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

It's been suggested that this account is me, in disguise, having a laugh.

It isn't.

I'm having a laugh, certainly, but not quite like that.

Sorry for any confusion anyone. We now return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense.

Thank you.

SoRB

I must confess when I first had this chap pointed out to me I really did think it might be you.

It seemed to me to be such a charicature that he oculdn't possibly be for real.

Allthough I am assured that he has been on the POV board for some time so if it is a hoax it is a pretty elaborate one.



So no Steve the programmer here then?

What are you chaps talking about? I am NOT a wind-up. Why would you think that?

They are having a problem distinguishing between a creationist and a parody of a creationist. After all, how *does* one tell the difference?

"What are you chaps talking about? I am NOT a wind-up. Why would you think that?"

A little bit of h2g2 history for you, GSD.

Approximately three years ago, a person styling themself "Justin the Preacher" frequented this site. He, like you, claimed to be a Christian. He, like you, proclaimed young-earth creationist beliefs. He, like you, claimed to follow the teachings of Christ while enjoying the fruits of great material wealth. He, like you, denounced Muslims, homosexuals and Catholics as followers of Satan. He, like you, espoused a philosophy of hatred and intolerance to that overwhelming majority of the population with whom he disagreed. And he, like you, liked to play with firearms and kill things for fun in his spare time.

Many of his responses to questions were evasive, dissembling and quite often filled with baffling non-sequiturs. In that, he reminded me of what it's like trying to hold a conversation with a computer that has been programmed to appear to be "intelligent" - the *appearance* of thinking is there, but it soon gives way when you prod it even a little, and the mechanistic underpinning is quickly evident. Justin's responses really were very mechanistic and repetitive, to the point where it often seemed as though what he'd written had been copied and pasted from somewhere else.

So, as a mild amusement, I quietly opened another account here on h2g2 and called it "Steve, Programmer of Justin the Preacher". "Steve" went round apologising for Justin's behaviour (he was quite rude), and explaining that he was in fact not a person at all, but a network of three PCs running an independent chat program.

The fascinating thing was the response:

- a few people instantly said "not possible", and didn't believe it. These people were mainly the most IT literate, the ones most closely aware of the state of AI research.

- a few people fell for it hook, line and sinker, and completely believed that Justin was not, in fact, a conscious human at all.

- quite a lot of people thought about it for a bit, and couldn't or didn't make up their mind.

- the STAFF of h2g2, a pretty IT literate bunch, you'd think, did not immediately discount the possibility that "Steve" was telling the truth.

- Justin himself simply ignored the whole thing, referring to it dismissively only once. This unwillingness to talk about it actually made him seem even more likely to be a machine.

I drew several impressions from this occurrence:

- People are quite willing to believe words on a screen are the work of something artificial.
- A monomaniacal dedication to religion suppresses conscious thought to the point where a person practically ceases to be human. Indeed, taken to its logical conclusion, the Christianity Justin espoused, and which you seem to aspire to, absolutely *requires* a complete absence of conscious thought. Any evidence of normal human consciousness about you could be taken as evidence you aren't "religious" enough. Only through rejection of any notion of independent inner life, selfhood or the validity of the existence of others can you reach your goal of "true" Christianity.

Overall, the whole thing was quite amusing for a week or so.

However, it did backfire slightly in that when other people like Justin, people such as yourself, join h2g2 and start posting the sorts of things you've said, people who have been here for a while initially assume that it's me. I think it's partly because they have difficulty believing that in a modern country like the UK, with a good education system and ready access to informational media, that beliefs such as yours survive. They would prefer to believe that you (or I) are in some way pretending to believe what you do, that you will at some point "snap out of it" and say "well, yes, OBVIOUSLY what I said is nonsense, but...".

I, on the other hand, do not expect you to do that. I understand that you really do believe what you say, because after all, people are capable of believing almost anything.

What interests me most is *why* you believe what you do. Justin's reasons were quite clear. His personal history included being asked to leave the police force, implications of dishonesty and/or theft, alcoholism and unfaithfulness to his wife. His faith "saved" him from this life, it was the thing he turned to when he could no longer look at himself in the mirror, and it sustained him in a world he could no longer live in 'alone'.

He had this in common with every - and I do mean *every* - other Christian of your stripe that I've ever 'met'. Always, without exception, they have a story to tell of how God saved them from some crisis in their life. Sometimes it's something apparently simple like stress and loneliness in their first term away from home at university. Sometimes it's something horrific like memories of childhood sexual abuse. But of all the dozens and dozens of Christians like you I've corresponded or spoken with, not a single one has ever said that they were happy and content with their life, then they found God/Jesus.

I'm therefore curious - *before* you were born again, before you were saved, what happened. What did Jesus save you *from*? Why did you turn to him in the first place?

I ask this because I consider myself one of the luckiest people I know - I have never in my life had a crisis that has caused me to seek solace in outward things like a religion. I have never felt the need to lean on someone else, real or imagined, for support. I'm therefore interested to know why other people do. Any insights you can offer me on this would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

SoRB

SoRB,

That is not the case with every Christian - see my own testimony which I have posted on a fresh thread.

I wonder is this Justin you refer to the same 'Justin' who posts on the God of Grace forum? If so, he is a godly man indeed, and is not ashamed to speak the truth. Too many Christians are afraid to speak the truth these days, and like to pander instead to the PC lobby.

I resent the implication that I espouse a "philosophy of hatred and intolerance". That is simply not true - every Christian is told to love their neighbour. Now, if you love someone - do you want them to die or do you want them to live? I want all my fellow men and women, muslim and supposed 'christian', jew and hindu, to live! But the only way they can have inherit life if they are shaken up from their roots, and are confronted by the terrible truth - i.e. that their sin is killing them and that they face spending eternity in the fires of hell unless they repent and ask Jesus into their heart.

All Christians hate sin with a passion. We are red hot toward the devil and all his works. But we love our neighbours, and want nothing more than for them to repent and come to Christ.

>That is simply not true - every Christian is told to love their neighbour. Now, if you love someone - do you want them to die or do you want them to live? I want all my fellow men and women, muslim and supposed 'christian', jew and hindu, to live!

Love their neighbour, these people are those who you say are damned for their beliefs which you believe are a veiled form of satanism and are going to hell? Not exactly loving your neighbour.

Obviously you don't want pagans to live because you love to quote the 'shalt not suffer a witch to live' garbage.

Given the choice of spending eternity with the likes of you and Justin or burning in Hell, I choose Hell!

A friend of mine named John became a BAC when his wife gave him an ultimatum, either he stopped drinking and gambling or she would leave him. At the time I was deeply into yoga and meditation which he saw as worshiping the Devil. On one occasion, after I had been meditating for twenty minutes, he approached me to warn me that I was endangering my soul. As he came towards me, I got a distinct feeling of green being ascociated with the mission hall he attended.
Before he could say a word to me, I asked him what was green in the mission hall. He could not think of anything so on the following Sunday I went to see for myself. As I walked in through the door I saw on the far wall above the lectern the words 'we preach Christ crucified' from 1 Corinthians 1:23. in the same green that I had seen a few days before.
This prooved to me that my beliefs were true!


alji

"I wonder is this Justin you refer to the same 'Justin' who posts on the God of Grace forum? "

Ah yes. The forum that the unsaved cannot infiltrate. Or can they? It's quite entertaining really.

What is that supposed to mean? Are you trying to imply that you have been dishonest by posing as a Chrsitian in order to see what is being said? That is very disingenuous, to say the least. I am going to mention to the moderators of that board (of which Justin is one) that they have an atheist lurker on their hands. They will soon have you banned.

" I am going to mention to the moderators of that board (of which Justin is one) that they have an atheist lurker on their hands."

An *atheist* lurker as *well*? I wonder who that is?

Look forward to the witch-hunt. Applying for membership on that group was one of the best things I did.

This was one of the many things that always confused me about Justin. He said that we were all sinners and all damned unless we were reborn like he had been BUT THEN he said that his church didn't want or welcome any converts.

Just like this board you mention that bans all but born again Christians from reading what is being said.

So it's obviously a closed and secret society of bigotted people who think they have a hotline to God and salvation - and they don't want to share that with others. They simply want to get together and gloat.

Nice bunch. How very Christian of them.


az

az, they couldn't care less if you become a born again Christian. They believe that it is God who chooses, not you. I'm a born again atheist.

alji

"That is not the case with every Christian"

You are wrong, I'm afraid, GSD. I have evidence that proves it, evidence every bit as valid as your evidence that one in five scientists is a young earth creationist.

My evidence is that EVERY Christian like you that I know fits that profile, and a quick google of other Christians' testaments agrees. So, in conclusion, every single Christian like you comes to Christ as a crutch to help them through a crisis.

QED.

"- see my own testimony which I have posted on a fresh thread."

I don't need to, thank you. I have proven my case, using your own methods. We can now move on.

"I wonder is this Justin you refer to the same 'Justin' who posts on the God of Grace forum?"

Again, frustratingly, you refer to another forum but provide no link and no clue so that I could check. I am not a mind reader, you know. (Well, I *am*, but that's a party trick and doesn't usually work over the internet...)

"If so, he is a godly man indeed, and is not ashamed to speak the truth. Too many Christians are afraid to speak the truth these days, and like to pander instead to the PC lobby."

Or as the rest of society calls it, "being polite and tolerant".

"I resent the implication that I espouse a "philosophy of hatred and intolerance"."

I'm sorry you feel that way, but those ARE your beliefs as you have expressed them. If you now wish to repudiate what you've said you believe, great!

"That is simply not true - every Christian is told to love their neighbour."

Paul J. Hill was a Christian minister. He had a very personal interpretation of what "loving his neighbour" meant to him. If you do not recognise the name, I recommend google.

"Now, if you love someone - do you want them to die or do you want them to live?"

Like I said - see what the Christian minister Paul J Hill did. Then come back to me and tell me about loving your neighbour.

"I want all my fellow men and women, muslim and supposed 'christian', jew and hindu, to live!"

But only on your terms, as defined by you and a tiny minority of mostly rich white people like you. Plus ca change...

"All Christians hate sin with a passion. We are red hot toward the devil and all his works. But we love our neighbours, and want nothing more than for them to repent and come to Christ."

Find out a little about Paul Hill, then tell me again...

And don't, please, tell me he wasn't a "proper" Christian.

Regards

SoRB

Well SoRB, I can assure you, that was not the case for me, nor for many of my friends.

The God of Grace forum is at http://forums.godofgrace.org/ , but there is no point you wasting your time there as only born-again Christians are allowed to access its contents.

I do not see the relevance of your point about Paul J. Hill. As I have said on countless other occasions (and as the Bible itself says), not everyone who uses the name of Christ is a Christian. I am sorry if that does not satisfy you, but that is what the Bible says. Christians are born again and are filled by the spirit of Jesus.

That said, I am not in the business of judging the state of other people's souls. What Paul Hill did was no worse than what medical men are doing to hundreds of thousands unborn children everyday across the western world. Murder is murder, and all abortionists will pay the full price in hell. Mr Hill was simply acting on the basis of that old utilitarian fallacy, 'greatest good for the greatest number'. He had, however been led astray by the devil, since he acted against the Law of God, which says 'thou shalt not murder'. So if he died not having repented he is in hell now.

"there is no point you wasting your time there as only born-again Christians are allowed to access its contents"

Do they have some kind of IP-based born-again protestant fundie detector, or do they take it on trust?

<>

Closed and secret society . . .

<>

You mean, like yourself? You, who hates all others who don't subscribe to YOUR (not Christ's) version of the Truth.

<>

Really? What a liar and hypocrite you are. Seriously. You are doing this very thing all the time.


az

GreatSlamDunk said:

<>

...and when I refer to "the stench of catholicism" what I mean is that those catholics have an eyetie ancestry and eat way too much garlic.

The wean.

Others may know this already, but the aforementioned "Justin the Preacher" has (rather dishonestly in my view) abandoned his account of reputation and started a new one under the name "PastorW". He is posting on the BBC "Religion" board, here for instance:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbreligion/MP1734787

Just for information. "A Godly man indeed."

SoRB