Before God
I was ordering my copy of Harry Potter at the counter of my local Waterstones when the assistant began dealing with another woman who was asking about some book or other. She was probably 30 something, English and sounded quite well spoken.
I heard him say to her: "you mean like 'two by two'?"
She said "yes, like Noah's Ark - it was before God, anyway"
hahahaha I couldn't help myself and exclaimed: "Before God!!!?"
She said: "Well, over 2000 years ago anyway".
I just HAD to say. "I always understood that God is eternal - you must be thinking of his Son, Jesus"
Call me naive but I thought most of the WORLD knew our calender went by the birth of Jesus Christ, let alone someone from Europe. BUT ... it was the 'Before God' remark that really threw me!
This isn't meant to start a religious discussion - I just wondered if anyone else would have been as surprised as I was and probably more a debate on cultural education!
Oh I did forget to say, that obviously someone in the movie did their research because when one of the US army guys got a cellphone he was definitely talking to Q-Tel.
"I fight with love and I laugh with rage, you have to live light enough to see the humor and long enough to see some change." Ani Difranco
That's a bit like the time I got a form from The Commission for Racial Equality.
SEE NEW THREAD
Getting back to my original topic, and your comments about religious teaching, I told a friend (in UK) about the 'before God' and he probably pin-pointed what I was REALLY trying to get at when he replied:
"That's really funny re customer and God - I believe it as I have just been reading about primary school children's knowledge of History. It appears they are not being taught it chronologically, so the majority think that Henry 8th wore a vikings helmet and went about chopping off women's heads, and that Oliver Cromwell fought in the Battle of Britain!!
So yes, I can well believe woman thought Noah's Ark was before God."
It's the GENERAL education that is getting screwed up.
Speaking of stupid things people say and do, I just came back from watching the Transformers movie. The first 30 minutes or so of the movie take place in Qatar, which is apparently a beautiful mountaneous
region populated by very poor people who live in mud huts with their goats and camels and wear traditional Pakistani outfits.
I don't think anyone in the theater understood why I was in tears laughing while the robot was chasing the soliders through a mountain pass.
"I fight with love and I laugh with rage, you have to live light enough to see the humor and long enough to see some change." Ani Difranco
I may well come back with hub on 12 August - if not then very soon after.
I hear what you are saying, but the woman was English and sounded fairly educated, although I suppose she may not have been schooled by nuns, as I was, in a Convent and where we had 'eternal life' for breakfast, lunch and supper! lol
Oh! and the other thing I meant to say at the beginning of this thread was that I giggled and wondered whether my reaction to what the woman said was caused by my reading QL forums too much! hee hee (ref: your comment)
I was surprised that this was posted by you. I only noticed after I read it. You should have known that there are a lot of people who just don't give a damn about religion. In fact according to official statistics these people are about 10% of US population whereas in Europe the percentage is more than double. Like you will find people in the UK not knowing the name of your foreign minister, same thing happens with religion.
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religions
The fact that we live in a part of the world that is giving so much importance to religion should not make us think that it is everywhere the same.
In this website below is shown that 16% of world population are atheists or agnostic. Mind you of those who give a religion when they are asked, a lot are not actually practicing. Plus in many societies like mine, declaring your self an atheist is more or less a disgrace. So many people just say they are christians but have no idea what it means.
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
Not everybody appreciates religious teachings the same. I have absolute respect in everyones beliefs and I know the basics of all major religions even though I am not a believer, but reality is that not everybody of this 1.1 billion people does.
Cheers buddy. Back to Doha on Saturday. When will you be back?
May the roof above us never fall in, and may the friends below never fall out!
too funny ..
.. and this building is dated c.1000 BG ...
hehehe
"I just wondered if anyone else would have been as surprised as I was"
I'm surprised even more than you... maybe that person doesn't speak English?
[img_assist|nid=7232|title=Dua|desc=Amen :-)|link=none|align=left|width=440|height=56]
quite!!!
Honestly, my eyes were swiveling!