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

I'm wondering if any atheists here have have ever felt like selling their souls. I certainly haven't. Yes I may have mumbled inchoherently on ocassion like a prayer, when desperate, but absolutely nothing approaching seeing any real heated up cold celestial light.

And I can't say anything I've read here is going to change that. It's fairly clear the christians here will never change. And seemingly neither will we. So I wonder what it is that makes one lot an unrelenting fierce brave starer in the face of harsh reality, and another lot self deluded saps?

I know intelligence or lack of has sometimes been mentioned, (and I'm not ruling that out ), but I suspect it comes down to balls or the lack of mainly.....

Facing the eternity of the void. No! you will never wake up for eternity. No! you will never meet your loved ones again. You are destined ultimately to become a dirty smudge of cosmic dust in a cold and dying universe. That takes real full on, heated up courage to face head on.

Why do some people just not have the stomach for it?

Religion in the past may have had a lot to do with giving guidance and direction to society. But these days in the modern western world, isn't it simply the streak of yellow way?

>Truly I am well scared of birds<

How utterly strange for me to comprehend. The symbolise everything wonderful. Taking flight, soaring into the sky. I was excited to see the first swallows arrive yesterday all the way from their epic journey from central africa. They way they swoop for insects.

And the magic of birdsong. And the funny way they hop around.

They make my heart sing. I can hear them singing now.

Real sky pixies.

>>I'm wondering if any atheists here have have ever felt like selling their souls<<

Can't say I've had any offers lately..

>>Facing the eternity of the void. No! you will never wake up for eternity. No! you will never meet your loved ones again. You are destined ultimately to become a dirty smudge of cosmic dust in a cold and dying universe. That takes real full on, heated up courage to face head on.<<

Ah, now that may be much closer to what Guatama Buddha meant by non-attachment

>>I can't say anything I've read here is going to change that. It's fairly clear the christians here will never change. And seemingly neither will we<<

A Buddhist monk walked up to a hot dog vendor, handed him a twenty dollar bill, and said, “Make me one with everything.”

The vendor pocketed the money, and handed the Buddhist monk his hot dog. The monk, after waiting for a moment, asked for his change.

The vendor smiled, “Change comes from within.”

Birds

"
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,--
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
"

>>Facing the eternity of the void. No! you will never wake up for eternity. No! you will never meet your loved ones again. You are destined ultimately to become a dirty smudge of cosmic dust in a cold and dying universe. That takes real full on, heated up courage to face head on.

Why do some people just not have the stomach for it?<<

I dunno, I've always seen this as a heartening thing. I was cjecking out an inflatable planetarium for my uni, who are considering buying one for our outreach work and I got the sense of calm and peace I always get when I look at the stars.

This universe coped perfectly well without me for over 13 billion years, and it'll go on for billions more, never caring that I'm gone. That I get to spend any time at all in it, and I get to admire its splendour, when I could so easily have never existed at all - that's pretty awe-inspiring. I think it's a shame that some people fail to see this.

" 3
fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
what thou among the leaves hast never known
the weariness, the fever, and the fret
(...)"

Hi Tal, It was a long time I didnt read Keats. Thanks for reminding me of him.
On reading those words, I wasnt very sure, but my mind was. I've picked the book I had at Uni, and... Thanks.



I've bought in a second-hand English bookshop in Malaga, The observer's Book of Birds. It is small, with beautiful illustrations. It belongs to a collection on diverse topics, Natural history, Sport, Architecture...It's from the 70s.

HonesIago, you are a user of beautiful words.

>Books aren't just something to be ploughed through like fodder....

...What one learns from good books needs to be properly thought through<


Surely that's supposed to be the point of making people write an essay on a book? To make them properly think about what they've read (and how it relates to, or informs, what they are studying)?
Not always the result that's achieved maybe but surely the intention?

I have to admit, I am sometimes guilty of devouring a book that I find really interesting and then moving on to the next before I've really taken the time to think about what the author was saying but possibly this is just the folly of youth, I'm doing it less as I get older

>Facing the eternity of the void. No! you will never wake up for eternity. No! you will never meet your loved ones again.

...That takes real full on, heated up courage to face head on<

I used to idolise my Granny when I was a little kid and she died when I was 8. I was sure at the time that she went to heaven but stuff I've learned about her since makes me think it's more likely to be hell so I'm kind of hoping for a void to be honest... does that make me yellow or not?



(yes, yes, I know, as an agnostic, I am by default yellow )

>that old misogynist St Paul<


dammit! I was reading an article at the weekend, an interview with a guy who devoted his life to studying St Paul, and he was explaining how this is a huge misconception but I can't remember the details and the paper I read it in is in my parent's house so it'll be this weekend before I can take a look for it.

I do remember some talk about how St Paul took it for granted that women would be ordained and occupy positions of power in the Church and some discussion on the significance of the fact that Jesus revealed himself to a woman first after his resurrection... If I can get hold of it I will return to this point!

Mar, Tal,

Those words are beautiful; I Keats

Hi PP,

Celibacy

I think we first should distinguish between monks and priests.

Monks of any creed take celibacy as part of their varied fast. They refuse- in part or completely- any "mundane" tie (family, friends,food, sex...)They live poorly, alone or in a group who does just the same.
They do that to be closer to God.

Priests are not detached from ordinary life. Actually, they MUST be attached to every day life with common people who, among many other mundane activities , practice sex.

"Everyone is pretty clear on what the rules are before they start"
Yes, you are right, but people and circunstances can change for a priest.
Priest can sublimize (sp?) the call of nature in some way: working a lot or whatever ( punishing their bodies? with those sadomaso artifacts?
But some other can't.


We should blame, in part, the Greeks for those ideas about the wonders of celibacy.
For some, there were two kind of men:
those who choose to have descendants with all the worries and ties it bears, and those others who choose to have "fruits of their minds". So, they refuse to reproduce themselves to be able to produce works of knowledge and intellectual value
Sex for them is a burden to enlightment.

A priest with an ordinary sexual life would be closer to his people.
On the other hand, to produce "fruits of the intellect" doesnt exclude to "produce" children, or viceversa.

In any case, I can't see any good in celibacy.

>I think we first should distinguish between monks and priests.<

I don't see why, lots of monks also work in the community, but fire away!

>people and circunstances can change for a priest<

Yes, they then have to find new ways of dealing with the challange, but we all constantly have to find new ways of dealing with old challanges.

>Sex for them [Greeks] is a burden to enlightment.

A priest with an ordinary sexual life would be closer to his people.<

As *I* understand it, the idea has nothing to do with enlightenment per se, it's more that the priest is a pastor to his community and puts the spiritual welfare of his flock above all other concerns. If he had a wife and kids they would come first to him, if they aren't there he can concentrate fully on his parishoners. Like so many things, doesn't always work like this in practice but that's the theory

>In any case, I can't see any good in celibacy<

The real nub of our disagreement on this I think, I can't really see a problem with choosing a life that involves celibacy!

I've nothing in particular against sex I hasten to add, it's just not that important if you ask me. I recognise that it *is* very important to others.

Ode to a Nightingale was, I must say, not ruined at all by being studied in school. I must have had a good English teacher.

It's powerful stuff, eh?

TRiG.

Do you think that doctors, teachers or any others that work vocationally with people, like priests, would care more for the wellfare of their "flock" if they didnt have family or a sexual life?


I insist that celibacy gives nothing to their work.

On the contrary, that challenge you mention has in many occasions lead to sexual abuse on children, I think because of not having a healthy sexual life.

For ancient Greeks or monks sex is a distraction as many others that divert them from the path they want to follow. Their attitude to celibacy is different, and although I don't share at all those ideas, I can't see any harm.

Re Paul.

In my experience it tends to be feminists and feminist minded atheists who talk about his mysogyny, and Christians who deny this mysogyny, often women. Either way, he's not someone I'd ever want to be tucked up in bed with..

"The foundations of early Christian misogyny - its guilt about sex, its insistence on female subjection, its dread of female seduction- are all in St. Paul's epistles. They provided a convenient supply of divinely inspired misogynistic texts for any Christian writer who chose to use them; his statements on female subjection were still being quoted in the twentieth century opponents of equality for women" The Troublesome Helpmate: A History of Misogyny in Literature

Katherine M. Rogers

............

Re my comment to Vicky about books.

It wasn't so much referring to that particular post, but the many many I have read, indicating the practice of moving from one book, straight onto another, straight onto another. This is the strong impression I have received for a long time now. I'm more than happy to be disabused of my strong impression.

And I'd rather have something explained and well argued about something, rather than be told,
>You should read Adrian Plass and George McDonald on that subject, Effers.<

With zero hint of the gist of what they say.

...........

Thanks Tal for that wonderful quote from 'Ode to Nightingale'. Keats was a true Romantic hardcore, if ever there was one. I went all dreamy and deeply happy after reading that.

Talking of being tempted...I'm unable to resist the temptation of posting this, that I came across recently on a Christian web site.

'John Climacus states in Step 1 of his Ladder of Divine Ascent that "A lover of God is one who lives in communion with all that is natural and sinless." Sodomy and lesbianism are evil because they are unnatural.'

A good quote to discuss? Yes? No? Feel free to ignore it if everyone wants to steer clear of any controversy on this lovely late spring day in May......

Effers, this is an obvious troll and you should know better. Anyway, what does 'unnatural' mean in this context?

F

>Anyway, what does 'unnatural' mean in this context?<



Why am I getting that deja vu feeling?