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

"I was always taught when I was a kid to exercise a properly respectful and reverential demeanor on other people's religious beliefs" [ITIWBS]

You were taught rightly. I'm sure that most parents teach their children this principle. I'm told that Mohammed instructed his followers to respect houses of worship of other religions. This may be a factor in the inclusion of praying areas for Jews and Christians in the Mosque being built near the 9/11 site.

I think it was a rabbi who said, "There are many mountains, but they all point to the sky."

one positive thing may have come out of this commotion: many muslims all over the world must by now have realized, that many non-muslims in the western world are NOT hostile towards them, their religion and the way they want to live their lives

as for the people on both sides, who believe the koran and the bible justify violence and the burning of other people's holy artefacts and other such silly behaviour, i say: have you even read it?

Yep;

http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/News/200-town-Muslims-in-Koran-protest.htm

"as for the people on both sides, who believe the koran and the bible justify violence and the burning of other people's holy artefacts and other such silly behaviour, i say: have you even read it?" [Pierce]

I had hoped to at least start reading the Koran sometime in my life. There are some in the Middle East who seem to believe that you can't get a real sense of its meaning unless you read it in Arabic. I'm not going to learn Arabic any time soon, if ever. I think this means that I'm never going to satisfy some people that I understand what it means. Why would God place such a linguistic obstacle in the paths of people who have grown up speaking languages other than Arabic?

For many thousands of years, people have been earnestly trying to develop a religious system that could be truly universal. Okay, let's look at what they came up with:

Christianity--You can call yourself a Christian, but the Roman Catholic way is the only way to go if you want to be saved, according to that church. Not so, say the adherents of a wide variety of Protestant denominations. When you throw in political factors [Henry VIII, the once-dire problems in Northern Ireland], things get even uglier and more deadly.

Hinduism--There are [and have been] atrocities by Hindus against Muslims in India. For many centuries, Hindus and Muslims have lived side by side in that country, without ever really assimilating. Different social connections, etc.

Muslims--Are you a Christian or Jew who wants to live in a predominantly Muslim country? Good luck to you! Are you a Muslim, but you belong to a Muslim sect that is a minority in a particular Muslim country? Iraq, for example? You'd better pick the right neighborhood, then....

Judaism--There's a whole history of pogroms and holocausts against the Jews. There are also claims by Palestinians in Israel that their Jewish countrymen have not been friendly. I know that's an understatement. Let me just add that it seems to human nature that an oppressed people tends to become oppressive when it gains power.

Buddhism--Do non-Asian people really *get* Buddhism? I've heard that is the case. Maybe I've heard wrongly, but I just wonder how it can be that a universal religion would be impossible to practice properly if you were born in the wrong place, spoke the wrong language, or had the wrong upbringing?

On Al Islam, the idiom is not completely intelligible if one hasn't made the pilgrimage to Mecca, since it alludes to events & conditions along the course. Something in the body of mysteries attached to any religion.

Once the human race starts colonizing other planets, it's going to get a lot harder for faithful Muslims to travel back to Earth to fulfill the necessary Haj to Mecca. When Gene Roddenbury and others were putting together the original "Star Trek" series, they staffed the Starship Enterprise with people who were not Muslims. Maybe they were thinking of how hard it would be if they put Muslims on that ship as it travelled millions of light years from Mecca and other holy places?

...so right... ...rather a prostration facing Mecca at prayer time, I suppose one might look up, in the direction of the Earth, or farther out, in the interstellar range, in the direction of Sol...

There would be adjustments for adherents of other religions to make, too. Can Santa's reindeer travel through space? Did God send His Son to save other worlds than the Earth? Heck, maybe they'd have to build an exact replica of Jerusalem on every planet that humans settle, so adherents of three major religions would have it as a touchstone for their devotions. :-0

i think i have pointed out earlier that muslims can't live very long up in the high north as they are not supposed to eat, drink or smoke from sunrise to sunset during the holy month of ramadan - and every so often that falls in the northern summers where the sun doesn't set for many weeks

post 48: "Did God send his son to save other worlds than the Earth."

Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for suggesting that back during the Renaissance.

The Vatican has since has second thoughts about that (what with emergence of the space age and all) and made an official apology for the excesses of the Holy Office (the Inquisition) of the period. (I've always thought they wanted to get Giordano Bruno for his code breaking work, anyway.)

If you haven't read it, there's a relevant science fiction novel, "A Case Of Conscience" by James Blish.

I hadn't thought about the Arctic Circle's 6-month summers and winters, Pierce. If there are any Muslims there, I wonder how they cope during Ramadan? Are they allowed to make exceptions?

i have no idea, paulh

i believe the people writing the koran made a simple mistake. living so far away from the arctic circle they probably were not aware of this problem

their god could never have made that mistake, of course

i believe most christians are aware of the fact that earth and the heavens were not created in a single week

which union would have allowed that?



ps: to be continued

God could have have made the universe any way God wanted. It's not up to us to decide what God could and couldn't have done. In fact, it's far more restful to let God be God, and go about our lives doing the best we can with the hands we've been dealt.

Freud was not down on religion when it helped his patients. After, having a ready-made set of religious neuroses was far less work than inventing totally original ones.

i think we must agree to agree

most religions are 1. a set of moral rules, 2. an attempt to explain life, universe and everything

as man got/gets wiser he had/has to disabolish a lot of what he used to say about 2

Religious organizations are composed of fallible humans, some of whom don't want to give up old, established beliefs, so some of them fight new findings by science if the findings contradict what is in religious writings. This does little harm to science in the long run, but vast harm to the religious groups that try to discredit science.

aye. problem is these people believe the holy books were written by the gods themselves (or at least some people close to them, like their pr department)

so by questioning the beliefs about how stuff came to be they believe people question the moral rules as well

there's the problem right there, i'm afraid

quite simple to describe, actually - but *very* far from simple to solve

"so by questioning the beliefs about how stuff came to be they believe people question the moral rules as well"

let me rephrase that:

so when people ( = non-believers) question the beliefs about how stuff came to be the believers believe the non-believers question the moral rules as well

(i actually find some of the moral rules of certain religions highly questionable, but that's beside the point - well, a bit anyway)

Scientists have something of a disadvantage in these disputes, because they have to come up with discoveries that other scientists will be able to verify. If two scientists do an expeirment the same way, they have to get the same result. I'd like to see two people pray for the same thing and get the same result.

we have come a long way since the vatican acknowledged gallileo's findings

this opening can never be closed - or can it?

It can easily be closed. With the spread of faith based schools there are now millions of kids who are taught that apparent reality, ie science, is an illusion created by Satan himself to lure his young victims away from the 'higher truth' found in scripture.

Their numbers are now such that no politician who hopes to get elected can criticize them.

I just finished reading 'Nomad' by Ayaan Hirsi Ali who describes the horror show of fundamentalist education. Can't happen here? It is happening here in the state funded guise of multiculturalism.