You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?
Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.
Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.
This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
True. Moreover, the Empire had a curious penchant for subdividing countries ethnically rather than promote integration. We tried it in Ireland, in Cyprus, in Palestine and in India, and in every case it led directly to generations of conflict.
There was no conflict in any of those places before of course.
Don't get me wrong, the legacy of empire had definite effects, but your description seems to be of the paternalistic 'all issues are the result of Imperial rule' approach (as often seen toward the middle east), presumably unintentionally.
LOL, G you cannot persuade anyone that that is in any way even remotely as a bad as a Tory, they are real criminals, the guy had a couple of Nurofen in his pocket.
Agree with you here Malc, this is a squirrel story and actually makes the allegations against 'whomever' starkly worse looking
Which side of the bed will Big G get out of tomorow? The right? Or the moderate centre right? 🙂
You can rest assured it will never be the right and anyway you said you loved me ?
Of course I ❤️ you. You do sound a bit het up by it all today though?
Was politics in the old days before I came along all about how many investigations you can get you opponents under, or is this a new phase that is a bit, not quite the point of politics really?
I posted clip of Lady Thatcher at PMQs in recent thread - she’s is just simply explaining the difference in her philosophy and policies in regards theirs. That just made politics simple, explain your point of view.
And they were all terribly polite and respectful to each other as they done it.
To be honest I am not the least het up but as my beloved will affirm I have this tendency to enjoy winding people up and maybe on occasions it shows
It is fair to say that politics is more tribal and at times just nasty but as far as I am concerned I want Boris to go so I can rejoin the party as I really fear a Starmer led labour party would borrow far too much and I am not convinced they would restrict public sector pay including doctors and nurses as would be necessary
Christ on a bike Big G, the Tories have been running Britain into an early grave consistently for the last 12 years and all you can say is "I'm worried that Labour might give nurses a pay rise"?
LOL, G you cannot persuade anyone that that is in any way even remotely as a bad as a Tory, they are real criminals, the guy had a couple of Nurofen in his pocket.
Agree with you here Malc, this is a squirrel story and actually makes the allegations against 'whomever' starkly worse looking
Which side of the bed will Big G get out of tomorow? The right? Or the moderate centre right? 🙂
You can rest assured it will never be the right and anyway you said you loved me ?
Of course I ❤️ you. You do sound a bit het up by it all today though?
Was politics in the old days before I came along all about how many investigations you can get you opponents under, or is this a new phase that is a bit, not quite the point of politics really?
I posted clip of Lady Thatcher at PMQs in recent thread - she’s is just simply explaining the difference in her philosophy and policies in regards theirs. That just made politics simple, explain your point of view.
And they were all terribly polite and respectful to each other as they done it.
To be honest I am not the least het up but as my beloved will affirm I have this tendency to enjoy winding people up and maybe on occasions it shows
It is fair to say that politics is more tribal and at times just nasty but as far as I am concerned I want Boris to go so I can rejoin the party as I really fear a Starmer led labour party would borrow far too much and I am not convinced they would restrict public sector pay including doctors and nurses as would be necessary
Christ on a bike Big G, the Tories have been running Britain into an early grave consistently for the last 12 years and all you can say is "I'm worried that Labour might give nurses a pay rise"?
SKS is still proposing a minimum wage of £10 less than the Tories I think
I can't speak for Mr Palmer, but my vote at a General Election has always gone for the "get rid of the Conservatives" candidate. in Leominster it was the Liberals and later the LDs, although ironically the Conservative MP crossed the floor. In Hampstead, Cardiff North and the Vale of Glamorgan, always Labour. My distrust of Conservatism over the years has been confirmed fully with Brexit and the Johnsonian Conservatives.
I am probably closest now to that cabal of Remainer Tories/ Blairites and LibDems. The antithesis of Johnsonian Populism. Mind you Johnson's fiscal policy is akin to Corbynism.
The notion of "never say never" is compelling. If the choice were Heathite Conservatives or Corbyn Labour, I'd probably vote for Heath (but I'd never tell anyone). As that is never likely to be an option, I'll continue to vote to kick out the Conservatives.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths.
It's obviously not the reason behind this particular parable.
Foxy mentioning Hitler and Stalin as great villains reminded me of one who seldom gets the debits he deserves: Mao
His policies resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people in China during his 27-year reign, more than any other 20th-century leader; estimates of the number of people who died under his regime range from 40 million to as many as 80 million,[278][279] done through starvation, persecution, prison labour in laogai, and mass executions.
I believe that a large part of the reason for that neglect is that Stalin's regime collapsed, but, so far, Mao's hasn't.
(Here's a simple way to remember the relative losses due to Stalin and Mao: Stalin was responsible for about as many deaths as World War I, Mao, about as many deaths as World War II. Emphasis on about.)
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
And, why had he?
It is one of the most interesting things about The Passion. If Jesus was God Incarnate, how could God abandon him?
I am not the one to ask about theology, as it is pretty much just later accretions to the Gospels. I differ from many Christians in taking inspiration from what Jesus taught (such as the Sermon on the Mount) rather than how he died.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them
But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads
I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.
It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.
I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.
If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!
What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from
By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks
But booing ABIDE WITH ME??
That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.
Remember Heysel
If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?
Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.
Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.
This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
Not completely out there if part of the point was they felt they were not getting the representation and rights that they felt owed, that is they wanted to live up to the democratic tradition they saw (or perceived) in Britain. Bestowed (which I don't think was the word used anyway) doesn't necessarily mean intentionally or willingly bestowed. Indeed, nations might be inspired by what another nation said, even if what that nation did, did not live up to that.
Obviously it was more complex than that and there were other influences, particularly having cut the cord from us.
Yes, in which case we ought also to acknowledge the contribution to American history that was made by other countries too. The Enlightenment idea of liberty radiating from France can count as a major influence, but even later, post independence influences like the German/central European emigres in the wake of the 1848 revolutions had a major influence.
The way ideas diffuse through the world is a little different from the specific actions of history, and whilst both are interesting subjects, they can be treated as separate. For example, we tend to think more of the actions of Communist countries over and above its ideological foundations. That it, we think of Moscow more than Trier or London. When it comes to actions, blame and praise can be much more precisely placed. We tried to strangle American democracy in its crib, so to award ourselves praise for it "because Magna Carta!!!!one!" is just mad.
Blame and praise are pointless. None of us were there to make the choices, many of which we wouldn't support now naturally. So I don't see it as a matter of us praising ourserves 'because magna carta', but just as a historical question whether the institutions and ideas developed there, which on balance have been a huge net gain for the world, were significantly influenced by it and other matters.
The answer is clearly yes it seems, regardless of whether the political authorities of Britain at the time liked it, and even though as noted other countries ideas also definitely influenced them (and so I hear, some native forms of government even, not that that helped them any). I don't think that is a wrong approach, I don't think it wrong that Greece for instance takes pride in the impact of its ancient history, even though even in that region many of those ideas were stamped out relatively quickly.
The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?
There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)
The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
Gibson is to history what Hitler was to Zionism Boris Johnson is to marital fidelity.
Foxy mentioning Hitler and Stalin as great villains reminded me of one who seldom gets the debits he deserves: Mao
His policies resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people in China during his 27-year reign, more than any other 20th-century leader; estimates of the number of people who died under his regime range from 40 million to as many as 80 million,[278][279] done through starvation, persecution, prison labour in laogai, and mass executions.
I believe that a large part of the reason for that neglect is that Stalin's regime collapsed, but, so far, Mao's hasn't.
(Here's a simple way to remember the relative losses due to Stalin and Mao: Stalin was responsible for about as many deaths as World War I, Mao, about as many deaths as World War II. Emphasis on about.)
And this is why I was so offended that John McDonnell thought it acceptable to bring Maos little red book into the chamber of the house. Dickhead.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
It doesn't matter if he does or doesn't. The point is to follow the teachings, the rest is just notions.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them
But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads
I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.
It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.
I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.
If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!
What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from
By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks
But booing ABIDE WITH ME??
That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.
Remember Heysel
If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?
Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.
Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.
This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
They literally based their constitution on our Bill of Rights and Magna Carta. Their argument was that as sons of liberty (Englishmen) royal governance had strayed from the true path.
Try reading some history and thinking for yourself rather than imbibing fashionable contemporary propaganda.
People will respect you more.
Was Magna Carta based or inspired on anything that preceded it, such as further afield in Europe, or from Ancient times? If an original creation, who penned it, do we know the names of authors?
So, the Magna Carta thing is a bit of a myth.
The thing that became known as Magna Carta was basically a peace treaty drawn up by the Archbish of C. after what amounted to a series of Civil wars between the Angevin kings, and the local powers. It defined and circumscribed the powers of the various parties (including the church) to try to move away from the "might is right" approach of the last 100 years or so.
It later developed a semi-mythological status as a "rights based" system, which is what 'inspired' those other things; but it wasn't a 'model' for them.
As to antecedents - at least Henry I had tried to define a similar declaration of/circumscription of rights as means of establishing his power.
‘ So, the Magna Carta thing is a bit of a myth. ‘
Wow that’s brilliant. 👍🏻 I’ve never heard that before.
So not written by the controlling Templars then, who wrote all the laws then my brother reckons.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
Or, possibly, there wasn’t anyone actually taking down the words of some guy crucified by the Romans in 33AD and this was inspired invention by the writers of the Gospels (probably in Alexandria in the later 1st, or second century) intuiting deep religious truths and adding a bit of superb scriptwriting, which is, taken together, even more profound for all that
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
He didn't hold up well did he? A famous documentary of a contemporary of his reveals most of those up there were happily singing about the bright side of life.
The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?
There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)
The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
Gibson is to history what Hitler was to Zionism Boris Johnson is to marital fidelity.
The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?
There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)
The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
I love that movie. I want to see a sequel and his take on the end of Edward II.
Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them
But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads
I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.
It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.
I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.
If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!
What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from
By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks
But booing ABIDE WITH ME??
That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.
Remember Heysel
If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?
Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.
Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.
This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
Not completely out there if part of the point was they felt they were not getting the representation and rights that they felt owed, that is they wanted to live up to the democratic tradition they saw (or perceived) in Britain. Bestowed (which I don't think was the word used anyway) doesn't necessarily mean intentionally or willingly bestowed. Indeed, nations might be inspired by what another nation said, even if what that nation did, did not live up to that.
Obviously it was more complex than that and there were other influences, particularly having cut the cord from us.
Yes, in which case we ought also to acknowledge the contribution to American history that was made by other countries too. The Enlightenment idea of liberty radiating from France can count as a major influence, but even later, post independence influences like the German/central European emigres in the wake of the 1848 revolutions had a major influence.
The way ideas diffuse through the world is a little different from the specific actions of history, and whilst both are interesting subjects, they can be treated as separate. For example, we tend to think more of the actions of Communist countries over and above its ideological foundations. That it, we think of Moscow more than Trier or London. When it comes to actions, blame and praise can be much more precisely placed. We tried to strangle American democracy in its crib, so to award ourselves praise for it "because Magna Carta!!!!one!" is just mad.
Blame and praise are pointless. None of us were there to make the choices, many of which we wouldn't support now naturally. So I don't see it as a matter of us praising ourserves 'because magna carta', but just as a historical question whether the institutions and ideas developed there, which on balance have been a huge net gain for the world, were significantly influenced by it and other matters.
The answer is clearly yes it seems, regardless of whether the political authorities of Britain at the time liked it, and even though as noted other countries ideas also definitely influenced them (and so I hear, some native forms of government even, not that that helped them any). I don't think that is a wrong approach, I don't think it wrong that Greece for instance takes pride in the impact of its ancient history, even though even in that region many of those ideas were stamped out relatively quickly.
An acceptable view, in my opinion, as long as we don't try to take credit for things "we" have done. Nobody on this site helped bring down the Nazis, but some of us like to bask in the reflected glory of those who did.
We either heirs to all of the past or to none of it.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?
There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)
The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
Gibson is to history what Hitler was to Zionism Boris Johnson is to marital fidelity.
Exhibit “A”, The Patriot…..
Exhibit A should always be Braveheart.
A friend listed over 150 historical inaccuracies in that film before they gave up.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
Yeah, but that has never made any sense.
The point is how he lived amongst us, not how he was born or died.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?
There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)
The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
I love that movie. I want to see a sequel and his take on the end of Edward II.
I read a history of Edward II that posits a long retirement in obscurity for him. By all accounts he genuinely enjoyed the company of rustics, and happily engaged in rural crafts such as ditch digging and hedging. I kinda hope it’s true.
Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them
But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads
I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.
It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.
I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.
If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!
What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from
By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks
But booing ABIDE WITH ME??
That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.
Remember Heysel
If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
Is this even serious?
We conquered the world. And it was mainly good. We didn’t push over a wall and kill some Italian teens during a football match. Get a grip
Ok. Fair enough - if we are going simplistic (it wasn’t just Italian teens and it wasn’t just a simple case of some Liverpool fans pushing over a wall out of nothing).
Amritsar - we just controlled a riot as quickly as possible - naughty Indian teens….
Thing is you are probably the poster I agree most with on here for my sins but I’m staggered how miffed you have been by booing a pretty rubbish hymn - if it had been “I vow to thee my country” then I would be in my tank towards Anfield Road but really, perspective?
I hear you.
Maybe I always had this secret Simon Heffer-esque contempt for ugly, contemptible, obese, do-nothing Liverpool? But I hid it. OK, they booed our 96-year Queen during the year of her Platinum Jubilee, and a year or two after our widowhood. Maybe I could have contained myself, if they had done only that. But booing a beautiful religious hymn with the most profound lyrics ever written about humanity yielding with grace to mortality, WTAF??
They are monkeys. They are an element in working class British culture - fat, wanky, ugly, dumb, inadequate, Philistine, pathetic and gruesomely proud of it - which I utterly despise. Let them sink into the Irish Sea. Millwall have more nobility
I get you but you are in danger of going full-Roger…..
What would Bill Shankly or Ian Paisley have thought of them booing the Queen, or booing the National Anthem, and then booing ABIDE WITH ME?
I do not think they would have expressed admiration. And their bewildered contempt would be justified. We have regressed as a nation and a culture and Liverpool fans are the pimply, wobbly, nihilistic cutting edge. Well done, lads
Why do you keep shouting abide with me?
Maybe you should be wondering why the Liverpool fans aren't too keen on symbols of the state, they've had pretty good reason to be frustrated and annoyed.
If it gets under the skin of muppets like you and gets you frustrated, all the better.
I wouldn't join in with booing things personally, but I welcome those who feel free to do so. People have a right to free speech and better peaceful protest than violent ones. 👍
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
Yeah, but that has never made any sense.
The point is how he lived amongst us, not how he was born or died.
A refreshing stance I must say, and more appealing than emphasising the death bit, which always struck me as creating a problem people didn't even know existed and then telling them to be thankful for the solution.
Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them
But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads
I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.
It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.
I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.
If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!
What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from
By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks
But booing ABIDE WITH ME??
That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.
Remember Heysel
If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
Is this even serious?
We conquered the world. And it was mainly good. We didn’t push over a wall and kill some Italian teens during a football match. Get a grip
Ok. Fair enough - if we are going simplistic (it wasn’t just Italian teens and it wasn’t just a simple case of some Liverpool fans pushing over a wall out of nothing).
Amritsar - we just controlled a riot as quickly as possible - naughty Indian teens….
Thing is you are probably the poster I agree most with on here for my sins but I’m staggered how miffed you have been by booing a pretty rubbish hymn - if it had been “I vow to thee my country” then I would be in my tank towards Anfield Road but really, perspective?
I hear you.
Maybe I always had this secret Simon Heffer-esque contempt for ugly, contemptible, obese, do-nothing Liverpool? But I hid it. OK, they booed our 96-year Queen during the year of her Platinum Jubilee, and a year or two after our widowhood. Maybe I could have contained myself, if they had done only that. But booing a beautiful religious hymn with the most profound lyrics ever written about humanity yielding with grace to mortality, WTAF??
They are monkeys. They are an element in working class British culture - fat, wanky, ugly, dumb, inadequate, Philistine, pathetic and gruesomely proud of it - which I utterly despise. Let them sink into the Irish Sea. Millwall have more nobility
I get you but you are in danger of going full-Roger…..
What would Bill Shankly or Ian Paisley have thought of them booing the Queen, or booing the National Anthem, and then booing ABIDE WITH ME?
I do not think they would have expressed admiration. And their bewildered contempt would be justified. We have regressed as a nation and a culture and Liverpool fans are the pimply, wobbly, nihilistic cutting edge. Well done, lads
Why do you keep shouting abide with me?
Maybe you should be wondering why the Liverpool fans aren't too keen on symbols of the state, they've had pretty good reason to be frustrated and annoyed.
If it gets under the skin of muppets like you and gets you frustrated, all the better.
I wouldn't join in with booing things personally, but I welcome those who feel free to do so. People have a right to free speech and better peaceful protest than violent ones. 👍
I can't speak for Mr Palmer, but my vote at a General Election has always gone for the "get rid of the Conservatives" candidate. in Leominster it was the Liberals and later the LDs, although ironically the Conservative MP crossed the floor. In Hampstead, Cardiff North and the Vale of Glamorgan, always Labour. My distrust of Conservatism over the years has been confirmed fully with Brexit and the Johnsonian Conservatives.
I am probably closest now to that cabal of Remainer Tories/ Blairites and LibDems. The antithesis of Johnsonian Populism. Mind you Johnson's fiscal policy is akin to Corbynism.
The notion of "never say never" is compelling. If the choice were Heathite Conservatives or Corbyn Labour, I'd probably vote for Heath (but I'd never tell anyone). As that is never likely to be an option, I'll continue to vote to kick out the Conservatives.
I didn’t suss you for a long while at first, because you like to lob grenades in to wind Labour lovers up. Even in this thread you’ve given Starmer a FPN.
I just thought you didn’t understand politics at all. Then have you really convinced me with that story? Is it really true, or another of your grenades 😆
I’ll bounce the same question off you as I did Big G.
In the clip of Lady Thatcher, she is explaining very clearly, her socialist opponents concern for the gap between rich and poor results in the sort of Failed Eastern Bloc Poleconomy that by not embracing the power of the free market to innovate, wealth creation, invest, doesn’t grow the economy, doesn’t provide the wealth that improves the services the everyday people rely on. So in effect, they are levelling down.
Read across to Boris, seamlessly picking up the mantel of Lady Thatcher, placing Levelling Up at the very heart of his philosophy. High skilled, high wage economy, property ownership, no windfall taxes but instead wealth invested to transform and grow the economy.
What part of that isn’t your own political philosophy?
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
As soon as it's eradicated from public life, fine. Getting the bishops out of parliament would be a start. And split the head of state and the head of church too. And stop godbothering in state schools.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That is the key reason why faith is so detrimental to the world.
The scientific method works well when we are willing to challenge assumptions and beliefs and work based upon evidence and if the evidence contradicts our beliefs we either need to look for new evidence, or challenge our beliefs.
Faith indoctrinates people to turn off their critical thinking and to ignore evidence and take the preachers word for it. A useful tool if you're the preacher and want to indoctrinate people to do what you want - for good or ill - not such a useful way for an intelligent educated society to operate.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
Yeah, but that has never made any sense.
The point is how he lived amongst us, not how he was born or died.
Follow the gourd? For me the point is drawing what inspiration or thought you find from his life and death and interpreting it within your own existence. No doubt his life, if you are taking inspiration/faith from it has meaning but so does his death for me anyway. I'm fairly freshly back to a point of considering my faith having lost it for 30 or so years
I can't speak for Mr Palmer, but my vote at a General Election has always gone for the "get rid of the Conservatives" candidate. in Leominster it was the Liberals and later the LDs, although ironically the Conservative MP crossed the floor. In Hampstead, Cardiff North and the Vale of Glamorgan, always Labour. My distrust of Conservatism over the years has been confirmed fully with Brexit and the Johnsonian Conservatives.
I am probably closest now to that cabal of Remainer Tories/ Blairites and LibDems. The antithesis of Johnsonian Populism. Mind you Johnson's fiscal policy is akin to Corbynism.
The notion of "never say never" is compelling. If the choice were Heathite Conservatives or Corbyn Labour, I'd probably vote for Heath (but I'd never tell anyone). As that is never likely to be an option, I'll continue to vote to kick out the Conservatives.
I didn’t suss you for a long while at first, because you like to lob grenades in to wind Labour lovers up. Even in this thread you’ve given Starmer a FPN.
I just thought you didn’t understand politics at all. Then have you really convinced me with that story? Is it really true, or another of your grenades 😆
I’ll bounce the same question off you as I did Big G.
In the clip of Lady Thatcher, she is explaining very clearly, her socialist opponents concern for the gap between rich and poor results in the sort of Failed Eastern Bloc Poleconomy that by not embracing the power of the free market to innovate, wealth creation, invest, doesn’t grow the economy, doesn’t provide the wealth that improves the services the everyday people rely on. So in effect, they are levelling down.
Read across to Boris, seamlessly picking up the mantel of Lady Thatcher, placing Levelling Up at the very heart of his philosophy. High skilled, high wage economy, property ownership, no windfall taxes but instead wealth invested to transform and grow the economy.
What part of that isn’t your own political philosophy?
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
Since we are though I must say I really enjoyed Ed Husain's The House of Islam, full of interesting history and persuasive arguments, but it opened with its least persuasive of all, claiming Islam was 'not a religion in the western sense', relying on a highly limited interpretation of what religion means to justify that.
Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them
But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads
I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.
It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.
I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.
If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!
What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from
By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks
But booing ABIDE WITH ME??
That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.
Remember Heysel
If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?
Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.
Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.
This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
America's democracy is something they had to wrestle us for. The idea that we bestowed it upon them is a hellava a take.
Not completely out there if part of the point was they felt they were not getting the representation and rights that they felt owed, that is they wanted to live up to the democratic tradition they saw (or perceived) in Britain. Bestowed (which I don't think was the word used anyway) doesn't necessarily mean intentionally or willingly bestowed. Indeed, nations might be inspired by what another nation said, even if what that nation did, did not live up to that.
Obviously it was more complex than that and there were other influences, particularly having cut the cord from us.
Yes, in which case we ought also to acknowledge the contribution to American history that was made by other countries too. The Enlightenment idea of liberty radiating from France can count as a major influence, but even later, post independence influences like the German/central European emigres in the wake of the 1848 revolutions had a major influence.
The way ideas diffuse through the world is a little different from the specific actions of history, and whilst both are interesting subjects, they can be treated as separate. For example, we tend to think more of the actions of Communist countries over and above its ideological foundations. That it, we think of Moscow more than Trier or London. When it comes to actions, blame and praise can be much more precisely placed. We tried to strangle American democracy in its crib, so to award ourselves praise for it "because Magna Carta!!!!one!" is just mad.
Blame and praise are pointless. None of us were there to make the choices, many of which we wouldn't support now naturally. So I don't see it as a matter of us praising ourserves 'because magna carta', but just as a historical question whether the institutions and ideas developed there, which on balance have been a huge net gain for the world, were significantly influenced by it and other matters.
The answer is clearly yes it seems, regardless of whether the political authorities of Britain at the time liked it, and even though as noted other countries ideas also definitely influenced them (and so I hear, some native forms of government even, not that that helped them any). I don't think that is a wrong approach, I don't think it wrong that Greece for instance takes pride in the impact of its ancient history, even though even in that region many of those ideas were stamped out relatively quickly.
An acceptable view, in my opinion, as long as we don't try to take credit for things "we" have done. Nobody on this site helped bring down the Nazis, but some of us like to bask in the reflected glory of those who did.
We either heirs to all of the past or to none of it.
Not quite impossible that one or two of us did help, actually, in whatever capacity from brown job to matelot to farmworker. But one woiuld need to be about 98 now. Apart, and this is an important point, from those who coped with the deaths and woundings, physical and mental, of family and friends, and wartime shortages and evacuations - which means rasther more of us.
Everyoine else, it's Commando comics and Airfix Spitfires. (Nothing wrong with those, I hasten to add, in themselves.)
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
As soon as it's eradicated from public life, fine. Getting the bishops out of parliament would be a start. And split the head of state and the head of church too. And stop godbothering in state schools.
Do all that, and I'll STFU up about it.
Express yourself however you want. Fwiw I agree with you on complete disestablishment.
The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?
There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)
The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
I love that movie. I want to see a sequel and his take on the end of Edward II.
I read a history of Edward II that posits a long retirement in obscurity for him. By all accounts he genuinely enjoyed the company of rustics, and happily engaged in rural crafts such as ditch digging and hedging. I kinda hope it’s true.
Sounds like more of drama school play than a Gibson movie however.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Well, I have good news, and bad news.
I'd be very surprised if you have any news on these matters.
The Frankfurt fans are much more impressively energetic and fervent. What happened to Scottish fans?
There was no Abide With Me before kick off to get the blood racing.
Seriously tho. The Germans have flares and songs, they jump and down in unison, they all wear white and wave white flags (even if they do sometimes look like Klansmen thereby)
The Scots fans just stand there. I thought they were famously passionate?
You haven’t watched that documentary “Braveheart” have you? Massed ranks of crazy Scots have been drilled for generations to stand there quietly until the over-confident foreigner thinks he’s on top and then they go nuts. See the very accurate reconstruction of the Battle of Stirling bridge by the director/renowned historian Mel Gibson for an example.
I love that movie. I want to see a sequel and his take on the end of Edward II.
I would imagine the scene would be a plucky ANZAC of humble Irish descent shoving a red hot poker (or of course a lead pipe into which is poured some devilishly hot liquid) whilst listing all the things Edward Longshanks did to the aborigines and standing staring into Edward II’s eyes maniacally saying in an American drawl “this if for you Mr Churchill and all the poor diggers who died needlessly on the beaches at Sluys for your imperialist French dream. Or something.
Thanks. Bloke chased bloke on bikes. Knocked him off, then produced knife and repeatedly tried to stab him on the ground. Fortunately, assailant was superbly weedy and completely off his head. Bloke on ground was a hulking sober guy. So no harm done. They left with much shouting. And the intervention of inevitable screaming girl. Not much fun.
My election campaign right now, reduce crime, and reduce government waste.
Meaning what exactly? How do you reduce crime? More Police - the easy answer but they have to be paid for and trained. A former Prime Minister took them off the beat and put them in cars and vans. Unfortunately, the coalition made the stupid decision to close police stations, aided and supported by the current Prime Minister when Mayor of London.
"Reduce Government Waste" - define this "waste" - yes, you can make some savings such as by ending two-tier local Government perhaps. I suppose you could properly enforce working at home and sell off all that surplus real estate in central London that would be worth millions (perhaps). Perhaps we should forget throwing £13 billion at renovating the Houses of Parliament and look at a proper fit-for-purpose legislative chamber.
You want granular detail?
I’ll give you two.
Firstly we deffo stay in the wonderful gothic Houses of Parliament! £13B over how many years and how long over due, and how much a for a key Landmark? When I was young I wasn’t sure about the green benches, maybe red or gold? But I’m cool with the green now.
A huge step to reducing crime I reckon comes from focussing on rights of passage. If I was to say National Service how many 🙄 for how right wing is MoonRabbit for supposed Libdem voter? But I serious, and a proper thinker. as a society we need to offer more to teens than let them drift into adulthood the “trainspotting” (book/film not hobby) way. Teens in UK need a second birth into our society and the right norms of behaviour. Remove their lack of direction, their boredom, any grip of idleness. That alone would begin to have a big change on anti social behaviour and crime imo.
National Citizen Service is a decent stab at the structured rite of passage thing, without forcing young people to put their lives on hold for a couple of years peeling potatoes for the army. Certainly life-boosting for some of the sixth formers I taught.
Two problems, though. Because it was/is optional, the ones who did it weren't the ones who needed it most. And it's not obvious that the system could have coped with them.
More importantly, it was a product of the coalition government, so it is presumably about to be strangled by Johnson. Because he isn't at all petty about that sort of thing. Oh no.
I can't speak for Mr Palmer, but my vote at a General Election has always gone for the "get rid of the Conservatives" candidate. in Leominster it was the Liberals and later the LDs, although ironically the Conservative MP crossed the floor. In Hampstead, Cardiff North and the Vale of Glamorgan, always Labour. My distrust of Conservatism over the years has been confirmed fully with Brexit and the Johnsonian Conservatives.
I am probably closest now to that cabal of Remainer Tories/ Blairites and LibDems. The antithesis of Johnsonian Populism. Mind you Johnson's fiscal policy is akin to Corbynism.
The notion of "never say never" is compelling. If the choice were Heathite Conservatives or Corbyn Labour, I'd probably vote for Heath (but I'd never tell anyone). As that is never likely to be an option, I'll continue to vote to kick out the Conservatives.
I didn’t suss you for a long while at first, because you like to lob grenades in to wind Labour lovers up. Even in this thread you’ve given Starmer a FPN.
I just thought you didn’t understand politics at all. Then have you really convinced me with that story? Is it really true, or another of your grenades 😆
I’ll bounce the same question off you as I did Big G.
In the clip of Lady Thatcher, she is explaining very clearly, her socialist opponents concern for the gap between rich and poor results in the sort of Failed Eastern Bloc Poleconomy that by not embracing the power of the free market to innovate, wealth creation, invest, doesn’t grow the economy, doesn’t provide the wealth that improves the services the everyday people rely on. So in effect, they are levelling down.
Read across to Boris, seamlessly picking up the mantel of Lady Thatcher, placing Levelling Up at the very heart of his philosophy. High skilled, high wage economy, property ownership, no windfall taxes but instead wealth invested to transform and grow the economy.
What part of that isn’t your own political philosophy?
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
As soon as it's eradicated from public life, fine. Getting the bishops out of parliament would be a start. And split the head of state and the head of church too. And stop godbothering in state schools.
Do all that, and I'll STFU up about it.
The number of religious state schools that are near impossible to get in unless you feign interest in a fairy tale is particularly irritating.
I would also not want my child to go to a religious school if it can be avoided, as I think it is confusing for them to be taught something different at school than we will at home.
So yes, religion can have a quiet life when it is no longer integrated with state institutions.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Though we don't have established atheism, or atheist laws, or atheism preached to others at schools or anything like that.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
I can't speak for Mr Palmer, but my vote at a General Election has always gone for the "get rid of the Conservatives" candidate. in Leominster it was the Liberals and later the LDs, although ironically the Conservative MP crossed the floor. In Hampstead, Cardiff North and the Vale of Glamorgan, always Labour. My distrust of Conservatism over the years has been confirmed fully with Brexit and the Johnsonian Conservatives.
I am probably closest now to that cabal of Remainer Tories/ Blairites and LibDems. The antithesis of Johnsonian Populism. Mind you Johnson's fiscal policy is akin to Corbynism.
The notion of "never say never" is compelling. If the choice were Heathite Conservatives or Corbyn Labour, I'd probably vote for Heath (but I'd never tell anyone). As that is never likely to be an option, I'll continue to vote to kick out the Conservatives.
I didn’t suss you for a long while at first, because you like to lob grenades in to wind Labour lovers up. Even in this thread you’ve given Starmer a FPN.
I just thought you didn’t understand politics at all. Then have you really convinced me with that story? Is it really true, or another of your grenades 😆
I’ll bounce the same question off you as I did Big G.
In the clip of Lady Thatcher, she is explaining very clearly, her socialist opponents concern for the gap between rich and poor results in the sort of Failed Eastern Bloc Poleconomy that by not embracing the power of the free market to innovate, wealth creation, invest, doesn’t grow the economy, doesn’t provide the wealth that improves the services the everyday people rely on. So in effect, they are levelling down.
Read across to Boris, seamlessly picking up the mantel of Lady Thatcher, placing Levelling Up at the very heart of his philosophy. High skilled, high wage economy, property ownership, no windfall taxes but instead wealth invested to transform and grow the economy.
What part of that isn’t your own political philosophy?
It's all bullshit though isn't it.
Levelling up is fiction; property ownership has fallen during 12 years of Tory government; wealth is not invested but sequestered for the benefit of a few; the economy is not growing. All bullshit.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Though we don't have established atheism, or atheist laws, or atheism preached to others at schools or anything like that.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
It is weird, but perhaps not surprising, that you - an avowed atheist - are the most dogmatic person on the site
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
It doesn't matter if he does or doesn't. The point is to follow the teachings, the rest is just notions.
The graven images one, though, I'm a bit unsure about that.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Though we don't have established atheism, or atheist laws, or atheism preached to others at schools or anything like that.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
It is weird, but perhaps not surprising, that you - an avowed atheist - are the most dogmatic person on the site
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Though we don't have established atheism, or atheist laws, or atheism preached to others at schools or anything like that.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
It is weird, but perhaps not surprising, that you - an avowed atheist - are the most dogmatic person on the site
Look who's talking
Dogmatic: inclined to lay down principles as incontrovertibly true/characterized by or given to the expression of opinions very strongly or positively as if they were facts
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Though we don't have established atheism, or atheist laws, or atheism preached to others at schools or anything like that.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
Disestablishment, no religion in schools, Richard Dawkins shuts his hole. No laws based on faith nor prohibiting same. A programme we can all get behind,
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Though we don't have established atheism, or atheist laws, or atheism preached to others at schools or anything like that.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
It is weird, but perhaps not surprising, that you - an avowed atheist - are the most dogmatic person on the site
Better to be the most libertarian libertine on the site getting the hump about pissed up football fans booing the Queen and a hymn, no?
Thanks. Bloke chased bloke on bikes. Knocked him off, then produced knife and repeatedly tried to stab him on the ground. Fortunately, assailant was superbly weedy and completely off his head. Bloke on ground was a hulking sober guy. So no harm done. They left with much shouting. And the intervention of inevitable screaming girl. Not much fun.
My election campaign right now, reduce crime, and reduce government waste.
Meaning what exactly? How do you reduce crime? More Police - the easy answer but they have to be paid for and trained. A former Prime Minister took them off the beat and put them in cars and vans. Unfortunately, the coalition made the stupid decision to close police stations, aided and supported by the current Prime Minister when Mayor of London.
"Reduce Government Waste" - define this "waste" - yes, you can make some savings such as by ending two-tier local Government perhaps. I suppose you could properly enforce working at home and sell off all that surplus real estate in central London that would be worth millions (perhaps). Perhaps we should forget throwing £13 billion at renovating the Houses of Parliament and look at a proper fit-for-purpose legislative chamber.
You want granular detail?
I’ll give you two.
Firstly we deffo stay in the wonderful gothic Houses of Parliament! £13B over how many years and how long over due, and how much a for a key Landmark? When I was young I wasn’t sure about the green benches, maybe red or gold? But I’m cool with the green now.
A huge step to reducing crime I reckon comes from focussing on rights of passage. If I was to say National Service how many 🙄 for how right wing is MoonRabbit for supposed Libdem voter? But I serious, and a proper thinker. as a society we need to offer more to teens than let them drift into adulthood the “trainspotting” (book/film not hobby) way. Teens in UK need a second birth into our society and the right norms of behaviour. Remove their lack of direction, their boredom, any grip of idleness. That alone would begin to have a big change on anti social behaviour and crime imo.
National Citizen Service is a decent stab at the structured rite of passage thing, without forcing young people to put their lives on hold for a couple of years peeling potatoes for the army. Certainly life-boosting for some of the sixth formers I taught.
Two problems, though. Because it was/is optional, the ones who did it weren't the ones who needed it most. And it's not obvious that the system could have coped with them.
More importantly, it was a product of the coalition government, so it is presumably about to be strangled by Johnson. Because he isn't at all petty about that sort of thing. Oh no.
I have a supporter!
My first act as PM Stu is appoint you minister for the new compulsory National Citizen Service.
It will be two years. It will involve the military and emergency services. It will teach skills, trades. And leads to a bias in favour of job applications on the other side, as well as financial incentives.
Another brief I’m giving you in tandem with this, is to reduce school exclusion. We don’t want teens drifting out of education into aimless life of drug dealing and crime, at no age, everyone gets education, then the rite of passage to be born into our society and the norms of our society (having their service number tattooed on them for life purely voluntary, but they will get a number for life).
Flouncing off to art college won’t get them out of it either, it will always be waiting for them, everyone, till they get it out the way.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I do wish Mrs. R a very speedy recovery.
Your simile is funny, but of very little use to your argument. Engaging in conversation with someone about faith because you're hoping to convert them to the cause cannot really be compared in severity to oral rape. For a start, I don't see how it's any different to trying to convince someone of the merits of Brexit, free-market economics, woke, or anything else. Should we ban all attempts at conveying a point of view from the public sphere?
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
Yeah, but that has never made any sense.
The point is how he lived amongst us, not how he was born or died.
Follow the gourd? For me the point is drawing what inspiration or thought you find from his life and death and interpreting it within your own existence. No doubt his life, if you are taking inspiration/faith from it has meaning but so does his death for me anyway. I'm fairly freshly back to a point of considering my faith having lost it for 30 or so years
No, it is the opposite of "follow the gourd".
Listen to what Jesus said in his teachings, as laid out in the Gospels, not what secondary sources said about him, either in later books or traditional theology.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Though we don't have established atheism, or atheist laws, or atheism preached to others at schools or anything like that.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
Disestablishment, no religion in schools, Richard Dawkins shuts his hole. No laws based on faith nor prohibiting same. A programme we can all get behind,
Which one does he shut - more than one seems to be in use at any one time.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
Yeah, but that has never made any sense.
The point is how he lived amongst us, not how he was born or died.
Follow the gourd? For me the point is drawing what inspiration or thought you find from his life and death and interpreting it within your own existence. No doubt his life, if you are taking inspiration/faith from it has meaning but so does his death for me anyway. I'm fairly freshly back to a point of considering my faith having lost it for 30 or so years
No, it is the opposite of "follow the gourd".
Listen to what Jesus said in his teachings, as laid out in the Gospels, not what secondary sources said about him, either in later books or traditional theology.
Isn’t everything that “Jesus said in his teachings” secondary sources at best?
Unless of course there is a verified script of his teachings written by Jesus himself which I haven’t heard of?
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
Yeah, but that has never made any sense.
The point is how he lived amongst us, not how he was born or died.
Follow the gourd? For me the point is drawing what inspiration or thought you find from his life and death and interpreting it within your own existence. No doubt his life, if you are taking inspiration/faith from it has meaning but so does his death for me anyway. I'm fairly freshly back to a point of considering my faith having lost it for 30 or so years
No, it is the opposite of "follow the gourd".
Listen to what Jesus said in his teachings, as laid out in the Gospels, not what secondary sources said about him, either in later books or traditional theology.
Foxy it's for me to draw my conclusions. There is no 'correct' way to do that - hence 'follow the gourd'.
Come on Rangers. Fuck these Scouse c*nts and traitors who BOO BEAUTY. Let Real Madrid hammer them
But loyal, sober Unionists and royalists? Go, lads
I am somewhat surprised how personally you have taken Liverpool fans booing at Wembley on Saturday. I truly thought you would love the madness, the anti-establishment chaos and rebellion. The “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” behaviour.
It’s all part of life’s rich pageant and amazed you are bent out of shape by it.
I’m a monarchist conservative and it really doesn’t bother me at all - it’s just jolly japes at a football match.
If they annoyed you by being controversialist then it’s getting very Meta!!
What next - demanding seats rather than pit at a Metallica concert? Cocoa rather than Cognac before bed? Tsk Tsk.
No, it makes me puke. Because I know where it comes from
By all means Boo the National Anthem. Boo Prince William. Hurl your turds at Princess Kate, Whatever, you sad tattoeed fat fucks
But booing ABIDE WITH ME??
That is pure vandalism, it is the degradation of the human soul and the hatred of loveliness, in the most ugly way. It is something very Liverpudlian - a diseased city - but it spreads like a fungus. Fuck them all.
Remember Heysel
If Liverpool fans are tarred by Heysel then what are you and I tarred with by virtue of being English?
The evil of the British Empire for one. A scar on us for time immemorial..
You know the structure of today's free world is largely down to the British Empire, right?
Where do you think multiracial South African democracy, entrepreneurial Singapore, Hong Kong (try asking them whose rule they prefer), India (the world's largest democracy), America (the world's most powerful democracy) Canada, Australia and New Zealand come from? And how Japan, Taiwan and South Korea chose to imitate them rather than another autocracy.
Sure the Middle East is a bit of fuck up - although arguably Israel is better than the alternative - and Africa isn't exactly a bed of roses, although bigoted Rhodesia was almost certainly economically better off than the basket case that is modern Zimbabwe - but you can't argue that's representative. It's complex.
This penchant for equating us to the Nazis and selectively extracting the worst aspects from our history (usually out of context) to damn us for all time is certainly fashionable at the moment but it's also wrong - and just a phase.
MBE - does it stand for "Masturbating over the British Empire"?
Is there a Class 55 called 'The British Empire?' Because if not we can sure you would never do that...
Tsk! You should know the Deltics were named for Army Regiments OR race horses!
There was a time when I could have named every Deltic from 55001 (St Paddy) to 55022 (Royal Scots Grey). Sadly no longer.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Though we don't have established atheism, or atheist laws, or atheism preached to others at schools or anything like that.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
Disestablishment, no religion in schools, Richard Dawkins shuts his hole. No laws based on faith nor prohibiting same. A programme we can all get behind,
Richard Dawkins doesn't need to shut up. Just as long as he's not being funded by the state to proselytise it's all up to us whether we listen to him or not.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Which always sounds to me like "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated"?
Nah, it's the expression of the moment that, within Christian belief, Jesus took on the sins of man. God then forsook him so that nobody would be forsaken if they came to him through faith in Christ. That was, in the Christian tradition, the whole point of Jesus life on Earth and death.
Yeah, but that has never made any sense.
The point is how he lived amongst us, not how he was born or died.
Follow the gourd? For me the point is drawing what inspiration or thought you find from his life and death and interpreting it within your own existence. No doubt his life, if you are taking inspiration/faith from it has meaning but so does his death for me anyway. I'm fairly freshly back to a point of considering my faith having lost it for 30 or so years
No, it is the opposite of "follow the gourd".
Listen to what Jesus said in his teachings, as laid out in the Gospels, not what secondary sources said about him, either in later books or traditional theology.
Foxy it's for me to draw my conclusions. There is no 'correct' way to do that - hence 'follow the gourd'.
Sure, do as you please and believe what you want. My theology , such as it exists at all, is very easy going.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I do wish Mrs. R a very speedy recovery.
Your simile is funny, but of very little use to your argument. Engaging in conversation with someone about faith because you're hoping to convert them to the cause cannot really be compared in severity to oral rape. For a start, I don't see how it's any different to trying to convince someone of the merits of Brexit, free-market economics, woke, or anything else. Should we ban all attempts at conveying a point of view from the public sphere?
Thank you for the wishes.
Ban? No of course not.
But I would object to teachers indoctrinating their views upon Brexit, free market economics etc in schools too
If you wish to discuss religion/politics etc in private eg on sites like this or in Churches that you voluntarily go to then that is your free choice, but its not something the state should be pushing, nor something that schools etc should too. It isn't something that should be forced upon others and if someone says they don't want to talk about it that should be respected.
(After the district was created, it switched parties in every election, until Schrader came along. He did keep one unhappy tradition: "Every single representative from this district since its creation after the 1980 census has gotten divorced while in office." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon's_5th_congressional_district )
The moving of the 5th district must have cut into his incumbent advantage.
Whoever wins will probably be facing Republican Happy Valley Mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Though we don't have established atheism, or atheist laws, or atheism preached to others at schools or anything like that.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
Disestablishment, no religion in schools, Richard Dawkins shuts his hole. No laws based on faith nor prohibiting same. A programme we can all get behind,
Richard Dawkins doesn't need to shut up. Just as long as he's not being funded by the state to proselytise it's all up to us whether we listen to him or not.
Inasmuch as he is given a platform to spout his ignorant claptrap by Channel 4/BBC, that is a form of state funding.
I can't speak for Mr Palmer, but my vote at a General Election has always gone for the "get rid of the Conservatives" candidate. in Leominster it was the Liberals and later the LDs, although ironically the Conservative MP crossed the floor. In Hampstead, Cardiff North and the Vale of Glamorgan, always Labour. My distrust of Conservatism over the years has been confirmed fully with Brexit and the Johnsonian Conservatives.
I am probably closest now to that cabal of Remainer Tories/ Blairites and LibDems. The antithesis of Johnsonian Populism. Mind you Johnson's fiscal policy is akin to Corbynism.
The notion of "never say never" is compelling. If the choice were Heathite Conservatives or Corbyn Labour, I'd probably vote for Heath (but I'd never tell anyone). As that is never likely to be an option, I'll continue to vote to kick out the Conservatives.
I didn’t suss you for a long while at first, because you like to lob grenades in to wind Labour lovers up. Even in this thread you’ve given Starmer a FPN.
I just thought you didn’t understand politics at all. Then have you really convinced me with that story? Is it really true, or another of your grenades 😆
I’ll bounce the same question off you as I did Big G.
In the clip of Lady Thatcher, she is explaining very clearly, her socialist opponents concern for the gap between rich and poor results in the sort of Failed Eastern Bloc Poleconomy that by not embracing the power of the free market to innovate, wealth creation, invest, doesn’t grow the economy, doesn’t provide the wealth that improves the services the everyday people rely on. So in effect, they are levelling down.
Read across to Boris, seamlessly picking up the mantel of Lady Thatcher, placing Levelling Up at the very heart of his philosophy. High skilled, high wage economy, property ownership, no windfall taxes but instead wealth invested to transform and grow the economy.
What part of that isn’t your own political philosophy?
I really don't understand politics, certainly what makes people vote for particular parties, although I do have a straight politics degree from Cardiff University which perhaps explains my lack of clarity.
I will blow my own trumpet over the economy. I have long argued (18 months) with BartyBobbins that inflationary pressure would do for the Conservatives before the next election, although Bart assures me this inflation is good inflation and it won't matter to the punters. I also see interest rates being a problem for the Conservatives.
Edit: Johnsonian levelling up is a fiction. BJO likes money being thrown at Sheffield from Johnson and is sold. I am not convinced it is not smoke and mirrors.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee In life, in death, o Lord, abide with me Abide with me, abide with me
The protagonist is slipping away, calling to their saviour to stay with them and carry them home to Eternity.
How can that possibly not move anyone?? It's just beautiful.
Even “better”, the writer was a dogmatic and humourless Anglican prelate of Scots origin who had showed no facility for good poetry and profound thought ever in his life, until he was two weeks before his death from tuberculosis, when he suddenly produced these immortal lines, as the grave claimed him
By some accounts he finished it the day before he died
Superb. A sublime moment of human defiance in the face of our shared mortality. And Liverpool fans decided to boo that? They are free to do so, and I am free to despise them, their team, and their city, for all eternity, for their disgusting, boorish philistinism
I read it as an expression of religious doubt in the face of approaching death - I did anyway and that account confirms it. He is pleading for reassurance that God is not a fraud and that death is not just death.
Nah it's an affirmstion of faith in the face of death.
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me
But why the conditional? Surely for a God fearing right thinking parson non-abidance with me should be unthinkable?
Doubt is not a bar. As Jesus asked on the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Matthew 27:46
Because He doesn't exist?
The answer to that is rather the point of all faiths
I love the answer that religions have to defend against doubt inspired by their contradictions, obvious untruths, and unprovable claims. The attempt to short-circuit the listener's intellect and turn the natural doubt experienced when you hear something fanciful BACK onto the doubter and make it about them is genius.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
That's why faith should be a personal thing, not a debating topic.
If people kept their faith personal, it wouldn't bother anyone else, that's true.
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
I don't disagree. The same can be said of atheism of course.
Though we don't have established atheism, or atheist laws, or atheism preached to others at schools or anything like that.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
Disestablishment, no religion in schools, Richard Dawkins shuts his hole. No laws based on faith nor prohibiting same. A programme we can all get behind,
I can't speak for Mr Palmer, but my vote at a General Election has always gone for the "get rid of the Conservatives" candidate. in Leominster it was the Liberals and later the LDs, although ironically the Conservative MP crossed the floor. In Hampstead, Cardiff North and the Vale of Glamorgan, always Labour. My distrust of Conservatism over the years has been confirmed fully with Brexit and the Johnsonian Conservatives.
I am probably closest now to that cabal of Remainer Tories/ Blairites and LibDems. The antithesis of Johnsonian Populism. Mind you Johnson's fiscal policy is akin to Corbynism.
The notion of "never say never" is compelling. If the choice were Heathite Conservatives or Corbyn Labour, I'd probably vote for Heath (but I'd never tell anyone). As that is never likely to be an option, I'll continue to vote to kick out the Conservatives.
I didn’t suss you for a long while at first, because you like to lob grenades in to wind Labour lovers up. Even in this thread you’ve given Starmer a FPN.
I just thought you didn’t understand politics at all. Then have you really convinced me with that story? Is it really true, or another of your grenades 😆
I’ll bounce the same question off you as I did Big G.
In the clip of Lady Thatcher, she is explaining very clearly, her socialist opponents concern for the gap between rich and poor results in the sort of Failed Eastern Bloc Poleconomy that by not embracing the power of the free market to innovate, wealth creation, invest, doesn’t grow the economy, doesn’t provide the wealth that improves the services the everyday people rely on. So in effect, they are levelling down.
Read across to Boris, seamlessly picking up the mantel of Lady Thatcher...
Does that explain his employing the fireplace salesman ?
Comments
Don't get me wrong, the legacy of empire had definite effects, but your description seems to be of the paternalistic 'all issues are the result of Imperial rule' approach (as often seen toward the middle east), presumably unintentionally.
😝
I am probably closest now to that cabal of Remainer Tories/ Blairites and LibDems. The antithesis of Johnsonian Populism. Mind you Johnson's fiscal policy is akin to Corbynism.
The notion of "never say never" is compelling. If the choice were Heathite Conservatives or Corbyn Labour, I'd probably vote for Heath (but I'd never tell anyone). As that is never likely to be an option, I'll continue to vote to kick out the Conservatives.
It's obviously not the reason behind this particular parable.
I believe that a large part of the reason for that neglect is that Stalin's regime collapsed, but, so far, Mao's hasn't.
(Here's a simple way to remember the relative losses due to Stalin and Mao: Stalin was responsible for about as many deaths as World War I, Mao, about as many deaths as World War II. Emphasis on about.)
I am not the one to ask about theology, as it is pretty much just later accretions to the Gospels. I differ from many Christians in taking inspiration from what Jesus taught (such as the Sermon on the Mount) rather than how he died.
If The Rangers win this then all my jokes about the Scottish Premier League is a pub league will be redundant.
Although it will be quite the fairytale, as The Rangers didn't exist a decade ago, it would be a fairytale to rival Gretna under Brooks Mileson.
The answer is clearly yes it seems, regardless of whether the political authorities of Britain at the time liked it, and even though as noted other countries ideas also definitely influenced them (and so I hear, some native forms of government even, not that that helped them any). I don't think that is a wrong approach, I don't think it wrong that Greece for instance takes pride in the impact of its ancient history, even though even in that region many of those ideas were stamped out relatively quickly.
Hitler was to ZionismBoris Johnson is to marital fidelity.I believe that a large part of the reason for that neglect is that Stalin's regime collapsed, but, so far, Mao's hasn't.
(Here's a simple way to remember the relative losses due to Stalin and Mao: Stalin was responsible for about as many deaths as World War I, Mao, about as many deaths as World War II. Emphasis on about.)
And this is why I was so offended that John McDonnell thought it acceptable to bring Maos little red book into the chamber of the house. Dickhead.
It's also gaslighting.
Think about it. The very fact that you doubt means you must believe even harder. It's just perfect.
Wow that’s brilliant. 👍🏻 I’ve never heard that before.
So not written by the controlling Templars then, who wrote all the laws then my brother reckons.
Nobody on this site helped bring down the Nazis, but some of us like to bask in the reflected glory of those who did.
We either heirs to all of the past or to none of it.
A friend listed over 150 historical inaccuracies in that film before they gave up.
The point is how he lived amongst us, not how he was born or died.
Maybe you should be wondering why the Liverpool fans aren't too keen on symbols of the state, they've had pretty good reason to be frustrated and annoyed.
If it gets under the skin of muppets like you and gets you frustrated, all the better.
I wouldn't join in with booing things personally, but I welcome those who feel free to do so. People have a right to free speech and better peaceful protest than violent ones. 👍
I just thought you didn’t understand politics at all. Then have you really convinced me with that story? Is it really true, or another of your grenades 😆
I’ll bounce the same question off you as I did Big G.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q9vYjqQ5Ek
In the clip of Lady Thatcher, she is explaining very clearly, her socialist opponents concern for the gap between rich and poor results in the sort of Failed Eastern Bloc Poleconomy that by not embracing the power of the free market to innovate, wealth creation, invest, doesn’t grow the economy, doesn’t provide the wealth that improves the services the everyday people rely on. So in effect, they are levelling down.
Read across to Boris, seamlessly picking up the mantel of Lady Thatcher, placing Levelling Up at the very heart of his philosophy. High skilled, high wage economy, property ownership, no windfall taxes but instead wealth invested to transform and grow the economy.
What part of that isn’t your own political philosophy?
Getting the bishops out of parliament would be a start. And split the head of state and the head of church too. And stop godbothering in state schools.
Do all that, and I'll STFU up about it.
The scientific method works well when we are willing to challenge assumptions and beliefs and work based upon evidence and if the evidence contradicts our beliefs we either need to look for new evidence, or challenge our beliefs.
Faith indoctrinates people to turn off their critical thinking and to ignore evidence and take the preachers word for it. A useful tool if you're the preacher and want to indoctrinate people to do what you want - for good or ill - not such a useful way for an intelligent educated society to operate.
For me the point is drawing what inspiration or thought you find from his life and death and interpreting it within your own existence. No doubt his life, if you are taking inspiration/faith from it has meaning but so does his death for me anyway.
I'm fairly freshly back to a point of considering my faith having lost it for 30 or so years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ6TgaPJcR0
Everyoine else, it's Commando comics and Airfix Spitfires. (Nothing wrong with those, I hasten to add, in themselves.)
Its the insistence upon forcing one person's "faith" on another, or getting the laws rewritten to suit their faith that is a problem.
Faith is like a penis, its OK to have one, its OK to be proud of it, but don't wave it about in public, and don't try to shove it down the throat of others uninvited.
Fwiw I agree with you on complete disestablishment.
Opinions, for sure; but news? Nah.
Two problems, though. Because it was/is optional, the ones who did it weren't the ones who needed it most. And it's not obvious that the system could have coped with them.
More importantly, it was a product of the coalition government, so it is presumably about to be strangled by Johnson. Because he isn't at all petty about that sort of thing. Oh no.
The same can be said of atheism of course.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2022_Australian_federal_election#2022
I would also not want my child to go to a religious school if it can be avoided, as I think it is confusing for them to be taught something different at school than we will at home.
So yes, religion can have a quiet life when it is no longer integrated with state institutions.
Atheism is just the absence of religion. My atheism makes absolutely no difference to my thinking or actions on a daily basis since its just a null set and only becomes relevant in conversations with theists.
Levelling up is fiction; property ownership has fallen during 12 years of Tory government; wealth is not invested but sequestered for the benefit of a few; the economy is not growing. All bullshit.
I think we've just found PB Original Sin.
A programme we can all get behind,
My first act as PM Stu is appoint you minister for the new compulsory National Citizen Service.
It will be two years. It will involve the military and emergency services. It will teach skills, trades. And leads to a bias in favour of job applications on the other side, as well as financial incentives.
Another brief I’m giving you in tandem with this, is to reduce school exclusion. We don’t want teens drifting out of education into aimless life of drug dealing and crime, at no age, everyone gets education, then the rite of passage to be born into our society and the norms of our society (having their service number tattooed on them for life purely voluntary, but they will get a number for life).
Flouncing off to art college won’t get them out of it either, it will always be waiting for them, everyone, till they get it out the way.
Your simile is funny, but of very little use to your argument. Engaging in conversation with someone about faith because you're hoping to convert them to the cause cannot really be compared in severity to oral rape. For a start, I don't see how it's any different to trying to convince someone of the merits of Brexit, free-market economics, woke, or anything else. Should we ban all attempts at conveying a point of view from the public sphere?
Listen to what Jesus said in his teachings, as laid out in the Gospels, not what secondary sources said about him, either in later books or traditional theology.
Unless of course there is a verified script of his teachings written by Jesus himself which I haven’t heard of?
This thread has reached out and touched faith
This thread has been sent to the sulphurous pit forever
Ban? No of course not.
But I would object to teachers indoctrinating their views upon Brexit, free market economics etc in schools too
If you wish to discuss religion/politics etc in private eg on sites like this or in Churches that you voluntarily go to then that is your free choice, but its not something the state should be pushing, nor something that schools etc should too. It isn't something that should be forced upon others and if someone says they don't want to talk about it that should be respected.
(After the district was created, it switched parties in every election, until Schrader came along. He did keep one unhappy tradition: "Every single representative from this district since its creation after the 1980 census has gotten divorced while in office." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon's_5th_congressional_district )
The moving of the 5th district must have cut into his incumbent advantage.
Whoever wins will probably be facing Republican Happy Valley Mayor Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
I will blow my own trumpet over the economy. I have long argued (18 months) with BartyBobbins that inflationary pressure would do for the Conservatives before the next election, although Bart assures me this inflation is good inflation and it won't matter to the punters. I also see interest rates being a problem for the Conservatives.
Edit: Johnsonian levelling up is a fiction. BJO likes money being thrown at Sheffield from Johnson and is sold. I am not convinced it is not smoke and mirrors.