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

Thanks very much or your request to resubscribe, but I don't think I'll be doing so for a number of reasons:

1) I haven't actually read the book except or a few bits I checked this morning in order to clarify whether the magic girl from the antipodes was able to read. She can't, as was already evident by her misquoting of Emerson and her inability to recognize that her error had been pointed out to her.

2) I'm tired of wading through the distracting digressions and abysmally inaccurate quotations.

3) As I've mentioned before, I don't think there can be much, if any, real communication between people who walk in the real world and people who believe in magic. I respect the patience shown, particularly by Giford on this and other threads, but I don't have such patience, particularly with the likes of Mikey the exceptionally sophomoric amateur Biblical scholar who seems to think that reading a few evangelical biblical commentators and their footnoted references to Victorian philologist makes him into some sort of expert.

4) All that is needed to convince a thinking individual of the fact of the origin and evolution of species through natural selection and of the improbability of a god is a reading of Darwin's 'Origin'. If a single reading does not convince, the individual is either not thinking or not an individual but rather a programmed automaton spoiled and damaged by some cult of magic.


But thank you for noticing my absence.

I completely understand your reasons. Annoyingly.

But still feel a bit that you are not around, especially with Gif being away. He's amazingly patient isn't he? I compared him to Job. And he wasn't insulted. It's one of his favourite stories in the OT apparently. He's an excellent person, as are you.

coincidentally, I often hear myself being compared to Job in RL. Unfortunately, when it comes to the mad antipodean superstition lady, my Job-like personality traits vanished some time ago.

To be truthful, I find I would generally just rather not bother with discussions of religion: most often they are either sermons to the choir or nasty heretic burnings (the match may be struck by any participant, it seems).

And yet, like a dog to its vomit, I find myself checking back onto these threads now and then. But I really have nothing more to contribute.

'But I really have nothing more to contribute.'



Except this, which I'm giving to you to use:

A significant number of political leaders in Sudan are named Muhammad. I'm sure a number of fathers of children in the teddy bear class are named Muhammad. It would surprise me if none of the boys in the class are named Muhammad. It's a popular name in the Muslim world as Jesus is in the (Spanish speaking) Christian world. Was it blasphemous for the U.S. to name one of its boxers Muhammad? Why aren't the kids *who actually named the bear* in jail pending investigation of the matter?

This isn't about naming a toy and it's not about religion; this is about hitting back at foreigners for interfering in Darfur and being generally critical of the Sudanese military dictatorship.

Hi anhaga

I'm posting the same post I made on the dawkin's thread here.

>>This is something I'm going to ask anhaga about.

When I visited Turkey a few years ago, I saw the early christian rock churches in Cappadocia. Everywhere in the volcanic stuctures which early christians had turned into tiny places of worship where paintings on the rock surface where the faces had been vandalised and attempted to be erased. The guide explained to us that this was due to the iconoclasm of the early muslim turks. Their hatred of any idolotry/imagery involving anything resembling an icon was so intense that it should be destroyed.

Presumably muslims view a teddy bear as some sort of idol/image,They clearly make a huge distinction between calling a human being mohammed and calling anything else after the prophet. One only has to look at their reaction to cartoons. I would have thought that a cartoon is much closer to a teddy bear than a human being to a muslim's thinking.<<

I'd love to either talk with you here or there about it. And I don't think you could blame the kids in the same way as the teacher who was an adult, in a position of authority and knowledge, in the same way as the kids. When I was at school we'd probably have called a teddy, 'cluck face', but I doubt the teacher would have agreed to it.

Yes there maybe an element of hitting back at foreigners but the woman was still quite clearly breath takeingly arrogant and stupid. If I know that you shouldn't be stupid enough to do such a thing in a country like Sudan, why didn't she?

Indeed, it was pragmatically a foolish thing to do, sort of like printing those bloody cartoons and sort of like hauling a briefcase full of those bloody cartoons around to a bunch of conservative middle-eastern imams.

Pragmatically, she should have said 'let's name him Omar'. Morally, it shouldn't have mattered.

As for the defacing of the Cappadocian churches, I would have thought it would have been the Byzantine *Christian* iconoclasts that were responsible. They were very busy in the eighth century and Cappadocia wasn't taken over by the Muslims until the eleventh century.

Hey that's interesting what you say about 8C Christian iconclasts. It does seem as if this 'iconoclasm' idea has occurred on and off in all the Abrahamic faiths. So much of the truly wonderful catholic/christian art in England was destroyed around the reformation and in later centuries by the protestants.

A few years ago there was a wonderful art exhibition at Tate Britain in London of some of the surviving early English iconic carvings that survived in a few ancient churches, pre reformation. And there was an excellent documentary on tv about it. The presenter made much of the fact that it is an element of English history that we have effectively supressed. It was extremely moving. I have a lovely book of the exhibits as a wonderful memento.

Yes it was as likely that Christian iconoclasts destroyed stuff as much as the muslims.

What is it with 'Iconoclasm'? It really mystifies me. As much as I'm a fan of the protestant word, I'm also a fan of imagery.

"What is it with 'Iconoclasm'? "



In a nutshell?


'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image'

>>'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image'<<

Yes. And I'm thinking what is so special about the graven image? The thing is, any ignorant uneducated peasant, even in modern society gets hugely hypnotised and affected by imagery. Advertisers in modern society know this only too well.

But to understand the more complex possibilities of the word, (I can't really comment on abstract pattern in Islamic art, because I know very little about it), one *has* to have a certain degree of education and realisation of complexity of meaning. With language especially the difference between literalism and metaphor. (Although most modern evangelical christians seem to be particularly ignorant and stupid enough to only understand words literally.)

By the way do you know about the work of the US land artist Robert Smithson? His ideas about language and its analogous relationship to ideas of geology are quite fascinating.

I have a passing familiarity with Smithson's work but haven't met with his theory. I think I'll be doing some googling later.

Right now I'm off to make one of these: http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/04/blood_puddle_pillows.html

apropos of nothing in particular:




my daughter has a stuffed monkey named Darwin.

I'm going to start a riot at the Natural History in London.

I think Dawkins should start marketing stuffed Finches next christmas.

museum

right. As of a few minutes ago, I've unsubscribed from the Dawkins thread. No amount of Chianti and Helen Mirren could make it bearable now.

Enjoy.

Well yes. What can one say to that piece of sparkling input to the beloved thread from the antipodean flightless bird female? Even a bully like me is sometimes lost for words.

Since Kel was kind enough to post to me by name, I felt that, despite my unsubscription, I should respond. So, I left a little fishy something in his message box. I think it came out quite well.F6550063?thread=4844172&post=56346613#p56346613

I don't know the story to do with the fish, but you rang a bell for me of the rather lovely painting of Tobias in the National Gallery in London.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/88/Verrocchio_Tobias.jpg/300px-Verrocchio_Tobias.jpg&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_and_the_Angel_(Verrocchio)&h=385&w=300&sz=40&hl=en&start=86&sig2=gNRwdDtnUuNLgrpHKh-FHQ&um=1&tbnid=WF1d_ciawbsNgM:&tbnh=123&tbnw=96&eid=WhVSR7XnBqC4wgGp2I2nDg&prev=




And talking of Job. Gif, thank goodness, should be back next week with tales from his trip to Turkey.

anhaga why are you letting that daft woman chase you away? Your input is held in a very esteem by me and most others I'm sure.

The Dawkins thread is fairly often quite wonderful. Though I do respect your decision, doesn't mean I'm happy about it. As much for you as for me.

Anyway I shall continue to act as your proxy, from what you post here, if needs be.

I dream of a world in which everyone would unsubscribe from any thread she joins, sending her to cyber-Coventry. I get very fed up with wading through her inane posts to find one or two bits of interest she buries with her tripe.

<>

Wow! I dream of a world where anhaga was like he used to be - reasonable, calm, and not so frightened of me, that he advocates such a terribly infantile response as "sending to Coventry" - something Effers is doing so strongly as to be desperately ignoring the apology I sent her two weeks back!

Vl