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

Thank god for those who hit "Reply" to Post 20 and put an end to topic drift.



B

Top 15%? Hold on, let me check . . .

gee, I'm in the top 10.5% . Plus, I suspect that bank account of mine is somewhat fatter than yours (I don't actually have a salary or earn a wage anymore. Don't need to.)

But, you know, I'm not a better person than you gigabane because of my fatter bank account or my greater contribution to seti@home. I'm not a better person than you. Contrary to what you seem to think, it's not a competition.

Thanks, Tigger. It's truly nice to see another answer to the question. And it is reassuring that you're not particularly worried about Tolkien being used by racist idiots.

As a well brung up little paki I know from first-hand experience what an MCP is, but what does MCSE stand for?

*bows down at the feet of the Great Omnipotent one*

Ben, I was reading this long post, and enjoying it, until I came upon your remarks directed to me. Can you *please* leave it out? What exactly is your problem? I have no intention of discussing my reading with you, because all you seem to want to do, is score cheap points, and I can't be bothered. I have 'Memoirs of a Spacewoman', I have her novel about Cleopatra, I remember others - but it doesn't matter! You attacked me originally about Le Guin, then chose to jump all over an aside I made about Mitchison...
Let's make a deal. I will *never* say on any thread other than a journal or Guide entry, anything about any author, and you'll stop obsessing about what I have read or haven't read, okay? Deal?

<>

That's a very sweeping statement, Ben! I take it your views have changed radically in the last 2 years.

<,"The sun is not harmed by shining on a dunghill.">>
I like that, Tigger!

>> That's a very sweeping statement, Ben! I take it your views have changed radically in the last 2 years.

No.

What makes you think that?

B

Let's just say you were a little gentler, and not so down on religion, especially the Christian one, back in 2001, or '02.

Maybe I was just more tactful.

I have *loathed* organised Christianity for decades. I have found Christianity itself to have no internal logic for decades as well. I even started a thread here on that very subject four years ago.

I'll admit that my opinion on the impact of Christianity on the indigenous peoples and religions of Western Europe is only a few years old because I hadn't actually thought through the impact of it until relatively recently. In fairness, if it hadn't been Christianity, it could easily have been Mithraism or Islam.

It wouldn't really matter.

We are talking about a monotheistic middle-eastern religion driving out a pantheistic animist view of the world. And monotheism scares the s**t out of me, and has done for years.

Yep. I think I used to be more tactful.

Btw, since I am in un-tactful mode, the hook that I was not letting you off, Adeleide, was the hook of giving reasons your opinions. I am not particularly intersted in what your opinions are, but I am always interested in the reasons why you hold them.

Everyone else here explains their thinking as a matter of course. They also make clear distinctions between fact, opinion and speculation, which you don't.

As I said earlier, like a lot of people on this site I loathe sloppy thinking and sloppy use of language, and what I have actually been doing is giving you the opportunity to express yourself more clearly, and to indulge yourself in a little clear thinking.

You have seen that as an attack, though.

*shrug*

B
(We now return you to your usual programme).

MCSE
~Microsoft Certified Software Engineer.

Means you know all the answers to the exams. Sorry, means you are a higly competent Microsoft programmer in something or other.

A once highly sought after qualification up there with the best of the technical industry quals, and would still probably be there but for the fact you can now buy all the answers for $20 off the net, if you know where to look.

<>
You are the woman formerly known as a girl called Ben, aren't you? That just didn't come across (your loathing) in conversations we had back then. Hence my question.
<>
That's a rather strange thing to say! Here, and I thought expressing and receiving different opinions was what h2g2 was supposed to be about!
<>
Rubbish, I am sorry, but it is. I do in fact make those distinctions, and I don't know why you say I don't! (Unless it is the influence of Hoo, because that's his favourite accusation against all his enemies...)
<>
What's that about? The woman I knew in 2002 wouldn't have made such an offhand and insulting remark. Oh, and while we're about it, patronising is another word that springs to mind.
I think, Ben, you're showing more emotion than reason here... and I can't understand the change! It's not just being less tactful!

<<...and I thought expressing and receiving different opinions was what h2g2 was supposed to be about!>>



Then why do you go around telling people you are being unfairly attacked because you are a Christian when others are simply disagreeing with your opinions and telling you so?


az

What fascinates me is that you miss the point.

I am now, have always been, and always *will* be, interested in the *reasons* for peoples' opinions.

Content is interesting, but to me structure is more interesting. Has been for a while. A lot of my guide entries are explictily or implicitly about structure. Check 'em out. Nothing new there.

Adeleide - get this:

I am genuinely interested in *why* you think what you think. I just happen to be marginally less interested in *what* you think.

Don't take it personally, I feel the same way about StrontiumDog, kea, anhaga, and the other regulars on this thread. However, none of them took my interest in why they think what they think as an attack, (though Kea may have felt a little pressurised at one point).

I have no idea why you consider my questioning of structure to be an attack. It isn't specific to you, but the evasive responses are.





>> That just didn't come across (your loathing) in conversations we had back then. Hence my question.

Ah. Well.

It depends on what we were talking about at the time.

If we were talking about the sociological effects of Chritianity, (as we are now), then I think my loathing would have come across.

If we were talking about individuals specific beliefs, then, as now, I would ask not to be evangelised at, and I would undertake not to evangelise in turn.

If we were talking about the reasons people believe in Chrstianity, (as I did on more than one occasion pre-Rupert), then I would have prodded and probed structure not content, and worked hard to keep the converstation there.

My guess is that you are confusing conversations about specific beliefs, or about the reasons people believe, with conversations such as this about Religion as a social force.

It may just be that you didn't see me being offhand, insulting and patronising in previous years. I can assure you that I was. If I could be bothered, I'd find you links.

Not proud of it.

Just a realist.

Ben

"That's a rather strange thing to say! Here, and I thought expressing and receiving different opinions was what h2g2 was supposed to be about!"

So when ever were you receptive to someone elses opinion Della?

"Rubbish, I am sorry, but it is. I do in fact make those distinctions"



Er Hon, would you like us to provide some of the many links to places where you have expressed "opinion2 as "fact", like the PBAC thread for istance?

Della I think it is a shame there is not smiley.

Ok, lets take an example.

"I believe the world is round"

"Why do you believe the world is round?"

a) Because I am a theortical physicist, and the maths simply doesn't permit flat planets

b) Because I am a geologist, and the physics and chemistry of rock formation require a round planet

c) Because I am an economist and the political and economic development of the world changed completely with regular circumnavigation

d) Because I am an historian, and there are too many well documented circumnavigations for all of them to be fake

e) Because I was a navigator in the Merchant Navy, and I've gone right round the bloody thing

f) Because I am an astronaut, and I have seen it from space

g) Although I don't have any specialist knowledge I have enough wit to follow the arguments outlined by the specialists

h) I just do, ok?

NOW do you see why the reasons for a person's opinions are more interesting than the opinions themselves?

Take my interest in your reasons as a compliment. I am interested in YOU, you see.

Ben

PS - I am in category (g) for the record.

I've only read one Ursula LeGuin book, The Lathe of Heaven, but I think it is brilliant, it's one of my favorite books. It's about a man who changes reality with his dreams, but can't control the process, and lives in fear. He falls in love with a woman who changes as the world changes, yet remains somehow herself. I recommend the book highly!

JEllen

And I know that's off topic, but she was mentioned...

I did that once, azahar, when I was being double-teamed by you and Jez.
Okay?