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

Effers

Welcome...to the real world.

Yes.

Okay so some of us *here* on this little thread, eg me, have achieved sudden clarity.

But what about real world, realpolitick?

Then I reckon we should be making alliance with the likes of the bloke with a beard in a dress. Dawkins (as ever) doesn't see the bigger picture and chose to humiliate him in that Darwin programme. Usual naivity, IMO.

Plays right into the hands of the Daily Hate.

ok we hope to go beyond us vs. them theist vs. atheist etc. we see there is a more (did i say amore? how very continental!) subtle point here. but what is it?

my suggestion is that we must take seriously both the rational and the irrational. my fantasies are as impotent as my house. my qualifications are as much matter as my dreams are.

A beard in a dress?



Is it strapless?

brauncowrider

Really is there?

I thought it was fairly obvious: some people believe in invisible people and other people think they are deluded or brainwashed...not very subtle at all.

Irrational notions, like fairy tales, must not be taken at all seriously. That is why fantasy can be fun. The idea of serious enjoyment is just too RC to be taken seriously.

Which is not to say the same about those who may mistake irrational ideas for rational ones. Some irrational people can be very dangerous, and should certainly be regarded seriously

Taliesin

What..the beard?

No. The dress allegedly worn by the beard

Gif

<>

Hope it all works out for you, mate.

<>

Keywords here: 'desperate' and 'evidence'. Neither appeared in the paragraph to which I think you are referring! I simply provided an *illustration* to stimulate thought on the subject of suffering. Thought which is 'outside the box' and/or 'outside one's own culture'.

<>

Two points to make here:

Point 1. The illustration was to show two distinct reactions to the same experience of extreme suffering. Reaction 1: Faith. Reaction 2: Anger.

Point 2. Your words 'remove the onus on God' are ironic considering the *third charcter on the scene, and the drama being played out here*. Jesus is described as 'God's unspeakable gift' A gift, truly beyond words. God's beloved Son. John 3:16 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.'

<< We do not have the testimony of Jesus!>>

<>

Please, Gif, before you lose credibilty, explain what you mean here!

<>

I think I begin to understand your enduring dilemma here: the *free will issue*. Yes, free will was an important factor in Adam's choice to disobey God a.k.a. the fall of man...leading to suffering. Now, about *heaven*. In the bible, 'eternal life' starts when a person becomes a believer...when the will is surrendered to Christ...a very different choice from Adam's. The result is life and peace. See Romans 8:6, John 17:3 and 2Cor 5:17. See also Matthew 22:23-33 for an insight into what heaven is like. Also, remember that Jesus spent years explaining to his followers in pictures and parables this 'eternal life' or 'kingdom of heaven'. It seems that these parables etc were necessary to explain a concept so difficult for the mind of man to imagine.

<><>

I don't think I would knowingly come out with a phrase that sounds so judgemental! Apologies if I gave that impression. Let's explore this anyway. One translation of the word 'sin' could be 'falling short'. i.e. falling short of God's standards. The standard? Look at Jesus Christ. With lots of us, especially in our civilized world, our inherent sin problem is limited to a bit of dishonesty, failing to love our neighbour as ourself, perhaps a bit of petty theft at work, maybe wishing we were committing adultery even if we aren't!! But we should all heed the words spoken to Cain in Genesis 4:7 'If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you but you must master it.' Hebrews 3:13 warns believers not to 'be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.' Now let's look at an example of a human being like us, in whom the principle of sin was not checked. The words of Hitler: 'I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience and morality...we will train young people before whom the world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence-imperious, relentless and cruel.
perhaps this is one reason why I consider faith in God such a vital principle to defend for, as the bible says:'as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.' There are many people living decent lives around here but if a person thinks that life is meaningless, that he's just an enlightened animal, there is less reason for him to obey his conscience. If he has not been blessed with a loving family in his childhood, his emotions may be telling him to harm himself and/or others. These are further thoughts to be considered by those who think that God is or should be consigned to history.

<>

Another taxing question! Do you think God was wrong to create us? Are we to judge God by stricter standards than we are prepared to be judged ourselves?!! Listen to these words from Genesis 1:31 and recognize the sentiments of any creative person or, for that matter, any loving parent! 'God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.'

Finally, Gif, I read through pages of stuff on Bell Inequality. I have to admit it made little sense to me, nor could I recognize your conclusions. However, I intend to persevere with this mindset of pedantry to the bitter end!! You say it 'punches a massive hole in the first cause argument'. I reply that you need an awful lot of 'atheistic premise/faith' to create more than a dent. You claim that you '*simply* need an infinitely long chain of cause and effect' (o is that all?!) 'or something that comes into existence without a pre-existing cause' (A heck of a lot of 'things to come into existence' for that matter!) for there to be no need of God. (except for the small matter of time and space!)

Mikey2

p.s. It seems that there are a couple of things that I would want to communicate with you through this ridiculously long posting. Use your eyes and ears. That sounds blunt and rude but hey, you can take it. You said <> when referring to the crucifixion account. You were blind to the answer in the story. Like Pilate asking Jesus 'What is truth?', truth was staring him in the face! You said <> Incorrect. We do have his words recorded for us in the Bible. You need to be willing to listen.

I want an answer to my question, dammit!

What kind of dress did the beard wear?

Srsly!

To 'Lycan nightlife' who signs off as Clive?!

I'm looking through your postings 13654 and 13655 and will try to get back soonish and give an answer, as requested.

mikey2

I can't presume to speak for Gif, of course, but I think you may have missed the point with the infinite cause and effect chain. We can keep asking 'what created this?' or 'what brought this about?' forever, whether or not we include God somewhere in the chain.

Taliesin

An off-the-sideburn number?

<< What does that word ('supernatural') mean to you BCR?>>

Supernatural means,(to me) something outside of our nature. A supernatural event would be one which cannot be explained by laws of physics/science etc. An immediate healing of an incurable disease by prayer may, when verified by a qualified medical practitioner, suggest itself to be a 'supernatural event'. However, all possible avenues of explanation should be investigated before jumping to such a conclusion.

A Creator God would necessarily be *supernatural* because he would have existed outside of nature in order to create nature. (Otherwise, nature would already have been 'there' if he was a part of nature.)

<< Granting for argument's sake that 'supernatural events' like miracles or creation happened - they were so long ago, how do you know (how CAN you know) if they were supernatural or just natural?>>

Miracles are thought by many christians to still happen today. Christian believers believe in the power of prayer to bring about supernatural intervention 'in nature'. The events of Jesus' life were recorded by eye witnesses. The christian believes the report of those eye witnesses. His faith will be backed up by other circumstantial evidence available. i.e. the transformation of the disciples into fearless evangelists, willing to lay down their lives in order to tell the world of this miracle of Jesus' life, death and resurrection.

As for creation itself. This event is thought of as having occurred supernaturally for a number of reasons. Initially, one who has experienced an encounter with a 'supernatural' being which is taken to be the creator God, will automatically assume that nature has a creator. The Bible is taken to be the inspired word of God. This book declares that the universe was created by God. The consistency with which the Old Testament prophetically anticipates Christ, along with the affirmation by Christ himself that the Old Testament is the inspired word of God, leads the christian to accept by faith the biblical view that the universe was indeed created by God.

<< (Assuming supernatural allows for anthropomorphism), how does your conception of 'supernatural' allow for such natural ('sic' - 'observable') processes, to take place?>>

In my experience, natural things happen much more frequently than supernatural. This is because we live in a *natural* world. Often, the believer will attribute natural occurences to the providence of their 'supernatural' God. This may be because the natural occurences seem to be an answer to one of their prayers.

<>

The 'how' is presumably the domain of the 'supernatural' being to answer. However, the recipient of a 'supernatural encounter' may give his or her own account of the said supernatural event. In relating the event, a reaction of disbelief may be expressed by hearers. This is normally the result of the seeming impossibilty of the supernatural event occurring in, what to the ordinary man in the street is, a *natural* world.

An oft-repeated phrase is: 'God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.' This presumably refers in part to the seemingly natural way that prayers are often answered so that, having waited for an answer for a long time, one suddenly realises that the prayer has already been answered. It could also refer to the way that although human history is progressing in a seemingly random way to whatever conclusion, in a mysterious way, beyond the comprehension of mere mortals like us, God is working out his divine plan.

mikey2tired2carryon

The above post by mikey2 was an answer to posting 13655

'my suggestion is that we must take seriously both the rational and the irrational. my fantasies are as impotent as my house. my qualifications are as much matter as my dreams are.'

So, brauncowrider, the Islamist's seventy-two virgins, the Christian Scientist's refusal of a blood-transfusion for his child (who dies because of that refusal), the Scientologists cosmic DC-3s are just as important as an internal combustion engine, scientific plant-breading, and seismology? We should all just say, 'oh, those beliefs are just as valid as anything Einstein ever wrote'?

Are you insane?


Now I'll look at the backlog.

>In my experience, natural things happen much more frequently than supernatural.<

Same here mikey..

blimey...

>>An off-the-sideburn number?<<

>>Are you insane?<<

Rhetorical, yes?



It may be that some view insanity and sanity as two sides of the same coin, and thus each must be given equal consideration

(please excuse anytyp[ps in this post: I'm working on an XO laptop and I find my adu;t fingers don\t work well onthe keyboard desinged for the tine fongers of malnourished third-world children.)

Yes, Tal, rhetorical in the sense that what I was really saying was 'you are insane'.

I found brauncowrider's post about fantasy being just as valid as reality a little too frighteningly like the post-modern-social-relativist-let's-play-this-no-conflict-nobody-loses-game-(butnobody wins either[with thanks to G.W. with whom I went to grad school all those years ago])-bullshit that I-d thought we'd left behind about 1991 when Sjsan- Faludi told us that our efforts seemed to have been in vain and everything was turning to shit again.
c
funny that inthe 80s it was the 'christians' that were screaming abput the horrors of cultura; relativismand the joys of killing Russians for Reagan.


I'm sorry, but I can't take seriously the latest crop of born-aagain blinkered drooling sheep.