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

...probably, among his lesser troubles.

Which puts me in mind of speculations on that critical passover.

...the Garden of Gethsemane, can't go on...

Why not? If it had been me, in good condition, I would in short order have been on the other side of the Jordan, spreading my message with the desert tribes. Maybe he just wasn't able.

...the washing of the feet, application of ointment, feet perhaps injured...

If you've ever tangled with a date palm, you'll know they're notable for downright deadly spines along the bases of the fronds which have to be sheared off for the safety of people cultivating the date palms or harvesting them. The pines are typically 3 - 9 inches, as tough and resilient as quality bamboo and needle sharp.

The order in which the events are reported in the biblical account is first, that a donkey was called for to provide transportation, second, a report that palm fronds were spread in the path. The second round of remarks may have been intended as an explanation for the first. This isn't unusual for people in emotional states. While the hazard of the palm fronds might well be taken for granted in a mideast culture, it is something people in other climates are often unaware of.

??? how do they give "god" the royalties from the sales of his book ???

can't be any prophet in it ??? can there

any right thinking man throughout history, would be searching for the other man, but one bloke says god did it, co's he's the son of him, so that's ok in my booksbut the god figure goes and gives 10 commandments(which are orders)for humans to follow, but goes and breaks 2 himself, some deity eh!

SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'

TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour's.'

maybe a 3rd NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.' It weren't me, it was a big man and runned away after he raped her

"Borne of the Holy Spirit" may simply mean that Joseph made good with a marriage after Mary conceived out of wedlock.

ITIWBS, that's about as likely as an amazonian piranha getting to host a dieting program.
However, Prof, I must point out that as Mary and Joseph were not married at the time God did not commit acts of adultery or coveting his neighbors ox.

Interestingly enough adultery, the act banned by the 10 commandments, is only adultery if the woman involved is married. It amounts to 'taking without consent'. Married men can sleep with as many single girls as they like. This is probably because God knew they wouldn't be getting any from their wife

he created everything! and forgot a condom

All that's nothing by comparison with the lives of Abraham and Sarah. I'm not sure I'd want to be seen on the same block with those two by present day (let alone Victorian) standards.

still part of the theoretical humour

as an atheist! I don't believe in god and any of the paraphernalia associated, but! not declaring whether I'm right and believers are wrong, if there was a "god" and he's all seeing all knowing does he/her/it know that I don't believe in him/her/it

According to legend, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for raising questions of the character about possible alien souls inhabiting worlds of other stars. That was actually a smoke screen though. The Holy Office, which during the age of Charles V functioned for the HRE much like the Gestapo did for Hitler, only without constraints of international boundaries, actually wanted to get him on account of his code breaking work.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the syncretic Universe, the editor of the late medieval "Gesta Danorum", a compilation of the traditional mythology of the old Norse written to the purpose supporting claims to divine descent on the part of the Danish Crown of the time, opined in his introduction that the Gods of the Norse tales were in no way supernatural, instead mortal human beings, albeit exceptionally gifted ones invested with a superior technology. I though that incredibly insightful for a man of his age. To be sure, Denmark at the time was still in the process of Christianization and need to exercise a better than the mean toleration.

Meanwhile, on Joseph and Mary, that phrase "born of the Holy Spirit" might mean that they were never formally married (maybe they were too poor), but were "married in the spirit".

many were burned and tortured for questioning the validity of various gods

I like the laws on blasphemy, how ? can I be done for saying something about something that doesn't exist

each society throughout history have had their gods and still do of course, but no one can say that their particular god was false as such.

I look at it this wayif there is either only 1 god or there are manyhe is/they're are having a whale of a time watching the antics of us mere humans

Camp-town religious revival scenario:

Do you be...lieve! ...in flying saucers!

Have you be...en... abducted?

C.G. Jung commented once that the phenomenology was rather like that of medieval reports of visitations by angels and demons. With the loss of faith that came with the end of the WW II era, these became visitations by UFO space aliens.

Much of the confusion has to do with the point that people are founding self-image on symbol and an inability to disguish clearly between emotive symbol and the objective.

reported on the TV teletext news this morning
a police 999 emergency call out in Wales, there is a bright shiny object hovering in the sky(without the "don't")the police got to the sceneit was the moon.


WW2 foo fighters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjyFGtGiMSg

Interesting video. Q. on the scenes in which one has a view of the pilots in the cockpit over the nose of the aircraft: Were the Lancasters equipped with nose cameras that could swivel that way?

Good general agreement that the foo fighters were ball lightnings. I've seen ball lightnings, S - type and P - type. (There are least three other theoretically possible types.)

The P - types ('P' = prolate spheroidal, shaped like a lemon, rugby ball or American football) are harmless and comparatively easy to manufacture in the laboratory, suitable for picking up between thumb and forefinger or popping in the mouth and eating like peanuts. (A little zingy!) If you drop them into a container and close it, they ground, Couloumb effect, and disappear. Transport on an open plate if you must.

The S - types ('S' = spherical) are a very different story. They may be lighter than air or heavier than air and been reported to explode. They occur naturally (like the P types) as a consequence of lightning strikes and have been manufactured artificially in the laboratory at the Los Alamos National Laboratory at Sandia. I've seen film of the latter, a green ball lightning that escaped from the apparatus, went bouncing across the concrete floor through a sheet metal wall, leaving hole its own diameter (about 15 cm) in the sheet metal. They've been reported to do the same to glass. Definitely a threat to air craft if there's an impact.

Iti, thanks for that info, I've learnt something new there

I know there is ball lightning, a few year ago one blew the roof of a house near us and when as a kid, my grandma would always open the front and back doors if there was a thunderstorm, ever in case of one






if "god" created everythingwhy did he create deadly bacteria ? if Adam or Eve had caught one and diedthat would have buggered his plans up somewhat

created all?
...and there was light
...a few days later the sun, moon and stars were created

makes me think that electricity was invented much earlier...

...which in turn puts me in mind of an ever popular child's garden proposition... ...one puts the proposition to a fourth grade class (30 or 40 nine year olds) "Why are the dark ages called the dark ages?"

Invariably one responds: "Because that was before electric lights were invented!"

over here, 16 plus year olds would give the same answer

Dark ages? 'Because there were weapons of mass destruction? That's what Dick told me to say' Bush..

About Blair, while I'm at it: there was a great magazine article somewhere the other day - 'I liked Blair but I didn't like him...I suspect that most of those who liked him didn't really like him. At the beginning of the Iraq war his approval rating was 78%, highest in history, but even then those who supported him didn't like him either'.

[When he left office his ratings were the lowest in history, or thereabouts - about 18% - I would guess they're far lower than even that now - he's a figure of general hatred now]

Bush is perhaps likeable in manner with the public, but an evil, evil, stupid, stupid man, IMO.

In The Spectator probably. I was seized with such recycling passion that I recycled the magazine before I'd finished reading it.

Jab

>>[..I would guess they're far lower than even that now - he's a figure of general hatred now]<<

Funnily enough I read an article recently which started

"Who would have thought, a year ago, that one day we'd be longing for those glory days when Tony Blaire was Prime Minister."