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This must be the Tweet of the Day – politicalbetting.com

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  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited August 2022
    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    HYUFD said:

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    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.


    Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
    What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?

    Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
    The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.

    Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
    I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?

    You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
    Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.

    Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
    Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
    How many chimpanzees eat chimpanzees? Barely any. How many humans eat humans? Barely any. If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
    Ok let's get away from this tangent of 'how many' and back to the original point that you are not answering.

    If you accept humans evolved from 'animal' as you (although not all Christians do) at what point do they stop being animals? Eg was Lucy a human or animal?
    I do concede you are probably still an animal, most likely a form of hyena
    ????? What on earth does that mean? It was a reasonable question. You have previously said you believe in evolution so where does an animal end and a human begin in God's eye. It is a reasonable question to ask. Was Lucy for instance human or animal?

    What is your problem or has it just dawned on you tonight that I was right last night. It seems everyone else on here is the same as me and you are alone in your mad ideas. Tonight's conversations have nothing to do with politics and you are being ridiculed by what you described as the handful of true conservatives on here and I have not been involved.

    Is it just dawning on you that it is you that has the problems here?
    No. It just shows that the vast majority of PB including you are social liberals and economic conservatives (and most of those on here tonight would not now vote Conservative either but even of those that would far fewer are social conservatives). Just as socialist Corbynites regularly get drowned out for having views beyond the pale before the last election so social and religious conservatives like me now equally get drowned out by the herd, in fact even more so.

    Yet millions if not billions globally would still define marriage as a term to define a lifelong union between a man and woman only
    Nothing tonight has anything to do with politics. You are arguing with literally everyone on PB. Why don't you try answering my question without uncalled for insults. Do you ever accept you might be wrong on stuff?

    My question was one that was reasonable and could have led to a civilised discussion. It is an interesting philosophical question. I'm genuinely interested in the potential conflict here for a religious person who accepts evolution.
    Oh it has everything to do with politics, not supporting gay marriage is a tiny minority view on here, as is opposition to abortion, euthanasia etc.



  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    rcs1000 said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
    Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman

    https://biblia.com/bible/esv/matthew/19/5
    Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
    Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
    Marriage in your Church may be a religious institution between a man and a woman.

    Marriage in other Churches is not. Marriage in law, it is not.

    Why do you want religious law being written in Parliamentary Civil Law rather than religious Canon Law? Set your religious codex in Canon Law and allow the rest of us to have civil laws set by Parliament. Which is precisely what Jesus advised, Mark 12:13-17, but you and Fox don't care about Jesus.
    Marriage in most Christian churches is defined as between a man and a woman, even if a few liberal ones allow gay blessings that is not the majority view.

    Jesus allowed things like tax to be the concern of the state, not the redefinition of marriage
    And yet just as when that made up argument was used around the time gay marriage was legalised, the state has long involved itself with what a proper marriage requires. Including times when people were a lot more religious than now, and a lot more religious than you. It is an invention that you are giving the weight of immutability - but an invention all the same, and transparently one to boot.

    Not even you can believe the things you spout about the unchanging nature of rules and interpretation, given the history of the faith is so full of change.

    In the 1650s things were very confused as a result of various legislating on the subject, as Parliament had multiple marriage laws on the books as a result.

    I don't recall this bit though, but it is very interesting if true - though the legality of the assembly would be called into question (though you cannot claim that as a reason it does not count as the state being involved, since you have previously insisted that the purging of the Commons and dissolution of the Lords in no way undermined the Rump being a legitimate parliament, though royalists would have disagreed with you, and as such the appointed assembly would have been legitimate at the time).

    https://thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/marriage-in-the-english-revolution/

    The trend was towards simplicity and reduced ceremonial, and towards greater involvement by the state. During the Nominated Assembly or ‘Barebones Parliament’ of 1653, this was taken to its logical conclusion when the conducting of marriages was taken away from the clergy altogether and vested in justices of the peace
    But still a marriage between a man and a woman
    So some parts of the rules are important and others are not? Who decides which bits are inviolable, besides yourself?
    The Bible
    Yet there is still some personal judgement involved, no?

    Otherwise you'd be executing doctors for working on the Sabbath.
    Only if you were Orthodox Jewish, marriage being between a man and a woman is in both the New and Old Testaments
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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
    Marriage is civil. Has been since for thousands of years since before your Jesus that you so love to ignore was according to your own religious text born or said the words "render unto Caesar" about separating religious and civil laws.

    So no thanks, civil partnerships are not the same, when people want civil marriage. Try again.
    No. He was talking about tax law.

    Unions under civil law which linked in with the definition of marriage under the Bible, Koran and Torah were one thing, unions which redefined the definition of marriage to suit their agenda quite another. So no, civil partnerships and marriage can be kept separate.

    And given you earlier were advocating abortion until birth for both the disabled and not I don't need to be made to feel morally inferior by you!!!
    Graeco-Roman laws significantly predate both Biblical or Koranic law, and were more relevant to most of the world than Torah law too.

    Are you trying to deny that the Romans had marriages? Their marriages were civil, not religious, constructs and that is what marriage was for thousands of years before the supposed birth of Christ.

    So don't try and hijack marriage and steal it for your religion. Its secular and available to all whether religious or not.

    You can add on whatever religious trimmings you want and keep to them if you please, nobody wants to deny you that right, but that is on top of civil marriage, not instead of it.
    “ Their marriages were civil, not religious,”

    I think this is wrong Bart, marriage in the polytheistic Greek and Roman religions was religious. Juno played the part of presiding over the marriage.

    This is where you are confusing a philosophical concept with a religious one, for example Juno presiding over the marriage does make it religious, just as much as God presiding in a Christian one.

    The other point I would make is you are both making the same mistake in calling Christianity so Jewish, Christianity is more Greek at the start than Jewish before evolving over centuries into something more original than its roots.
    No you're misunderstanding Roman society. Yes Juno was the god of marriage, but the Romans had a god for virtually everything and anything under the sun, it doesn't mean they didn't have legal constructs.

    As we'd understand it today, Roman marriages absolutely were civil, legal unions, not religious ones. As @IshmaelZ marriages have for many thousands of years had legal consequences for things like inheritances etc and so were legal constructs not religious ones, though they have at times had religious trimmings.

    Adding religious trimmings to the civil concept of marriage if you want to is entirely legal and in fitting with history. Denying others the right to marriage because you consider marriage an institution created by and belonging to your own religion is just ignorance.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047
    Carnyx said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    HYUFD said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
    Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman

    https://biblia.com/bible/esv/matthew/19/5
    Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
    Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
    You hate gays by refusing to let them get married in your state church against the laws of the same state.

    Of course, maybe you know better than God.
    Since when did not allowing someone not to do something equal hating them? Disappointing to see a usually sensible poster come out with such a silly post. HYUFD always seems to manage to get the worst out of you.
    When it is actually very important to them. Treated as second class.

    Why otherwise would one do that?
    Churches are religious communities, most (but not all) of which believe that marriage is a holy sacrament between a man and a woman. There is no inherent philosophical conflict between believing that, and not hating gay people.

    PB is also a community, and it believes that you don't call people 'c***s'. CHB just fell foul of that, and got banned. That isn't because anyone hates him, it's just a rule of the club. If calling people that is central to CHB's happiness, there are other communities with different rules. It is sophistry to call either thing 'hate', and the only reason one would do that, is surely to attack the freedom of either organisation to set its own rules.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    HYUFD said:



    kjh said:

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    kjh said:

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    kjh said:

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    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

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    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.


    Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
    What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?

    Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
    The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.

    Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
    I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?

    You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
    Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.

    Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
    Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
    How many chimpanzees eat chimpanzees? Barely any. How many humans eat humans? Barely any. If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
    Ok let's get away from this tangent of 'how many' and back to the original point that you are not answering.

    If you accept humans evolved from 'animal' as you (although not all Christians do) at what point do they stop being animals? Eg was Lucy a human or animal?
    I do concede you are probably still an animal, most likely a form of hyena
    ????? What on earth does that mean? It was a reasonable question. You have previously said you believe in evolution so where does an animal end and a human begin in God's eye. It is a reasonable question to ask. Was Lucy for instance human or animal?

    What is your problem or has it just dawned on you tonight that I was right last night. It seems everyone else on here is the same as me and you are alone in your mad ideas. Tonight's conversations have nothing to do with politics and you are being ridiculed by what you described as the handful of true conservatives on here and I have not been involved.

    Is it just dawning on you that it is you that has the problems here?
    No. It just shows that the vast majority of PB including you are social liberals and economic conservatives (and most of those on here tonight would not now vote Conservative either but even of those that would far fewer are social conservatives). Just as socialist Corbynites regularly get drowned out for having views beyond the pale before the last election so social and religious conservatives like me now equally get drowned out by the herd, in fact even more so.

    Yet millions if not billions globally would still define marriage as a term to define a lifelong union between a man and woman only
    Nothing tonight has anything to do with politics. You are arguing with literally everyone on PB. Why don't you try answering my question without uncalled for insults. Do you ever accept you might be wrong on stuff?

    My question was one that was reasonable and could have led to a civilised discussion. It is an interesting philosophical question. I'm genuinely interested in the potential conflict here for a religious person who accepts evolution.
    Oh it has everything to do with politics, not supporting gay marriage is a tiny minority view on here, as is opposition to abortion, euthanasia etc.



    Sigh. I haven't commented on the marriage discussion at all. I didn't ask you anything about marriage at any time yet you keep respond to me about it. Do you read or understand the posts? I have only asked you about the distinction between animals and humans.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
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    DavidL said:

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    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.


    Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
    What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?

    Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
    The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.

    Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
    I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?

    You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
    Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.

    Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
    Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
    How many chimpanzees eat chimpanzees? Barely any. How many humans eat humans? Barely any. If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
    Ok let's get away from this tangent of 'how many' and back to the original point that you are not answering.

    If you accept humans evolved from 'animal' as you (although not all Christians do) at what point do they stop being animals? Eg was Lucy a human or animal?
    I do concede you are probably still an animal, most likely a form of hyena
    ????? What on earth does that mean? It was a reasonable question. You have previously said you believe in evolution so where does an animal end and a human begin in God's eye. It is a reasonable question to ask. Was Lucy for instance human or animal?

    What is your problem or has it just dawned on you tonight that I was right last night. It seems everyone else on here is the same as me and you are alone in your mad ideas. Tonight's conversations have nothing to do with politics and you are being ridiculed by what you described as the handful of true conservatives on here and I have not been involved.

    Is it just dawning on you that it is you that has the problems here?
    No. It just shows that the vast majority of PB including you are social liberals and economic conservatives (and most of those on here tonight would not now vote Conservative either but even of those that would far fewer are social conservatives). Just as socialist Corbynites regularly get drowned out for having views beyond the pale before the last election so social and religious conservatives like me now equally get drowned out by the herd, in fact even more so.

    Yet millions if not billions globally would still define marriage as a term to define a lifelong union between a man and woman only
    Nothing tonight has anything to do with politics. You are arguing with literally everyone on PB. Why don't you try answering my question without uncalled for insults. Do you ever accept you might be wrong on stuff?

    My question was one that was reasonable and could have led to a civilised discussion. It is an interesting philosophical question. I'm genuinely interested in the potential conflict here for a religious person who accepts evolution.
    Oh it has everything to do with politics, not supporting gay marriage is a tiny minority view on here, as is opposition to abortion, euthanasia etc.
    As is flat earthism, and for a reason.

    You haven't the first idea what you are talking about. Even in English if you're not interested enough to read it properly, that bit of Matthew is saying GIVEN THE EXISTING MATRIX in 20 AD of M/F only marriages, how should divorce work? You are like someone pointing to a book on how to cure cancer, as evidence the author is pro cancer. It just logically doesn't work, and it seems to be the best you've got. Maybe try to expand your horizon beyond We Xes are going to find out what people want, and stop them doing it.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709

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    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
    Marriage is civil. Has been since for thousands of years since before your Jesus that you so love to ignore was according to your own religious text born or said the words "render unto Caesar" about separating religious and civil laws.

    So no thanks, civil partnerships are not the same, when people want civil marriage. Try again.
    No. He was talking about tax law.

    Unions under civil law which linked in with the definition of marriage under the Bible, Koran and Torah were one thing, unions which redefined the definition of marriage to suit their agenda quite another. So no, civil partnerships and marriage can be kept separate.

    And given you earlier were advocating abortion until birth for both the disabled and not I don't need to be made to feel morally inferior by you!!!
    Graeco-Roman laws significantly predate both Biblical or Koranic law, and were more relevant to most of the world than Torah law too.

    Are you trying to deny that the Romans had marriages? Their marriages were civil, not religious, constructs and that is what marriage was for thousands of years before the supposed birth of Christ.

    So don't try and hijack marriage and steal it for your religion. Its secular and available to all whether religious or not.

    You can add on whatever religious trimmings you want and keep to them if you please, nobody wants to deny you that right, but that is on top of civil marriage, not instead of it.
    Some Greek or Roman laws but we are historically a Christian society not a Greco Roman one (unless you consider Constantine and beyond which certainly did not allow homosexual marriages).

    Our definition of marriage is therefore based on Christian religious principles
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
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    DavidL said:

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    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
    Marriage is civil. Has been since for thousands of years since before your Jesus that you so love to ignore was according to your own religious text born or said the words "render unto Caesar" about separating religious and civil laws.

    So no thanks, civil partnerships are not the same, when people want civil marriage. Try again.
    No. He was talking about tax law.

    Unions under civil law which linked in with the definition of marriage under the Bible, Koran and Torah were one thing, unions which redefined the definition of marriage to suit their agenda quite another. So no, civil partnerships and marriage can be kept separate.

    And given you earlier were advocating abortion until birth for both the disabled and not I don't need to be made to feel morally inferior by you!!!
    Graeco-Roman laws significantly predate both Biblical or Koranic law, and were more relevant to most of the world than Torah law too.

    Are you trying to deny that the Romans had marriages? Their marriages were civil, not religious, constructs and that is what marriage was for thousands of years before the supposed birth of Christ.

    So don't try and hijack marriage and steal it for your religion. Its secular and available to all whether religious or not.

    You can add on whatever religious trimmings you want and keep to them if you please, nobody wants to deny you that right, but that is on top of civil marriage, not instead of it.
    Some Greek or Roman laws but we are historically a Christian society not a Greco Roman one (unless you consider Constantine and beyond which certainly did not allow homosexual marriages).

    Our definition of marriage is therefore based on Christian religious principles
    And the head of your church has explicitly confirmed as is clear from the NT that the relationship between Christ and Peter was physically homosexual. You seem to be cherrypicking.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 18,156
    edited August 2022
    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
    Marriage is civil. Has been since for thousands of years since before your Jesus that you so love to ignore was according to your own religious text born or said the words "render unto Caesar" about separating religious and civil laws.

    So no thanks, civil partnerships are not the same, when people want civil marriage. Try again.
    No. He was talking about tax law.

    Unions under civil law which linked in with the definition of marriage under the Bible, Koran and Torah were one thing, unions which redefined the definition of marriage to suit their agenda quite another. So no, civil partnerships and marriage can be kept separate.

    And given you earlier were advocating abortion until birth for both the disabled and not I don't need to be made to feel morally inferior by you!!!
    Graeco-Roman laws significantly predate both Biblical or Koranic law, and were more relevant to most of the world than Torah law too.

    Are you trying to deny that the Romans had marriages? Their marriages were civil, not religious, constructs and that is what marriage was for thousands of years before the supposed birth of Christ.

    So don't try and hijack marriage and steal it for your religion. Its secular and available to all whether religious or not.

    You can add on whatever religious trimmings you want and keep to them if you please, nobody wants to deny you that right, but that is on top of civil marriage, not instead of it.
    “ Their marriages were civil, not religious,”

    I think this is wrong Bart, marriage in the polytheistic Greek and Roman religions was religious. Juno played the part of presiding over the marriage.

    This is where you are confusing a philosophical concept with a religious one, for example Juno presiding over the marriage does make it religious, just as much as God presiding in a Christian one.

    The other point I would make is you are both making the same mistake in calling Christianity so Jewish, Christianity is more Greek at the start than Jewish before evolving over centuries into something more original than its roots.
    No you're misunderstanding Roman society. Yes Juno was the god of marriage, but the Romans had a god for virtually everything and anything under the sun, it doesn't mean they didn't have legal constructs.

    As we'd understand it today, Roman marriages absolutely were civil, legal unions, not religious ones. As @IshmaelZ marriages have for many thousands of years had legal consequences for things like inheritances etc and so were legal constructs not religious ones, though they have at times had religious trimmings.

    Adding religious trimmings to the civil concept of marriage if you want to is entirely legal and in fitting with history. Denying others the right to marriage because you consider marriage an institution created by and belonging to your own religion is just ignorance.
    You could extend that last crazy thought to excommunication from the Kingdom of heaven. Too. Are you saying a Christian society doesn’t have the right to excommunicate you, Bartus of Scouseland, from the Kingdom of heaven? Of course we do, you can’t challenge that no more than Christianity should rightfully rule any Christian Society and decide what marriage is in its society.

    Not forgetting What is Christian marriage likely comes from the polytheistic Greek anyway. It starts by Paul spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ to gentiles in Greece, who are Greek. Paul actually wrote his letters from there in Greek, it’s oldest bit of the Bible. Christ itself as a word is Greek.

    So these Gentiles have the good news of Jesus Christ with their Greekness. The Jews were tribal and factional too Jesus was Essennee like Joseph and those who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls wasn’t he?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    I love the theory that the Vatican has unpublished works of Tacitus which are too explosive to publish. I asked their head librarian about this ten years ago. He said No, but of course I would say that....
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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
    Marriage is civil. Has been since for thousands of years since before your Jesus that you so love to ignore was according to your own religious text born or said the words "render unto Caesar" about separating religious and civil laws.

    So no thanks, civil partnerships are not the same, when people want civil marriage. Try again.
    No. He was talking about tax law.

    Unions under civil law which linked in with the definition of marriage under the Bible, Koran and Torah were one thing, unions which redefined the definition of marriage to suit their agenda quite another. So no, civil partnerships and marriage can be kept separate.

    And given you earlier were advocating abortion until birth for both the disabled and not I don't need to be made to feel morally inferior by you!!!
    Graeco-Roman laws significantly predate both Biblical or Koranic law, and were more relevant to most of the world than Torah law too.

    Are you trying to deny that the Romans had marriages? Their marriages were civil, not religious, constructs and that is what marriage was for thousands of years before the supposed birth of Christ.

    So don't try and hijack marriage and steal it for your religion. Its secular and available to all whether religious or not.

    You can add on whatever religious trimmings you want and keep to them if you please, nobody wants to deny you that right, but that is on top of civil marriage, not instead of it.
    “ Their marriages were civil, not religious,”

    I think this is wrong Bart, marriage in the polytheistic Greek and Roman religions was religious. Juno played the part of presiding over the marriage.

    This is where you are confusing a philosophical concept with a religious one, for example Juno presiding over the marriage does make it religious, just as much as God presiding in a Christian one.

    The other point I would make is you are both making the same mistake in calling Christianity so Jewish, Christianity is more Greek at the start than Jewish before evolving over centuries into something more original than its roots.
    No you're misunderstanding Roman society. Yes Juno was the god of marriage, but the Romans had a god for virtually everything and anything under the sun, it doesn't mean they didn't have legal constructs.

    As we'd understand it today, Roman marriages absolutely were civil, legal unions, not religious ones. As @IshmaelZ marriages have for many thousands of years had legal consequences for things like inheritances etc and so were legal constructs not religious ones, though they have at times had religious trimmings.

    Adding religious trimmings to the civil concept of marriage if you want to is entirely legal and in fitting with history. Denying others the right to marriage because you consider marriage an institution created by and belonging to your own religion is just ignorance.
    You could extend that last crazy thought to excommunication from the Kingdom of heaven. Too. Are you saying a Christian society doesn’t have the right to excommunicate you, Bartus of Scouseland, from the Kingdom of heaven? Of course we do, you can’t challenge that no more than Christianity should rightfully rule any Christian Society and decide what marriage is in its society.

    Not forgetting What is Christian marriage likely comes from the polytheistic Greek anyway. It starts by Paul spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ to gentiles in Greece, who are Greek. Paul actually wrote his letters from there in Greek, it’s oldest bit of the Bible. Christ itself as a word is Greek.

    So these Gentiles have the good news of Jesus Christ with their Greekness. The Jews were tribal and factional too Jesus was Essennee like Joseph and those who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls wasn’t he?
    I'm sorry, I haven't the foggiest clue what you're talking about.

    Yes you can't excommunicate me from the Kingdom of heaven, since (a) I don't think that exists, (b) I don't want to go there, (c) that's actually religious, not civil, and (d) if it does exist, you don't have that prerogative, you're not the gatekeeper.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Well yes but others have made the same point before you, including Jesus of Nazareth. What the NT says is fuck the OT and the Pharisees who make a living out of it, let people do what they want to do and don't interfere. What I don't understand is why the likes of HYUFD don't take their curious antipathy to/fascination with men sticking it up each others botties and become Orthodox Jews.
    Read Paul or indeed Jesus who was clear marriage was between a man and woman

    https://biblia.com/bible/esv/matthew/19/5
    Dearie me. That passage is not about that, at all. It is hugely telling that you cite the specific verse and not the chapter when the verse on its own makes no sense. You are reading it as God hates queers, it actually says Christ hates Pharisees, and Pharisees is you.
    Where did I say God hates queers? I did not advocate making homosexuality illegal again or even banning gay civil unions, just recognising marriage as a principally religious institution between a man and a woman
    You hate gays by refusing to let them get married in your state church against the laws of the same state.

    Of course, maybe you know better than God.
    Since when did not allowing someone not to do something equal hating them? Disappointing to see a usually sensible poster come out with such a silly post. HYUFD always seems to manage to get the worst out of you.
    When it is actually very important to them. Treated as second class.

    Why otherwise would one do that?
    Churches are religious communities, most (but not all) of which believe that marriage is a holy sacrament between a man and a woman. There is no inherent philosophical conflict between believing that, and not hating gay people.

    PB is also a community, and it believes that you don't call people 'c***s'. CHB just fell foul of that, and got banned. That isn't because anyone hates him, it's just a rule of the club. If calling people that is central to CHB's happiness, there are other communities with different rules. It is sophistry to call either thing 'hate', and the only reason one would do that, is surely to attack the freedom of either organisation to set its own rules.
    For community or club you could say tribe, and then it seems like the same thing from year dot only evolving with philosophy and societal changes, but even to today then, the same thing - a tribe, with norms of behaviour not to breach.

    I fear the size of some of these threads could break the blog 😳

    The weight of PB tonight might even bring down the internet 🫣
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    IshmaelZ said:

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    kjh said:

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    DavidL said:

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    darkage said:

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    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.


    Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
    What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?

    Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
    The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.

    Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
    I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?

    You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
    Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.

    Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
    Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
    How many chimpanzees eat chimpanzees? Barely any. How many humans eat humans? Barely any. If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
    Ok let's get away from this tangent of 'how many' and back to the original point that you are not answering.

    If you accept humans evolved from 'animal' as you (although not all Christians do) at what point do they stop being animals? Eg was Lucy a human or animal?
    I do concede you are probably still an animal, most likely a form of hyena
    ????? What on earth does that mean? It was a reasonable question. You have previously said you believe in evolution so where does an animal end and a human begin in God's eye. It is a reasonable question to ask. Was Lucy for instance human or animal?

    What is your problem or has it just dawned on you tonight that I was right last night. It seems everyone else on here is the same as me and you are alone in your mad ideas. Tonight's conversations have nothing to do with politics and you are being ridiculed by what you described as the handful of true conservatives on here and I have not been involved.

    Is it just dawning on you that it is you that has the problems here?
    No. It just shows that the vast majority of PB including you are social liberals and economic conservatives (and most of those on here tonight would not now vote Conservative either but even of those that would far fewer are social conservatives). Just as socialist Corbynites regularly get drowned out for having views beyond the pale before the last election so social and religious conservatives like me now equally get drowned out by the herd, in fact even more so.

    Yet millions if not billions globally would still define marriage as a term to define a lifelong union between a man and woman only
    Nothing tonight has anything to do with politics. You are arguing with literally everyone on PB. Why don't you try answering my question without uncalled for insults. Do you ever accept you might be wrong on stuff?

    My question was one that was reasonable and could have led to a civilised discussion. It is an interesting philosophical question. I'm genuinely interested in the potential conflict here for a religious person who accepts evolution.
    Oh it has everything to do with politics, not supporting gay marriage is a tiny minority view on here, as is opposition to abortion, euthanasia etc.
    As is flat earthism, and for a reason.

    You haven't the first idea what you are talking about. Even in English if you're not interested enough to read it properly, that bit of Matthew is saying GIVEN THE EXISTING MATRIX in 20 AD of M/F only marriages, how should divorce work? You are like someone pointing to a book on how to cure cancer, as evidence the author is pro cancer. It just logically doesn't work, and it seems to be the best you've got. Maybe try to expand your horizon beyond We Xes are going to find out what people want, and stop them doing it.
    In Matthew Jesus said '"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator `made them male and female,' and said, `For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one
    flesh.' That is perfectly clear marriage was to be between a man and the female who was to be his wife. Even if you ignore the reference to divorce or the bits in Leviticus about homosexuality being an abomination etc
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    You know, earlier I posted a passage from Exodus, which @HYUFD rightly pointed out was from the Old Testament.

    There are, however, parts of the New Testament which might be a little tricky, however.

    Such as Corinthians' it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.
  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Posts: 1,151

    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    You're basically ruling out the Books of the NT as counting as evidence. Paul's letters were written in 50-60 AD, and his conversion took place only about three years or so after Jesus' crucifixion. He also met with Peter, James the Just, and a number of Jesus' disciples and leaders of the early church in Jerusalem.
    God or mortal, Jesus almost certainly was a real historical figure.
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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.


    Of course you don't think it is sacred as you take narcissistic libertarianism to the ultra extreme including abortion to birth and euthanasia on demand for the non terminally ill
    What is so sacred about life that someone of sound mind who wishes to die should be denied that right to control their own life?

    Is life so sacred that you're a vegan?
    The government has no business killing anyone who is not severely terminally ill with no hope of recovery no, once you start to do so you are on a very tricky slope. No conservative could or should ever support such a proposition, though as you are no conservative hardly surprising you do.

    Human life is entirely different to animal life, we are made to eat animals and God created animals in part for us to eat, as long as they are farmed humanely nothing wrong with that. We do not however eat or kill other humans
    I know you believe in evolution, as we have discussed this before, and I assume you accept we evolved from apes so how do you distinguish between animals and humans? At what point in the evolution does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human and therefore can't be eaten?

    You have also said you believe in the 10 commandments on this thread, yet you support Boris who has clearly lied. In the past you have justified such things as long as it is not illegal. Doesn't God set a higher standard? He appears to by the 10 commandments. Shouldn't you by not supporting Boris who is clearly breaking a commandment.
    Do apes normally eat other apes? No. Even if you are not religious you don't believe in cannibalism and eating and killing your own species.

    Boris is PM and a sinner as are most of us, I would not support him for Archbishop of Canterbury but he was not in contention for that
    Humans eat chimpanzees and chimpanzees eat chimpanzees. Humans also used to eat humans. Not that any of that is relevant to the point which was you saying God distinguished between humans and animals. How if we evolved from them? When does an ape stop being an ape and becomes a human?
    How many chimpanzees eat chimpanzees? Barely any. How many humans eat humans? Barely any. If you believe in evolution which many Christians don't then by definition humans now are no longer apes
    Ok let's get away from this tangent of 'how many' and back to the original point that you are not answering.

    If you accept humans evolved from 'animal' as you (although not all Christians do) at what point do they stop being animals? Eg was Lucy a human or animal?
    I do concede you are probably still an animal, most likely a form of hyena
    ????? What on earth does that mean? It was a reasonable question. You have previously said you believe in evolution so where does an animal end and a human begin in God's eye. It is a reasonable question to ask. Was Lucy for instance human or animal?

    What is your problem or has it just dawned on you tonight that I was right last night. It seems everyone else on here is the same as me and you are alone in your mad ideas. Tonight's conversations have nothing to do with politics and you are being ridiculed by what you described as the handful of true conservatives on here and I have not been involved.

    Is it just dawning on you that it is you that has the problems here?
    No. It just shows that the vast majority of PB including you are social liberals and economic conservatives (and most of those on here tonight would not now vote Conservative either but even of those that would far fewer are social conservatives). Just as socialist Corbynites regularly get drowned out for having views beyond the pale before the last election so social and religious conservatives like me now equally get drowned out by the herd, in fact even more so.

    Yet millions if not billions globally would still define marriage as a term to define a lifelong union between a man and woman only
    Nothing tonight has anything to do with politics. You are arguing with literally everyone on PB. Why don't you try answering my question without uncalled for insults. Do you ever accept you might be wrong on stuff?

    My question was one that was reasonable and could have led to a civilised discussion. It is an interesting philosophical question. I'm genuinely interested in the potential conflict here for a religious person who accepts evolution.
    Oh it has everything to do with politics, not supporting gay marriage is a tiny minority view on here, as is opposition to abortion, euthanasia etc.
    As is flat earthism, and for a reason.

    You haven't the first idea what you are talking about. Even in English if you're not interested enough to read it properly, that bit of Matthew is saying GIVEN THE EXISTING MATRIX in 20 AD of M/F only marriages, how should divorce work? You are like someone pointing to a book on how to cure cancer, as evidence the author is pro cancer. It just logically doesn't work, and it seems to be the best you've got. Maybe try to expand your horizon beyond We Xes are going to find out what people want, and stop them doing it.
    In Matthew Jesus said '"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator `made them male and female,' and said, `For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one
    flesh.' That is perfectly clear marriage was to be between a man and the female who was to be his wife. Even if you ignore the reference to divorce or the bits in Leviticus about homosexuality being an abomination etc
    Except that God doesn't believe in marriage.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    HYUFD said:

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    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    About time that the state didn't recognise such marriages, which are often contrary to its own principles, both as to what is permitted and what isn't. Except of course in theocracies such as England.
    Rubbish that is anti religious discrimination
    It isn't. It would include the atheistic and pagan groups too. Everyone would be treated equally. Get married in the state office or not at all, as far as law, tax, etc. are concerned.
    Atheists and pagans are not interested in religious marriage and we religious are not primarily interested in civil marriages or unions either. Each should be entitled to 1 ceremony which respects the primacy of how they see their union
    Nonsense, what utter religious discrimination. You are demandingf that the state accept your beliefs.

    "Pagans are not interested in religious marriage." Now that is a blatant piece of sectarianism and lying bilge. And I'm not a pagan.
    Modern paganism is a spiritual movement not really a religion.

    We have freedom of religion in this country and that includes the freedom to recognise our religious marriages as our primary form of union with the civil side added on at the same time
    And the freedom to not do so too.

    But you want to deny the latter.

    Nobody is seeking to deny you the right to a religious side to your marriage. You and other extremists like Liam Fox did want to deny others the civil side to theirs. Why?
    The opposite, I made quite clear you could have non religious civil unions with no religious involvement at all. Just leave the marriage element to we religious.

    Both Fox and I supported homosexual civil partnerships
    Marriage is civil. Has been since for thousands of years since before your Jesus that you so love to ignore was according to your own religious text born or said the words "render unto Caesar" about separating religious and civil laws.

    So no thanks, civil partnerships are not the same, when people want civil marriage. Try again.
    No. He was talking about tax law.

    Unions under civil law which linked in with the definition of marriage under the Bible, Koran and Torah were one thing, unions which redefined the definition of marriage to suit their agenda quite another. So no, civil partnerships and marriage can be kept separate.

    And given you earlier were advocating abortion until birth for both the disabled and not I don't need to be made to feel morally inferior by you!!!
    Graeco-Roman laws significantly predate both Biblical or Koranic law, and were more relevant to most of the world than Torah law too.

    Are you trying to deny that the Romans had marriages? Their marriages were civil, not religious, constructs and that is what marriage was for thousands of years before the supposed birth of Christ.

    So don't try and hijack marriage and steal it for your religion. Its secular and available to all whether religious or not.

    You can add on whatever religious trimmings you want and keep to them if you please, nobody wants to deny you that right, but that is on top of civil marriage, not instead of it.
    “ Their marriages were civil, not religious,”

    I think this is wrong Bart, marriage in the polytheistic Greek and Roman religions was religious. Juno played the part of presiding over the marriage.

    This is where you are confusing a philosophical concept with a religious one, for example Juno presiding over the marriage does make it religious, just as much as God presiding in a Christian one.

    The other point I would make is you are both making the same mistake in calling Christianity so Jewish, Christianity is more Greek at the start than Jewish before evolving over centuries into something more original than its roots.
    No you're misunderstanding Roman society. Yes Juno was the god of marriage, but the Romans had a god for virtually everything and anything under the sun, it doesn't mean they didn't have legal constructs.

    As we'd understand it today, Roman marriages absolutely were civil, legal unions, not religious ones. As @IshmaelZ marriages have for many thousands of years had legal consequences for things like inheritances etc and so were legal constructs not religious ones, though they have at times had religious trimmings.

    Adding religious trimmings to the civil concept of marriage if you want to is entirely legal and in fitting with history. Denying others the right to marriage because you consider marriage an institution created by and belonging to your own religion is just ignorance.
    You could extend that last crazy thought to excommunication from the Kingdom of heaven. Too. Are you saying a Christian society doesn’t have the right to excommunicate you, Bartus of Scouseland, from the Kingdom of heaven? Of course we do, you can’t challenge that no more than Christianity should rightfully rule any Christian Society and decide what marriage is in its society.

    Not forgetting What is Christian marriage likely comes from the polytheistic Greek anyway. It starts by Paul spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ to gentiles in Greece, who are Greek. Paul actually wrote his letters from there in Greek, it’s oldest bit of the Bible. Christ itself as a word is Greek.

    So these Gentiles have the good news of Jesus Christ with their Greekness. The Jews were tribal and factional too Jesus was Essennee like Joseph and those who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls wasn’t he?
    I'm sorry, I haven't the foggiest clue what you're talking about.

    Yes you can't excommunicate me from the Kingdom of heaven, since (a) I don't think that exists, (b) I don't want to go there, (c) that's actually religious, not civil, and (d) if it does exist, you don't have that prerogative, you're not the gatekeeper.
    Bet you we could! They used to excommunicate pigs wether they went along with it or not, and you cheeky old hog would be little different. 😤
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited August 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    You know, earlier I posted a passage from Exodus, which @HYUFD rightly pointed out was from the Old Testament.

    There are, however, parts of the New Testament which might be a little tricky, however.

    Such as Corinthians' it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

    Plenty of Churches including the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches which combined still make up over half of Christians globally of course don't allow women priests, as don't even some parts of the Church of England such as those under the Bishop of Maidstone.

    Though of course many of Christ's most devoted followers were women, including Mary Magdalene which is why those Protestant churches which do have women priests have decided to do so
  • rcs1000 said:

    You know, earlier I posted a passage from Exodus, which @HYUFD rightly pointed out was from the Old Testament.

    There are, however, parts of the New Testament which might be a little tricky, however.

    Such as Corinthians' it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

    David Horton: What was that socialist tract you were spouting from the pulpit last week?
    Geraldine (Vicar of Dibley): I've got a feeling it was the Sermon on the Mount.
    David Horton: Jesus did not tell rich people to give all their money away.
    Geraldine: I think you'll find he did actually!
    David Horton: Nonsense. What did he say to the sick man? "Take up thy bed and walk." In other words "Help yourself". "On your bike."
    Geraldine: Are you trying to establish a direct spiritual link between Jesus Christ and Norman Tebbit?
    David Horton: You can't deny there are similarities.
    Geraldine: [Loudly] There bloody are not!

  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415
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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    I love the theory that the Vatican has unpublished works of Tacitus which are too explosive to publish. I asked their head librarian about this ten years ago. He said No, but of course I would say that....
    That’s a library I would love to spend some time in!

    Bruno was allowed in.
  • DynamoDynamo Posts: 651
    Did someone post something interesting here that got whooshed by a tsunami of biblically-themed willy waving?
  • Dynamo said:

    Did someone post something interesting here that got whooshed by a tsunami of biblically-themed willy waving?

    Ahahahahaha
  • IshmaelZ said:

    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    I love the theory that the Vatican has unpublished works of Tacitus which are too explosive to publish. I asked their head librarian about this ten years ago. He said No, but of course I would say that....
    That’s a library I would love to spend some time in!

    Bruno was allowed in.
    We don't talk about him
  • *** Trainspotting post ***

    The "missing" bits to the Elizabeth Line are due to open on November 6th. That is, the links between Stratford and Whitechapel, and between Paddington Low Level and Acton Main Line, enabling through journeys between Liverpool Street and Reading/Heathrow, and Paddington and Shenfield. Bond Street is also due to open "by" Nov 6th.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Dynamo said:

    Did someone post something interesting here that got whooshed by a tsunami of biblically-themed willy waving?

    It was originally a discussion about euthanasia for the non terminally ill and abortion up to birth for the disabled. Bart backed both, I noted Liam Fox was trying to reverse the latter, he said Fox opposed gay marriage (but not civil unions) etc
  • DriverDriver Posts: 4,522

    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    That's a very long winded way of agreeing with my point 🙂
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 12,415

    IshmaelZ said:

    Driver said:

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    DavidL said:

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    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    I love the theory that the Vatican has unpublished works of Tacitus which are too explosive to publish. I asked their head librarian about this ten years ago. He said No, but of course I would say that....
    That’s a library I would love to spend some time in!

    Bruno was allowed in.
    We don't talk about him
    Sorry 🤐

    I mean - sorry, why not?
  • Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

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    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

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    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

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    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    You're basically ruling out the Books of the NT as counting as evidence. Paul's letters were written in 50-60 AD, and his conversion took place only about three years or so after Jesus' crucifixion. He also met with Peter, James the Just, and a number of Jesus' disciples and leaders of the early church in Jerusalem.
    God or mortal, Jesus almost certainly was a real historical figure.
    Yes I'm ruling out the NT. The NT is neither independent evidence, nor is it contemporary. Most of the earliest surviving NT manuscripts date to the 4th century AD, not the 1st century, so are more myth than evidence.

    I agreed that Jesus was probably a real historical figure, though my probably and your "almost certainly" both leave room for doubt, but there is pretty much no independent evidence beyond the name and his execution of his authenticity.

    Beyond a name and the fact he was executed, there's little else independent and contemporary. What we have instead surviving is myth that was mostly put together in the 4th century by those who already believed the myths and used the myths to reinforce and spread their own rule.
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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    You're basically ruling out the Books of the NT as counting as evidence. Paul's letters were written in 50-60 AD, and his conversion took place only about three years or so after Jesus' crucifixion. He also met with Peter, James the Just, and a number of Jesus' disciples and leaders of the early church in Jerusalem.
    God or mortal, Jesus almost certainly was a real historical figure.
    Yes I'm ruling out the NT. The NT is neither independent evidence, nor is it contemporary. Most of the earliest surviving NT manuscripts date to the 4th century AD, not the 1st century, so are more myth than evidence.

    I agreed that Jesus was probably a real historical figure, though my probably and your "almost certainly" both leave room for doubt, but there is pretty much no independent evidence beyond the name and his execution of his authenticity.

    Beyond a name and the fact he was executed, there's little else independent and contemporary. What we have instead surviving is myth that was mostly put together in the 4th century by those who already believed the myths and used the myths to reinforce and spread their own rule.
    You can’t do that, just dismiss the Bible as bent history akin to legend of King Arthur. It may be partisan, but still written at the time historical documents, starting I understand with Paul’s letters. These are actual letters, written by Paul. That’s actually amazingly historic really. Paul knew the Passion very well, after all he’s getting Jesus killed.

    Pretty reliable history can be held by word of mouth till written down.

    The Dead Scrolls date long before 4th century.

    And you are rigid to “Jesus outside the Bible” extend that, and Roman records prove Paul is very reall not myth.
    They do think he’s off his head on mushrooms or ethanol, but he is then a real locked up person.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 2,722
    Has this been posted? Probably. But I'm posting it anyway because it's better than a 2000 page discussion on the definition of Marriage.

    https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1562574922349547521?s=20&t=p9oNekiyBQkNvBD0P452EQ

    Westminster voting intention:

    LAB: 43% (+3)
    CON: 31% (-3)
    LDEM: 11% (-1)
    GRN: 6% (+1)

    via @DeltapollUK
    , 19 - 22 Aug
  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Posts: 1,151

    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

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    Carnyx said:

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    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

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    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    You're basically ruling out the Books of the NT as counting as evidence. Paul's letters were written in 50-60 AD, and his conversion took place only about three years or so after Jesus' crucifixion. He also met with Peter, James the Just, and a number of Jesus' disciples and leaders of the early church in Jerusalem.
    God or mortal, Jesus almost certainly was a real historical figure.
    Yes I'm ruling out the NT. The NT is neither independent evidence, nor is it contemporary. Most of the earliest surviving NT manuscripts date to the 4th century AD, not the 1st century, so are more myth than evidence.

    I agreed that Jesus was probably a real historical figure, though my probably and your "almost certainly" both leave room for doubt, but there is pretty much no independent evidence beyond the name and his execution of his authenticity.

    Beyond a name and the fact he was executed, there's little else independent and contemporary. What we have instead surviving is myth that was mostly put together in the 4th century by those who already believed the myths and used the myths to reinforce and spread their own rule.
    The NT is a collection of books written by different authors, so yes they can be considered as corroborative evidence. As for contemporary, by the standards of ancient historical documents it is. We have no surviving accounts of the life of Alexander the Great prior to the 1st century AD, for instance. Yet Plutarch etc. are considered as good historical sources, nonetheless. The gap between the date scholars date the books of the NT and the purported events is much, much smaller.
    Not a single reputable historian or biblical scholar thinks the Pauline epistles were wrote any later than about 60 AD, and pretty much everyone one of them think the Synoptic gospels were wrote in the 1st century. Nobody thinks they were put together in the fourth century.
  • Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

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    Cookie said:

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    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

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    DavidL said:

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    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    You're basically ruling out the Books of the NT as counting as evidence. Paul's letters were written in 50-60 AD, and his conversion took place only about three years or so after Jesus' crucifixion. He also met with Peter, James the Just, and a number of Jesus' disciples and leaders of the early church in Jerusalem.
    God or mortal, Jesus almost certainly was a real historical figure.
    Yes I'm ruling out the NT. The NT is neither independent evidence, nor is it contemporary. Most of the earliest surviving NT manuscripts date to the 4th century AD, not the 1st century, so are more myth than evidence.

    I agreed that Jesus was probably a real historical figure, though my probably and your "almost certainly" both leave room for doubt, but there is pretty much no independent evidence beyond the name and his execution of his authenticity.

    Beyond a name and the fact he was executed, there's little else independent and contemporary. What we have instead surviving is myth that was mostly put together in the 4th century by those who already believed the myths and used the myths to reinforce and spread their own rule.
    You can’t do that, just dismiss the Bible as bent history akin to legend of King Arthur. It may be partisan, but still written at the time historical documents, starting I understand with Paul’s letters. These are actual letters, written by Paul. That’s actually amazingly historic really. Paul knew the Passion very well, after all he’s getting Jesus killed.

    Pretty reliable history can be held by word of mouth till written down.

    The Dead Scrolls date long before 4th century.

    And you are rigid to “Jesus outside the Bible” extend that, and Roman records prove Paul is very reall not myth.
    They do think he’s off his head on mushrooms or ethanol, but he is then a real locked up person.
    Almost all the earliest documents we have date to the 4th century.

    Absolutely I can deny them.

    Truth can become myth before long, even with modern technology. Thatcher was a real figure but she's already being mythologised within a decade of her dying. If there were no modern technology to preserve records, and then two thousand years from now the only surviving references to Thatcher were from her believers, supposed gospels or letters written by believers from her time but the documents dating to hundreds of years later, then just how authentic should those documents be considered to be? They would be more myth than evidence and should be treated sceptically.

    Jesus may or may not have been real, he probably was but we have not much contemporary evidence beyond that he lived and died.

    Paul may or may not have been real, he probably was, but we don't have as far as I know have any contemporary copies of the letters that he supposedly wrote.
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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    You're basically ruling out the Books of the NT as counting as evidence. Paul's letters were written in 50-60 AD, and his conversion took place only about three years or so after Jesus' crucifixion. He also met with Peter, James the Just, and a number of Jesus' disciples and leaders of the early church in Jerusalem.
    God or mortal, Jesus almost certainly was a real historical figure.
    Yes I'm ruling out the NT. The NT is neither independent evidence, nor is it contemporary. Most of the earliest surviving NT manuscripts date to the 4th century AD, not the 1st century, so are more myth than evidence.

    I agreed that Jesus was probably a real historical figure, though my probably and your "almost certainly" both leave room for doubt, but there is pretty much no independent evidence beyond the name and his execution of his authenticity.

    Beyond a name and the fact he was executed, there's little else independent and contemporary. What we have instead surviving is myth that was mostly put together in the 4th century by those who already believed the myths and used the myths to reinforce and spread their own rule.
    The NT is a collection of books written by different authors, so yes they can be considered as corroborative evidence. As for contemporary, by the standards of ancient historical documents it is. We have no surviving accounts of the life of Alexander the Great prior to the 1st century AD, for instance. Yet Plutarch etc. are considered as good historical sources, nonetheless. The gap between the date scholars date the books of the NT and the purported events is much, much smaller.
    Not a single reputable historian or biblical scholar thinks the Pauline epistles were wrote any later than about 60 AD, and pretty much everyone one of them think the Synoptic gospels were wrote in the 1st century. Nobody thinks they were put together in the fourth century.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Posts: 1,151
    edited August 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    You're basically ruling out the Books of the NT as counting as evidence. Paul's letters were written in 50-60 AD, and his conversion took place only about three years or so after Jesus' crucifixion. He also met with Peter, James the Just, and a number of Jesus' disciples and leaders of the early church in Jerusalem.
    God or mortal, Jesus almost certainly was a real historical figure.
    Yes I'm ruling out the NT. The NT is neither independent evidence, nor is it contemporary. Most of the earliest surviving NT manuscripts date to the 4th century AD, not the 1st century, so are more myth than evidence.

    I agreed that Jesus was probably a real historical figure, though my probably and your "almost certainly" both leave room for doubt, but there is pretty much no independent evidence beyond the name and his execution of his authenticity.

    Beyond a name and the fact he was executed, there's little else independent and contemporary. What we have instead surviving is myth that was mostly put together in the 4th century by those who already believed the myths and used the myths to reinforce and spread their own rule.
    The NT is a collection of books written by different authors, so yes they can be considered as corroborative evidence. As for contemporary, by the standards of ancient historical documents it is. We have no surviving accounts of the life of Alexander the Great prior to the 1st century AD, for instance. Yet Plutarch etc. are considered as good historical sources, nonetheless. The gap between the date scholars date the books of the NT and the purported events is much, much smaller.
    Not a single reputable historian or biblical scholar thinks the Pauline epistles were wrote any later than about 60 AD, and pretty much everyone one of them think the Synoptic gospels were wrote in the 1st century. Nobody thinks they were put together in the fourth century.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
    I'll rephrase... nobody thinks the books which comprise the NT were written in the fourth century.
    Anyway, just to round things off, here's a blog post by Bart Ehrman (an agnostic biblical scholar) which makes a very good case why the gospels can be considered evidence for Jesus' historicity.
    https://ehrmanblog.org/gospel-evidence-that-jesus-existed/
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    rcs1000 said:

    Driver said:

    HYUFD said:

    kle4 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cookie said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    Carnyx said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    Selebian said:

    Selebian said:

    moonshine said:

    .

    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    darkage said:

    Pulpstar said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    You're basically ruling out the Books of the NT as counting as evidence. Paul's letters were written in 50-60 AD, and his conversion took place only about three years or so after Jesus' crucifixion. He also met with Peter, James the Just, and a number of Jesus' disciples and leaders of the early church in Jerusalem.
    God or mortal, Jesus almost certainly was a real historical figure.
    Yes I'm ruling out the NT. The NT is neither independent evidence, nor is it contemporary. Most of the earliest surviving NT manuscripts date to the 4th century AD, not the 1st century, so are more myth than evidence.

    I agreed that Jesus was probably a real historical figure, though my probably and your "almost certainly" both leave room for doubt, but there is pretty much no independent evidence beyond the name and his execution of his authenticity.

    Beyond a name and the fact he was executed, there's little else independent and contemporary. What we have instead surviving is myth that was mostly put together in the 4th century by those who already believed the myths and used the myths to reinforce and spread their own rule.
    The NT is a collection of books written by different authors, so yes they can be considered as corroborative evidence. As for contemporary, by the standards of ancient historical documents it is. We have no surviving accounts of the life of Alexander the Great prior to the 1st century AD, for instance. Yet Plutarch etc. are considered as good historical sources, nonetheless. The gap between the date scholars date the books of the NT and the purported events is much, much smaller.
    Not a single reputable historian or biblical scholar thinks the Pauline epistles were wrote any later than about 60 AD, and pretty much everyone one of them think the Synoptic gospels were wrote in the 1st century. Nobody thinks they were put together in the fourth century.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
    I'll rephrase... nobody thinks the books which comprise the NT were written in the fourth century.
    The writings of Eusebius suggest that there might have been a reasonable amount of ... how to say this ... curation, though
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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    You're basically ruling out the Books of the NT as counting as evidence. Paul's letters were written in 50-60 AD, and his conversion took place only about three years or so after Jesus' crucifixion. He also met with Peter, James the Just, and a number of Jesus' disciples and leaders of the early church in Jerusalem.
    God or mortal, Jesus almost certainly was a real historical figure.
    Yes I'm ruling out the NT. The NT is neither independent evidence, nor is it contemporary. Most of the earliest surviving NT manuscripts date to the 4th century AD, not the 1st century, so are more myth than evidence.

    I agreed that Jesus was probably a real historical figure, though my probably and your "almost certainly" both leave room for doubt, but there is pretty much no independent evidence beyond the name and his execution of his authenticity.

    Beyond a name and the fact he was executed, there's little else independent and contemporary. What we have instead surviving is myth that was mostly put together in the 4th century by those who already believed the myths and used the myths to reinforce and spread their own rule.
    The NT is a collection of books written by different authors, so yes they can be considered as corroborative evidence. As for contemporary, by the standards of ancient historical documents it is. We have no surviving accounts of the life of Alexander the Great prior to the 1st century AD, for instance. Yet Plutarch etc. are considered as good historical sources, nonetheless. The gap between the date scholars date the books of the NT and the purported events is much, much smaller.
    Not a single reputable historian or biblical scholar thinks the Pauline epistles were wrote any later than about 60 AD, and pretty much everyone one of them think the Synoptic gospels were wrote in the 1st century. Nobody thinks they were put together in the fourth century.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
    I'll rephrase... nobody thinks the books which comprise the NT were written in the fourth century.
    The writings of Eusebius suggest that there might have been a reasonable amount of ... how to say this ... curation, though
    Precisely.

    Followers of Thatcher have already mythologised what she did and did not say only a decade after she died, and argue about what she would have thought about modern issues like Brexit etc

    Now magnify that with very limited sources, the lack of modern technology, and centuries extra of curation. How much that survives would be real, and how much would be myth?

    “The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.” - By the 4th century the memories had been dead for centuries, the legend had already become myth.

    The writings of acolytes, dating centuries after a supposed event, are evidence of the myth, not reality.
  • " One MP close to Truss said: “Liz values loyalty. Her core team are those she has worked with and trusts entirely.” "

    FT

    Welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss.

    That is interesting even if not surprising and might be one reason Liz Truss was so willing to ditch her own policy proposals from the right, who do not meet those criteria.
  • New thread.
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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    I love the theory that the Vatican has unpublished works of Tacitus which are too explosive to publish. I asked their head librarian about this ten years ago. He said No, but of course I would say that....
    That’s a library I would love to spend some time in!

    Bruno was allowed in.
    We don't talk about him
    Sorry 🤐

    I mean - sorry, why not?
    Well it was my wedding day...
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    - @SuellaBraverman: tipped for Home Sec
    - @theresecoffey: senior cabinet role, fixer or chief whip

    Liz Truss is a moron

    What could Suella Braverman do right that Priti Patel has done wrong?
    I do not say it is right. I do not think it is.

    But I suspect she will try to leave the ECHR. She's talked about it often enough during her campaign to be leader.
    I fear you may be right! If ever it could be said that the Conservative party had departed from Churchill's legacy it would be that.
    It would be a day of shame for Britain to do that.
    But party party day for all those lefty legal aid lawyers who would get to argue all the same points again in respect of whatever replaced it. It is so blindingly obvious that this would be the consequence that even Braverman can surely see it. Maybe if her officials used smaller words....
    Our own court system would have let the flight go ahead outwith the last minute intervention by the ECHR. There's enough legal layers (3 (High, Appeal, Supreme)) without needing a 4th (ECHR). Our own courts only changed their mind when the ECHR basically told them to.
    It's an unnecessary layer imo, and since we're outside the EU, and therefore outside of protocol 14 of the Lisbon treaty it's something we ought to ditch.
    Personally I'd vote to head back into the EU and accept we'd need to be under it's remit (Thems the breaks) - but if we're out the EU I don't see the point.
    I think it is a mistake to see this purely in terms of being an administrative/ procedural issue. The problem with leaving the ECHR is the international significance of it. It undoes a lot of long term foreign policy objectives, IE promoting human rights and stopping the death penalty. The suspicion is that this is actually part of the plan.
    The day capital punishment is restored is the day to plan my exit. Not in my name!
    Are you volunteering to be first up on the block like? That is very public spirited of you.
    To ensure such an abomination is never reintroduced it is certainly a hill worth dying upon.
    There was a good documentary on BBC3 which I ended up watching when stuck in an hotel room in Aberdeen about a University based organisation that was trying to stop executions in Texas just over a week ago. I am not sure I could do that kind of work.

    In contrast there is a well sourced story about the Judges in the High Court who dealt with the appeal of the last man hanged in Scotland. Counsel was asked if this was going to take long as they had a really interesting trust problem to address at 11.00am. Different days.
    So let's never return to them.
    And w are not going to. Why do think we will?
    It a cheap way to attract votes for an unpopular and cynical Government or an ambitious cynical Opposition that wants to creep over the line.

    Priti Patel and I believe Suella Braverman (although apologies, I may be wrong) are advocates as are many Conservative MPs, like
    Gale, for example. The fact that when the likes of Ian Huntley are tried there are dozens and dozens of mawkish protestors demanding his life suggests it would be politically popular if morally wrong. Without the EU, without the ECHR all obstacles slip away. I believe a referendum is a clear and present danger. Once we get the hang (pun intended) of executing Ian Huntley and Gary Glitter, who and what for next?
    Most people in the UK are quite dishonest with themselves over the death penalty. They think being aghast about the idea of it makes them morally superior. And it feels nice to be morally superior. But…

    Jeremy Corbyn was about the only person who thought the execution by drone of the ISIS Beatles was a “tragedy”. Everyone else watched that news with their cornflakes and thought, jolly good show. Ditto Bin Laden. Ditto Shipman topping himself, even Blunkett admitted to cheering that one. Equally if we woke up at the weekend to vigilante justice being delivered in this Liverpool case, near everyone would think privately that the scumbag got what was coming to them.


    There wasn't a safer way of dealing with the Isis Beatles, or Bin Laden.

    Shipman made his own decision in order that his wife could benefit from a pension as I recall. Fred West too. I'd have preferred Shipman and West end their final years in s***hole prisons like Strageways and Winson Green.

    As for your lynch mob, they will also serve time for the murder of a scumbag.
    Agree re Shipman, I was not happy about that.

    One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty is that, for some - particularly the superior, cocky Shipman type - I think it a lesser sentence than life imprisonment. He, presumably, took the same view.

    (Other reasons have been well articulated by others)
    I'm a firm pro-choice believer in death with dignity. If anyone wants to end their own life, then with safeguards, that should be allowed. Their life, their choice.

    Safeguards with the likes of Shipman for that would need to be serious, but if they want 'the easy way out' then that should be their choice, same as it should be anyone else's. So long as the safeguards ensure its genuinely their choice.

    Keeping them alive, against their wishes, just to punish them more is for me a form of torture that I would not accept. If you want to keep them alive, against their wishes, it should be for more than just punishment's sake.
    I'm with Mexicanpete on this. Happy to withhold any right to death during a prison sentence.

    I do support access to euthanasia for the general public, in principle, although I believe there are huge practical problems around, effectively, informed consent for that. There are conditions for which I would choose death over life, I think, but only at the appropriate point, which would probably be at a point after I was able to provide informed consent. Setting clear conditions in advance is tricky as you don't know how you would feel at that point in time. For non-physical reasons, it's even more problematic.
    My wife and I have both said to each other we'd prefer euthanasia than going into a Care Home. She works in one and while she cares passionately about her job, most of her colleagues frankly don't and most of the residents don't want to be there either. There are some people there who are happy to be there, but there are many who say every single day that they want to die. She's said she never, ever wants to end up somewhere like that.

    Of course closer to the time we might change our minds, but people should have a right to choose. Their life, their choice.

    I find prohibitions on euthanasia as unacceptable as prohibitions on abortion. Hopefully one day it'll be as alien too to think people were once denied that freedom to choose.
    Abortion is of course ending the life of another not your own, whatever time limit you set for it.

    There is also a danger euthanasia is not your own choice, especially if not of sound mind. I would consider it for terminal illnesses with less than 6 months to live only
    Abortion there is no other life that has been born yet, which is why birth should be the limit.

    If people of sound mind wish to die, that should be their choice, even if not terminal. If someone is paralysed by an accident and faces years, maybe decades "living" but completely paralysed then if they make the choice they want to end it all they should have (after appropriate safeguards) the dignity of their choice respected.

    Similarly if someone facing dementia makes that choice then if they want to end it all while still of sound mind before they're not, that again should be their choice.

    People should be able to die with dignity, not have grim forms of suicide as the only alternative.
    Rubbish, arguably life begins at conception but at most it begins at 24 weeks as is the legal UK abortion time limit. Abortion up to birth is therefore in my view murder.

    The state should also have no business murdering someone who will survive whatever illness or disease they suffer, care and medical treatment is its only role. Life is sacred and the state has no business ending it except in extreme circumstances, such as for convicted serial killers or those with a terminal illness nearing the end of life who consent to that
    Birth is the legal limit for abortion in limited circumstances in this country, as it absolutely should be.

    24 weeks is the legal limit for other circumstances. Personally I don't care enough to argue about that, I'd prefer birth for all circumstances, but can live with 24.

    Life is not "sacred", there is absolutely nothing "sacred" about life at all and if people wish to end their own life then that is not the state murdering them, it is them killing themselves. A humane and dignified method of ending your own life should be available to anyone of sound mind who wants it, rather than forcing them to inhumane continuing of life they don't want, or inhumane suicide as an alternative.

    Euthanasia is people legally and humanely controlling and choosing the end of their own lives, its not murder.
    What on earth are the inverted commas around 'sacred' supposed to mean?

    Quotation marks.

    HYUFD said that life was "sacred" and I was quoting him and saying that its not. It'd be an odd thing to write without the quotation.
    Thanks. Moving on, I'm not sure whether life being sacred or not makes much difference. But I don't think the issue is a religious one. SFAICS you are saying that no particular rights are conferred on us by virtue of life being sacred. But you follow this by, again SFAICS, assuming that the rights of the unborn differ from the rights of the born in significant ways. Neither sacredness not unsacredness seems to ground this difference, which is the place where the difficulty lies.

    Almost everyone agrees that the born and unborn have rights. Exactly which rights when and why is the question.
    I consider life runs from birth to death.

    Considering abortion is permitted in circumstances until the third trimester, but never permitted in any circumstances in the fourteenth trimester, the law agrees with me.

    Restrictions on abortion late in pregnancy are like Sunday Trading laws, a compromised sop to those with objections to give them something to accept.
    The only circumstances abortion is permitted beyond 24 weeks is in cases of severe disability or risk of severe injury to the mother, though in the former case there is a growing campaign to reverse that and rightly so
    And can you abort those at risk of disabilities in the fourteen trimester? No, because by the 14th trimester, you're talking about real people who've been born. Life begins at birth.

    Yes religious zealots like you that want to put their faith in God into law want to reverse the law, but thankfully you are not representative of either the UK or Parliament.
    No it doesn't and you shouldn't be able to abort those with disabilities anymore than you can abort those who are able bodied after 24 weeks either. One thing the reversal of Roe v Wade has done is begin the fightback against the abortion on demand and until birth crowd like you, even if obviously we are not going to have the same abortion laws as Alabama.

    Liam Fox is leading the campaign to end abortion of the disabled until birth, he is hardly an extremist
    Your idea of not extreme is that extremist Liam Fox who branded gay marriage divisive and wrong and undermining Christianity? https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/liam-fox-brands-gay-marriage-divisive

    Considering though your notion of moderate is Sarah Palin, I don't know why I should be surprised.
    Most Conservative MPs voted against gay marriage, so what, you can still support homosexuality being legal and even gay civil unions but object to gay marriage on religious grounds
    But you advocate letting C of E vicars refuse to marry gay couples. Yet the C of E is part of the State. So why can C of E vicars refuse marriages that are positively permitted by laws of the Houses of Parlament?

    It's outrageous. Either disestablish the C of E or make the vicars follow the laws set down by the Head of their Church, one HMtQ.

    You can't have it both ways.
    Yes, just as Church of Scotland Ministers can still refuse to conduct gay marriages. The Queen signed gay marriage into law as part of her role as Head of State, though personally civil unions was enough not as part of her role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England which is an entirely separate one. They become legal in civil law in England not religious law
    C of S isn't an Established church. They are a private body. They can do what they like. And even being able to do it is a damn sight more than the C of E.

    The C of E very much is a public body and arm of the state. You're just coming up with crap justifications. The Queen can't be a Christian one moment and then not at all the next moment when signing something into law.

    We need to strip out the power of conducting legal marriages from all religious sects given that some such as the C of E refuse to follow the law of the land. Only civil registry offices should have that power.
    As an atheist, I'm all in favour of disestablishmment.
    But I don't think it makes sense to criticise religions on the grounds that they don't accord with modern sensibilities. If God exists, it would seem unlikely that he changes his views on morality with the times. Given that human moral norms have changed wildly over the course of human history, it would seem more likely that God's views contain quite a few elements which are out of step with 21st Century western thinking than it would that we have happened now at this point in history on a morality which accords with God's.
    If any religion were true, I would expect it to contain quite a lot that I would find uncomfortable.
    Quite.

    But marriage is basically a legal contract rather than a religious sacrament (it has always been thus since the 16thC in Scotland for instance*). In that sense, therefore, it's not so much modern sensibilities but practicalities.

    * In law. The church bit was never essential. Though people of various denominations liked to go to church for it as well.
    For the religious marriage is actually primarily a religious sacrament not a legal contract
    Private matter. Which is fine. Only you insist that the legal contract has to be a religious one.
    No, most religious in the UK want the chance to do both at the same time and have one ceremony with meaning not have to go through one less meaningful ceremony too. Which they are entitled to do with a priest or licensed minister
    Yes you can sign your contract in Church.

    You can sign your contract in a nice, secular wedding venue like I did.

    You can sign your contract in a Town Hall.

    You can sign your contract in a Pub.

    Where you want to sign your marriage contract is your own personal choice, because it's got nothing to do with any Church, unless YOU choose to involve the Church, or a Pub, or anything else.
    No, my marriage contract IS defined by being in church otherwise it is not a proper religious marriage. You can have the legal contract alongside which if you do not want a religious marriage you can just call a civil union but it is the religious part that makes it a marriage
    What your Church decrees is up to your Church and the people who choose to attend the Church.

    What Parliament decrees has sod all to do with the Church.

    That is why people can have civil marriages following Parliamentary law, or uncivil marriages based on whatever religious dogma you want to follow.

    But are you now pretending that my wife and I, and everyone else who ever had a civil wedding, are not actually married? Are you so willing to die on this hill that you pretension now is that we're not married at all, since it is the religious part that makes it a marriage?
    Not if it assumes a primarily religious term like marriage for its own. Parliament could just have expanded gay civil unions to non religious heterosexuals as the primary form of registry office union rather than assuming the term marriage for both.

    You and your wife just needed a legal union, you did not need a marriage
    We had a marriage. We didn't need a change in the law. Marriage is a civil union and has been for thousands of years, since before your religion even existed.
    No, marriage is not a civil union, marriage is primarily a religious institution between man and woman for life and that is whether Christian, Muslim or before both Jewish marriage
    Key word in your sentence there - 'primarily'.

    This accepts it is not 'wholly' a religious institution. It must therefore, at least in a small part, be non-religious.

    As such, you are, it seems, in fact accepting the central argument others are making about marraige, but trying to do so without being too obvious about it.

    You are always very careful with your words as you like to make clear, and would not have said primarily (definition - for the most part; mainly) if you meant something else, so it is no accidental inclusion.

    Well done.
    It hasn't been because the state has assumed the term for itself but in its origins it is a religious term
    No it is not!

    Marriage pre-dates your religion.

    In Roman times, when you think Jesus was born, marriage was a civil union between families. It is not religious.
    Fascinating though this discussion is, it's well into my "can't be bothered joining in, nobody's going to convince anyone" threshold.

    Except to note pedantically that Jesus is a documented historical figure from Roman times, so there's no "you think" about this aspect of it.
    There is very little historical documentation for Jesus and what documentation there is, some is disputed and some could be forged altogether.

    There's only really Josephus from the first century who references him twice, the first reference is probably authentic but says almost nothing other than the name, the second reference has almost certainly been fraudulently modified.

    After Josephus there's the writings of Tacitus, written in the second century, that referred to him and his execution too. That's probably authentic too. But again it says little much else to corroborate much else in the myth. Its also not exactly contemporary, being written nearly a century later its about as contemporary as people today writing about the 1930s but without our modern technology to know about the 1930s. But its as contemporary as we have. After that there's not much to write about that's contemporary by any real meaning of the term.

    So the name is probably corroborated, as too is the execution, but beyond that . . . not much. There probably was a person of that era that spawned and evolved into the Jesus myth, but there's very little to corroborate anything as to what you would describe as Jesus from the Christian faith.

    Historical Jesus isn't far from historical King Arthur. Arthur may or may not have existed, some historians think he did, but the myth of what we call King Arthur today is a myth man has evolved and added to since. So too with Jesus.
    I disagree. A lot of the Gospel of Matthew was written well before the end of the First Century. Then of course there are the letters of St. Paul, which no one really disputes were written in the 50's and 60's.

    The evidence for the historicity of Jesus is a lot more contemporary than that for Alexander the Great, for example.
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