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

I got irony for Christmas

Happy Christmas everyone

There was also a UK supply teacher sacked for telling 7 year olds that Father Christmas doesn't exist.

Obviously her contract included a sanity clause...

I got a dawkins dvd box set fro christmas.

I got 'The Ancestor's Tale', which I'd only read/heard in audiobook form previously.


Coming soon...I want to riff on how theologians *themselves* should be most dissatisfied with their 'god created evolution' cop-out...but that will have to wait.

when I read this news story I just rolled my eyes:



'A Saint John woman is thanking her guardian angels on Monday after a stray bullet narrowly missed hitting her in her north-end home.

Anne Marie Snodgrass was watching the Al Pacino gangster movie Scarface on Sunday night when she heard a few shots being fired — but the sounds weren't coming from her television.


Moments later, a bullet went through the wall and just missed her head. . .

"I was saved by my angels, because I collect angels. I feel like they protected me last night," she said.

The incident came the same day another home in the south end of Saint John was hit by an errant bullet early Sunday. The bullet went through a wall and hit a Christmas tree.'

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/new-brunswick/story/2008/12/29/nb-shooting-angel.html

I can't help but wonder why the angels didn't protect her from 'Scarface'.

To bad for the Christmas tree.

A

That's just awful.


A fig tree I could understand, given the Lord's well-known dislike of that species...

~~~~

I wonder if that other bullet actually did miss the woman's head. I mean, it's not as if it would otherwise have encountered anything substantial...

Ancestor's Tale - brilliant book. I learnt a lot from reading it.

Is it unreasonable to give thanks to God when narrowly escaping death? It seems like a good idea to me. Although God is "kind to the ungrateful and the wicked" (according to Jesus) it might be sensible not to push your luck!!

I'm not sure what 'collecting angels' means, but I do believe the Bible's description of them as 'ministering spirits' sent to assist people in dire need. Billy Graham's book on the subject makes fascinating reading. Personal testimonies I've heard of angelic encounters are very inspiring.

Mikey-unsure-of-how-this-will-be-received-2

Can you perhaps think of occasions when this same god has been wicked to the kind?

I can: Martin Ankers. I knew him when he did a student placement at the place I was working. Brilliantly nice guy.

http://www.cofe.anglican.org/faith/stories/story1.html

Read it.

But I will highlight one sentence: "Martin was able to accept both his epilepsy and his cancer as part of God's plan for his life."

Yes, what a great being his god is.

If any human being had the power to give soime one epilepsy, then year on year allow him not to have a seizure and hence be able to drive THEN give him a seizure THEN give him cancer THEN allow him to recover from cancer THEN give him cancer again and then kill him, you would think that human being to be a heartless sadist and yet Martin actaully thanked his god for the cancer.

I really do remain amazed at the human capacity to rationalise the most horrid things in this world as some plan from some omnipotent all powerful and loving being when if the same things were done by humans (the mother of baby P?) you would call them inhuman evil monsters and put the in jail and throw away the key.

And this is one of the reasons I beleive supernatural beings do not exist because no human being with that much power and supposed benevolence would allow the things, or indeed, do the things that happen on this world. Especially to people who do truly believe and put hteir whole faith in you.

Right that's it. I didn't want to drag that up as I went through the same feelings when he died but when such moronic stuff is being thrown about I had to.

Mikey:

'Is it unreasonable to give thanks to God when narrowly escaping death? '

The question is irrelevant to the case of the woman in St. John's. She did not give thanks to God. She gave thanks to her collection of ceramic figurines!

I would think that Christians would call that idolatry.

I think Catholics tend to turn a blind eye to idolising Christian based 'non-God' stuff...they idolise the Virgin Mary (Piece be upon her)

>Is it unreasonable to give thanks to God when narrowly escaping death?<mikey

I don't see that reason comes in to it. If it makes someone feel good to give thanks, be it to another person or one's own particular inner spiritual thingy, that is good. To feel the feeling of gratitude seems like a very healthy normal thing to me and makes people feel good inside. For me *thanks* is entirely a feeling thing.

I wouldn't even bother asking the question if I were a faither to non faithers, especially not on such a thread as this. If I were a faither and brought such a question here, and got the responses that even a 5 year old could predict in advance, I'd assume I was either half cut or feeling bored, or in the mood for a bit of seasonal S&M.


Happy New Year mikey....

I'd like to add my New Year's wish to Effer's:

Seriously, I hope everyone's new year is more wonderous than any year that has gone before.

My reply is in terms of the context of the last 14074 posts, mikey.

(And as we all know CONTEXT is even bigger than God )

Happy New Year anhaga......(Oh crikey I really am very )

An hour or so left of 2008 here, but I'll be too busy toasting to do much posting...

So happy new year, friends!

(looks around for a smiley and then falls down)

>>Is it unreasonable to give thanks to God when narrowly escaping death?<mikey

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7806658.stm

Sorry to spoil the mood....but it is after all New Year on *TGD thread*. 59 die celebrating New Year, but...100 survive.

I imagine the surviving, horribly burned faithers, and their families, are at this very moment, now sending their prayers of deep gratitude winging upwards...

(On reflection....I'd say it's not a question of it being reasonable or unreasonable to give thanks to HIM....just utterly insane).