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

I was under the impression that to be a Christian you had to believe a few basic things: (God existing, sending Jesus, him dying so that humans + God could get on without sin being such a big barrier, etc). Surely there's no room for uncertainty in the basics?




(as I'm officially an unbeliever you can't acuse me of judging you - which is a horrible thing when people say 'you're not a real Christian because you got drunk' or whatever)

Infinity is odd. Consider the surface of the Earth, if one was to start walking in a straight line then you could theoretically travel forever and not reach 'the end of the Earth' - your journey would be infinitely long (impassable barriers and heat death of the universe notwithstanding), yet would occur on a finite surface area.

(What's that book which is set on a planet which is the opposite shape to a sphere? The planet has an infinite surface area due to it being an extremely odd shape - one of those mathematical construct shapes which can't really exist. Oh well, it'll come to me.)

There's an amount of 'give' in the interpretation of all religions, some more than others. But I suspect that Christians are very far from a consensus as to what the basics of Christianity are. I suspect some would insist they included belief in the virgin birth, the amanuensis (God basically writing the whole bible himself, so it's all literally true and non-negotiable), etc etc. The basic defining concept of Christianity (as opposed to the other Abrahamic faiths) is that Jesus was sent by God to redeem humanity. I don't think there's much beyond that that everyone agrees on (see all media outlets for last six months).

Another trick to infinity is that there are an infinite number of real numbers between 0 and 1. However, this infinately large set is bounded (by 0 and 1)!

Christians are a diverse group who actually claim more common ground than sometimes there is. At other times they claim more diversity than they really encompass. In general they believe in the authority of the Bible (whatever this means), the life of Jesus and God's redemption of humanity.

Some believe in the resurrection, others that the Bible is "literally true", others in eternal life, others in redemption by the sacrifice of Jesus and others still that Jesus death was _not_ sacrificial. A goodly number of them believe that they are totally right. I suspect that I am mostly wrong most of the time, mostly because I keep on changing my mind...

Very Infinity is a thing as much to say pi or 1 whole is a thing, there not real to the sense of us but they are real and have objective meaning.

Interesting thing tho' is that theory on space is pritty strait forward, you got 3 dimentions and they just go.

Catwoman : Judge away
No I wouldn't accuse you of judging.

"I was under the impression that to be a Christian you had to believe a few basic things: (God existing, sending Jesus, him dying so that humans + God could get on without sin being such a big barrier, etc). Surely there's no room for uncertainty in the basics?"

I think the key word there is *believe*. I don't think there is a single person on the planet who claims to be in the religion who doesn't have their own unique spin on it. And a lot of crap has been added over the years by people, as I said, who have misused the religion.

In the Catholic branch (not meaning to make it sound like a section of Natwest), there are strange little things (actually its probably rather a big thing - but anyway) like the priests not being able to marry. This occurs to me as being odd, because how does this help someone work better?

There was a Vicar at my local church who had a family while he was at the church (he was there for over 10 years) and he is one of the best priests I have ever seen : Open minded, thoughful and willing to act as a mediator. I would imagine there is something about having a family which gives you a unique perspective on life, and someone with that experience is probably a far better teacher than someone without that experience, with due respect to those who do. But who am I to judge.

Anyway, that was a side issue to this. But I think that is why there are so many branches of Christianity (and if I'm being controvesial I might include the Islamic faith in there as well), because no two people have exactly the same views on things.

What I consider to be at the core of the Christian faith is that Christ died and rose again "to save us from our sins". Now, even that is open to interpretation. There are certain generally held beliefs about what that actually means. In my view it certainly doesn't mean we can "get on without sin being such a big barrier". To me it means quite the opposite, to me it says : "Look! Look what I am trying to do, to show you what fools you are all being! Now get off your arses and do something about it!!" - or words to that effect.

In my relatively short period of time on this enitity that is the Earth, I believe that pretty much everything is up for grabs as far as what something means. But, there are bound to be certain "paths" which are going to work out better.

I have one goal in life - to improve myself. That doesn't mean make as much money as possible, or be the greatest sports man or musician. It means to learn how to improve myself, learn what paths I have to take to improve myself, if I take the wrong path go back and pick again... and so on. Its a never ending goal. But in that there is no certainty. There are things which are closer to the core which generally make more sense at the time (like gravity being pretty high up there [or not ]) - but they might not always.


Ininity : Erm, this post has gone on too long on another subject, I think I'll get back to this one

I'm not a Catholic but I believe most of the strictures on eligibility for priesthood are to do with the fact that Jesus was an unmarried man (according to the overwhelmingly dominant interpretation of the Bible), so priests should be likewise. Also that Jesus didn't choose any female disciples.

There's much scope for arguing with this but it is, obviously, a hefty can of worms to open.

"I'm not a Catholic but I believe most of the strictures on eligibility for priesthood are to do with the fact that Jesus was an unmarried man (according to the overwhelmingly dominant interpretation of the Bible), so priests should be likewise. Also that Jesus didn't choose any female disciples.

There's much scope for arguing with this but it is, obviously, a hefty can of worms to open."

A can that is probably best left closed. Well I think I've said my peace anyway

I think in my last but one post I said :"There was a Vicar at my local church who had a family while he was at the church (he was there for over 10 years) and he is one of the best priests I have ever seen "

That should be he is one of the best Vicar's I've ever seen. I don't want people getting the wrong idea.

I meant that God couldn't really embrace sinful people, but all people do sin except for Jesus, and always will (I think the idea is to try to reduce it) and the sacrificing a one year old male bull with no defects didn't really help that much, but sacrificing something really valuable would atone for it all, so we can all be forgiven if we ask nicely.

Jesus didn't choose any female disciples, well who would have listened to a woman in those days anyway?
Maybe they think that having a family is a distraction...

I wont bring up the slightly controvesial subject of Mary Magdalene then

"so we can all be forgiven if we ask nicely"

I think its more the actions we take rather than what we say.

Ah, a minor theological schism - salvation through faith, or salvation through good works?

The whole 'female disciples' thing boils down to whether you believe all of the Bible is divinely inspired and literally true (and conveniently forget about the Gospels contradicting each other), or whether you think the Gospel writers were simply reflecting the patriarchal cultures they were writing in (in which women were second class citizens). Okay you could argue that female emancipation is small beer compared to the radical nature of the Christian message, and thus they'd have no reason to omit it on the grounds of it being controversial.

Then again, it's whether Jesus' own behaviour should be judged by the moral and cultural standards of today, or those of first century Palestine...

"The whole 'female disciples' thing boils down to whether you believe all of the Bible is divinely inspired and literally true (and conveniently forget about the Gospels contradicting each other), or whether you think the Gospel writers were simply reflecting the patriarchal cultures they were writing in (in which women were second class citizens). Okay you could argue that female emancipation is small beer compared to the radical nature of the Christian message, and thus they'd have no reason to omit it on the grounds of it being controversial.

Then again, it's whether Jesus' own behaviour should be judged by the moral and cultural standards of today, or those of first century Palestine... "

I think given that Jesus was attempting to appeal to the peoples of that time, it would make sense that he be judged from that perspective. ALSO, it is important to note, that the writers of the bible were human. It is an obvious, but frequently overlooked point. Anything they write about Jesus would be from their own perspective.

I guess it would be a bit like getting a number of journalists today to make an account of a major event that they had experienced. Each would have a slightly different spin on it, but each would be influenced by the moral constraints of today. Perhaps it is unfair to compare the Disciples with modern day journalists, but I do think it makes a reasonable analogy.

I think it was Peter who had a hatred of women, and I think he resented the amount of time Jesus spent with Mary Magdeline.

Despite what some may say, the Bible is not perfect - but it is the best source of information we have about Jesus who was clearly an inspirational and powerful individual - who was millenia ahead of his time.

A lot of what I have read and heard from the Bible is still very much relevant today. Which is quite remarkable really.

Many Christians believe every word in the Bible was divinely inspired by God, and thus who actually wrote them down is irrelevent.

(BTW, I agree with you on this, but on the other hand I can see the point of fundamentalist Christians who argue that if you make the Bible optional, you rip the heart out of the faith.)

"Many Christians believe every word in the Bible was divinely inspired by God, and thus who actually wrote them down is irrelevent."

I know, I've met them.

I never thought I'd be arguing against another group of Christians though

It's funny Jesus could figure the world but was still just a man, totally baffled by women.

I belive he was scared to, and he tret them like men, even tho he understood what they were to other men.

-- DoctorMO --

"I think it was Peter who had a hatred of women, and I think he resented the amount of time Jesus spent with Mary Magdeline."

Actually, the whole priests-not-getting-married thing came to Christianity through Paul, in one of his letters.. I think, though I'm probably wrong, his letter to the Thessalonians. I'm not a theologian (nor do I play one on TV); I was simply given a solid Catholic upbringing and have since rejected it (A curious sidenote -- usually, the people who best know a religion are the ones who were raised in it and since left it).

heh, I must be an expert in new ageism

"(A curious sidenote -- usually, the people who best know a religion are the ones who were raised in it and since left it)"

With no disrespect intended (I don't know how you react yourself), but they are also, unfortunately, usually the most angry and Religeous about their conviction that God doesn't exist and/or that Christianity is wrong (depending usually on whether the person has gone out for fully fledged Athiesm, or decided to find another Religeous order).

Having seen a lot of debates myself (on television and in real life), people who have never had religion seem to be a bit un fussed really (thats not to say its like that for everyone, just that its my experience), whereas those who have made a concious decision to change have a lot more anger behind what they are saying.

I think as far as Priest's not marrying, I think you may be right there. Although I don't think it has always been that way. I think it was something that changed in the middle ages. Though I may be wrong about that.


"It's funny Jesus could figure the world but was still just a man, totally baffled by women.

I belive he was scared to, and he tret them like men, even tho he understood what they were to other men."

I'm not convinced that Jesus was scared of women. I think Jesus's relationships with women we're simply ommitted by the writers of the Bible. To be honest what Jesus got up to in bed is really irrelevant. The most important thing about Jesus was that he practised what he preached.