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Wanted: A PM who DID NOT go to Oxford – politicalbetting.com

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  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 44,888

    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 spiritual is tainted by the same concepts of power.
    "aggressively atheist society"

    Given the harms caused by organised religions over the last few thousands years, I wouldn't call our current somewhat atheistic society 'aggressive'.

    I also disagree with your underlying comment. People are fine with spirituality. They are very dubious when they say that another person's spirituality and beliefs should impact their lives. Spirituality is becoming more personal and less public. Which, with a country containing many different beliefs, is a good thing IMV.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 37,138
    72% now think Boris Johnson is not an honest person, compared to just 14% who think he is. https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1490740369071427584/photo/1
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,063

    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,
    As is well known there is horseshoe theory where far left and far right closely resemble one another in practice, and I wonder if there is something that sits alongside that wherein the most extreme end reach a point where they end up departing the horseshoe altogether, and even the pretext of their extreme positioning no longer fits on the spectrum.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,923
    Farooq said:

    It takes quite something when Briskin is on here bumping along the sea floor to come out with the stupidest post of the day, but Mexicanpete managed with with some style.
    Hard to believe Briskin could be beaten.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    I thought you did a “PB flounce”?

    No other obscure blogs interested in your unique insights? Chortle.
    Haha, so speaks the Lenin of Scotland in his Swedish exile. Even your fellow Scots thought you were a tw*t
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254

    A Wikipedia fan who doesn’t even bother checking supplied sources? Who’d’ve thunk it?
    Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,422
    Have we done this?

    https://order-order.com/2022/02/07/exclusive-mystery-of-the-fake-polls-creating-fake-news-in-the-sunday-times/

    Guido has asked for a copy of the Focaldata’s polling data tables which, under British Polling Council rules, have to be supplied within 2 working days of a poll being leaked or published.
  • JBriskin3 said:

    Nippy should be treated as a criminal in the same way those Catalonian politicians were.
    Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.

    Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,920
    edited February 2022
    Back on the current and main topic, that people are discussing, I agree this really could be yet another unexpected, and entirely self-inflicted, turn of disaster, for our Bozo.

    It will have the unmistakeable whiff of the importation of hysterical and violent, Trumpist-style politics to a lot of people.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 44,888
    pigeon said:

    I have a complete terror of heights. Watching anything like that makes me feel queasy.
    When I was a teenager, I had a little job working on a power station cooling tower. Not one of the concave jobs on 1960s power stations, but a Borg-cube like thing. For the first few hours, I would inch along the 18-inch wide concrete beams with caution. After a couple of days, I would run along them.

    You get used to it.

    Being in the rigging of a tall ship in a breeze, at night, was a very different matter. I'd never get used to that.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,422
    edited February 2022

    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.


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/02/07/chris-bryant-keir-starmer-boris-johnson-inciting-violence/

    Perhaps SKS might come round to the government’s view on “protests”.
  • What “vote”?

    According to the Mensa geniuses around here, there ain’t gonna be no vote. Hmmm… wonder why…? Tis a brain teaser.
    You will note that I do not object to indyref2
  • tlg86 said:

    Have we done this?

    https://order-order.com/2022/02/07/exclusive-mystery-of-the-fake-polls-creating-fake-news-in-the-sunday-times/

    Guido has asked for a copy of the Focaldata’s polling data tables which, under British Polling Council rules, have to be supplied within 2 working days of a poll being leaked or published.

    Kinda, I flagged it up the other night.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,617
    edited February 2022

    Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.

    Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
    Also misogynistic. Very. Nippy sweeties and all that.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 9,785
    The best thing about our democracy is the fact I can rock up to my MPs office and complain about the tram works/turd hotel/double-parking in person.

    With Johnson, the Met, a complicit "party of government"...
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    IanB2 said:

    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.

    Which is what? Surely a man of obvious intelligence and repartee as shown by your answer can explain things? Surely I can't assume you just don't know the answer.....?
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254

    Ah. So. You are of the granny-bashing persuasion. Quelle surprise.

    Gunships up the Forth at dawn Pike!
    It's you that is the Nationalist dimwit.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,063
    JBriskin3 said:

    Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.

    ....sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)


    Wiki is only wiki of course, but pretty sure any equivalent things to charge with would require a pretty high bar.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    MrEd said:

    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).

    The Big Bang is not a specifically atheist construct and doesn't depend on the existence or not of God. It is compatible with God existing and deciding to have a Big Bang, existing and merely permitting the BB to happen, being formed by the BB, or not existing at all.
  • JBriskin3 said:

    Let's just hope Nippy (for your sake) doesn't ever travel to that far off place called England.
    I’m sure decent (note, decent) English folk will make her very welcome.

    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/sturgeon-for-pm-snp-leader-more-popular-than-boris-johnson-in-england-206901/amp/
  • kle4 said:

    As is well known there is horseshoe theory where far left and far right closely resemble one another in practice, and I wonder if there is something that sits alongside that wherein the most extreme end reach a point where they end up departing the horseshoe altogether, and even the pretext of their extreme positioning no longer fits on the spectrum.
    Yes but I think in this case it does not apply. There is a strange cluster of beliefs: covid-sceptics; Brexit; climate change sceptics; the Trump stuff in America. Lazily called alt-right but perhaps extreme anti-Establishment?
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254
    kle4 said:


    ....sedition and seditious libel (as common law offences) were abolished in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland by section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (with effect on 12 January 2010)


    Wiki is only wiki of course, but pretty sure any equivalent things to charge with would require a pretty high bar.
    OK so Nippy can't be jailed.

    She should at least be no-platformed on BBC and STV from a moral standpoint.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,617
    JBriskin3 said:

    It's you that is the Nationalist dimwit.
    The granny-bashers in Spain were the nationalists. It's the Spanish word for right wing unionists.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,063

    Yes but I think in this case it does not apply. There is a strange cluster of beliefs: covid-sceptics; Brexit; climate change sceptics; the Trump stuff in America. Lazily called alt-right but perhaps extreme anti-Establishment?
    That was my point - I think people come to this stuff initially from 'traditional' extremism, a la horseshoe, but it then morphs into its very own thing and cannot fit into that kind of neat definition anymore. They don't seem to think in those terms at all.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 44,888

    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.
    Oh, indeed. But it shows how people use a religion as power. How can I be morally wrong, when I am a member of a very moral group?

    It's an appeal to a (very) higher authority.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267

    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.

    The government coerced and scared us into it; the government must urge and un-scare us out of it.

    Specific guidance to insist on masks, hand gels, perspex screens etc must be replaced with specific guidance that these measures should be removed. This should already have been done in the public sector.

    Without such direction businesses and other organisations can drag their heels, virtue-signalling away, for a mighty long time yet.
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254
    edited February 2022
    Carnyx said:

    The granny-bashers in Spain were the nationalists. It's the Spanish word for right wing unionists.
    Well I want blow and weed legalised (might knock some sense into the Irn Bru puritans up here) so I can hardly be described as right wing.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 37,138

    When I was a teenager, I had a little job working on a power station cooling tower. Not one of the concave jobs on 1960s power stations, but a Borg-cube like thing. For the first few hours, I would inch along the 18-inch wide concrete beams with caution. After a couple of days, I would run along them.

    You get used to it.

    Being in the rigging of a tall ship in a breeze, at night, was a very different matter. I'd never get used to that.

    I spent some time on top of the half moon wall at Edinburgh Castle in my teens.

    No problem doing it at the time. Had nightmares after.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 44,888
    IshmaelZ said:

    The Big Bang is not a specifically atheist construct and doesn't depend on the existence or not of God. It is compatible with God existing and deciding to have a Big Bang, existing and merely permitting the BB to happen, being formed by the BB, or not existing at all.
    Or even, given the infinite varieties the BB could have resulted in, Him having directed the results? Like giving a seed number to an RNG in a big simulation ...
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    rpjs said:

    What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
    I honestly have no idea.

    All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254

    I’m sure decent (note, decent) English folk will make her very welcome.

    https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/sturgeon-for-pm-snp-leader-more-popular-than-boris-johnson-in-england-206901/amp/
    Think you've lost this one Mr Dickson - try again tomorrow.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,920
    edited February 2022
    Farooq said:

    Don't invent an exaggeration that isn't there in my post.
    I only want to point out that these things go on in the name of religion and that many of these restrictions are canon. When religions dictate whom you may or may not lie next to at night, and especially when they instruct others to treat you differently if you transgress in that regard, that's a thing that deserves to talked about.
    Religions are about more than just the spirituality. The "thou shalt not" side is usually intrinsic.
    I would say I was only replying in kind. You were essentially saying that by differentiating elements in religion, I was whitewashing all religion, which to my mind is a very exaggerated claim.

    I've got no objection to talking about it ; I would just stress again that that is very far from the *only* contents of religion. In the wider view I actually have little time for most, but definitely not all, organised religion myself.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,063
    IshmaelZ said:

    The Big Bang is not a specifically atheist construct and doesn't depend on the existence or not of God. It is compatible with God existing and deciding to have a Big Bang, existing and merely permitting the BB to happen, being formed by the BB, or not existing at all.
    Turns out he is much more patient than that whole 7 days thing suggested.

    Besides, the movie Moonfall has now taught me all I need to know about the development of astral bodies at least.
  • JBriskin3 said:

    It's you that is the Nationalist dimwit.
    Please look up Duck test on your beloved Wikipedia.

    You look like a British Nationalist, you blog like a British Nationalist, and squawk like a British Nationalist, then you probably are a British Nationalist.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    JBriskin3 said:

    OK so Nippy can't be jailed.

    She should at least be no-platformed on BBC and STV from a moral standpoint.
    Doesn’t that mean they’ll also have to no platform Bozo? The last time I looked NS wasn’t a pathological liar and didn’t incite violence against political opponents .
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 34,274
    MrEd said:

    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.
    Last Thursday made your point, didn’t it? Marked time at best everywhere except Lewes. Which, as a constituency Labour ought to leave to the LibDems
  • RazedabodeRazedabode Posts: 3,081
    How is Boris’ relaunch going?
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254

    Please look up Duck test on your beloved Wikipedia.

    You look like a British Nationalist, you blog like a British Nationalist, and squawk like a British Nationalist, then you probably are a British Nationalist.
    Says the Scottish Nationalist.

    It's a relatively small island - Can't we just all get along?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,923
    Carnyx said:

    Also misogynistic. Very. Nippy sweeties and all that.
    Typical unionist thug behaviour.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,063
    JBriskin3 said:

    OK so Nippy can't be jailed.
    I think I'll quit whilst I'm ahead in that case.
  • nico679 said:

    Doesn’t that mean they’ll also have to no platform Bozo? The last time I looked NS wasn’t a pathological liar and didn’t incite violence against political opponents .
    Johnson is on record as having discussed beating up a journalist.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/14/journalist-stuart-collier-boris-johnson-phone-call-darius-guppy-demands-apology
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    A Labour MP has accused Boris Johnson of "inciting" violence against Sir Keir Starmer, after he was surrounded by an anti-lockdown mob.

    There's always one who detracts from the problem with a gross overreaction, isn't there?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,347
    MrEd said:

    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.
    TBH although I got good A levels and went to uni and stuff I can't even mentally approach the notion of a time before time itself and space and matter. It's not even a contradiction to be overcome because to call it that implies an understanding I don't have.
  • This reads like the son of dick's greatest hits.

    SNP branch forced to apologise for 'nasty anti-English bile' social media post

    Exclusive: The SNP Orkney branch have apologised after sharing a social media post which has been branded "nasty anti-English bile" by critics.


    https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snp-branch-forced-apologise-nasty-26164493
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254
    edited February 2022
    nico679 said:

    Doesn’t that mean they’ll also have to no platform Bozo? The last time I looked NS wasn’t a pathological liar and didn’t incite violence against political opponents .
    Nippy's divisive rhetoric causes violence in Scotland every day.
  • malcolmg said:

    Typical unionist thug behaviour.
    They know they can’t win if they play fair Malcolm. It’s all downhill from here.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,986
    edited February 2022

    What “vote”?

    According to the Mensa geniuses around here, there ain’t gonna be no vote. Hmmm… wonder why…? Tis a brain teaser.
    Wait a gosh darn minute, it's that time of year when Yoons start bigging up a SLab a revival as saving the Union. Comes round earlier and earlier..
  • rpjs said:

    What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
    The Kalam version of the Cosmological argument tries to get round that by insisting that everything which *begins to exist* has a cause.
    The universe began to exist, so must have a cause. Whereas God - at least for theists - never began to exist, so has no cause.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,848
    MrEd said:

    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).

    Just as a matter of interest, who (or what) created God?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,119

    Or even, given the infinite varieties the BB could have resulted in, Him having directed the results? Like giving a seed number to an RNG in a big simulation ...
    Indeed, and then He has to try and observe the results without interfering with the experiment too much. But, still, we end up with the issue of infinite turtles.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 56,022
    edited February 2022

    This is my hundred thousandth post on Vanilla.

    It needs to be profound.

    Pineapple does not belong on pizza.

    Ooh, so Vanilla does have a six-digit post counter!

    It didn’t go boom with some weird field not found error, nor did it reset to zero. Well done developers, on realising that eventually people would post this much on a single forum!
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,923
    edited February 2022

    This reads like the son of dick's greatest hits.

    SNP branch forced to apologise for 'nasty anti-English bile' social media post

    Exclusive: The SNP Orkney branch have apologised after sharing a social media post which has been branded "nasty anti-English bile" by critics.


    https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snp-branch-forced-apologise-nasty-26164493

    Looks like very accurate list to me, if a bit reserved.
    Struggling with Munderous mind you but likely that is just the spotty 14 year old Express journalist not being very bright.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,063
    Sandpit said:

    Ooh, so Vanilla does have a six-digit post counter!
    I was worried the universe was about to end.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    MrEd said:

    I honestly have no idea.

    All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
    You are confusing quite a lot of different arguments, there. The physical state of the universe needs explaining, God or not. As to the actual existence of God, it is easier than you think. If you define God as omnipotent being who loves humanity like his own children, the answer is no such being can exist, because Auschwitz (shorthand for a lot of equally dreadful stuff which has always happened and continues to do so). If you think they can, you don't understand the words involved. It's like saying How can we know that somewhere among all those trillions of stars there isn't a planet with a 4 cornered triangle on it?
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    Last Thursday made your point, didn’t it? Marked time at best everywhere except Lewes. Which, as a constituency Labour ought to leave to the LibDems
    Yes, as someone else pointed out on here, there seem to be a lot of individual local factors which apparently can explain Labour's performances but, at some point, it becomes obvious there is little progress. There is still little positive to vote for Labour ex-they are not BJ. But that doesn't solve the problem the party has had in areas that have turned against it.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,923

    Wait a gosh darn minute, it's that time of year when Yoons start bigging up a SLab a revival as saving the Union. Comes round earlier and earlier..
    Tory Klaxon is bust so they have few other options
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,119
    MrEd said:

    I honestly have no idea.

    All I am suggesting is that the explanations to suggest why the Universe was created without a God seem to get themselves tangled up in all sorts of mind-boggling theories that haven't been proven. My original question was a simple one - how can you create something from nothing? So far, there have been snippy comments but no one has actually attempted to explain what is backing up their confidence there is absolutely no God.
    We don't know, but I don't see how adding a God helps to provide an explanation. What created God? How did He come into being?

    You're no further along in providing an explanation, and so the addition of a God is simply useless.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,771
    edited February 2022
    Unpopular said:

    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.
    Oh my ... something lead by Broon.

    Can't they do the Broonian thing, and borrow the cash they need from their grandchildren? :smile:
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 33,924
    A number of recent opinion polls in Canada have had both main parties on less than 30%, which is unusual.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_45th_Canadian_federal_election#Pre-campaign_period
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 7,085
    God.

    What happened to Britain?

    :(
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 10,022

    The clueless wonders are in for a shock, am I right?
    Congratulations on reaching 100,000 posts.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 33,924
    Maybe there is a God after all.
  • ThomasNasheThomasNashe Posts: 5,331
    Heathener said:

    God.

    What happened to Britain?

    :(

    Boris Johnson
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    IshmaelZ said:

    You are confusing quite a lot of different arguments, there. The physical state of the universe needs explaining, God or not. As to the actual existence of God, it is easier than you think. If you define God as omnipotent being who loves humanity like his own children, the answer is no such being can exist, because Auschwitz (shorthand for a lot of equally dreadful stuff which has always happened and continues to do so). If you think they can, you don't understand the words involved. It's like saying How can we know that somewhere among all those trillions of stars there isn't a planet with a 4 cornered triangle on it?
    The typical answer re Auschwitz would be "we cannot begin to explain why God allowed this but there must be a reason". You are attempting to use human wisdom and logic - with its limitations - to explain something that is not human.

    My own pathetic view would be it's a variation on the story of someone who wins the lottery, everyone says he is lucky, then he nearly dies in a crash involving the car he bought with the lottery and everyone says he is unlucky but then when he is in hospital, his house catches fire and he would have been dead if he wasn't in the hospital. Maybe Auschwitz stopped even worse horrors from occurring in the future (it certainly fatally undermined Racism). Who knows?

    The simple truth is I don't know and I don't have a clue but Atheists do seem to and I wanted to see what underpinned their certainty, Arguments such as "a God wouldn't have allowed Auschwitz" is not proof of anything.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,471
    Scott_xP said:

    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
    https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1490755275464314882
    https://twitter.com/juliansmithuk/status/1490754037708435460

    I think that's it: this is the moment the rest of the letters go in to the 1922. It's too reminiscent of the Capitol.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 9,785
    malcolmg said:

    Typical unionist thug behaviour.
    You lot:

  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,771
    Sandpit said:

    Ooh, so Vanilla does have a six-digit post counter!

    It didn’t go boom with some weird field not found error, nor did it reset to zero. Well done developers, on realising that eventually people would post this much on a single forum!
    As it didn't go wrong at 65,536, it's next most likely to go wrong at 2^32+1 (4.29bn) so GET POSTING FASTER.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    We don't know, but I don't see how adding a God helps to provide an explanation. What created God? How did He come into being?

    You're no further along in providing an explanation, and so the addition of a God is simply useless.
    Fine, then go with agnosticism. Just don't say atheism is rational.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 5,173
    Stocky said:

    The government coerced and scared us into it; the government must urge and un-scare us out of it.

    Specific guidance to insist on masks, hand gels, perspex screens etc must be replaced with specific guidance that these measures should be removed. This should already have been done in the public sector.

    Without such direction businesses and other organisations can drag their heels, virtue-signalling away, for a mighty long time yet.
    We'll have to see how things pan out over the next few months. I'm hoping that masks will mostly die out after the Government junks the Coronavirus Act in March, though I dare say some people will insist on continuing to use them and that's OK: I've no interest in meddling in what people choose to wear or not to wear without very good reason.

    We only need even to contemplate forcing the removal of Covid mitigations if businesses and organisations that have no reasonable excuse for denying service to people who no longer wish to comply with them insist on continuing to do so regardless. Hopefully it won't come to that.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,771

    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.
    The new ones that were built were often superb. eg St Mary's, Derby.

    The scrapedown-and-make-them-like-my-ideas can be a great loss.
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254

    What created God? How did He come into being?

    God is Eternal.

    Anyway I've told you lot before and I'll tell you again-

    He's an old ugly bloke who lives on Mars; he was on Sky new one night.

    Presumably Musk will be the first of the proles to meet him.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    rcs1000 said:

    Just as a matter of interest, who (or what) created God?
    No idea but you might argue that is trying to use human logic to answer a divine question.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,471
    IshmaelZ said:

    You are confusing quite a lot of different arguments, there. The physical state of the universe needs explaining, God or not. As to the actual existence of God, it is easier than you think. If you define God as omnipotent being who loves humanity like his own children, the answer is no such being can exist, because Auschwitz (shorthand for a lot of equally dreadful stuff which has always happened and continues to do so). If you think they can, you don't understand the words involved. It's like saying How can we know that somewhere among all those trillions of stars there isn't a planet with a 4 cornered triangle on it?
    Yes, there's a distinction between the possible existence of a god, and the existence of "God".
  • Eabhal said:

    You lot:

    You're Sean.

    No, you're Sean.

    No, you are..

    etc.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 33,924
    IshmaelZ said:

    Sure, but it also seems to have a special affinity for the very cruel torture and murder of outgroups - if you look at the reasons for which people get burned or boiled alive and so on, it is disproportionately for being the wrong sort of believer as opposed to doing anything particularly dreadful. This should be a worry
    That's nothing to do with religion per se. Primitive tribes also behave in this way.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 25,771
    ping said:

    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”
    Johnson's point - which has - was that £60m was better spent on addressing crime and funding police to stop crime now, rather than raking over history.

    At the very least, he has a point about the need to reflect on priorities.

    Here is the interview segment with Nick Ferrari:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_FSqfXyUFk
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,920
    edited February 2022
    Andy_JS said:

    That's nothing to do with religion per se. Primitive tribes also behave in this way.
    It was also nothing to do with why Hitler hated the Jews, or Stalin his own opponents too, for instance.
  • rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    IshmaelZ said:

    You are confusing quite a lot of different arguments, there. The physical state of the universe needs explaining, God or not. As to the actual existence of God, it is easier than you think. If you define God as omnipotent being who loves humanity like his own children, the answer is no such being can exist, because Auschwitz (shorthand for a lot of equally dreadful stuff which has always happened and continues to do so). If you think they can, you don't understand the words involved. It's like saying How can we know that somewhere among all those trillions of stars there isn't a planet with a 4 cornered triangle on it?
    Actually we can be fairly confident that there is no planet with a four-cornered triangle, as the principle of mediocrity asserts that unless we can observe the contrary, we should assume that the physical laws we observe locally apply across the entire universe, and we have not observed anything (yet) to contradict that.

    This is a Good Thing as you don't want to live in a universe where the laws of physics that enable you and I to exist as living beings aren't universal. What if they change where we are, and the very way our bodies work is no longer possible? Unfortunately, that could happen under the false vacuum hypothesis, that our universe that we observe is not in the most stable possible energy state (the "true vacuum") and so is in a false vacuum, and that an event anywhere in the universe could, or has happened, to tip the universe into the "true vacuum" (or a "less-false vacuum"). Such a change would propagate at the speed of light, so we have no way of knowing if it has happened, and if it has, how close the "wavefront" of the change is to us.

    This leads us on to the interesting anthropomorphic multiverse hypothesis: that our universe is one of an infinity of universes in a wider multiverse, all with their own laws of physics distinct from all the others. We happen to live in the one universe where the local laws of physics happen to make life as are possible. Other forms of life might be possible in other universes under their local laws of physics, but they could never live here, nor could we live in their universes.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,848
    MattW said:

    Lost car keys are St Antony :smile:, 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.
    For the record, I think the holocaust joke is best told like this:

    An Auschwitz survivor went to heaven and found himself talking - as all new arrivals do - to God.

    "Do you want to hear a holocaust joke?" he asks
    "That's not funny" replies God
    "Well, I guess you had to be there" he responds
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 5,173
    TimS said:

    I think that's it: this is the moment the rest of the letters go in to the 1922. It's too reminiscent of the Capitol.
    It would be nice to think this was the case, but you're assuming that the same group of people who found none of Johnson's previous misdemeanours sufficient cause to act will be motivated to do so by this latest episode - especially since it's easier to explain away than the parties. Anyone who wants to can argue a la Kwarteng that there was nothing wrong with what the PM said, and that in any event Starmer having to be bundled into a cop car was entirely the fault of the lunatic mob and nothing to do with the remarks.

    We may have to tolerate Britain Trump until he can be removed at the ballot box, and there's no guarantee even that that will work.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,714
    edited February 2022

    "aggressively atheist society"

    Given the harms caused by organised religions over the last few thousands years, I wouldn't call our current somewhat atheistic society 'aggressive'.

    I also disagree with your underlying comment. People are fine with spirituality. They are very dubious when they say that another person's spirituality and beliefs should impact their lives. Spirituality is becoming more personal and less public. Which, with a country containing many different beliefs, is a good thing IMV.
    I agree with that. As a result, we should move further down the French secular route, for example by gradually getting rid off faith schools rather than increase their number, as is currently the case. Religion/spirituality belongs in the private domain, not the public domain.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,848
    MrEd said:

    No idea but you might argue that is trying to use human logic to answer a divine question.
    I'm not. I'm just pointing out that all you do is move the question one up.

    Who created the Universe?

    God

    Who created God?

    Errr...

    If nothing is required to create God, then why is an entity required to create the Universe?
  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Posts: 1,378
    edited February 2022
    Farooq said:

    It's quite rational. Why believe in something that serves no explanatory purpose?
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/#FineTuniDesi
    There's a case to made that the universe's fine tuning needs an explanation, and that an incredibly powerful agent was responsible would account for this.
    On the other hand, I think the multiverse hypothesis would also explain the fine-tuning (get enough monkeys banging away on typewriters and one would eventually write Hamlet), which is why I'm not a theist. Nonetheless, it's clear that in postulating that God was responsible for the fine-tuning doesn't mean you need an explanation for God. You wouldn't get anywhere in science if every explanation needed an explanation.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,680
    rpjs said:

    What about Occam's Razor though? If you need God to explain how the universe was created, what/who created God?
    In general in theistic thinking if God exists then God's existence is necessarily the case - it is one of God's many qualities - and is therefore uncreated and eternal. (This does not prove God's existence however though many mistakenly think so),

    If God exists it is by far the simplest explanation of everything else in creation, including existence itself. Occam does not apply.

    The empirical and non intentional explanations of how either the universe has the quality of infinite duration (has always existed and always will) or is somehow magicked out of nothing at all are much more complex, or much less explanatory than the 'good old god' theory. Perhaps this is why lots of scientists still prefer it.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,848
    I hope God and heaven and hell exist. For I should like Fred West and Idi Amin and Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot to pay for the misery and pain they caused other people.

    It would be a real shame if they just ceased to be.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 22,110
    Keir needs to come out with a speech about political speech, leadership, and responsibility.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,976
    rcs1000 said:

    I'm not. I'm just pointing out that all you do is move the question one up.

    Who created the Universe?

    God

    Who created God?

    Errr...

    If nothing is required to create God, then why is an entity required to create the Universe?

    Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
    And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
    And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
    While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,848
    rcs1000 said:

    I hope God and heaven and hell exist. For I should like Fred West and Idi Amin and Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot to pay for the misery and pain they caused other people.

    It would be a real shame if they just ceased to be.

    An by extension, I should like those who put the wellbeing of others above themselves to be rewarded for doing the right thing.

    Because human society - which elevated Putin to power and wealth beyond belief - doesn't seem to work like that, so it'd be good if there was some recompense in the afterlife.
  • JBriskin3JBriskin3 Posts: 1,254
    rcs1000 said:

    I'm not. I'm just pointing out that all you do is move the question one up.

    Who created the Universe?

    God

    Who created God?

    Errr...

    If nothing is required to create God, then why is an entity required to create the Universe?
    But we are all of this Universe. There must have been a bright spark somewhere.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,119
    edited February 2022
    MrEd said:

    Fine, then go with agnosticism. Just don't say atheism is rational.
    But I accept that I have beliefs that are not rational and I don't have a problem with that. So I'm content to describe myself as an Atheist, just as my mother who objected to being put down on a form as agnostic by the religious nurse who didn't want to put anyone down as atheist.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    rcs1000 said:

    I'm not. I'm just pointing out that all you do is move the question one up.

    Who created the Universe?

    God

    Who created God?

    Errr...

    If nothing is required to create God, then why is an entity required to create the Universe?
    @algarkirk has explained it far better than I ever can do so let me reprint his argument:

    "In general in theistic thinking if God exists then God's existence is necessarily the case - it is one of God's many qualities - and is therefore uncreated and eternal. (This does not prove God's existence however though many mistakenly think so),

    If God exists it is by far the simplest explanation of everything else in creation, including existence itself. Occam does not apply.

    The empirical and non intentional explanations of how either the universe has the quality of infinite duration (has always existed and always will) or is somehow magicked out of nothing at all are much more complex, or much less explanatory than the 'good old god' theory. Perhaps this is why lots of scientists still prefer it."
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,848
    Endillion said:


    Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
    And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
    And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
    While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
    It's turtles all the way down...
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,841
    Iain Dale furious with the clown, on LBC
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,848
    It was then that Marvin got religion. Not the quiet, personal kind, that involves doing good deeds and living a better life; not even the kind that involves putting on a suit and ringing people's doorbells; but the kind that involves having your own TV network and getting people to send you money.
  • You're Sean.

    No, you're Sean.

    No, you are..

    etc.
    Watch it. You’ll hurt the wee petal’s sensibilities. He’ll seek assistance from the mods. Oh, the irony.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,063
    IanB2 said:

    Iain Dale furious with the clown, on LBC

    Good thing he already has Boris' forward to his PM book.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 98,063
    rcs1000 said:

    It was then that Marvin got religion. Not the quiet, personal kind, that involves doing good deeds and living a better life; not even the kind that involves putting on a suit and ringing people's doorbells; but the kind that involves having your own TV network and getting people to send you money.

    I could get behind that.
This discussion has been closed.