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

Edward:

actually, my imagined solutions for the Manitou Stone are two: move the thing into a particularly cozy alcove in the lobby of the Museum where it can be visited without paying a fee, or, arrange for a visitor centre/museum in Sedgewick to house it.

and, yes, it is completely a political issue. The object was stolen from one of the First Nations and like so many such stolen objects have been, it ultimately should be returned.


and, most emphatically, no! I can't think of any wrongs for which the answer is more religion!

'is this particular case perhaps consistent with notion that the value of the First Nation People is as a living ethnographic museum piece?'

I rather think it's an attempt to get away from that notion.

I suppose what I'm really asking is whether the location of and access to a stone is really the most important First Nations issue? What are their campaign priorities?

It certainly isn't their top priority, which is why it's not received a whole lot of effort.

I only brought it up as a counterpoint to the rock in Mecca and to imagine with dark amusement what would happen if it had been treated the same way its Canadian counterpart had been treated. Clearly the Cree have their priorities a little straighter than the cartoon protesters and embassy burners.

Whatever. It looks like one rock.

And I see that one of the comment threads on your Entry is concerned with the Kelvingrove Ghost Shirt. It used to be my favourite Glasgow Museum exhibit. Like most, I was both sad and proud when it was handed back.

I'm going to repeat my question from post 14386 since no one seems to have bothered with it yet:

What can religion do to a brick regardless of the beliefs of the individuals involved with that brick? (please see post 14386 for a more detailed version)

It can build a wall between it and another religion.

or at least chuck it through their stained glass window and run away

I can agree to that Anhaga. In fact I came close to citing it in the Jesus thread but I certainly imbibed the spirit of it. Science works whether you believe in it or not.

On the point about efficacy, if something works it is by definition part of reality and hence science.

Imagine for example, if some homeopathic treatment were shown to actually lower blood pressure say, this would in fact be medicine not alternative medicine, and incidentally the memory retention properties of water would be a new branch of physics.

Acupuncture straddles that sort of line by apparently having actual affects n the body in terms of released endorphins or what have you, (i.e it fits inside the medical model) but the business about disrupting energy flows is nonsense built around something that works.

I imagine meditation is something similar. it may have some beneficial basis, but it's not down to the religious practice that endorses it, rather than practice itself which may have some good properties.

iPM the Radio 4 slot at 5.30pm this Saturday will be discussing why the BBC does not let 'godless heathens' speak in the Thought For The Day slot on Today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ipm/2009/01/thought_for_the_day_a_genuinel.shtml

Mark Damazer has written a suitably waffly piece which has been boiled down by 'Platitude For The Day'.

http://www.platitudes.org.uk/platblog/index.php?m=01&y=09&entry=entry090108-050342

The iPM Blog has a comment section thaht is worth reading.

I was listening to thought for the day this morning and some religious bod was making some twattish comments about Palestine along the lines of both branches of Abrahams descedents should realise that neither of them is really following the bigGs intentions.

Well if we cant trust self (and loudly) avowed faithers to do His will as they trasnlate it from His various books then who should we trust...the self satisfied berk prattling on on the radio presumably.



This is the central difference between religion and science. Science says this is what we know and this is how we know it. People can either build on or undermine what we "know" through further research what we know changes but crucially we all get to verify or disprove by the same methods. What we "know" either works or it does not. If e=m(c.c) did not work then it could not be employed in technology.

Whereas religion claims to know based upon the allegedly immutable word of the bigG. Now aside from the fact that we know that many religious books have been mutated we also know that a lot of their contents are factually incorrect. Some mealy mouthed people "explain" this away as petry or metaphor, but stil insist that its possible to be guided by the spirit as to what is a literal instruction. How they employ these truths is called religion but is nothing more than politics in a fancy hat.


Science does not and indeed cannot overlap into other majesteria it is the study of "what is", it is the listing and the identification of the different traits shown by all the little bits that make up the universe. Every last jot and tittle is open to scrutiny by the sceptical.It is us who choose to use or ignore it as a guide for what we do.

Religion on the other hand has one sole purpose and that is to exploit the poorly repeated stories of what has gone before in an attempt to exploit the gullible. It is a tool for controlling the masses adapted from the story telling traditions of people we have no way of questioning.

It was okay on the other thread, too, Blicky.

Hey, the odd occasion Blicky talks sense it's worth spreading about the place....

Blicky: the TfTD's have been stupendously platitudinous recently especially when talking about 'obvious' metaphor in the Bible which otherwise, if taken as the literal truth, would just seem barking mad etc.

My irony meter has been spoinging off the scale these few weeks.

Yes I thought the same anhaga.

If religion would just show itself to have a few balls for once, ie accept it's own place/magesterium and put outself out there to be criticised, shouted at, accept where it is utterly wide of the mark in terms of its teachings....okay castrated essentially, it might gain a bit more respect. But hey when was religion ever interested in respect? Fear is its MO.

Essentially it is slowly becoming an irrelevance in the west. Science has superceeded it in terms of explanation of the biggest picture concerned with life/death etc in the absolute sense; art, including literature/film/internet/tv has superceeded it as a medium for story telling about human relations.

No wonder we see it kicking and screaming in its death throes right now.

(My hunch is that it will seek to parasitically seek to attach itself to science as its long term preferred strategy for survival),

Mark Steel on Creationism:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-what-creationists-really-hate-is-that-we-emerged-by-accident-1229954.html

How long will it be before Christians start saying that smoking is a sin?

Perhaps that can be the next NHS strategy to get people to quit?
Imagine the fun that could be had with the warnign labels of packages if they were able to quote cripture and verse.

On a related note, I was told to include my smoking habits on a CV.

No as it happens I don't and have never smoked, but the person dispensing the advice thought this noteworthy of inclusion as a judge of character.

It's quite funny how selectively religion embraces on the one hand, and detests on the other, different aspects of science.

They lurve Einstein, Neils Bohr etc. (There is still room for god there, they imagine for now at least), but Darwin is the very devil himself. And of course the wonder of Darwin's theory is how completely and elegantly it explains reality without any need for God whatsoever, so the mental contortions that are needed to bring that particular theory it into the fold are oh so excrutiating.


And poor old chemistry apparantly never gets a look in. At least engineering was useful to them in designing a foolproof popemobile

Hi Gif

>Why do you not accept scriptural evidence of Mohammed or Gautama Buddha?<

Do any of them claim to be the Way, the Truth and the Life. Do any of them work miracles like giving sight to the blind and raising the dead? Did any return to life three days after being killed? Do any compare with Jesus'sublime moral perfection?

>Why do you discount the evidence of personal experience and prayers of non-Christians (who make up the majority of people who pray)?<

I do not discount such things.

>OK, let me explain...teapot...'

But the question of whether there is a creator of the universe is different from such teapot questions. You see, if there is no creator then you must be saying that one day, millions and millions of years ago there was nothing, that 'nothing' exploded somehow and then there was a vast universe. Look at the elaborate detail of plants and animals, the wonder of evolution, and the complexity of the language of the 'genetic code'. Consider human awareness of good and evil, right and wrong. Music, love, compassion, courage, sacrifice, friendship and faithfulness. Can you seriously consider these things and then say that the notion of God's existence is ridiculous?

You maintain, however that because we cannot subject God to scientific tests, therefore he does not exist. I've used the analogy before but its worth repeating here...if your wife tells you she loves you, you don't immediately subject her to a battery of tests!! It would be a wholly inappropriate way to test her sincerity. Indeed, it might well be considered wholly inappropriate to even consider testing her sincerity!

The point I'm making here is that if God is a spiritual being, (I don't think I need to define 'spiritual', even if you entirely disregard the concept) there could well be more appropriate methods of determining his existence apart from scientific testing.


You say, regarding the possibility of God's existence that >that possibility is so remote that for practical purposes it can be ignored.<.......I beg to differ, for the reasons recently posted.

Mikey2

'if there is no creator then you must be saying that one day, millions and millions of years ago there was nothing,'

not exactly necessarily.

'Look at the elaborate detail of plants and animals, the wonder of evolution, and the complexity of the language of the 'genetic code'. Consider human awareness of good and evil, right and wrong. Music, love, compassion, courage, sacrifice, friendship and faithfulness. Can you seriously consider these things and then say that the notion of God's existence is ridiculous?'

When I look at the vast complexity of the universe, the wondrous beauty, etc. I am flabbergasted that any thinking individual can seriously consider that it was tossed together by the tiny minded god imagined by most religions. Yes, I can quite happily say that the notion of God is ridiculous. Of course, as is constantly pointed out, what you lot mean by the term 'God' is brutally vague and slippery.

Oh, and, you actually do have to define what you mean by 'spiritual'. I, for one, have absolutely no idea what you mean by the term.