Religious facts and 'Quickies'

[Phil Perry]

Some etymology . . .

 

Gadzooks

 

A contraction of God’s hooks, a reference to the nails used in the crucifixion of Christ.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

'Blimey !' or 'Gawd Blimey !' . . .

 

( God blind me ! . . . circa 16th Century )

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Popular 'Aussie' one here. .

 

'STREWTH !'

 

God's Truth . . .

 

It is not securely attested, but the expression chockablock bears an uncanny resemblance to the Turkish çok kallabılık, meaning “very crowded”.. . . .( OK, not religious - sorry )

 

 

[nomadpete]

This thread is going to cause a lot of turmoil. I've already been struggling to self censor my vulgar genital profanities. It has been a hard time for me.

 

Now you're going to show me how much of my cussing is rooted (can I say that word here?) In relijoose gobbledygook. I shouldn't use language with religious roots, as it is disingenuous to use material that I don't believe in.

 

You aren't leaving me much scope for self expression, are you!

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Oh dear. . . . .this highlights the term 'Unintended Consequences' Dunnit Pete ?. . . .

 

I apologise profusely and unreservedly Sir. . . . were I of a particular Roman Faith,. . I would do seven hail something or others and sit in a darkened room for penance. . . .

 

I mean,. . you can't even say CRIKEY ! as I am told that this derives from something about Jesus of Nazareth . . . ( carpenter's cuss perhaps ? ) 'sblood = Gods Blood . . . .! There are others. . .

 

 

[nomadpete]

You're my only hope, Phil. With your verbose and erudite guidance I'm sure you can keep me on the straight and cultured path. At least whilst conscious.

 

Now I've consumed my evening cocktail of prescription drugs, I'll sleep, perchance to dream of boundless profanities.

 

Maybe we should develop a whole new politically acceptable swearing language that doesn't use religious nor genital references?

 

 

[spacesailor]

My eldest used "sheik" instead of shxt, Just to appease the wife & I,

 

spacesailor

 

 

[Phil Perry]

You're my only hope, Phil. With your verbose and erudite guidance I'm sure you can keep me on the straight and cultured path. At least whilst conscious.

Now I've consumed my evening cocktail of prescription drugs, I'll sleep, perchance to dream of boundless profanities.

 

Maybe we should develop a whole new politically acceptable swearing language that doesn't use religious nor genital references?

GENITAL REFERENCES ? Oh NO ! . . .there's another ( reasonably historically attested ) reference to a commonly used term. . . ( Albeit not exactly religious but connected to swearing an Oath, which in most Law courts, requires swearing the oath on a Bible, a Qu'ran, a Tor'ah, or maybe the epic of Gilgamesh ?. . . )

 

TESTIFY - In ancient Rome, two men taking an oath of allegiance held each other's testicles, and men held their own testicles as a sign of truthfulness while bearing witness in a public forum.

 

So there you have it. . .next time you post a truthful comment on this FORUM,. . .remember to hang on to yer goolies now. . . . .

 

 

[old man emu]

By Jove! This is an interesting thread.

 

 

[Marty_d]

two men taking an oath of allegiance held each other's testicles

Sure that wasn't the Greeks?

 

 

[Phil Perry]

By Jove! This is an interesting thread.

'Jove' ? now look here, discussion of celestial astronometricackle objects is off topic !

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Sure that wasn't the Greeks?

That's where they must've got it from. . . .

 

 

[pmccarthy]

Particularly nasty weather.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Particularly nasty weather.

Always is here in the summer. . .just flown down from Scotland in a newly purchased Ikarus C-42 with the owner as P1,. . the thing has a full IFR panel. .. which was good. .. as we NEEDED IT most of the way ! ! ! This thing was owned by a Ryanair 737 Captain, and he'd filled the panel with all manner of goodies. . .

 

As per usual,. .. I was just previously 'Qualified Ballast' since I still have not revalidated my PPL yet. . . .but I DO get a lot of FREE flying cuz of whatz in me 'ead. . . . .

 

I DID complain that we had no De-ice on this particular aircraft. . . and the new owner said. . ."You Wot ?"

 

 

[old man emu]

Particularly nasty weather.

[ATTACH]48867._xfImport[/ATTACH]

 

[ATTACH]48866._xfImport[/ATTACH]

 

[Bruce]

Is "gee" a shorthand word for geesus? I worried this religious kid in school by asserting it was, actually I've no idea.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Isn't "Jove" a contraction of Jehovah?

Yes Peter. . . . I rather think it could well be. . . . . although 'Jove' was also a Roman god of war, with a Jupitarian connection. . .

 

 

[Bruce]

Has anybody theorized about what gods are made of and how they can interact with the physical world?

 

I guess they are made of the same stuff a soul is made from, whatever that is. In the middle ages, they thought the pineal gland was the site of the soul on account of how there was only one of them in the brain. I.m sure that there have been experiments on the nature of the soul and how it leaves the body when you die. Maybe it could be caught up in the right sort of trap?

 

 

[Marty_d]

Unobtainium.

 

 

[Bruce]

Yep unobtainium would make a good soul trap. When I googled it up, I found there have been many attempts to catch the soul. One of the first was let a person die in a sealed barrel with just one small hole, through which the soul would obviously have to escape.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Yep unobtainium would make a good soul trap. When I googled it up, I found there have been many attempts to catch the soul. One of the first was let a person die in a sealed barrel with just one small hole, through which the soul would obviously have to escape.

Well if you're going to get scientific, you'd have to realise that most "stuff" in the universe is composed mainly of empty space - even you & me.

 

If this "soul" thingy were some kind of particle or wave, or both, then it may zip through the barrel wall like a mouse through a chickenwire fence.

 

 

[Phil Perry]

Today, 16:15

 

CAFESCIENTIFIQUE@listserv.manchester.ac.uk

 

Hello,

 

I would like to share with you some of my thoughts about religion.

 

In the long run it is safer for us as a species to all have the same religion. Having the same religion eliminates the conflicts between people that are caused by religion. Everywhere in the world people are becoming more and more educated. Because of this in 50 years it will be trivial for millions of people from all over the world to build nuclear weapons and genetically modify viruses and bacteria. This poses a great danger for us as a species.

 

The best religions in my opinion are Christianity and Buddhism. A better option than to be religious is to be an atheist. Convincing people to change from one religion to another is very difficult. Changing people to atheism is easier than changing people from one religion to another. I believe that the right logical ideas should be able to convert anyone to atheism in a matter of minutes.

 

My goal is to find a set of ideas that could fit on two pages and which if read by a person of any religion would make this person an atheist. A person should be able to understand these ideas in the same way a mathematician understands the demonstration of a theorem. Once they understand the ideas they should not be able to go back to the old beliefs.

 

Here are some of my ideas about Christianity. Similar ideas could be written about other religions.

 

1. God knows the future so he knows how a person is going to behave during his or her life even from the moment he or she is born. So God already knows if we are going to hell or to heaven when we are born. The question is why not put people directly in heaven or hell?

 

2. Religious people say that there is God (good) and there is the Devil (evil). The problem is that God created the Devil. God knew exactly how this devil he was going to create will behave because God knows the future. So the Christian God is evil himself for creating the Devil.

 

3. The Bible was created by regular people. All of them were man. Those who decided what to put in the Bible optimized for certain effects for the Bible to have when they chose what texts to add.

 

4. Christian people believe that God wants them to pray. Why would God want people to pray to him? There is nothing he can do with people's prayers. They don't make him happier because his happiness is at maximum anyway.

 

5. There is no text written by Jesus in the Bible. I believe that this was done on purpose by those who created the Bible. If people saw a text written by Jesus they would become less religious. Seeing a text written by Jesus would make Jesus more trivial. On the other hand we are told only about the miracles Jesus made.

 

6. What is the right religion and what are the right Gods or God? Most people in the world have the religion of their parents. This happened by chance and not because they chose based on better evidence.

 

7. People are not moral because they are religious. They are moral because they are born that way and because they are educated in schools to be that way. They are moral because this helps them to have friends and good lives. Most of the time people do what is moral just because there are laws.

 

8. We should not believe in the writings made 2000 years ago because they are not better than the ones that are made today. Many Christian people believe that God spoke throw people 2000 years or so ago. I believe that to be false. In any case, it should be as probable for God to speak throw people these days as it was 2000 years ago.

 

9. In my opinion there is no heaven and hell. It is said that the Christian God is the absolute good in the world so he should permit everyone to go to heaven. If he doesn't permit everyone to go to heaven then he must be evil. All bad people are bad because their genes or their education make them that way. So if they are bad it is not their fault. We can't chose neither our genes nor our education in the first years of life. If there was a heaven all people should be allowed to get there no matter what they do in life.

 

10. Religious people lose a lot of time by going to church. They also lose a lot of money by building churches that cost millions of dollars each instead of building more schools and hospitals. By building more schools we can double their number. This would allow us to teach groups of 10-15 children at once instead of teaching 20-30 children at once. This would greatly increase the level of education in every country where this is done.

 

If you have the time to write please let me know what are your opinions about religions.

 

( Dear Michael. Thank you for your thoughts. Personally, I have done without religion for all of my life. I do not believe that I have lost anything due this course of action. . . . Yours Faithfully, Phil. Agnosticsville, Staffordshire,. . .England. )

 

 

[Bruce]

Of course all those points are correct and rational. The only one I would question is the assumption that Jesus was a real person and not a fictional character.

 

HOWEVER religion is not rational and our psychology is not rational. There is good evidence that belief in spirits is a side-effect of the way our brain works ( everything is caused by some entity is what our brain thinks, and when it comes to rustling noises in the darkness, there is survival value in this ).

 

This is why primitive people are chock-full of religion and superstition and atheism is the province of the intelligent and educated.

 

As for getting people to be one religion, well that flies in the face of our instinct to divide into tribes..remember the Catholic/ Protestant wars?... among " Christians"?

 

There are evolutionary reasons for dividing into tribes so this is also built into our brains.

 

The one hope is that computers will become sentient and take over and be nice to us . They ( the computers ) will be atheist I bet.

 

 

[old man emu]

One could also question if Mohammed was fictional or factional. Same applies to the originators of all other modern (post-Bronze Age) religions.

 

 

[Bruce]

There are tests, OME. One is if there are independent accounts with reference to that person, for example a tax record.

 

I think that Mohamed would pass that test but Jesus does not. There are other tests which Jesus also fails... for example," his " parables were actually written by another guy hundreds of years before.

 

But here is a frightening thing I read.. the majority of English teenagers think Winston Churchill was a fictional character.