the unhappiest population, with the highest rate of teenage suicides in Europe.

On the same token, every day I meet wonderful people living courageous or selfless lives who restore one's faith in human nature.

I hope that none of these comments will have caused offense. I am not a dogmatic moralist...like most people, I have more questions than answers...I'm merely exploring this issue with you from a viewpoint of a believer-in-God, trying to make sense of the world.

Mikey

'Britain used to be a nominally christian country in the not-too-distant past. (you might call it a 'God-fearing country' back then) In my mother's youth, in the 1950s, she used to be able to travel up to London from Croydon on a Saturday night by train and not even have to consider personal safety.

How things have changed in such a short space of time! '


Have you read Graham Greene's short story "The Destructors"? I'm certainly not qualified to judge, but sometimes memory is greener than the actual past.

I forgot to mention:

I have neighbors who are afraid to walk down the street at night. I walk down the street at night quite comfortably. Neither of us have ever suffered any harm walking down the street at night. Which of us will look back on a safe golden age? Which of us will be right?

Yes yhat's a good point.

For 'yhat's' read 'that's'!

>>I don't mind if you want to call it bigotry, backpedalling, shifting and gibberish. I quite understand.



That's the annoying thing about Christians. You can slap 'em as hard as you like, but they just smile and ask for more.

I expect that safety and the perception of safety is something that is constantly changing. I know that crime rates here have been dropping consistently for decades, but there is in increasing perception among many that the streets are increasingly unsafe.

As a personal reflection, I am quite happy to buy meat pies from a particular local shop, even though there is a hairdresser right next door. I might not have been quite as comfortable having a meat pie from a similar shop in Fleet Street around 1800.

Hey, did anyone here ever hear about Rev. Duncan Campbell and the revival on the Island of Lewis in the 1950s; when the whole island became alive with a sense of the presence of God. That was a time when the fear of God became the atmosphere of an entire community, and many lives were changed. Its an awesome story.

Hi Mikey,

>I reckon that if people feared God today (i.e. a sense of right and wrong as opposed to comparative morality / believing that one day we will have to account for our actions) life would be better for people.

Leaving aside whether or not this is offensive, I'm confused that you think that a sense of right and wrong is 'opposed' to comparative morality.

I'm not even convinced that claiming to get morality from God is any different to comparative morality. It depends strongly on what people who 'fear God' actually believe in terms of morality. The Falls Road in Belfast is filled with people who fear God. Baghdad is filled with people who fear God. The Gaza Strip is filled with people who fear God. I personally would not feel comfortable walking around those places in daylight, let alone after dark. In large part, that is precisely because the people who live there believe in God and (claim to) get their moral views from him.

>I'm told that statistically, Britain is measurably the unhappiest population, with the highest rate of teenage suicides in Europe.

The reverse is true; the UK has some of the lowest suicide rates in Europe, especially among young people: http://web4health.info/en/answers/bipolar-suicide-statistics

We're also averagely happy, in general:

http://micpohling.wordpress.com/2007/05/03/europe-happiness-score/

It seems to be the (highly secular) Nordic countries that are happiest, and strongly religious nations like Italy and Portugal that are unhappy. The UK is right in the middle of the list (though among the fastest fallers) - though it seems we have a large percentage of self-harmers.

Here's a pretty world map which suggests to me that it's wealth rather than religion that makes people happy: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/28_07_06_happiness_map.pdf

I find it slightly depressing that - at least in my opinion - so many religious people seem to be tied into a view that the world *must* be depressing and miserable. Or is that just me?

Gif

Gif

<< Or is that just me?>>

I think its pretty widespread!

mikey

You mean make peope believe in fictional bogey men to make them behave better. There are only two sets of people that seems to work on: kids under 6 years old & people with a predilicition for believing in supernatural beings. Strange thing is kids grow out of believing in the bogeyman in the wardrobe quite quickly.

>>Hey, did anyone here ever hear about Rev. Duncan Campbell and the revival on the Island of Lewis in the 1950s; when the whole island became alive with a sense of the presence of God. That was a time when the fear of God became the atmosphere of an entire community, and many lives were changed. Its an awesome story



I shall consult my Teuchter pal, Sparky. He's a Lewis man. He's an Atheist who regards religion as having a particularly malign influence on the island. It has made many people miserable there. And he's not alone: I doubt that the *whole* island was alive with the sense of the presence of god. (In fact, from what he tells me, most of his pals back home are closer to Rastafar-I than Christianity. )

(He's on holiday in the US at the moment, but I'll quiz him about it when he returns.)

Fear-based morality is repugnant. Can you say Saudi Arabia?

Morality, like all human characteristics, is a contingent adaptation, a necessary evolved trait of intelligent social creatures.

We are coded for morality.



Sky fairies need not apply.

Mikey,

Why do you think Shakespeare was able to write about all the crime, murder and mayhem he did, supposedly during a completely god fearing period before the Enlightenment? Where do you think he got his material from?

What do you think of Dicken's 19th century century novel detail the most appalling behaviour that was regularly occurring on a much greater scale than today? Surly Britain was still a much more nominally Christian society then than it is today?

Does it not occur to you that the way human beings behave to one another, in various societies, is far more complicated than just based on which deity happens to be the latest big G?



Does it not occur to you Mikey that the difference maybe, that in today's society we have a voracious press and media that wants to highlight and detail every last misdemeanour, to sell copy?



If you read my local newspaper, you'd believe there were paedophiles and murderers around every corner. They *never* report all the good things that go on. I've lived here for 18 years and I can honestly say you wouldn't find a more heart-warming community than round here.

Maybe you are letting the media colour your views, too much Mikey, in thinking about the way things are today?

I think such crimes and violence have always gone on, but it's whether they are brought out from behind closed doors or not, and highlighted.

By strange coincidence - or perhaps Divine Intent? - we have just packed friends of the inlaws off onto the two-day drive back to Lewis. They are deeply religious folk (and outsiders, being recent English immigrants) - but consider the local church on Lewis to be deviant because they believe in prayer *too much* - using prayer instead of flu jabs, praying for money, etc.

Gif