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

no offence by the way...

Yep, last time I checked I was definitely a girl...

That happened to me once, I though someone was a guy and she was a girl. It was kinda freaky.

Sorry if I freaked you out.

don't worry about it. sorry if i offended you.

(this one's actually a flower not a bog brush, although it's very hard to tell)

I see... that one looks like a slightly different colour... shape... texture...

Actually, they look exactly the same.

School going any better?

yeah, although it was going fine before too. i'm trying out the cursed shoes again today and if i die from them i'll let you know.

actually they are the same. it's just a common hootoo joke that the smiley looks like someone holding a bog brush.

I see...

Anyway, I'm off on our church youth weekend! Talk to you when I get back!

have fun! etc.

i'm planning of getting very drunk this weekend so if i post something here that's rather hard to understand then it's best to ignore it. i posted once in a forum and i couldn't even remember doing it. it wasn't a very complimentary posting either.

OK... hope you had fun getting drunk, although it woulnd't exactly be my idea of a good time...

Anyway, my life has suddenly become very exciting indeed... I don't know if you've heard about the rioting in Northern Ireland on the news (if you've been out of it all weekend you probably haven't). Anyway there were guys with balaclavas running down my street all last night, and one of my friend's mums had a gun put to her head and told to get out of her car. We kept hearing gunshots and you could see the smoke from where they were burning out cars and shops - the wrecked cars are still there and the place is an absolute mess of glass, bricks and ammo. We were let out of school early today so we could get home before the UVF set up the roadblocks again. So it's all a bit worrying over here.

How's it going with you?

ummm... very normal compared to what's going on your end. i haven't been out of it much but i haven't watched the news either so that's the first i've heard about it. what are they rioting for? politics or something? hope everyone'e ok over there. that stuff's dangerous to get mixed up in.

this is gunna sound really weird after that stuff about rioting but there was a disco over here on saturday and i went (reason for the drinking, wasn't that much i promise) and i got with a girl called emma, although i don't know what's going on between us now because i'm kinda new at the whole dating thing. the thing is i'm quite shy and that was the first time i'd kissed a girl like that (well, the first 4 actually ) and we haven't done it since. she's pretty cool though so it might develope into something. how's this for a bad line though, there were 2 other people next to us kissing and i said 'woah they've been going for ages' and she said yeah and then i said 'do you wanna compete?'. i wasn't expecting her to say yes but she did and that was it. cheesy or what?

gotta go now, being incessantly poked and told i'm a loser. hope the rioting clears up.

Hey that's cheesy! She sounds nice though, hope it goes well with you two!
Since I wrote last, there's been a bomb scare just down the road, but I've no idea if it's a hoax or not. There's a load of police cars down there. It seems a bit better than it's been over the weekend though.
Anyway good luck with your love life!
Who's poking you by the way?

just some friend who says i am a loser for coming on here so much even though she's only been on once. hope the bomb scare's nothing serious. is this still the thing about the republic of Ireland being PO'd about the north? how long has that been going on? i know i know nothing about it and it's a riddiculously selfish point of view to take, but i was talking about this with some people and i decided that if it was me and someone had stolen a piece of my jigsaw puzzle then i wouldn't care very much because of how bad everything's going now. seriously, people, politics, religion, sport, nature... everything is somehow turning against humanity, and with the exception of nature they're all our fault.

sorry if i'm bringing you down. i'm just in a bit of a rut at the moment mood-wise and i have no idea why. hope things improve over there.

Thanks! It seems to have calmed down over here now. Basically what's happening at the minute is that a lot of Protestants have a march around Belfast every year to celebrate beating the Catholics at the Battle of the Boyne. Understandably the Catholics aren't too chuffed about the Prods marching down their streets and they refused to let them down. They set up a Parades Commission to reroute the parade so it wouldn't go down any Catholic streets, but the Protestants got really annoyed about 'not being allowed to march down our traditional route where our fathers and their fathers and their fathers have marched'. So they set up roadblocks and started burning cars and buildings to protest about it.
The violence in the 70s and 80s was because the IRA wanted to join Northern Ireland back to Ireland, but they've pretty much given up on that now and have surrendered most of their weapons. Unfortunately the Loyalist groups have started a feud between themselves ('if we can't fight the IRA, we're gonna fight each other instead' type thing) which has been going on all summer. This recent rioting has been the worst for years though, especially where I live cos it's usually pretty quiet.
Personally I lean towards a united Ireland, but only cos everyone likes the Irish so much more than the British when you go abroad. But this is a Loyalist area so I keep my head down and don't mention getting an Irish passport.
Politics has always been depressing. I'm not sure what you mean by sport going badly - Northern Ireland beat England! We're still celebrating! Seriously, we're in the Guiness Book of Records as the worst team in the world, and we beat England! For the first time in 78 years! And I missed the match... And to cheer up the English, they won the cricket thing.
Not sure what you mean about religion turning against us, unless you're talking about radical Islam? I'm not even going to start talking about religion because this is some kind of monster post and you're probably bored stupid reading it all. Maybe next time...
Write back soon!

i've had worse monsters to slay. glad the situation's calming down now. personally if i was in government i would want to know why we can't just give northern ireland back. it's not like we're gaining anything from nicking it that we wouldn't have through regular trade anyway, plus there would be a lot less hostility.
yeah, politics has always been depressing. about sport i mean the invasion of cricket, which i find incurably boring, and the fact that next year all the good people will have retired and we'll get slaughtered. just look at what happened after the rugby world cup (i realise that this isn't sport turning against humanity in general, i just really don't like cricket). organised religion i've always thought was a bad idea but recently with the islam radicals and suicide bombers etc. it's just turning even worse, like your riots about the parade are based on religion and they're an annual source of tension in an area that would otherwise not have as much tension. i assume you know what i meant about the nature bit with the whole situation in new orleans then.

don't worry about talking about religions in here. i'm very open minded, just don't try to convert me to anything.

I'll try not to... I might get a bit excited though
I don't think the riots are really about religion, more about politics. It's just that traditionally all Protestants are Loyalists, all Catholics are Republicans so people tend to classify you like that. One of my pet hates... I mean, the people out there shooting each other aren't really Christians, otherwise they wouldn't be doing that.
Cricket has to be the most mind-numbingly boring sport in the entire world. Ever. All the guys in my class got really excited about it though. I don't get it at all. Anyway gotta go, I'm meant to be doing history homework

there's a girl here i know who is obsessed with cricket and she realises that i don't like it so she tries to hide that fact from me.

"the people out there shooting each other aren't really Christians, otherwise they wouldn't be doing that."

exactly, and the sucide bombers aren't really muslims because they wouldn't kill themselves or other people if they would. some things just turn people into major hypocrites. anyway, they're all christians where you are anyway. politics aside it's the same god and jesus and holy spirit so why can't they just agree to worship differently and leave each other alone? none of them are right anyway. no one is because no one knows or ever will.

i had a bit of a homework meltdown earlier but it's all good now. after lots of biscuits and a pizza nicked from my brother i got it done. eventually.

Exactly, everyone here is so hypocritical. I mean, if you asked someone were they a sectarian they'd say no, but if you asked if they hated the Irish they'd say yes. If you asked if they believed in God they'd say no, but if you asked if they were a Protestant they'd say yes. I wouldn't say they're all Christians because most people aren't, but there aren't many other religions if you know what I mean. Most people are just agnostics, with the exception of a few Marxists. I can't say I agree that no-one's right and we'll never know, because I believe that Christianity is true and one day everyone's gonna know that.
For some reason I signed up for GCSE Journalism as well as all my AS levels, so now I have a load of work for that too. When will I learn?

hopefully soon. i probably fall into the catagory of agnostic. i've said i'm an atheist but i think that's a bit extreme. i believe there probably are gods up there, how many i don't know and maybe gods isn't the right word for them, but some people choose to follow one and others follow another. i just leave people alone about it mostly. i look on God, the christian and Jewish God, as someone who rules and listens to a lot of people and if i don't believe in christianity as a whole, which i don't, then it's best for me to step back and let him do his job. i'm very real about gods like that. i treat them like they're people, not like they're something else that has to be treated differently. they're probably just bigger and have more power than us. it's like i believe that there's something out there in the role of Mother Nature and i appreciate her too.

if you don't understand then think of it like this, ask yourself the question 'do you believe in God?' then ask the question 'do you believe in the postman?'

Yeah, but I believe God is completely different from the postman. He's not human at all. He's completely holy and all-powerful, and he created us.
Plus the Bible says there's only one God - why would it say that if there's more than one? Is God trying to mislead us?
You said you look on God as someone who rules, but what about someone who loves us? You know, you said you step back and let him rule, but what if he wants a relationship with you? And you're just ignoring him?
I'm not trying to pick an argument or convert you or anything. I'm just really interested to know what you think! Please let me know!

don't worry i don't mind. the question was do you believe in god in the same way? like do you think that if for some reason you grow away from the church he will still be there or will he stop existing if you stop believing? if you don't believe in the postman he's still there. how about God?

remember god didn't write the bible. man did. man often tries to mislead other men to believe what he believes. i don't think it's god's fault in the slightest but what man has done to the church through organised religion doesn't appeal to me. especially since all of them say 'there is only one god, this one, and all the others are heathens and here's the proof that our god exists etc. etc.' also god doesn't condemn people. man does. god is merciful if you repent. that's why organised religion isn't good, because it's quick to condemn.

if he want a relationship with me then i can have that without the riddiculous rituals and bowing and self humiliation. he can talk to me and i can talk to him and we can both listen to each other if that's what he wants, but so far i've not had anything weird happen to me that i can relate to him specifically. maybe to a higher power, but not necessarily to God himself. i think i've contacted my angel a few times, but i can't be sure. that's angel in a general way, not a particularly christian way. tell me if i'm confusing you at this point.

to be honest i think i probably am just ignoring God, but we get so much religion stuffed down our throats in our chapel services here that i don't find it appealing.

i think what God intended and what Man has done are very different and it's not God's fault.

Yeah, I kind of agree with you there. These posts are getting so long I need a quote button to help me out! Hopefully this doesn't sound like I'm arguing with you, cos I'm not. And hopefully I don't get too carried away; if I start preaching at some point tell me, would you?

"like do you think that if for some reason you grow away from the church he will still be there or will he stop existing if you stop believing?"

God will exist whether I believe in him or not - he's always been there and he always will be - nothing I can do is going to affect that.

"remember god didn't write the bible. man did."

Yeah, but God inspired man to write the Bible, so it's God's word given to us through the medium of a book. (OK, I'm starting to use words like 'medium' which mean I'm unconsciously slipping into the kind of churchy language I can't stand - sorry! I'll try to stop that.)

"especially since all of them say 'there is only one god, this one, and all the others are heathens and here's the proof that our god exists etc. etc."

Well, I'm not doing much for religious tolerance, but I believe it so what else can I say? I can't go up to a Muslim and say, "Yeah, I have my God and you have yours and that's fine by me" because I believe he's wrong and I don't want him to spend his life believing a lie, and only find out that he's wrong when he's too late.

"also god doesn't condemn people. man does. god is merciful if you repent. that's why organised religion isn't good, because it's quick to condemn"

Exactly! God is infinitely merciful. That's why I don't think Christianity is a religion, because religions are all about earning God's favour by doing good stuff and carrying out ceremonies and hopefully at the end of your life if you've given enough money to charity and prayed every day it'll outweigh all the bad stuff you've done and you'll get to heaven. But Christianity says: No-one is able to earn their way into heaven, so God, because he loves us, sent his son to take our punishment instead of us. So now, if we accept what he's done for us, we don't have to take that punishment any more! We can go to heaven and be with God forever!
If you want, you could check out Ephesians 1-3. Nowhere in it does it tell you what you have to do - just what God's done for you. Then in chapter 4 it goes onto say that because God has done these things for us, we'll want to live for him. Christianity isn't about keeping a load of rules to get God to love us; God loves us, so we'll want to do what he says.

"if he want a relationship with me then i can have that without the riddiculous rituals and bowing and self humiliation. he can talk to me and i can talk to him and we can both listen to each other if that's what he wants"

That's what God wants. He doesn't want a load of ceremonies. He wants a personal relationship with you.

"but so far i've not had anything weird happen to me"

Like what? Thunderclaps and rays of light and miracles or something? God doesn't usually work like that. He wants to talk to you; maybe you could try talking to him? Or read the Bible, and see what he says.

"i think i've contacted my angel a few times, but i can't be sure. that's angel in a general way, not a particularly christian way. tell me if i'm confusing you at this point"

I'm confused. Sounds interesting though - what do you mean?

"but we get so much religion stuffed down our throats in our chapel services here that i don't find it appealing"

Sounds grim. I can only imagine what chapel services are like, but the words boring and irrelevant spring to mind. And God isn't either.

"i think what God intended and what Man has done are very different and it's not God's fault"

Yep, that's about right. God wanted a relationship with man, but sin got in the way, and God had to send Jesus to set it right. Now man seems to have dressed it up in religion and ceremonies and made it completely irrelevant to most people. I apologise on behalf of Christians for doing that, it's driven a lot of people away from God and we have to get past that and see what's really there.

Anyway, sorry for a) the length of this post and b) the general preachiness. Hopefully you're not a) bored or b) offended. Please reply! (And if you need to tell me to shut up, please do it)