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

What if there is no consequence to your action?

I would add that people want to believe in God becase it gives them someone to blame when things go wrong.

Ok. With so many religions to choose from, which one is the 'right' one? If I choose one particular god in preference to others, am I in deep s**t if the other god turns out to be right? If I can't choose a god, does a god choose me? In which case, how can I tell I've been chosen?

It's bad enough trying to believe there is an effective government out there that people have voted for, never mind trying to believe in something that, all evidence to date, says does not actually exist. Go on, give me one shred of proof that god exists. And no, god does not live in Cardiff.

The facts that the word 'god' exists, that so many people post to this forum and that some people profess to believe in a concept they call 'god', prove that 'god' exists; if only as an abstraction.
I cannot conceive of a choice which has no consequences - please enlighten me.

As long as people go about talking about God, and beliving in God, I assume that God exists. I assume God is an idea, a fixation, a help for the weak and an excuse for the strong. God exists in peoples minds as an idea, a faith or (as in miy mind) something other people belive in.

I didn't make any sense. Sorry, I'll come back later...

1. Atheists do not believe in higher powers.
2. God is the highest power.
3. Therefore, God must be an atheist.
4. We should all strive to be like God.
5. We should all be atheists.

Found that on fortune the other night.

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Got my assignments finished, so I'm back on h2g2

JOTD: The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much.

Statement 1.Who says so? I may not believe in god but I am terrified that George Dubblya Bush may become a higher power.
Statement 2.Only if you cannot think of anything better.
Finally - if there is a god, one assumes that said god believes in itself, therefore it must be a theist. Ergo, so should we.

Unless said God is belives that everything and everyone is just a part of a larger whole, and everything will eventually recycle into something else. In that case the god will not belive itself to actually be a god, but something else. A chairman of the world for example...

But if 'god' believed itself to be something other than god then it would not be god. Conversely, I think that my managing director believes himself to be god but is mistaken. Some would say deluded but I try to be charitable.

If my Director of Staff is God, then I can understand the Apocalypse... He has a big red book labeled "Textbook of Pain" in his office. (And that my friends, is the truth)

Sadist, masochist, anaesthetist or hypochondriac?

Redbeard: if you say we have God so we can blame him when things go wrong, then how come when a sportsman wins he thanks Jesus. When he looses then it´s his own fault?

And to somebody who said that we choose the religion that fits our moral, how come we then have things like ppl going from stripper to nun or the other way around?

But wasn't Alannis a fabulous god???

To my directors defence, I must add that yes, he was an anaestetics nurse in his previous career.

From stripper to nun and back?
Hypothetical situation: Little girlbaby born to perfectly normal family. Parents cheat on eachother just a little, elder brother abuses her in a nice and caring, brotherly way. Nothing to write home about. Girl enters high-school and realizes she has something all the boys want: a female body. Being lightly manipulative, she gains quite a few favors form the boys in her school without ever having to do anything but tease the chaps. They crazy about her. Then comes final year of high-school. Girl wants to enter a college, but finds funding hard to come by (parents divorced, mom got all the money and ran off to pacific island with 24 year old lover). defaulting to what she knows, she capitalizes on her body, an asset she is sure of. She becomes a stripper (continuing the tease-only line).
Upon entering college, woman (former girl) meets older theology-student. He tells her of god in ways she has never heard, and with a glow and a spirit she has never before encountered. She falls in love with the man, but he denies himself the pleasures of the flesh, and tells the woman she should too. He points to the tramps and whores and the squalid lives they lead, and how much closer to god one comes if one becomes perfectly spiritual beings. Remembering the bad days of stripping better than the good days due to the theologians preachings, she agrees. Then her father dies. The shock of her fathers death, the newfound disgust for her profession and her hopeless love plunges the woman into a deep personal crisis. One day in the park, woman sees three nuns walking, smiling, feeding ducks, talking and laughing. She talks to the nuns. They tell her of how wonderfull life is with the Lord. How free of desire, free of doubt, free of anguish they are. How close they are to God. How nice and jolly everything is. She is convinced. Having been an unpersonal christian all her life, the step from stripper in distress to nun doesn't cost her too much.
Not at first.
In the cloister, the woman experiences everything she had hoped for: Sisterhood, spiritual enlightenment even fun. But soon she realizes all is not well in the kingdom of God. Sometimes the nuns don't just wash themselves, sometimes they wash eachother. It seems like they are having a bit too much fun to be quite sinless. The minister of the order sometimes visits the nuns at late hours. It doesn't happen often, but it seems that the pleasures of the flesh has penetrated the walls of the cloister as well. The woman tries to talk to her sisters about the situation, but the elders just hushes and tells her that she shouldn't pry into the matter any more. Some of the younger sisters even appear as though they find the whole situation exciting. The woman plunges into a new crisis: can she continue to live this lie, or must she reenter society where this kind of behaviour is the accepted norm? Shedecides that her former profession and her current calling is basically the same, only as a stripper she was honest about it.
The woman leaves cloister, becomes stripper again, gets old, writes book, gets rich, lives happily ever after.

This was a hypothetical situation.
No animals were harmed in the production of above story.
(Credits to a S.o.a.D song: "Life-threatening life-styles: A hitman, a nun, lovers")

It is a distressing habit of American sportsmen to thank 'God' or Jesus when they win. As if they were divinely chosen. What arrogance. Most sportsman put victory down to the good fortune of inherited characterisics and a benevolent environment, lots of training and a little luck on the day. More power to them.

The simpler solution to the stripper-nun-back thing is to point out that people's morals change over time. Those who find themselves stuck in a religion which no longer accords with their morals (re:my chaplain), have problems.

Not wishing to take anything away from the superb story telling abilities...

I wish I could say things in such short and concise (yeah, well it's a word in norwegian...) way. What's up with your chaplain?

he became an xtian chaplain. Then he decided he wasn't terribly sure about a lot of the details. When I last saw him he was still preaching things which he didn't believe in...

Aaah - a politician.

Who's been watching Divorcing Jack, then?!?

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JOTD: You possess a mind not merely twisted, but actually sprained.