I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
Have you considered it's perfectly possible to be pro LGBT rights, women's rights, the rights of minorities, and sincerely desiring a society composed of equality of opportunity - particularly among marginalised groups who might not otherwise enjoy the same opportunities as you and I due to age old discrimination - without being "woke" or "dividing [society] on race and sexuality lines"?
What you call being "woke" I call treating people with decency and respect irrespective of their gender, sexuality, or colour of their skin.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
I think you should stick to psephological rather than matrimonial matters. You would make a rubbish marriage guidance counsellor.
My father made my mother's life miserable for 56 years until her death. No violence ( so your leaving criteria is not met) but classic narcissism. I suspect she stayed for my benefit. If I'd had my days over again I would have advised her to leave and find the happiness she deserved.
They are far worse than Sunk. A few reasons for this:
1. No fractious Tory back bench MPs to keep their feet to the fire on tax. 2. An existing instinct toward (and worse, actual belief in) authoritarian big state solutions to things, invariably worsening the situation. 3. A pathological desperation to be 'in' with the powerful after so long in opposition, especially but not exclusively an eagerness to curry favour with 'our European partners', but also corporations, the World Economic Forum, America, COP and all the other hobnobbing forums, and China. 4. Special hatred of the elderly, wealth creators, farmers, and anyone who isn't dependent on state largesse to make a living. 5. Starmer isn't a politician, he's a civil servant ringer.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
Have you considered it's perfectly possible to be pro LGBT rights, women's rights, the rights of minorities, and sincerely desiring a society composed of equality of opportunity - particularly among marginalised groups who might not otherwise enjoy the same opportunities as you and I due to age old discrimination - without being "woke" or "dividing [society] on race and sexuality lines"?
What you call being "woke" I call treating people with decency and respect irrespective of their gender, sexuality, or colour of their skin.
Which is one reason why so many of the 'anti-woke' people are so hesitant to define what they mean by 'woke'. Because they don't like treating the 'other' with decency and respect.
Getting tough on those that refuse to work is difficult and requires taking decisions that will bound to lead to terrible headlines. Thus, I believe it when I see it.
The bigger problem in this country isn't people who don't work, it's people who work no more than 16 hours a week or they'll lose their benefits.
Which to be fair when the real tax rate they face is about 80% is entirely rational behaviour.
Sadly on that there was absolutely nothing in the Budget.
Oh absolutely. All the cliff edges in the system need addressing, instead the government made it worse by lowering the threshold when NI kicks in. I can not get my head around how all the government can't see that this is so counter-productive.
To be fair, the employers NI changes stuff up the advantage for employers employing people on 16 hours.
The original idea of this was to encourage employers to have part time jobs that could ease people on benefits back into work. The cliff edge effect was noticed at the time, but dismissed.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
@HYUFD is extreme in his views and @Foxy is speaking for many Christians
Another example of a serious economic issue for the UK, for which a non partisan solution is desperately needed.
How long does it take to build a mile of tramway?
https://www.samdumitriu.com/p/how-long-does-it-take-to-build-a Birmingham is right now building a mile long extension to the West Midlands Metro, which will end up taking 13 years in total from the initial proposal to the first trams operating. More than six years were spent in the planning process. This isn’t atypical either, tram construction experts we’ve spoken to have said that schemes in the UK take more than a decade to get built.
Countries that build trams cheaper, tend to also approve and build them faster. Dijon, France built their 12 mile tramway network in just two years, after two years of planning. Dijon’s tramway cost just £38m per mile. Birmingham’s cost six times more at £233m per mile. ..
This is what happens when there's 276 different impact assessments required to do anything. Junk it all and implement a "strategic importance" override in legislation that allows parliament to push through any and all projects with a simple majority in the house, overriding any objections or negative impact assessments.
Infrastructure in this country is just a boondoggle for consultants who need to write these various impact assessments.
Yep. The same goes for energy policy. I'm always going on about the unglamorous topic of Waste From Energy plants (incinerators) which are renewable due to biomass - it's crazy that we don't burn our own eligible waste, we send it to Holland where they burn 120% of their eligible waste (all theirs and some others). Turns out when JRM was Energy Secretary he tried to do just this, but planning got in the way. Every time someone tries to build one you get objections (Tory MPs foremost amongst them) from idiots thinking they'll all grow three arms.
To be fair, there has long been a problem with incinerators in this country not being maintained well enough and run at a high enough temperature. The classic bullshit squeezing costs, combined with terrible enforcement.
If you go over the pollution limits in the Netherlands, they drop a bridge on you. Complete shutdown for remediation until you can prove it is fixed. So people don’t mind the incinerators…
I don't understand why the incinerators wouldn't want to run at the highest possible temperature, but I am happy to learn more. And yes, in exchange for these things being plonked on the community, there absolutely needs to be guarantees on emissions.
"Two councils have agreed to pay out £93.5m over a waste treatment plant in Derby which has never been used."
AIUI, and to be fair to the NIMBYs, it was in the wrong place. At least, from what I've been told the site was far too small to be operated. It turns out that you need not just the plant, but storage.
Here's a timeline of it before construction started: •December 2009: Derby City Council rejects plans for the incinerator because of health and environmental fears •November 2010: The planning inspector turns down the scheme •July 2011: The High Court overturns this decision after an appeal by Resource Recovery Solutions •September 2012: A second public inquiry into the incinerator gives it the go-ahead •March 2013: Campaigners challenge the inspector's decision in the High Court but are unsuccessful •April 2013: Plans approved by city council •June 2014: City council agrees to pay compensation to developers •February 2023: report into the scandal kept secret because of 'commercial interests'. •July 2023: councils pay owners £93.5m •August 2024: councils look at restarting the project.
IIRC, that was the one where someone actually said that they had eliminated the storage yard to go with the incinerator, because otherwise the project was “politically non-viable”
It was (and is) in totally the wrong place. Not because of (most of) the NIMBY's objections, but because the site is far too cramped to operate in anything other than perfect conditions. And it is not as though there are not plenty of other places it could have been built, albeit with slightly further to drive.
Attention @Foxy. Steve Cooper sacked by Leicester.
👍
Though who knows who we get next. Moyes or Potter would be the fans choice, though if we need a stopgap I would love a return of Big Nige. I think he could steady the ship and keep us up but not a good longer term option. He's still on good terms with our owners.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
It isn't strange, it is standard talk for most Tory members I speak to now and actually at the milder end of anti woke compared to what Reform members and voters think.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
Getting tough on those that refuse to work is difficult and requires taking decisions that will bound to lead to terrible headlines. Thus, I believe it when I see it.
The bigger problem in this country isn't people who don't work, it's people who work no more than 16 hours a week or they'll lose their benefits.
Which to be fair when the real tax rate they face is about 80% is entirely rational behaviour.
Sadly on that there was absolutely nothing in the Budget.
Universal Credit did a lot to address that but Labour wants to reverse most of the IDS welfare reforms
Getting tough on those that refuse to work is difficult and requires taking decisions that will bound to lead to terrible headlines. Thus, I believe it when I see it.
The bigger problem in this country isn't people who don't work, it's people who work no more than 16 hours a week or they'll lose their benefits.
Which to be fair when the real tax rate they face is about 80% is entirely rational behaviour.
Sadly on that there was absolutely nothing in the Budget.
Oh absolutely. All the cliff edges in the system need addressing, instead the government made it worse by lowering the threshold when NI kicks in. I can not get my head around how all the government can't see that this is so counter-productive.
To be fair, the employers NI changes stuff up the advantage for employers employing people on 16 hours.
The original idea of this was to encourage employers to have part time jobs that could ease people on benefits back into work. The cliff edge effect was noticed at the time, but dismissed.
The problem is that it does nothing to fix the issue as its the employees not the employers who get over a thousand pounds a month from the state if they stick to the 16 hours.
And given employees have a right to "flexible working" any employer who insists on full time work over part time without a bloody good reason is breaking the law.
So no the change fixes nothing at all. Any serious reform needs to tackle it from the employees perspective to make full time work worthwhile.
Attention @Foxy. Steve Cooper sacked by Leicester.
👍
Though who knows who we get next. Moyes or Potter would be the fans choice, though if we need a stopgap I would love a return of Big Nige. I think he could steady the ship and keep us up but not a good longer term option. He's still on good terms with our owners.
Potter seems a good fit, no? Brighton is a similar size and run club, where Potter excelled.
Getting tough on those that refuse to work is difficult and requires taking decisions that will bound to lead to terrible headlines. Thus, I believe it when I see it.
The bigger problem in this country isn't people who don't work, it's people who work no more than 16 hours a week or they'll lose their benefits.
Which to be fair when the real tax rate they face is about 80% is entirely rational behaviour.
Sadly on that there was absolutely nothing in the Budget.
Universal Credit did a lot to address that but Labour wants to reverse most of the IDS welfare reforms
Universal Credit did next to nothing to fix it.
It left people still on about an 80% tax rate. It is better than what came before (which could be 100%) but not by much.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
It isn't strange, it is standard talk for most Tory members I speak to now and actually at the milder end of anti woke compared to what Reform members and voters think.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Jacob Rees Mogg certainly lives by his values, married to only one woman and never divorced, lots of children.
JD Vance I think largely does too
I thought your lot was meant to condemn Papists, not hold them up as paragons of virtue?
Papists loyal to their King like JRM are acceptable
What about us atheist republicans?
Absolutely not, you can stay with Labour or the Greens where you belong
If that's your attitude then you can stay in Opposition where you belong.
Far from it, most voters are neither atheist nor rebublican and voters want a choice not an echo
Getting tough on those that refuse to work is difficult and requires taking decisions that will bound to lead to terrible headlines. Thus, I believe it when I see it.
The bigger problem in this country isn't people who don't work, it's people who work no more than 16 hours a week or they'll lose their benefits.
Which to be fair when the real tax rate they face is about 80% is entirely rational behaviour.
Sadly on that there was absolutely nothing in the Budget.
Oh absolutely. All the cliff edges in the system need addressing, instead the government made it worse by lowering the threshold when NI kicks in. I can not get my head around how all the government can't see that this is so counter-productive.
To be fair, the employers NI changes stuff up the advantage for employers employing people on 16 hours.
The original idea of this was to encourage employers to have part time jobs that could ease people on benefits back into work. The cliff edge effect was noticed at the time, but dismissed.
The problem is that it does nothing to fix the issue as its the employees not the employers who get over a thousand pounds a month from the state if they stick to the 16 hours.
And given employees have a right to "flexible working" any employer who insists on full time work over part time without a bloody good reason is breaking the law.
So no the change fixes nothing at all. Any serious reform needs to tackle it from the employees perspective to make full time work worthwhile.
What happens when an employer switches to contract of minimum x hours a week?
I don’t think this was intended by the way.
I expect that in a year or two there will be fulminations about employers *not* offering 16 hour jobs as much.
On topic 'A group of 29 faith leaders have joined forces to oppose assisted dying in the biggest intervention from religious groups on the issue to date.
Senior figures representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs have warned that the assisted dying Bill will lead to people being pressured into ending their lives to avoid burdening families or the NHS. They say a change in law will turn a “right to die” into people thinking they have a “duty to die”.
In an open letter signed by the Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, they say they are “deeply concerned about the impact the Bill would have on the most vulnerable, opening up the possibility of life-threatening abuse and coercion”....Coming on the week that MPs vote on the controversial legislation, the letter says: “In the UK, it is estimated that 2.7 million older people have been subjected to abuse; many of these may also be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives prematurely“Disability campaigners and those working with women in abusive relationships have also highlighted the danger of unintended consequences should the law be changed.
“The experience of jurisdictions which have introduced similar legislation, such as Oregon and Canada, demonstrate how tragic these unintended consequences can be. Promised safeguards have not always protected the vulnerable and marginalised. Notably, the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, signed for the Church of England – a move likely to spark speculation about her prospects as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
She signed alongside Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi. Other signatories include Sayed Abdul Saheb al-Khoei, secretary general of the Al-Khoei Foundation, a prominent Muslim organisation; Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh Ahluwalia, the chair of the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, one of the UK’s leading Sikh organisations; and Trupti Patel, the president of the Hindu Forum of Britain representing over 300 Hindu groups.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/24/assisted-dying-bill-religious-leaders-letter-duty-to-die/
The Opinium survey of over 10,000 people in the UK found that 75% were in favour of assisted dying so it would win in a referendum.
"The polling also found a strong majority for law change among religious people, with two-thirds (66%) of those who follow a religion stating their support, including 69% of Christians and 65% of Catholics."
Depends on the question, asked and if it is a slippery slope, even the Yougov poll in the thread header shows most voters oppose euthanasia for any reason or for mental health reasons
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
It isn't strange, it is standard talk for most Tory members I speak to now and actually at the milder end of anti woke compared to what Reform members and voters think.
What a biggotted group you must associate with
Why on earth do you think vehemently anti woke Badenoch was elected Tory leader and Farage is even more anti woke than she is
Getting tough on those that refuse to work is difficult and requires taking decisions that will bound to lead to terrible headlines. Thus, I believe it when I see it.
The bigger problem in this country isn't people who don't work, it's people who work no more than 16 hours a week or they'll lose their benefits.
Which to be fair when the real tax rate they face is about 80% is entirely rational behaviour.
Sadly on that there was absolutely nothing in the Budget.
Oh absolutely. All the cliff edges in the system need addressing, instead the government made it worse by lowering the threshold when NI kicks in. I can not get my head around how all the government can't see that this is so counter-productive.
To be fair, the employers NI changes stuff up the advantage for employers employing people on 16 hours.
The original idea of this was to encourage employers to have part time jobs that could ease people on benefits back into work. The cliff edge effect was noticed at the time, but dismissed.
The problem is that it does nothing to fix the issue as its the employees not the employers who get over a thousand pounds a month from the state if they stick to the 16 hours.
And given employees have a right to "flexible working" any employer who insists on full time work over part time without a bloody good reason is breaking the law.
So no the change fixes nothing at all. Any serious reform needs to tackle it from the employees perspective to make full time work worthwhile.
What happens when an employer switches to contract of minimum x hours a week?
I don’t think this was intended by the way.
I expect that in a year or two there will be fulminations about employers *not* offering 16 hour jobs as much.
Any employer who rejects a request to work only 16 hours a week without a bloody good reason is acting unreasonably and breaking the law so can be taken to tribunal.
So the 16 hours work will continue until it is dealt with on the employees side which is where the issue lies.
Attention @Foxy. Steve Cooper sacked by Leicester.
👍
Though who knows who we get next. Moyes or Potter would be the fans choice, though if we need a stopgap I would love a return of Big Nige. I think he could steady the ship and keep us up but not a good longer term option. He's still on good terms with our owners.
Potter seems a good fit, no? Brighton is a similar size and run club, where Potter excelled.
He nearly came in the summer but was put off by the potential points deduction, and perhaps hoped for the England job. With both of those now sorted he may be more willing.
I think we have enough good players (though Fatawu out for the season is a major loss) to stay up, but need a much better team performance. We have no cohesion, formation or game plan under Cooper.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
@HYUFD is extreme in his views and @Foxy is speaking for many Christians
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Jacob Rees Mogg certainly lives by his values, married to only one woman and never divorced, lots of children.
JD Vance I think largely does too
I thought your lot was meant to condemn Papists, not hold them up as paragons of virtue?
Papists loyal to their King like JRM are acceptable
What about atheist republicans?
Trump is not acceptable, no.
Hang on, God saved him from being killed by an assassin, so he must be acceptable, Shirley?
How do you know it was God not the devil?
Trump said it was God. A US president wouldn't lie, would they?
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
@HYUFD is extreme in his views and @Foxy is speaking for many Christians
I know.
Sadly HYUFD is speaking for many Churches though.
I am not sure that he is! more influenced by the US Christian right, but with added Monarchism.
I think concentrating on culture war would be a big mistake for Badenoch. To most voters under 60 and many over it is anathema, but even more importantly it is a distraction. The next Election will be won or lost on the Economy, Tax, immigration, and public services, not on confected Culture War.
Every day I learn something new on PB. Today, I learnt that Jesus was a carpenter, and not a welfare claimant. I'm astonished.
Actually his earthly “dad” (whose trade he followed) was a builder. And apparently moderately prosperous. Hence the schooling for the kid. Which would have been paid for.
So he was inline to inherit a family business, and privately educated.
Getting tough on those that refuse to work is difficult and requires taking decisions that will bound to lead to terrible headlines. Thus, I believe it when I see it.
The bigger problem in this country isn't people who don't work, it's people who work no more than 16 hours a week or they'll lose their benefits.
Which to be fair when the real tax rate they face is about 80% is entirely rational behaviour.
Sadly on that there was absolutely nothing in the Budget.
Oh absolutely. All the cliff edges in the system need addressing, instead the government made it worse by lowering the threshold when NI kicks in. I can not get my head around how all the government can't see that this is so counter-productive.
These are certainly issues, but relatively minor when you look at the numbers of people in part-time work versus full-time/not in work. In fact, the average number of hours worked by part time workers is increasing, while it's falling for full time workers.
I did some analysis of the number of employments directly affected (earnings between 9100 and 5000 per annum) by the change in the secondary threshold; it was surprisingly few.
Getting tough on those that refuse to work is difficult and requires taking decisions that will bound to lead to terrible headlines. Thus, I believe it when I see it.
The bigger problem in this country isn't people who don't work, it's people who work no more than 16 hours a week or they'll lose their benefits.
Which to be fair when the real tax rate they face is about 80% is entirely rational behaviour.
Sadly on that there was absolutely nothing in the Budget.
Oh absolutely. All the cliff edges in the system need addressing, instead the government made it worse by lowering the threshold when NI kicks in. I can not get my head around how all the government can't see that this is so counter-productive.
These are certainly issues, but relatively minor when you look at the numbers of people in part-time work versus full-time/not in work. In fact, the average number of hours worked by part time workers is increasing, while it's falling for full time workers.
I did some analysis of the number of employments directly affected (earnings between 9100 and 5000 per annum) by the change in the secondary threshold; it was surprisingly few.
I was talking about all the cliff edges, which is a factor behind full time workers cutting back on hours.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
If you have the statistics to support this view, I am interested to read them. Everything that I have read indicates that on average, Christians are far likelier to engage in charitable and other positive social activity than their non-Christian counterparts.
I also think that there's a huge trend in popular media to demonise Christianity, in ways both clearly stated (evil Christian characters) and indicated (evil characters in fantasy or pre-Christian settings but who demonstrate clear Christian traits), and this does colour views, especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda.
A good way to resolve this is to ask ourselves, if Jesus came again to us now, would he watch Ch4 news and take the Guardian? I sense he would.
A bit of an Anglocentric worldview there.
Yes fair cop. I was assuming that if He comes again it will be to Britain. But why would he? There's no need now we have a Labour government.
God is, of course, an Englishman.
Which gives his son citizenship, I believe?
The rules changed over time. The GOV.UK describes the rules if you were born before 1983, which I think Jesus was. He was born outside the UK and his father was English (alleged), which is good, but his father was not married to his mother, so Jesus doesn’t get automatic UK citizenship, but he can fill in Form UKF to apply for citizenship.
Every day I learn something new on PB. Today, I learnt that Jesus was a carpenter, and not a welfare claimant. I'm astonished.
Actually his earthly “dad” (whose trade he followed) was a builder. And apparently moderately prosperous. Hence the schooling for the kid. Which would have been paid for.
So he was inline to inherit a family business, and privately educated.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
@HYUFD is extreme in his views and @Foxy is speaking for many Christians
I know.
Sadly HYUFD is speaking for many Churches though.
I am not sure that he is! more influenced by the US Christian right, but with added Monarchism.
I think concentrating on culture war would be a big mistake for Badenoch. To most voters under 60 and many over it is anathema, but even more importantly it is a distraction. The next Election will be won or lost on the Economy, Tax, immigration, and public services, not on confected Culture War.
The poor economy run by a left liberal government gets you over the line but the culture war drives your core vote to turnout to vote. Such a strategy was what won Trump and Meloni and Abbott for example their elections. Of course being hardline on immigration and border control is also part of the culture wars
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
If you have the statistics to support this view, I am interested to read them. Everything that I have read indicates that on average, Christians are far likelier to engage in charitable and other positive social activity than their non-Christian counterparts.
I also think that there's a huge trend in popular media to demonise Christianity, in ways both clearly stated (evil Christian characters) and indicated (evil characters in fantasy or pre-Christian settings but who demonstrate clear Christian traits), and this does colour views, especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda.
No statistics. But I would point you to our very own HYUFD as an example of someone who wants more wrong done in the world. As this thread shows.
"especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda."
Every day I learn something new on PB. Today, I learnt that Jesus was a carpenter, and not a welfare claimant. I'm astonished.
Actually his earthly “dad” (whose trade he followed) was a builder. And apparently moderately prosperous. Hence the schooling for the kid. Which would have been paid for.
So he was inline to inherit a family business, and privately educated.
Wonder what rate of IHT applied?
Below the threshold I would think.
Hard to know - for all we know his father had built half of Nazareth and was a buy-to-let landlord on a massive scale as a result.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
You could equally say many left liberals like you are keen on the bits of Christ's massage about social liberalism and helping the poor. Yet you have little time for organised religion which preaches the parts of his message and the Bible and Koran about the traditional family and lifelong heterosexual marriage being the ideal too
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
You could equally say many left liberals like you are keen on the bits of Christ's massage about social liberalism and helping the poor but have little time for organised religion which preaches the parts of his message and the Bible and Koran about the traditional family and lifelong heterosexual marriage being the ideal too
Oh no, those naughty left liberals are actually listening to Christ and not the non-Christ parts of the Bible and Koran.
I get how listening to Christ must be very frustrating for a Christian like you.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
You could equally say many left liberals like you are keen on the bits of Christ's massage about social liberalism and helping the poor but have little time for organised religion which preaches the parts of his message and the Bible and Koran about the traditional family and lifelong heterosexual marriage being the ideal too
Yesterday, you were scaremongering about Muslim immigration and sharia law. Today, you’re claiming the Koran is on your side.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
If you have the statistics to support this view, I am interested to read them. Everything that I have read indicates that on average, Christians are far likelier to engage in charitable and other positive social activity than their non-Christian counterparts.
I also think that there's a huge trend in popular media to demonise Christianity, in ways both clearly stated (evil Christian characters) and indicated (evil characters in fantasy or pre-Christian settings but who demonstrate clear Christian traits), and this does colour views, especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda.
No statistics. But I would point you to our very own HYUFD as an example of someone who wants more wrong done in the world. As this thread shows.
"especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda."
Ahem. *you* said that????
Propaganda can come in the form of misinformation, but it can also come in the form of negative portrayals of a target group in popular drama - something discovered by the Germans when they created Jud Suss, a drama that featured an evil Jew, which was enormously more successful than their previous attempts at propaganda film documentaries portraying Jews as rats, which had been counterproductive. Similar portrayals of Christians are everywhere in popular culture.
Incidentally, I think adult Jesus would have found the modern world utterly perplexing. Too perplexing for us to have any idea what he would make of it. The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes might look rather small beer compared to electric lights, television, planes, or mobile phones. And as for how we live socially: I doubt he would have much to compare it to.
Just look how he reacted to honest hard working bankers/money lenders.
As somebody who has worked for a financial institution for nearly fourteen years I can spot a bank hating Commie a mile off.
Jesus was never married, used to hang around with twelve guys, defended prostitues, sounds woke to me.
Jesus supported traditional marriage and was a carpenter and member of the skilled working class, he could have equally been a Reform or Trump voter on some issues.
Trump and Farage voters dislike WEF bankers and big lenders almost as much as woke left liberals now
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
If you have the statistics to support this view, I am interested to read them. Everything that I have read indicates that on average, Christians are far likelier to engage in charitable and other positive social activity than their non-Christian counterparts.
I also think that there's a huge trend in popular media to demonise Christianity, in ways both clearly stated (evil Christian characters) and indicated (evil characters in fantasy or pre-Christian settings but who demonstrate clear Christian traits), and this does colour views, especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda.
No statistics. But I would point you to our very own HYUFD as an example of someone who wants more wrong done in the world. As this thread shows.
"especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda."
Ahem. *you* said that????
Propaganda can come in the form of misinformation, but it can also come in the form of negative portrayals of a target group in popular drama - something discovered by the Germans when they created Jud Suss, a drama that featured an evil Jew, which was enormously more successful than their previous attempts at propaganda film documentaries portraying Jews as rats, which had been counterproductive. Similar portrayals of Christians are everywhere in popular culture.
I can't think of any such portrayals of Christians in popular culture, which is unsurprising given that Christians are a major consumer of pop culture and people don't like pissing off their customers.
What I do see is such Christians in real life, such as HYUFD of this parish.
Most pop-culture references to Christianity are gently jovial than outright nasty portrayals. And atheists tend to have equally jovial references too.
EG this exchange between the very atheist Sheldon Cooper and his very religious mother after he accidentally sees his mother engaged in coitus outside of wedlock.
Sheldon Cooper : I think what bothers me the most is the hypocrisy. Doesn't this contradict all the religious rules you've been expounding your whole life?
Mary Cooper : You're right, it does. And it is something I have been struggling with these days.
Sheldon Cooper : Then why are you doing it?
Mary Cooper : Because I'm not perfect, Shelly, and that man's booty is.
Sheldon Cooper : Well, this is confusing for me. But I don't want to stand in the way of your happiness so I'll condemn you internally while maintaining an outward appearance of acceptance.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
You could equally say many left liberals like you are keen on the bits of Christ's massage about social liberalism and helping the poor but have little time for organised religion which preaches the parts of his message and the Bible and Koran about the traditional family and lifelong heterosexual marriage being the ideal too
Yesterday, you were scaremongering about Muslim immigration and sharia law. Today, you’re claiming the Koran is on your side.
Jacob Rees Mogg and JD Vance would agree with some of the more socially conservative Koran passages. It is woke social liberals who have most to fear from rising Muslim immigration longer term
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
You could equally say many left liberals like you are keen on the bits of Christ's massage about social liberalism and helping the poor but have little time for organised religion which preaches the parts of his message and the Bible and Koran about the traditional family and lifelong heterosexual marriage being the ideal too
Oh no, those naughty left liberals are actually listening to Christ and not the non-Christ parts of the Bible and Koran.
I get how listening to Christ must be very frustrating for a Christian like you.
Christ opposed divorce expect for spousal adultery and believed marriage was a lifelong union between one man and one woman
Every day I learn something new on PB. Today, I learnt that Jesus was a carpenter, and not a welfare claimant. I'm astonished.
Actually his earthly “dad” (whose trade he followed) was a builder. And apparently moderately prosperous. Hence the schooling for the kid. Which would have been paid for.
So he was inline to inherit a family business, and privately educated.
Wonder what rate of IHT applied?
I wonder what His views were on VAT on private school fees?
Incidentally, I think adult Jesus would have found the modern world utterly perplexing. Too perplexing for us to have any idea what he would make of it. The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes might look rather small beer compared to electric lights, television, planes, or mobile phones. And as for how we live socially: I doubt he would have much to compare it to.
All true. But we can say some things with confidence. Eg he wouldn't like GBNews or politicians banging on about the border. That sort of stuff would really get on his tits.
With an 8 point gap at the top of the table it seems remarkably good value that you can get almost evens on Liverpool to win the title.
Is this just Normalcy Bias expecting City to come back and win the title? Even though its only November 8 points seems an incredible advantage.
I agree.
The wheels have come off at Man City and it's hard to see them closing that gap. Chelsea will be a contender next season but are not yet the finished article.
On topic 'A group of 29 faith leaders have joined forces to oppose assisted dying in the biggest intervention from religious groups on the issue to date.
Senior figures representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs have warned that the assisted dying Bill will lead to people being pressured into ending their lives to avoid burdening families or the NHS. They say a change in law will turn a “right to die” into people thinking they have a “duty to die”.
In an open letter signed by the Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, they say they are “deeply concerned about the impact the Bill would have on the most vulnerable, opening up the possibility of life-threatening abuse and coercion”....Coming on the week that MPs vote on the controversial legislation, the letter says: “In the UK, it is estimated that 2.7 million older people have been subjected to abuse; many of these may also be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives prematurely“Disability campaigners and those working with women in abusive relationships have also highlighted the danger of unintended consequences should the law be changed.
“The experience of jurisdictions which have introduced similar legislation, such as Oregon and Canada, demonstrate how tragic these unintended consequences can be. Promised safeguards have not always protected the vulnerable and marginalised. Notably, the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, signed for the Church of England – a move likely to spark speculation about her prospects as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
She signed alongside Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi. Other signatories include Sayed Abdul Saheb al-Khoei, secretary general of the Al-Khoei Foundation, a prominent Muslim organisation; Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh Ahluwalia, the chair of the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, one of the UK’s leading Sikh organisations; and Trupti Patel, the president of the Hindu Forum of Britain representing over 300 Hindu groups.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/24/assisted-dying-bill-religious-leaders-letter-duty-to-die/
The Opinium survey of over 10,000 people in the UK found that 75% were in favour of assisted dying so it would win in a referendum.
"The polling also found a strong majority for law change among religious people, with two-thirds (66%) of those who follow a religion stating their support, including 69% of Christians and 65% of Catholics."
Depends on the question, asked and if it is a slippery slope, even the Yougov poll in the thread header shows most voters oppose euthanasia for any reason or for mental health reasons
There isn't a slippery slope in the UK. Any change in the law would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament.
The precise question was " To what extent would you support or oppose making it legal for someone to seek “assisted dying” in the UK, and how strong is your view?"
Incidentally, I think adult Jesus would have found the modern world utterly perplexing. Too perplexing for us to have any idea what he would make of it. The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes might look rather small beer compared to electric lights, television, planes, or mobile phones. And as for how we live socially: I doubt he would have much to compare it to.
All true. But we can say some things with confidence. Eg he wouldn't like GBNews or politicians banging on about the border. That sort of stuff would really get on his tits.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
I don't want to start any Blasphemous Rumours But I think that God's got a sick sense of humour And when I die I expect to find him laughing
The largest number of foodbanks in the U.K., from any single organisation, are led by the Trussell Trust, an Anglican charity.
When i was in Southern Italy a few years ago at the height of their economic crisis, the only people left locally with any interest to feed the hungry were the Catholic Church.
On topic 'A group of 29 faith leaders have joined forces to oppose assisted dying in the biggest intervention from religious groups on the issue to date.
Senior figures representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs have warned that the assisted dying Bill will lead to people being pressured into ending their lives to avoid burdening families or the NHS. They say a change in law will turn a “right to die” into people thinking they have a “duty to die”.
In an open letter signed by the Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, they say they are “deeply concerned about the impact the Bill would have on the most vulnerable, opening up the possibility of life-threatening abuse and coercion”....Coming on the week that MPs vote on the controversial legislation, the letter says: “In the UK, it is estimated that 2.7 million older people have been subjected to abuse; many of these may also be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives prematurely“Disability campaigners and those working with women in abusive relationships have also highlighted the danger of unintended consequences should the law be changed.
“The experience of jurisdictions which have introduced similar legislation, such as Oregon and Canada, demonstrate how tragic these unintended consequences can be. Promised safeguards have not always protected the vulnerable and marginalised. Notably, the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, signed for the Church of England – a move likely to spark speculation about her prospects as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
She signed alongside Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi. Other signatories include Sayed Abdul Saheb al-Khoei, secretary general of the Al-Khoei Foundation, a prominent Muslim organisation; Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh Ahluwalia, the chair of the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, one of the UK’s leading Sikh organisations; and Trupti Patel, the president of the Hindu Forum of Britain representing over 300 Hindu groups.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/24/assisted-dying-bill-religious-leaders-letter-duty-to-die/
The Opinium survey of over 10,000 people in the UK found that 75% were in favour of assisted dying so it would win in a referendum.
"The polling also found a strong majority for law change among religious people, with two-thirds (66%) of those who follow a religion stating their support, including 69% of Christians and 65% of Catholics."
Depends on the question, asked and if it is a slippery slope, even the Yougov poll in the thread header shows most voters oppose euthanasia for any reason or for mental health reasons
There isn't a slippery slope in the UK. Any change in the law would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament.
The precise question was " To what extent would you support or oppose making it legal for someone to seek “assisted dying” in the UK, and how strong is your view?"
The answers were:
Strongly support 40% Somewhat support 38%
Somewhat oppose 8% Strongly oppose 7%
Don’t know / Prefer not to say 8%
NET: Support 78% NET: Oppose 15%
As Canada shows it ends up a slippery slope, hence Polievre has promised to reverse much of the expansion of assisted dying under Trudeau's Liberal government if his Conservatives win the next Canadian election
On topic 'A group of 29 faith leaders have joined forces to oppose assisted dying in the biggest intervention from religious groups on the issue to date.
Senior figures representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs have warned that the assisted dying Bill will lead to people being pressured into ending their lives to avoid burdening families or the NHS. They say a change in law will turn a “right to die” into people thinking they have a “duty to die”.
In an open letter signed by the Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, they say they are “deeply concerned about the impact the Bill would have on the most vulnerable, opening up the possibility of life-threatening abuse and coercion”....Coming on the week that MPs vote on the controversial legislation, the letter says: “In the UK, it is estimated that 2.7 million older people have been subjected to abuse; many of these may also be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives prematurely“Disability campaigners and those working with women in abusive relationships have also highlighted the danger of unintended consequences should the law be changed.
“The experience of jurisdictions which have introduced similar legislation, such as Oregon and Canada, demonstrate how tragic these unintended consequences can be. Promised safeguards have not always protected the vulnerable and marginalised. Notably, the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, signed for the Church of England – a move likely to spark speculation about her prospects as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
She signed alongside Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi. Other signatories include Sayed Abdul Saheb al-Khoei, secretary general of the Al-Khoei Foundation, a prominent Muslim organisation; Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh Ahluwalia, the chair of the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, one of the UK’s leading Sikh organisations; and Trupti Patel, the president of the Hindu Forum of Britain representing over 300 Hindu groups.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/24/assisted-dying-bill-religious-leaders-letter-duty-to-die/
The Opinium survey of over 10,000 people in the UK found that 75% were in favour of assisted dying so it would win in a referendum.
"The polling also found a strong majority for law change among religious people, with two-thirds (66%) of those who follow a religion stating their support, including 69% of Christians and 65% of Catholics."
Depends on the question, asked and if it is a slippery slope, even the Yougov poll in the thread header shows most voters oppose euthanasia for any reason or for mental health reasons
There isn't a slippery slope in the UK. Any change in the law would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament.
The precise question was " To what extent would you support or oppose making it legal for someone to seek “assisted dying” in the UK, and how strong is your view?"
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If memory serves, the route to heaven is acceptance of Jesus Christ as your saviour in your heart and sincere repentance of your sins. The recommendations on how to behave are desirable but not strictly necessary except to demonstrate sincerity.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
Matthew 5:3-10:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19 16-24
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’[c] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Mark 11:15-19
15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves, 16 and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him, for they were afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. 19 And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples[a] went out of the city.
Jesus himself was a carpenter not a welfare claimant and most of his disciples were fishermen.
He praised shrewd investment in the parable of the talents and as Mrs Thatcher said if the Good Samaritan had had no wealth he would have been no use to the traveler he helped from the roadside
You have completely misunderstood the point of both those parables.
The moral of the parable of the talents was that abilities should be used, not wasted. In fact, at the end it contained a condemnation of usury by saying it was only slightly better than burying stuff in the ground.
The point about the parable of the Good Samaritan was that we should use our wealth to help anyone in need.
And you have to create wealth in the first place to enable the wealthy to use it to help others
Someone who inherits wealth has not created it. Someone who buys their house when they are young and sells it when they are old has not created the increase in their wealth.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
If you have the statistics to support this view, I am interested to read them. Everything that I have read indicates that on average, Christians are far likelier to engage in charitable and other positive social activity than their non-Christian counterparts...
IIRC Religious organisations are by far the most contributory, both in time, effort and money, when it comes to disaster relief.
On topic 'A group of 29 faith leaders have joined forces to oppose assisted dying in the biggest intervention from religious groups on the issue to date.
Senior figures representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs have warned that the assisted dying Bill will lead to people being pressured into ending their lives to avoid burdening families or the NHS. They say a change in law will turn a “right to die” into people thinking they have a “duty to die”.
In an open letter signed by the Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, they say they are “deeply concerned about the impact the Bill would have on the most vulnerable, opening up the possibility of life-threatening abuse and coercion”....Coming on the week that MPs vote on the controversial legislation, the letter says: “In the UK, it is estimated that 2.7 million older people have been subjected to abuse; many of these may also be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives prematurely“Disability campaigners and those working with women in abusive relationships have also highlighted the danger of unintended consequences should the law be changed.
“The experience of jurisdictions which have introduced similar legislation, such as Oregon and Canada, demonstrate how tragic these unintended consequences can be. Promised safeguards have not always protected the vulnerable and marginalised. Notably, the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, signed for the Church of England – a move likely to spark speculation about her prospects as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
She signed alongside Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi. Other signatories include Sayed Abdul Saheb al-Khoei, secretary general of the Al-Khoei Foundation, a prominent Muslim organisation; Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh Ahluwalia, the chair of the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, one of the UK’s leading Sikh organisations; and Trupti Patel, the president of the Hindu Forum of Britain representing over 300 Hindu groups.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/24/assisted-dying-bill-religious-leaders-letter-duty-to-die/
The Opinium survey of over 10,000 people in the UK found that 75% were in favour of assisted dying so it would win in a referendum.
"The polling also found a strong majority for law change among religious people, with two-thirds (66%) of those who follow a religion stating their support, including 69% of Christians and 65% of Catholics."
Depends on the question, asked and if it is a slippery slope, even the Yougov poll in the thread header shows most voters oppose euthanasia for any reason or for mental health reasons
There isn't a slippery slope in the UK. Any change in the law would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament.
The precise question was " To what extent would you support or oppose making it legal for someone to seek “assisted dying” in the UK, and how strong is your view?"
The answers were:
Strongly support 40% Somewhat support 38%
Somewhat oppose 8% Strongly oppose 7%
Don’t know / Prefer not to say 8%
NET: Support 78% NET: Oppose 15%
For all my own misgivings as to the risks of coercion and of budding Dr Shipmans, I would support the concept of the Bill provided the safeguards are robust.
I don't think that I would want it myself or for my loved ones, but the law leaves it up to the individual. Like abortion, same sex marriage or gender reassignment we should permit it for those that do want it.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
Matthew 5:3-10:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19 16-24
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’[c] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Mark 11:15-19
15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves, 16 and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him, for they were afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. 19 And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples[a] went out of the city.
Jesus himself was a carpenter not a welfare claimant and most of his disciples were fishermen.
He praised shrewd investment in the parable of the talents and as Mrs Thatcher said if the Good Samaritan had had no wealth he would have been no use to the traveler he helped from the roadside
You have completely misunderstood the point of both those parables.
The moral of the parable of the talents was that abilities should be used, not wasted. In fact, at the end it contained a condemnation of usury by saying it was only slightly better than burying stuff in the ground.
The point about the parable of the Good Samaritan was that we should use our wealth to help anyone in need.
And you have to create wealth in the first place to enable the wealthy to use it to help others
Someone who inherits wealth has not created it. Someone who buys their house when they are young and sells it when they are old has not created the increase in their wealth.
Many of our greatest philanthropists have inherited wealth, socialists would have confiscated that inherited wealth too.
The largest number of foodbanks in the U.K., from any single organisation, are led by the Trussell Trust, an Anglican charity.
When i was in Southern Italy a few years ago at the height of their economic crisis, the only people left locally with any interest to feed the hungry were the Catholic Church.
That may be true. But given what Welby has just resigned for, I might suggest that there is also a massive amount of harm done by organised churches as well. Yes, that was just one case: but it's perfectly possible to point to many, many more, including some organised by a church on a massive scale. e.g. Magdalene Laundries.
And the CofE mortgage schemes were utterly exploitative of their clergy. Shame on them.
Attention @Foxy. Steve Cooper sacked by Leicester.
👍
Though who knows who we get next. Moyes or Potter would be the fans choice, though if we need a stopgap I would love a return of Big Nige. I think he could steady the ship and keep us up but not a good longer term option. He's still on good terms with our owners.
Potter seems a good fit, no? Brighton is a similar size and run club, where Potter excelled.
To stay up Leicester are going to need Harry Potter
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
Matthew 5:3-10:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19 16-24
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’[c] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Mark 11:15-19
15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves, 16 and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him, for they were afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. 19 And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples[a] went out of the city.
Jesus himself was a carpenter not a welfare claimant and most of his disciples were fishermen.
He praised shrewd investment in the parable of the talents and as Mrs Thatcher said if the Good Samaritan had had no wealth he would have been no use to the traveler he helped from the roadside
You have completely misunderstood the point of both those parables.
The moral of the parable of the talents was that abilities should be used, not wasted. In fact, at the end it contained a condemnation of usury by saying it was only slightly better than burying stuff in the ground.
The point about the parable of the Good Samaritan was that we should use our wealth to help anyone in need.
And you have to create wealth in the first place to enable the wealthy to use it to help others
Someone who inherits wealth has not created it. Someone who buys their house when they are young and sells it when they are old has not created the increase in their wealth.
Many of our greatest philanthropists have inherited wealth, socialists would have confiscated that inherited wealth too.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
Matthew 5:3-10:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19 16-24
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’[c] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Mark 11:15-19
15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves, 16 and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him, for they were afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. 19 And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples[a] went out of the city.
Jesus himself was a carpenter not a welfare claimant and most of his disciples were fishermen.
He praised shrewd investment in the parable of the talents and as Mrs Thatcher said if the Good Samaritan had had no wealth he would have been no use to the traveler he helped from the roadside
You have completely misunderstood the point of both those parables.
The moral of the parable of the talents was that abilities should be used, not wasted. In fact, at the end it contained a condemnation of usury by saying it was only slightly better than burying stuff in the ground.
The point about the parable of the Good Samaritan was that we should use our wealth to help anyone in need.
And you have to create wealth in the first place to enable the wealthy to use it to help others
Someone who inherits wealth has not created it. Someone who buys their house when they are young and sells it when they are old has not created the increase in their wealth.
Many of our greatest philanthropists have inherited wealth, socialists would have confiscated that inherited wealth too.
And many with inherited wealth do not become philanthropists. Also, it is easy to partake in philanthropy if you are money and time-rich. Less so if you are poor and struggling to make ends meet.
With an 8 point gap at the top of the table it seems remarkably good value that you can get almost evens on Liverpool to win the title.
Is this just Normalcy Bias expecting City to come back and win the title? Even though its only November 8 points seems an incredible advantage.
I agree.
The wheels have come off at Man City and it's hard to see them closing that gap. Chelsea will be a contender next season but are not yet the finished article.
It's a good tip.
Liverpool v Man City next weekend, absolutely fascinating what happens.
Arsenal hardly leave London till the end of January, I suggest keep an eye on them to see if they get a head of steam.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
Matthew 5:3-10:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 5 Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. 6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. 7 Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19 16-24
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
18 “Which ones?” he inquired.
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’[c] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]”
20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”
21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Mark 11:15-19
15 Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves, 16 and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 17 He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 18 And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him, for they were afraid of him because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching. 19 And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples[a] went out of the city.
Jesus himself was a carpenter not a welfare claimant and most of his disciples were fishermen.
He praised shrewd investment in the parable of the talents and as Mrs Thatcher said if the Good Samaritan had had no wealth he would have been no use to the traveler he helped from the roadside
You have completely misunderstood the point of both those parables.
The moral of the parable of the talents was that abilities should be used, not wasted. In fact, at the end it contained a condemnation of usury by saying it was only slightly better than burying stuff in the ground.
The point about the parable of the Good Samaritan was that we should use our wealth to help anyone in need.
And you have to create wealth in the first place to enable the wealthy to use it to help others
Someone who inherits wealth has not created it. Someone who buys their house when they are young and sells it when they are old has not created the increase in their wealth.
Many of our greatest philanthropists have inherited wealth, socialists would have confiscated that inherited wealth too.
There is a certain bias associated with being a great philanthropist and having inherited wealth. Church mice need not apply.
The largest number of foodbanks in the U.K., from any single organisation, are led by the Trussell Trust, an Anglican charity.
When i was in Southern Italy a few years ago at the height of their economic crisis, the only people left locally with any interest to feed the hungry were the Catholic Church.
That may be true. But given what Welby has just resigned for, I might suggest that there is also a massive amount of harm done by organised churches as well. Yes, that was just one case: but it's perfectly possible to point to many, many more, including some organised by a church on a massive scale. e.g. Magdalene Laundries.
And the CofE mortgage schemes were utterly exploitative of their clergy. Shame on them.
There were also sexual abuse scandals in the BBC, paedophiles in boarding schools, the Scouts and youth football clubs and sex abusers in Hollywood and even Harrods and Parliament and the City.
It is no surprise those who want to carry out sexual abuse are attracted to areas of establishment status or wealth and paedophiles are attracted to jobs which give them access to children.
However safeguarding checks including in the Church are massively better than they were in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and 1990s when most of these incidents occurred and we now have the DBS too
On topic 'A group of 29 faith leaders have joined forces to oppose assisted dying in the biggest intervention from religious groups on the issue to date.
Senior figures representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs have warned that the assisted dying Bill will lead to people being pressured into ending their lives to avoid burdening families or the NHS. They say a change in law will turn a “right to die” into people thinking they have a “duty to die”.
In an open letter signed by the Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, they say they are “deeply concerned about the impact the Bill would have on the most vulnerable, opening up the possibility of life-threatening abuse and coercion”....Coming on the week that MPs vote on the controversial legislation, the letter says: “In the UK, it is estimated that 2.7 million older people have been subjected to abuse; many of these may also be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives prematurely“Disability campaigners and those working with women in abusive relationships have also highlighted the danger of unintended consequences should the law be changed.
“The experience of jurisdictions which have introduced similar legislation, such as Oregon and Canada, demonstrate how tragic these unintended consequences can be. Promised safeguards have not always protected the vulnerable and marginalised. Notably, the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, signed for the Church of England – a move likely to spark speculation about her prospects as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
She signed alongside Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi. Other signatories include Sayed Abdul Saheb al-Khoei, secretary general of the Al-Khoei Foundation, a prominent Muslim organisation; Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh Ahluwalia, the chair of the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, one of the UK’s leading Sikh organisations; and Trupti Patel, the president of the Hindu Forum of Britain representing over 300 Hindu groups.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/24/assisted-dying-bill-religious-leaders-letter-duty-to-die/
The Opinium survey of over 10,000 people in the UK found that 75% were in favour of assisted dying so it would win in a referendum.
"The polling also found a strong majority for law change among religious people, with two-thirds (66%) of those who follow a religion stating their support, including 69% of Christians and 65% of Catholics."
Depends on the question, asked and if it is a slippery slope, even the Yougov poll in the thread header shows most voters oppose euthanasia for any reason or for mental health reasons
There isn't a slippery slope in the UK. Any change in the law would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament.
The precise question was " To what extent would you support or oppose making it legal for someone to seek “assisted dying” in the UK, and how strong is your view?"
The answers were:
Strongly support 40% Somewhat support 38%
Somewhat oppose 8% Strongly oppose 7%
Don’t know / Prefer not to say 8%
NET: Support 78% NET: Oppose 15%
As Canada shows it ends up a slippery slope, hence Polievre has promised to reverse much of the expansion of assisted dying under Trudeau's Liberal government if his Conservatives win the next Canadian election
"Slippery slope" implies you unwillingly or inadvertently slide down it. It is an emotive phrase.
In the UK, any change in the scope of assisted dying would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament. That is democracy. I'm assuming you are in favour of that.
EDIT: I hope you noticed that 78% supported assisted dying and only 15% opposed. You didn't comment on that.
On topic 'A group of 29 faith leaders have joined forces to oppose assisted dying in the biggest intervention from religious groups on the issue to date.
Senior figures representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs have warned that the assisted dying Bill will lead to people being pressured into ending their lives to avoid burdening families or the NHS. They say a change in law will turn a “right to die” into people thinking they have a “duty to die”.
In an open letter signed by the Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, they say they are “deeply concerned about the impact the Bill would have on the most vulnerable, opening up the possibility of life-threatening abuse and coercion”....Coming on the week that MPs vote on the controversial legislation, the letter says: “In the UK, it is estimated that 2.7 million older people have been subjected to abuse; many of these may also be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives prematurely“Disability campaigners and those working with women in abusive relationships have also highlighted the danger of unintended consequences should the law be changed.
“The experience of jurisdictions which have introduced similar legislation, such as Oregon and Canada, demonstrate how tragic these unintended consequences can be. Promised safeguards have not always protected the vulnerable and marginalised. Notably, the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, signed for the Church of England – a move likely to spark speculation about her prospects as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
She signed alongside Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi. Other signatories include Sayed Abdul Saheb al-Khoei, secretary general of the Al-Khoei Foundation, a prominent Muslim organisation; Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh Ahluwalia, the chair of the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, one of the UK’s leading Sikh organisations; and Trupti Patel, the president of the Hindu Forum of Britain representing over 300 Hindu groups.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/24/assisted-dying-bill-religious-leaders-letter-duty-to-die/
The Opinium survey of over 10,000 people in the UK found that 75% were in favour of assisted dying so it would win in a referendum.
"The polling also found a strong majority for law change among religious people, with two-thirds (66%) of those who follow a religion stating their support, including 69% of Christians and 65% of Catholics."
Depends on the question, asked and if it is a slippery slope, even the Yougov poll in the thread header shows most voters oppose euthanasia for any reason or for mental health reasons
There isn't a slippery slope in the UK. Any change in the law would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament.
The precise question was " To what extent would you support or oppose making it legal for someone to seek “assisted dying” in the UK, and how strong is your view?"
The answers were:
Strongly support 40% Somewhat support 38%
Somewhat oppose 8% Strongly oppose 7%
Don’t know / Prefer not to say 8%
NET: Support 78% NET: Oppose 15%
As Canada shows it ends up a slippery slope, hence Polievre has promised to reverse much of the expansion of assisted dying under Trudeau's Liberal government if his Conservatives win the next Canadian election
"Slippery slope" implies you unwillingly or inadvertently slide down it. It is an emotive phrase.
In the UK, any change in the scope of assisted dying would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament. That is democracy. I'm assuming you are in favour of that.
EDIT: I hope you noticed that 78% supported assisted dying and only 15% opposed. You didn't comment on that.
In 2021, the assisted dying law in Canada was changed by its Liberal govenrnment backed by the NDP to include those with serious and chronic physical conditions, even if that condition was non-life threatening, expanding the 2016 law passed by its Liberal government which had limited it to those with terminal illnesses.
It has been expanding further too to include those with mental illnesses, hence the Canadian Conservatives if they win next year have promised to start cutting it back
The largest number of foodbanks in the U.K., from any single organisation, are led by the Trussell Trust, an Anglican charity.
When i was in Southern Italy a few years ago at the height of their economic crisis, the only people left locally with any interest to feed the hungry were the Catholic Church.
That may be true. But given what Welby has just resigned for, I might suggest that there is also a massive amount of harm done by organised churches as well. Yes, that was just one case: but it's perfectly possible to point to many, many more, including some organised by a church on a massive scale. e.g. Magdalene Laundries.
And the CofE mortgage schemes were utterly exploitative of their clergy. Shame on them.
There were also sexual abuse scandals in the BBC, paedophiles in boarding schools, the Scouts and youth football clubs and sex abusers in Hollywood and even Harrods and Parliament and the City.
It is no surprise those who want to carry out sexual abuse are attracted to areas of establishment status or wealth and paedophiles are attracted to jobs which give them access to children.
However safeguarding checks including in the Church are massively better than they were in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and 1990s when most of these incidents occurred and we now have the DBS too
The incidents Weldby resigned for are much more recent.
I agree that people who want to abuse other people (and it is not just sexual abuse) will try to get into positions of power. The problem is that time and time again, church after church just covers it up. Often, moving priests onto other parishes so they can just resume their behaviour.
Or the behaviour was even sanctioned by the church.
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
If you have the statistics to support this view, I am interested to read them. Everything that I have read indicates that on average, Christians are far likelier to engage in charitable and other positive social activity than their non-Christian counterparts.
I also think that there's a huge trend in popular media to demonise Christianity, in ways both clearly stated (evil Christian characters) and indicated (evil characters in fantasy or pre-Christian settings but who demonstrate clear Christian traits), and this does colour views, especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda.
No statistics. But I would point you to our very own HYUFD as an example of someone who wants more wrong done in the world. As this thread shows.
"especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda."
Ahem. *you* said that????
Propaganda can come in the form of misinformation, but it can also come in the form of negative portrayals of a target group in popular drama - something discovered by the Germans when they created Jud Suss, a drama that featured an evil Jew, which was enormously more successful than their previous attempts at propaganda film documentaries portraying Jews as rats, which had been counterproductive. Similar portrayals of Christians are everywhere in popular culture.
I can't think of any such portrayals of Christians in popular culture, which is unsurprising given that Christians are a major consumer of pop culture and people don't like pissing off their customers.
What I do see is such Christians in real life, such as HYUFD of this parish.
Most pop-culture references to Christianity are gently jovial than outright nasty portrayals. And atheists tend to have equally jovial references too.
EG this exchange between the very atheist Sheldon Cooper and his very religious mother after he accidentally sees his mother engaged in coitus outside of wedlock.
Sheldon Cooper : I think what bothers me the most is the hypocrisy. Doesn't this contradict all the religious rules you've been expounding your whole life?
Mary Cooper : You're right, it does. And it is something I have been struggling with these days.
Sheldon Cooper : Then why are you doing it?
Mary Cooper : Because I'm not perfect, Shelly, and that man's booty is.
Sheldon Cooper : Well, this is confusing for me. But I don't want to stand in the way of your happiness so I'll condemn you internally while maintaining an outward appearance of acceptance.
Mary Cooper : That is very Christian of you.
I'm not really surprised, because you are the sort of mark who would simply assimilate such material without giving it any thought, except to grow a bit more strident in your anti-Christian diatribes.
A random example of the explicit form would be the dramatisations of The Handmaid's Tale - but there are too many to even mention. Any explicitly Christian character in popular media is destined to turn out to be a hypocrite philanderer at best and an axe murderer at worst.
A random example of the implicit form would be from the film Clash of the Titans, where a proto-Christian sect led by a form of prophet attempts to sacrifice Princess Andromeda to the Kracken. Or in 300, where the Persian King Xerxes (I could have that name wrong) asks the disabled character to 'kneel' before him as part of an extended allegory on Christianity vs. pagan religions. Or in series one of Game of Thrones, there's a portrayal of a sect that follows 'a good shepherd', curing the body of a tribal King but seeming to steal his soul. They all end up being burned to death afaicr. You can have a good giggle at these examples, but should you adopt a more thoughtful approach and rewatch the clips, you'll see I'm right.
On topic 'A group of 29 faith leaders have joined forces to oppose assisted dying in the biggest intervention from religious groups on the issue to date.
Senior figures representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs have warned that the assisted dying Bill will lead to people being pressured into ending their lives to avoid burdening families or the NHS. They say a change in law will turn a “right to die” into people thinking they have a “duty to die”.
In an open letter signed by the Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, they say they are “deeply concerned about the impact the Bill would have on the most vulnerable, opening up the possibility of life-threatening abuse and coercion”....Coming on the week that MPs vote on the controversial legislation, the letter says: “In the UK, it is estimated that 2.7 million older people have been subjected to abuse; many of these may also be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives prematurely“Disability campaigners and those working with women in abusive relationships have also highlighted the danger of unintended consequences should the law be changed.
“The experience of jurisdictions which have introduced similar legislation, such as Oregon and Canada, demonstrate how tragic these unintended consequences can be. Promised safeguards have not always protected the vulnerable and marginalised. Notably, the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, signed for the Church of England – a move likely to spark speculation about her prospects as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
She signed alongside Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi. Other signatories include Sayed Abdul Saheb al-Khoei, secretary general of the Al-Khoei Foundation, a prominent Muslim organisation; Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh Ahluwalia, the chair of the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, one of the UK’s leading Sikh organisations; and Trupti Patel, the president of the Hindu Forum of Britain representing over 300 Hindu groups.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/24/assisted-dying-bill-religious-leaders-letter-duty-to-die/
The Opinium survey of over 10,000 people in the UK found that 75% were in favour of assisted dying so it would win in a referendum.
"The polling also found a strong majority for law change among religious people, with two-thirds (66%) of those who follow a religion stating their support, including 69% of Christians and 65% of Catholics."
Depends on the question, asked and if it is a slippery slope, even the Yougov poll in the thread header shows most voters oppose euthanasia for any reason or for mental health reasons
There isn't a slippery slope in the UK. Any change in the law would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament.
The precise question was " To what extent would you support or oppose making it legal for someone to seek “assisted dying” in the UK, and how strong is your view?"
The answers were:
Strongly support 40% Somewhat support 38%
Somewhat oppose 8% Strongly oppose 7%
Don’t know / Prefer not to say 8%
NET: Support 78% NET: Oppose 15%
As Canada shows it ends up a slippery slope, hence Polievre has promised to reverse much of the expansion of assisted dying under Trudeau's Liberal government if his Conservatives win the next Canadian election
"Slippery slope" implies you unwillingly or inadvertently slide down it. It is an emotive phrase.
In the UK, any change in the scope of assisted dying would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament. That is democracy. I'm assuming you are in favour of that.
EDIT: I hope you noticed that 78% supported assisted dying and only 15% opposed. You didn't comment on that.
In 2021, the assisted dying law in Canada was changed by its Liberal govenrnment backed by the NDP to include those with serious and chronic physical conditions, even if that condition was non-life threatening, expanding the 2016 law passed by its Liberal government which had limited it to those with terminal illnesses.
It has been expanding further too to include those with mental illnesses, hence the Canadian Conservatives if they win next year have promised to start cutting it back
The largest number of foodbanks in the U.K., from any single organisation, are led by the Trussell Trust, an Anglican charity.
When i was in Southern Italy a few years ago at the height of their economic crisis, the only people left locally with any interest to feed the hungry were the Catholic Church.
That may be true. But given what Welby has just resigned for, I might suggest that there is also a massive amount of harm done by organised churches as well. Yes, that was just one case: but it's perfectly possible to point to many, many more, including some organised by a church on a massive scale. e.g. Magdalene Laundries.
And the CofE mortgage schemes were utterly exploitative of their clergy. Shame on them.
There were also sexual abuse scandals in the BBC, paedophiles in boarding schools, the Scouts and youth football clubs and sex abusers in Hollywood and even Harrods and Parliament and the City.
It is no surprise those who want to carry out sexual abuse are attracted to areas of establishment status or wealth and paedophiles are attracted to jobs which give them access to children.
However safeguarding checks including in the Church are massively better than they were in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and 1990s when most of these incidents occurred and we now have the DBS too
The incidents Weldby resigned for are much more recent.
I agree that people who want to abuse other people (and it is not just sexual abuse) will try to get into positions of power. The problem is that time and time again, church after church just covers it up. Often, moving priests onto other parishes so they can just resume their behaviour.
Or the behaviour was even sanctioned by the church.
They aren't, Smyth's abuse was committed in the 1980s and 1990s and he wasn't even a priest, they took place on Christian camps, he was a barrister by trade.
Now priests have to go through multiple safeguarding and DBS checks to get Parish posts
On topic 'A group of 29 faith leaders have joined forces to oppose assisted dying in the biggest intervention from religious groups on the issue to date.
Senior figures representing Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs have warned that the assisted dying Bill will lead to people being pressured into ending their lives to avoid burdening families or the NHS. They say a change in law will turn a “right to die” into people thinking they have a “duty to die”.
In an open letter signed by the Bishop of London, the Roman Catholic Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the Chief Rabbi, they say they are “deeply concerned about the impact the Bill would have on the most vulnerable, opening up the possibility of life-threatening abuse and coercion”....Coming on the week that MPs vote on the controversial legislation, the letter says: “In the UK, it is estimated that 2.7 million older people have been subjected to abuse; many of these may also be vulnerable to pressure to end their lives prematurely“Disability campaigners and those working with women in abusive relationships have also highlighted the danger of unintended consequences should the law be changed.
“The experience of jurisdictions which have introduced similar legislation, such as Oregon and Canada, demonstrate how tragic these unintended consequences can be. Promised safeguards have not always protected the vulnerable and marginalised. Notably, the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Dame Sarah Mullally, signed for the Church of England – a move likely to spark speculation about her prospects as the next Archbishop of Canterbury.
She signed alongside Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, and Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi. Other signatories include Sayed Abdul Saheb al-Khoei, secretary general of the Al-Khoei Foundation, a prominent Muslim organisation; Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain; Bhai Sahib Mohinder Singh Ahluwalia, the chair of the Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, one of the UK’s leading Sikh organisations; and Trupti Patel, the president of the Hindu Forum of Britain representing over 300 Hindu groups.' https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/11/24/assisted-dying-bill-religious-leaders-letter-duty-to-die/
The Opinium survey of over 10,000 people in the UK found that 75% were in favour of assisted dying so it would win in a referendum.
"The polling also found a strong majority for law change among religious people, with two-thirds (66%) of those who follow a religion stating their support, including 69% of Christians and 65% of Catholics."
Depends on the question, asked and if it is a slippery slope, even the Yougov poll in the thread header shows most voters oppose euthanasia for any reason or for mental health reasons
There isn't a slippery slope in the UK. Any change in the law would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament.
The precise question was " To what extent would you support or oppose making it legal for someone to seek “assisted dying” in the UK, and how strong is your view?"
The answers were:
Strongly support 40% Somewhat support 38%
Somewhat oppose 8% Strongly oppose 7%
Don’t know / Prefer not to say 8%
NET: Support 78% NET: Oppose 15%
As Canada shows it ends up a slippery slope, hence Polievre has promised to reverse much of the expansion of assisted dying under Trudeau's Liberal government if his Conservatives win the next Canadian election
"Slippery slope" implies you unwillingly or inadvertently slide down it. It is an emotive phrase.
In the UK, any change in the scope of assisted dying would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament. That is democracy. I'm assuming you are in favour of that.
EDIT: I hope you noticed that 78% supported assisted dying and only 15% opposed. You didn't comment on that.
In 2021, the assisted dying law in Canada was changed by its Liberal govenrnment backed by the NDP to include those with serious and chronic physical conditions, even if that condition was non-life threatening, expanding the 2016 law passed by its Liberal government which had limited it to those with terminal illnesses.
It has been expanding further too to include those with mental illnesses, hence the Canadian Conservatives if they win next year have promised to start cutting it back
The largest number of foodbanks in the U.K., from any single organisation, are led by the Trussell Trust, an Anglican charity.
When i was in Southern Italy a few years ago at the height of their economic crisis, the only people left locally with any interest to feed the hungry were the Catholic Church.
That may be true. But given what Welby has just resigned for, I might suggest that there is also a massive amount of harm done by organised churches as well. Yes, that was just one case: but it's perfectly possible to point to many, many more, including some organised by a church on a massive scale. e.g. Magdalene Laundries.
And the CofE mortgage schemes were utterly exploitative of their clergy. Shame on them.
There were also sexual abuse scandals in the BBC, paedophiles in boarding schools, the Scouts and youth football clubs and sex abusers in Hollywood and even Harrods and Parliament and the City.
It is no surprise those who want to carry out sexual abuse are attracted to areas of establishment status or wealth and paedophiles are attracted to jobs which give them access to children.
However safeguarding checks including in the Church are massively better than they were in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and 1990s when most of these incidents occurred and we now have the DBS too
The incidents Weldby resigned for are much more recent.
I agree that people who want to abuse other people (and it is not just sexual abuse) will try to get into positions of power. The problem is that time and time again, church after church just covers it up. Often, moving priests onto other parishes so they can just resume their behaviour.
Or the behaviour was even sanctioned by the church.
They aren't, Smyth's abuse was committed in the 1980s and 1990s and he wasn't even a priest, they took place on Christian camps, he was a barrister by trade.
Now priests have to go through multiple safeguarding and DBS checks to get Parish posts
And AIUI the church was told back in the 1980s, and the warnings were ignored.
"It also highlighted how evidence of crimes had been gathered in the 1980s but was suppressed, including details of children being physically and sexually abused. ... "The scale and severity of the practice was horrific," noted the so-called Ruston report, named after the Rev Mark Ruston, who compiled it in 1982." (1)
You are excusing the inexcusable. The churches are not interested in morality or people; they are interested in power and money. Individuals within may be good, moral people; but the entire stinking edifices they work within are rotten.
I am agnostic. I like the idea of God, and I often pray. I try to live my life according to a morality that is informed by Christianity. But the reason I don't join a church?
I lean in favour of assisted dying, but don't have a strong view.
Of course, one can take one's stance from our moral leaders - any proposed reform that churches oppose, from ending the burning of witches and heretics to legalising divorce to more or less anything Mrs Thatcher did, is usually an excellent idea.
Divorce laws in the UK are too liberal now with no fault divorce. Having a negative effect on the family and fertility rates
What conceivable benefit would you expect to acru from restricting divorce? Couples stuck in loveless marriages are not likely to bring children into them and if they did it would be for entirely the wrong reasons to the detriment of everyone.
Unless it was an arranged marriage no marriage would be loveless otherwise they would never have got married in the first place.
No marriage is perfect, you work through the downs and arguments as well as the ups
What a naive view.
Love sometimes lasts, but love sometimes dies. At which point it becomes loveless.
Go through ups and downs, yes, my wife and I have had ups and downs and we still love each other. That is a healthy marriage.
If you only have downs and the love is gone, then it's not a healthy marriage and it should be terminated.
All my biological grandparents divorced. Both my dad's parents remarried before I was even born and had a happy, healthy second marriage that took them to the end of their lives. Them divorcing and remarrying was the best thing that ever happened to them, and the family as a whole.
I was also lucky enough then to grow up with 5 grandparents (3 biological, 2 not) and am fortunate still have the two non-biological grandparents whom I love as my grandparents every bit as much as the biological ones.
My father's parents divorced and it had a negative impact on his teenage years and hit his mother hard while his father remarried.
Divorce is simply too easy nowadays, unless there is adultery or domestic violence involved divorce should be an absolute last resort and best avoided
My mother got a divorce in the late 1960's. It was incredibly difficult and took an absolute age, being one of the reasons the Denning Reforms came about. My father was a serial philanderer and he walked out the family home just after my sister was born in 1962. There was no fault on my mother's part. He was finally forced by the courts to pay maintenance in the princely sum of £4 a week. But the marriage still could not be ended for an age longer.
Allowing my mother to escape being trapped in a marriage was no "last resort"; splitting from him was not "best avoided", as for one thing it would have prevented her getting another successful, joyous marriage to my stepfather. The strain of the broken relationship and the attempts to get a divorce caused her to have several nervous breakdowns. No child should have had to endure seeing their parent go through ECT.
Your world view is so constrained. It would result in so much pain for others if rigidly adopted.
I have already said I don't oppose divorce on the grounds of adultery, even Jesus did not oppose divorce when one party had committed sexual immorality and cheated on the other.
That is not the same as supporting no fault divorce though, which I oppose even though it is now legal in the UK
"Sorry, kids, me and yer dad can't split up, even though we hate each other because some bloke called Jesus, who may or may not have existed 2000 years ago, wouldn't like it and the government don't like it very much, either, so we'll just stay together and make your life a misery until you're old enough to leave home" That's right?
If you clearly hated each other you would never have married in the first place. Most kids want both their parents at home with them
1 - People change 2 - Sometimes, especially when young and full of hormones, we make bad decisions 3 - Information that wasn't known beforehand can come to light
Your stance rejects all of the above. My mother is twice divorced. Anathema to you. For her first marriage, she fell deeply in love. A year or two down the line, her husband was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had one daughter by then, but decided to divorce when, in the middle of an episode, he threatened the baby.
For her second marriage, she married "on the rebound." Partly because she was now used to being away from her over-controlling mother. She and my father had very different personalities - which they found out. Unfortunately, after the marriage. After several years of trying their best to make it work (and two children), they agreed to divorce.
To be honest, their divorce was the best thing they could have done for the children (me included). Rather than grow up in an air of mutual resentment and "making the best of it" through clenched teeth, we grew up in a home of love, learning, and laughter. Mum and Dad got on much better after the divorce and when they could live separately and when they didn't have to be in each other's business all the time. I actually think it was that which may have led to my sister and I both being in stable long-term marriages (her for 30 years+ at this point, me approaching 25 years). We didn't have the experience of the resentment we would doubtless have had in that alternate universe.
I reject entirely your didactic and unempathic stance.
Yes empathy is only uber liberalism, everyone else is evil and beyond the pale. Marriage, commitment of both parents to raising children, the nation's fertility rate, all irrelevant in comparison to the desires of the self first.
Well tough, I represent an argument millions agree with, especially the religious and don't give a shit whether you dislike me making it or not I will continue to do so
You represent an argument that was rejected 70 years ago and continues to be rejected since.
Far from it, Italy has recently elected a government with a more traditional view of women and the family, the US has also just elected a President and Congress with a more traditional view of the family.
The backlash against wokeism and uber liberalism has begun
Wrong.
America has just elected a twice divorced, repeatedly unfaithful adulterer as President.
Not a traditional view of the family.
And Giorgia Meloni has had a kid out of wedlock. Not exactly a bastion of religious morality.
One of the curiosities of right-populism is how many of its leaders don't reflect the values their rhetoric espouses. There's a definite lack of Corbyn/Livingstone like figures- even when their views were odd/wrong, they did sort of try to live by them.
Not that curious. There's a simple explanation.
Neither the leaders nor the voters give the slightest damn about Biblical values. HYUFD shows his contempt for the teaching of Jesus on a daily basis.
All they care about is cherrypicking elements they care about and then telling other people what they can and can't do.
Rubbish, Jesus was not a communist woke social liberal
For his day he bloody well was.
Overturning the money tables and the whole eye of the needle thing. Wanting to feed the hungry, help the poor, heal the sick.
He was incredibly woke for his era.
Wokeism is ultra pro LGBTQ+, pro division on race and sexuality lines with a particular rejection of white heterosexual male 'privilege' and uber feminist (albeit with some clash with them and the equally woke uber trans).
It is perfectly possible for big corporations to be very woke and many now are and for a poor man to be socially conservative and anti woke. Hence Harris won lots of executives from the former and Trump lots of the latter
I would seriously recommend you and and chill for a bit offline. You used to be a fairly mainstream Tory, but this culture war stuff from you is getting increasingly strange.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
If Christianity and its Churches were more like you and Jesus, and less like HYUFD and Paul, I'd respect it a lot more.
Christians are still humans, they are just Christian ones. In most cases, following the example of Christ leads to living a life with a greater element of giving and social responsibility, but it doesn't transform you into an angel.
A significant problem is that far too many Christians do not try to follow the example of Christ, and instead pick the bits out of his life and the bible that allow them to live their lives as they want. Which Christ may not have approved of.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
If you have the statistics to support this view, I am interested to read them. Everything that I have read indicates that on average, Christians are far likelier to engage in charitable and other positive social activity than their non-Christian counterparts.
I also think that there's a huge trend in popular media to demonise Christianity, in ways both clearly stated (evil Christian characters) and indicated (evil characters in fantasy or pre-Christian settings but who demonstrate clear Christian traits), and this does colour views, especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda.
No statistics. But I would point you to our very own HYUFD as an example of someone who wants more wrong done in the world. As this thread shows.
"especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda."
Ahem. *you* said that????
Propaganda can come in the form of misinformation, but it can also come in the form of negative portrayals of a target group in popular drama - something discovered by the Germans when they created Jud Suss, a drama that featured an evil Jew, which was enormously more successful than their previous attempts at propaganda film documentaries portraying Jews as rats, which had been counterproductive. Similar portrayals of Christians are everywhere in popular culture.
I can't think of any such portrayals of Christians in popular culture, which is unsurprising given that Christians are a major consumer of pop culture and people don't like pissing off their customers.
What I do see is such Christians in real life, such as HYUFD of this parish.
Most pop-culture references to Christianity are gently jovial than outright nasty portrayals. And atheists tend to have equally jovial references too.
EG this exchange between the very atheist Sheldon Cooper and his very religious mother after he accidentally sees his mother engaged in coitus outside of wedlock.
Sheldon Cooper : I think what bothers me the most is the hypocrisy. Doesn't this contradict all the religious rules you've been expounding your whole life?
Mary Cooper : You're right, it does. And it is something I have been struggling with these days.
Sheldon Cooper : Then why are you doing it?
Mary Cooper : Because I'm not perfect, Shelly, and that man's booty is.
Sheldon Cooper : Well, this is confusing for me. But I don't want to stand in the way of your happiness so I'll condemn you internally while maintaining an outward appearance of acceptance.
Mary Cooper : That is very Christian of you.
I'm not really surprised, because you are the sort of mark who would simply assimilate such material without giving it any thought, except to grow a bit more strident in your anti-Christian diatribes.
A random example of the explicit form would be the dramatisations of The Handmaid's Tale - but there are too many to even mention. Any explicitly Christian character in popular media is destined to turn out to be a hypocrite philanderer at best and an axe murderer at worst.
A random example of the implicit form would be from the film Clash of the Titans, where a proto-Christian sect led by a form of prophet attempts to sacrifice Princess Andromeda to the Kracken. Or in 300, where the Persian King Xerxes (I could have that name wrong) asks the disabled character to 'kneel' before him as part of an extended allegory on Christianity vs. pagan religions. Or in series one of Game of Thrones, there's a portrayal of a sect that follows 'a good shepherd', curing the body of a tribal King but seeming to steal his soul. They all end up being burned to death afaicr. You can have a good giggle at these examples, but should you adopt a more thoughtful approach and rewatch the clips, you'll see I'm right.
Oh what a pathetic snowflake you are.
None of those are remotely comparable to Germans portraying Jews as rats.
You can have a giggle at anyone and everyone, pick any category ever, including atheists, and there will be examples of people having a giggle at them, as there absolutely should be.
It is unhealthy not to have a sense of humour or self-deprecation.
Comments
What you call being "woke" I call treating people with decency and respect irrespective of their gender, sexuality, or colour of their skin.
Jesus was clear that the route to heaven was not via the rules and traditions of the Pharisees but rather via compassion and charity to the least in society.
On personal morality his most pertinent point when stopping a stoning of an adulteress was "let him who is without sin cast the first stone".
I think it is incorrect and blasphemous to claim Jesus for any political party or view. His Kingdom is not of this world.
Looking forward to the Anfield game on Sunday.
1. No fractious Tory back bench MPs to keep their feet to the fire on tax.
2. An existing instinct toward (and worse, actual belief in) authoritarian big state solutions to things, invariably worsening the situation.
3. A pathological desperation to be 'in' with the powerful after so long in opposition, especially but not exclusively an eagerness to curry favour with 'our European partners', but also corporations, the World Economic Forum, America, COP and all the other hobnobbing forums, and China.
4. Special hatred of the elderly, wealth creators, farmers, and anyone who isn't dependent on state largesse to make a living.
5. Starmer isn't a politician, he's a civil servant ringer.
The original idea of this was to encourage employers to have part time jobs that could ease people on benefits back into work. The cliff edge effect was noticed at the time, but dismissed.
Which gives his son citizenship, I believe?
👍
Though who knows who we get next. Moyes or Potter would be the fans choice, though if we need a stopgap I would love a return of Big Nige. I think he could steady the ship and keep us up but not a good longer term option. He's still on good terms with our owners.
And given employees have a right to "flexible working" any employer who insists on full time work over part time without a bloody good reason is breaking the law.
So no the change fixes nothing at all. Any serious reform needs to tackle it from the employees perspective to make full time work worthwhile.
It left people still on about an 80% tax rate. It is better than what came before (which could be 100%) but not by much.
I don’t think this was intended by the way.
I expect that in a year or two there will be fulminations about employers *not* offering 16 hour jobs as much.
I'm really at the stage where I do wonder if organised religion has caused far more harm to the world than it has caused good.
So the 16 hours work will continue until it is dealt with on the employees side which is where the issue lies.
I think we have enough good players (though Fatawu out for the season is a major loss) to stay up, but need a much better team performance. We have no cohesion, formation or game plan under Cooper.
Sadly HYUFD is speaking for many Churches though.
Today, I learnt that Jesus was a carpenter, and not a welfare claimant.
I'm astonished.
I think concentrating on culture war would be a big mistake for Badenoch. To most voters under 60 and many over it is anathema, but even more importantly it is a distraction. The next Election will be won or lost on the Economy, Tax, immigration, and public services, not on confected Culture War.
So he was inline to inherit a family business, and privately educated.
Wonder what rate of IHT applied?
I did some analysis of the number of employments directly affected (earnings between 9100 and 5000 per annum) by the change in the secondary threshold; it was surprisingly few.
I also think that there's a huge trend in popular media to demonise Christianity, in ways both clearly stated (evil Christian characters) and indicated (evil characters in fantasy or pre-Christian settings but who demonstrate clear Christian traits), and this does colour views, especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda.
"especially when you don't really have your guard up against what is basically propaganda."
Ahem. *you* said that????
With an 8 point gap at the top of the table it seems remarkably good value that you can get almost evens on Liverpool to win the title.
Is this just Normalcy Bias expecting City to come back and win the title? Even though its only November 8 points seems an incredible advantage.
I get how listening to Christ must be very frustrating for a Christian like you.
Just look how he reacted to honest hard working bankers/money lenders.
As somebody who has worked for a financial institution for nearly fourteen years I can spot a bank hating Commie a mile off.
Jesus was never married, used to hang around with twelve guys, defended prostitues, sounds woke to me.
Trump and Farage voters dislike WEF bankers and big lenders almost as much as woke left liberals now
What I do see is such Christians in real life, such as HYUFD of this parish.
Most pop-culture references to Christianity are gently jovial than outright nasty portrayals. And atheists tend to have equally jovial references too.
EG this exchange between the very atheist Sheldon Cooper and his very religious mother after he accidentally sees his mother engaged in coitus outside of wedlock.
Sheldon Cooper : I think what bothers me the most is the hypocrisy. Doesn't this contradict all the religious rules you've been expounding your whole life?
Mary Cooper : You're right, it does. And it is something I have been struggling with these days.
Sheldon Cooper : Then why are you doing it?
Mary Cooper : Because I'm not perfect, Shelly, and that man's booty is.
Sheldon Cooper : Well, this is confusing for me. But I don't want to stand in the way of your happiness so I'll condemn you internally while maintaining an outward appearance of acceptance.
Mary Cooper : That is very Christian of you.
Probably his dad had invested the build-to-let profits in the money changers outside the temple. Who were being undercut.
So he sent his son and the boys to sort the competition out.
It all makes sense - the huge flash parties with food and wine for everyone. The lifestyle with no apparent support.
The wheels have come off at Man City and it's hard to see them closing that gap. Chelsea will be a contender next season but are not yet the finished article.
It's a good tip.
The precise question was " To what extent would you support or oppose making it legal for someone to seek “assisted dying” in the UK, and how strong is your view?"
The answers were:
Strongly support 40%
Somewhat support 38%
Somewhat oppose 8%
Strongly oppose 7%
Don’t know / Prefer not to say 8%
NET: Support 78%
NET: Oppose 15%
But I think that God's got a sick sense of humour
And when I die I expect to find him laughing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3EAzf5fDpY
When i was in Southern Italy a few years ago at the height of their economic crisis, the only people left locally with any interest to feed the hungry were the Catholic Church.
She & Austerity Reeves couldn't wait to persecute the most vulnerable, they're both hateful Thatcherites. Always have been.
Tory bas***ds
Total support 78%
Total oppose 15%
Net support: +63%
Someone who buys their house when they are young and sells it when they are old has not created the increase in their wealth.
I don't think that I would want it myself or for my loved ones, but the law leaves it up to the individual. Like abortion, same sex marriage or gender reassignment we should permit it for those that do want it.
It may not be until July 2029, but there will certainly be one.
And the CofE mortgage schemes were utterly exploitative of their clergy. Shame on them.
Arsenal hardly leave London till the end of January, I suggest keep an eye on them to see if they get a head of steam.
It is no surprise those who want to carry out sexual abuse are attracted to areas of establishment status or wealth and paedophiles are attracted to jobs which give them access to children.
However safeguarding checks including in the Church are massively better than they were in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and 1990s when most of these incidents occurred and we now have the DBS too
It is an emotive phrase.
In the UK, any change in the scope of assisted dying would have to be agreed by a majority in parliament. That is democracy. I'm assuming you are in favour of that.
EDIT: I hope you noticed that 78% supported assisted dying and only 15% opposed.
You didn't comment on that.
It has been expanding further too to include those with mental illnesses, hence the Canadian Conservatives if they win next year have promised to start cutting it back
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64004329
I agree that people who want to abuse other people (and it is not just sexual abuse) will try to get into positions of power. The problem is that time and time again, church after church just covers it up. Often, moving priests onto other parishes so they can just resume their behaviour.
Or the behaviour was even sanctioned by the church.
A random example of the explicit form would be the dramatisations of The Handmaid's Tale - but there are too many to even mention. Any explicitly Christian character in popular media is destined to turn out to be a hypocrite philanderer at best and an axe murderer at worst.
A random example of the implicit form would be from the film Clash of the Titans, where a proto-Christian sect led by a form of prophet attempts to sacrifice Princess Andromeda to the Kracken. Or in 300, where the Persian King Xerxes (I could have that name wrong) asks the disabled character to 'kneel' before him as part of an extended allegory on Christianity vs. pagan religions. Or in series one of Game of Thrones, there's a portrayal of a sect that follows 'a good shepherd', curing the body of a tribal King but seeming to steal his soul. They all end up being burned to death afaicr. You can have a good giggle at these examples, but should you adopt a more thoughtful approach and rewatch the clips, you'll see I'm right.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-debauchery-turns-to-tragedy-in-places-like-vang-vieng/
Now priests have to go through multiple safeguarding and DBS checks to get Parish posts
It took an Act of Parliament, just like it would in the UK. No slope, just Parliamentary democracy.
"It also highlighted how evidence of crimes had been gathered in the 1980s but was suppressed, including details of children being physically and sexually abused.
...
"The scale and severity of the practice was horrific," noted the so-called Ruston report, named after the Rev Mark Ruston, who compiled it in 1982." (1)
You are excusing the inexcusable. The churches are not interested in morality or people; they are interested in power and money. Individuals within may be good, moral people; but the entire stinking edifices they work within are rotten.
I am agnostic. I like the idea of God, and I often pray. I try to live my life according to a morality that is informed by Christianity. But the reason I don't join a church?
It's because of people like you.
(1): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czr74xg7805o
None of those are remotely comparable to Germans portraying Jews as rats.
You can have a giggle at anyone and everyone, pick any category ever, including atheists, and there will be examples of people having a giggle at them, as there absolutely should be.
It is unhealthy not to have a sense of humour or self-deprecation.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.