Not again! I've covered this point so many times and I really am getting sick of constantly having to repeat myself on here.
Scotch eggs can be quite filling.
It's Masterchef tonight. Chef's challenge? Make a Scotch Egg into a meal.
Worcester sauce. I personally wouldn't bulk it up any more than that. Doesn't need it.
M & S do a pack of 2 scotch eggs in their gastro pub starter range. V tasty with a bit of salad but quite tricky on the timings to make sure they're piping hot but the yolk is still runny.
Whoever does his PR is a sharp operator....just happens to be looking at Baby Yoda toys. That thing that everybody talks about. Where as if Boris was doing such a PR stunt, it would be history books section.
True, but he probably just is a bit of a geek as well. Here here is with a man who created a job opportunity for him by displaying some integrity by standing up to Cummings. https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1207936319873261570
There's nothing wrong with being a bit of a geek.
I can hardly disagree without being the most terrible hypocrite. I'm reading a fantasy novel at this very moment for instance.
So fasten your seatbelts for a very bumpy ride in January. The UK has barely started preparations for the jolt, and our EU friends won't be falling over themselves to be helpful, especially if Boris plays further silly buggers with the Internal Market Bill and next week's Finance Bill.
I think that was the reason he wanted to put into law that there would be no extension. He was worried that if he didn't then the EU would drag things out to force an extension and then repeat.
Please note I'm not saying it was the right course, but I think that is the reason behind it.
If that's what he meant to do than the only rational approach would have been to set a proper deadline for the negotiations to be complete - I'd say at least 6 months before the end of the extension - and stick to it (as indeed he claimed he was going to do in July). If there was no agreement by that date, then go into proper, serious preparation for WTO terms, with enough time to actually do it, get the infrastructure built, establish the regulations, print the forms and guidance, and above all test the computer systems in live trials with businesses (the systems should have been already written well before that stage).
Of course the 11 month transition period was miles too short for that, as everyone told him at the time, and that was even before the pandemic kiboshed things, but that was entirely his choice.
Instead we seem to be heading for the worst of all possible worlds: crashing out in utter chaos, with little serious preparation done, with businesses and the civil service completely unprepared, with acrimonious blame-throwing poisoning relations with our massive trade partner, and all this in the midst of the biggest peacetime human and economic crisis in living memory. And he's left it so absurdly late that even the most optimistic scenario of a last-minute rabbit being pulled out of the hat would still be really bad.
it is absolutely gobsmacking; nothing so incompetent has ever been seen in peacetime in the UK.
Whoever does his PR is a sharp operator....just happens to be looking at Baby Yoda toys. That thing that everybody talks about. Where as if Boris was doing such a PR stunt, it would be history books section.
True, but he probably just is a bit of a geek as well. Here here is with a man who created a job opportunity for him by displaying some integrity by standing up to Cummings. https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1207936319873261570
There's nothing wrong with being a bit of a geek.
I can hardly disagree without being the most terrible hypocrite. I'm reading a fantasy novel at this very moment for instance.
Rather original description of politicalbetting.com
Not again! I've covered this point so many times and I really am getting sick of constantly having to repeat myself on here.
Scotch eggs can be quite filling.
It's Masterchef tonight. Chef's challenge? Make a Scotch Egg into a meal.
Worcester sauce. I personally wouldn't bulk it up any more than that. Doesn't need it.
M & S do a pack of 2 scotch eggs in their gastro pub starter range. V tasty with a bit of salad but quite tricky on the timings to make sure they're piping hot but the yolk is still runny.
That sounds really top drawer. Especially the yolk being still runny.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
To expand the debate about Die Hard and if it is a Christmas film; is Twelfth Night a Christmas Play?
Given it’s possibly the only work of literature less comprehensible than Ulysses, how would anyone find out?
Surely it's an Epiphany play.
Are we talking of ulysees by joyce? Ulysees by Tennyson or Ulysees 31 the cartoon?
I should point out, by the way, that the apparent coincidence of Epiphany and Orthodox Xmas is a temporary consequence of the divergence between the Julian and Gregorian calendars. In 2101 Epiphany will still be on 6th January but in Greece and Russia they will be celebrating Xmas on 7th January (new style).
So fasten your seatbelts for a very bumpy ride in January. The UK has barely started preparations for the jolt, and our EU friends won't be falling over themselves to be helpful, especially if Boris plays further silly buggers with the Internal Market Bill and next week's Finance Bill.
That's not dithering, it's standing firm and making a decision. To do nothing is to make a decision to do nothing.
The EU may think they are masters of the long game but if the EU don't blink first and he doesn't either then he will be doing exactly what I want him to do.
He will be doing what is quintessentially British: Keep calm and carry on.
Have you been asleep this past year? Almost nothing this government has announced has been followed by the slightest bit of calmness let alone any carrying on.
I think the wroing sort of carrying on might suit the expression better.
Whoever does his PR is a sharp operator....just happens to be looking at Baby Yoda toys. That thing that everybody talks about. Where as if Boris was doing such a PR stunt, it would be history books section.
True, but he probably just is a bit of a geek as well. Here here is with a man who created a job opportunity for him by displaying some integrity by standing up to Cummings. https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1207936319873261570
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Nope, Ostern derived from auferstehung ie resurrection represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
Whoever does his PR is a sharp operator....just happens to be looking at Baby Yoda toys. That thing that everybody talks about. Where as if Boris was doing such a PR stunt, it would be history books section.
True, but he probably just is a bit of a geek as well. Here here is with a man who created a job opportunity for him by displaying some integrity by standing up to Cummings. https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1207936319873261570
The trouble with Dawkins is he preaches with unshakeable certainty. Profits from his Faith. Glories in attracting followers or converts. And ridicules, dismisses, questions the motives of, and belittles those who disagree. He is the mirror of the very worst of those he opposes.
While we count down the days to a vaccine, in the United States, they just keep counting the elections of November 2020:
According to CBS News, Biden has further widened his lead over Trump - 80,934,176 to 74,078,012 so that's a 6,856,164 lead for Biden - in percentage terms it's 51.3 to 46.9.
The big push has come from New York which is now 92% counted - Biden has stretched his lead to 22 points in the state or 1.8 million votes. Ohio has now finished so most of what's left are fragments from Washington DC, Maryland and Iowa.
Two House results remain - New York 22 and Iowa 2.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
Only for christians and yours is mainly a borrowed and copied faith. Most of the old testament comes from gilgamesh, most of jesus's teachings are copies of buddhist philosophy. Almost all of your festivals were set by committee to mimic the festivals of those people you were trying to bring under the sway of rome.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
Its name is still Christmas, the fact some may refer to the period as Yule does not change the fact Christmas remains the main name for the period
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
Its name is still Christmas, the fact some may refer to the period as Yule does not change the fact Christmas remains the main name for the period
Believe what you want, no believes they can sway a cultist in their beliefs.
Whoever does his PR is a sharp operator....just happens to be looking at Baby Yoda toys. That thing that everybody talks about. Where as if Boris was doing such a PR stunt, it would be history books section.
True, but he probably just is a bit of a geek as well. Here here is with a man who created a job opportunity for him by displaying some integrity by standing up to Cummings. https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1207936319873261570
Rise of Skywalker = Worst Star Wars film EVER!
I liked it
It was a bit safe and pandering after all the butthurt fanboys whinged about The Last Jedi and made them too petrified to do anything too interesting, but it was decent enough.
Technically I believe that the 95% efficacy claimed is for 7 days post 2nd shot - but this clearly isn't going to be binary - it's not like your body will be utterly susceptible 6days post the second shot but overnight the magic happens. From other vaccines which have a 2nd 'booster' shot type approach the general rule of thumb seems to be 1st shot gets you to something like 60% efficacy, 2nd shot takes you over 90% - and again, in both cases that's likely to be growing curve from injection to day X (and no idea what shape the curve is)
My concern is people will think one shot makes them immune and that needs to be communicated especially to the first groups of people who have lived in fear of the virus since last spring. For them, and I count myself among that group, vaccination means liberation except it doesn't immediately.
I'm sure they will exhaustively make that clear, but some just won't hear it.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
Only for christians and yours is mainly a borrowed and copied faith. Most of the old testament comes from gilgamesh, most of jesus's teachings are copies of buddhist philosophy. Almost all of your festivals were set by committee to mimic the festivals of those people you were trying to bring under the sway of rome.
Rubbish, especially as Buddhism came from another part of the world
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
The trouble with Dawkins is he preaches with unshakeable certainty. Profits from his Faith. Glories in attracting followers or converts. And ridicules, dismisses and belittles those who disagree. He is the mirror of the very worst of those he opposes.
He comes across as a nasty eight year old spoiling Christmas for the five year olds by yelling at them that Santa doesn't exist. He is of course right that Darwin destroyed any last vestige of credibility that religion ever had, but that leaves at least three world-class and basically evolutionary questions about religion, viz: why did it start, why does it persist post-Darwin, and why, given that the founders of these things leave strict instructions about being really nice to each other, does it automatically default to burnings at stakes and flying planes into buildings. He doesn't address any of these.
Isn't it relentlessly trending towards "Yes"? At least it should be....
Edit: just noticed the demographics are on our side.
I have a suspicion most people at the time would not have referred to it as a Christmas movie, but people joked about it as such for years and years, and now people have decided it is one because that's what you're supposed to say. In fairness, arbitrarily deciding X is a Christmassy thing is in keeping with the holiday in general.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
It is a historical fact that centuries ago the Catholic Church would have burnt heretics at the stake, indeed as a Scottish nationalist arguing rebellion against the Crown you would also have been executed as a traitor centuries ago, though times change
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
It is a historical fact that centuries ago the Catholic Church would have burnt heretics at the stake, indeed as a Scottish nationalist arguing rebellion against the Crown you would also have been executed as a traitor centuries ago, though times change
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Easter was the feast of Eostre for many pagans
No it wasn’t. ‘Easter’ is in fact from ‘East,’ referring to where Christians in Europe turned to pray.
The controversy reminds me somewhat of the equally fake claimed similarities between the Mithraic cult and Christianity, which were mostly invented by an American lunatic called Dorothy Murdock (although I did come across them many years earlier in the work of a Mary Stewart as well).
(Edit - I should note O’Neill, in that link, does argue that Easter is named from Eostre because it fell in the month of Eostre. But that’s not the general view among scholars.)
Another thought. In production, the first two scenes are sometimes swapped round, on the grounds, that starting with Viola surviving a shipwreck clarifies the exposition. Both scenes open with questions, and ‘What country ...?’ Provides some promising material in that there is a lot that could be said about Illyria.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
Only for christians and yours is mainly a borrowed and copied faith. Most of the old testament comes from gilgamesh, most of jesus's teachings are copies of buddhist philosophy. Almost all of your festivals were set by committee to mimic the festivals of those people you were trying to bring under the sway of rome.
Rubbish, especially as Buddhism came from another part of the world
Ah of course where buddhism is born is so far from israel and there couldnt possibly have been buddhists travelling through the middle east. The romans were in jerusalem. They knew india etc.
Your argument that christmas is a celebration of the birth of christ falls flat because pretty much every biblical scholar doesnt think its anywhere near his birthday
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
It is a historical fact that centuries ago the Catholic Church would have burnt heretics at the stake, indeed as a Scottish nationalist arguing rebellion against the Crown you would also have been executed as a traitor centuries ago, though times change
Kindly change the original email. I can accept the meaning of your wording was unintentional, but even so kindly change it - and stop repeating your jokes.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
It is a historical fact that centuries ago the Catholic Church would have burnt heretics at the stake, indeed as a Scottish nationalist arguing rebellion against the Crown you would also have been executed as a traitor centuries ago, though times change
Not so much times changing as religion losing its power. We can see what horrors powerful religion delivers in the Middle East today; and who here believes that if the religious right in the US ever got their hands on real power, the result would in the slightest resemble paradise on earth?
It is the disbelieving majority that prevents religious bigotry from making all of our lives abjectly miserable.
Another thought. In production, the first two scenes are sometimes swapped round, on the grounds, that starting with Viola surviving a shipwreck clarifies the exposition. Both scenes open with questions, and ‘What country ...?’ Provides some promising material in that there is a lot that could be said about Illyria.
No no no. The scene opens with Orsino and his retinue sitting around looking bored while the musicians play listlessly. It is a doleful overture. After a while they let the music drop and after a while longer Orsino suddenly wakes up, notices, and starts speaking.
Whoever does his PR is a sharp operator....just happens to be looking at Baby Yoda toys. That thing that everybody talks about. Where as if Boris was doing such a PR stunt, it would be history books section.
True, but he probably just is a bit of a geek as well. Here here is with a man who created a job opportunity for him by displaying some integrity by standing up to Cummings. https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1207936319873261570
Rise of Skywalker = Worst Star Wars film EVER!
I liked it
It was a bit safe and pandering after all the butthurt fanboys whinged about The Last Jedi and made them too petrified to do anything too interesting, but it was decent enough. .
It is only a bit of fun. Unlike the producers of the movie, I will not be getting any ulcers over it. It was nice to see a female lead through and even nicer to hear the dinosaurs screaming in outrage about the lead actress
So fasten your seatbelts for a very bumpy ride in January. The UK has barely started preparations for the jolt, and our EU friends won't be falling over themselves to be helpful, especially if Boris plays further silly buggers with the Internal Market Bill and next week's Finance Bill.
I think that was the reason he wanted to put into law that there would be no extension. He was worried that if he didn't then the EU would drag things out to force an extension and then repeat.
Please note I'm not saying it was the right course, but I think that is the reason behind it.
If that's what he meant to do than the only rational approach would have been to set a proper deadline for the negotiations to be complete - I'd say at least 6 months before the end of the extension - and stick to it (as indeed he claimed he was going to do in July). If there was no agreement by that date, then go into proper, serious preparation for WTO terms, with enough time to actually do it, get the infrastructure built, establish the regulations, print the forms and guidance, and above all test the computer systems in live trials with businesses (the systems should have been already written well before that stage).
Of course the 11 month transition period was miles too short for that, as everyone told him at the time, and that was even before the pandemic kiboshed things, but that was entirely his choice.
Instead we seem to be heading for the worst of all possible worlds: crashing out in utter chaos, with little serious preparation done, with businesses and the civil service completely unprepared, with acrimonious blame-throwing poisoning relations with our massive trade partner, and all this in the midst of the biggest peacetime human and economic crisis in living memory. And he's left it so absurdly late that even the most optimistic scenario of a last-minute rabbit being pulled out of the hat would still be really bad.
it is absolutely gobsmacking; nothing so incompetent has ever been seen in peacetime in the UK.
And, for those who insist this is a poker game, that was The Ultimate Tell. If the UK were serious about No Deal, or a Canada Deal, it needed to have the systems visibly in place by now, and summer was the last moment to begin to do that.
It didn't. Where are the booths, where are the people in the booths? Where is the utterly ubiquitous advertising explaining clearly exactly what to do? We haven't even managed a Operation Fortitude of building fake customs posts staffed by inflatable dummies. That would have been something.
Actually, the Key Tell was when the government allowed themselves to be forced out of a shock, deal-less Brexit last autumn. Hilary Benn did the patriotic thing in forcing an extension on the government, but what the hell would have happened if he hadn't? There's a reason Johnson let the Benn Bill pass.
But now? Johnson has basically two options.
a) Cave on everything that's left, take the deal that the EU broadly offered in 2017 and literally buy some preparation time. It might be OK, but is it really worth the mess the UK has been through?
b) Hope that nearly all the experts are wrong and that Phil is right.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
It is a historical fact that centuries ago the Catholic Church would have burnt heretics at the stake, indeed as a Scottish nationalist arguing rebellion against the Crown you would also have been executed as a traitor centuries ago, though times change
Did any of the catholic martyrs in england get burnt or did they have to make do with being hung, drawn and quartered?
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
Only for christians and yours is mainly a borrowed and copied faith. Most of the old testament comes from gilgamesh, most of jesus's teachings are copies of buddhist philosophy. Almost all of your festivals were set by committee to mimic the festivals of those people you were trying to bring under the sway of rome.
Rubbish, especially as Buddhism came from another part of the world
Ah of course where buddhism is born is so far from israel and there couldnt possibly have been buddhists travelling through the middle east. The romans were in jerusalem. They knew india etc.
Your argument that christmas is a celebration of the birth of christ falls flat because pretty much every biblical scholar doesnt think its anywhere near his birthday
If its so important to celebrate his birth why not do it on his birthday?
Outside the paranoid conspiracy theories of a number of pseudoscholars like Murdoch, Carrier, Price, Fitzgerald and Dawkins, there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity. Indeed, the fundamentals are entirely different even though there are some superficial similarities.
It is disturbing to see otherwise intelligent people uncritically spouting pure rubbish made up mostly by people who are frankly out to make money. I sometimes think the internet has a lot to answer for.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Easter was the feast of Eostre for many pagans
No it wasn’t. ‘Easter’ is in fact from ‘East,’ referring to where Christians in Europe turned to pray.
The controversy reminds me somewhat of the equally fake claimed similarities between the Mithraic cult and Christianity, which were mostly invented by an American lunatic called Dorothy Murdock (although I did come across them many years earlier in the work of a Mary Stewart as well).
(Edit - I should note O’Neill, in that link, does argue that Easter is named from Eostre because it fell in the month of Eostre. But that’s not the general view among scholars.)
There is still a lot more evidence for eostre than jesus being born on the 25th of december and pretty sure other references than bede. Will try and dig some out. Celtic beliefs however were largely an oral tradition like many others of the time and often references are hard to find unless contemporary writers from other cultures explored them
Another thought. In production, the first two scenes are sometimes swapped round, on the grounds, that starting with Viola surviving a shipwreck clarifies the exposition. Both scenes open with questions, and ‘What country ...?’ Provides some promising material in that there is a lot that could be said about Illyria.
The biggest problem with the play is finding two actors who are similar enough to play Viola and Sebastian while still being able to act. I presume that Shakespeare had a pair of identical twins in his company that could take on such roles.
Another thought. In production, the first two scenes are sometimes swapped round, on the grounds, that starting with Viola surviving a shipwreck clarifies the exposition. Both scenes open with questions, and ‘What country ...?’ Provides some promising material in that there is a lot that could be said about Illyria.
No no no. The scene opens with Orsino and his retinue sitting around looking bored while the musicians play listlessly. It is a doleful overture. After a while they let the music drop and after a while longer Orsino suddenly wakes up, notices, and starts speaking.
Just observing what sometimes happens. If I was directing, I’d definitely start with a renaissance consort playing some Dowland to establish the mood.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
It is a historical fact that centuries ago the Catholic Church would have burnt heretics at the stake, indeed as a Scottish nationalist arguing rebellion against the Crown you would also have been executed as a traitor centuries ago, though times change
Not so much times changing as religion losing its power. We can see what horrors powerful religion delivers in the Middle East today; and who here believes that if the religious right in the US ever got their hands on real power, the result would in the slightest resemble paradise on earth?
It is the disbelieving majority that prevents religious bigotry from making all of our lives abjectly miserable.
84% of the global population remains religious however, 31% Christian, 23% Muslim, 15% Hindu, 7% Muslim and 7% have folk or other religions
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
It is a historical fact that centuries ago the Catholic Church would have burnt heretics at the stake, indeed as a Scottish nationalist arguing rebellion against the Crown you would also have been executed as a traitor centuries ago, though times change
Kindly change the original email. I can accept the meaning of your wording was unintentional, but even so kindly change it - and stop repeating your jokes.
I was pointing out a historical fact, so I will not change it
The trouble with Dawkins is he preaches with unshakeable certainty. Profits from his Faith. Glories in attracting followers or converts. And ridicules, dismisses and belittles those who disagree. He is the mirror of the very worst of those he opposes.
He comes across as a nasty eight year old spoiling Christmas for the five year olds by yelling at them that Santa doesn't exist. He is of course right that Darwin destroyed any last vestige of credibility that religion ever had, but that leaves at least three world-class and basically evolutionary questions about religion, viz: why did it start, why does it persist post-Darwin, and why, given that the founders of these things leave strict instructions about being really nice to each other, does it automatically default to burnings at stakes and flying planes into buildings. He doesn't address any of these.
He also declares Buddhism not to be a religion. As it doesn't fit into his view of what a religion "ought" to be. Despite the vast majority of Buddhists being entirely content with it being a religion.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
Only for christians and yours is mainly a borrowed and copied faith. Most of the old testament comes from gilgamesh, most of jesus's teachings are copies of buddhist philosophy. Almost all of your festivals were set by committee to mimic the festivals of those people you were trying to bring under the sway of rome.
Rubbish, especially as Buddhism came from another part of the world
Ah of course where buddhism is born is so far from israel and there couldnt possibly have been buddhists travelling through the middle east. The romans were in jerusalem. They knew india etc.
Your argument that christmas is a celebration of the birth of christ falls flat because pretty much every biblical scholar doesnt think its anywhere near his birthday
If its so important to celebrate his birth why not do it on his birthday?
Outside the paranoid conspiracy theories of a number of pseudoscholars like Murdoch, Carrier, Price, Fitzgerald and Dawkins, there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity. Indeed, the fundamentals are entirely different even though there are some superficial similarities.
It is disturbing to see otherwise intelligent people uncritically spouting pure rubbish made up mostly by people who are frankly out to make money. I sometimes think the internet has a lot to answer for.
I didn't say Jesus was a buddhist, I merely said his teaching was reminiscent of it and it is not a stretch at all to think that buddhist philosophy had reached the middle east
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Easter was the feast of Eostre for many pagans
No it wasn’t. ‘Easter’ is in fact from ‘East,’ referring to where Christians in Europe turned to pray.
The controversy reminds me somewhat of the equally fake claimed similarities between the Mithraic cult and Christianity, which were mostly invented by an American lunatic called Dorothy Murdock (although I did come across them many years earlier in the work of a Mary Stewart as well).
(Edit - I should note O’Neill, in that link, does argue that Easter is named from Eostre because it fell in the month of Eostre. But that’s not the general view among scholars.)
There is still a lot more evidence for eostre than jesus being born on the 25th of december and pretty sure other references than bede. Will try and dig some out. Celtic beliefs however were largely an oral tradition like many others of the time and often references are hard to find unless contemporary writers from other cultures explored them
You are moving the goalposts somewhat. I am not disputing Eostre’s existence. I am pointing out that the idea you were promoting that Easter was based on a pagan festival dedicated to her was both demonstrably false and of very recent origin.
Another thought. In production, the first two scenes are sometimes swapped round, on the grounds, that starting with Viola surviving a shipwreck clarifies the exposition. Both scenes open with questions, and ‘What country ...?’ Provides some promising material in that there is a lot that could be said about Illyria.
The biggest problem with the play is finding two actors who are similar enough to play Viola and Sebastian while still being able to act. I presume that Shakespeare had a pair of identical twins in his company that could take on such roles.
Helps a bit when they’re both male, as they would have been in Shakespeare’s day. And then you can do a lot with dress and make up.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
It is a historical fact that centuries ago the Catholic Church would have burnt heretics at the stake, indeed as a Scottish nationalist arguing rebellion against the Crown you would also have been executed as a traitor centuries ago, though times change
Did any of the catholic martyrs in england get burnt or did they have to make do with being hung, drawn and quartered?
Elizabeth took similar measures against Catholics too once her father had broken with Rome that is true
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
It is a historical fact that centuries ago the Catholic Church would have burnt heretics at the stake, indeed as a Scottish nationalist arguing rebellion against the Crown you would also have been executed as a traitor centuries ago, though times change
Kindly change the original email. I can accept the meaning of your wording was unintentional, but even so kindly change it - and stop repeating your jokes.
I've just realised what the tenor would be of HYUFD's mailshots encouraging Scots to love the Union.
Another thought. In production, the first two scenes are sometimes swapped round, on the grounds, that starting with Viola surviving a shipwreck clarifies the exposition. Both scenes open with questions, and ‘What country ...?’ Provides some promising material in that there is a lot that could be said about Illyria.
The biggest problem with the play is finding two actors who are similar enough to play Viola and Sebastian while still being able to act. I presume that Shakespeare had a pair of identical twins in his company that could take on such roles.
Helps a bit when they’re both male, as they would have been in Shakespeare’s day. And then you can do a lot with dress and make up.
Yes. I can't think of any current actors where you could get a male/female pair that could convince the audience they were the same person.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
Only for christians and yours is mainly a borrowed and copied faith. Most of the old testament comes from gilgamesh, most of jesus's teachings are copies of buddhist philosophy. Almost all of your festivals were set by committee to mimic the festivals of those people you were trying to bring under the sway of rome.
Rubbish, especially as Buddhism came from another part of the world
Ah of course where buddhism is born is so far from israel and there couldnt possibly have been buddhists travelling through the middle east. The romans were in jerusalem. They knew india etc.
Your argument that christmas is a celebration of the birth of christ falls flat because pretty much every biblical scholar doesnt think its anywhere near his birthday
If its so important to celebrate his birth why not do it on his birthday?
Outside the paranoid conspiracy theories of a number of pseudoscholars like Murdoch, Carrier, Price, Fitzgerald and Dawkins, there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity. Indeed, the fundamentals are entirely different even though there are some superficial similarities.
It is disturbing to see otherwise intelligent people uncritically spouting pure rubbish made up mostly by people who are frankly out to make money. I sometimes think the internet has a lot to answer for.
I didn't say Jesus was a buddhist, I merely said his teaching was reminiscent of it and it is not a stretch at all to think that buddhist philosophy had reached the middle east
Leaving aside what constitutes Buddhist ‘philosophy,’ and the fact that Jesus’ teachings are not in fact reminiscent of them as detailed study of both demonstrates, or the fact it is not enough to say they ‘may’ have reached the Middle East for making such a dramatic claim, you are somewhat underestimating both the distances involved and the practical difficulties.
It should be noted in addition to the rather complicated chronology of Buddhism, which may not be much older than Christianity, there is a reason why Buddhism expanded East rather than West. It’s called the Persian Empire, who provided the main bulk of merchants moving from east to west and whose religion was Zoroastrianism.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
It is a Christian corruption of the true Germanic pagan Festivcal of the Goddess Eostre. And in ytour logic the name determines everythjing, so go on, admit it is a pagan festival stolen by the chaps with shaved heads.
Nope, it has a Christian name too via Ostern from auferstehung.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
The Germanic tribes would be very surprised at that interpretation of their theology.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
It is a historical fact that centuries ago the Catholic Church would have burnt heretics at the stake, indeed as a Scottish nationalist arguing rebellion against the Crown you would also have been executed as a traitor centuries ago, though times change
Kindly change the original email. I can accept the meaning of your wording was unintentional, but even so kindly change it - and stop repeating your jokes.
I've just realised what the tenor would be of HYUFD's mailshots encouraging Scots to love the Union.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Easter was the feast of Eostre for many pagans
No it wasn’t. ‘Easter’ is in fact from ‘East,’ referring to where Christians in Europe turned to pray.
The controversy reminds me somewhat of the equally fake claimed similarities between the Mithraic cult and Christianity, which were mostly invented by an American lunatic called Dorothy Murdock (although I did come across them many years earlier in the work of a Mary Stewart as well).
(Edit - I should note O’Neill, in that link, does argue that Easter is named from Eostre because it fell in the month of Eostre. But that’s not the general view among scholars.)
There is still a lot more evidence for eostre than jesus being born on the 25th of december and pretty sure other references than bede. Will try and dig some out. Celtic beliefs however were largely an oral tradition like many others of the time and often references are hard to find unless contemporary writers from other cultures explored them
You are moving the goalposts somewhat. I am not disputing Eostre’s existence. I am pointing out that the idea you were promoting that Easter was based on a pagan festival dedicated to her was both demonstrably false and of very recent origin.
Then you misunderstood what I was getting at I wasn't saying that christian festivals were based upon pagan festivals. What I was saying that when christians came in they usurped the times of pagan festivals and inserted their own instead. After all can't take the jollies away and we don't want them ending up celebrating ours and their own so we replace yule with christmas, samhain with All souls, eostre with easter.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Easter was the feast of Eostre for many pagans
No it wasn’t. ‘Easter’ is in fact from ‘East,’ referring to where Christians in Europe turned to pray.
The controversy reminds me somewhat of the equally fake claimed similarities between the Mithraic cult and Christianity, which were mostly invented by an American lunatic called Dorothy Murdock (although I did come across them many years earlier in the work of a Mary Stewart as well).
(Edit - I should note O’Neill, in that link, does argue that Easter is named from Eostre because it fell in the month of Eostre. But that’s not the general view among scholars.)
There is still a lot more evidence for eostre than jesus being born on the 25th of december and pretty sure other references than bede. Will try and dig some out. Celtic beliefs however were largely an oral tradition like many others of the time and often references are hard to find unless contemporary writers from other cultures explored them
You are moving the goalposts somewhat. I am not disputing Eostre’s existence. I am pointing out that the idea you were promoting that Easter was based on a pagan festival dedicated to her was both demonstrably false and of very recent origin.
Then you misunderstood what I was getting at I wasn't saying that christian festivals were based upon pagan festivals. What I was saying that when christians came in they usurped the times of pagan festivals and inserted their own instead. After all can't take the jollies away and we don't want them ending up celebrating ours and their own so we replace yule with christmas, samhain with All souls, eostre with easter.
And what I am pointing out to you is that that is wrong. Easter is not at the time of a pagan festival. Falling in a month named after a goddess, if that is what happened, is different, and the timing of Easter dates from long before the English name of it!
To expand the debate about Die Hard and if it is a Christmas film; is Twelfth Night a Christmas Play?
Given it’s possibly the only work of literature less comprehensible than Ulysses, how would anyone find out?
Why on earth is 'Twelfth Night' difficult to comprehend ?
It is not dialectical materialism. It is not the story of a Jungian journey to the self. It is not a Nietzschean parable. It is not quantum gravity or M theory.
It is a straightforward comedy of mistaken identity, with all the lovers trooping off to bed in the end. That is it. What is there to understand?
10 reasons why Die Hard is the ultimate Christmas movie
They left out: the heroine Holly lives in Santa Monica. Open your eyes, sheeple.
Santa Monica to Century City in rush hour traffic. Every day.
I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
Just wait for the Purple Line extension.
(2034 the last time I looked).
The Purple line (Century City) and the Blue Line (Santa Monica) only meet at the 7th Street Metro Center in Downtown, so that's going be a good 60-80 minutes on public transport. Mind you. That might be better than spending 60-80 minutes on Santa Monica Blvd.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
Only for christians and yours is mainly a borrowed and copied faith. Most of the old testament comes from gilgamesh, most of jesus's teachings are copies of buddhist philosophy. Almost all of your festivals were set by committee to mimic the festivals of those people you were trying to bring under the sway of rome.
Rubbish, especially as Buddhism came from another part of the world
Ah of course where buddhism is born is so far from israel and there couldnt possibly have been buddhists travelling through the middle east. The romans were in jerusalem. They knew india etc.
Your argument that christmas is a celebration of the birth of christ falls flat because pretty much every biblical scholar doesnt think its anywhere near his birthday
If its so important to celebrate his birth why not do it on his birthday?
Outside the paranoid conspiracy theories of a number of pseudoscholars like Murdoch, Carrier, Price, Fitzgerald and Dawkins, there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity. Indeed, the fundamentals are entirely different even though there are some superficial similarities.
It is disturbing to see otherwise intelligent people uncritically spouting pure rubbish made up mostly by people who are frankly out to make money. I sometimes think the internet has a lot to answer for.
I didn't say Jesus was a buddhist, I merely said his teaching was reminiscent of it and it is not a stretch at all to think that buddhist philosophy had reached the middle east
Leaving aside what constitutes Buddhist ‘philosophy,’ and the fact that Jesus’ teachings are not in fact reminiscent of them as detailed study of both demonstrates, or the fact it is not enough to say they ‘may’ have reached the Middle East for making such a dramatic claim, you are somewhat underestimating both the distances involved and the practical difficulties.
It should be noted in addition to the rather complicated chronology of Buddhism, which may not be much older than Christianity, there is a reason why Buddhism expanded East rather than West. It’s called the Persian Empire, who provided the main bulk of merchants moving from east to west and whose religion was Zoroastrianism.
I think a lot of the teachings of jesus was a radical departure from judaism such as turn the other cheek, forgiveness etc over the eye for an eye approach and yes it certainly wouldn't surprise me if some of that wasn't down to influences of buddhism. I wasn't claiming a wholesale copying but an influencing from a different ideology adapted to overlay the judaism he was raised in. Thought evolves as much as organisms do and we build and refine on what we are exposed too. At the time of jesus most thought was more old testament in nature. Yes no actual evidence that he was influenced by buddhist memes but its not an unreasonable conjecture given the other thought forms around at the time
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Easter was the feast of Eostre for many pagans
No it wasn’t. ‘Easter’ is in fact from ‘East,’ referring to where Christians in Europe turned to pray.
The controversy reminds me somewhat of the equally fake claimed similarities between the Mithraic cult and Christianity, which were mostly invented by an American lunatic called Dorothy Murdock (although I did come across them many years earlier in the work of a Mary Stewart as well).
(Edit - I should note O’Neill, in that link, does argue that Easter is named from Eostre because it fell in the month of Eostre. But that’s not the general view among scholars.)
There is still a lot more evidence for eostre than jesus being born on the 25th of december and pretty sure other references than bede. Will try and dig some out. Celtic beliefs however were largely an oral tradition like many others of the time and often references are hard to find unless contemporary writers from other cultures explored them
You are moving the goalposts somewhat. I am not disputing Eostre’s existence. I am pointing out that the idea you were promoting that Easter was based on a pagan festival dedicated to her was both demonstrably false and of very recent origin.
The doctor is right. Easter is not north European. It’s from Greece like the rest of Christianity.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Easter was the feast of Eostre for many pagans
No it wasn’t. ‘Easter’ is in fact from ‘East,’ referring to where Christians in Europe turned to pray.
The controversy reminds me somewhat of the equally fake claimed similarities between the Mithraic cult and Christianity, which were mostly invented by an American lunatic called Dorothy Murdock (although I did come across them many years earlier in the work of a Mary Stewart as well).
(Edit - I should note O’Neill, in that link, does argue that Easter is named from Eostre because it fell in the month of Eostre. But that’s not the general view among scholars.)
There is still a lot more evidence for eostre than jesus being born on the 25th of december and pretty sure other references than bede. Will try and dig some out. Celtic beliefs however were largely an oral tradition like many others of the time and often references are hard to find unless contemporary writers from other cultures explored them
You are moving the goalposts somewhat. I am not disputing Eostre’s existence. I am pointing out that the idea you were promoting that Easter was based on a pagan festival dedicated to her was both demonstrably false and of very recent origin.
Then you misunderstood what I was getting at I wasn't saying that christian festivals were based upon pagan festivals. What I was saying that when christians came in they usurped the times of pagan festivals and inserted their own instead. After all can't take the jollies away and we don't want them ending up celebrating ours and their own so we replace yule with christmas, samhain with All souls, eostre with easter.
And what I am pointing out to you is that that is wrong. Easter is not at the time of a pagan festival. Falling in a month named after a goddess, if that is what happened, is different, and the timing of Easter dates from long before the English name of it!
There has always been a pagan festival at spring equinox...remind me when easter is again
It is a fair point. I would add that to avoid a repeat of the alleged scurrilous theft of the 2020 election by the Democrats, Republicans should also consider boycotting the 2024 election.
Ok, it wasn't a sex party, it was a try and get AIDS party.
The organiser of a men-only orgy in Brussels attended by a key lieutenant of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s anti-gay rights leader, has told a newspaper that compulsory group sex and no condoms were the party’s only rules.
David Manzheley, 29, a PhD student, organised the sex party — illegal under coronavirus lockdown restrictions — that led to the arrest of Jozsef Szajer, 59, a prominent conservative Hungarian MEP.
“We have a chat, we have a drink, just like in a pub. The only difference is that in the meantime we also have sex with each other,” he told Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Easter was the feast of Eostre for many pagans
No it wasn’t. ‘Easter’ is in fact from ‘East,’ referring to where Christians in Europe turned to pray.
The controversy reminds me somewhat of the equally fake claimed similarities between the Mithraic cult and Christianity, which were mostly invented by an American lunatic called Dorothy Murdock (although I did come across them many years earlier in the work of a Mary Stewart as well).
(Edit - I should note O’Neill, in that link, does argue that Easter is named from Eostre because it fell in the month of Eostre. But that’s not the general view among scholars.)
There is still a lot more evidence for eostre than jesus being born on the 25th of december and pretty sure other references than bede. Will try and dig some out. Celtic beliefs however were largely an oral tradition like many others of the time and often references are hard to find unless contemporary writers from other cultures explored them
You are moving the goalposts somewhat. I am not disputing Eostre’s existence. I am pointing out that the idea you were promoting that Easter was based on a pagan festival dedicated to her was both demonstrably false and of very recent origin.
Then you misunderstood what I was getting at I wasn't saying that christian festivals were based upon pagan festivals. What I was saying that when christians came in they usurped the times of pagan festivals and inserted their own instead. After all can't take the jollies away and we don't want them ending up celebrating ours and their own so we replace yule with christmas, samhain with All souls, eostre with easter.
Well yes. There are stories. Stories that have different names and details, but which echo across time and continents.
And those stories help confused apelike creatures live better on a spherical rock whizzing round an unremarkable yellow star somewhere in an unremarkable galaxy. Not perfectly (plenty of people have done terrible things in the name of Religion, even Anglicans), but better. If you disagree, look what happens when society breaks down totally.
And about now, lots of those stories echo especially loudly. It's dark, but it won't stay dark forever. The next few months of winter may be hard, but spring is coming. However bad it seems, it is a wonderful world, really.
Even if we don't agree about the names, it's a good story and a truthful story. May your God go with you.
Ok, it wasn't a sex party, it was a try and get AIDS party.
The organiser of a men-only orgy in Brussels attended by a key lieutenant of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s anti-gay rights leader, has told a newspaper that compulsory group sex and no condoms were the party’s only rules.
David Manzheley, 29, a PhD student, organised the sex party — illegal under coronavirus lockdown restrictions — that led to the arrest of Jozsef Szajer, 59, a prominent conservative Hungarian MEP.
“We have a chat, we have a drink, just like in a pub. The only difference is that in the meantime we also have sex with each other,” he told Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
The Reformed Protestant tradition, as seen in Scotland, and in my view regrettably lapsed, is that Christmas is most certainly not a Christian festival, but an abomination.
That tradition as also seen with Oliver Cromwell of the most diehard Puritans did not believe in any festivities of any kind ever, that does not change the fact 'Christ's Mass' came in as a Christian festival via the Catholic Church and continued to be celebrated by the Church of England, despite the brief Cromwellian interlude
The point I am making is that one does not need to celebrate Christmas to be a Christian. So you can't call it a Christian festival. You could call it a "Henrician Settlement Swap-the-Pope-for-Her Maj" gestival if you really must.
It is a Christian festival, especially for Catholics who make up 50.1% of Christians worldwide ie the majority and Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.
You're moving the goalposts again. We were talking about UK (or England if you prefer).
Where it is also called Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas'
On exactly that logic, Easter is a Germanic pagan festival and not a Christian one at all: Easter being the pagan goddess of spring.
Which dio you want, Christmas or Easter? You can't have both on your very own logic.
Easter also has its origins in the German word Ostern too derived from the Teutonic form of auferstehung ie resurrection
Christmas is obviously Christian because it is named after Christ in the same way that December is obviously the tenth month of the year, and on Sundays we all obviously worship the Sun God.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
Easter was the feast of Eostre for many pagans
No it wasn’t. ‘Easter’ is in fact from ‘East,’ referring to where Christians in Europe turned to pray.
The controversy reminds me somewhat of the equally fake claimed similarities between the Mithraic cult and Christianity, which were mostly invented by an American lunatic called Dorothy Murdock (although I did come across them many years earlier in the work of a Mary Stewart as well).
(Edit - I should note O’Neill, in that link, does argue that Easter is named from Eostre because it fell in the month of Eostre. But that’s not the general view among scholars.)
There is still a lot more evidence for eostre than jesus being born on the 25th of december and pretty sure other references than bede. Will try and dig some out. Celtic beliefs however were largely an oral tradition like many others of the time and often references are hard to find unless contemporary writers from other cultures explored them
You are moving the goalposts somewhat. I am not disputing Eostre’s existence. I am pointing out that the idea you were promoting that Easter was based on a pagan festival dedicated to her was both demonstrably false and of very recent origin.
Then you misunderstood what I was getting at I wasn't saying that christian festivals were based upon pagan festivals. What I was saying that when christians came in they usurped the times of pagan festivals and inserted their own instead. After all can't take the jollies away and we don't want them ending up celebrating ours and their own so we replace yule with christmas, samhain with All souls, eostre with easter.
And what I am pointing out to you is that that is wrong. Easter is not at the time of a pagan festival. Falling in a month named after a goddess, if that is what happened, is different, and the timing of Easter dates from long before the English name of it!
There has always been a pagan festival at spring equinox...remind me when easter is again
Not at the equinox.
As for your other other posts about Buddhism, I am afraid all you are doing is displaying your ignorance of both religions. Yes, the teachings of Jesus were a radical departure from mainstream Judaism, but they fitted very comfortably with many apocalyptic strands of the time. Certainly there is no sign of any link to Buddhism and your ‘conjecture’ is not merely contrary to the content of both religions, but contrary to geography, politics and rationality.
You want to stick with your faith in these things? Fine, but excuse me if I deal with facts.
Now state Rep. Vernon Jones is trying to turn this into an election rally, urging Republicans to vote for Loeffler and Perdue. “Georgia has a history of going into battle. Georgia has a history of fighting ... we are going to hold the line.” And Lin Wood directly contradicts him, telling the crowd to stay at home until Trump is vindicated. He asks why Perdue and Loeffler aren’t here - and suggests it’s time for Trump to form his own separate political party. #gapol #gasen
Up to 1,000 fans will be able to attend each session of this year's PDC World Darts Championship but they will not be permitted to wear fancy dress. Spectators are also banned from singing or chanting.
...so it will be like attending a BDO darts event.
10 reasons why Die Hard is the ultimate Christmas movie
They left out: the heroine Holly lives in Santa Monica. Open your eyes, sheeple.
Santa Monica to Century City in rush hour traffic. Every day.
I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
Just wait for the Purple Line extension.
(2034 the last time I looked).
The Purple line (Century City) and the Blue Line (Santa Monica) only meet at the 7th Street Metro Center in Downtown, so that's going be a good 60-80 minutes on public transport. Mind you. That might be better than spending 60-80 minutes on Santa Monica Blvd.
At first, I read purple line as a reference to Crossrail - and 2034 as the date of likely completion.
Ok, it wasn't a sex party, it was a try and get AIDS party.
The organiser of a men-only orgy in Brussels attended by a key lieutenant of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s anti-gay rights leader, has told a newspaper that compulsory group sex and no condoms were the party’s only rules.
David Manzheley, 29, a PhD student, organised the sex party — illegal under coronavirus lockdown restrictions — that led to the arrest of Jozsef Szajer, 59, a prominent conservative Hungarian MEP.
“We have a chat, we have a drink, just like in a pub. The only difference is that in the meantime we also have sex with each other,” he told Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper.
Does Richi go anywhere without his personal photographer?
Thought 1: I hope this is for Rishi himself, otherwise he's just spoilt the surprise for (at least one of) his kids. Thought 2: His kids will also now know that it's Rishi, not Santa, who buys the presents Thought 3: Unless 'kids' refers to everyone's kids and Rishi is in fact Santa?
Rishi and his wife are Hindu anyway, the family might not even celebrate Christmas.
The caption just said he was picking up presents, not that they were Christmas presents
Why do you think they might not even celebrate Christmas?
Because he's from the 17th century and thinks Christmas is Christian.
It is Christian, hence the title, the secular add ons do not change the fact it is primarily a festival to celebrate the birth of Christ
No, it's not. It's a secular holiday celebrated for thousands of years predating Christ. Just because Christians appropriated it and moved the supposed birth of Christ by months to match the preexisting festivals doesn't mean only Christians can, do or should partake.
Christmas trees and other elements have been celebrated in this continent for about 3000 years.
Christian my arse.
Oh yes it is.
There were winter festivals before and Christmas trees may have been around for centuries but Christmas ie 'CHRISTmas' is a Christian festival and always has been.
The fact your ideological, atheist, non conservative views as usual differ does not change that
What about Muslims who might celebrate it as the commemorating the birth of one of the prophets of Islam?
Some might and of course Islam is an Abrahamic religion like Christianity but it is not a Muslim festival
Christmas is also often referred to as yule or yuletide hence the yule log. Yuletide was a pagan festival long before christians dirtied these shores
And surely the 'resurrection' etymology derives from Nature in the spring, nothing to do with an Aramaic-speaking chap being executed by the Roman occupiers.
No, it represents new life and new light brought to humanity by the new-risen Son
Only for christians and yours is mainly a borrowed and copied faith. Most of the old testament comes from gilgamesh, most of jesus's teachings are copies of buddhist philosophy. Almost all of your festivals were set by committee to mimic the festivals of those people you were trying to bring under the sway of rome.
Rubbish, especially as Buddhism came from another part of the world
Ah of course where buddhism is born is so far from israel and there couldnt possibly have been buddhists travelling through the middle east. The romans were in jerusalem. They knew india etc.
Your argument that christmas is a celebration of the birth of christ falls flat because pretty much every biblical scholar doesnt think its anywhere near his birthday
If its so important to celebrate his birth why not do it on his birthday?
Outside the paranoid conspiracy theories of a number of pseudoscholars like Murdoch, Carrier, Price, Fitzgerald and Dawkins, there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity. Indeed, the fundamentals are entirely different even though there are some superficial similarities.
It is disturbing to see otherwise intelligent people uncritically spouting pure rubbish made up mostly by people who are frankly out to make money. I sometimes think the internet has a lot to answer for.
I didn't say Jesus was a buddhist, I merely said his teaching was reminiscent of it and it is not a stretch at all to think that buddhist philosophy had reached the middle east
Leaving aside what constitutes Buddhist ‘philosophy,’ and the fact that Jesus’ teachings are not in fact reminiscent of them as detailed study of both demonstrates, or the fact it is not enough to say they ‘may’ have reached the Middle East for making such a dramatic claim, you are somewhat underestimating both the distances involved and the practical difficulties.
It should be noted in addition to the rather complicated chronology of Buddhism, which may not be much older than Christianity, there is a reason why Buddhism expanded East rather than West. It’s called the Persian Empire, who provided the main bulk of merchants moving from east to west and whose religion was Zoroastrianism.
Sunil utters a cough that sounds suspiciously like "Catharism".
It is a fair point. I would add that to avoid a repeat of the alleged scurrilous theft of the 2020 election by the Democrats, Republicans should also consider boycotting the 2024 election.
We can take this further. The Republicans should actually vote Democrat in 2024, with the Democrats getting close to 100% it will prove the elections are all rigged and Trump will therefore be proven the rightful winner.
Up to 1,000 fans will be able to attend each session of this year's PDC World Darts Championship but they will not be permitted to wear fancy dress. Spectators are also banned from singing or chanting.
...so it will be like attending a BDO darts event.
Now state Rep. Vernon Jones is trying to turn this into an election rally, urging Republicans to vote for Loeffler and Perdue. “Georgia has a history of going into battle. Georgia has a history of fighting ... we are going to hold the line.” And Lin Wood directly contradicts him, telling the crowd to stay at home until Trump is vindicated. He asks why Perdue and Loeffler aren’t here - and suggests it’s time for Trump to form his own separate political party. #gapol #gasen
With FPTP in place for most states/election if the GOP splits then the Dems are going to be in power for the foreseeable future, probably control the Senate, House, and WH as well.
Comments
https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20201129-paris-prosecutor-wants-police-to-face-charges-over-beating-of-black-man-michel-zecler-brutality-security-law
Of course the 11 month transition period was miles too short for that, as everyone told him at the time, and that was even before the pandemic kiboshed things, but that was entirely his choice.
Instead we seem to be heading for the worst of all possible worlds: crashing out in utter chaos, with little serious preparation done, with businesses and the civil service completely unprepared, with acrimonious blame-throwing poisoning relations with our massive trade partner, and all this in the midst of the biggest peacetime human and economic crisis in living memory. And he's left it so absurdly late that even the most optimistic scenario of a last-minute rabbit being pulled out of the hat would still be really bad.
it is absolutely gobsmacking; nothing so incompetent has ever been seen in peacetime in the UK.
10 reasons why Die Hard is the ultimate Christmas movie
I like it though: not as much as A Midsummer Night's Dream, but I've seen some excellent productions.
https://twitter.com/TSEofPB/status/937773639302336513
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/937731219743264768
He is the mirror of the very worst of those he opposes.
According to CBS News, Biden has further widened his lead over Trump - 80,934,176 to 74,078,012 so that's a 6,856,164 lead for Biden - in percentage terms it's 51.3 to 46.9.
The big push has come from New York which is now 92% counted - Biden has stretched his lead to 22 points in the state or 1.8 million votes. Ohio has now finished so most of what's left are fragments from Washington DC, Maryland and Iowa.
Two House results remain - New York 22 and Iowa 2.
Edit: just noticed the demographics are on our side.
We may not now follow the Catholic Inquisition and burn you at the stake for being a heretic but nonetheless as with Christmas Easter has a Christian name
https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1334194049566330882?s=19
The Argument Is Over —'Die Hard' Is Officially the Best Christmas Movie Ever Made
Merry Yippee-Ki-Yay-mas.
And I take great exception to even jokes about murdering other PBers. Kindly change the wording of that.
https://historyforatheists.com/2017/04/easter-ishtar-eostre-and-eggs/
The controversy reminds me somewhat of the equally fake claimed similarities between the Mithraic cult and Christianity, which were mostly invented by an American lunatic called Dorothy Murdock (although I did come across them many years earlier in the work of a Mary Stewart as well).
(Edit - I should note O’Neill, in that link, does argue that Easter is named from Eostre because it fell in the month of Eostre. But that’s not the general view among scholars.)
I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
Your argument that christmas is a celebration of the birth of christ falls flat because pretty much every biblical scholar doesnt think its anywhere near his birthday
https://www.ucg.org/the-good-news/biblical-evidence-shows-jesus-christ-wasnt-born-on-dec-25
If its so important to celebrate his birth why not do it on his birthday?
It is the disbelieving majority that prevents religious bigotry from making all of our lives abjectly miserable.
(2034 the last time I looked).
It didn't. Where are the booths, where are the people in the booths? Where is the utterly ubiquitous advertising explaining clearly exactly what to do? We haven't even managed a Operation Fortitude of building fake customs posts staffed by inflatable dummies. That would have been something.
Actually, the Key Tell was when the government allowed themselves to be forced out of a shock, deal-less Brexit last autumn. Hilary Benn did the patriotic thing in forcing an extension on the government, but what the hell would have happened if he hadn't? There's a reason Johnson let the Benn Bill pass.
But now? Johnson has basically two options.
a) Cave on everything that's left, take the deal that the EU broadly offered in 2017 and literally buy some preparation time. It might be OK, but is it really worth the mess the UK has been through?
b) Hope that nearly all the experts are wrong and that Phil is right.
Faites Vos Jeux, because soon, Rien ne va plus.
It is disturbing to see otherwise intelligent people uncritically spouting pure rubbish made up mostly by people who are frankly out to make money. I sometimes think the internet has a lot to answer for.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations
Despite the vast majority of Buddhists being entirely content with it being a religion.
https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1334220066771099653
https://twitter.com/arthistorynews/status/1334082856931438592?s=20
It should be noted in addition to the rather complicated chronology of Buddhism, which may not be much older than Christianity, there is a reason why Buddhism expanded East rather than West. It’s called the Persian Empire, who provided the main bulk of merchants moving from east to west and whose religion was Zoroastrianism.
It is not dialectical materialism. It is not the story of a Jungian journey to the self. It is not a Nietzschean parable. It is not quantum gravity or M theory.
It is a straightforward comedy of mistaken identity, with all the lovers trooping off to bed in the end. That is it. What is there to understand?
The organiser of a men-only orgy in Brussels attended by a key lieutenant of Viktor Orban, Hungary’s anti-gay rights leader, has told a newspaper that compulsory group sex and no condoms were the party’s only rules.
David Manzheley, 29, a PhD student, organised the sex party — illegal under coronavirus lockdown restrictions — that led to the arrest of Jozsef Szajer, 59, a prominent conservative Hungarian MEP.
“We have a chat, we have a drink, just like in a pub. The only difference is that in the meantime we also have sex with each other,” he told Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/jozsef-szajer-arrest-no-condoms-allowed-at-brussels-gay-sex-party-kv5qxrtgq
And those stories help confused apelike creatures live better on a spherical rock whizzing round an unremarkable yellow star somewhere in an unremarkable galaxy. Not perfectly (plenty of people have done terrible things in the name of Religion, even Anglicans), but better. If you disagree, look what happens when society breaks down totally.
And about now, lots of those stories echo especially loudly. It's dark, but it won't stay dark forever. The next few months of winter may be hard, but spring is coming. However bad it seems, it is a wonderful world, really.
Even if we don't agree about the names, it's a good story and a truthful story. May your God go with you.
As for your other other posts about Buddhism, I am afraid all you are doing is displaying your ignorance of both religions. Yes, the teachings of Jesus were a radical departure from mainstream Judaism, but they fitted very comfortably with many apocalyptic strands of the time. Certainly there is no sign of any link to Buddhism and your ‘conjecture’ is not merely contrary to the content of both religions, but contrary to geography, politics and rationality.
You want to stick with your faith in these things? Fine, but excuse me if I deal with facts.
Good night.
Now state Rep. Vernon Jones is trying to turn this into an election rally, urging Republicans to vote for Loeffler and Perdue.
“Georgia has a history of going into battle. Georgia has a history of fighting ... we are going to hold the line.”
And Lin Wood directly contradicts him, telling the crowd to stay at home until Trump is vindicated.
He asks why Perdue and Loeffler aren’t here - and suggests it’s time for Trump to form his own separate political party. #gapol #gasen
...so it will be like attending a BDO darts event.
Here is his Google Scholar page, where he lists his scholarly interests
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=PeyyCS4AAAAJ&hl=en