"He is of course right that Darwin destroyed any last vestige of credibility that religion ever had",
Nice try. Try by science alone, explaining: Why there is something rather than nothing. How life began. What consciousness is. Where rationality comes from. How and why if there are no purposes in the universe we have evolved to have purposes and intentions.
What are the latest betting odds on the existence of God?
Can you imagine how long it would take Betfair to settle that?
Seems a conflict of interest when they are backing the other team, as it were.
What would be really depressing would be to find there is a God but that he was indeed an insecure puritanical egotistical maniac who cannot stand any dissent or non-worship of him and occasionally has strops and causes nasty things like earthquakes. He is even likely to be to be out of his creative phase as for the last 2000 year he has not even parted any seas, made people , created light or anything more original than earthquakes.
My understanding of God is that He exists, but He starts drinking at about 11am. Once you understand that, the entire universe is explained.
You are the Almighty and I claim my Myrrh, Gold and Frankincense
That's what I've been saying. If we can't enforce the rules and need time to adjust then the solution is to not enforce the rules. At least originally.
That the very idea of that seems unthinkable to many people just shows why the solution is often outside the box. If people need 6 to 12 months to adjust to the rules, give it to them.
Some tend to be a bit absolutist "The EU will enforce the rules, the UK won't".
I suspect both will enforce them to their own advantage. For example on passport control, UK passport holders won't be able to use EU e-gates on entering the EU, but initially EU passport holder will on entering the UK ("this is being kept under review") - which is actually more sensible.
Couple of Daily Mail front pages and that will finish.....
UK tourists are SO important to much of the EU market - Greece, Spain, Portugal - that I bet these countries will indeed bend the rules to make it easier for Brits to pass through customs. If Brits know they face 2 hour waits at EU passport control they will instead go to Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt (and on to Thailand etc), which are already cheaper by a distance, and will make it easy for Brits.
Competition for willing tourists is going to be fierce post-covid. The urge will be to open things up, not close them down.
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?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
You clearly haven't met enough Indians lol, especially the second generation types like Rishi. Christmas is pretty standard, everyone does something for it, especially with kids. Even my super religious family in the US buy a tree every year and give presents etc...
Oh no, immigrants to a country adopting its customs and traditions.
Sandpit, I thought you lived in Dubai or somewhere in the ME. Surely you've seen how Muslim families celebrate Christmas too (as do many Jewish families I know in NYC).
* Xmas has become the universal non-denominational, secular religious celebration.
Xmas is formed but using the Greek letter Chi, (for Christ) combined with mass as in a religious celebration. It is actually an old way of writing Christmas, and not secular at all.
Doesn't matter what you call it, what letters you use to write it, the Christian holiday by that name has been appropriated by all and sundry to be an international secular holiday. You might still celebrate it as a religious holiday, but I'd wager that it's pretty evens globally between the Christians and non-Christians, tilting heavily in the latter's favour if you shift the agnostics into that camp.
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
Up to a month later.
Easter can fall between 22 March and 25 April - 35 days in all.
Although it is true that the method of finding the date of Easter is borrowed from another religion.
In Romance languages, the connection between the Jewish and Christian holidays is explicit. The Hebrew word for Passover is Pesach. In French, Easter is Paques. In Italian it’s Pasqua. In many other languages, the word for Easter is simply a transliteration of the Greek word for Easter, Pascha. English is among the exceptions. Our word, Easter, is German in origin, though we do speak of the Passion of Christ, and have Passion plays about the events of Easter.
Pascha in Greek is itself not really a Greek word, it's just a transliteration of pesach.
Yes, or Passover in English transliteration.
That is not a transliteration it's a translation - pesach means leave out, omit, pass over (as in, skip the Jewish firstborn when doing the rest).
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.
How about Catharism?
Given that that was several centuries later then even if they were influenced by Buddhism it doesn't really refute the "there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity" part of the statement. (My bold).
"However, in the East syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was widespread along the Silk Road in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China, as evidenced by the Jesus Sutras.[10]"
I quite like the theory that Akhenaten became the God of the Old Testament and all these years ever since, the Abrahamic religions have been worshipping a Pharoah
What are the latest betting odds on the existence of God?
Can you imagine how long it would take Betfair to settle that?
Seems a conflict of interest when they are backing the other team, as it were.
What would be really depressing would be to find there is a God but that he was indeed an insecure puritanical egotistical maniac who cannot stand any dissent or non-worship of him and occasionally has strops and causes nasty things like earthquakes. He is even likely to be to be out of his creative phase as for the last 2000 year he has not even parted any seas, made people , created light or anything more original than earthquakes.
What are the latest betting odds on the existence of God?
Can you imagine how long it would take Betfair to settle that?
Seems a conflict of interest when they are backing the other team, as it were.
What would be really depressing would be to find there is a God but that he was indeed an insecure puritanical egotistical maniac who cannot stand any dissent or non-worship of him and occasionally has strops and causes nasty things like earthquakes. He is even likely to be to be out of his creative phase as for the last 2000 year he has not even parted any seas, made people , created light or anything more original than earthquakes.
My understanding of God is that He exists, but He starts drinking at about 11am. Once you understand that, the entire universe is explained.
You are the Almighty and I claim my Myrrh, Gold and Frankincense
I wouldn't be so keen myself. The Magi were astrologers, who brought gold for a king, frankincense for a prophet and myrrh for a corpse. Not exactly what every new mum wants for her baby.
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.
How about Catharism?
Given that that was several centuries later then even if they were influenced by Buddhism it doesn't really refute the "there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity" part of the statement. (My bold).
"However, in the East syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was widespread along the Silk Road in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China, as evidenced by the Jesus Sutras.[10]"
What are the latest betting odds on the existence of God?
Can you imagine how long it would take Betfair to settle that?
Seems a conflict of interest when they are backing the other team, as it were.
What would be really depressing would be to find there is a God but that he was indeed an insecure puritanical egotistical maniac who cannot stand any dissent or non-worship of him and occasionally has strops and causes nasty things like earthquakes. He is even likely to be to be out of his creative phase as for the last 2000 year he has not even parted any seas, made people , created light or anything more original than earthquakes.
What are the latest betting odds on the existence of God?
Can you imagine how long it would take Betfair to settle that?
Seems a conflict of interest when they are backing the other team, as it were.
What would be really depressing would be to find there is a God but that he was indeed an insecure puritanical egotistical maniac who cannot stand any dissent or non-worship of him and occasionally has strops and causes nasty things like earthquakes. He is even likely to be to be out of his creative phase as for the last 2000 year he has not even parted any seas, made people , created light or anything more original than earthquakes.
My understanding of God is that He exists, but He starts drinking at about 11am. Once you understand that, the entire universe is explained.
You are the Almighty and I claim my Myrrh, Gold and Frankincense
I wouldn't be so keen myself. The Magi were astrologers, who brought gold for a king, frankincense for a prophet and myrrh for a corpse. Not exactly what every new mum wants for her baby.
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.
How about Catharism?
Given that that was several centuries later then even if they were influenced by Buddhism it doesn't really refute the "there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity" part of the statement. (My bold).
"However, in the East syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was widespread along the Silk Road in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China, as evidenced by the Jesus Sutras.[10]"
I quite like the theory that Akhenaten became the God of the Old Testament and all these years ever since, the Abrahamic religions have been worshipping a Pharoah
Point of Order. Akhenaten was not a God, he was the one true voice of the one true God, ie he was the voice of the Aten, represented as the sun, a solar and singular Divinity.
I speak as one of the few people on this board who has - I'll wager - actually been to Akhetaten, the city of the Aten, the onetime capital built by the mad pharaoh himself. It's a a totally desolate, dusty, sunburned, wildly eerie site, in a fairly dangerous and very remote part of Middle Egypt.
It's brilliant. If you ever get the chance to go, GO. But be prepared to get TOTES freaked out.
What are the latest betting odds on the existence of God?
Can you imagine how long it would take Betfair to settle that?
Seems a conflict of interest when they are backing the other team, as it were.
What would be really depressing would be to find there is a God but that he was indeed an insecure puritanical egotistical maniac who cannot stand any dissent or non-worship of him and occasionally has strops and causes nasty things like earthquakes. He is even likely to be to be out of his creative phase as for the last 2000 year he has not even parted any seas, made people , created light or anything more original than earthquakes.
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?
Not all Hindus do, it is not a religious festival for them and not all will do the secular festivities either
You clearly haven't met enough Indians lol, especially the second generation types like Rishi. Christmas is pretty standard, everyone does something for it, especially with kids. Even my super religious family in the US buy a tree every year and give presents etc...
Oh no, immigrants to a country adopting its customs and traditions.
Sandpit, I thought you lived in Dubai or somewhere in the ME. Surely you've seen how Muslim families celebrate Christmas too (as do many Jewish families I know in NYC).
* Xmas has become the universal non-denominational, secular religious celebration.
Xmas is formed but using the Greek letter Chi, (for Christ) combined with mass as in a religious celebration. It is actually an old way of writing Christmas, and not secular at all.
Doesn't matter what you call it, what letters you use to write it, the Christian holiday by that name has been appropriated by all and sundry to be an international secular holiday. You might still celebrate it as a religious holiday, but I'd wager that it's pretty evens globally between the Christians and non-Christians, tilting heavily in the latter's favour if you shift the agnostics into that camp.
Personally, I am happy for it to be secular, and to stay true to my Free Church roots 😇
"He is of course right that Darwin destroyed any last vestige of credibility that religion ever had",
Nice try. Try by science alone, explaining: Why there is something rather than nothing. How life began. What consciousness is. Where rationality comes from. How and why if there are no purposes in the universe we have evolved to have purposes and intentions.
Some of those are silly questions, and of those that are sensible, none are really answered by inventing a Santa for adults; the problem is just relocated.
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.
How about Catharism?
Given that that was several centuries later then even if they were influenced by Buddhism it doesn't really refute the "there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity" part of the statement. (My bold).
"However, in the East syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was widespread along the Silk Road in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China, as evidenced by the Jesus Sutras.[10]"
I quite like the theory that Akhenaten became the God of the Old Testament and all these years ever since, the Abrahamic religions have been worshipping a Pharoah
Remember, Moses was brought up in the Egyptian tradition.
The 10 Commandments are just an edited version of the "42 Negative Confessions":
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year award descended into confusion and then farce on Wednesday after the corporation rejected a demand from the world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury to be the first ever athlete to be taken off its shortlist.
Given how 2020 has played out it's a poor year for SPOTY anyway. Hamilton is the only person on the list who has a shot.
Hamilton is probably home and hosed and I should cash out bets on the three I've backed against him. Certainly that would be the case if the award is for the person who most dominated their sport this year. Is that the case, or is SPotY judged more along the lines of a reality television show? I don't know because I don't watch these shows (and was shocked a couple of days ago to discover Bill Bailey, odds-on to win Strictly, opened up at 33 or 50/1; what were they thinking?).
The SPotY shortlist is a bit odd. Hamilton is an obvious choice, and I predicted Hollie Doyle as our top-performing sportswoman. Is Ronnie really the best snooker player this year or is this a lifetime achievement award? What is Stuart Broad doing there rather than Anderson? Did the BBC not remember what happened last time Fury was nominated?
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.
How about Catharism?
Given that that was several centuries later then even if they were influenced by Buddhism it doesn't really refute the "there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity" part of the statement. (My bold).
"However, in the East syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was widespread along the Silk Road in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China, as evidenced by the Jesus Sutras.[10]"
I quite like the theory that Akhenaten became the God of the Old Testament and all these years ever since, the Abrahamic religions have been worshipping a Pharoah
Point of Order. Akhenaten was not a God, he was the one true voice of the one true God, ie he was the voice of the Aten, represented as the sun, a solar and singular Divinity.
I speak as one of the few people on this board who has - I'll wager - actually been to Akhetaten, the city of the Aten, the onetime capital built by the mad pharaoh himself. It's a a totally desolate, dusty, sunburned, wildly eerie site, in a fairly dangerous and very remote part of Middle Egypt.
It's brilliant. If you ever get the chance to go, GO. But be prepared to get TOTES freaked out.
TOTES?
BTW, I am jealous that you have been there - it sounds fabulous.
So, we are all worshipping the Aten (= Sun)? It works for me. I love the sunshine
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.
How about Catharism?
Given that that was several centuries later then even if they were influenced by Buddhism it doesn't really refute the "there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity" part of the statement. (My bold).
"However, in the East syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was widespread along the Silk Road in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China, as evidenced by the Jesus Sutras.[10]"
I quite like the theory that Akhenaten became the God of the Old Testament and all these years ever since, the Abrahamic religions have been worshipping a Pharoah
Point of Order. Akhenaten was not a God, he was the one true voice of the one true God, ie he was the voice of the Aten, represented as the sun, a solar and singular Divinity.
I speak as one of the few people on this board who has - I'll wager - actually been to Akhetaten, the city of the Aten, the onetime capital built by the mad pharaoh himself. It's a a totally desolate, dusty, sunburned, wildly eerie site, in a fairly dangerous and very remote part of Middle Egypt.
It's brilliant. If you ever get the chance to go, GO. But be prepared to get TOTES freaked out.
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year award descended into confusion and then farce on Wednesday after the corporation rejected a demand from the world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury to be the first ever athlete to be taken off its shortlist.
Given how 2020 has played out it's a poor year for SPOTY anyway. Hamilton is the only person on the list who has a shot.
Hamilton is probably home and hosed and I should cash out bets on the three I've backed against him. Certainly that would be the case if the award is for the person who most dominated their sport this year. Is that the case, or is SPotY judged more along the lines of a reality television show? I don't know because I don't watch these shows (and was shocked a couple of days ago to discover Bill Bailey, odds-on to win Strictly, opened up at 33 or 50/1; what were they thinking?).
The SPotY shortlist is a bit odd. Hamilton is an obvious choice, and I predicted Hollie Doyle as our top-performing sportswoman. Is Ronnie really the best snooker player this year or is this a lifetime achievement award? What is Stuart Broad doing there rather than Anderson? Did the BBC not remember what happened last time Fury was nominated?
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.
How about Catharism?
Given that that was several centuries later then even if they were influenced by Buddhism it doesn't really refute the "there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity" part of the statement. (My bold).
"However, in the East syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was widespread along the Silk Road in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China, as evidenced by the Jesus Sutras.[10]"
I quite like the theory that Akhenaten became the God of the Old Testament and all these years ever since, the Abrahamic religions have been worshipping a Pharoah
Point of Order. Akhenaten was not a God, he was the one true voice of the one true God, ie he was the voice of the Aten, represented as the sun, a solar and singular Divinity.
I speak as one of the few people on this board who has - I'll wager - actually been to Akhetaten, the city of the Aten, the onetime capital built by the mad pharaoh himself. It's a a totally desolate, dusty, sunburned, wildly eerie site, in a fairly dangerous and very remote part of Middle Egypt.
It's brilliant. If you ever get the chance to go, GO. But be prepared to get TOTES freaked out.
TOTES?
BTW, I am jealous that you have been there - it sounds fabulous.
So, we are all worshipping the Aten (= Sun)? It works for me. I love the sunshine
It is a marvellous place. There's literally nothing left, in this windblasted valley, of an entire ancient city, except for some spooky tombs and some bored and knackered old soldiers with antique British rifles.
The sense of eradication is haunting. The city was torn down in anger and the whole place sown with salt.
And it is surrounded by some of the most resonantly historic, mystical places in the world, like the city of Akhmim, the home of Chemistry and Alchemy and cradle of hermeticism. Just fab.
Even better, if you make it that far, you will be the only tourist. I was. I saw no one else. For several days.
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year award descended into confusion and then farce on Wednesday after the corporation rejected a demand from the world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury to be the first ever athlete to be taken off its shortlist.
Given how 2020 has played out it's a poor year for SPOTY anyway. Hamilton is the only person on the list who has a shot.
Hamilton is probably home and hosed and I should cash out bets on the three I've backed against him. Certainly that would be the case if the award is for the person who most dominated their sport this year. Is that the case, or is SPotY judged more along the lines of a reality television show? I don't know because I don't watch these shows (and was shocked a couple of days ago to discover Bill Bailey, odds-on to win Strictly, opened up at 33 or 50/1; what were they thinking?).
The SPotY shortlist is a bit odd. Hamilton is an obvious choice, and I predicted Hollie Doyle as our top-performing sportswoman. Is Ronnie really the best snooker player this year or is this a lifetime achievement award? What is Stuart Broad doing there rather than Anderson? Did the BBC not remember what happened last time Fury was nominated?
"He is of course right that Darwin destroyed any last vestige of credibility that religion ever had",
Nice try. Try by science alone, explaining: Why there is something rather than nothing. How life began. What consciousness is. Where rationality comes from. How and why if there are no purposes in the universe we have evolved to have purposes and intentions.
You will not find any answers to those question in scripture. "God did it" explains nothing. You might as well say "Chance did it"
Interesting humiliation from the German Ambassador(?) replying to Alok Sharma's tweet claiming this was a great achievement in the history of the UK. He pointed out that the manufacturing company was German and American and the product was being produced in Belgium. 'What's so difficult that the UK can't just say this is a great day for US EU co-operation and leave it at that?'
He's such an embarrassment that even Johnson slapped him down and congratulated the US/EU effort.
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year award descended into confusion and then farce on Wednesday after the corporation rejected a demand from the world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury to be the first ever athlete to be taken off its shortlist.
Given how 2020 has played out it's a poor year for SPOTY anyway. Hamilton is the only person on the list who has a shot.
Hamilton is probably home and hosed and I should cash out bets on the three I've backed against him. Certainly that would be the case if the award is for the person who most dominated their sport this year. Is that the case, or is SPotY judged more along the lines of a reality television show? I don't know because I don't watch these shows (and was shocked a couple of days ago to discover Bill Bailey, odds-on to win Strictly, opened up at 33 or 50/1; what were they thinking?).
The SPotY shortlist is a bit odd. Hamilton is an obvious choice, and I predicted Hollie Doyle as our top-performing sportswoman. Is Ronnie really the best snooker player this year or is this a lifetime achievement award? What is Stuart Broad doing there rather than Anderson? Did the BBC not remember what happened last time Fury was nominated?
PC Principle has lost another teacher...I believe that's the 4th that has gone recently over this stuff and a pupil has been sent home early for daring to write a letter complaining about it.
A teacher at Eton College has attacked the ‘progressive ideology’ that he feels pupils are being ‘indoctrinated’ with at the elite school.
Dr Luke Martin has resigned from his role as head of ‘perspectives’ classes after his colleague Will Knowland was sacked over a controversial lecture on gender roles intended for one of these lessons.
The shadow cabinet is split over whether to back a Brexit deal, as backbench Labour MPs warn that up to 60 could rebel if Keir Starmer insists they back the government rather than allowing a free vote.
PC Principle has lost another teacher...I believe that's the 4th that has gone recently over this stuff and a pupil has been sent home early for daring to write a letter complaining about it.
A teacher at Eton College has attacked the ‘progressive ideology’ that he feels pupils are being ‘indoctrinated’ with at the elite school.
Dr Luke Martin has resigned from his role as head of ‘perspectives’ classes after his colleague Will Knowland was sacked over a controversial lecture on gender roles intended for one of these lessons.
PC Principle has lost another teacher...I believe that's the 4th that has gone recently over this stuff and a pupil has been sent home early for daring to write a letter complaining about it.
A teacher at Eton College has attacked the ‘progressive ideology’ that he feels pupils are being ‘indoctrinated’ with at the elite school.
Dr Luke Martin has resigned from his role as head of ‘perspectives’ classes after his colleague Will Knowland was sacked over a controversial lecture on gender roles intended for one of these lessons.
That's what I've been saying. If we can't enforce the rules and need time to adjust then the solution is to not enforce the rules. At least originally.
That the very idea of that seems unthinkable to many people just shows why the solution is often outside the box. If people need 6 to 12 months to adjust to the rules, give it to them.
Building a three or six month "implementation phase" into the agreement would seem the obvious solution, but then I'm not an expert.
It's what I'd do. I expect it will happen if there's a deal.
But the same principles will apply to no deal too.
Is he the most prominent victim of Covid? I cannot think if anyone more emiment, certainly in politics
He was a vain, Federalist nonce, but at least he openly admitted it, unlike the lying europhiles in the UK. He was good for France.
I think so, albeit he was 94.
He was very elitist and an EU Federalist but economically sensible and socially moderate, he was also rumoured to have had an affair with Princess Diana though he denied it.
He 'met every British leader from Edward Heath – the only one he described as a 'true European' – to David Cameron.'
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.
How about Catharism?
Given that that was several centuries later then even if they were influenced by Buddhism it doesn't really refute the "there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity" part of the statement. (My bold).
"However, in the East syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was widespread along the Silk Road in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China, as evidenced by the Jesus Sutras.[10]"
I quite like the theory that Akhenaten became the God of the Old Testament and all these years ever since, the Abrahamic religions have been worshipping a Pharoah
Point of Order. Akhenaten was not a God, he was the one true voice of the one true God, ie he was the voice of the Aten, represented as the sun, a solar and singular Divinity.
I speak as one of the few people on this board who has - I'll wager - actually been to Akhetaten, the city of the Aten, the onetime capital built by the mad pharaoh himself. It's a a totally desolate, dusty, sunburned, wildly eerie site, in a fairly dangerous and very remote part of Middle Egypt.
It's brilliant. If you ever get the chance to go, GO. But be prepared to get TOTES freaked out.
Is he the most prominent victim of Covid? I cannot think if anyone more emiment, certainly in politics
He was a vain, Federalist nonce, but at least he openly admitted it, unlike the lying europhiles in the UK. He was good for France.
I think so, albeit he was 94.
He was very elitist and an EU Federalist but economically sensible and socially moderate, he was also rumoured to have had an affair with Princess Diana though he denied it.
He 'met every British leader from Edward Heath – the only one he described as a 'true European' – to David Cameron.'
That seems a completely misleading quote from Tom Newton Dunn.
The NY Times article does not mention Brexit. The quote clearly refers to his China policy.
The article explicitly says:
"On foreign policy, Biden made two significant points. First, I asked him whether he stood by his views on the Iran nuclear deal .... blah, blah, blah for many paras ....
"On China, he said he would not act immediately to remove the 25 percent tariffs ... blah, blah, blah for many paras and then ... I want to make sure we’re going to fight like hell by investing in America first,” said Biden. He ticked off energy, biotech, advanced materials and artificial intelligence as areas ripe for large-scale government investment in research. “I’m not going to enter any new trade agreement with anybody until we have made major investments here at home and in our workers and in education."
So no reason to listen to what he has to say on Ireland then? 🤔
A US-UK trade deal was never the "great prize" of Brexit. To say so is nuts
Everyone knows that it seems except the Remainder HYUFD who seems to think he knows Brexiteers better than those of us who voted Leave.
Without an EU trade deal we have to have a US trade deal, we cannot afford no trade deal with our 2 largest markets.
This simply makes a Deal with the EU even more necessary
Of course we can afford to do so.
The idea we can't is the same Project Fear nonsense that led to you voting Remain in the first place.
48% of our exports go to the EU and 18% to the US, if we end up with heavy tariffs on our exports to the former after a No Deal Brexit and still tariffs on our exports to the latter with no US trade deal on top of the impact of lockdown our economy might well enter the worst depression since the 1930s
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.
How about Catharism?
Given that that was several centuries later then even if they were influenced by Buddhism it doesn't really refute the "there is no evidence whatsoever of any connection in origin between Buddhism and Christianity" part of the statement. (My bold).
"However, in the East syncretism between Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism was widespread along the Silk Road in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and was especially pronounced in the medieval Church of the East in China, as evidenced by the Jesus Sutras.[10]"
So no reason to listen to what he has to say on Ireland then? 🤔
A US-UK trade deal was never the "great prize" of Brexit. To say so is nuts
Everyone knows that it seems except the Remainder HYUFD who seems to think he knows Brexiteers better than those of us who voted Leave.
Without an EU trade deal we have to have a US trade deal, we cannot afford no trade deal with our 2 largest markets.
This simply makes a Deal with the EU even more necessary
Of course we can afford to do so.
The idea we can't is the same Project Fear nonsense that led to you voting Remain in the first place.
48% of our exports go to the EU and 18% to the US, if we end up with heavy tariffs on our exports to the former after a No Deal Brexit and still tariffs on our exports to the latter with no US trade deal on top of the impact of lockdown our economy might well enter the worst depression since the 1930s
And what about our imports ?
Perhaps you can also tell us what the UK trade balance has been in the last twenty years.
What are the latest betting odds on the existence of God?
Can you imagine how long it would take Betfair to settle that?
Seems a conflict of interest when they are backing the other team, as it were.
What would be really depressing would be to find there is a God but that he was indeed an insecure puritanical egotistical maniac who cannot stand any dissent or non-worship of him and occasionally has strops and causes nasty things like earthquakes. He is even likely to be to be out of his creative phase as for the last 2000 year he has not even parted any seas, made people , created light or anything more original than earthquakes.
What are the latest betting odds on the existence of God?
Can you imagine how long it would take Betfair to settle that?
Seems a conflict of interest when they are backing the other team, as it were.
What would be really depressing would be to find there is a God but that he was indeed an insecure puritanical egotistical maniac who cannot stand any dissent or non-worship of him and occasionally has strops and causes nasty things like earthquakes. He is even likely to be to be out of his creative phase as for the last 2000 year he has not even parted any seas, made people , created light or anything more original than earthquakes.
My understanding of God is that He exists, but He starts drinking at about 11am. Once you understand that, the entire universe is explained.
You are the Almighty and I claim my Myrrh, Gold and Frankincense
I wouldn't be so keen myself. The Magi were astrologers, who brought gold for a king, frankincense for a prophet and myrrh for a corpse. Not exactly what every new mum wants for her baby.
They were just covering all the bases
Surely, ONE of these three so-called wise men would have brought shoes?
So no reason to listen to what he has to say on Ireland then? 🤔
A US-UK trade deal was never the "great prize" of Brexit. To say so is nuts
Everyone knows that it seems except the Remainder HYUFD who seems to think he knows Brexiteers better than those of us who voted Leave.
Without an EU trade deal we have to have a US trade deal, we cannot afford no trade deal with our 2 largest markets.
This simply makes a Deal with the EU even more necessary
Of course we can afford to do so.
The idea we can't is the same Project Fear nonsense that led to you voting Remain in the first place.
48% of our exports go to the EU and 18% to the US, if we end up with heavy tariffs on our exports to the former after a No Deal Brexit and still tariffs on our exports to the latter with no US trade deal on top of the impact of lockdown our economy might well enter the worst depression since the 1930s
That's just Project Fear rehashed with the banality added that if Brexit was going to cause a depression then somehow a US deal would magic away all the pain.
If leaving the EU without a deal was going to cause a depression then that would happen with or without a deal with the USA. The USA was never under any circumstances a safety net alternative.
Those who think we could or should leave without a deal do so because they believe the UK will be ok without one. Not because they think it will bring about a depression there but for the grace of the USA.
What are the latest betting odds on the existence of God?
Can you imagine how long it would take Betfair to settle that?
Seems a conflict of interest when they are backing the other team, as it were.
What would be really depressing would be to find there is a God but that he was indeed an insecure puritanical egotistical maniac who cannot stand any dissent or non-worship of him and occasionally has strops and causes nasty things like earthquakes. He is even likely to be to be out of his creative phase as for the last 2000 year he has not even parted any seas, made people , created light or anything more original than earthquakes.
What are the latest betting odds on the existence of God?
Can you imagine how long it would take Betfair to settle that?
Seems a conflict of interest when they are backing the other team, as it were.
What would be really depressing would be to find there is a God but that he was indeed an insecure puritanical egotistical maniac who cannot stand any dissent or non-worship of him and occasionally has strops and causes nasty things like earthquakes. He is even likely to be to be out of his creative phase as for the last 2000 year he has not even parted any seas, made people , created light or anything more original than earthquakes.
My understanding of God is that He exists, but He starts drinking at about 11am. Once you understand that, the entire universe is explained.
You are the Almighty and I claim my Myrrh, Gold and Frankincense
I wouldn't be so keen myself. The Magi were astrologers, who brought gold for a king, frankincense for a prophet and myrrh for a corpse. Not exactly what every new mum wants for her baby.
They were just covering all the bases
Surely, ONE of these three so-called wise men would have brought shoes?
" LONDON, England (Reuters) -- The Three Wise Men who followed the star to Bethlehem bearing gifts for the baby Jesus may not have been all that wise -- or even men.
The traditional infant nativity play scene could be in for a drastic rewrite after the Church of England indulged in some academic gender-swapping over the three Magi at its General Synod in London this week.
A committee revising the latest prayer book said the term "Magi" was a transliteration of the name used by officials at the Persian court, and that they could well have been women. "
"He is of course right that Darwin destroyed any last vestige of credibility that religion ever had", Nice try. Try by science alone, explaining: Why there is something rather than nothing. How life began. What consciousness is. Where rationality comes from. How and why if there are no purposes in the universe we have evolved to have purposes and intentions.
Four years ago my wife and I were at a Christian convention in Singapore where there were people praying for the sick. She said to me "go and ask them to pray for your tinnitus to go". I grumpily said "several people have done that already and I still have it". Her response was "well get them to pray for your little finger". (Here you need to know that, as a former 5-a-side goalkeeper, during my career I had several fingers dislocated but one of them I could only half close before it would lock). With zero expectation that anything good would come of this, apart from keeping my wife happy, i allowed the person praying to put their hand over my finger and pray for it to be healed in Jesus name. They let go of my hand and asked me to close the finger and it did. I flexed my hand, my finger and just starred at it. I could never fully close it after it had been dislocated but since then, for the last five years I have never had a problem in doing so.
Everytime I read this sort of discussion I just look at my right hand and close that finger. I don't say Darwin is wrong, I don't think the Earth was formed in Genesis timescales but I do think there is something else having an impact on our lives and I will leave it at that.
A friend of mine had a son with a very strange and distressing medical condition where he was completely unable to walk or move without pain after an ankle injury. He was off school for months. He had endless medical appointments and nobody could work out what was wrong, although all sorts of nasty things were investigated. Eventually he met with a doctor who had seen this before, and with a simple distraction - getting him to concentrate on something else so that he walked without thinking about it - it was all pretty much cured. He had become so focussed on the actual action of walking because of the original injury that it became very stiff, mechanical, and thus painful.
I would bet on your finger injury being similar. There's a medical name for it that I can't quite recall. Perhaps Foxy might know.
Comments
Competition for willing tourists is going to be fierce post-covid. The urge will be to open things up, not close them down.
https://twitter.com/AFP/status/1334259292564807685?s=20
🙋
I speak as one of the few people on this board who has - I'll wager - actually been to Akhetaten, the city of the Aten, the onetime capital built by the mad pharaoh himself. It's a a totally desolate, dusty, sunburned, wildly eerie site, in a fairly dangerous and very remote part of Middle Egypt.
It's brilliant. If you ever get the chance to go, GO. But be prepared to get TOTES freaked out.
The 10 Commandments are just an edited version of the "42 Negative Confessions":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maat#42_Negative_Confessions_(Papyrus_of_Ani)
The SPotY shortlist is a bit odd. Hamilton is an obvious choice, and I predicted Hollie Doyle as our top-performing sportswoman. Is Ronnie really the best snooker player this year or is this a lifetime achievement award? What is Stuart Broad doing there rather than Anderson? Did the BBC not remember what happened last time Fury was nominated?
As for Jordan Henderson in the anyone but Marcus Rashford football slot, does his mum work at Media City? The FIFA 2020 shortlist includes no fewer than four Liverpool players who are not Henderson.
https://www.fifa.com/the-best-fifa-football-awards/news/nominees-for-the-best-fifa-football-awardstm-2020-revealed
BTW, I am jealous that you have been there
So, we are all worshipping the Aten (= Sun)? It works for me. I love the sunshine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PufT63ER0uY
The sense of eradication is haunting. The city was torn down in anger and the whole place sown with salt.
And it is surrounded by some of the most resonantly historic, mystical places in the world, like the city of Akhmim, the home of Chemistry and Alchemy and cradle of hermeticism. Just fab.
Even better, if you make it that far, you will be the only tourist. I was. I saw no one else. For several days.
He's such an embarrassment that even Johnson slapped him down and congratulated the US/EU effort.
Bring back the AV Thread, all is forgiven!
Piers Corbyn has been found guilty of breaching coronavirus restrictions at an anti-lockdown gathering.
He was given an absolute discharge after Westminster Magistrates' Court heard he had spent 12 hours in police custody after his arrest.
Addressing supporters outside, Corbyn said it had been "a tremendous result"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55162041
If these guys ever succeeded it'd blow their minds.
A teacher at Eton College has attacked the ‘progressive ideology’ that he feels pupils are being ‘indoctrinated’ with at the elite school.
Dr Luke Martin has resigned from his role as head of ‘perspectives’ classes after his colleague Will Knowland was sacked over a controversial lecture on gender roles intended for one of these lessons.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9011797/Now-theology-teacher-Eton-quits-pupils-indoctrinated.html
https://twitter.com/guyverhofstadt/status/1334271322906636291?s=20
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/dec/02/keir-starmer-faces-shadow-cabinet-split-on-support-for-brexit-deal
https://twitter.com/callummay/status/1334270095187730435?s=20
https://twitter.com/callummay/status/1334270096932560898?s=20
https://twitter.com/callummay/status/1334270098148880385?s=20
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1334280118060060674
He was a vain, Federalist nonce, but at least he openly admitted it, unlike the lying europhiles in the UK. He was good for France.
But the same principles will apply to no deal too.
The significant part is that Biden wants to invest in American research and production and we should be doing the same for ours.
Also 30,000 new cases in Turkey.
Even as the vaccine approaches, the virus becomes more ferocious
One, and only one, positive contribution he has made to US democracy.
This simply makes a Deal with the EU even more necessary
He was very elitist and an EU Federalist but economically sensible and socially moderate, he was also rumoured to have had an affair with Princess Diana though he denied it.
He 'met every British leader from Edward Heath – the only one he described as a 'true European' – to David Cameron.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9011929/Valery-Giscard-dEstaing-dies-aged-94-amid-investigation-sexually-assaulted-journalist.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valéry_Giscard_d'Estaing
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1323645393419313155?s=20
The NY Times article does not mention Brexit. The quote clearly refers to his China policy.
The article explicitly says:
"On foreign policy, Biden made two significant points. First, I asked him whether he stood by his views on the Iran nuclear deal .... blah, blah, blah for many paras ....
"On China, he said he would not act immediately to remove the 25 percent tariffs ... blah, blah, blah for many paras and then ... I want to make sure we’re going to fight like hell by investing in America first,” said Biden. He ticked off energy, biotech, advanced materials and artificial intelligence as areas ripe for large-scale government investment in research. “I’m not going to enter any new trade agreement with anybody until we have made major investments here at home and in our workers and in education."
The idea we can't is the same Project Fear nonsense that led to you voting Remain in the first place.
Perhaps you can also tell us what the UK trade balance has been in the last twenty years.
If leaving the EU without a deal was going to cause a depression then that would happen with or without a deal with the USA. The USA was never under any circumstances a safety net alternative.
Those who think we could or should leave without a deal do so because they believe the UK will be ok without one. Not because they think it will bring about a depression there but for the grace of the USA.
https://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/02/10/uk.magi.reut/
" LONDON, England (Reuters) -- The Three Wise Men who followed the star to Bethlehem bearing gifts for the baby Jesus may not have been all that wise -- or even men.
The traditional infant nativity play scene could be in for a drastic rewrite after the Church of England indulged in some academic gender-swapping over the three Magi at its General Synod in London this week.
A committee revising the latest prayer book said the term "Magi" was a transliteration of the name used by officials at the Persian court, and that they could well have been women. "
I would bet on your finger injury being similar. There's a medical name for it that I can't quite recall. Perhaps Foxy might know.