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

Hi, I was wondering - it seems like the conversation part of h2g2 has died - there seems to be very few sustaining a conversation nowadays - would I be right in that view?

Now I have a question regarding the famous (?) Dawkins thread - it seems I might have scared off everyone. For example Mr Clive came on to give a group hug to the new atheists and stated he now does his goading of the religious people by youtube and prefers to let off the steam there.

What I found uneven on the Dawkins thread was the general response to some of my inquiries on their own beliefs in what and how people should think and believe and in the nature of science. I would say that for much of the time they acted in a manner that could perhaps be described as evasive when subject to those particular inquiries - perhaps exactly what they accused the religious people to have done when they attempted to demonstrate to these religious people that they, the religious people, were idiots and should cease forthwith in their beliefs.

I have now found that in sociology discourse there is what is called the "new atheist" phenomenon and so I will probably go down that road when developing a better understanding of the species known as "man" in all its forms.

Hello! Nice of you to pop in.

(Damn I just lost a long and clever post.
I musta hit the wrong button. It was brilliant.
But I'll try to recall the highlights.)

The slowdown in conversations is a seasonal thing.
The dog days of summer and all that. People are on
vacation or getting ready to go back or send their
kids back to school. Things will begin to pick up in
September - there'll even be new faces, so be kind
and helpful to newbies. It'll die off again toward
Xmas.

That said, it is also true that it gets worse every year,
not because we are losing membership but because long time
people here suffer from what I call "didja view?", a strong
feeling of "know-it-all-ism" symptomatic of their inability
to be creative thinkers and writers. Once having been
engaged on a subject they feel it unnecessary to participate
again - usually because they have nothing new to say, expect
that everyone already knows and remembers what they said and
(worst case) have no ability to restate things in any new or
creative ways.

True, some old jokes here give whole new meaning to the notion
of cliche and folks are so easily bored, especially when they
can hold someone else's enthusiasm in contempt in a classic
stance of been there, done that-itude.



It is much more positive to support newbies, especially those
who could not know what waters have pissed beneath these
bridges to nowhere (trolls notwithstanding).

This is especially true of Religious threads where I doubt
very much if anything new could possibly be said. Religion
is of course one of the most interesting topics if one can
remain objective and preserve their sense of humour. There
have been hundreds here but the Dawkins thread has survived
longer than any other. It is quite fashionable nowadays to
bomb any new religious thread with declarations of
and curt contempt and feigned disgust - perhaps comparing
it to the famously 'failed' Dawkins thread.

It dies off every now and then because it retraces the same
subjects over and over again as newbies discover it. Many here,
because of their failings as writers and thinkers, have now
unsubscribed from it declaring it (and any other attempts to
engage in Religious or Philosophical discussions) as boring.

With the possible exception of Religion itself, nothing could
be further from the Truth.


BTW: Sorry to hear you lost your favourite pebble to the sea.

~jwf~

PS: Try posting to the Dawkins thread again, challenging those
who still subscribe to engage with your queries. That does
sometimes get the pot stirred. The thread really should be
bumped up to the top of the 'most recent' convos lists as
the new school year commences.

Hi, sometimes when discussing matters with someone you grow to realise that there are some things they don't want to talk about, and so that conversation ends and you start to talk about the weather or related matters. I think there are several on the Dawkins thread which I now accept would prefer just to talk about their own driving issues ("exposing the nonsense of religion" or literal inconsistencies within religious texts) or else talk about the weather.

Although there is much one can learn from them regarding these biblical inconsistencies there is somewhat of a lack of a social-historic-ethnographic perspective. It seems to me that the "new atheist" from its scientific / pseudo scientific perspective rather misrepresents religion with a view that is overly one-dimensional and childish - almost of a straw-man construction. There comes a point where it would be better to discuss matters with social-theorists rather than "new atheists". Going down the social theory route one can begin to learn about theories of ethnogenesis, group identities, belief systems and cultures from a broad historical and geographical perspective.

I think one person that H2G2 misses in terms of having a representative of a perspective is Edward the Bonobo. I think the theory of historical materialism has a lot of mileage in understanding group behaviour and social structures.

Anyway I think I might take a little break from h2g2 to focus on some pressing work matters and deadlines ... I am also finding the new H2G2 with its adverts a bit of a pain - as the adverts slows down the page renewing and also often crashes the internet explorer I use.

Ps I often "drag and copy" the text I am typing in the event that I accidentally lose everything.
pps I have now read most of the recommended reading that was suggested to me when I first encountered the Dawkins thread.

The other thing I have been learning about is the rise of the nation state and national and ethical identities. In the past such concepts were fairly fluid but in certain periods of time there have been processes of crystallisations of borders and states. I am beginning to take the view that the concept of nation states needs to be loosened with perhaps new borders and state formed to improve "representational democracy" throughout the world.

ethnic not ethical identity. Ethics is a separate issues.