The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy there is absurdity, and unpredictable events on every page. The character’s spend their time searching for reason, and meaning behind life. “There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." (Adams, 82) The universe is bizarre, and inexplicable in the extreme, and this novel is a prime example of life’s erratic events.
British writer Douglas Adams was born 1952 in Cambridge, England. Adam’s illustrious career began with his many beloved comedy sketches. In 1978 he began writing radio scripts, this sparked his work on the Guide. Adam’s childhood is not well documented in any way. His most notorious works being Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and his work on the television series Doctor Who. Adams never wanted to publish Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as a novel but once he had it sold 15 million copies during his life, and was later adapted into a play, a TV show, a movie, and a computer game.
Adam’s spent his life as an outspoken atheist, conjuring in his mind a sentient puddle who arose one day to think, "This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" (Adams) demonstrating his belief that the ‘fine-tuned Universe’ argument for religion is false.
Adam’s spent a lot of his time battling environmental issues. He climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro wearing a Black Rhino suit in order to rai...
... middle of paper ...
...at could portray this story in such a way. It’s not just his stories, but the way he demonstrates them that is truly fantastic. When first looked at the novel is extremely humorous, there’s meaning under the clever exterior presented. Adam’s questions basically everything about life in this work; but he presents it in a humorous way.
To several authors, and scientists Douglas Adams was a pillar of knowledge, and ethics which deserved respect. Biologist Richard Dawkins dedicated his book The God Delusion (2006) to Adams, writing on his death that "Science has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender.”
Conclusion
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy there is absurdity, and unpredictable events on every page. The character’s spend their time searching for reason, and meaning behind life.
In conclusion, it is possible for science and religion to overlap. Although Gould’s non-overlapping magisterial claims that creationism doesn’t conflict with evolution, it doesn’t hold with a religion that takes the biblical stories literally. Moreover, I defended my thesis, there is some overlap between science and religion and these overlaps cause conflict that make it necessary to reject either science or religion, by using Dawkins’ and Plantinga’s arguments. I said earlier that I agree with Dawkins that both science and religion provide explanation, consolation, and uplift to society. However, there is only conflict when science and religion attempt to explain human existence. Lastly, I use Plantinga’s argument for exclusivists to show that such conflict means that science and religion are not compatible. It demands a rejection t either science or religion.
“ Some Close Encounters of a Mental Kind ” by Stephen Jay Gould is about the tendency for our minds to ‘lie’ to ourselves because of a certain key phrase that can cause people to believe certain events happened. This can be done by altering the types of question you want the victim to hear. It can be a certain modified questions or the way the question are presented to us that can cause our answers to be slightly false.
The claims of rationality and the so-called scientific approach of the atheists and agnostics have been debunked. In the coming pages we shall see that both in the creation of the universe, in things created within the universe and in the creation of living beings, an intelligently designed process is going on, and we shall demonstrate that the objections of agnostics and skeptics to this assertion are merely delusions.
The use of suspense in “The Hitchhiker,” keeps the audience in a state of panic, wondering what the outcome will be. The protagonist looks back upon the torturous six days, remembering his protective mother, and the commonplace traveler. Fear mixed with suspicion, he identifies the hitchhiker on the most inappropriate hitchhiking roads, set on terminating the foreboding individual. Leaving the audience at the climax, Adams believes the hitchhiker must be mortal, and therefore able to hinder, yet the fact of Adams’ unknown identity and his total isolation, prevent his ability to take
After exhibiting faulty methods of argument and frequent logical fallacies, the teleological argument fails as a well-crafted argument. The content of this argument refuses to account for evolutionary theory, and fails to solve the burden of proof in showing how everything is designed deliberately. Even the criterion for god, which William Paley outlines, is faulty and unachievable by the current state of reality. Although the argument proves that an amalgamation of forces formed the universe, to consider them conscious is begging the question. Ultimately, the teleological argument is an inadequate and dated explanation for the creation of the universe.
The controversial topic involving the existence of God has been the pinnacle of endless discourse surrounding the concept of religion in the field of philosophy. However, two arguments proclaim themselves to be the “better” way of justifying the existence of God: The Cosmological Argument and the Mystical Argument. While both arguments attempt to enforce strict modus operandi of solidified reasoning, neither prove to be a better way of explaining the existence of God. The downfall of both these arguments rests on commitment of fallacies and lack of sufficient evidence, as a result sabotaging their validity in the field of philosophy and faith.
Gould continues his base argument on NOMA by comparing religion against science and some of the past disputes between the two subjects. He compares the ideas of an absent clock-winder, to that of one that is ever-present to press it upon the hour to make it chime, which alludes to a later argument of intelligent design versus natural development. (Pg. 49-95) After the clock-makers discussion, Gould discusses two of the largest figures in evolutionary biology, Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley, and a liberal clergyman, Charles Kingsley. Gould talks about the correspondence between Huxley and Kingsley, where Kingsley reaches out to his skeptical friend Huxley with faith and Huxley retorts in turn with natural science against religion. Huxley thanks Kingsley for his condolences, but argues against immortality for humans but not for the rest of the natural world, when humans are but an insignificant speck in the whole of the natural world. Hu...
The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions by David Berlinski uses clever and unique critiques of militant atheism and its devotion to scientism. Ten in depth chapters shed light on the dogmatic stance of many of today’s popular “new atheists.” According to Berlinski new atheism poses itself as the sole holder of truth through science, “And like any militant church, this one places a familiar demand before all others: Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (10). Berlinski (a secular Jew) approaches ideas with his own mixture of intelligence and thought filled logic; exploring the world as well as important philosophical questions pertaining to “new atheism”. Thus providing the information needed to explore the sides for both and existence and nonexistence of God.
Charles, T. (n.d.). A Response to HJ McCloskey’s “On Being An Atheist”. Retrieved from Carry your cross: http://charlestinsley.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/a-response-to-hj-mccloskeys-on-being-an-atheist/
In “God, Design, and Fine-Tuning”, Robin Collins argues for the Intelligent Design of the universe from the Fine-Tuning Argument. Collins’ argument is probabilistic in nature; however, it fails due to its misuse of probability theory. Aided by the work of both Bradley Monton and Mark Colyvan, I will show why Collins’ argument fails. It can be shown that this line of reasoning concludes that the existence of a life permitting universe is zero. Essentially, Collins’ argument does not prove what he claims it does and is too strong to account for the existence of a life permitting universe because it not only misuses probability, but is rendered useless due to the paradoxes inherent in probability theory.
Hitchens, Christopher. "An Atheist Responds." The Washington Post. N.p., 15 July 2007. Web. 20 Oct. 2012.
his ideology was given to Adam. “And out of the ground the Lord God formed every
In the garden, a seemingly perfect being, Adam, is aligned within the sphere of God, joined by their dualistic and shared image. Yet as Frye Northrop points out, “In the soul of man, as God originally created there is a hierarchy…the reason… the will, and the appetite” (Northrop, 458). It is with little surprise that such a perfect body does not remain whole, as Adam takes not...
...s made a mistake and "this sudden illumination (or epiphany) assures us that order and purpose do exist in the universe, even if we cannot fathom the exact nature of that order and purpose"(Markos 39).
Yates, Steven. 1997. Postmodern Creation Myth? A Response. Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies IX (1/2): 91-104.