I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
speaking of colours I always find it fascinating that we have no way of knowing or experimenting to show that the "red" I see when I see say a tomato is the same "red" as somebody else is seeing. For all anyone knows somebody else could be seeing my "blue" when they see a tomato . They just call it red like I do because thats the colour of a tomato or a fire when in reality humans maybe see all sorts of different colours for the same thing. How do we ever know?
What if we don't have enough different words for types of blue in our particular language? Would we even see the difference between cyan and aquamarine and periwinkle?
The Chinese have no distinction between green and brown. It is all Ching dz. Literally nature coloured. Teaching colours in English
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
Wow.
Do you really believe the shit you post?
It's fascinating to learn atheism combines with contempt for the nation's history. I must have misremembered so many of my own posts.
Not as fascinating as "China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China" though. If only I could think of an example of religious devotion to a political party, regardless of leader or policy, as the backbone of this country.
No. No no no. HYUFD is absolutely right. Atheism really does, very often, combine with contempt for a nation’s history
This is partly because nearly all societies have been religious until at least the late 19th, 20th centuries, but it is still true
The MOST atheistic societies have generally been the most destructive of their own past. The great example is Pol Pot’s Cambodia, which was so atheist it burned down all the temples it found and threw every single Buddhist monk into the sea. It was so atheist it destroyed every single person who knew how to do “sacred Cambodian dance” - one of the great traditions of Indochina before the Khmer Rouge - to the extent that when the atheist commies were finally overthrown there was no one left who knew how to dance. They have had to resurrect it from scratch and a few documents and videos, tricky with a tradition that was handed down over centuries, orally and practically not via written instructions
Another example. The French Revolutionaries stripped bare all their churches and cathedrals, scars that are still highly visible today. A French church is generally much less interesting inside than an English or Italian church, precisely because the French s church was scoured by atheists
See also Mao’s China, and so on
Er, I don't think the Reformers were atheists. Yet look at what happened in England and Scotland. Albeit the former somewhat remedied by the Anglo-Catholic wing of the C of E.
Indeed. The Taliban blew up the Buddhas at Bamiyan. Doubtless they'd read Dawkins.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Dave Allen had the best response and one we should all coalesce around
May your God go with you
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
So we can deduce, from all those polls that Labour are drifting slightly upwards, the Conservative, LibDems and Greens slightly downwards. What I would like to see is the percentage of those who said they genuinely didn't know, at this point in time, how they were likely to vote next time.
Looking at the detailed tables, it's 17%, with 22% of 2019 Tories, 10% of Labour and 15% of LibDems. So quite a chunk of Tories currently adrift. My experience is that a chunk of don't knows will simply not vote.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
Wow.
Do you really believe the shit you post?
It's fascinating to learn atheism combines with contempt for the nation's history. I must have misremembered so many of my own posts.
Not as fascinating as "China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China" though. If only I could think of an example of religious devotion to a political party, regardless of leader or policy, as the backbone of this country.
No. No no no. HYUFD is absolutely right. Atheism really does, very often, combine with contempt for a nation’s history
This is partly because nearly all societies have been religious until at least the late 19th, 20th centuries, but it is still true
The MOST atheistic societies have generally been the most destructive of their own past. The great example is Pol Pot’s Cambodia, which was so atheist it burned down all the temples it found and threw every single Buddhist monk into the sea. It was so atheist it destroyed every single person who knew how to do “sacred Cambodian dance” - one of the great traditions of Indochina before the Khmer Rouge - to the extent that when the atheist commies were finally overthrown there was no one left who knew how to dance. They have had to resurrect it from scratch and a few documents and videos, tricky with a tradition that was handed down over centuries, orally and practically not via written instructions
Another example. The French Revolutionaries stripped bare all their churches and cathedrals, scars that are still highly visible today. A French church is generally much less interesting inside than an English or Italian church, precisely because the French s church was scoured by atheists
See also Mao’s China, and so on
Er, I don't think the Reformers were atheists. Yet look at what happened in England and Scotland. Albeit the former somewhat remedied by the Anglo-Catholic wing of the C of E.
(Deltapoll; Sample Size: 1,587; Fieldwork: 3- 4 February 2022)
Compared with what? Raw lists like this mean little, if anything.
Has the whole concept of ‘political’ + ‘betting’ passed you by? Odd if so. Punters, by definition, have to make big calls on imperfect information. You are clearly no punter.
I realise that 99% of the characters around here are only interested in the ‘political’ bit, but you’re the boring sector.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
As I said earlier, to this atheist the discussion about faith qua faith, ie apart from its historical, artistic, social, cultural and economic influence (all super interesting of course) is a huge waste of time. I have seen Graun CiF threads which basically come down to oh yes there is oh no there isn't.
If you believe great. If you are saying that it is a failing not to believe as though your mind is not sufficiently able to comprehend god then that is interesting. A heroin trip, for example (here am I talking to you about heroin trips, next I'll be telling @Dura all about carburetors) makes one believe all sort of things. If during a heroin trip you became convinced that fire-breathing dragons existed, would it be a failure of their imagination and mental capacity if other people refused to believe that they did.
You don’t “trip” on heroin. You are just absorbed into a cocoon of painless mild euphoria. You don’t care about anything. All anxiety and boredom is dispelled. It is a brilliant drug, in that respect, and the sensation is languorously wonderful
This is one thing that spooks me about these new synthetic opioids, if they can mimic the high of heroin but be 50 times as addictive due to a far worse withdrawal etc etc then we are fucked as a species
Yeah having come to opiates late in life and from the NHS they are the most wonderful comfort drug, but I don't get the whole edgy philosophical cathedral of cool built by the likes of Lou Reed on them. OTOH you don't really enjoy cigarettes properly until you are addicted to them, so I imagine it's that plus the illegality.
Shelley, Byron and others might have been having slightly different experiences on opium itself, though. That is the origin of a lot of the mythology.
Were Shelley and Byron big on opium?
Coleridge certainly was. "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel" must surely owe something to that.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
speaking of colours I always find it fascinating that we have no way of knowing or experimenting to show that the "red" I see when I see say a tomato is the same "red" as somebody else is seeing. For all anyone knows somebody else could be seeing my "blue" when they see a tomato . They just call it red like I do because thats the colour of a tomato or a fire when in reality humans maybe see all sorts of different colours for the same thing. How do we ever know?
What you are talking about are qualia in philosophical jargon, in case you want to google the subject
And once you know that there are all sorts of helpful conclusions... Ok, so none.
It was Kingsley Amis who nailed the fallacy that giving something a Latin name is the same thing as explaining it. "Why is that monk floating unsupported in mid air, mummy?" "That's called levitation, darling."
Richard Feynman (much-admired by Dominic Cummings) drew a similar distinction between knowing the name of something and knowing about it.
I just watched a few vids on twitter and the mob mention his prosecuting journalists/Savile.
Not good. Bit Trumpian.
What has evil genie has Johnson released?
This could actually be the final straw with Boris. The other stuff could be dismissed as a succession of laughable fiascos. But to see the attempted lynching of the LOTO because of smears Boris disseminated from the dispatch box - this is dark stuff.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
speaking of colours I always find it fascinating that we have no way of knowing or experimenting to show that the "red" I see when I see say a tomato is the same "red" as somebody else is seeing. For all anyone knows somebody else could be seeing my "blue" when they see a tomato . They just call it red like I do because thats the colour of a tomato or a fire when in reality humans maybe see all sorts of different colours for the same thing. How do we ever know?
What if we don't have enough different words for types of blue in our particular language? Would we even see the difference between cyan and aquamarine and periwinkle?
The Chinese have no distinction between green and brown. It is all Ching dz. Literally nature coloured. Teaching colours in English to toddlers there is somewhat challenging.
This brings back a dim boyhood memory of making a model Zero fighter from a Japanese plastic kit with Japanese instructions leavened with occasional English words. I was more than a little puzzled that the starboard wingtip light was marked 'blue' (it is universally green worldwide). Apparently the blue/green distinction in Japanese is not where you or I would put it. Or is this an urban myth?
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
speaking of colours I always find it fascinating that we have no way of knowing or experimenting to show that the "red" I see when I see say a tomato is the same "red" as somebody else is seeing. For all anyone knows somebody else could be seeing my "blue" when they see a tomato . They just call it red like I do because thats the colour of a tomato or a fire when in reality humans maybe see all sorts of different colours for the same thing. How do we ever know?
What if we don't have enough different words for types of blue in our particular language? Would we even see the difference between cyan and aquamarine and periwinkle?
Some Amazonian languages only have a present tense. There is absolutely no sense of a past or a future.
“We are gathering honey”. “Look at the moon. Moon.” “Now you have opened my soft thighs and you are fucking me”.
A dizzyingly different way of being human. It might in some ways be better. After all, we are told constantly it is better to live in the moment, These Amazonian blokes don’t stop fucking each other to go on their iPhones and temporally memorialize the moment on Instagram for likes
That’s misleading and something of a myth: lots of languages have no specific future tense: Chinese and Bahasa Indonesia are notable for having very few tenses. As indeed does English: please show me the future tense of any English verb. There are none: you can say “I went” for the past tense;?you can say “I go” or “I am going” for the present tense; but there is no verb form in English to mark a future activity. Instead you have to say “I will go”. All those languages have ways of expressing future activity and I’d be very surprised if you can actually find an example of an Amazonian (or other) language that has no way at all to express the future or past.
As to colour, there are huge differences in how languages categorize colours. Welsh is interesting: it has a specific word for “blue”, “glas” which in some contexts, especially to do with natural things,, can also mean “green”. (@ydoethur please correct me if wrong)
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
Wow.
Do you really believe the shit you post?
It's fascinating to learn atheism combines with contempt for the nation's history. I must have misremembered so many of my own posts.
Not as fascinating as "China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China" though. If only I could think of an example of religious devotion to a political party, regardless of leader or policy, as the backbone of this country.
China isn't atheist anyway. It's true that the majority of people do not believe in a creed, defined by a religious hierarchy, but they're not atheist.
How would you define Confucianism or Taoism? Or Buddhism come to that. AIUI none of them have 'gods' in the sense the Abrahamic religions do. Although Buddhists 'sort of genuflect' (if that's the right phrase) towards assorted Hindu deities.
More correct to say Indian deities. India was Buddhist for more than 1500 years. They are now considered Hindu, because India is. But it is more complex than that. They are similar deities, but different. And the word is prostrate.
This could actually be the final straw with Boris. The other stuff could be dismissed as a succession of laughable fiascos. But to see the attempted lynching of the LOTO because of smears Boris disseminated from the dispatch box - this is dark stuff.
Tory cabinet ministers continue to defend it in interviews
I just watched a few vids on twitter and the mob mention his prosecuting journalists/Savile.
Not good. Bit Trumpian.
What has evil genie has Johnson released?
Not a surprise. Boris's smear was long in the planning and has just enough basis in fact, despite being completely false, to convince what are now termed low-information voters.
(Deltapoll; Sample Size: 1,587; Fieldwork: 3- 4 February 2022)
Compared with what? Raw lists like this mean little, if anything.
Has the whole concept of ‘political’ + ‘betting’ passed you by? Odd if so. Punters, by definition, have to make big calls on imperfect information. You are clearly no punter.
I realise that 99% of the characters around here are only interested in the ‘political’ bit, but you’re the boring sector.
He's asking for a bit more analysis - what are the changes in those vote shares compared to the last GE, or the last poll? Or you could maintain a running average of the subsample splits, which would be a bit more meaningful than simply looking at the figures from each poll in isolation.
Not much point in making a fetish of imperfect information, and not seeking to do anything to derive more value from it.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Dave Allen had the best response and one we should all coalesce around
May your God go with you
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
Wow.
Do you really believe the shit you post?
It's fascinating to learn atheism combines with contempt for the nation's history. I must have misremembered so many of my own posts.
Not as fascinating as "China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China" though. If only I could think of an example of religious devotion to a political party, regardless of leader or policy, as the backbone of this country.
No. No no no. HYUFD is absolutely right. Atheism really does, very often, combine with contempt for a nation’s history
This is partly because nearly all societies have been religious until at least the late 19th, 20th centuries, but it is still true
The MOST atheistic societies have generally been the most destructive of their own past. The great example is Pol Pot’s Cambodia, which was so atheist it burned down all the temples it found and threw every single Buddhist monk into the sea. It was so atheist it destroyed every single person who knew how to do “sacred Cambodian dance” - one of the great traditions of Indochina before the Khmer Rouge - to the extent that when the atheist commies were finally overthrown there was no one left who knew how to dance. They have had to resurrect it from scratch and a few documents and videos, tricky with a tradition that was handed down over centuries, orally and practically not via written instructions
Another example. The French Revolutionaries stripped bare all their churches and cathedrals, scars that are still highly visible today. A French church is generally much less interesting inside than an English or Italian church, precisely because the French s church was scoured by atheists
See also Mao’s China, and so on
Er, I don't think the Reformers were atheists. Yet look at what happened in England and Scotland. Albeit the former somewhat remedied by the Anglo-Catholic wing of the C of E.
You’ve not been to Cambodia, have you?
"A French church is generally much less interesting inside than an English or Italian church, precisely because the French s church was scoured by atheists"
Just surorised by the French/English contrast, that's all - didn't seem the right way round to me. But you might well be right.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
Hm - but I'd guess(?) one of the reasons you find religion easy is that you grew up in an idiom in which believing in God was seen as a reasonable way of making sense of the world.
I didn't, really. I grew up in a going-through-the-motions idiom. We had nominally religious assemblies at primary school, but no-one really believed it. You sung a hymn and said a prayer because that's what you were told to. The teachers no more believed than the children. When a teacher who genuinely did believe turned up - and complained that by messing about we were begrudging God 20 minutes of our day - the blank incomprehension of both children and other teachers was palpable. The unspoken consensus - no, we aren't, because he doesn't exist, not really.
(I also went to Sunday school. But that was just a reason for mum and dad to have a bit of alone time. And actual church gave me the willies. Again, the sincerity gap.)
And so while I was never told there's no God, I never grew up around any sort of sincere belief that God was a thing. I'm not trying to be virtuously atheistic: my atheism is in many ways as circumstantial as others' belief. But it's just not a concept which makes any sort of sense to me personally. It's not easy to believe. It doesn't make any sort of sense. Less sense than the absolutely vast scale of the galaxy and the counter-intuitivity of quantum physics, anyway.
I find all this genuinely sad
To deny a child the wonderful gift of Faith is as bad, to me, as forcing on them some grotesque fundamentalist creed: Wahhabism or Wee Free Presbyterianism or whatever
Faith is an enormous solace, and we are hard wired for it. We are MEANT to believe. It helps you cope. There is a reason why NA and AA are the most proven and successful means of quitting major addictions, they both rely on a belief in a Higher Power. You surrender to the God that will save you. And it works. Better than fucking methadone. And I have tried both
And it works because it utilizes an algo-module already in our heads. The God module
My advice, if you are atheist but seek faith, is try ayahuasca. If it is anything like the wild shit I did in Ibiza in December you will emerge a believer
I don't think I was denied faith. My parents are, I think, atheists, though it's not a thing we've ever discussed - but they've certainly never tried to pass on their atheism. I dutifully encountered religion at school. But it was never terribly convincing, and the few people I met who were genuinely and outwardly convinced of God were all rather odd.
Even as far back as the 1970s, religion in mainstream urban Britain was - well, not exactly sidelined, but an anachronism we persisted with but weren't entirely sure why - like soup spoons or ties.
I agree we have a god module in our heads though. There's an evolutionary biologist whose name now escapes me who is quite interesting on that - his view is that tribes which 'did' religion thrived, because they reinforced group identity - and thus outcompeted those tribes which did not, and those without the god module.
I don't really seek faith - it strikes me as an inconvenience and a potential source of unwanted existential terror - but I am interested in it. I am an atheist, but that it is a statement of fact rather than an angry badge of identity, and I am genuinely curious about religious belief.
Could the experience of ayahuasca not equally well make you think 'I have taken a hallucinogenic drug which is having strange effects on my brain'?
That's very similar to my view. And I really think it's important to note that what I have is absence of belief, not belief of absence. I don't go around actively disbelieving in God - which is what so many religious people seem to think atheists do (and I guess in the case of Dawkins, it's true) - I simply don't have any active belief in him.
i would say that, based on your description, you're an agnostic, not an atheist. And that the difference between absence of belief and belief of absence is the dividing line between the two.
Not sure that's the case always. My flavour is that the question of god is irrelevant. If he appeared to me tomorrow morning while I'm having my toast and marmalade I might revise my view but he won't so I won't.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
speaking of colours I always find it fascinating that we have no way of knowing or experimenting to show that the "red" I see when I see say a tomato is the same "red" as somebody else is seeing. For all anyone knows somebody else could be seeing my "blue" when they see a tomato . They just call it red like I do because thats the colour of a tomato or a fire when in reality humans maybe see all sorts of different colours for the same thing. How do we ever know?
What if we don't have enough different words for types of blue in our particular language? Would we even see the difference between cyan and aquamarine and periwinkle?
Some Amazonian languages only have a present tense. There is absolutely no sense of a past or a future.
“We are gathering honey”. “Look at the moon. Moon.” “Now you have opened my soft thighs and you are fucking me”.
A dizzyingly different way of being human. It might in some ways be better. After all, we are told constantly it is better to live in the moment, These Amazonian blokes don’t stop fucking each other to go on their iPhones and temporally memorialize the moment on Instagram for likes
That’s misleading and something of a myth: lots of languages have no specific future tense: Chinese and Bahasa Indonesia are notable for having very few tenses. As indeed does English: please show me the future tense of any English verb. There are none: you can say “I went” for the past tense;?you can say “I go” or “I am going” for the present tense; but there is no verb form in English to mark a future activity. Instead you have to say “I will go”. All those languages have ways of expressing future activity and I’d be very surprised if you can actually find an example of an Amazonian (or other) language that has no way at all to express the future or past.
As to colour, there are huge differences in how languages categorize colours. Welsh is interesting: it has a specific word for “blue”, “glas” which in some contexts, especially to do with natural things,, can also mean “green”. (@ydoethur please correct me if wrong)
After a hard day's being anthropologised over they sit round caning the ayahuasca till one says "After the lies we told today about the absence of personal property rights, what shall we tell the nerds tomorrow?" "Let's tell 'em we only got a present tense, boss."
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
speaking of colours I always find it fascinating that we have no way of knowing or experimenting to show that the "red" I see when I see say a tomato is the same "red" as somebody else is seeing. For all anyone knows somebody else could be seeing my "blue" when they see a tomato . They just call it red like I do because thats the colour of a tomato or a fire when in reality humans maybe see all sorts of different colours for the same thing. How do we ever know?
What if we don't have enough different words for types of blue in our particular language? Would we even see the difference between cyan and aquamarine and periwinkle?
The Chinese have no distinction between green and brown. It is all Ching dz. Literally nature coloured. Tea
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
speaking of colours I always find it fascinating that we have no way of knowing or experimenting to show that the "red" I see when I see say a tomato is the same "red" as somebody else is seeing. For all anyone knows somebody else could be seeing my "blue" when they see a tomato . They just call it red like I do because thats the colour of a tomato or a fire when in reality humans maybe see all sorts of different colours for the same thing. How do we ever know?
What if we don't have enough different words for types of blue in our particular language? Would we even see the difference between cyan and aquamarine and periwinkle?
The Chinese have no distinction between green and brown. It is all Ching dz. Literally nature coloured. Teaching colours in English to toddlers there is somewhat challenging.
This brings back a dim boyhood memory of making a model Zero fighter from a Japanese plastic kit with Japanese instructions leavened with occasional English words. I was more than a little puzzled that the starboard wingtip light was marked 'blue' (it is universally green worldwide). Apparently the blue/green distinction in Japanese is not where you or I would put it. Or is this an urban myth?
Certainly. The range of colours, and boundaries of their distinction doesn't translate between Chinese and English well at all.
(Deltapoll; Sample Size: 1,587; Fieldwork: 3- 4 February 2022)
Compared with what? Raw lists like this mean little, if anything.
Has the whole concept of ‘political’ + ‘betting’ passed you by? Odd if so. Punters, by definition, have to make big calls on imperfect information. You are clearly no punter.
I realise that 99% of the characters around here are only interested in the ‘political’ bit, but you’re the boring sector.
He's asking for a bit more analysis - what are the changes in those vote shares compared to the last GE, or the last poll? Or you could maintain a running average of the subsample splits, which would be a bit more meaningful than simply looking at the figures from each poll in isolation.
Not much point in making a fetish of imperfect information, and not seeking to do anything to derive more value from it.
My apologies. My nerd-dom is so profound that I assumed it was frickin obvious the way the cookies are crumbling.
Seriously, if you lack elementary knowledge of electoral behaviour in the Yookay, you are on the wrong obscure blog.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
As I said earlier, to this atheist the discussion about faith qua faith, ie apart from its historical, artistic, social, cultural and economic influence (all super interesting of course) is a huge waste of time. I have seen Graun CiF threads which basically come down to oh yes there is oh no there isn't.
If you believe great. If you are saying that it is a failing not to believe as though your mind is not sufficiently able to comprehend god then that is interesting. A heroin trip, for example (here am I talking to you about heroin trips, next I'll be telling @Dura all about carburetors) makes one believe all sort of things. If during a heroin trip you became convinced that fire-breathing dragons existed, would it be a failure of their imagination and mental capacity if other people refused to believe that they did.
You don’t “trip” on heroin. You are just absorbed into a cocoon of painless mild euphoria. You don’t care about anything. All anxiety and boredom is dispelled. It is a brilliant drug, in that respect, and the sensation is languorously wonderful
This is one thing that spooks me about these new synthetic opioids, if they can mimic the high of heroin but be 50 times as addictive due to a far worse withdrawal etc etc then we are fucked as a species
Yeah having come to opiates late in life and from the NHS they are the most wonderful comfort drug, but I don't get the whole edgy philosophical cathedral of cool built by the likes of Lou Reed on them. OTOH you don't really enjoy cigarettes properly until you are addicted to them, so I imagine it's that plus the illegality.
Shelley, Byron and others might have been having slightly different experiences on opium itself, though. That is the origin of a lot of the mythology.
Were Shelley and Byron big on opium?
Coleridge certainly was. "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel" must surely owe something to that.
Refreshing my memory, Shelley considered opium / laudanum to have made him more politically radical, as well as attributing all sorts of spiritual insights to it, but yes, it was really more Coleridge than Byron I was thinking of, as the other main figure of the romantic poetic era to have been most interested in it.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Dave Allen had the best response and one we should all coalesce around
May your God go with you
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
I just watched a few vids on twitter and the mob mention his prosecuting journalists/Savile.
Not good. Bit Trumpian.
What has evil genie has Johnson released?
This could actually be the final straw with Boris. The other stuff could be dismissed as a succession of laughable fiascos. But to see the attempted lynching of the LOTO because of smears Boris disseminated from the dispatch box - this is dark stuff.
You'd hope so, but a lot of MPs will have suffered a lot of harassment one way or another from protesters in the vicinity of Westminster over the years - Brexit being particularly contentious - and so if they want to it would be quite easy for them to minimise this.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
Wow.
Do you really believe the shit you post?
It's fascinating to learn atheism combines with contempt for the nation's history. I must have misremembered so many of my own posts.
Not as fascinating as "China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China" though. If only I could think of an example of religious devotion to a political party, regardless of leader or policy, as the backbone of this country.
No. No no no. HYUFD is absolutely right. Atheism really does, very often, combine with contempt for a nation’s history
This is partly because nearly all societies have been religious until at least the late 19th, 20th centuries, but it is still true
The MOST atheistic societies have generally been the most destructive of their own past. The great example is Pol Pot’s Cambodia, which was so atheist it burned down all the temples it found and threw every single Buddhist monk into the sea. It was so atheist it destroyed every single person who knew how to do “sacred Cambodian dance” - one of the great traditions of Indochina before the Khmer Rouge - to the extent that when the atheist commies were finally overthrown there was no one left who knew how to dance. They have had to resurrect it from scratch and a few documents and videos, tricky with a tradition that was handed down over centuries, orally and practically not via written instructions
Another example. The French Revolutionaries stripped bare all their churches and cathedrals, scars that are still highly visible today. A French church is generally much less interesting inside than an English or Italian church, precisely because the French s church was scoured by atheists
See also Mao’s China, and so on
Er, I don't think the Reformers were atheists. Yet look at what happened in England and Scotland. Albeit the former somewhat remedied by the Anglo-Catholic wing of the C of E.
Whilst I agree the reformation was a terrible time for English architecture, I am unsure that the Victorian 'vandalism' of churches - often inspired by Angle-Catholicism - improved matters.
Pugin's churches are far too OTT for my tastes. But that's just my tastes.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
As I said earlier, to this atheist the discussion about faith qua faith, ie apart from its historical, artistic, social, cultural and economic influence (all super interesting of course) is a huge waste of time. I have seen Graun CiF threads which basically come down to oh yes there is oh no there isn't.
If you believe great. If you are saying that it is a failing not to believe as though your mind is not sufficiently able to comprehend god then that is interesting. A heroin trip, for example (here am I talking to you about heroin trips, next I'll be telling @Dura all about carburetors) makes one believe all sort of things. If during a heroin trip you became convinced that fire-breathing dragons existed, would it be a failure of their imagination and mental capacity if other people refused to believe that they did.
You don’t “trip” on heroin. You are just absorbed into a cocoon of painless mild euphoria. You don’t care about anything. All anxiety and boredom is dispelled. It is a brilliant drug, in that respect, and the sensation is languorously wonderful
This is one thing that spooks me about these new synthetic opioids, if they can mimic the high of heroin but be 50 times as addictive due to a far worse withdrawal etc etc then we are fucked as a species
Yeah having come to opiates late in life and from the NHS they are the most wonderful comfort drug, but I don't get the whole edgy philosophical cathedral of cool built by the likes of Lou Reed on them. OTOH you don't really enjoy cigarettes properly until you are addicted to them, so I imagine it's that plus the illegality.
Shelley, Byron and others might have been having slightly different experiences on opium itself, though. That is the origin of a lot of the mythology.
Were Shelley and Byron big on opium?
Coleridge certainly was. "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel" must surely owe something to that.
Refreshing my memory, Shelley considered opium / laudanum to have made him more politically radical, as well as attributing all sorts of spiritual insights to it, but yes, it was really more Coleridge than Byron I was thinking of, for the other main figure of the romantic poetic era to have been most interested in it.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by de Quincey is short, very good and available online. He was a mate of Coleridge.
(Deltapoll; Sample Size: 1,587; Fieldwork: 3- 4 February 2022)
Compared with what? Raw lists like this mean little, if anything.
Has the whole concept of ‘political’ + ‘betting’ passed you by? Odd if so. Punters, by definition, have to make big calls on imperfect information. You are clearly no punter.
I realise that 99% of the characters around here are only interested in the ‘political’ bit, but you’re the boring sector.
He's asking for a bit more analysis - what are the changes in those vote shares compared to the last GE, or the last poll? Or you could maintain a running average of the subsample splits, which would be a bit more meaningful than simply looking at the figures from each poll in isolation.
Not much point in making a fetish of imperfect information, and not seeking to do anything to derive more value from it.
My apologies. My nerd-dom is so profound that I assumed it was frickin obvious the way the cookies are crumbling.
Seriously, if you lack elementary knowledge of electoral behaviour in the Yookay, you are on the wrong obscure blog.
It's only you that keeps track of Scottish subsamples and you're not even in the UK
(Deltapoll; Sample Size: 1,587; Fieldwork: 3- 4 February 2022)
Compared with what? Raw lists like this mean little, if anything.
Has the whole concept of ‘political’ + ‘betting’ passed you by? Odd if so. Punters, by definition, have to make big calls on imperfect information. You are clearly no punter.
I realise that 99% of the characters around here are only interested in the ‘political’ bit, but you’re the boring sector.
He's asking for a bit more analysis - what are the changes in those vote shares compared to the last GE, or the last poll? Or you could maintain a running average of the subsample splits, which would be a bit more meaningful than simply looking at the figures from each poll in isolation.
Not much point in making a fetish of imperfect information, and not seeking to do anything to derive more value from it.
My apologies. My nerd-dom is so profound that I assumed it was frickin obvious the way the cookies are crumbling.
Seriously, if you lack elementary knowledge of electoral behaviour in the Yookay, you are on the wrong obscure blog.
Shrug.
It's just that your post would be more interesting with that information. In particular, the margin of error on subsamples is so large that some further analysis is required to make them worth looking at for anything more than mild amusement value.
We have plenty of nerds on here who are prepared to put in the effort to make things more interesting for the others. Shame that you are not one of us.
So we can deduce, from all those polls that Labour are drifting slightly upwards, the Conservative, LibDems and Greens slightly downwards. What I would like to see is the percentage of those who said they genuinely didn't know, at this point in time, how they were likely to vote next time.
The issue for Labour is, as has been pointed out before, their opinion poll performance is not being reflected in actual results. Local council by-elections have limited value but they should pick up at least some shift in sentiment. So far, they haven't, in fact the results would suggest any progress Labour is having in middle-class areas and not in their traditional heartlands.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that purely restrictive social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of life, personally speaking.
I just watched a few vids on twitter and the mob mention his prosecuting journalists/Savile.
Not good. Bit Trumpian.
What has evil genie has Johnson released?
Not a surprise. Boris's smear was long in the planning and has just enough basis in fact, despite being completely false, to convince what are now termed low-information voters.
Eh? How can it, as you say, have just enough basis in fact despite being completely false? Sounds contradictory to me.
Gervais might have got if from the same person as Baddiel
I liked the last one he said "I get accused of arrogance because I don't pray, but what could be more arrogant than asking the God who didn't stop the Holocaust for help finding your car keys"
Lost car keys are St Antony , if you are a Saint enthusiast.
The last I heard, God's way of dealing with such arrogance is that you don't find them.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of thing , myself.
Religion is the restrictive and dogmatic aspects of spirituality. which is why religions try to say 'we are right, you are wrong' when they come against other forms of spirituality.
Religion is power. People crave power over others. Spirituality is personal.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Dave Allen had the best response and one we should all coalesce around
May your God go with you
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
This isn't some reverse four yorkshireman tale of lack of bravery, but I can barely even watch that stuff. I don't like standing too close to the edge of a 1st floor balcony. In China there was this hotel that was like 50 stories, but all within a skyscraper, so there was a viewing floor at the top where you could look down to the lobby, all enclosed so no chance of falling, and I hated that.
I kinda wonder if Boris singing "I Will Survive" is just him ensuring the TV biopic which will inevitably follow his defensetration has as many memorable scenes as possible. At least means that an actor who can do a passable Welsh accent gets a part (playing Guto Harri)
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of thing , myself.
Religion is the restrictive and dogmatic aspects of spirituality. which is why religions try to say 'we are right, you are wrong' when they come against other forms of spirituality.
Religion is power. People crave power over others. Spirituality is personal.
Collective spirituality is not of necessity extremely dogmatic, although it is obviously much more likely to become so than private belief.
Look at the Quakers, for instance. A very democratic and open-minded collective religious group.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Dave Allen had the best response and one we should all coalesce around
May your God go with you
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
speaking of colours I always find it fascinating that we have no way of knowing or experimenting to show that the "red" I see when I see say a tomato is the same "red" as somebody else is seeing. For all anyone knows somebody else could be seeing my "blue" when they see a tomato . They just call it red like I do because thats the colour of a tomato or a fire when in reality humans maybe see all sorts of different colours for the same thing. How do we ever know?
What if we don't have enough different words for types of blue in our particular language? Would we even see the difference between cyan and aquamarine and periwinkle?
Some Amazonian languages only have a present tense. There is absolutely no sense of a past or a future.
“We are gathering honey”. “Look at the moon. Moon.” “Now you have opened my soft thighs and you are fucking me”.
A dizzyingly different way of being human. It might in some ways be better. After all, we are told constantly it is better to live in the moment, These Amazonian blokes don’t stop fucking each other to go on their iPhones and temporally memorialize the moment on Instagram for likes
That’s misleading and something of a myth: lots of languages have no specific future tense: Chinese and Bahasa Indonesia are notable for having very few tenses. As indeed does English: please show me the future tense of any English verb. There are none: you can say “I went” for the past tense;?you can say “I go” or “I am going” for the present tense; but there is no verb form in English to mark a future activity. Instead you have to say “I will go”. All those languages have ways of expressing future activity and I’d be very surprised if you can actually find an example of an Amazonian (or other) language that has no way at all to express the future or past.
As to colour, there are huge differences in how languages categorize colours. Welsh is interesting: it has a specific word for “blue”, “glas” which in some contexts, especially to do with natural things,, can also mean “green”. (@ydoethur please correct me if wrong)
After a hard day's being anthropologised over they sit round caning the ayahuasca till one says "After the lies we told today about the absence of personal property rights, what shall we tell the nerds tomorrow?" "Let's tell 'em we only got a present tense, boss."
Totally. IIRC some of the material Margaret Mead used in Coming of Age in Samoa turned out to be exactly that.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Dave Allen had the best response and one we should all coalesce around
May your God go with you
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of thing , myself.
Religion is the restrictive and dogmatic aspects of spirituality. which is why religions try to say 'we are right, you are wrong' when they come against other forms of spirituality.
Religion is power. People crave power over others. Spirituality is personal.
Collective spirituality is not of necessity extremely dogmatic, although it is obviously much more likely to become so than private belief.
Look at the Quakers, for instance. A very democratic and open-minded collective religious group.
The one Quaker I know well (and who proclaims himself as such) is batsh*t insane, a big fan of Assad and Putin. And when criticised, he says, 'as a Quaker...'.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of things , myself.
Don't whitewash it. Some religions actively try to control who you socialise with, who you pair up with. Until 7 years ago, you couldn't be monarch and married to a Catholic. The Pope must be unmarried and celibate. Muslims are told not to marry non-Muslims. Many religions ban same-sex relationships. This kind of control is normal in religion.
Does that mean that power and control is all religion is ? Ofcourse, it doesn't.
It's nothing to do with whitewashing ; the current trend is in fact a sort of "blackwashing" of every conceivable spiritual belief as tainted by power.
Provocative question. Why are we still wearing masks? If we aren't going to remove the requirement to wear them now, when are we? I admit I'm coming from a Welsh perspective but it annoys me that if I want to go to the Arts centre I must be wearing a mask, must have my vaccine passport and the mask can only be taken off when seated in the food area. I presume it is the same for the theatre though I can't find their guidance online. What is all this for? Yes it will reduce transmission but not by very much. There are no more people dying than would be expected at this time of year. We have got through the omicron (tidal) wave without the earth caving in as some of us were prepared to argue was unlikely anyway. I'm trying not to be too smug about that.
I'll go further. Is it actually a bad thing that people get infected with omicron? Covid won't disappear and I would have thought getting infected with a fairly mild form of the disease if you've been vaccinated puts you in a better position if a nastier variant were to pop along at some point. Something which we don't tend to mention. I saw a link from zero covid types on twitter recently pointing out how fewer children were getting sick with a host of other diseases presumably as a result of social distancing. Well isn't that great? So many healthy children thanks to wearing masks and keeping away from their friends. However I think about my nieces and nephews and wonder what sort of immune system they are developing and if they are going to be rather 'naive' when the next nasty bug comes around which could be a covid variant more harmful to children than we've seen so far. I don't know the answer to this but the problem is the question isn't even being asked.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Dave Allen had the best response and one we should all coalesce around
May your God go with you
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
This isn't some reverse four yorkshireman tale of lack of bravery, but I can barely even watch that stuff. I don't like standing too close to the edge of a 1st floor balcony. In China there was this hotel that was like 50 stories, but all within a skyscraper, so there was a viewing floor at the top where you could look down to the lobby, all enclosed so no chance of falling, and I hated that.
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Agree although it is also a factor that people need to denigrate the beliefs of others "something something of a middlebrow mind..." to try to justify their own beliefs.
Good luck to everyone, frankly. We'll all find our soon enough although given that this is a betting site I can understand why people take the Pascal route...
Yes, you are right. the “middlebrow” remark was me cheerfully spoiling for a fight, and that is unseemly in this regard. I apologise to the forum
What I was trying to say (before my testosterone got in the way) was that there really is a kind of atheism which just does not grasp WHY people believe, because the atheist mind lacks….. something. It’s not brains. Some of the smartest people in the world are atheist. Hell, possibly a majority.
But trying to explain faith to an atheist is like trying to explain “red” to a blind person. They just lack the faculty. It is no one’s fault.
speaking of colours I always find it fascinating that we have no way of knowing or experimenting to show that the "red" I see when I see say a tomato is the same "red" as somebody else is seeing. For all anyone knows somebody else could be seeing my "blue" when they see a tomato . They just call it red like I do because thats the colour of a tomato or a fire when in reality humans maybe see all sorts of different colours for the same thing. How do we ever know?
What if we don't have enough different words for types of blue in our particular language? Would we even see the difference between cyan and aquamarine and periwinkle?
Some Amazonian languages only have a present tense. There is absolutely no sense of a past or a future.
“We are gathering honey”. “Look at the moon. Moon.” “Now you have opened my soft thighs and you are fucking me”.
A dizzyingly different way of being human. It might in some ways be better. After all, we are told constantly it is better to live in the moment, These Amazonian blokes don’t stop fucking each other to go on their iPhones and temporally memorialize the moment on Instagram for likes
That’s misleading and something of a myth: lots of languages have no specific future tense: Chinese and Bahasa Indonesia are notable for having very few tenses. As indeed does English: please show me the future tense of any English verb. There are none: you can say “I went” for the past tense;?you can say “I go” or “I am going” for the present tense; but there is no verb form in English to mark a future activity. Instead you have to say “I will go”. All those languages have ways of expressing future activity and I’d be very surprised if you can actually find an example of an Amazonian (or other) language that has no way at all to express the future or past.
As to colour, there are huge differences in how languages categorize colours. Welsh is interesting: it has a specific word for “blue”, “glas” which in some contexts, especially to do with natural things,, can also mean “green”. (@ydoethur please correct me if wrong)
Leon peddling something based on merely cursory knowledge and understanding? Surely not.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of thing , myself.
Religion is the restrictive and dogmatic aspects of spirituality. which is why religions try to say 'we are right, you are wrong' when they come against other forms of spirituality.
Religion is power. People crave power over others. Spirituality is personal.
Collective spirituality is not of necessity extremely dogmatic, although it is obviously much more likely to become so than private belief.
Look at the Quakers, for instance. A very democratic and open-minded collective religious group.
The one Quaker I know well (and who proclaims himself as such) is batsh*t insane, a big fan of Assad and Putin. And when criticised, he says, 'as a Quaker...'.
I'm not sure that that discredits an entire group. They still have strikingly few restrictions of adapting their beliefs, and their structures are quite noticeably democratic, for instance.
Quite a big deal: one of Boris Johnson’s former cabinet ministers links the harassment of Starmer outside parliament to the PM’s Savile jibes
Julian Smith tweets What happened to Keir Starmer tonight outside parliament is appalling. It is really important for our democracy & for his security that the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full.
I just watched a few vids on twitter and the mob mention his prosecuting journalists/Savile.
Not good. Bit Trumpian.
What has evil genie has Johnson released?
Not a surprise. Boris's smear was long in the planning and has just enough basis in fact, despite being completely false, to convince what are now termed low-information voters.
Eh? How can it, as you say, have just enough basis in fact despite being completely false? Sounds contradictory to me.
Starmer was DPP. Savile was not prosecuted. There's your basis in fact. And it is completely false claim to imply a causal link. Boris knows he was lying.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
Provocative question. Why are we still wearing masks? If we aren't going to remove the requirement to wear them now, when are we? I admit I'm coming from a Welsh perspective but it annoys me that if I want to go to the Arts centre I must be wearing a mask, must have my vaccine passport and the mask can only be taken off when seated in the food area. I presume it is the same for the theatre though I can't find their guidance online. What is all this for? Yes it will reduce transmission but not by very much. There are no more people dying than would be expected at this time of year. We have got through the omicron (tidal) wave without the earth caving in as some of us were prepared to argue was unlikely anyway. I'm trying not to be too smug about that.
I'll go further. Is it actually a bad thing that people get infected with omicron? Covid won't disappear and I would have thought getting infected with a fairly mild form of the disease if you've been vaccinated puts you in a better position if a nastier variant were to pop along at some point. Something which we don't tend to mention. I saw a link from zero covid types on twitter recently pointing out how fewer children were getting sick with a host of other diseases presumably as a result of social distancing. Well isn't that great? So many healthy children thanks to wearing masks and keeping away from their friends. However I think about my nieces and nephews and wonder what sort of immune system they are developing and if they are going to be rather 'naive' when the next nasty bug comes around which could be a covid variant more harmful to children than we've seen so far. I don't know the answer to this but the problem is the question isn't even being asked.
It’ll be like the six nations and allowing fans in stadiums. Masks will be ditched once the virtue signallers have had enough and there’s no longer political capital in prolonging the nonsense.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of thing , myself.
Religion is the restrictive and dogmatic aspects of spirituality. which is why religions try to say 'we are right, you are wrong' when they come against other forms of spirituality.
Religion is power. People crave power over others. Spirituality is personal.
Collective spirituality is not of necessity extremely dogmatic, although it is obviously much more likely to become so than private belief.
Look at the Quakers, for instance. A very democratic and open-minded collective religious group.
The one Quaker I know well (and who proclaims himself as such) is batsh*t insane, a big fan of Assad and Putin. And when criticised, he says, 'as a Quaker...'.
There are lots of different Quakers, just as there are lots of different people all over the place. My paternal grandparents became Quakers and I always thought they were lovely about it, but it must have been different for my Dad, as he ended up being devoutly atheist.
Quite a big deal: one of Boris Johnson’s former cabinet ministers links the harassment of Starmer outside parliament to the PM’s Savile jibes
Julian Smith tweets What happened to Keir Starmer tonight outside parliament is appalling. It is really important for our democracy & for his security that the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full.
It's not a big deal. Most of the party will continue to say he has clarified his remarks, and so avoid any question of connection between spreading such stuff and the sort of loonies who hassled Keir.
The very fact the Nats think you could fight a referendum on the basis of some sort of court action against a foreign country to (hopefully) secure a state pension if there was a yes vote is only proof there patently isn’t going to be a referendum
Let's not go there again - can we just agree to disagree with those who believe in magic state pension money trees.
So, hang on, in the absence of indy, the UK is going to find itself unable to continue to pay pensions to UK pensioners, is it?
The tree is analogous to the pot. Something that can immediately be exploited for money. There is no tree, there is no pot. It's all out of current revenue.
Oh my god
If I want to establish a fund to meet a known future liability, I tend to buy gilts from the government. That is, promises from the government to make regular payments to me in the future. This is usually regarded as the safest possible way of investing. So how actually would the government establish a fund? What is more secure than a promise by the government to pay? What makes you think that an institution which turns over 1.1tn a year and is incapable of going bankrupt is not something that can be immediately exploited for money?
How many rUK voters are going to willing pay the State pension of pensioners in an Independent Scotland after what would be a bitterly fought independence referendum.
What would the consequences be for any rUK Government that agreed to do so come the next (and subsequent) elections?
That's why it doesn't work...
How is the construction of the concrete bunkers for the storage of 200+ nuclear warheads near Falmouth going? Oh! You haven’t started yet?! Dearie dearie me.
That's not an issue until Scotland gets a referendum. My point is that what Scotland wants is politic suicide where any rUK government to even vaguely suggest it.
And the standard attack on the forthcoming NI changes is where did that £350m a week go to?
Page one of chapter one of Negotiation for Dummies. BritNats ought to buy copies.
The most fascinating aspect of Blair McDougall‘a recent activity is that BetterTogether2 is clearly well under way. The forces of evil are gathering. Will the good guys win the day this time? Exciting, n’est-ce pas?
Who is going to grant this "referendum"?
Certainly not the Tories. Even if Boris goes, any Tory replacement will encounter the same logic. Why risk the Union, when there is a perfectly good argument ("once a generation") to say no to a vote?
Not gonna happen. That takes us to 2024. If the Tories win, then again they will say No for the same reason
So you need Starmer to win. If he gets a majority he will also say No, for the same reasons, with the ADDED incentive that one day the Labour Party needs to win again in Scotland, not secede it forever
So that leaves just one shot, Starmer as PM of a NOM Labour govt, dependant on the SNP for any votes. In that situation it is, I suppose, just about conceivable he might yield a vote, but I gravely doubt it as there is no way the Nats will vote him down and put Boris/Tories back in, so he is assured of their support if it comes to the crunch
AT SOME POINT if the Scots keep electing a Nat government which wants another indyref then yes, Westminster will reluctantly yield, but they won't do that until the "generation" argument is exhausted, and they are even less likely to do that any time the polls look good for the Nats
So you're a bit fucked. I reckon Sindyref2 will happen in the 2030s and this time London will be much harder in negotiating the timing, the question and the suffrage
I think you're right, in terms of what will happen, but the once in a generation argument is not a good one, nor is it sustainable for harmonious relationships between the constituent countries. It risks storing up a lot of resentments and greivances (what harm one more, I hear you say?) for the future and I think will make a future sindyRef both more likely to occur and harder to win.
The big problem, as I see it, is the constitution. Perniciously, it's not Scotland's place within it that is the problem but (essentially) England's. A new constitutional settlement between the Nations is required, one that allows a mechanism for the expression of English will outside of the national government but that will be inclusive to all the nations. Unfortunately, constitutional issues do not drive English politics and so it is difficult to see a democratic way through the impasse.
The only future for the United Kingdom is Federal. Without some major constitutional overhaul, all Westminster can do is refuse referenda and offer the devolved government more power by turn.
The latter being exactly what a future Starmer led government would likely do, with a Brown led commission for devomax
My hope is he would be a bit cannier than that. You can't out-SNP the SNP so offering more powers is just another short term strategy for storing up problems. There's not much to go on, admittedly, but I think he gets this. The Tories are Labour's enemy, but the SNP are their nemesis. I genuinely believe that an SLAB revival in Scotland is not only in Labour's interest, but is in the national interest.
It will not happen as long as they persist in not being democratic.If they do not support independence they re going nowhere.
Every galaxy contains - on average - 100-200 BILLION stars (some are much smaller, others much bigger)
So that's TWO TRILLION times 200 BILLION = the number of stars in the universe
In actual numbers that is
400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
That is the estimated number of stars in the observable universe, and that number keeps going up the more we explore. And we have only really just started exploring, beyond our own planet. And above this hovers the idea of the multiverse: that we are just one cosmos amongst many many many, or indeed an infinite number
This, I submit, is ONE reason Why Religion. The science of some cheeky vertical monkeys who wank half the day will never be able to comprehend this vastness. This should not stop us trying. But, eeeesh, God is a better answer for much of everyday human life, and indeed much spiritual inspiration. We are meant to believe, so believe, the way we are meant to enjoy booze, so drink
TO put it in physical terms there are more stars out there than grains of sand on all the Earth's beaches!
Yes.
Unlike Leon I don't see the vastness of the universe as a reason for believing in God but I think we've had this kind of discussion on here before.
I look up at the stars above and I'm filled with wonder. I find it comforting to think I am nothing and I will return to nothing. The universe will go on through timespans that make us seem even smaller than one of those grains of sand you mention.
Only Zaphod Beeblebrox managed to out-ego the universe. And Boris Johnson, obvs.
It isn't really that interesting. There's lots of things, some very big and far away. Wooo.
Well I agree.
I wrote my 'Yawn' before reading this.
You literally wrote: “the universe: YAWN”
Consider which approach might be the more diseased
Atheism is a tragic cul de sac of the frightened middlebrow mind
Atheism and disinterested agnosticism is also a symptom of the decline of self confidence in the West.
Atheism combined with contempt for your nation's history. If you look at growing economies and growing nations, Nigeria, Brazil, India etc they are all religious. The least religious parts of the US however are also generally the most Woke and least patriotic.
Even Putin recognises the strength of the Orthodox Church in entrenching pride in Russia (not that he is really a Christian of much devotion). China is atheist but then it has its own alternative religion ie devotion to the Communist Party as the backbone of China
On the other hand, religion can really screw people up.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
I would call that pure restrictive, and social dogma, rather than anything to do with the spiritual possibilities of thing , myself.
Religion is the restrictive and dogmatic aspects of spirituality. which is why religions try to say 'we are right, you are wrong' when they come against other forms of spirituality.
Religion is power. People crave power over others. Spirituality is personal.
Although I partially agree with aspects here, too, the other problem with it is that in our now very aggressively atheist society, religion has become a widely understood shorthand for anything vaguely spiritual at all. Anything remotely in this category is now tainted by the same concepts, solely of power.
Provocative question. Why are we still wearing masks? If we aren't going to remove the requirement to wear them now, when are we? I admit I'm coming from a Welsh perspective but it annoys me that if I want to go to the Arts centre I must be wearing a mask, must have my vaccine passport and the mask can only be taken off when seated in the food area. I presume it is the same for the theatre though I can't find their guidance online. What is all this for? Yes it will reduce transmission but not by very much. There are no more people dying than would be expected at this time of year. We have got through the omicron (tidal) wave without the earth caving in as some of us were prepared to argue was unlikely anyway. I'm trying not to be too smug about that.
I'll go further. Is it actually a bad thing that people get infected with omicron? Covid won't disappear and I would have thought getting infected with a fairly mild form of the disease if you've been vaccinated puts you in a better position if a nastier variant were to pop along at some point. Something which we don't tend to mention. I saw a link from zero covid types on twitter recently pointing out how fewer children were getting sick with a host of other diseases presumably as a result of social distancing. Well isn't that great? So many healthy children thanks to wearing masks and keeping away from their friends. However I think about my nieces and nephews and wonder what sort of immune system they are developing and if they are going to be rather 'naive' when the next nasty bug comes around which could be a covid variant more harmful to children than we've seen so far. I don't know the answer to this but the problem is the question isn't even being asked.
It’ll be like the six nations and allowing fans in stadiums. Masks will be ditched once the virtue signallers have had enough and there’s no longer political capital in prolonging the nonsense.
I'm still pro mask.
I've spent the last two years wearing as mask and mouthing 'fuck off' to people who annoy me.
I'm not ready to take off the mask, it will get me into trouble.
Provocative question. Why are we still wearing masks? If we aren't going to remove the requirement to wear them now, when are we? I admit I'm coming from a Welsh perspective but it annoys me that if I want to go to the Arts centre I must be wearing a mask, must have my vaccine passport and the mask can only be taken off when seated in the food area. I presume it is the same for the theatre though I can't find their guidance online. What is all this for? Yes it will reduce transmission but not by very much. There are no more people dying than would be expected at this time of year. We have got through the omicron (tidal) wave without the earth caving in as some of us were prepared to argue was unlikely anyway. I'm trying not to be too smug about that.
I'll go further. Is it actually a bad thing that people get infected with omicron? Covid won't disappear and I would have thought getting infected with a fairly mild form of the disease if you've been vaccinated puts you in a better position if a nastier variant were to pop along at some point. Something which we don't tend to mention. I saw a link from zero covid types on twitter recently pointing out how fewer children were getting sick with a host of other diseases presumably as a result of social distancing. Well isn't that great? So many healthy children thanks to wearing masks and keeping away from their friends. However I think about my nieces and nephews and wonder what sort of immune system they are developing and if they are going to be rather 'naive' when the next nasty bug comes around which could be a covid variant more harmful to children than we've seen so far. I don't know the answer to this but the problem is the question isn't even being asked.
It’ll be like the six nations and allowing fans in stadiums. Masks will be ditched once the virtue signallers have had enough and there’s no longer political capital in prolonging the nonsense.
It was quite amazing just how quickly Scotland and Wales opened stadia to fans, once it became clear the rugby would move to England if they didn’t!
The thing about Piers Corbyn - from my limited knowledge of him - is that I have no idea where on the political spectrum he lies. I do wonder if he lies somewhere off the plain, on the √(−1) axis,
Provocative question. Why are we still wearing masks? If we aren't going to remove the requirement to wear them now, when are we? I admit I'm coming from a Welsh perspective but it annoys me that if I want to go to the Arts centre I must be wearing a mask, must have my vaccine passport and the mask can only be taken off when seated in the food area. I presume it is the same for the theatre though I can't find their guidance online. What is all this for? Yes it will reduce transmission but not by very much. There are no more people dying than would be expected at this time of year. We have got through the omicron (tidal) wave without the earth caving in as some of us were prepared to argue was unlikely anyway. I'm trying not to be too smug about that.
I'll go further. Is it actually a bad thing that people get infected with omicron? Covid won't disappear and I would have thought getting infected with a fairly mild form of the disease if you've been vaccinated puts you in a better position if a nastier variant were to pop along at some point. Something which we don't tend to mention. I saw a link from zero covid types on twitter recently pointing out how fewer children were getting sick with a host of other diseases presumably as a result of social distancing. Well isn't that great? So many healthy children thanks to wearing masks and keeping away from their friends. However I think about my nieces and nephews and wonder what sort of immune system they are developing and if they are going to be rather 'naive' when the next nasty bug comes around which could be a covid variant more harmful to children than we've seen so far. I don't know the answer to this but the problem is the question isn't even being asked.
We need to have a bit of effort put in to trying to get people back to normal social interaction, otherwise this will become the new normal, and it will be detrimental for many.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
Quite a big deal: one of Boris Johnson’s former cabinet ministers links the harassment of Starmer outside parliament to the PM’s Savile jibes
Julian Smith tweets What happened to Keir Starmer tonight outside parliament is appalling. It is really important for our democracy & for his security that the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full.
It's not a big deal. Most of the party will continue to say he has clarified his remarks, and so avoid any question of connection between spreading such stuff and the sort of loonies who hassled Keir.
I think labour should fight dirty on this. It was, after all, one B. Johnson who dismissed the child abuse inquiry as “spaffing money up the wall”
A Labour MP has accused Boris Johnson of "inciting" violence against Sir Keir Starmer, after he was surrounded by an anti-lockdown mob.
The group surrounded the Labour leader and chanted "traitor" while another protestor shouted that Sir Keir was "protecting paedophiles".
Sir Keir was then bundled into a police car and escorted away from the crowd.
Chris Bryant, Labour MP for the Rhondda, hit out at the Prime Minister after a video of the incident was shared on social media, suggesting it was Mr Johnson's comments in the despatch box regarding Jimmy Savile that had encouraged the group.
The thing about Piers Corbyn - from my limited knowledge of him - is that I have no idea where on the political spectrum he lies. I do wonder if he lies somewhere off the plain, on the √(−1) axis,
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Dave Allen had the best response and one we should all coalesce around
May your God go with you
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
Quantum theory says things come into existence out of nothing all the time.
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
As I said in the post, I'm not a scientist. However my limited (again) understanding is that Quantum Theory explaining the creation of the Universe is like winning the National Lottery a million times over in succession given how many "ifs" and "buts" you have to assume in order to make it work.
But you tell me differently.
But God kicking around out there is just a banality by comparison?
I tend to take the Sherlock Holmes approach to things: "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth"
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
I think too that Leon's need for belief in God, if not the need to diss those who don't need him, rests more on what he has written about his own battles for wellbeing. And therefore I shall leave my input there.
If religion helps your mental health and wellbeing then that's fine. Just keep it to yourself and don't diss those who don't feel the need for it in the same way.
Dave Allen had the best response and one we should all coalesce around
May your God go with you
Perhaps sadly, Larkin surely nailed all the God stuff:
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That old moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die
My faith has absolutely zero to do with life-after-death
So Larkin, despite being a genius poet, is wrong here
He's right for many (inc me). People don't like to think dying spells the end of them. Because if so it's the end of everything as far as they are concerned. An infinite eternal black void awaits. Not even that in fact. An infinite eternal black void would be lovely by comparison. This is the bleakest of prospects, both terrible and certain. So it's worth mitigating mentally and a way to do this is to postulate a 'soul' which (like Celine Dion's heart) goes on. This brings a spiritual dimension and 'god' into play. It makes sense to me although I can't myself manage it. Not yet anyway. There's time. Your faith seems to be more of the spacey "there's more than we can ever know" type. That's different to what I'm talking about. But anyway ... my bag of nuts won't open itself.
Quick question for you @Kinablu. I'm assuming you are an agnostic / atheist (apologies if I have got that wrong). Given that, how would you justify the Big Bang theory for the creation of the Universe? I am not a scientist by any stretch but my (limited) understanding is that, if the theory states the Universe started from 2 hydrogen atoms coming together, the obvious question is where those 2 atoms came from given one of the basic laws of physics is you cannot create something from nothing. Genuinely curious how a non-believer gets round that contradiction.
What a stupid question! Your imaginary Santa solves nothing. For, in the absence of a better explanation, I can simply suggest that the two atoms came from the same place that your big man in a red furry suit came from.
This isn't some reverse four yorkshireman tale of lack of bravery, but I can barely even watch that stuff. I don't like standing too close to the edge of a 1st floor balcony. In China there was this hotel that was like 50 stories, but all within a skyscraper, so there was a viewing floor at the top where you could look down to the lobby, all enclosed so no chance of falling, and I hated that.
I have a complete terror of heights. Watching anything like that makes me feel queasy.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
For us not fluent in DementedTwatish, what obscure point are you attempting to make?
Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
At worst (for the unionists) it's 50/50 on the major issue.
We've been a divided nation since 2014 since your side failed to concede defeat.
Concede defeat?!
In a democracy, you are never “defeated”. All survive to contest the next election. Unless you are advocating that the Yookay abandon democracy?
You’ll be sending round the goons to lock us up.
Well Nippy should be in jail for sedition. But it's actually her stormtroopers that drive round in the police vans up here so I'm pretty sure that it's me that should be more fearful than you.
"Co-operation 30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom. "
According to the sedition link In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
Comments
Doubtless they'd read Dawkins.
If not, that's a stupid post. Don't need our politicians getting Palmed.
I realise that 99% of the characters around here are only interested in the ‘political’ bit, but you’re the boring sector.
Coleridge certainly was. "Kubla Khan" and "Christabel" must surely owe something to that.
My paternal grandfather was Plymouth Brethren. My paternal grandmother was not. When they got married, both sides of the family disowned them - and the marriage 'that would not last' lasted 60+ years, and produced four great kids, many grandchldren, and many, many superb great-grandchilren.
The pain this religious rift caused that side of the family was intense, and the effects still reverberate to this day. Fortunately it was not as bad as it could have been, thanks to granddad volunteering from a reserved occupation in WW2.
It was a pain caused by people seeing religion - or 'their' sort of religion - as the most important attribute a person could hold.
It's bullshit.
As to colour, there are huge differences in how languages categorize colours. Welsh is interesting: it has a specific word for “blue”, “glas” which in some contexts, especially to do with natural things,, can also mean “green”. (@ydoethur please correct me if wrong)
India was Buddhist for more than 1500 years. They are now considered Hindu, because India is.
But it is more complex than that. They are similar deities, but different.
And the word is prostrate.
https://youtu.be/fZ1owXJZaSQ
Not much point in making a fetish of imperfect information, and not seeking to do anything to derive more value from it.
Just surorised by the French/English contrast, that's all - didn't seem the right way round to me. But you might well be right.
Favourable = 37% (+7)
Unfavourable = 39% (-3)
Net = -2
Changes from 18 Jan 2022. https://twitter.com/CameronGarrett_/status/1490743943583121413/photo/1
Seriously, if you lack elementary knowledge of electoral behaviour in the Yookay, you are on the wrong obscure blog.
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1490749246378758151
https://twitter.com/adam_lewis_b/status/1490742702660628483
Why is God exempt from your theory anyway?
Johnson's comments about Saville now likely to come under further scrutiny
https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1490749873183985666
Pugin's churches are far too OTT for my tastes. But that's just my tastes.
Johnson's comments about Saville now likely to come under further scrutiny
https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1490749873183985666?s=21
Fighting goats stop traffic at Asda as 'frustrated' drivers try to move them
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/fighting-goats-stop-traffic-llandudno-23009662#ICID=Android_DailyPostNewsApp_AppShare
Piers that is.
Piers Corbyn has now addressed protesters who targeted Keir Starmer earlier
https://twitter.com/DavidTWilcock/status/1490741524891676685
It's just that your post would be more interesting with that information. In particular, the margin of error on subsamples is so large that some further analysis is required to make them worth looking at for anything more than mild amusement value.
We have plenty of nerds on here who are prepared to put in the effort to make things more interesting for the others. Shame that you are not one of us.
The last I heard, God's way of dealing with such arrogance is that you don't find them.
Religion is power. People crave power over others. Spirituality is personal.
But you tell me differently.
Look at the Quakers, for instance. A very democratic and open-minded collective religious group.
It's nothing to do with whitewashing ; the current trend is in fact a sort of "blackwashing" of every conceivable spiritual belief as tainted by power.
I'll go further. Is it actually a bad thing that people get infected with omicron? Covid won't disappear and I would have thought getting infected with a fairly mild form of the disease if you've been vaccinated puts you in a better position if a nastier variant were to pop along at some point. Something which we don't tend to mention. I saw a link from zero covid types on twitter recently pointing out how fewer children were getting sick with a host of other diseases presumably as a result of social distancing. Well isn't that great? So many healthy children thanks to wearing masks and keeping away from their friends. However I think about my nieces and nephews and wonder what sort of immune system they are developing and if they are going to be rather 'naive' when the next nasty bug comes around which could be a covid variant more harmful to children than we've seen so far. I don't know the answer to this but the problem is the question isn't even being asked.
No other obscure blogs interested in your unique insights? Chortle.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Uaq5hJ2RBRE
Also the zip line through the marina area, which I have done and was great fun. https://youtube.com/watch?v=VK8A5GA8aAo
https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1490755275464314882
https://twitter.com/juliansmithuk/status/1490754037708435460
Starmer gonna block indyref.
Davey? Who he?
According to the PB brains trust there ain’t gonna be a fresh indyref. So, hard to see how any “clueless wonders” can be in for any “shock”.
Julian Smith tweets What happened to Keir Starmer tonight outside parliament is appalling. It is really important for our democracy & for his security that the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full.
https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1490755275464314882
"Co-operation
30. The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed,
through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others,to
working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good
communication and mutual respect. The two governments have reached this
agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and
fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two governments are
committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the
outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of
the rest of the United Kingdom. "
Rishi Sunak: +8% (-3)
Keir Starmer: -1% (–)
Boris Johnson: -26% (+1)
Changes +/- 31 Jan
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voting-intention-7-february-2022/ https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1490744681831010311/photo/1
According to the Mensa geniuses around here, there ain’t gonna be no vote. Hmmm… wonder why…? Tis a brain teaser.
I've spent the last two years wearing as mask and mouthing 'fuck off' to people who annoy me.
I'm not ready to take off the mask, it will get me into trouble.
https://twitter.com/DLidington/status/1490755943575003139
https://twitter.com/JulianSmithUK/status/1490754037708435460
I'm ready for it - I just wish we could block indyref3 at this stage.
In Scotland, section 51 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 abolished the common law offences of sedition and leasing-making[52] with effect from 28 March 2011
The group surrounded the Labour leader and chanted "traitor" while another protestor shouted that Sir Keir was "protecting paedophiles".
Sir Keir was then bundled into a police car and escorted away from the crowd.
Chris Bryant, Labour MP for the Rhondda, hit out at the Prime Minister after a video of the incident was shared on social media, suggesting it was Mr Johnson's comments in the despatch box regarding Jimmy Savile that had encouraged the group.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/07/chris-bryant-keir-starmer-boris-johnson-inciting-violence/
The Atheist argument seems to rest on the view that "God cannot exist, therefore there has to be some other reason why the Universe came into existence. Let's produce a theory to prove that". I think that is logically wrong because you have assumed something is impossible which you don't know one way or the other whether it is true or not. In that way, I'd say Atheists are more irrational than Believers - the latter say we don't know what happened but we believe in God whereas the former say we know there is no God - which is impossible to prove / disprove - therefore something else must be the answer, even though that something else has been nowhere near proven but is based on what would appear a scientific contradiction (i.e. creating something from nothing, a phenomenon which isn't really seen anywhere else).
I wasn't aware of the Jimmy Savile accusation from the crowd.
Boris flew a Trumpian kite last Monday.