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

>>See post 14162

Nunno. You were asking if god *is* a brick. I'm asking if god is *something along the lines of* a brick. Like...it has bricky properties but is ouside of (yet still within) a wall.

I have a an extract of Demon Haunted World in Hitchen's The Portable Atheist (don't believe the title - it's so large if you dropped it out of a window it has the potential to wound.) Thanks for reminding me of it Tal!

Is 'The Portable Atheist' something along the lines of a brick?

>>it has bricky properties but is ouside of (yet still within) a wall<<

Brilliant!

Clive, I have both the text version and an audio book of 'The Demon Haunted World', and have 'The Portable Atheist', also

Is the world ready for a theory of Intelligent Hod Carrying?

Yes Clive,

>> Dipoler Disorder? <<



Trying to cover up the truth ?

Possibly!

Hi Warner, and a belated welcome to the fray!

Out of interest, are you Christian or Muslim? I just ask because of the references to Djinn, God willing, etc. It doesn't really affect the debate. (If you've specifically mentioned Jesus, then you did it earlier in the thread and I didn't really notice since it was what I expected to see.) No offence intended by the question, btw.

>I recommend looking at the story of 'Job' from the scriptures.

My favourite Biblical book! Not leastly because it raises and explores a difficult question without coming to a glib answer. Unless you regard 'God is really powerful, so who are you to question him?' as an answer. (or, indeed, 'he did it for a bet'!)

>Many people seem to think that science and evidence and proof etc. has superceded mankind's centuries of research of philosophy and use this to try and ""prove"" there is no God.

To be fair, philosophy was used to show there was likely no God long before the scientific method was developed. And science rarely deals with absolute proof.

>there is a lot to learn from travel, having children sprung from your own loins, how men and women behave differently according to belief ...

Indeed there is. But how would any of that constitute evidence for the existence of a God or Gods? Are you, perhaps, confusing 'immaterial evidence' with 'no evidence' or 'personal opinion'?

>I believe in an Almighty Creator who sends down guidance to his creation.

Can you give a practical example of this guidance? Does your Almighty Creator, for instance, have a habit of telling Archbishops not to invest in banks prior to financial collapse? Or people to keep clear of the beach prior to a massive tsunami? Is the 'advice' people feel they receive consistent, or do different people get contradictory advice, making it appear more like personal feelings and 'gut instinct'?

>Why aren't other forms of evidence acceptable!

They are. Please present whatever evidence you like. However, note that personal opinion is not usually regarded as evidence.

I've added the exchange on belief to the Gif-O-Pedia: A42437478

>Let there be light, and there was light.

Well, 'Let there be light', then 380,000 years passed while the universe was so dense it was opaque, and *then* there was light.

>I bit like God, then, maybe. [i.e. is God energy?]

Also, the concept of energy and matter is necessary to make sense of the world around us. If we didn't have the concept of energy to explain (for example) nuclear explosions, we would have to invent it. Whereas the world makes perfect sense without needing to invoke God. God is a 'redundant explanation' - He doesn't actually explain anything.

>>> we can show you a brick <<
>Has that evolved as well?

Well, let's see. Do we observe bricks reproducing with variation? Does that reproduction involve the inheritance of characteristics, and selection based on those characteristics?

If not, I would suggest that the answer to your question is 'no'. Are you, perhaps, hinting at the cosmological argument - a line widely regarded as discredited by philosophy long before the scientific method came about?

>I have learnt and firmly believe that there are 3 distinct creatures/beings:

You've missed animals belonging to the emperor and animals that look like flies when seen from a distance. http://www.multicians.org/thvv/borges-animals.html

Oh, and protists, fungi, plants and monera, if you believe in such things.

Gif

Hi Mikey,

Happy New Year, and welcome back.

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

Since there is no reason to think God was involved, yes it is unreasonable. btw, is it reasonable to thank God for saving a child from a tsunami, but not for causing (or failing to prevent) the tsunami from killing tens of thousands of others?

>when I look at Jesus Christ I see demonstrated in his life what God is like.

What does the Bible say about Jesus as a person, other than that he was a glutton and a drunkard (Matt 11:19), given to bouts of violent temper (moneychangers, fig-trees)? Although a God like that would explain a lot about the world, somehow I don't think that's exactly what you meant...

>My conclusion is that God is not cruel.

How so? Why, then, is there so much unnecessary suffering in the world? Is God unable to prevent it, unaware of it, unwilling to prevent it, or something else?

>I simply refer you to Jesus himself again. Look at what he did and taught and you'll see that suffering is something that God is keen to eliminate.

Could you be more specific about where Jesus said this? I'm reminded of several scriptures where Jesus says how terrible the future will be for believers and non-believers alike, and how he did not come to spread peace.

>You cannot put someone in the dock and throw the book at them when you know that you only have a very small percentage of the facts. Get my point?

And yet... if God is so mysterious and unknown, how can you be so certain about His existence and nature? If he's outside the Universe, how do you know so certainly that He exists? If he's beyond mortal comprehension, how can you know with absolute certainty that he's good? Surely what you have presented is an argument for agnosticism, not theism?

>All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
http://www.metrolyrics.com/all-things-dull-and-ugly-lyrics-monty-python.html

>People who worship God regularly don't tend to be the people who **start** wars.

Seriously? Gaza's in the news at the moment. When it's not, it's Iraq or Afghanistan. In fact, hasn't every 21st Century conflict so far been started by people with religious faith?

Gif

Hi 4Dots,

>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.

Hear hear.

>I don;t want to know what some stone age bloke thought

Be fair. At least two bronze age blokes. Job has one of the most obvious interpolations in the OT, and the Hebrews had bronze weapons (though a morbid fear of iron chariots, apparently ). But your central point, that the philosophy is outdated and irrelevant, yes I agree.

Gif

Hi Effers,

Welcome back, and Happy New Year!

>What gets me is the apparent delight and glee that is taken in the idea of things being a *mystery*. It's so damned passive/masochistic. Totally

Hmm, well. I enjoy a good mystery. I subscribe to Fortean Times and all that. However, what I like about mysteries is the attempt to solve them. Sure, often it's difficult (or even impossible) and we can't come to a firm conclusion. What confuses me is the religious attitude that things should be mysterious *even if we have the ability to find logical conclusions* - and coupled with the idea that the existence of a mystery allows us to make sure and certain conclusions about something...

Gif

Hi Anhaga,

>Tonight I'm going to sincerely pray for a very simple miracle.

I've mentioned this before, but... in face-to-face discussions, I have occasionally torn a piece of paper in half and asked a theist to restore it by the power of prayer. What surprises me (or not, actually) is not that the paper remains torn. It is that I have not yet met a single theist that actually prayed (generally they offer reasons why prayer doesn't work in this case). So they *say* they believe in a God who can do the impossible. But when it actually comes down to it, they seem to know that impossible things don't respond to prayer.

>did you pray for the finger like I asked you to?

My guess is that Warner didn't, because s/he already knew that the finger wouldn't be cured.

>No, I didn't, I don't know how seriously to take you. - warner

Told you so.

Gif

Hi Bouncy,

>At present, a convenient irritating plot device in pulp science fiction is to explain things away with dark energy. I predict that, within the next three years, a major religious figure (most likely the Dalai Lama) will leap onto this particular bandwagon and attempt to fit it into their theology.

Around 10 years ago I paid the princely sum of fifty new pennies for a little booklet from a shaven-headed street Krishna. Since I had expressed an interest in science, he gave me one he regarded as 'quite scientific' in its approach. It was crammed with such gems as 'matter and energy are equivalent. Therefore there must be an equivalent of antimatter, called antienergy. Since one of the properties of energy is that it can be destroyed, and antienergy has the opposite properties to energy, antienergy must be indestructible. Therefore the soul must be antienergy' [not a word-for-word quote, obviously, but that was the sense of it. And I use the word 'sense'...]

So yes, dark energy will work its way into the religious vocab soon.

Gif

Hi Ed,

>What the dickens does 'Something along the lines of energy' mean?

It's the Hogwarts Express. Platform 9 3/4 from Kings Cross was sited so that the train route would follow an ancient ley.

I have a friend (of a friend) who has a very amusing story about trying to explain what 'hod-carrying' is to an international sales conference.

Gif

That's nothing. I once gave a talk on ship design in the Czech Republic. I had to explain what the sea was.

Hi Gif,

Thanks for the welcome

>> Does your Almighty Creator, for instance, have a habit of telling Archbishops
not to invest in banks prior to financial collapse? <<

Yes, he does, but not personally (only speaking for myself).
Dealing with interest is 'disliked' by God, as can be seen from the Bible & Quran.

>> Am I Christian, Muslim etc. <<

People are free to label me, as they wish, but see my 'personal space'.

>> The Lord God made the lot. <<

Yes, he did

>> hasn't every 21st Century conflict so far been started by people with religious faith? <<

Firstly, people with a faith don't necessarily act according to it.
Secondly, people don't all have knowledge of their faith.
Thirdly, people don't always have a faith for the right reasons.
...

Hitler, might of thought his nation was being oppressed, but I wouldn't say he was acting out of faith.
Winston Churchill may or may not have been a 'good Christian', but if
I had to evaluate between Hitler & Churchill, I know where I would have stood.

Do he have any evidence on whether more wars were not started by people with faith or without?

Never started any meself...

On my mobile on the train so slightly tricky for me to check myself. But is there a bit on the "one true scotsman" fallacy in the gifopedia yet?

You mean 'No True Scotsman'. Yes - that's the territory we're on here.

More widely...do I detect an implication that religious people are somehow 'better' than the non-religious? OK - so warner is discounting those who (inconiently) only think they're religious. But does the practice of 'true' religion confer anything that can *only* be gained through religion? And if so...what?

Hi Ed,

There is now! A42437720

I've just formatted it as a list of (alleged) examples of this kind of thinking, since I haven't yet seen any debate about whether NTS fallacies are logically valid or not.

Gif

Hi Warner,

>> hasn't every 21st Century conflict so far been started by people with religious faith? <<

>Firstly, people with a faith don't necessarily act according to it.
>Secondly, people don't all have knowledge of their faith.
>Thirdly, people don't always have a faith for the right reasons.

Was that a 'yes'?

The original statement (and forgive me if it wasn't you who made it, I read through 130 Posts I missed over Christmas!) was that people who regularly worship don't start wars. So at best you seem to be saying that only people who worship 'in the right way' don't start wars. If so, can you tell me what you mean by 'in the right way'? If not, would you concede that the original statement was wrong?

>> Am I Christian, Muslim etc. <<
>People are free to label me, as they wish, but see my 'personal space'.

Oh yeah, good idea!



Hmm, OK, slightly wiser. I'm still not totally sure what your beliefs are, but no doubt they will come out as the conversation progresses.

>>> Does your Almighty Creator, for instance, have a habit of telling Archbishops not to invest in banks prior to financial collapse? <<

>Yes, he does

OK, fair point, the Koran does indeed speak against lending money. And the advice on avoiding tsunamis? Any reason Muslims were given this advice and not the CoE?

Gif