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

I thought the problem was the *new official announcement* with the color charts, topic exclusions and censorship policies not the copywrites.

Hmmm ..... I thought I had a cunning plan here - turn the debate into a bizarre political argument, then there was no way Analiese would be able to leave - doesn't seem to have worked though.

That's right. It's not copyright. It's being associated with all that other stuff by which the Beeb wants to control everybody. That's too much.

Oh, screw it!!!

Why am I wasting my breath?!!!!!!!!

I never ask myself that question.

http://www.kennett.co.nz/law/indigenous/

http://www.1upinfo.com/encyclopedia/categories/naind.html

Good sites to view! Thanks

I know where Analiese is coming from. If you don't believe in something, no matter how small, then you should follow your heart and do what you feel is right and that's something Analiese obviously does; she thinks with her heart first and there's no wrong in that.

Hi Peregrine, that's a fairly good plan you had ~~ to get Analiese involved in another discussion!

Yeah, it's effective.

Of course I didn't say I was leaving really, at least not for good. Just not publishing which hurts. It hurts me that my little stories won't get a little bigger audience here and like people say or imply, I'm just hurting myself.

What people don't seem to appreciate is that I wasn't intending hurt nobody just try to clarify things but that's gets blown off too. So I guess the hurt is just the sacrifice I make for whatever it is I think I stand for.

What's ironic is the story I pulled with all this stuff talks about just this sort of thing, trying to get recognition from the whiteboys. What a farce!!!

I hope others have better luck.

Somehow I don't think it's worth it in the end. Nobody gets recognition unless they hit people with the biggest rock they can find. Then they get liquidated of course. Mustn't have no resistance, no violence. Nevermind that violence is perpetrated everyday by the powers that be in a thousand ways or more.

Violence that not only kills or maims, but humiliates, derides, ignores, violates, starves, etc. etc... Same old crap they've been doing for centuries. And same old excuses for doing it and same old supporters letting it be, because if they don't they fear it'll all be shut down. I wonder sometimes what would be all so bad about that.

I read in the Geo this month that there's a guy in Brazil trying to protect indian tribes there with a strict no contact policy. And it appears to work when actually enforced. Because, as he says, as soon as there's contact, the destruction of the people's universe begins.

I'm really tired of having to keep rebuilding my universe. I think in awhile no contact might be the best solution in the long run. Some stuff needs to be preserved no matter what, like the last wild reaches of the Amazon basin and if a few los indios bravos can scare the developers and entrepreneurs away that's maybe the best security for the forest as well, since few people seem to respond to reasonable argument or advice.

Contrary to popular belief people don't need to know everything. They need to show respect for everything for a change. And knowing doesn't necessarily foster that. It often fosters quite the opposite because familiarity frequently breeds contempt as well as understanding. And also the apparent obsession to rebuild everybody's universe in your own image and call it truly universal. I don't think that many people really need that do you?

So sooner or later I will be leaving for good. Because I really can't stand this stuff much longer really. It's something to do when I'm lonely but why am I lonely? Because I ain't where I should be that's why.

And I'm sick and tired of neo-victorians telling me how far they've come since Wounded Knee, the first one. They haven't taken a single step really. Just more lies.

And they don't even remember what happened after Wounded Knee like what happened to Posey and all the 20th century land grabs because even what little that was left was evidently too much in some people's view.

You'd think that if some people consider it important to save ducks or whatever they'd see a similar importance in saving people, but that's hardly ever the case, except in the western Amazon just now. And who knows how long that'll last?

Yeah, neo-victorians, the heirs to the legacy of loathing. Still trying to micromanage the universe and still f**king it up even worse.

Hey, I'm not going to lie to you and say I understand.

Part of my learning process now that I have a clue to how my mind works is admitting that there are many things that I don't know anything about and never will.

But the things I do know about, you better get right. I have a running battle with a post-stroke, post-heart operation patient who was just a workaholic who happened to be a deacon cause it looked good on his resume.
Then his hard-charging type-a lifestyle caught up with him and brought him to the brink of paralysis.
He pulled through, with a half a million dollars of medical care paid for by his former employers, Texas Instruments.
Now he's found Jesus, really, for sure, this time and he is now a lay preacher. He has been substituting in our class when the regular joe is gone cavorting to Oklahoma in his mother in law's Cadillac Limo.

My running battle with this bozo is based on the simple fact that he is an American and that colors everything, including His Jesus.
Pleh.
We're supposed to be studying Galatians for the past month and he won't go anywhere near the actual text. He's off in his own little world, testifying about what God has done for him.

I think God spared him in the hope that this time he might get a clue.
But apparently he ain't gonna get it from me until I get a haircut and a shave and buy a suit and learn to agree with him.

Needless to say, he be white, middle class and possessed of a mellifluous voice which makes the intoning of banal prayers easier.

Needless to say, also, he believes that Jesus will Not Come AGAIN until every soul on earth has the opportunity to Hear the Good News, so he believes that the 'no contact' policy is a heathen communist plot to keep the Lord from reaching these sinful people who have never had the chance to shop at the Gap like God intended.

I could truly learn to hate this person.
I attend a supposedly 'adult' class and all I hear is the same puerile mouthings as one would find in a fifth grade class.
The pastor says "it takes all kinds" and I say "yeah, but they're supposed to learn something".

Not to put a damper on the "loathing", but I think a good part of it is caused by ignorance and fear. Which is a worldwide epidemic.
How else would you explain grown men raping preteens and babies, believing that it will cure AIDS or other STDs?

All politics aside, when you have grown men and women in the world who do not understand the basics of biology or medicine, then a whole lot of educated people have a lot to answer for.

"guess the hurt is just the sacrifice I make for whatever it is I think I stand for."

Ouch. But yeah. Tough one huh?

Save more people and teach them about ducks THEN have them learn from the ducks! That will help.

All healers go through pain Analiese. You want to heal or effect the memory and spirit of your peoples. Your stories may need to be taken back into yourself for a time. While you go quiet and return to the land of your stories, maybe they should be in your safe keeping. I think you will have more to put behind them ,and know how to wear that sheild to protect yourself from *some* of the pain spirits begin in pain as end in pain, and the growing pains in between never stop, unless you do.

It can be lonely to know what few others do. Ask any expert in any field of expertise. It can be lonely and scary to have strong beliefs. It does not have to be destructive, you can surrender your spirit for nourishment from time to time.
Balance the incoming and outgoing.
Have someone tell YOU stories
The biggest inspirations happen when we are quiet and sitting still. You will have more energy and know how to take action afterwards.

TR so you did go to the preachers class

I was hoping (something I cannot seem to help) he would be better at it! I thought he might allow, even welcome some challenging from you since he was pushing hard. Too bad.

No. Didn't go to the pastor's class.
Same old class.
Same fellow I had trouble with before.
Sometimes I think the people who supported duelling as a solution to a dispute had a point.

Ah well, how do you stand it then and Why?

Dueling could be an quite attractive solution in some disputes.
At least it's agreed upon beforehand.

Maybe quitting the class is a better option in your case

Yeah, the missionaries complained about the guy in Brazil too, just like you said, Mr. Revenge. Nevermind that as recently as 1996 a tribe was decimated by the "common cold" after contact with some loggers. We want to save their souls not their loathsome bodies.

So now the warriors put broken sapplings across the trail and people who ignore the warning sign sort of disappear in the forest. Their tracks just stop. How do you suppose the warriors pull that piece of magic off? Nobody knows but I think I can guess. It ain't that hard really.

But what about the Galatians class?

Christian evangelism is the original hardsell ripoff after all. A great multilevel marketing program because it has no inventory and no fulfillment concerns. And all it's ever really done is spread disease and destroy universes.

I'm not therefore surprised by this dolt going offtrack with Galatians talking about what God has done for him. That's after all what the Apostle Paul did isn't it?

Nevermind those people who actually knew Jesus. Paul knew him by some superior if a little bit confused in the telling revelation. So it was easy to bend the creed anyway he wanted, which of course was among other things to convince women they ought to be subservient to men and cover their heads so the devil didn't get entangled in their hair.

That class is good then in a sense that you're probably talking to Paul in the flesh or a damn close approximation with his revelation in ICU instead of on the road to Damascus. Listen well and look too. That's what you're promoting ultimately by your tithes and love offerings.

It's laughable that it's only the opportunity to hear the Gospel that's the ostensible goal. Given any coercive secular power, these people have never stopped at just the opportunity to present their case. They've always followed it up with the week of grace followed by the auto la fe or the torture chamber.

For me they're nothing more than vectors of disease, illnesses of spirit and body. Strangling them with vines in the rain forest is hardly sufficient but it's a start.

I think you're right, Abbi. I probably need to recharge that's all. I'm out of balance right now, feeling pretty ugly actually, needing to hear something, see something moving, and not on tv or a computer screen. Life's too short after all to waste on trivialities.

I thought I could convince some people of that once upon a time. Oh well.

Get yourself back out into nature for a few days Analiese! It always, always works for me...and the best thing is even if I plan to go away and think things through or whatever, what always happens is that instead of mulling over my problems, I completely forget about them and come back refreshed with a new, more quiet frame of mind. Get that bike and sleeping roll out and find somewhere no-one else is! It'll do you good!

I got to church and that class for three reasons:

1. I like making white people mad. When this particular bozo isn't running things, the discussions can be very interesting and occasionally informative.

2. I like some of the people there and they like me. The occasions for either in my life are severely limited by my agoraphobia and the fact that normal people tend to avoid me just on sight.

3. My family have become involved and until we started going to this church (we haven't formally joined for various reasons) we were involved in almost nothing.

While I agree with much that you have said about Christianity, Analiese, I think it is possible to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I have never referred to myself as a Christian because I believe that is something that others are supposed to call you, if they feel like it.

I grew up in a certain culture. That is my culture. I have no other, no matter what I might study or attempt to change about myself. That culture has serious problems. I am aware of many of them.
Church is part of that culture and it's problems. I believe, as the pastor has said more than once, publicly and privately, that one of the places the Gospel is rarely heard is in the classrooms of the church itself.
They are too busy patting themselves on the back to actually read the thing and think about what it says.

Paul presents a paradox. I find him very irritating, but not as irritating as Luke.

The Pauline books were written before the four Gospels. Thus, they have a historical value that the Gospels lack.
On the other hand, as Galatians relates, he was in direct opposition to the Church of the Apostles in Jerusalem, both before the Road to Damascus episode and after.

The Galatian problem was a direct result of the reform orthodoxy of the James and Peter sect.
It was also a result of Paul's inability to realize that he should have set up an organization of his own, with manuals and rituals and such if he wanted to forestall such flippy-floppyness.

Nothing in the Sunday School class came close to dealing with the dire politics of this short book. There is nothing cute, nice, or Hallmarky about it. It is an angry man bitching at a recalcitrant bunch of religious faddists.

I think everyone would have been better off if we had just read the stupid letter out loud. No lesson books, no testimonies, just sticking to the matter at hand.
'Cause as much as I like to avoid superstition, I think Paul was talking directly to that bunch right there, if they would only listen.

I'm not gonna quit because I am too stubborn.
I also know that at least three people in there didn't leave their brains in the car.

I don't mean to rain on your religion, whatever you choose to call yourself, Mr. Revenge. Some of my own family are devout Christians in practically every way except they don't insist that I join them. In that sense they're probably not devout enough, but if the Gospel can't be spread by love and compassion, it probably rates as just another disease, another plague we could all do without whether or not that means throwing out the baby, the Christ Child, too.

Who can argue with the Little Flowers of Saint Francis? Who can argue with the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount? Who can argue about God? Except when we get to Paul, as you so succinctly pointed out, we get to an argument.

The antiquity of his letters gives him authority out of proportion to the content I think. Just because a document is older doesn't make it better than a younger one. Often the younger one actually represents an older tradition that was taken for granted until quite late when someone realized it wouldn't be preserved any longer if it wasn't written down because it was being superceded by a younger, maybe revolutionary tradition that didn't adhere to the original vision.

In the first centuries of the era, there were many ostensibly Christian sects, probably more than there are now. Most were brutally suppressed when some of them gained control of the Roman empire. Most of the rest were slowly but effectively suppressed later under the Holy Roman Empire or the rise of the feudal states of western Europe.

So it's almost like some animal species now that have been decimated and while we can encourage their recovery from the brink of extinction we should recognize that they actually represent only a very few lineages of the survivors. So it is with the Christian movement.

So let me ask you something? Does it matter if there is a trinity of three divine persons or not? Does it matter if Jesus was fully God or fully Man? Does it matter if I keep the precepts of the Church Militant in order to conduct souls into the Church Triumphant? Does it matter if Christ never comes again?

Whatever your answers, obviously these and many more contentions of theology have mattered to many people, mattered so much that they were willing to inflict atrocious cruelty on their fellow human beings for crossing them on these points of contention.

I would suggest that none of these things matter in the least because I can't abide the consequences when they do matter. It's a matter of freedom and survival mostly.

If you want to believe these matters really matter, that is your choice and I'll respect it, but if you insist that they matter me, that's not your choice and I won't respect you for it. I will resist or prevaricate because I must in order to survive. That's the way it is.

But I sort of agree that if you study these "epistles" of Paul you need to just read them, not indoctrinate them. Doctrine might derive from them but all too often the doctrine's formulated before the source is fully appreciated.

For many Christians, doctrine isn't found in the Bible because they rarely study it. Instead they simply recite the precepts of evangelistic tracts, liberally sprinkling their recitations with "Praise the LORD!" or "Praise God" or some other utterance made trivialized by mindless repetition. These people don't praise the LORD or God really. They praise themselves by saying so and everybody knows it too, but they're too polite to demand the idiots shut up and listen to the scriptures for a change.

If a person has a calling that's fine. It's good to share such a thing but it shouldn't be manditory to pay attention. If it sounds reasonable or appears to work that's fine too. It'll probably merit some attention especially if accompanied by a miracle or two, but otherwise, it's just a personal rambling that might or might not be good for the community.

Yet men use such things to launch pastoral careers where they amass both parishers and wealth a plenty. And it's those kinds of people to which my previous remark about multilevel marketing refers. I don't know why they even get an audience but they do and often a very powerful group of supporters willing to stop at virtually nothing to get out the WORD. Those people I can live without thank you.