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

Cheers Ben, I'll keep my eyess open for any updates here.
As for the toe, well I'm a clumsy so-and-so, and it's had so many knocks over the years that I'm not really sure what sparekd it off this time, but now it's very swollen and very painful. Hoping to get a doctor out tomorrow if it hasn't gone down by then, so I'm off at least two days (but working from home), I just hope I'm well enough to go to the meet-up.

Jimster: I've finished mine, if you care to look it over: A933914

Sorry to take so long to get back to you, Blatherskite. I'm actually off sick at the moment (and a bit sulky that I'll be missing the meet-up, but them's the penalties for good health).

On the whole I think this is sound. The house style is 's' spellings instead of 'z' spellings, and the blockquote should be italicised, but apart from that, my only comment is with regard to the conclusion:

'We no longer require a religious figure to make us adhere to an ethical and moral code...'

I think this is wide open to attack; it's not so much a contentious comment as one that's ignoring the fact that enough people disagree with the statement to threaten a Holy War against the West. Although attendances at church are dwindling, a sufficient amount of people still believe in a God of some kind (Christ, Buddha, Gaia) for this to be questionable.

Might I suggest a little 'fudging' of the conclusion?:

'We might well reach a stage in our development were we no longer require a religious figure to make us adhere to an ethical and moral code, or to make such a code of laws. We'd reach a stage in which we could see the merits of such behavior ourselves. What, then, would be the purpose of retaining religion? What purpose does it yet serve us?'

Thanks, Jimster. I'll take care of the blockquote... it didn't look right to me without italics, but I wasn't aware that there was a style standard on this. Guess I should review the standards.

As for z spellings, I'll probably miss most of them, since they look perfectly normal to me, so I'll let the sub sort that one out. Wouldn't want them to have nothing to do, would I?

As for the conclusion: I definitely understand where you're coming from. The article does focus on Western culture, because including others would be too much to tackle, but I can see how even Westerners would have an issue with it.

But your suggestion leaves the same vulnerability, only from the other side... enough people have come to see the merits of such behavior themselves, and those people could take issue your suggestion. I think I'll need something that seperates individual from governmental behavior in order to avoid contention. Let me think about it for a bit, and I'll get back to you with a proposed revision.

Maybe you could say both - many people have found this, but across the world enough governments still ally themselves to organised religion for churches to continue to have influence. Then perhaps finish with the 'maybe in the future' bit. Does that work?

OK, I've had some time to work on it. I really needed to rethink what moral I wanted to communicate with this story... I think one of my greatest weaknesses as a writer is that I get so wrapped up in telling the story that, by the time I get to the finish, I'm in too much of a hurry to wrap it up correctly. As I pondered how to finish this properly, it occured to me that there was one crucial part of the picture I'd left out, and that it wasn't religious belief in particular I wanted to discuss, but the power of organized religion.

Now I've got something I'm much happier with closing this article with, so thank you for challenging me to do better.

I'll post my proposed change here, so you can refer back and compare, if you'd like. This would replace the "What Now?" section entirely. And as before, editorial suggestions are welcome and encouraged.

"In Western culture, religion has lost its validity as a legal basis for government. However, it does yet serve many individuals as a basis for personal morality and ethics. The moral and ethical systems are as diverse as the individuals who practice them, with influences of experience, environment, and interpretation added to the myriad varieties of available religions. And new religions appear all the time.

In the 20th century, we saw that when people within the same government are divided on a political issue, and that division coincides with a religious boundary, escalation of hostilities is the inevitable result. The rise of the labor union, a class conflict, saw scattered rioting. The battle for racial equality in the US saw isolated acts of brutality and murder. But the violence in these movements pale beside those which also fell along religious differences.

The Northern Ireland conflict, for instance, is based on a political difference not unlike that of the peaceful difference between Quebecois seperatists and their mostly English-descended unionist neighbors in Canada. The current Palestinian situation has been greatly exacerbated by religious disagreements, such as access to Mount Zion and the Temple on the Mount. And let us not forget that a prejudice in Germany, which divided the people religiously as well as racially, produced the Holocaust.

Though most of the world's governments have discarded religion as a basis for authority, violence associated with religious belief continues. But as humanism takes a greater hold on society, religious beliefs continue to splinter off in new directions. And the more personalized religious belief becomes, the more tolerating of religious differences we can become. When there aren't enough members of a particular religion to dominate a political disagreement, peaceful demonstration and reasonable discussion become realistic options for resolution.

Perhaps the next phase of our cultural evolution is the death of organized religion."

Hi

I like what you have posted here, and will read the rest after the weekend. (Sorry to seem so wimpy, but I like to print stuff out when I am considering it in detail, and I cannot print where I am).

In the meantime, you might like to glance over A937767. The comment about 'Organised Religion' seems neater and fairer to me, particularly in the light of Fowler's and Peck's theories about stages of belief which I outline in the entry above.

Thanks for your time and effort, both of you.

B

I don't mean to be pushy, but Ben's self-imposed deadline of the end of January is fast approaching, so if anyone has any substantive comments on my new conclusion, or any other part, now would be the time.

I was just about to go into AWW and mooch around looking at the entries there, but this would be a better use of my time.

"I believe that my life will be better when this project is completed."
"I complete activities to a high standard and on time."
"I think Affirmation by Savage Garden is a really cute song."

Oh - and there *are* fairies at the bottom of my garden - I haven't seen them but the little gnome who lives under the steps by the gate has.



B

Ok - reading it now.

Personal comment: I disagree with your first few paragraphs, this is a chicken and egg situation, did leaders exploit existing religions? (which I think they did) Or did they devise them, (as Pratchett suggests Dios did in 'Pyramids'. However this project is not about other researchers channelling my opinions, so my personal opinion on the content is irrelevant.

Quotation: "Anu and Bel called by name me, etc" could you indicate what this is a quotation from in a footnote? It sits a little oddly in its isolation.

Comment: Re the Greek pantheon, and the Nordic one for that matter: there is a theory we make gods in our own image, or more accurately that of our parents. 'Our Father, Which art in Heaven, etc'. One of the reasons I like Buddhism is that it doesn't have any gods. Again, this is just a comment about my reaction to the piece, not a comment about the piece itself.

Typo/Style: "Christianity itself, however, was extremely divided. So Constantine called the Council of Nicea in 325CE." I would prefer either a comma before so, or a comma and 'and', or no 'So'. But I use conjuctions at the beginning of sentances myself. And therefore I can hardly complain when someone else does. So please feel free to ignore this comment!

RFI: "When they were finished, they had established a Christian orthodoxy." Was this Orthodoxy - ie the Greek Church, and the first major Schism of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, or are you using orthodoxy in its small 'o' sense? (My godmother is a Russian Orthodox, and my father was an Anglican clergyman - she was too polite to tell him that she viewed his priesthood as having no historical or spiritual legitimacy. 'By schisms rent asunder' etc.)

That's it. It is a good entry, and disturbingly thought provoking.

Thank you for writing it.

B

Thanks, Ben.

Chicken and Egg: Yeah, I guess I am taking a bit for granted here. Too little is known about how those in power came to be in power in the ancient world. I'll edit this, to treat it a bit more fairly. This is why I need feedback... so other people can tell me what garbage has seeped through my reality filter. I prefer to write unfiltered reality, and let everyone else filter it for themselves.

Quotation: I would have thought it was obvious, since there's only one Hammurabi's Code. I will add an indicator, though, to prevent confusion.

Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function?: I think the conjunction is necessary, since I'm showing a cause-effect relationship, so I'll leave that alone, and let GTB be the tie-breaker, although I'm going to stretch out this sentence, for no particular reason, because I've already got most of the conjunctions in here already, however, I can't remember any more, or I'd continue furthermore.

Orthodoxy: In the small sense, as in they'd established one set of rules for the religion at the time of Constantine.

I reread my intro, and I decided to keep it. The chicken and egg thing isn't really in there. I'm just basically saying that ancient rulers used the authority of religion to establish their own. I think we both agree on that principle. It doesn't concern itself with whether the religion was created by the ruler to deliberately deceive, or whether an existing belief structure was appealed to.

I tend to believe it was the latter much more often than the former.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/A2208250
if anyone wants to use extracts or add links to stuff already on site feel free to do so ,somewhere in the system is a brunel version which never reappeared along with reply,so put on get writeing,

oops it 2004 must use more tobacco or add more mixer to drinks.

Damn! The project sat about for so long while I was distracted by other things, and then you miss it by weeks.

Thanks for the suggestion Logicus. And enjoy GW. It is an interesting and quite different site.

All the best

Ben