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2 Samuel 22:50 applies to the British Polling Council – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    DavidL said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON: 39% (-1)
    LAB: 31% (-1)
    GRN: 9% (+1)
    LDM: 8% (-1)
    SNP: 5% (=)
    RFM: 4% (+1)

    Via @YouGov, 25-26 Aug.
    Changes w/ 17-18 Aug.
    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/08/27/voting-intention-con-39-lab-31-25-26-aug?utm_source=twitter+&utm_medium=website_article&utm_campaign=voting_intention

    Greens about to replace Lib-Dems as Britain's third party?
    Christ no. Am I to be left with no choice but the Conservatives until the end of time?
    I don't know. Your (very, very sensible, BTW - I'd have liked them if I weren't on the wrong bit of kit) remarks the other day on Covid and health policy point to you joining the SNP ere long.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Out of interest, HYUFD, why do you consciously perceive yourself as a supporter of the landed interest ? The other two are much more common as publicly avowed tory loyalties.
    The Tories arose in the 17th century as the party of the landed gentry and the Anglican church, the Whigs were the party of the merchant class
    You're a rare man who will publicly avow support for the landed class in itself, nowadays, though.

    On a historical footnote, the Whigs drew aristocratic support with huge estate holdings, larger than the gentry's overall, but their publicly avowed values were quite different from the Tories', and more progressive.
    Where does the most staunch Tory support still come from today? Rural areas and landowners
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    Well, he's a party official and elected politician. The empirical definition of a Tory.
  • I think it's easy for someone like Hitler to be voted into power in an advanced democracy with an educated electorate. We've even started to see a little bit of that showing up in opinion polling here on a "strong leader who doesn't have to worry about institutions" and that's given everything we know now.

    People say, "oh, I'd never be taken in by that", but they would.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited September 2021
    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    You also need to improve your reading comprehension skills. Richard_Tyndall isn't calling you a Nazi he's calling you out as someone that follows their party's leadership without thinking or moral thought.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    edited September 2021

    Sean_F said:



    The destruction of the Great Libarary by Christian monks is a piece of Gibbon's mythology. If you want to blame any one individual, it should be Julius Caeasar, but the causes of its decline are multiple.

    This is a very learned article on the topic.

    https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-the-great-library-of-alexandria/

    You are confusing and conflating two separate events. The destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria occurred hundreds of years before the events I am talking about and the destruction of the Library of the Serapeum. The latter housed what had been salvaged from the Great Library after it was accidently burned during the Siege of Alexandria in 48BC. And it was all the more important for that. It was destroyed by a Christian mob at the order of the Christian Bishop of Alexandria Theophilus and the Christian Emperor Theodosius.
    @Richard_Tyndall

    May I suggest you take the trouble to read the link and find why you are still incorrect - or to be exact, why this ‘Christian mob,’ as you called them, attacked the library (ETA incidentally there is no evidence there was a library there by AD 391) and it got burned down?

    It is not for the reason you think.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Shame Frankie didn't let the 5000 dead of the Blue Division he sent to Russia to fight with the Nazis know about his neutral non-Naziness.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    No true Tory, eh?
  • kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    I have a strong suspicion that Pinochet may have been your favourite leader. A bit tougher than Franco.
    I read that as pinocchio initially. Had to double check.
    Did Pinochet always let his conscience be his guide?
    Did his nose grow when he told lies?
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    So who's signed up for the new Abba music? Me, for one - "Don't shut me down" is great, not quite so convinced by the other one. But it's great to have them back.

    Signed up for the album (as I suspect TSE has) to try and get tickets on Sunday morning.

    Problem is that at 10:20 I need to be out the house so it may be tight.
  • HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Out of interest, HYUFD, why do you consciously perceive yourself as a supporter of the landed interest ? The other two are much more common as publicly avowed tory loyalties.
    The Tories arose in the 17th century as the party of the landed gentry and the Anglican church, the Whigs were the party of the merchant class
    You're a rare man who will publicly avow support for the landed class in itself, nowadays, though.

    On a historical footnote, the Whigs drew aristocratic support with huge estate holdings, larger than the gentry's overall, but their publicly avowed values were quite different from the Tories', and more progressive.
    Where does the most staunch Tory support still come from today? Rural areas and landowners
    I can promise you that you are going to find out in 2024 how badly wrong you are about that.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Out of interest, HYUFD, why do you consciously perceive yourself as a supporter of the landed interest ? The other two are much more common as publicly avowed tory loyalties.
    The Tories arose in the 17th century as the party of the landed gentry and the Anglican church, the Whigs were the party of the merchant class
    You're a rare man who will publicly avow support for the landed class in itself, nowadays, though.

    On a historical footnote, the Whigs drew aristocratic support with huge estate holdings, larger than the gentry's overall, but their publicly avowed values were quite different from the Tories', and more progressive.
    Where does the most staunch Tory support still come from today? Rural areas and landowners
    This is correct.
  • stodge said:

    Yet another new pollster in Canada - Campaign Research - has entered the fray.

    A larger sample than other pollsters (3,011) but an online poll.

    The headline figures are:

    Conservative: 33%
    Liberal: 30%
    NDP: 22%
    BQ: 6%
    Greens: 4%
    People's Party: 4%

    The regional splits are as always of greater interest. In British Columbia (43 ridings), the NDP lead the Conservatives 36-32 with the Liberals on 26%. In Ontario (121 ridings), Trudeau's Liberals lead the Conservatives 36-34 with the NDP on 22. In Quebec (78 ridings), the Liberals lead BQ 34-28.

    The Conservatives have huge leads in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan as you might expect.

    Doesn't need saying but that's not enough for Erin O'Toole to win.

    He needs a clear lead in Ontario and BC.

    FWIW I think the Conservatives will do ok in Quebec and the Maritimes.
  • HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    "Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world"

    That's a lot of vaccines were one man to take. He must be really Polio resistant,
    He gets 50 cents a shot of the first 100 million shots of AZ vaccine produced in India and significantly more after that
    External Link please to back up the allegation as the only thing I can see is that their foundation has subsidised the first 100 million shots produced there so they are sold for $3 each.
    https://www.crazydaysandnights.net/2021/07/blind-items-revealed-4_01000380790.html
    That's your source? A random internet blog which doesn't itself give any, y'know, sources for this complete heap of bull?
    @eek only just beat me to calling you out on this, but ten minutes of research shows absolutely nothing, NOTHING, to corroborate your fantasy.
    You are a fraud and a lost and a fantasist. And an complete embarrassment. You should really leave now.
  • HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    Mummy Tory and Daddy Tory are fighting again!
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    Plenty of people disagree with their relatives' politics. Unless you think politics are genetically ingrained?
  • ydoethur said:

    Sean_F said:



    The destruction of the Great Libarary by Christian monks is a piece of Gibbon's mythology. If you want to blame any one individual, it should be Julius Caeasar, but the causes of its decline are multiple.

    This is a very learned article on the topic.

    https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-the-great-library-of-alexandria/

    You are confusing and conflating two separate events. The destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria occurred hundreds of years before the events I am talking about and the destruction of the Library of the Serapeum. The latter housed what had been salvaged from the Great Library after it was accidently burned during the Siege of Alexandria in 48BC. And it was all the more important for that. It was destroyed by a Christian mob at the order of the Christian Bishop of Alexandria Theophilus and the Christian Emperor Theodosius.
    @Richard_Tyndall

    May I suggest you take the trouble to read the link and find why you are still incorrect - or to be exact, why this ‘Christian mob,’ as you called them, attacked the library and it got burned down?

    It is not for the reason you think.
    I know well why it was. I have spent a great deal of time looking at the history of both the original library and the daughter libraries. But in the end it was an act of vandalism and destruction ordered explicitly by the Bishop and the Emperor. Why they did it is frankly immaterial. The fact they chose to says all I need to know about them.

    I would also add that successive Bishops of Alexandria made a point of murdering anyone who opposed them. And most of them ended up as Catholic Saints.
  • Omnium said:

    Omnium said:

    @MikeSmithson, OGH - let's not have any religious headers of any sort.

    I've written to you previously about your wonky child.

    Poor innocent child.

    Clearly you're not familiar with Proverbs 5:19 or Ezekiel 23:20 or Pulp Fiction, all of whom I am trying to work into PB headers.
    I'm not. Perhaps revelation is at hand. Do expand on your beliefs.
    I think most PBers know my beliefs. I'm the world's worst Muslim, the reality is I'm a Muslim two days a year for appearances.

    I've been agnostic since my teenage years, however as a young child I've always been interested in religious histories of many faiths.

    I love learning in particular about antipopes, Avignon popes, and The Borgias.

    Love a bit of hot reformation action, also love the founding of the Church of England because of Henry VIII's lust and desire for a son.

    As PB's preeminent historian I also love the historical angle of the battles involving faiths.
    Is the fact you don't drink a religious thing or a health thing?
    Lifestyle choice.

    I was obsessed with getting good grades and I saw my my friends make mistakes/very ill drinking lots it kinda put me off, being the responsible one was my role at university nights out.

    I realised that I didn't need to do drugs or drink alcohol to have a good time.

    Then after university I took a job in London which involved 100+ hour weeks so again I didn't have the time or energy to get trashed.

    Five years later I took a job in Leeds, moved back oop North to North Yorkshire which involved a 120 mile commute every day then I started a relationship with someone who didn't drive and lived in Birkenhead so that became a 270 mile round trip every weekend.

    A few years earlier one of my colleagues was done for drink driving 36 hours after his last drink and that also petrified me.

    So again alcohol really wasn't an option for me.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    .

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    I have a strong suspicion that Pinochet may have been your favourite leader. A bit tougher than Franco.
    Pinochet did of course at least help the UK in the Falklands War, as Baroness Thatcher acknowledged
    You are crossing the line from loyal Conservative to fascist apologist with consumate ease this evening. Your views may not go down well with some people you hope will vote for you in future elections.

    Some of these views are best kept to yourself, better still research fascist brutality in Spain, Chile and Argentina, and as a practicing Christian have a thought for those who were tortured and killed because of their political leanings. You would not be best pleased if British people disappeared without trace because they were Johnson supporting Conservatives would you?
    I did not say I was a Francoist , I said he was not all bad, given the choice between Franco and the communists in the 1930s many conservatives of the time preferred Franco.

    Of course the main centre right party in Spain, the Popular Party, the Tories sister party even has its origins in the People's Alliance founded by the reformist Francoist minister Manuel Fraga
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Out of interest, HYUFD, why do you consciously perceive yourself as a supporter of the landed interest ? The other two are much more common as publicly avowed tory loyalties.
    The Tories arose in the 17th century as the party of the landed gentry and the Anglican church, the Whigs were the party of the merchant class
    You're a rare man who will publicly avow support for the landed class in itself, nowadays, though.

    On a historical footnote, the Whigs drew aristocratic support with huge estate holdings, larger than the gentry's overall, but their publicly avowed values were quite different from the Tories', and more progressive.
    Where does the most staunch Tory support still come from today? Rural areas and landowners
    This is correct.
    It was also the easiest kind of area for the Tories to bully their employees and tenants.
  • HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    Mummy Tory and Daddy Tory are fighting again!
    I am not alone v the extremes demonstrated @HYUFD
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836
    @HYUFD on Bill Gates earlier "lately his methods have become more dubious."
    On Pinochet and Franco. Did some good things and backed Britain.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,771
    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON: 39% (-1)
    LAB: 31% (-1)
    GRN: 9% (+1)
    LDM: 8% (-1)
    SNP: 5% (=)
    RFM: 4% (+1)

    Via @YouGov, 25-26 Aug.
    Changes w/ 17-18 Aug.
    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/08/27/voting-intention-con-39-lab-31-25-26-aug?utm_source=twitter+&utm_medium=website_article&utm_campaign=voting_intention

    Greens about to replace Lib-Dems as Britain's third party?
    Christ no. Am I to be left with no choice but the Conservatives until the end of time?
    I don't know. Your (very, very sensible, BTW - I'd have liked them if I weren't on the wrong bit of kit) remarks the other day on Covid and health policy point to you joining the SNP ere long.
    LoL that genuinely made me laugh.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    HYUFD said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    I have a strong suspicion that Pinochet may have been your favourite leader. A bit tougher than Franco.
    Pinochet did of course at least help the UK in the Falklands War, as Baroness Thatcher acknowledged
    You are crossing the line from loyal Conservative to fascist apologist with consumate ease this evening. Your views may not go down well with some people you hope will vote for you in future elections.

    Some of these views are best kept to yourself, better still research fascist brutality in Spain, Chile and Argentina, and as a practicing Christian have a thought for those who were tortured and killed because of their political leanings. You would not be best pleased if British people disappeared without trace because they were Johnson supporting Conservatives would you?
    I did not say I was a Francoist , I said he was not all bad, given the choice between Franco and the communists in the 1930s many conservatives of the time preferred Franco.

    Of course the main centre right party in Spain, the Popular Party, the Tories sister party even has its origins in the People's Alliance founded by the reformist Francoist minister Manuel Fraga
    That's interesting. Would you say Mussolini was all bad? Hitler?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You constantly attack me as embarrassing you and the party when you have not even been bothered to consistently vote Tory at every general election, I have never voted Labour as you have
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    ydoethur said:

    Sean_F said:



    The destruction of the Great Libarary by Christian monks is a piece of Gibbon's mythology. If you want to blame any one individual, it should be Julius Caeasar, but the causes of its decline are multiple.

    This is a very learned article on the topic.

    https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-the-great-library-of-alexandria/

    You are confusing and conflating two separate events. The destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria occurred hundreds of years before the events I am talking about and the destruction of the Library of the Serapeum. The latter housed what had been salvaged from the Great Library after it was accidently burned during the Siege of Alexandria in 48BC. And it was all the more important for that. It was destroyed by a Christian mob at the order of the Christian Bishop of Alexandria Theophilus and the Christian Emperor Theodosius.
    @Richard_Tyndall

    May I suggest you take the trouble to read the link and find why you are still incorrect - or to be exact, why this ‘Christian mob,’ as you called them, attacked the library (ETA incidentally there is no evidence there was a library there by AD 391) and it got burned down?

    It is not for the reason you think.
    Yeah yeah yeah what you have to realise is libraries were forever burning down in classical times, it goes with hot dry countries and lots of papyrus. The recently rediscovered Galen tract peri alupias (About Being Chilled About Stuff) is about the depression his friends suffered when the library at the temple of venus burned down and took their mss with it.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Omnium said:

    Omnium said:

    @MikeSmithson, OGH - let's not have any religious headers of any sort.

    I've written to you previously about your wonky child.

    Poor innocent child.

    Clearly you're not familiar with Proverbs 5:19 or Ezekiel 23:20 or Pulp Fiction, all of whom I am trying to work into PB headers.
    I'm not. Perhaps revelation is at hand. Do expand on your beliefs.
    I think most PBers know my beliefs. I'm the world's worst Muslim, the reality is I'm a Muslim two days a year for appearances.

    I've been agnostic since my teenage years, however as a young child I've always been interested in religious histories of many faiths.

    I love learning in particular about antipopes, Avignon popes, and The Borgias.

    Love a bit of hot reformation action, also love the founding of the Church of England because of Henry VIII's lust and desire for a son.

    As PB's preeminent historian I also love the historical angle of the battles involving faiths.
    Is the fact you don't drink a religious thing or a health thing?
    Lifestyle choice.

    I was obsessed with getting good grades and I saw my my friends make mistakes/very ill drinking lots it kinda put me off, being the responsible one was my role at university nights out.

    I realised that I didn't need to do drugs or drink alcohol to have a good time.

    Then after university I took a job in London which involved 100+ hour weeks so again I didn't have the time or energy to get trashed.

    Five years later I took a job in Leeds, moved back oop North to North Yorkshire which involved a 120 mile commute every day then I started a relationship with someone who didn't drive and lived in Birkenhead so that became a 270 mile round trip every weekend.

    A few years earlier one of my colleagues was done for drink driving 36 hours after his last drink and that also petrified me.

    So again alcohol really wasn't an option for me.
    36 hours after his last drink - blooming heck, that must have been one hell of a night out - either that or he had other medical issues.

    I suspect if I was still above the limit 36 hours of drinking I would actually have died of alcohol poisoning roughly 36-30 hours earlier.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    edited September 2021

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
  • HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    As I already said you are the one who introduced the Nazi's into this discussion. Frankly I would go no further than to call you a fascist but I would suspect I would be being too generous to you. I suspect most people on here know exactly who the extremist is.
  • Omnium said:

    Omnium said:

    @MikeSmithson, OGH - let's not have any religious headers of any sort.

    I've written to you previously about your wonky child.

    Poor innocent child.

    Clearly you're not familiar with Proverbs 5:19 or Ezekiel 23:20 or Pulp Fiction, all of whom I am trying to work into PB headers.
    I'm not. Perhaps revelation is at hand. Do expand on your beliefs.
    I think most PBers know my beliefs. I'm the world's worst Muslim, the reality is I'm a Muslim two days a year for appearances.

    I've been agnostic since my teenage years, however as a young child I've always been interested in religious histories of many faiths.

    I love learning in particular about antipopes, Avignon popes, and The Borgias.

    Love a bit of hot reformation action, also love the founding of the Church of England because of Henry VIII's lust and desire for a son.

    As PB's preeminent historian I also love the historical angle of the battles involving faiths.
    Is the fact you don't drink a religious thing or a health thing?
    For me, it's a health/lifestyle thing.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON: 39% (-1)
    LAB: 31% (-1)
    GRN: 9% (+1)
    LDM: 8% (-1)
    SNP: 5% (=)
    RFM: 4% (+1)

    Via @YouGov, 25-26 Aug.
    Changes w/ 17-18 Aug.
    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/08/27/voting-intention-con-39-lab-31-25-26-aug?utm_source=twitter+&utm_medium=website_article&utm_campaign=voting_intention

    Greens about to replace Lib-Dems as Britain's third party?
    Christ no. Am I to be left with no choice but the Conservatives until the end of time?
    I don't know. Your (very, very sensible, BTW - I'd have liked them if I weren't on the wrong bit of kit) remarks the other day on Covid and health policy point to you joining the SNP ere long.
    LoL that genuinely made me laugh.
    Even so, they were so completely sane compared with some of the stuff on this website ...
  • Omnium said:

    Omnium said:

    @MikeSmithson, OGH - let's not have any religious headers of any sort.

    I've written to you previously about your wonky child.

    Poor innocent child.

    Clearly you're not familiar with Proverbs 5:19 or Ezekiel 23:20 or Pulp Fiction, all of whom I am trying to work into PB headers.
    I'm not. Perhaps revelation is at hand. Do expand on your beliefs.
    I think most PBers know my beliefs. I'm the world's worst Muslim, the reality is I'm a Muslim two days a year for appearances.

    I've been agnostic since my teenage years, however as a young child I've always been interested in religious histories of many faiths.

    I love learning in particular about antipopes, Avignon popes, and The Borgias.

    Love a bit of hot reformation action, also love the founding of the Church of England because of Henry VIII's lust and desire for a son.

    As PB's preeminent historian I also love the historical angle of the battles involving faiths.
    Is the fact you don't drink a religious thing or a health thing?
    Lifestyle choice.

    I was obsessed with getting good grades and I saw my my friends make mistakes/very ill drinking lots it kinda put me off, being the responsible one was my role at university nights out.

    I realised that I didn't need to do drugs or drink alcohol to have a good time.

    Then after university I took a job in London which involved 100+ hour weeks so again I didn't have the time or energy to get trashed.

    Five years later I took a job in Leeds, moved back oop North to North Yorkshire which involved a 120 mile commute every day then I started a relationship with someone who didn't drive and lived in Birkenhead so that became a 270 mile round trip every weekend.

    A few years earlier one of my colleagues was done for drink driving 36 hours after his last drink and that also petrified me.

    So again alcohol really wasn't an option for me.
    Fair enough. Just curious.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Out of interest, HYUFD, why do you consciously perceive yourself as a supporter of the landed interest ? The other two are much more common as publicly avowed tory loyalties.
    The Tories arose in the 17th century as the party of the landed gentry and the Anglican church, the Whigs were the party of the merchant class
    You're a rare man who will publicly avow support for the landed class in itself, nowadays, though.

    On a historical footnote, the Whigs drew aristocratic support with huge estate holdings, larger than the gentry's overall, but their publicly avowed values were quite different from the Tories', and more progressive.
    Where does the most staunch Tory support still come from today? Rural areas and landowners
    I can promise you that you are going to find out in 2024 how badly wrong you are about that.
    I can guarantee the Tories will still win a majority of rural areas in 2023/4
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Out of interest, HYUFD, why do you consciously perceive yourself as a supporter of the landed interest ? The other two are much more common as publicly avowed tory loyalties.
    The Tories arose in the 17th century as the party of the landed gentry and the Anglican church, the Whigs were the party of the merchant class
    You're a rare man who will publicly avow support for the landed class in itself, nowadays, though.

    On a historical footnote, the Whigs drew aristocratic support with huge estate holdings, larger than the gentry's overall, but their publicly avowed values were quite different from the Tories', and more progressive.
    Where does the most staunch Tory support still come from today? Rural areas and landowners
    This is correct.
    You might think so. I, as a landowning former tory in a rural area,couldn't possibly comment.
  • eek said:

    Omnium said:

    Omnium said:

    @MikeSmithson, OGH - let's not have any religious headers of any sort.

    I've written to you previously about your wonky child.

    Poor innocent child.

    Clearly you're not familiar with Proverbs 5:19 or Ezekiel 23:20 or Pulp Fiction, all of whom I am trying to work into PB headers.
    I'm not. Perhaps revelation is at hand. Do expand on your beliefs.
    I think most PBers know my beliefs. I'm the world's worst Muslim, the reality is I'm a Muslim two days a year for appearances.

    I've been agnostic since my teenage years, however as a young child I've always been interested in religious histories of many faiths.

    I love learning in particular about antipopes, Avignon popes, and The Borgias.

    Love a bit of hot reformation action, also love the founding of the Church of England because of Henry VIII's lust and desire for a son.

    As PB's preeminent historian I also love the historical angle of the battles involving faiths.
    Is the fact you don't drink a religious thing or a health thing?
    Lifestyle choice.

    I was obsessed with getting good grades and I saw my my friends make mistakes/very ill drinking lots it kinda put me off, being the responsible one was my role at university nights out.

    I realised that I didn't need to do drugs or drink alcohol to have a good time.

    Then after university I took a job in London which involved 100+ hour weeks so again I didn't have the time or energy to get trashed.

    Five years later I took a job in Leeds, moved back oop North to North Yorkshire which involved a 120 mile commute every day then I started a relationship with someone who didn't drive and lived in Birkenhead so that became a 270 mile round trip every weekend.

    A few years earlier one of my colleagues was done for drink driving 36 hours after his last drink and that also petrified me.

    So again alcohol really wasn't an option for me.
    36 hours after his last drink - blooming heck, that must have been one hell of a night out - either that or he had other medical issues.

    I suspect if I was still above the limit 36 hours of drinking I would actually have died of alcohol poisoning roughly 36-30 hours earlier.
    It was the weekend where he celebrated his 40th, with his rugby club mates in attendance.
  • HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    I worked for the party from 1965 until 2010 apart from 97 and 01

  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    I have a strong suspicion that Pinochet may have been your favourite leader. A bit tougher than Franco.
    Pinochet did of course at least help the UK in the Falklands War, as Baroness Thatcher acknowledged
    You are crossing the line from loyal Conservative to fascist apologist with consumate ease this evening. Your views may not go down well with some people you hope will vote for you in future elections.

    Some of these views are best kept to yourself, better still research fascist brutality in Spain, Chile and Argentina, and as a practicing Christian have a thought for those who were tortured and killed because of their political leanings. You would not be best pleased if British people disappeared without trace because they were Johnson supporting Conservatives would you?
    I did not say I was a Francoist , I said he was not all bad, given the choice between Franco and the communists in the 1930s many conservatives of the time preferred Franco.

    Of course the main centre right party in Spain, the Popular Party, the Tories sister party even has its origins in the People's Alliance founded by the reformist Francoist minister Manuel Fraga
    That's interesting. Would you say Mussolini was all bad? Hitler?
    Given the choice between Hitler and the communists I would reluctantly, like Churchill, have preferred the latter.

    Given the choice between Franco and the communists I would, like Churchill, have preferred the former.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    The FAA is grounding Virgin Galactic until further notice. https://twitter.com/nickschmidle/status/1433495439735758851/photo/1
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,751
    edited September 2021

    ydoethur said:

    Sean_F said:



    The destruction of the Great Libarary by Christian monks is a piece of Gibbon's mythology. If you want to blame any one individual, it should be Julius Caeasar, but the causes of its decline are multiple.

    This is a very learned article on the topic.

    https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-the-great-library-of-alexandria/

    You are confusing and conflating two separate events. The destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria occurred hundreds of years before the events I am talking about and the destruction of the Library of the Serapeum. The latter housed what had been salvaged from the Great Library after it was accidently burned during the Siege of Alexandria in 48BC. And it was all the more important for that. It was destroyed by a Christian mob at the order of the Christian Bishop of Alexandria Theophilus and the Christian Emperor Theodosius.
    @Richard_Tyndall

    May I suggest you take the trouble to read the link and find why you are still incorrect - or to be exact, why this ‘Christian mob,’ as you called them, attacked the library and it got burned down?

    It is not for the reason you think.
    I know well why it was. I have spent a great deal of time looking at the history of both the original library and the daughter libraries. But in the end it was an act of vandalism and destruction ordered explicitly by the Bishop and the Emperor. Why they did it is frankly immaterial. The fact they chose to says all I need to know about them.

    I would also add that successive Bishops of Alexandria made a point of murdering anyone who opposed them. And most of them ended up as Catholic Saints.
    So - just to be clear - it is ’immaterial’ that a terrorist organisation that had caused several riots and a number of deaths had turned a pagan temple formerly but probably not at the time possessed of a library into a stronghold and were defying the authorities - who happened to be led by the Bishop - who were eventually attacked and the building was stormed, causing its destruction?

    That is in your view, ‘wanton vandalism and destruction?’

    Well - if you say so.

    You’re wrong, but there’s no law against believing total nonsense. Fortunately for the likes of Hyufd, Contrarian etc…

    But I think you would actually find it much more useful to read the article. It explodes the atheist apologia you seem to have accepted far more elegantly and in much more detail than I can.

    Oh - and it is written by an atheist.

    Good night.
  • HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You constantly attack me as embarrassing you and the party when you have not even been bothered to consistently vote Tory at every general election, I have never voted Labour as you have
    But you voted Remain, so you can't call yourself a Tory.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,771

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    Mummy Tory and Daddy Tory are fighting again!
    Let’s face it. It is the closest you will get to an adult conversation in British politics right now.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    And yet Luke 15 applies:

    15 Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man [a]receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying:
    4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine [b]just persons who need no repentance.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So was I, while we were campaigning for Hague in all weathers BigG was not and then he voted for Blair
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    .
    Carnyx said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    Well, he's a party official and elected politician. The empirical definition of a Tory.
    Interesting that such a person would be a fan of Franco.

    Or do I ‘have no right to comment’, either ?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You constantly attack me as embarrassing you and the party when you have not even been bothered to consistently vote Tory at every general election, I have never voted Labour as you have
    But you voted Remain, so you can't call yourself a Tory.
    As long as you accepted the result and still vote Tory you can.

    Otherwise on your logic Cameron and Theresa May are not Tories
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited September 2021
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So was I, while we were campaigning for Hague in all weathers BigG was not and then he voted for Blair
    So basically if it wears a blue rosette you would vote and campaign for them regardless of their policies.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,771
    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON: 39% (-1)
    LAB: 31% (-1)
    GRN: 9% (+1)
    LDM: 8% (-1)
    SNP: 5% (=)
    RFM: 4% (+1)

    Via @YouGov, 25-26 Aug.
    Changes w/ 17-18 Aug.
    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/08/27/voting-intention-con-39-lab-31-25-26-aug?utm_source=twitter+&utm_medium=website_article&utm_campaign=voting_intention

    Greens about to replace Lib-Dems as Britain's third party?
    Christ no. Am I to be left with no choice but the Conservatives until the end of time?
    I don't know. Your (very, very sensible, BTW - I'd have liked them if I weren't on the wrong bit of kit) remarks the other day on Covid and health policy point to you joining the SNP ere long.
    LoL that genuinely made me laugh.
    Even so, they were so completely sane compared with some of the stuff on this website ...
    Well that’s nice of you to say so. I am not a Tory hack nor do I defend them when I don’t think that they deserve it.

    But Sturgeon really pisses me off and she is by far the best part of her administration.
  • You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.

    Those were grim years being a Tory.

    I was a Tory in London between 2000 and 2005, at times I felt like the only Tory in London.

    Knocking up the voters was no fun then.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    .

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So you’re one of the exclusionary tendency, too ?
  • HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    I worked for the party from 1965 until 2010 apart from 97 and 01

    Yes, you're Conservative by heritage and longevity but you also float with the wind.

    Quite frankly, and reading between the lines of the content of your posts on here, I very much doubt you would be if you were 50 years younger.

    I think it's just a generational thing.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Nigelb said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So you’re one of the exclusionary tendency, too ?
    All a bit Torier-than-thou, innit?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145
    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So was I, while we were campaigning for Hague in all weathers BigG was not and then he voted for Blair
    So basically if it wears a blue rosette you would vote and campaign for them regardless of their policies.
    https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/blue-ribbon-pig-royalty-free-image/78722431?adppopup=true

    But that is unkind to pigs.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited September 2021
    Nigelb said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So you’re one of the exclusionary tendency, too ?
    Unless you voted for Hague and Boris and May and Cameron you cannot call yourself a genuine Tory no.

    Just as unless you voted for Blair and Brown and Corbyn and still back Labour under Starmer you cannot call yourself genuine Labour either.

    If you do not fall in any of those categories you are really either a swing voter or a LD or Nationalist
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks
  • Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    And yet Luke 15 applies:

    15 Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man [a]receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying:
    4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine [b]just persons who need no repentance.
    Yes, but this sheep is claiming it was never lost and was with you all along, which is a bit much if you've just gone out in the wilderness trying to find him.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Latest @YouGov @thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 41 (-1); wrong 47 (+1). Fwork 25-26.8 (ch since 5-6.8). https://bit.ly/3zH2NUw
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    I didn't think it was possible to stay in a Swiss hotel for £87 unless it's something like a youth hostel...

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited September 2021

    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.

    Those were grim years being a Tory.

    I was a Tory in London between 2000 and 2005, at times I felt like the only Tory in London.

    Knocking up the voters was no fun then.
    Well, Boris Johnson was enjoying it ; although his political career came later.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Andy_JS said:

    I didn't think it was possible to stay in a Swiss hotel for £87 unless it's something like a youth hostel...

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    I saw someone check this earlier today and the quoted price is actually right - hotels are just about the only thing in Switzerland where the prices aren't oh boy.
  • Nigelb said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So you’re one of the exclusionary tendency, too ?
    Not at all.
  • HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    I worked for the party from 1965 until 2010 apart from 97 and 01

    Yes, you're Conservative by heritage and longevity but you also float with the wind.

    Quite frankly, and reading between the lines of the content of your posts on here, I very much doubt you would be if you were 50 years younger.

    I think it's just a generational thing.
    With labour and the lib dems the choice I most certainly would be
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    And yet Luke 15 applies:

    15 Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man [a]receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying:
    4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine [b]just persons who need no repentance.
    Yes, but this sheep is claiming it was never lost and was with you all along, which is a bit much if you've just gone out in the wilderness trying to find him.
    Are you really @Big_G_NorthWales ’s keeper ?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145

    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks

    There is something peculiarly depressing about the SCW.
  • You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.

    Those were grim years being a Tory.

    I was a Tory in London between 2000 and 2005, at times I felt like the only Tory in London.

    Knocking up the voters was no fun then.
    Maybe you should have used birth control? :lol:
  • Scott_xP said:

    Latest @YouGov @thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 41 (-1); wrong 47 (+1). Fwork 25-26.8 (ch since 5-6.8). https://bit.ly/3zH2NUw

    Yawn
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    HYUFD said:

    Nigelb said:

    .

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    So you’re one of the exclusionary tendency, too ?
    Unless you voted for Hague and Boris and May and Cameron you cannot call yourself a genuine Tory no.

    Just as unless you voted for Blair and Brown and Corbyn and still back Labour under Starmer you cannot call yourself genuine Labour either.

    If you do not fall in any of those categories you are really either a swing voter or a LD or Nationalist
    Weirdo.
  • Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    And yet Luke 15 applies:

    15 Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man [a]receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying:
    4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine [b]just persons who need no repentance.
    Yes, but this sheep is claiming it was never lost and was with you all along, which is a bit much if you've just gone out in the wilderness trying to find him.
    Are you really @Big_G_NorthWales ’s keeper ?
    I was responding to @Carnyx 's analogy.

    You need to work on your sense of humour.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,067
    dixiedean said:

    @HYUFD on Bill Gates earlier "lately his methods have become more dubious."
    On Pinochet and Franco. Did some good things and backed Britain.

    There were good people on both sides...
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836

    stodge said:

    Yet another new pollster in Canada - Campaign Research - has entered the fray.

    A larger sample than other pollsters (3,011) but an online poll.

    The headline figures are:

    Conservative: 33%
    Liberal: 30%
    NDP: 22%
    BQ: 6%
    Greens: 4%
    People's Party: 4%

    The regional splits are as always of greater interest. In British Columbia (43 ridings), the NDP lead the Conservatives 36-32 with the Liberals on 26%. In Ontario (121 ridings), Trudeau's Liberals lead the Conservatives 36-34 with the NDP on 22. In Quebec (78 ridings), the Liberals lead BQ 34-28.

    The Conservatives have huge leads in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan as you might expect.

    Doesn't need saying but that's not enough for Erin O'Toole to win.

    He needs a clear lead in Ontario and BC.

    FWIW I think the Conservatives will do ok in Quebec and the Maritimes.
    They'll certainly pick up seats in the Maritimes from a very low base. O'Toole is running a canny campaign focussing on the original Red Tories (swing Lib to Con voters), and keeping the crazies in the box, knowing that the Prairies are locked with nowhere else to go. The problem is BC has been swinging strongly left for decades, and has a growing population. (It was run by the Social Credit Party, way to the right of the Tories in the 80's. Now has an NDP majority government).
    Quebec has 4 Party races, so is susceptible to strong seat movement on relatively small swings. But they need many more seats there.
    It will come down to Ontario.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Latest @YouGov @thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 41 (-1); wrong 47 (+1). Fwork 25-26.8 (ch since 5-6.8). https://bit.ly/3zH2NUw

    Moving in the right direction.
  • DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    Carnyx said:

    DavidL said:

    GIN1138 said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Westminster Voting Intention:

    CON: 39% (-1)
    LAB: 31% (-1)
    GRN: 9% (+1)
    LDM: 8% (-1)
    SNP: 5% (=)
    RFM: 4% (+1)

    Via @YouGov, 25-26 Aug.
    Changes w/ 17-18 Aug.
    https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/08/27/voting-intention-con-39-lab-31-25-26-aug?utm_source=twitter+&utm_medium=website_article&utm_campaign=voting_intention

    Greens about to replace Lib-Dems as Britain's third party?
    Christ no. Am I to be left with no choice but the Conservatives until the end of time?
    I don't know. Your (very, very sensible, BTW - I'd have liked them if I weren't on the wrong bit of kit) remarks the other day on Covid and health policy point to you joining the SNP ere long.
    LoL that genuinely made me laugh.
    Even so, they were so completely sane compared with some of the stuff on this website ...
    Well that’s nice of you to say so. I am not a Tory hack nor do I defend them when I don’t think that they deserve it.

    But Sturgeon really pisses me off and she is by far the best part of her administration.
    Well, there's always room in the Labour Party for intelligent, urbane lawyers such as yourself - in fact, apparently we're chock full of them; but we could do with a few more from Scotland.

    And anyway, some of your posts in the past have hinted at a desire for fairly radical redistribution in favour of the dispossessed, I seem to remember. You know it makes sense. Only £65 a year, I think.
  • Foxy said:

    dixiedean said:

    @HYUFD on Bill Gates earlier "lately his methods have become more dubious."
    On Pinochet and Franco. Did some good things and backed Britain.

    There were good people on both sides...
    Fine people, even..
  • ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Sean_F said:



    The destruction of the Great Libarary by Christian monks is a piece of Gibbon's mythology. If you want to blame any one individual, it should be Julius Caeasar, but the causes of its decline are multiple.

    This is a very learned article on the topic.

    https://historyforatheists.com/2017/07/the-destruction-of-the-great-library-of-alexandria/

    You are confusing and conflating two separate events. The destruction of the Great Library at Alexandria occurred hundreds of years before the events I am talking about and the destruction of the Library of the Serapeum. The latter housed what had been salvaged from the Great Library after it was accidently burned during the Siege of Alexandria in 48BC. And it was all the more important for that. It was destroyed by a Christian mob at the order of the Christian Bishop of Alexandria Theophilus and the Christian Emperor Theodosius.
    @Richard_Tyndall

    May I suggest you take the trouble to read the link and find why you are still incorrect - or to be exact, why this ‘Christian mob,’ as you called them, attacked the library and it got burned down?

    It is not for the reason you think.
    I know well why it was. I have spent a great deal of time looking at the history of both the original library and the daughter libraries. But in the end it was an act of vandalism and destruction ordered explicitly by the Bishop and the Emperor. Why they did it is frankly immaterial. The fact they chose to says all I need to know about them.

    I would also add that successive Bishops of Alexandria made a point of murdering anyone who opposed them. And most of them ended up as Catholic Saints.
    So - just to be clear - it is ’immaterial’ that a terrorist organisation that had caused several riots and a number of deaths had turned a pagan temple formerly but probably not at the time possessed of a library into a stronghold and were defying the authorities - who happened to be led by the Bishop - who were eventually attacked and the building was stormed, causing its destruction?

    That is in your view, ‘wanton vandalism and destruction?’

    Well - if you say so.

    You’re wrong, but there’s no law against believing total nonsense. Fortunately for the likes of Hyufd, Contrarian etc…

    But I think you would actually find it much more useful to read the article. It explodes the atheist apologia you seem to have accepted far more elegantly and in much more detail than I can.

    Oh - and it is written by an atheist.

    Good night.
    Wow, for someone who claims to be a history teacher you certainly don't mind throwing out the bits you don't agree with. It is very highly debatable - in fact it flies in the face of most neutral accounts - that it was the pagans who were responsible for inciting the violence. The Christians had already attacked any non Christians whatever their beliefs for decades prior to the destruction of the library including pagans, Jews and even other Christians if they were considered not pure enough in their beliefs. I presume you considered the various WW2 resistance movements 'terrorists' as well because they did not submit to authority. They had destroyed temples and murdered non Christians with abandon and at least some of them had been tried and executed for it.

    I never realised you were another religious fanatic uninterested in facts. What a shame.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574

    Nigelb said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    eek said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    I find it interesting that you think you have the right to decide if someone is or is not a Traditional Tory - as in my personal opinion you are not a Conservative in any shape or form...
    I just pop in to see @HYUFD talking utter garbage and traducing a large number of moderate conservative voters

    You of course are a former New Labour voter rather than a loyal moderate Conservative voter
    Your purity is so pathetic and you embarrass so many of us who have worked for the party over decades
    You're polite BigG but, to be fair, I don't think you get to pull that argument given you voted for Blair in 1997 and 2001.

    I was working for the party throughout every one of those years. Every single one.
    And yet Luke 15 applies:

    15 Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man [a]receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying:
    4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine [b]just persons who need no repentance.
    Yes, but this sheep is claiming it was never lost and was with you all along, which is a bit much if you've just gone out in the wilderness trying to find him.
    Are you really @Big_G_NorthWales ’s keeper ?
    I was responding to @Carnyx 's analogy.

    You need to work on your sense of humour.
    You too.
  • eek said:

    Andy_JS said:

    I didn't think it was possible to stay in a Swiss hotel for £87 unless it's something like a youth hostel...

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html

    I saw someone check this earlier today and the quoted price is actually right - hotels are just about the only thing in Switzerland where the prices aren't oh boy.
    That doesn't make sense though. If all their input costs (e.g. staffing, cost of food ingredients, local taxes, energy etc) are high as per rest of Swiss life then how can they only charge £87?
  • Carnyx said:

    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks

    There is something peculiarly depressing about the SCW.
    Fernando?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,145

    Carnyx said:

    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks

    There is something peculiarly depressing about the SCW.
    Fernando?
    Not with you ...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,067
    Scott_xP said:

    Latest @YouGov @thetimes poll. In hindsight #Brexit right 41 (-1); wrong 47 (+1). Fwork 25-26.8 (ch since 5-6.8). https://bit.ly/3zH2NUw

    It is interesting that despite supposedly being Done, it is so widely seen as a poor decision. Keeping Brexit as a campaigning tool in the next GE may not be a great move for the Tories.

    Quite how Starmer plays it is going to be interesting, but having a history against it may not be the killer blow that the Tories want.
  • Brexit: food and drink exports to EU suffer ‘disastrous’ decline
    First-half sales fall £2bn, says industry body, as barriers are compounded by staff shortages

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/02/brexit-uk-food-drink-exports-eu-disastrous-decline
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Out of interest, HYUFD, why do you consciously perceive yourself as a supporter of the landed interest ? The other two are much more common as publicly avowed tory loyalties.
    The Tories arose in the 17th century as the party of the landed gentry and the Anglican church, the Whigs were the party of the merchant class
    You're a rare man who will publicly avow support for the landed class in itself, nowadays, though.

    On a historical footnote, the Whigs drew aristocratic support with huge estate holdings, larger than the gentry's overall, but their publicly avowed values were quite different from the Tories', and more progressive.
    Where does the most staunch Tory support still come from today? Rural areas and landowners
    I can promise you that you are going to find out in 2024 how badly wrong you are about that.
    I can guarantee the Tories will still win a majority of rural areas in 2023/4
    Too broad to mean anything. I think you are in for a nasty shock.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263

    Carnyx said:

    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks

    There is something peculiarly depressing about the SCW.
    Fernando?
    That's the Mexican war. It's a curious thing - the Swedish text of the song is a love song, but the English text, presumably partly for the US market, is about the partner of a Mexican preparing to fight the US.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,002
    edited September 2021
    My political history demonstrates that should a party become tired and an inspirational opposition leader arrives on the scene with new ideas then I can be persuaded, notwithstanding my previous voting record

    My conservative membership has now lapsed, so I am a free agent, but in the absence of an inspirational opposition leader my support is likely to be the same at the ballot box in 2024

    PS and despite @HYUFD
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Out of interest, HYUFD, why do you consciously perceive yourself as a supporter of the landed interest ? The other two are much more common as publicly avowed tory loyalties.
    The Tories arose in the 17th century as the party of the landed gentry and the Anglican church, the Whigs were the party of the merchant class
    You're a rare man who will publicly avow support for the landed class in itself, nowadays, though.

    On a historical footnote, the Whigs drew aristocratic support with huge estate holdings, larger than the gentry's overall, but their publicly avowed values were quite different from the Tories', and more progressive.
    Where does the most staunch Tory support still come from today? Rural areas and landowners
    I can promise you that you are going to find out in 2024 how badly wrong you are about that.
    I can guarantee the Tories will still win a majority of rural areas in 2023/4
    Too broad to mean anything. I think you are in for a nasty shock.
    Even in 1997 and 2001 the Tories comfortably won most rural areas
  • Carnyx said:

    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks

    There is something peculiarly depressing about the SCW.
    Fernando?
    That's the Mexican war. It's a curious thing - the Swedish text of the song is a love song, but the English text, presumably partly for the US market, is about the partner of a Mexican preparing to fight the US.
    Are you sure? I thought it was Spain.
  • A couple of weeks ago there was a discussion about bad songs by great songwriters (think it was a Freddie Mercury topic to start off with). Just found this:

    https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/10-worst-songs-by-great-artists/?amp
  • JohnO said:

    My view of HYFUD's distinctive brand of Conservatism can be neatly summed up by (I think) Iain Macleod on Enoch Powell

    "I'm happy to be on the same train as him but I make sure to get off a few stations before it crashes at speed into the buffers".

    I'm not sure how seriously I take it (just based on his posts on here) without corroborating evidence offline.

    I think he's just enthusiastically partisan and stubborn and lets himself fall into traps as a result.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    dixiedean said:

    Does it fall to me to point out that Franco and Pinochet both violently overthrew democratically elected governments? And tortured and executed their opponents?
    Are these core Tory values?

    Ask again in years to come.
  • Carnyx said:

    For those who don't want to refight the Spainsh Civil War, this is a great review of the new songs:

    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/02/abbas-new-songs-reviewed-a-perky-moving-return-to-pops-highest-peaks

    There is something peculiarly depressing about the SCW.
    Fernando?
    That's the Mexican war. It's a curious thing - the Swedish text of the song is a love song, but the English text, presumably partly for the US market, is about the partner of a Mexican preparing to fight the US.
    Are you sure? I thought it was Spain.
    Definitely Mexico
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Out of interest, HYUFD, why do you consciously perceive yourself as a supporter of the landed interest ? The other two are much more common as publicly avowed tory loyalties.
    The Tories arose in the 17th century as the party of the landed gentry and the Anglican church, the Whigs were the party of the merchant class
    You're a rare man who will publicly avow support for the landed class in itself, nowadays, though.

    On a historical footnote, the Whigs drew aristocratic support with huge estate holdings, larger than the gentry's overall, but their publicly avowed values were quite different from the Tories', and more progressive.
    Where does the most staunch Tory support still come from today? Rural areas and landowners
    I can promise you that you are going to find out in 2024 how badly wrong you are about that.
    I can guarantee the Tories will still win a majority of rural areas in 2023/4
    Too broad to mean anything. I think you are in for a nasty shock.
    Even in 1997 and 2001 the Tories comfortably won most rural areas
    Not in West Devon, they didn't.

    History doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,585
    HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    What a depressing post, particularly your Churchill quote.
  • HYUFD said:



    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    kjh said:

    @HYUFD on PT. Good response 'You may have done but you didn't' re atheists not doing all the stuff that religious groups did in the past. Can't disagree with that.

    But maybe if there hadn't been religion and hence everyone whapping great buildings for god and pictures of god and jesus, etc, they would have turned their hands to something else creative. As it was all the creative lot had their hands full of all the religious commissions.

    Also, the atheists tended to get barbecued as well, so they had two reasons to miss the religious commissions.

    And also, only some religions went all out for idolatry and art (not quite the same thing). Some eschewed them, and to this day I find the bare austerity of many Presbyterian kirks calming.

    As so often said on PB: dodgy conclusions come from inherently biased samples.
    Maybe but if you want to see great art and sculpture you go to the Vatican or even the likes of St Paul's cathedral not a kirk.

    You can be an atheist and still appreciate the artworks the Vatican has and commissioned even if the kirk is more pious in its worship
    You can indeed appreciate them but of course one of the reasons they were there as because the Church had all the wealth and all the power. It is easy to get all the best artists when you are the only ones who can actually pay them.
    There were some bankers, merchants and traders around even then but I don't see many of the most profitable corporations around today funding art and new buildings as much as the Church did then.

    Plus even today it is the church and religious bodies providing soup kitchens and homeless shelters, not big corporations
    Which ignores the billions being put into improving human life by people like Bill Gates.

    And of course you are also wrong about most big corporations. One company I have contracted to regularly has been meeting its commitment to donate several hundred thousand pounds each year to local charities even when it was £2 billion in debt. Perhaps the big difference is that a lot of companies just get on and do it without making a song and dance about it.

    Oh and the idea that the Church should be praised for commissioning all that art and architecture when they would happily have condemned and probably killed off anyone who did the same thing but without the religious connections is rather perverse. They were more than happy to destroy any great works of art that were not 'Christian'. The destruction of the Library of the Serapeum in Alexandria is just one small example.
    Bill Gates is also given a cut of every vaccine given in the developing world he funds and is buying up vast amounts of land to increase his influence. Plus he was a companion of Epstein's, he is no saint.

    Yes there are a few exceptions but Apple has a net worth of $2,450 billion, Microsoft of $2,160 billion, Amazon of $1,830 billion and Alphabet of $1,750 and even Facebook of $996 billion, far more than the Catholic church now has. None of them have given away percentage wise of their net worth anything like as much as the church has over the centuries.

    The Library of the Serapeum was either destroyed by Roman soldiers or a mob rather than the Catholic church itself.
    I am rather glad that Bill Gates is no Saint considering what many of the Christian Saints have done in the past. Not a bunch I would like to be associated with and frankly not much better than Osama Bin Laden. The early Christian Church - in fact the Church right up to the 18th century makes the Taliban looked positively enlightened by comparison.

    And no, the Roman army protected the Library against the Christian mob who were then allowed to sack and destroy the place as the price for letting the pagans sheltering there leave without being slaughtered.

    Just out of interest how do you think the church got all that wealth in the first place. It certainly wasn't through honest trade.




    Most of the wars of the time were dynastic and inter nation rather than strictly led by the church as such. Of course by far the worst mass murderers of all time Mao and Stalin were both atheists.

    As I said the destruction of the Library was a product of mob violence between Christian and non Christian elements on both sides. Indeed one source says pagans took captured Christians into the Serapeum, forced them to offer sacrifices to non Christian deities, tortured those that refused and offered blood sacrifices of the rest. So afterwards it is somewhat understandable if pagan images were destroyed, including with the assistance of Roman soldiers.

    The church got wealth through tithes amongst other things, which tended to support good works in the parish, something which it is regrettable ended as it linked the parish and church community more closely together

    You know the more I read of what you write (which is garbage most of the time I am afraid) the more I can see you as a supporter and apologist for Franco. You would have fitted right in with that Catholic Conservative ideology, violence and all.
    I am a traditional Tory and proud to be so, including support for Crown, Church and the landed interest.

    I am most certainly not a libertarian like you so no surprise you dislike most of what I write and yes not everything Franco did was bad. He kept Spain together and kept the Communists out for example
    Most traditional Tories - and most who support Crown and Church - would be ashamed of being associated with you.
    Given you are not a traditional Tory you cannot comment.

    Even Churchill supported Franco in the 1930s to keep the Communists out of power in Spain and Franco was never a Nazi, he shrewdly kept Spain neutral in WW2.

    Plus of course our sister party as Tories in Spain is the Popular Party which has Francoist origins
    Whenever people ask how it is that someone like Hitler managed to get to power in a modern European country all I have to do is point them in your direction. Ideology trumping basic common decency.

    Oh and before you try to Godwin me, I have made no mention of the Nazi's until you decided to bring them into the discussion as a rather obvious diversionary tactic. But if the cap fits...
    So now you are calling me a Nazi, despite the fact many members of my family fought them.

    Even Churchill said of Franco '“All the national and martial forces in Spain have been profoundly stirred by the rise of Italy under Mussolini to Imperial power in the Mediterranean. Italian methods are a guide. Italian achievements are a spur. Shall Spain, the greatest empire in the world when Italy was a mere bunch of disunited petty princedoms, now sink into the equalitarian squalor of a Communist State, or shall it resume its place among the great Powers of the world?”

    However I of course could not care less what your libertarian extremism thinks of me as you are often just as much my ideological opponent as a socialist is and at least most socialists tend to be more polite than you are
    What a depressing post, particularly your Churchill quote.
    Churchill was often a nasty little shit.
  • England 4-0; Northern Ireland 4-1.
This discussion has been closed.