Stark_Dawning said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Dawning, could you elaborate?

It's now abundantly clear the passport colouration has nothing to do with EU membership and could have been changed at any time, so the whole exercise is completely pointless and done only to curry favour with the swivel-eyed brigade.

Even if that is so, it costs nothing, so what harm to those few who do care about the colour? Those upset at the change are surely more mad about losing what the words European Union on the front signified. Most won't care at all. And some care too much.

As pandering goes, it costs nothing and harms no-one, so there are far worse examples.

MarkHopkins said:

IanB2 said:

MarkHopkins said:

IanB2 said:

MarkHopkins said:

Ishmael_Z said:

No, because your claim is baseless in the first place. This was Russell's point: you don't deserve any more of a refutation than flying teapots and flat earths. Furthermore you don't, like many Christians, understand the nuts and bolts of your own beliefs: the centrality of Faith is a built-in claim to be above, and not susceptible to, logic. You aren't allowed to argue with me.

Russell makes flawed assumptions. Faith is simply a demonstration to set aside one's own self/ego and be submissive to your Creator.

The heart of God's message to humanity is to ask (but not force) people to come back to him. To respond people have to let go of their own ego and belief in their own superiority (which causes all the real harm in this world).

To do that people have to:

(a) accept they are wrong (sin/rejected God),
(b) accept there's nothing they can do about it (trying to be a 'good' person is not a substitute),
(c) accept God's forgiveness (Jesus dying instead).

At each stage, the person has to let their own self/ego reduce a little more.

Faith is basically not insisting that God keeps proving himself to you - as that would be still making yourself superior to Him. There is enough evidence already there if you want to see it.

Your last sentence is absurd. You are just validating your own delusion.

'absurd' 'delusion'

I appreciate you do not understand, but trying to devalue it like this does not make you right.

I appreciate your blind faith, but trying to pretend that there is any evidence for it helps you none. Had you been born in Arabia you would surely be a Muslim, and in Thailand a Buddhist. Hopefully my beliefs would be the same, wherever. Although TBF Arabia would be my bottom choice.

Do you accept Gödel's incompleteness theorems, and that there are some things which are true but cannot be proved?

I think you may be reading too much into Godel's proof.

Ishmael_Z said:

This really isn't difficult. The claim is that God a. is omnipotent and b. loves humanity in the same way that a human parent loves his/er children. If that were true, the very first time in history that a child was tortured to death a God fitting those criteria would have said OMFG what have I done and deleted the whole experiment, rather than risk a repeat. It is no use saying yebbut he gives us the choice to be good or evil, because the victims don't get that choice.

Another way to nail the religious: ask them, if they completely lost their belief, would they then be entirely OK with robbing widows and orphans, coveting their neighbour's ass and other naughtiness. If the answer is Yes, you are a c**t; if the answer is No, then this religious flimflam isn't actually fundamental to morality, is it? and if the answer is That could never happen, so the question is meaningless, that is a surrender of the right to argue about it, because you are stipulating in advance that any evidence against you is inadmissible because it's against you.

This really isn't difficult. You will never change anyone's mind about religion.

MarkHopkins said:

rottenborough said:

MarkHopkins said:

The real passport news question is: why on earth does it cost around half-a-billion pounds just to redesign them?

It doesn't. It is entirely fake news.

See this thread: twitter.com/tinnypriv/status/944204807836983297

Thanks. Very helpful.

So the £500m is mostly the printing costs, which is paid for by us in fees anyway.

That seems to be the sum of it. The contract is up for renewal anyway and would have been Brexit or not. More astonishing is that EU only recommends a colour, not mandated.

rcs1000 said:

Ishmael_Z said:

This really isn't difficult. The claim is that God a. is omnipotent and b. loves humanity in the same way that a human parent loves his/er children. If that were true, the very first time in history that a child was tortured to death a God fitting those criteria would have said OMFG what have I done and deleted the whole experiment, rather than risk a repeat. It is no use saying yebbut he gives us the choice to be good or evil, because the victims don't get that choice.

Another way to nail the religious: ask them, if they completely lost their belief, would they then be entirely OK with robbing widows and orphans, coveting their neighbour's ass and other naughtiness. If the answer is Yes, you are a c**t; if the answer is No, then this religious flimflam isn't actually fundamental to morality, is it? and if the answer is That could never happen, so the question is meaningless, that is a surrender of the right to argue about it, because you are stipulating in advance that any evidence against you is inadmissible because it's against you.

This really isn't difficult. You will never change anyone's mind about religion.

Almost certainly not, though it obviously does happen - theists become atheists, atheists become theists, and theists change stripe to a different type of theist.

But it is so rare as to hardly be worth doing. Even most door step proselytizers can barely summon the enthusiasm to make an effort.

Charles said:

Barnesian said:

IanB2 said:

MarkHopkins said:

Ishmael_Z said:

MarkHopkins said:

"... it is all too easy to start with a conclusion you want to be true and then rationalise the supporting analysis and logic; for the wish to be father to the thought."

Indeed, and which atheists use to convince themselves there's no God...

Just remind us what the obvious evidence for the existence of the flying teapot deity is, would you?

If you are a Christian you are in a logical bind, by the way, because you gotta have faith, and if you can prove to your own satisfaction that your beliefs are true you don't got faith, because you don't need it, so I am afraid you are going to burn for all eternity. Bummer.

One lesson I've learned over the years is that there is more than enough evidence for those that want to believe in God, but there will never be enough for those that don't.

Even if there were, it doesn't follow that all the worshipping and other paraphanalia that goes with whatever flavour of religion you have chosen makes any sense, or has any purpose, other than a human/social one. Pretending there is someone watching just made it easier to force people to follow whatever rules the powerful wanted.

The definition of God (omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent) contains a contradiction. It's the benevolence that is the killer assumption. Why would an all seeing, all powerful God allow the awful evils to happen?

I think it is possible we are living in a simulation created by a vastly more technologically advanced intelligence. A bit like the Truman Show. Nick Bostrom tries to quantify the probability in his famous paper.

https://www.simulation-argument.com/

If this is so, the intelligence is not benevolent to us. We are part of an experiment or perhaps an alien child's entertainment.

Edit: This year they've been taking the piss with Brexit and Trump.

Free will is the answer to your conundrum: He sets the rules but not the outcomes

That is a cop out. If he is omnipotent he could arrange the advantages of free will without the bad consequences. He could manage consequences to ensure that really bad things don't happen. In a any case many bad things are not the consequence of human free will. Many bad things happened to animals before humans arrived on earth. Nope -it's a weak cop out.

This superior intelligence is either evil or amoral. I prefer to think the latter as the former is totally chilling.

I have dipped in and out over the last day or two and have to say the nonsense over the passports is breathtaking.

When we leave the EU in March 2019 we cannot continue to display their flag on our passports, or indeed fly their flag on our buildings. It is a coincidence that the passport contract is due for renewal in 2019 and the change of colour will have no additional cost burden to the Exchequer.

The fact that David Lammy and other's are in such a state of anger spouting rubbish is more to do with their inability to accept we are exciting the EU than anything else and it reflects badly on politicians who simply exaggerate or even lie to try to win an argument that they have no hope of doing so.

I am still taking time to recover from my operation, subsequent re-admission and dreadful coughing bug that I find a lot of political discourse at present tedious and hope that in 2018 we will see a greater understanding of all sides of the arguments and if possible more constructive dialogue with less name calling.

As we approach Christmas Eve may I wish everyone without exception a happy Christmas and wonderful Hogmanay and lets all resolve to be kinder to each other

Cyclefree said:

Some people have faith. Some don’t. If faith helps people try to live a better life or otherwise provides them some comfort, let them be. Insulting people, calling them deluded or fools or whatever, achieves nothing.

The important thing, surely, is that whether you have faith or not, you try and live well and show some kindness to others. “Do unto others as you would be done by.” strikes me as a good maxim for life, whatever your leanings.

I couldn't agree more

AlastairMeeks said:

I see that Leavers are still incandescent about inaccurate information on the internet. A mere 18 months late, but a Damascene conversion to be welcomed. Their profuse apologies for their xenophobic lies must be imminent.

Fuck you

Big_G_NorthWales said:

I have dipped in and out over the last day or two and have to say the nonsense over the passports is breathtaking.

When we leave the EU in March 2019 we cannot continue to display their flag on our passports, or indeed fly their flag on our buildings. It is a coincidence that the passport contract is due for renewal in 2019 and the change of colour will have no additional cost burden to the Exchequer.

The fact that David Lammy and other's are in such a state of anger spouting rubbish is more to do with their inability to accept we are exciting the EU than anything else and it reflects badly on politicians who simply exaggerate or even lie to try to win an argument that they have no hope of doing so.

I am still taking time to recover from my operation, subsequent re-admission and dreadful coughing bug that I find a lot of political discourse at present tedious and hope that in 2018 we will see a greater understanding of all sides of the arguments and if possible more constructive dialogue with less name calling.

As we approach Christmas Eve may I wish everyone without exception a happy Christmas and wonderful Hogmanay and lets all resolve to be kinder to each other

Hope you are feeling better soon BigG.Have a good Christmas .

Cyclefree said:

Some people have faith. Some don’t. If faith helps people try to live a better life or otherwise provides them some comfort, let them be. Insulting people, calling them deluded or fools or whatever, achieves nothing.

The important thing, surely, is that whether you have faith or not, you try and live well and show some kindness to others. “Do unto others as you would be done by.” strikes me as a good maxim for life, whatever your leanings.

I've always tried to live up to Jesus' precept that "Man's greatest joy is to slaughter his enemies and to listen to the lamentations of their women."

Yorkcity said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

I have dipped in and out over the last day or two and have to say the nonsense over the passports is breathtaking.

When we leave the EU in March 2019 we cannot continue to display their flag on our passports, or indeed fly their flag on our buildings. It is a coincidence that the passport contract is due for renewal in 2019 and the change of colour will have no additional cost burden to the Exchequer.

The fact that David Lammy and other's are in such a state of anger spouting rubbish is more to do with their inability to accept we are exciting the EU than anything else and it reflects badly on politicians who simply exaggerate or even lie to try to win an argument that they have no hope of doing so.

I am still taking time to recover from my operation, subsequent re-admission and dreadful coughing bug that I find a lot of political discourse at present tedious and hope that in 2018 we will see a greater understanding of all sides of the arguments and if possible more constructive dialogue with less name calling.

As we approach Christmas Eve may I wish everyone without exception a happy Christmas and wonderful Hogmanay and lets all resolve to be kinder to each other

Hope you are feeling better soon BigG.Have a good Christmas .

Thank you so much - getting there bit by bit

rcs1000 said:

Ishmael_Z said:

This really isn't difficult. The claim is that God a. is omnipotent and b. loves humanity in the same way that a human parent loves his/er children. If that were true, the very first time in history that a child was tortured to death a God fitting those criteria would have said OMFG what have I done and deleted the whole experiment, rather than risk a repeat. It is no use saying yebbut he gives us the choice to be good or evil, because the victims don't get that choice.

Another way to nail the religious: ask them, if they completely lost their belief, would they then be entirely OK with robbing widows and orphans, coveting their neighbour's ass and other naughtiness. If the answer is Yes, you are a c**t; if the answer is No, then this religious flimflam isn't actually fundamental to morality, is it? and if the answer is That could never happen, so the question is meaningless, that is a surrender of the right to argue about it, because you are stipulating in advance that any evidence against you is inadmissible because it's against you.

This really isn't difficult. You will never change anyone's mind about religion.

Not quite, there is a long history of conversion, and in multiple directions. I was a fairly militant athiest into my late Twenties, albeit the God I didn't believe in was the Christian one!

rcs1000 said:

MarkHopkins said:

IanB2 said:

MarkHopkins said:

IanB2 said:

MarkHopkins said:

Ishmael_Z said:

No, because your claim is baseless in the first place. This was Russell's point: you don't deserve any more of a refutation than flying teapots and flat earths. Furthermore you don't, like many Christians, understand the nuts and bolts of your own beliefs: the centrality of Faith is a built-in claim to be above, and not susceptible to, logic. You aren't allowed to argue with me.

Russell makes flawed assumptions. Faith is simply a demonstration to set aside one's own self/ego and be submissive to your Creator.


At each stage, the person has to let their own self/ego reduce a little more.

Faith is basically not insisting that God keeps proving himself to you - as that would be still making yourself superior to Him. There is enough evidence already there if you want to see it.

Your last sentence is absurd. You are just validating your own delusion.

'absurd' 'delusion'

I appreciate you do not understand, but trying to devalue it like this does not make you right.

I appreciate your blind faith, but trying to pretend that there is any evidence for it helps you none. Had you been born in Arabia you would surely be a Muslim, and in Thailand a Buddhist. Hopefully my beliefs would be the same, wherever. Although TBF Arabia would be my bottom choice.

Do you accept Gödel's incompleteness theorems, and that there are some things which are true but cannot be proved?

I think you may be reading too much into Godel's proof.

Quite. Godel constructed the sentence "This sentence [or theorem] is unprovable". The clever thing he did was to construct it in the language of arithmetic using the axioms and methods thereof.

If the theorem is true, then it is unproveable (because it says so). If the theorem is false then it is proveable but false so it is a contradiction within the system. So within a sufficiently rich system there are some theorems that are true and unproveable or there are contradictions. This floored Russell and made the five years work on Principia Mathematica redundant. That's about all it did.

Many people have misused Godel's result to imply the truth of unevidenced faith, or to imply that an AI can never have intelligence because at root it is an arithmetical or logical processor.

RoyalBlue said:

I’ve certainly found interesting things in both the New Statesman and Prospect from time to time, but to actually buy them? St Margaret of Grantham might strike me down... I’ll have to check out Standpoint again.

PS @NickPalmer notwithstanding my differences with you over Europe, I wish you a very merry Christmas I know you did what you did because you believe it to be best for the nation. I will never agree but I recognise your motivation.

What will you be eating on Christmas Day? I presume you are a vegetarian who has had more than their share of nutroasts

Many thanks, Royal Blue, you too!

I'm not actually a vegetarian - I'm an uneasy omnivore. My current oganisation (Compassion in World Farming) gets it right for me - they say that the main thing is to try to give farm animals a decent life and as stress-free as possible death, and they accept that opinion is divided on whether they are eaten in the end, but suggest that eating less meat is a good idea. About two thirds of the staff are vegetarian or vegan but we are very keen not to be preachy about it.

Cyclefree said:

Some people have faith. Some don’t. If faith helps people try to live a better life or otherwise provides them some comfort, let them be. Insulting people, calling them deluded or fools or whatever, achieves nothing.

The important thing, surely, is that whether you have faith or not, you try and live well and show some kindness to others. “Do unto others as you would be done by.” strikes me as a good maxim for life, whatever your leanings.

Heretic! Burn her!

rottenborough said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Rebourne_Fluffy said:

viewcode said:

I may be wrong here, but possibly you have the Godel thing wrong. The point is that for any given system it is possible, using only the rules of that system, to construct a thing that doesn't fit in it. So if you take something very simple, like the rules of arithmetic (plus, minus, times, divide) and the integers (such as 1,2,3,...) it is possible to build a thing which doesn't fit (1/3 is not an integer). This is true no matter how complex the system is.

Does anyone know the square-root of "infinity"? By itself inifinity-squared is inifinty so what is observable?

Infinity squared is not infinity since infinity is a concept and not a number. That's like asking what is infinity minus one.

Cantor showed that there were many infinities, of varying 'sizes' iirc.

Cantor took the red pill. The rabbit hole was so deep he committed suicide.

Morris_Dancer said:

Dr. Foxinsox, I've always been an atheist.

But then, I was a smart kid

Mr. F, or his famous dictum from the Book of Empire: "Wipe them out. All of them."

[As an aside, the second sentence annoys me. Who the hell would say "Wipe them out. Some of them."?]

Who the hell would say "Wipe them out. Some of them."

Domestos. They only do 99%.

Cyclefree said:

Some people have faith. Some don’t. If faith helps people try to live a better life or otherwise provides them some comfort, let them be. Insulting people, calling them deluded or fools or whatever, achieves nothing.

The important thing, surely, is that whether you have faith or not, you try and live well and show some kindness to others. “Do unto others as you would be done by.” strikes me as a good maxim for life, whatever your leanings.

+1

Barnesian said:

rcs1000 said:

MarkHopkins said:

IanB2 said:

MarkHopkins said:

IanB2 said:

MarkHopkins said:

Ishmael_Z said:

No, because your claim is baseless in the first place. This was Russell's point: you don't deserve any more of a refutation than flying teapots and flat earths. Furthermore you don't, like many Christians, understand the nuts and bolts of your own beliefs: the centrality of Faith is a built-in claim to be above, and not susceptible to, logic. You aren't allowed to argue with me.

Russell makes flawed assumptions. Faith is simply a demonstration to set aside one's own self/ego and be submissive to your Creator.


At each stage, the person has to let their own self/ego reduce a little more.

Faith is basically not insisting that God keeps proving himself to you - as that would be still making yourself superior to Him. There is enough evidence already there if you want to see it.

Your last sentence is absurd. You are just validating your own delusion.

'absurd' 'delusion'

I appreciate you do not understand, but trying to devalue it like this does not make you right.

I appreciate your blind faith, but trying to pretend that there is any evidence for it helps you none. Had you been born in Arabia you would surely be a Muslim, and in Thailand a Buddhist. Hopefully my beliefs would be the same, wherever. Although TBF Arabia would be my bottom choice.

Do you accept Gödel's incompleteness theorems, and that there are some things which are true but cannot be proved?

I think you may be reading too much into Godel's proof.

Quite. Godel constructed the sentence "This sentence [or theorem] is unprovable". The clever thing he did was to construct it in the language of arithmetic using the axioms and methods thereof.

If the theorem is true, then it is unproveable (because it says so). If the theorem is false then it is proveable but false so it is a contradiction within the system. So within a sufficiently rich system there are some theorems that are true and unproveable or there are contradictions. This floored Russell and made the five years work on Principia Mathematica redundant. That's about all it did.

Many people have misused Godel's result to imply the truth of unevidenced faith, or to imply that an AI can never have intelligence because at root it is an arithmetical or logical processor.

Several years earlier Russell had floored Frege with his set paradox. That's how it goes in maths I guess.

Ishmael_Z said:

rottenborough said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Rebourne_Fluffy said:

viewcode said:

I may be wrong here, but possibly you have the Godel thing wrong. The point is that for any given system it is possible, using only the rules of that system, to construct a thing that doesn't fit in it. So if you take something very simple, like the rules of arithmetic (plus, minus, times, divide) and the integers (such as 1,2,3,...) it is possible to build a thing which doesn't fit (1/3 is not an integer). This is true no matter how complex the system is.

Does anyone know the square-root of "infinity"? By itself inifinity-squared is inifinty so what is observable?

Infinity squared is not infinity since infinity is a concept and not a number. That's like asking what is infinity minus one.

Cantor showed that there were many infinities, of varying 'sizes' iirc.

Easily proven: if you list the integers 1,2,3 etc and then in the next column list the multiples of 10 - 10, 20, 30 etc you are never going to run out of numbers for either column, so both are infinities, but the second one is 10x as big as the first.

1,2,3 ,,, and 10,20,30 ... are countable and are same size of infinity (Aleph1).
So are all the rationals and rational complex numbers.

To get to Aleph2 you need real numbers.

rottenborough said:

Barnesian said:

rcs1000 said:

MarkHopkins said:

IanB2 said:

MarkHopkins said:

IanB2 said:

MarkHopkins said:

Ishmael_Z said:

No, because your claim is baseless in the first place. This was Russell's point: you don't deserve any more of a refutation than flying teapots and flat earths. Furthermore you don't, like many Christians, understand the nuts and bolts of your own beliefs: the centrality of Faith is a built-in claim to be above, and not susceptible to, logic. You aren't allowed to argue with me.

Your last sentence is absurd. You are just validating your own delusion.

'absurd' 'delusion'

I appreciate you do not understand, but trying to devalue it like this does not make you right.

I appreciate your blind faith, but trying to pretend that there is any evidence for it helps you none. Had you been born in Arabia you would surely be a Muslim, and in Thailand a Buddhist. Hopefully my beliefs would be the same, wherever. Although TBF Arabia would be my bottom choice.

Do you accept Gödel's incompleteness theorems, and that there are some things which are true but cannot be proved?

I think you may be reading too much into Godel's proof.

Quite. Godel constructed the sentence "This sentence [or theorem] is unprovable". The clever thing he did was to construct it in the language of arithmetic using the axioms and methods thereof.

If the theorem is true, then it is unproveable (because it says so). If the theorem is false then it is proveable but false so it is a contradiction within the system. So within a sufficiently rich system there are some theorems that are true and unproveable or there are contradictions. This floored Russell and made the five years work on Principia Mathematica redundant. That's about all it did.

Many people have misused Godel's result to imply the truth of unevidenced faith, or to imply that an AI can never have intelligence because at root it is an arithmetical or logical processor.

Several years earlier Russell had floored Frege with his set paradox. That's how it goes in maths I guess.

Yes! But I admire Frege as a mathematician and logician much more than Russell. Frege was much more creative and made a bigger contribution. (But he was an awful racist).

Barnesian said:

Charles said:

Barnesian said:

IanB2 said:

MarkHopkins said:

Ishmael_Z said:

MarkHopkins said:

"... it is all too easy to start with a conclusion you want to be true and then rationalise the supporting analysis and logic; for the wish to be father to the thought."

Indeed, and which atheists use to convince themselves there's no God...

Just remind us what the obvious evidence for the existence of the flying teapot deity is, would you?

If you are a Christian you are in a logical bind, by the way, because you gotta have faith, and if you can prove to your own satisfaction that your beliefs are true you don't got faith, because you don't need it, so I am afraid you are going to burn for all eternity. Bummer.

One lesson I've learned over the years is that there is more than enough evidence for those that want to believe in God, but there will never be enough for those that don't.

Even if there were, it doesn't follow that all the worshipping and other paraphanalia that goes with whatever flavour of religion you have chosen makes any sense, or has any purpose, other than a human/social one. Pretending there is someone watching just made it easier to force people to follow whatever rules the powerful wanted.

The definition of God (omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent) contains a contradiction. It's the benevolence that is the killer assumption. Why would an all seeing, all powerful God allow the awful evils to happen?

I think it is possible we are living in a simulation created by a vastly more technologically advanced intelligence. A bit like the Truman Show. Nick Bostrom tries to quantify the probability in his famous paper.

https://www.simulation-argument.com/

If this is so, the intelligence is not benevolent to us. We are part of an experiment or perhaps an alien child's entertainment.

Edit: This year they've been taking the piss with Brexit and Trump.

Free will is the answer to your conundrum: He sets the rules but not the outcomes

That is a cop out. If he is omnipotent he could arrange the advantages of free will without the bad consequences. He could manage consequences to ensure that really bad things don't happen. In a any case many bad things are not the consequence of human free will. Many bad things happened to animals before humans arrived on earth. Nope -it's a weak cop out.

This superior intelligence is either evil or amoral. I prefer to think the latter as the former is totally chilling.

As I said: He sets the rules.

I am sure there is a good geological reason why tectonic plates exist. A consequence is earthquakes. That's just the way it is.

God are we still banging on about the fake news £500m passport story. The current deal cost basically the same, and the only person who lost their shit about it was Mrs Bucket who claimed it was sexist.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Cyclefree said:

Some people have faith. Some don’t. If faith helps people try to live a better life or otherwise provides them some comfort, let them be. Insulting people, calling them deluded or fools or whatever, achieves nothing.

The important thing, surely, is that whether you have faith or not, you try and live well and show some kindness to others. “Do unto others as you would be done by.” strikes me as a good maxim for life, whatever your leanings.

I couldn't agree more

A merry Christmas to you and your family and best wishes for a speedy and complete recovery.

Charles said:

OblitusSumMe said:

stodge said:

I'm not sure - belief in God doesn't strike me as all that important. I suppose I've derived my moral code primarily from Christianity but there are messages in a number of other religions around love, tolerance, respect and a whole number of other positive values such as helping others and generally doing good. If you try to live to a code like that I don't think the faith is that important.

Perhaps living a good and positive life transcends one faith or indeed all faiths.

I asked a priest about that once and his argument was that I'd live a much more positive life if I added faith and Christian practice to my Atheist moral code. I didn't agree at the time but looking back nearly two decades later and it's possible he would have been right. Not that I can manage to conjure up some faith on command.

Faith forces men to acknowledge they are not supreme. That is beneficial in my view

Even a cursory glance at history is enough to conclude that humans going around claiming divine legitimacy for their beliefs and actions has led to misfortune, torture and death, rather than humility.

This passport thing is a total waste of time - colour and wording is irrelevant to sensible people.

What concerns me is the quality of the Labour's front bench. They are sadly clueless (most of them not all)...

Some people are as thick as mince....

British teacher sparks major security alert at Moscow airport after trying to check in for flight to London with a 'military training hand grenade' in her luggage

Philip_Thompson said:

Charles said:

IanB2 said:

Charles said:

OblitusSumMe said:

stodge said:

I'm not sure - belief in God doesn't strike me as all that important. I suppose I've derived my moral code primarily from Christianity but there are messages in a number of other religions around love, tolerance, respect and a whole number of other positive values such as helping others and generally doing good. If you try to live to a code like that I don't think the faith is that important.

Perhaps living a good and positive life transcends one faith or indeed all faiths.

I asked a priest about that once and his argument was that I'd live a much more positive life if I added faith and Christian practice to my Atheist moral code. I didn't agree at the time but looking back nearly two decades later and it's possible he would have been right. Not that I can manage to conjure up some faith on command.

Faith forces men to acknowledge they are not supreme. That is beneficial in my view

Even a cursory glance at history is enough to conclude that humans going around claiming divine legitimacy for their beliefs and actions has led to misfortune, torture and death, rather than humility.

Bad people make mistakes

Is a flippant and easily dismissive response.

Faith doesn't force men to acknowledge they're not supreme. Instead faith is used now and through history to get people to believe in something as being right regardless of logic, evidence or other people's differing opinions.

If you believe in reason then you can challenge and be challenged in a healthy manner. If you believe you're eight on faith alone then you are making yourself infallible. That leads to stubbornness and intransigence.

+1

Ishmael_Z said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Some people are as thick as mince....

British teacher sparks major security alert at Moscow airport after trying to check in for flight to London with a 'military training hand grenade' in her luggage

In her hand luggage? Everybody knows that hand grenades go in the hold.

With Ryanair could be either....

FrancisUrquhart said:

Some people are as thick as mince....

British teacher sparks major security alert at Moscow airport after trying to check in for flight to London with a 'military training hand grenade' in her luggage

Out here we had an elderly Chinese lady chuck some coins in the jet engine for good luck.....

FrancisUrquhart said:

Some people are as thick as mince....

British teacher sparks major security alert at Moscow airport after trying to check in for flight to London with a 'military training hand grenade' in her luggage

Was her excuse that she wanted her holiday to end with a bang and her spouse misunderstood?

Ishmael_Z said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Some people are as thick as mince....

British teacher sparks major security alert at Moscow airport after trying to check in for flight to London with a 'military training hand grenade' in her luggage

In her hand luggage? Everybody knows that hand grenades go in the hold.

You can't hold a hand grenade. Very dangerous with the pin out. I thought everyone knew that.

RobD said:

murali_s said:

This passport thing is a total waste of time - colour and wording is irrelevant to sensible people.

What concerns me is the quality of the Labour's front bench. They are sadly clueless (most of them not all)...

Wording is irrelevant? Would be a little odd if we left the European Union bit on the top, wouldn't it?

We could start a new organisation called The Real European Union, made up of countries that want to work together, while not seeking political union. We could seek to encourage other members of the old European Union to join us.

And we could put "The Real European Union" on the top of our passports.

Charles said:

rcs1000 said:

RobD said:

murali_s said:

This passport thing is a total waste of time - colour and wording is irrelevant to sensible people.

What concerns me is the quality of the Labour's front bench. They are sadly clueless (most of them not all)...

Wording is irrelevant? Would be a little odd if we left the European Union bit on the top, wouldn't it?

We could start a new organisation called The Real European Union, made up of countries that want to work together, while not seeking political union. We could seek to encourage other members of the old European Union to join us.

And we could put "The Real European Union" on the top of our passports.

Or provisional European Union (PEU)

FEUMOGBANI

FrancisUrquhart said:

murali_s said:

This passport thing is a total waste of time - colour and wording is irrelevant to sensible people.

What concerns me is the quality of the Labour's front bench. They are sadly clueless (most of them not all)...

I couldn’t care less about colour, but no time wasted as it is simply a change on the spec sheet of the tender for the regulation 5 yearly redesign.

Amazing how apparently nobody cares about this change now, despite it having been campaigned about for years, and the government has cravenly given in to this thing nobody cares about.

It's also amazing how the Daily Mail, who evidently didn't care about it either, has moved on to having the passports made in Britain as well ...

Sine no-one cares about changing it to blue, perhaps we should keep it as it is.

ydoethur said:

murali_s said:

This passport thing is a total waste of time - colour and wording is irrelevant to sensible people.

What concerns me is the quality of the Labour's front bench. They are sadly clueless (most of them not all)...

Serious question Murali. Who do you rate on Labour's front bench?

For me it would be Macdonnell (who may be one of the most loathsome figures in the Commons but is undoubtedly able) and Ashworth, although he's been oddly quiet in recent weeks so far as I can see.

Otherwise Thornberry is more impressive than her opposite number (in the same way any given human is slightly less racist than Hitler) and the rest are pretty poor. I would be genuinely terrified to think of Rayner getting her hands on the national education system - she would be like a stupider version of Gove. As for the likes of Long-Bailey and Cat Smith...

Do you have any other thoughts?

Gardiner is very good. He is by far one of their best media performers, calm, logical, and not someone to dodge questions or just retreat to mindless soundbites.

Woman on the train this evening swigging a bottle of bubbly:

- Quiet at Leeds
- Boisterous at Keighley
- Asleep at Skipton

The true meaning of Christmas.

Charles said:

tlg86 said:

Charles said:

rcs1000 said:

RobD said:

murali_s said:

This passport thing is a total waste of time - colour and wording is irrelevant to sensible people.

What concerns me is the quality of the Labour's front bench. They are sadly clueless (most of them not all)...

Wording is irrelevant? Would be a little odd if we left the European Union bit on the top, wouldn't it?

We could start a new organisation called The Real European Union, made up of countries that want to work together, while not seeking political union. We could seek to encourage other members of the old European Union to join us.

And we could put "The Real European Union" on the top of our passports.

Or provisional European Union (PEU)

FEUMOGBANI

And the population to be called MOGsters?

Good spot.

Charles said:

rcs1000 said:

RobD said:

murali_s said:

This passport thing is a total waste of time - colour and wording is irrelevant to sensible people.

What concerns me is the quality of the Labour's front bench. They are sadly clueless (most of them not all)...

Wording is irrelevant? Would be a little odd if we left the European Union bit on the top, wouldn't it?

We could start a new organisation called The Real European Union, made up of countries that want to work together, while not seeking political union. We could seek to encourage other members of the old European Union to join us.

And we could put "The Real European Union" on the top of our passports.

Or provisional European Union (PEU)

Would the rest of them rebrand as Continuity European Union