I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
Well it presumes you've thought about it. But if you have you'll believe or not. It's binary. If you don't believe you're a non believer. And neither believers nor non believers can profess to know. I don't see some middle ground in there where you neither believe nor don't believe. There's no meaningful difference between don't know if you believe and don't believe but don't know. They're the same and the latter expresses it more accurately. Because even if you do believe you don't know. "Don't know" is ever present to believers and non believers, therefore adds nothing. You believe (despite no evidence) or you don't believe (because of no evidence), and neither camp knows or can credibly claim to know.
If you’re in charge of the Geneva Tourist Board how the living FUCK do you sell this place?
It’s quite a nice middle European city with some pleasant scenery. It has a nice lake but it also plagued with petty crime and gets quite edgy at night. Oh, also, there is literally nothing to do in the city itself. And it’s not THAT pretty. And the food is a bit meh. And you can go to about 100 nicer cities within 200km, all with much grander scenery and fascinating history and loads of art, and, guess what, they will be four times cheaper. Here we charge you TWENTY ONE POUNDS FOR A BURGER YOU FUCKING SAPS AHAHAHAHAH
Yes, anyway, ignore all that - come to Geneva!
The tourists they’re selling to, tens of thousands of them at the moment, are all in those nice resorts on the lake, where they can spend a week looking at water and mountains, visit the spas and drink in the bars, and only spend €10,000 per person per week doing so. It’s a bargain for the exclusivity.
Are you feeling left out yet?
No. I’ve been to those resorts. I stayed at this one for three nights a few years ago
They gave me a free solo ride in their brand new million quid James Bond hyperjet speed boat
The hotel was full of Liverpool FC players, doing some pre season training in the sun
I think Evian, though on Lake Geneva/Lac Leman) is in France, not Switzerland. Sorry to be pedantic
Tho I suspect it is the hotel resort @Sandpit is referring to. It is probably the most famous/prestigious on the lake shore in terms of spa/cuisine/scale etc
I wasn’t referring to any particular resort, merely making the point that there are many of them on the lake, and you’re destined to get the bus back into town to your sh!tty AirBnB tonight, with barely the budget for a bottle of Aldi’s best wine…
(You know I’m just taking the piss, but it’s an interesting assignment if you properly stick to it. They should have given you a chaperone in Geneva to make sure you do!)
You’re still missing my point. Why would anyone come HERE? When nearby towns are so superior in terms of beauty, cuisine, art, culture, landscape - Lausanne, Montreux, Zermatt, Chamonix, Annecy, Lucerne, Lyon, Turin, Milan
Why would any tourist voluntarily come to GENEVA for a holiday given that it is the most expensive city in Europe? And has none of these peerless attractions?
So why is it so expensive? I can only presume it is all the international institutions- FIFA, UN. Red Cross, etc - and their boring bureaucrats on expense accounts
Indeed so. Geneva as a city has no interest in tourists. Those visiting are all attending conferences, for which the city has to maintain the infrastructure for what’s perhaps a dozen weeks a year of actual activity.
Do we have any idea about Badenoch's economic views?
'cos if she can tack leftish spend on run-down places economics onto her social conservatism then maybe she will have a chance against a failing Labour in 2028.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
You may think there is a difference but both are atheists.
Which is the point, atheism is not a belief system, it is merely the absence of one. It covers the set of people of everyone who is not a theist, without any regimented beliefs or orthodoxies.
Closed minded ignorant theists trying to pigeonhole atheism into something they dislike which it's not is just them showing their ignorance.
I was at a political discussion event which I think was organised by a church group as they opened with a prayer and had several faith themed questions to the speaker, who was known to be a person of faith. There were several questions based on the idea people without faith were inherently broken in some way.
I didn't even disagree with the premise that most people have an inherent inclination towards belief in things, and that's why many ideologies are treated like religious faith, I just disagree on what that means and what to do about it.
But it did remind me that often theists and atheists simply totally misunderstand one another, whilst thinking they understand perfectly.
If you’re in charge of the Geneva Tourist Board how the living FUCK do you sell this place?
It’s quite a nice middle European city with some pleasant scenery. It has a nice lake but it also plagued with petty crime and gets quite edgy at night. Oh, also, there is literally nothing to do in the city itself. And it’s not THAT pretty. And the food is a bit meh. And you can go to about 100 nicer cities within 200km, all with much grander scenery and fascinating history and loads of art, and, guess what, they will be four times cheaper. Here we charge you TWENTY ONE POUNDS FOR A BURGER YOU FUCKING SAPS AHAHAHAHAH
Yes, anyway, ignore all that - come to Geneva!
The tourists they’re selling to, tens of thousands of them at the moment, are all in those nice resorts on the lake, where they can spend a week looking at water and mountains, visit the spas and drink in the bars, and only spend €10,000 per person per week doing so. It’s a bargain for the exclusivity.
Are you feeling left out yet?
No. I’ve been to those resorts. I stayed at this one for three nights a few years ago
They gave me a free solo ride in their brand new million quid James Bond hyperjet speed boat
The hotel was full of Liverpool FC players, doing some pre season training in the sun
I think Evian, though on Lake Geneva/Lac Leman) is in France, not Switzerland. Sorry to be pedantic
Tho I suspect it is the hotel resort @Sandpit is referring to. It is probably the most famous/prestigious on the lake shore in terms of spa/cuisine/scale etc
I wasn’t referring to any particular resort, merely making the point that there are many of them on the lake, and you’re destined to get the bus back into town to your sh!tty AirBnB tonight, with barely the budget for a bottle of Aldi’s best wine…
(You know I’m just taking the piss, but it’s an interesting assignment if you properly stick to it. They should have given you a chaperone in Geneva to make sure you do!)
You’re still missing my point. Why would anyone come HERE? When nearby towns are so superior in terms of beauty, cuisine, art, culture, landscape - Lausanne, Montreux, Zermatt, Chamonix, Annecy, Lucerne, Lyon, Turin, Milan
Why would any tourist voluntarily come to GENEVA for a holiday given that it is the most expensive city in Europe? And has none of these peerless attractions?
So why is it so expensive? I can only presume it is all the international institutions- FIFA, UN. Red Cross, etc - and their boring bureaucrats on expense accounts
Indeed so. Geneva as a city has no interest in tourists. Those visiting are all attending conferences, for which the city has to maintain the infrastructure for what’s perhaps a dozen weeks a year of actual activity.
It does tickle me how so many posters here think the 14 years of government was so of the right that anything further to the right is positively fascist.
A near tripling of the national debt, post-war high in taxation, 50% increase in the foreign born population as % of the total, choking economic regulation, gutting of the national defence capability, normalisation of DE&I targets, etc etc etc… none of this feels like particularly “right wing” governance to me.
Meanwhile concerning the usual defining characteristic of the far right, the period saw the UK’s first non-white PM, four consecutive non-white Chancellors and now highly likely we will see the first black party leader. All while the Labour Party saw mass resignations over its apparent institutional anti-semitism.
Hmm... curious choice. I said at the outset I didn't think if I was the Labour Party I would care very much who won. Trying to put my own centrist liberal views to one side (Cleverley scared me the least, but I'm never voting Tory so I'm irrelevant).
Jenrick has the ruthlessness to win, and perhaps change tack completely once in office if that's the way to go. He's singing from the right's songsheet at the moment but I could see him doing whatever's needed. On the down side he is unlikeable and as dodgy as F and I expect that will undo him eventually.
Badenoch is the wild card choice. I can't see it, but others seem to think she has something extra. A black woman might do better than another rich white bloke with the wider electorate. On the other hand she was poor to invisible as a Minister, and has a very thin skin and also not especially likeable.
Of the two, I think Jenrick is just too dodgy so I would vote for Badenoch. Actually I think I probably wouldn't vote.
Compared to Cleverly, both were poor ministers (not that he was great) and neither come across well to me, but I think both have a chance of surprising on the upside. Cleverly would have been the candidate likely to make the Tories perform least poorly in the worst case at the next GE, but I also feel he was unlikely to do much better than do more than a mild improvement. Both Jenrick and Badenoch are shit or bust choices. But in both cases the Tories are relying on rolling a 6. I guess if a 6 isn't forthcoming there will be a rerun in 2 years' time.
Indeed, it's not much of a choice is it. A dodgy career fellow (rather obviously, given the rather sudden weight loss, haircut, swivel to the right), with a bit of dodgy dealing thrown in (the distasteful Desmond dealings) or a very right wing "culture warrior" with a dislike for pregnant ladies. They look likely to be out of power for some time yet with either of those at the helm as their views will in no way chime with the general public. The Libs must be very pleased...
The Tories are highly unlikely to win a majority under Jenrick or Badenoch I agree. There is a slim chance the Tories + Reform + DUP+TUV combined have enough seats for a majority though
Indeed, although as you say, slim. It's likely that Badenoch wins the leadership. I cannot see the public warming to her, the current mood is generally against "shouty" populism as people seem a broken country and want competent leaders to fix things to work easily, efficiently and in their favour. It's quite possible that there could be a further reversal in Tory MP's at the next election if they swing ever right wards into a Trumpist/Tea Party style of politics. I just don't think that would wash here. Of course she could end up defenestrated a la Thatch/IDS and then a moderate new boy (or indeed girl) comes swinging in all Heseltonian Tarzanlike.
A shouty populist party has gone from polling 3% to polling 20% in under a year. The master of dull (I admit competence is becoming a stretch) is becoming the fastest ever approval ratings loser. This is pure projection.
I am at a loss to understand what this means for not only the conservative party but politics as a whole, but in this climate where politicians fall like a stone in approval once in the spotlight anything could happen
Volatility is by its name unpredictable, and never has our politics been more unpredictable and anyone saying with any certainty what the future holds is either wishcasting, or oblivious to how politics is changing before our very eyes
People have a tendency to look for comfort by relying on old certainties/maxims - they don't apply anymore. I think the big fallacy that is being made is the idea that 'elections are won in the centre', what people want is a coherant and radical alternative vision. The establishment cannot provide this- all sides are bogged down in legalism and managerialism.
I think people are confused about what is the centre, particularly when trying to define it as some immovable ideological position, or as actually to one side just stated in an understated way.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism IS a belief system. You are unable believe in a higher state of collective universal consciousness, therefore you disbelieve, and that disbelief is based on very limited evidence. You also pompously believe that this is a superior belief system, but you are in fact simply demonstrating an extreme lack of imagination and capability to have an open mind.
Agnosticism is the most logical position. Atheism is simply an inability to comprehend that there are elements to the universe that we are unlikely to ever understand. In the hierarchy of closed minded philosophies, materialist atheism is at the top of the pyramid.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism IS a belief system. You are unable believe in a higher state of collective universal consciousness, therefore you disbelieve, and that disbelief is based on very limited evidence. You also pompously believe that this is a superior belief system, but you are in fact simply demonstrating an extreme lack of imagination and capability to have an open mind.
Agnosticism is the most logical position. Atheism is simply an inability to comprehend that there are elements to the universe that we are unlikely to ever understand. In the hierarchy of closed minded philosophies, materialist atheism is at the top of the pyramid.
Yes, I have no problem with agnosticism. It is a noble and coherent position. “I do not know”
I am agnostic about many things, I do not know, I do not have the information
Atheists are CERTAIN of that which they cannot be certain, that there is no God, there is no deeper meaning to the universe, no spiritual and emotional purpose, no story of which we are a part, no greater design outwith our comprehension. Nope. They are certain. Like teenagers THEY JUST KNOW, ALRIGHT
Atheism is the belief system of an adolescent
I note with amusement that even Richard Dawkins is now marching back his atheism, somewhat
"Like teenagers THEY JUST KNOW, ALRIGHT" applies just as well to a not inconsiderable number of theists.
Certainly, but you missed the point. Our very own resident adolescent Barty, tried to postulate that atheism is not a belief set. It is. The whataboutery has nothing to do with the discussion.
Is lack of belief in the Tooth Fairy a belief set?
An inability to understand an appropriate intellectual analogy and indulge in the puerile argument of a ten year old is a probably a twatset. Well done on continuing to underline your stupidity.
But if it's not OK for me not to believe in God, why is it OK for YOU to not believe in the Tooth Fairy?
Oh dear, you really are not a very deep thinker are you? Personally I don't really care that you are unable to understand that an openmindedness to the possibility of a greater power in the universe or a collective consciousness might be a more logical position than believing that it cannot possibly exist. Comparing such a belief set to the tooth fairy amply illustrates @Leon's suggestion that atheism is an adolescent perspective. Try harder at debate and I might then bother to reply. In the meantime I suggest you find a debating society for the under elevens. I will stick to chatting to grownups.
You can have an open mindedness to the possibility of a greater power in the universe while not believing in one because there is no evidence for it.
If you do, you are an atheist.
There is nothing closed minded about atheism. That you think there is, is your lack of comprehension that says more about you than atheists.
What if you believe in some greater power not currently known to our science which isn't necessarily a god or gods but think no current Earthly religion has the right answer?
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism IS a belief system. You are unable believe in a higher state of collective universal consciousness, therefore you disbelieve, and that disbelief is based on very limited evidence. You also pompously believe that this is a superior belief system, but you are in fact simply demonstrating an extreme lack of imagination and capability to have an open mind.
Agnosticism is the most logical position. Atheism is simply an inability to comprehend that there are elements to the universe that we are unlikely to ever understand. In the hierarchy of closed minded philosophies, materialist atheism is at the top of the pyramid.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism IS a belief system. You are unable believe in a higher state of collective universal consciousness, therefore you disbelieve, and that disbelief is based on very limited evidence. You also pompously believe that this is a superior belief system, but you are in fact simply demonstrating an extreme lack of imagination and capability to have an open mind.
Agnosticism is the most logical position. Atheism is simply an inability to comprehend that there are elements to the universe that we are unlikely to ever understand. In the hierarchy of closed minded philosophies, materialist atheism is at the top of the pyramid.
Yes, I have no problem with agnosticism. It is a noble and coherent position. “I do not know”
I am agnostic about many things, I do not know, I do not have the information
Atheists are CERTAIN of that which they cannot be certain, that there is no God, there is no deeper meaning to the universe, no spiritual and emotional purpose, no story of which we are a part, no greater design outwith our comprehension. Nope. They are certain. Like teenagers THEY JUST KNOW, ALRIGHT
Atheism is the belief system of an adolescent
I note with amusement that even Richard Dawkins is now marching back his atheism, somewhat
"Like teenagers THEY JUST KNOW, ALRIGHT" applies just as well to a not inconsiderable number of theists.
Certainly, but you missed the point. Our very own resident adolescent Barty, tried to postulate that atheism is not a belief set. It is. The whataboutery has nothing to do with the discussion.
Except it's not a belief set, it's the absence of one.
Belief and absence of belief are not the same things.
Do you believe in evolution?
Yes, because there is evidence for it.
That's the difference.
Do you believe that all people have equal worth?
That's a complicated question for which you'd need to define it more.
I believe people should have equal rights and should have as much as is realistically plausible equal opportunities, but I also believe people should accept the consequences of their choices.
So I have absolutely no qualms with someone who works hard becoming qualified at something and being paid well and keeping more of their money.
I do have qualms with people being told they were born to be serfs.
'Evening pb. I have come out without my reading glasses so have just been to Boots for a new off-the-shelf pair SPECIFICALLY so I can see what you lot are saying. Though it doesn't hurt to have a spare pair and I am blown away by the cleanliness. Now in the finest bar in Manchester - the Victoria Tap - drinking an excellent pumpkin spiced bitter from Thornbridge - reminiscent of a wonderful evening I had in Haliax, Nova Scotia 20 years ago. "Avant Gardener" by Courtney Barnett is on the stereo. It really is the most wonderful place to spend an hour.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism IS a belief system. You are unable believe in a higher state of collective universal consciousness, therefore you disbelieve, and that disbelief is based on very limited evidence. You also pompously believe that this is a superior belief system, but you are in fact simply demonstrating an extreme lack of imagination and capability to have an open mind.
Agnosticism is the most logical position. Atheism is simply an inability to comprehend that there are elements to the universe that we are unlikely to ever understand. In the hierarchy of closed minded philosophies, materialist atheism is at the top of the pyramid.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism IS a belief system. You are unable believe in a higher state of collective universal consciousness, therefore you disbelieve, and that disbelief is based on very limited evidence. You also pompously believe that this is a superior belief system, but you are in fact simply demonstrating an extreme lack of imagination and capability to have an open mind.
Agnosticism is the most logical position. Atheism is simply an inability to comprehend that there are elements to the universe that we are unlikely to ever understand. In the hierarchy of closed minded philosophies, materialist atheism is at the top of the pyramid.
Yes, I have no problem with agnosticism. It is a noble and coherent position. “I do not know”
I am agnostic about many things, I do not know, I do not have the information
Atheists are CERTAIN of that which they cannot be certain, that there is no God, there is no deeper meaning to the universe, no spiritual and emotional purpose, no story of which we are a part, no greater design outwith our comprehension. Nope. They are certain. Like teenagers THEY JUST KNOW, ALRIGHT
Atheism is the belief system of an adolescent
I note with amusement that even Richard Dawkins is now marching back his atheism, somewhat
"Like teenagers THEY JUST KNOW, ALRIGHT" applies just as well to a not inconsiderable number of theists.
Certainly, but you missed the point. Our very own resident adolescent Barty, tried to postulate that atheism is not a belief set. It is. The whataboutery has nothing to do with the discussion.
Is lack of belief in the Tooth Fairy a belief set?
An inability to understand an appropriate intellectual analogy and indulge in the puerile argument of a ten year old is a probably a twatset. Well done on continuing to underline your stupidity.
But if it's not OK for me not to believe in God, why is it OK for YOU to not believe in the Tooth Fairy?
Oh dear, you really are not a very deep thinker are you? Personally I don't really care that you are unable to understand that an openmindedness to the possibility of a greater power in the universe or a collective consciousness might be a more logical position than believing that it cannot possibly exist. Comparing such a belief set to the tooth fairy amply illustrates @Leon's suggestion that atheism is an adolescent perspective. Try harder at debate and I might then bother to reply. In the meantime I suggest you find a debating society for the under elevens. I will stick to chatting to grownups.
You can have an open mindedness to the possibility of a greater power in the universe while not believing in one because there is no evidence for it.
If you do, you are an atheist.
There is nothing closed minded about atheism. That you think there is, is your lack of comprehension that says more about you than atheists.
What if you believe in some greater power not currently known to our science which isn't necessarily a god or gods but think no current Earthly religion has the right answer?
If you believe in something religious then I would not classify you as an atheist, just your belief is not well defined by existing belief systems.
If you don't believe in something religious, then atheism is quite literally that, the absence of belief, and not as some fallaciously claim the belief (or the insistence upon) the absence of possibilities.
It does tickle me how so many posters here think the 14 years of government was so of the right that anything further to the right is positively fascist.
A near tripling of the national debt, post-war high in taxation, 50% increase in the foreign born population as % of the total, choking economic regulation, gutting of the national defence capability, normalisation of DE&I targets, etc etc etc… none of this feels like particularly “right wing” governance to me.
Meanwhile concerning the usual defining characteristic of the far right, the period saw the UK’s first non-white PM, four consecutive non-white Chancellors and now highly likely we will see the first black party leader. All while the Labour Party saw mass resignations over its apparent institutional anti-semitism.
Funny thing perspective.
Regardless of any other point the success of diversification of ethnicity in politics over the last 20 years has been weirdly undervalued. When whiter than white constituencies regularly elect people of other ethnicities with no issue because they only care about the rosette colour, that's worth celebrating more .
(I mean, it'd be nice to care about rosettes less too, and reversed landslides suggests that's true too, to an extent).
The same slogan hurled - 'f*ck off and join the Tories'
Only this case it is a little more gentile and to join the Liberals.
Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson · 3h Well, Gavin, looks like I have more sway over Tory MPs and members than you ever had. I’ve seen off Cleverly.
Run along and join the Lib Dems..
Gavin Barwell @GavinBarwell · 20h I think he means @AllisonPearson. If she is saying she will leave if James Cleverly wins, that's a pretty compelling argument for voting for James...
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
You may think there is a difference but both are atheists.
Which is the point, atheism is not a belief system, it is merely the absence of one. It covers the set of people of everyone who is not a theist, without any regimented beliefs or orthodoxies.
Closed minded ignorant theists trying to pigeonhole atheism into something they dislike which it's not is just them showing their ignorance.
I think a big, potential difference between agnostics and atheists is the level of credence they'd probably give to God existing. I'd consider myself an agnostic for instance because I'm pretty on the fence whether there is a 'creator being' of some kind or not. With Dawkins, by comparison, his level of credence would be near 0. Of course, you might get an agnostic who thinks the probability of there being God is only around 10% or so and just has a preference for the term of agnostic rather than atheist. But I think the point is that there probably a good chunk of agnostics (like myself) who'd be uncomfortable being referred to as atheists.
One less-uninteresting thing about Dawkins is that he varies categories within "atheist" - he has long called himself a "protestant atheist". I'm not clear precisely what he means as he tends to word-salad a bit, but that's his chosen label.
There has long been an atheist movement within Christianity. In the Church of England this has been embodied in the Sea of Faith network.
Writers associated are people like Don Cupitt, John Hick and Maurice Wiles.
Perhaps in recent memory most prominent in the book The Myth of God Incarnate, which is a lovely punny title containing at least 3 different simultaneous meanings.
All an indication that it is nothing like as simplistic as some would pretend.
It does tickle me how so many posters here think the 14 years of government was so of the right that anything further to the right is positively fascist.
A near tripling of the national debt, post-war high in taxation, 50% increase in the foreign born population as % of the total, choking economic regulation, gutting of the national defence capability, normalisation of DE&I targets, etc etc etc… none of this feels like particularly “right wing” governance to me.
Meanwhile concerning the usual defining characteristic of the far right, the period saw the UK’s first non-white PM, four consecutive non-white Chancellors and now highly likely we will see the first black party leader. All while the Labour Party saw mass resignations over its apparent institutional anti-semitism.
Funny thing perspective.
I think I would argue that only demonstrates that the Conservative government failed in its own terms, not that it was overtly implementing left-wing policies while talking about right-wing policies. Now we could have a whole big argument about why the government failed: Is it that right-wing politics is inherently prone to failure? Was it due to Brexit? Was it due to personal factors? Where they blown off course by events? Etc, etc?
But this idea that the government talked right and acted left is evidence of an infantilism on the right. The Conservative government attempted to implement a right-wing policy agenda and it failed, and it failed by its own metrics of success or failure, and it failed badly. Simply saying that it failed because it was actually left-wing is so much masturbatory hogwash.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
The 'evidence' and 'no evidence' distinction is unhelpful. Let us assume that formal logical proof of god/not god is lacking - which is what most thinkers think.
For forming an opinion, or belief, there is tons of evidence in both directions. Evidence is that which, cumulatively,. tends towards a particular belief or conclusion. Just as the well known problem of evil and innocent suffering is an excellent piece of evidence against the existence of a god with godlike qualities, likewise the way in which science can explain what used to be attributed to god, so existence itself, values, beauty, moral sensibility, the intelligibilty of the universe are pieces of evidence the other way.
BTW, totally agree we are all agnostics. It isn't a thing we can choose. But lots of people (maybe Dawkins and friends, and dogmatic religious types) are not good enough at seeing beyond their own certainties.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I think it's splitting hairs really. Many people are functionally firm atheists even if technically agnostic in the sense they are not prepared to close their minds 100% to the possibility, just 99%.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
Do we have any idea about Badenoch's economic views?
'cos if she can tack leftish spend on run-down places economics onto her social conservatism then maybe she will have a chance against a failing Labour in 2028.
Everything I’ve heard her say is small-state low-tax stuff, I’m not sure she’s ideologically of the levelling up, Boris boosterism bent. But the beauty of opposition is you can move, so who knows.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
Well it presumes you've thought about it. But if you have you'll believe or not. It's binary. If you don't believe you're a non believer. And neither believers nor non believers can profess to know. I don't see some middle ground in there where you neither believe nor don't believe. There's no meaningful difference between don't know if you believe and don't believe but don't know. They're the same and the latter expresses it more accurately. Because even if you do believe you don't know. "Don't know" is ever present to believers and non believers, therefore adds nothing. You believe (despite no evidence) or you don't believe (because of no evidence), and neither camp knows or can credibly claim to know.
Well, yes-ish. I'm an atheist. Because I believe there's no God. But I happily concede I don't know. And I envy the believers their God and the happiness He brings them and one day sonething might happen such that I join them. But in the meantime, my belief is that there is no God. But my wife is agnostic. She does not believe, as I do, that there is no God, but nor does she believe, as, say Leon or HYUFD do, that there is a God. It is not that she is more open minded than me; she is just unable and/or unwilling to draw a conclusion. It's not that she hasn't thought about it. It's that she hasn't reachrd a conclusion either way. Some people are just more prone to reaching a conclusion than others. About God and many other matters.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
It does seem odd Cleverly would make no headway at all, or lose some and gain in equal measure. Jenrick playing the game well in the last round makes some sense but it seems really risky to allow someone else to get momentum and to what benefit?
Even I am losing my faith with the quasi-AV system the Tory party uses.
Actual AV would prevent the second-guessing between rounds.
But where would the fun in that be? Leadership elections only happen once every two years - you have to squeeze all the fun out of them that you can. Otherwise its just back to the grind of MPing.
This is an underrated post. "Once every two years".
It does tickle me how so many posters here think the 14 years of government was so of the right that anything further to the right is positively fascist.
A near tripling of the national debt, post-war high in taxation, 50% increase in the foreign born population as % of the total, choking economic regulation, gutting of the national defence capability, normalisation of DE&I targets, etc etc etc… none of this feels like particularly “right wing” governance to me.
Meanwhile concerning the usual defining characteristic of the far right, the period saw the UK’s first non-white PM, four consecutive non-white Chancellors and now highly likely we will see the first black party leader. All while the Labour Party saw mass resignations over its apparent institutional anti-semitism.
Funny thing perspective.
Hallelujah.
Your second paragraph explains why so many centrist and centre-right voters had no motivation to vote Tory in the summer, knowing that to do so would be to continue the trend which, if that's what you're going to have, you might as well get the genuine article. It's a better summary than anything I could have come up with myself of why, although I've voted Tory about half the time over the years, I wasn't seriously considering them for a vote this time even before the nonsensical decision to delay HS2 became the final straw.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I think it's splitting hairs really. Many people are functionally firm atheists even if technically agnostic in the sense they are not prepared to close their minds 100% to the possibility, just 99%.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
Again it's not either/or, in a Venn Diagram there is a very large intersection between atheism and agnosticism.
People, typically but not always theists, trying to pigeonhole people into being one or the other are doing so out of ignorance.
I'm not an atheist instead of being an agnostic, I'm both. I don't rule out the possibility, however improbable I find it, of some divine being, but I don't believe in one either. That is both agnosticism and atheism, while keeping an open mind.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h The name Gavin Williamson is being muttered darkly by Cleverly backers.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I think it's splitting hairs really. Many people are functionally firm atheists even if technically agnostic in the sense they are not prepared to close their minds 100% to the possibility, just 99%.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
Again it's not either/or, in a Venn Diagram there is a very large intersection between atheism and agnosticism.
People, typically but not always theists, trying to pigeonhole people into being one or the other are doing so out of ignorance.
I'm not an atheist instead of being an agnostic, I'm both. I don't rule out the possibility, however improbable I find it, of some divine being, but I don't believe in one either. That is both agnosticism and atheism, while keeping an open mind.
Then you should let agnostics define themselves as such but not as atheists.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h The name Gavin Williamson is being muttered darkly by Cleverly backers.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
There's a twitter vid clip of Shapps telling a journo he is pleased to be working for team Jenrick before correcting himself and saying Cleverly.
The plot thickens.
Still - the members will be happier than Leon at a free airport bar where there are three women for every man, given the two put to them as the "choice".
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
You may think there is a difference but both are atheists.
Which is the point, atheism is not a belief system, it is merely the absence of one. It covers the set of people of everyone who is not a theist, without any regimented beliefs or orthodoxies.
Closed minded ignorant theists trying to pigeonhole atheism into something they dislike which it's not is just them showing their ignorance.
I think a big, potential difference between agnostics and atheists is the level of credence they'd probably give to God existing. I'd consider myself an agnostic for instance because I'm pretty on the fence whether there is a 'creator being' of some kind or not. With Dawkins, by comparison, his level of credence would be near 0. Of course, you might get an agnostic who thinks the probability of there being God is only around 10% or so and just has a preference for the term of agnostic rather than atheist. But I think the point is that there probably a good chunk of agnostics (like myself) who'd be uncomfortable being referred to as atheists.
One less-uninteresting thing about Dawkins is that he varies categories within "atheist" - he has long called himself a "protestant atheist". I'm not clear precisely what he means as he tends to word-salad a bit, but that's his chosen label.
There has long been an atheist movement within Christianity. In the Church of England this has been embodied in the Sea of Faith network.
Writers associated are people like Don Cupitt, John Hick and Maurice Wiles.
Perhaps in recent memory most prominent in the book The Myth of God Incarnate, which is a lovely punny title containing at least 3 different simultaneous meanings.
All an indication that it is nothing like as simplistic as some would pretend.
Dawkins is right to draw attention to the multi faceted nature of religion. Religion engages with 'world views' - metaphysics and beliefs, it is also culture in its aspects of society formation, devotion, values, historical narrative, identity, and also the setter through history of developing collective moral frameworks. In this regard its existence is inescapable - as the popular recent literature of books like Tom Holland's 'Dominion' indicate.
Where Dawkins is sub-optimal is believing that he is good at arguing philosophically and theologically. It's toe curling.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I think it's splitting hairs really. Many people are functionally firm atheists even if technically agnostic in the sense they are not prepared to close their minds 100% to the possibility, just 99%.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
Again it's not either/or, in a Venn Diagram there is a very large intersection between atheism and agnosticism.
People, typically but not always theists, trying to pigeonhole people into being one or the other are doing so out of ignorance.
I'm not an atheist instead of being an agnostic, I'm both. I don't rule out the possibility, however improbable I find it, of some divine being, but I don't believe in one either. That is both agnosticism and atheism, while keeping an open mind.
Then you should let agnostics define themselves as such but not as atheists.
Of course anyone can define themselves however they please.
However theists trying to (and incorrectly) define atheism as something it is not are simply wrong to do so.
The number of theists in this thread who have tried to insist upon what atheists believe without listening to what atheists themselves say is quite bemusing is it not?
Atheism is no more and no less than the lack of theism. People can choose to identify with that or not, free choice, but there is no insistence, no absolutes and no closed minds in any of that.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
It does seem odd Cleverly would make no headway at all, or lose some and gain in equal measure. Jenrick playing the game well in the last round makes some sense but it seems really risky to allow someone else to get momentum and to what benefit?
So I'm unsure what to think.
That's why I think them both lending him votes is the only plausible explanation.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism is defined as “a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god, or any gods”
You don’t get to ignore the bit of the definition you don’t like.
I would also argue that a lack of belief is a positive statement of disbelief- it is strong than “I dunno”
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
There've been a few attempts to explain it - see my post at 4.37 ish on the last thread,amd the various thoughtful and amusing replies. But I think your explanation is as good as any and probably near the mark.
Tory leadership elections are normally known for skullduggery, entertainment value and/or the occasional incompetence of the most sophisticated electorate on earth, but this one was a special case. It's rare that a candidate's supporters conspire to knock their own candidate out
Many years ago in 1984 Jerry Adams was gunned down by Margaret Thatcher - he survived . The idea that the Irish would someday kick the British the fuck out of Ireland would have been thought impossible . Untill it wasn’t .
Justice will come for Palestine
I don’t know who this chap is and have no recollection of interacting with him but am blocked by him.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
I don't know what just happened. So I can't explain it. Mutatis mutandis I think more people wanted Kemi and Bobby J to be in the final 2 than Cleverley. Others have had more complex explanations, but sometimes simplicity is best.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
You may think there is a difference but both are atheists.
Which is the point, atheism is not a belief system, it is merely the absence of one. It covers the set of people of everyone who is not a theist, without any regimented beliefs or orthodoxies.
Closed minded ignorant theists trying to pigeonhole atheism into something they dislike which it's not is just them showing their ignorance.
I think a big, potential difference between agnostics and atheists is the level of credence they'd probably give to God existing. I'd consider myself an agnostic for instance because I'm pretty on the fence whether there is a 'creator being' of some kind or not. With Dawkins, by comparison, his level of credence would be near 0. Of course, you might get an agnostic who thinks the probability of there being God is only around 10% or so and just has a preference for the term of agnostic rather than atheist. But I think the point is that there probably a good chunk of agnostics (like myself) who'd be uncomfortable being referred to as atheists.
One less-uninteresting thing about Dawkins is that he varies categories within "atheist" - he has long called himself a "protestant atheist". I'm not clear precisely what he means as he tends to word-salad a bit, but that's his chosen label.
There has long been an atheist movement within Christianity. In the Church of England this has been embodied in the Sea of Faith network.
Writers associated are people like Don Cupitt, John Hick and Maurice Wiles.
Perhaps in recent memory most prominent in the book The Myth of God Incarnate, which is a lovely punny title containing at least 3 different simultaneous meanings.
All an indication that it is nothing like as simplistic as some would pretend.
Dawkins is right to draw attention to the multi faceted nature of religion. Religion engages with 'world views' - metaphysics and beliefs, it is also culture in its aspects of society formation, devotion, values, historical narrative, identity, and also the setter through history of developing collective moral frameworks. In this regard its existence is inescapable - as the popular recent literature of books like Tom Holland's 'Dominion' indicate.
Where Dawkins is sub-optimal is believing that he is good at arguing philosophically and theologically. It's toe curling.
I tend to think that Dawkins' core skills are causing a kerfuffle and gazing lovingly in the mirror. He wasn't even a particularly good scientist, if you read his record.
That may perhaps be slightly harsh .
I'm always amused that he seemed to make more money from property he inherited, than from everything else.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I think it's splitting hairs really. Many people are functionally firm atheists even if technically agnostic in the sense they are not prepared to close their minds 100% to the possibility, just 99%.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
I think that's right. Even the likes of Dawkins admit they're technically agnostic, as it's logically possible that God does exist in some remote corner of the universe but is totally undiscoverable and there's not a single effect of his existence anywhere. But as you have no reason to believe that scenario whatsoever (although you can't completely rule it out either) you may as well call yourself an atheist.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism is defined as “a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god, or any gods”
You don’t get to ignore the bit of the definition you don’t like.
I would also argue that a lack of belief is a positive statement of disbelief- it is strong than “I dunno”
Yes you do, that's the meaning of the word or, and it's not that I dislike it (since I'd put myself in the latter camp) but both are covered.
Anyone with a lack of belief in a god is an atheist. Anyone who believes there is no god is also an atheist.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
You may think there is a difference but both are atheists.
Which is the point, atheism is not a belief system, it is merely the absence of one. It covers the set of people of everyone who is not a theist, without any regimented beliefs or orthodoxies.
Closed minded ignorant theists trying to pigeonhole atheism into something they dislike which it's not is just them showing their ignorance.
I think a big, potential difference between agnostics and atheists is the level of credence they'd probably give to God existing. I'd consider myself an agnostic for instance because I'm pretty on the fence whether there is a 'creator being' of some kind or not. With Dawkins, by comparison, his level of credence would be near 0. Of course, you might get an agnostic who thinks the probability of there being God is only around 10% or so and just has a preference for the term of agnostic rather than atheist. But I think the point is that there probably a good chunk of agnostics (like myself) who'd be uncomfortable being referred to as atheists.
One less-uninteresting thing about Dawkins is that he varies categories within "atheist" - he has long called himself a "protestant atheist". I'm not clear precisely what he means as he tends to word-salad a bit, but that's his chosen label.
There has long been an atheist movement within Christianity. In the Church of England this has been embodied in the Sea of Faith network.
Writers associated are people like Don Cupitt, John Hick and Maurice Wiles.
Perhaps in recent memory most prominent in the book The Myth of God Incarnate, which is a lovely punny title containing at least 3 different simultaneous meanings.
All an indication that it is nothing like as simplistic as some would pretend.
Dawkins is right to draw attention to the multi faceted nature of religion. Religion engages with 'world views' - metaphysics and beliefs, it is also culture in its aspects of society formation, devotion, values, historical narrative, identity, and also the setter through history of developing collective moral frameworks. In this regard its existence is inescapable - as the popular recent literature of books like Tom Holland's 'Dominion' indicate.
Where Dawkins is sub-optimal is believing that he is good at arguing philosophically and theologically. It's toe curling.
I tend to think that Dawkins' core skills are causing a kerfuffle and gazing lovingly in the mirror. He wasn't even a particularly good scientist, if you read his record.
That may perhaps be slightly harsh .
I'm always amused that he seemed to make more money from property he inherited, than from everything else.
I'd assume it's rare for someone to be both top of their academic or scientific field and also a great popular communicator of their field.
I'm sure it happens, but when speaking to the regular public different skills are needed.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
You may think there is a difference but both are atheists.
Which is the point, atheism is not a belief system, it is merely the absence of one. It covers the set of people of everyone who is not a theist, without any regimented beliefs or orthodoxies.
Closed minded ignorant theists trying to pigeonhole atheism into something they dislike which it's not is just them showing their ignorance.
I think a big, potential difference between agnostics and atheists is the level of credence they'd probably give to God existing. I'd consider myself an agnostic for instance because I'm pretty on the fence whether there is a 'creator being' of some kind or not. With Dawkins, by comparison, his level of credence would be near 0. Of course, you might get an agnostic who thinks the probability of there being God is only around 10% or so and just has a preference for the term of agnostic rather than atheist. But I think the point is that there probably a good chunk of agnostics (like myself) who'd be uncomfortable being referred to as atheists.
One less-uninteresting thing about Dawkins is that he varies categories within "atheist" - he has long called himself a "protestant atheist". I'm not clear precisely what he means as he tends to word-salad a bit, but that's his chosen label.
There has long been an atheist movement within Christianity. In the Church of England this has been embodied in the Sea of Faith network.
Writers associated are people like Don Cupitt, John Hick and Maurice Wiles.
Perhaps in recent memory most prominent in the book The Myth of God Incarnate, which is a lovely punny title containing at least 3 different simultaneous meanings.
All an indication that it is nothing like as simplistic as some would pretend.
I'm a Protestant atheist of the more umcompromising sort. Catholicism and Orthodoxy leave me cold. If my religious loins could be stirred, they would be stirred by the austere whitewashed chapels of the far North West of Scotland, or perhaps of the cinematic churches of the deep south. The only religious song which has ever inspired me is Johmny Cash's "When the man comes around".
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I think it's splitting hairs really. Many people are functionally firm atheists even if technically agnostic in the sense they are not prepared to close their minds 100% to the possibility, just 99%.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
Again it's not either/or, in a Venn Diagram there is a very large intersection between atheism and agnosticism.
People, typically but not always theists, trying to pigeonhole people into being one or the other are doing so out of ignorance.
I'm not an atheist instead of being an agnostic, I'm both. I don't rule out the possibility, however improbable I find it, of some divine being, but I don't believe in one either. That is both agnosticism and atheism, while keeping an open mind.
Then you should let agnostics define themselves as such but not as atheists.
Of course anyone can define themselves however they please.
However theists trying to (and incorrectly) define atheism as something it is not are simply wrong to do so.
The number of theists in this thread who have tried to insist upon what atheists believe without listening to what atheists themselves say is quite bemusing is it not?
Atheism is no more and no less than the lack of theism. People can choose to identify with that or not, free choice, but there is no insistence, no absolutes and no closed minds in any of that.
You are absolutely saying that my belief is invalid.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I think it's splitting hairs really. Many people are functionally firm atheists even if technically agnostic in the sense they are not prepared to close their minds 100% to the possibility, just 99%.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
Again it's not either/or, in a Venn Diagram there is a very large intersection between atheism and agnosticism.
People, typically but not always theists, trying to pigeonhole people into being one or the other are doing so out of ignorance.
I'm not an atheist instead of being an agnostic, I'm both. I don't rule out the possibility, however improbable I find it, of some divine being, but I don't believe in one either. That is both agnosticism and atheism, while keeping an open mind.
Agnostic well decribes the universal human condition, in which the existence of God is not a knowable item.
Atheist well describes agnostics who do not believe there is a god Theist well describes agnostics who believe there is a god (full disclosure, I am one such agnostic).
Theists and atheists who are under the illusion that they 'know' these incompatible items of alleged knowledge are well described as 'wrong'. They are of course usually lovely, nice, well disposed people who do good in the world. I like them. I believe God does too, though of course.......
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
There've been a few attempts to explain it - see my post at 4.37 ish on the last thread,amd the various thoughtful and amusing replies. But I think your explanation is as good as any and probably near the mark.
Tory leadership elections are normally known for skullduggery, entertainment value and/or the occasional incompetence of the most sophisticated electorate on earth, but this one was a special case. It's rare that a candidate's supporters conspire to knock their own candidate out
It is a rare and exquisite delicacy that should be savoured like a fine port.
The concept of 'dull competence' has certainly taken a good bashing in recent years. Anyone still think the members should give up their right to elect leaders and leave it to 'the grown ups'?
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
God or gods. Whatever.
God is a subset of gods (which is itself a subset of higher power).
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
Well it presumes you've thought about it. But if you have you'll believe or not. It's binary. If you don't believe you're a non believer. And neither believers nor non believers can profess to know. I don't see some middle ground in there where you neither believe nor don't believe. There's no meaningful difference between don't know if you believe and don't believe but don't know. They're the same and the latter expresses it more accurately. Because even if you do believe you don't know. "Don't know" is ever present to believers and non believers, therefore adds nothing. You believe (despite no evidence) or you don't believe (because of no evidence), and neither camp knows or can credibly claim to know.
Well, yes-ish. I'm an atheist. Because I believe there's no God. But I happily concede I don't know. And I envy the believers their God and the happiness He brings them and one day sonething might happen such that I join them. But in the meantime, my belief is that there is no God. But my wife is agnostic. She does not believe, as I do, that there is no God, but nor does she believe, as, say Leon or HYUFD do, that there is a God. It is not that she is more open minded than me; she is just unable and/or unwilling to draw a conclusion. It's not that she hasn't thought about it. It's that she hasn't reachrd a conclusion either way. Some people are just more prone to reaching a conclusion than others. About God and many other matters.
You're drawing a distinction between believing there isn't and not believing there is.
That's not meaningful to me. Not on this "God" topic.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism is defined as “a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god, or any gods”
You don’t get to ignore the bit of the definition you don’t like.
I would also argue that a lack of belief is a positive statement of disbelief- it is strong than “I dunno”
Lack of belief or strong disbelief would seem intentionally defined to permit a wide spectrum of beliefs
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I think it's splitting hairs really. Many people are functionally firm atheists even if technically agnostic in the sense they are not prepared to close their minds 100% to the possibility, just 99%.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
Again it's not either/or, in a Venn Diagram there is a very large intersection between atheism and agnosticism.
People, typically but not always theists, trying to pigeonhole people into being one or the other are doing so out of ignorance.
I'm not an atheist instead of being an agnostic, I'm both. I don't rule out the possibility, however improbable I find it, of some divine being, but I don't believe in one either. That is both agnosticism and atheism, while keeping an open mind.
Then you should let agnostics define themselves as such but not as atheists.
Of course anyone can define themselves however they please.
However theists trying to (and incorrectly) define atheism as something it is not are simply wrong to do so.
The number of theists in this thread who have tried to insist upon what atheists believe without listening to what atheists themselves say is quite bemusing is it not?
Atheism is no more and no less than the lack of theism. People can choose to identify with that or not, free choice, but there is no insistence, no absolutes and no closed minds in any of that.
You are absolutely saying that my believe is invalid.
No I'm not.
If you are incorrectly stating what others believe then yes that is invalid. If you are describing your own beliefs then that is perfectly valid.
If you believe that atheism is only the belief in the lack of a god or gods then you are wrong. It is that and the lack of belief generally. That is quite literally (using the word literally literally) what the word means.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
I don't know what just happened. So I can't explain it. Mutatis mutandis I think more people wanted Kemi and Bobby J to be in the final 2 than Cleverley. Others have had more complex explanations, but sometimes simplicity is best.
Probably. Also you should really go for the candidate who represents your values rather than someone you think might win an election.
As a non-Tory who has voted Tory in the past and might conceivably do so again, Cleverly is a plausible candidate while Badenoch and Jenrick absolutely are not. But I'm not a partisan and rightly don't get a say in this selection.
If there was gameplaying in the final two leadership votes we should probably not assume it worked as those playing intended. Maybe a bunch wanted it to be Cleverly and Badenoch but got too clever for their own good.
Many years ago in 1984 Jerry Adams was gunned down by Margaret Thatcher - he survived . The idea that the Irish would someday kick the British the fuck out of Ireland would have been thought impossible . Untill it wasn’t .
Justice will come for Palestine
I don’t know who this chap is and have no recollection of interacting with him but am blocked by him.
What's that an allusion to?
It was in 1984 that Jerry Adams attempted to have Margaret Thatcher murdered.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I think it's splitting hairs really. Many people are functionally firm atheists even if technically agnostic in the sense they are not prepared to close their minds 100% to the possibility, just 99%.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
Again it's not either/or, in a Venn Diagram there is a very large intersection between atheism and agnosticism.
People, typically but not always theists, trying to pigeonhole people into being one or the other are doing so out of ignorance.
I'm not an atheist instead of being an agnostic, I'm both. I don't rule out the possibility, however improbable I find it, of some divine being, but I don't believe in one either. That is both agnosticism and atheism, while keeping an open mind.
Then you should let agnostics define themselves as such but not as atheists.
Of course anyone can define themselves however they please.
However theists trying to (and incorrectly) define atheism as something it is not are simply wrong to do so.
The number of theists in this thread who have tried to insist upon what atheists believe without listening to what atheists themselves say is quite bemusing is it not?
Atheism is no more and no less than the lack of theism. People can choose to identify with that or not, free choice, but there is no insistence, no absolutes and no closed minds in any of that.
You are absolutely saying that my believe is invalid.
No I'm not.
If you are incorrectly stating what others believe then yes that is invalid. If you are describing your own beliefs then that is perfectly valid.
If you believe that atheism is the belief in the lack of a god or gods then you are wrong. It is that and the lack of belief generally. That is quite literally (using the word literally literally) what the word means.
Using "atheism" to cover a lack of belief either way as well as a specific belief in the lack of god(s) distorts the term so as to be useless.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism is defined as “a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god, or any gods”
You don’t get to ignore the bit of the definition you don’t like.
I would also argue that a lack of belief is a positive statement of disbelief- it is strong than “I dunno”
Lack of belief or strong disbelief would seem intentionally defined to permit a wide spectrum of beliefs
Gotta say, whatever else happens, four years of @KemiBadenoch telling Labour MPs Britain's history is something to be proud of, Britain isn't full of structural racism & women don't have penises is going to be a lot of fun.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
There've been a few attempts to explain it - see my post at 4.37 ish on the last thread,amd the various thoughtful and amusing replies. But I think your explanation is as good as any and probably near the mark.
Tory leadership elections are normally known for skullduggery, entertainment value and/or the occasional incompetence of the most sophisticated electorate on earth, but this one was a special case. It's rare that a candidate's supporters conspire to knock their own candidate out
It is a rare and exquisite delicacy that should be savoured like a fine port.
The concept of 'dull competence' has certainly taken a good bashing in recent years. Anyone still think the members should give up their right to elect leaders and leave it to 'the grown ups'?
In general, yes, but not because I think they are any worse at picking than MPs. I just think it's MPs who have to make it all work in Parliament and so adding in a public vote only adds complications to that dynamic.
Gotta say, whatever else happens, four years of @KemiBadenoch telling Labour MPs Britain's history is something to be proud of, Britain isn't full of structural racism & women don't have penises is going to be a lot of fun.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
I don't know what just happened. So I can't explain it. Mutatis mutandis I think more people wanted Kemi and Bobby J to be in the final 2 than Cleverley. Others have had more complex explanations, but sometimes simplicity is best.
The MPs knew that when the members get to vote they'll vote Kemi over James, and they'll vote Robert over James ––> they know that James is a dead duck at the final stage, so no point voting for him. Ergo they (at least some of them) knew that it's truly between Kemi and Robert even at the penultimate stage, hence at that point they (i.e. those who have clocked the situation) reveal their true preferences between Kemi and Robert. They also know that the members will probably choose Kemi over Robert, but there's nothing the Robert fanciers can do about that
Many years ago in 1984 Jerry Adams was gunned down by Margaret Thatcher - he survived . The idea that the Irish would someday kick the British the fuck out of Ireland would have been thought impossible . Untill it wasn’t .
Justice will come for Palestine
I don’t know who this chap is and have no recollection of interacting with him but am blocked by him.
John Cuzack is the actor doing the introductions in this clip from "Con Air"
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
There's a twitter vid clip of Shapps telling a journo he is pleased to be working for team Jenrick before correcting himself and saying Cleverly.
The plot thickens.
Still - the members will be happier than Leon at a free airport bar where there are three women for every man, given the two put to them as the "choice".
It's also good for that reason. The party is now united around the concept that continuity-Sunak is not an acceptable programme for Government. There can now be a proper debate of ideas during the campaign which I hope will be invogorating and lead to a party at ease with itself.
Gauke's Tweet above is amusing, but at the same time, it's disheartening that a cadre of prominent Tories' only interest in the party is to subvert it's core values.
Many years ago in 1984 Jerry Adams was gunned down by Margaret Thatcher - he survived . The idea that the Irish would someday kick the British the fuck out of Ireland would have been thought impossible . Untill it wasn’t .
Justice will come for Palestine
I don’t know who this chap is and have no recollection of interacting with him but am blocked by him.
What's that an allusion to?
It was in 1984 that Jerry Adams attempted to have Margaret Thatcher murdered.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism IS a belief system. You are unable believe in a higher state of collective universal consciousness, therefore you disbelieve, and that disbelief is based on very limited evidence. You also pompously believe that this is a superior belief system, but you are in fact simply demonstrating an extreme lack of imagination and capability to have an open mind.
Agnosticism is the most logical position. Atheism is simply an inability to comprehend that there are elements to the universe that we are unlikely to ever understand. In the hierarchy of closed minded philosophies, materialist atheism is at the top of the pyramid.
Everyone on this site should be a deist, based on Pascal’s wager if nothing else
Gotta say, whatever else happens, four years of @KemiBadenoch telling Labour MPs Britain's history is something to be proud of, Britain isn't full of structural racism & women don't have penises is going to be a lot of fun.
She seems the option with the widest range of outcomes, positive and negative. Go big, go bold, go Badenoch?
If there was gameplaying in the final two leadership votes we should probably not assume it worked as those playing intended. Maybe a bunch wanted it to be Cleverly and Badenoch but got too clever for their own good.
Twats. Silly little game-playing twats.
Take comfort that the winner will not lead them into the election.
Gotta say, whatever else happens, four years of @KemiBadenoch telling Labour MPs Britain's history is something to be proud of, Britain isn't full of structural racism & women don't have penises is going to be a lot of fun.
While I support none of the above, and as a lifelong Tory voter, now ex voter, nothing about this selection process has tempted me back, despite Starmer's best efforts to lose me, there is much in what Lilico says. Kemi, just possibly, has the capacity to be intellectually interesting in a way which is completely absent in all the others. In that respect she should get it. The other reason she should get it is that the other candidate is Jenrick.
More than almost all politicians, when she speaks, you note what she says.
Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky Sky News can reveal Home Secretary Yvette Cooper went for free to a Taylor Swift concert as guest of Swift’s music label Universal Music.
Ms Cooper went as a guest of her huband, Ed Balls who was given four tickets.
Later that month the home secretary had discussions about boosting protection for Ms Swift when she was in London after concerts were cancelled in Vienna because of a foiled attack
Mr Balls received the tickets on August 4, before the Swift's shows in Vienna were cancelled
This has not appeared in the public register to date because the tickets were understood to be worth £170 - less than the £300 that would make it a declarable expense.
Earlier today the home secretary made the declaration to the cabinet office.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
There've been a few attempts to explain it - see my post at 4.37 ish on the last thread,amd the various thoughtful and amusing replies. But I think your explanation is as good as any and probably near the mark.
Tory leadership elections are normally known for skullduggery, entertainment value and/or the occasional incompetence of the most sophisticated electorate on earth, but this one was a special case. It's rare that a candidate's supporters conspire to knock their own candidate out
It is a rare and exquisite delicacy that should be savoured like a fine port.
The concept of 'dull competence' has certainly taken a good bashing in recent years. Anyone still think the members should give up their right to elect leaders and leave it to 'the grown ups'?
I have seen no evidence of competence in the MPs of any party, recently.
This is not surprising, when you consider what we select for in MPs. Mountebanks who in addition to balancing balls on their noses can recite some nostrums with appearance of sincerity.
From these we select the best back stabbers and in fighters in the circus. To be the leaders.
And then discover that their ability to run one of the largest organisations on Earth (the U.K. government) is lacking.
Gotta say, whatever else happens, four years of @KemiBadenoch telling Labour MPs Britain's history is something to be proud of, Britain isn't full of structural racism & women don't have penises is going to be a lot of fun.
She seems the option with the widest range of outcomes, positive and negative. Go big, go bold, go Badenoch?
Watching @TheScreamingEagles go from a couple of dozen “Kemi-kaze” headers, to…
Many years ago in 1984 Jerry Adams was gunned down by Margaret Thatcher - he survived . The idea that the Irish would someday kick the British the fuck out of Ireland would have been thought impossible . Untill it wasn’t .
Justice will come for Palestine
For clarity, my assumption is that this is not THE John Cusack
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
Well it presumes you've thought about it. But if you have you'll believe or not. It's binary. If you don't believe you're a non believer. And neither believers nor non believers can profess to know. I don't see some middle ground in there where you neither believe nor don't believe. There's no meaningful difference between don't know if you believe and don't believe but don't know. They're the same and the latter expresses it more accurately. Because even if you do believe you don't know. "Don't know" is ever present to believers and non believers, therefore adds nothing. You believe (despite no evidence) or you don't believe (because of no evidence), and neither camp knows or can credibly claim to know.
Well, yes-ish. I'm an atheist. Because I believe there's no God. But I happily concede I don't know. And I envy the believers their God and the happiness He brings them and one day sonething might happen such that I join them. But in the meantime, my belief is that there is no God. But my wife is agnostic. She does not believe, as I do, that there is no God, but nor does she believe, as, say Leon or HYUFD do, that there is a God. It is not that she is more open minded than me; she is just unable and/or unwilling to draw a conclusion. It's not that she hasn't thought about it. It's that she hasn't reachrd a conclusion either way. Some people are just more prone to reaching a conclusion than others. About God and many other matters.
You're drawing a distinction between believing there isn't and not believing there is.
That's not meaningful to me. Not on this "God" topic.
It's meaningful to me! Because I believe there isn't. So 'atheist' is a helpful label. But I'm not going to fall out with anyone about it.
Many years ago in 1984 Jerry Adams was gunned down by Margaret Thatcher - he survived . The idea that the Irish would someday kick the British the fuck out of Ireland would have been thought impossible . Untill it wasn’t .
Justice will come for Palestine
For clarity, my assumption is that this is not THE John Cusack
Could be, nothing so annoying as an actor who gets political and thinks they know stuff
If there was gameplaying in the final two leadership votes we should probably not assume it worked as those playing intended. Maybe a bunch wanted it to be Cleverly and Badenoch but got too clever for their own good.
Twats. Silly little game-playing twats.
Take comfort that the winner will not lead them into the election.
Of course they will.
You must be a pretty awful lobbyist, hating half the party you support. Hardly surprising you can't get something off the ground if you consider half your target audience too ghastly for you to engage with.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism IS a belief system. You are unable believe in a higher state of collective universal consciousness, therefore you disbelieve, and that disbelief is based on very limited evidence. You also pompously believe that this is a superior belief system, but you are in fact simply demonstrating an extreme lack of imagination and capability to have an open mind.
Agnosticism is the most logical position. Atheism is simply an inability to comprehend that there are elements to the universe that we are unlikely to ever understand. In the hierarchy of closed minded philosophies, materialist atheism is at the top of the pyramid.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Atheism IS a belief system. You are unable believe in a higher state of collective universal consciousness, therefore you disbelieve, and that disbelief is based on very limited evidence. You also pompously believe that this is a superior belief system, but you are in fact simply demonstrating an extreme lack of imagination and capability to have an open mind.
Agnosticism is the most logical position. Atheism is simply an inability to comprehend that there are elements to the universe that we are unlikely to ever understand. In the hierarchy of closed minded philosophies, materialist atheism is at the top of the pyramid.
Yes, I have no problem with agnosticism. It is a noble and coherent position. “I do not know”
I am agnostic about many things, I do not know, I do not have the information
Atheists are CERTAIN of that which they cannot be certain, that there is no God, there is no deeper meaning to the universe, no spiritual and emotional purpose, no story of which we are a part, no greater design outwith our comprehension. Nope. They are certain. Like teenagers THEY JUST KNOW, ALRIGHT
Atheism is the belief system of an adolescent
I note with amusement that even Richard Dawkins is now marching back his atheism, somewhat
Are you certain there is no Tooth Fairy?
If there is, she needs to go on the "things that don't work in this blooming country", because I have to keep covering up for her absenteeism and/or incompetence.
Many years ago in 1984 Jerry Adams was gunned down by Margaret Thatcher - he survived . The idea that the Irish would someday kick the British the fuck out of Ireland would have been thought impossible . Untill it wasn’t .
Justice will come for Palestine
For clarity, my assumption is that this is not THE John Cusack
Why not? - many actors have utterly bizarre views of reality.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
Atheism and agnosticism are only the same from the point of view of actual established religions, rather than theism as a concept.
I'm not saying they're the same. I'm saying everyone, theist or atheist, is an agnostic.
Which is just claiming that agnosticism is a meaningless concept.
Kind of, yes. Because it's obvious that we cannot know. We can only believe (despite no evidence) or not believe (because of no evidence). But neither believers nor non believers can know. Thus we are all agnostics in addition to being believers or non believers. Agnosticism is not some additional third way between the two.
Except that agnosticism and atheism are not equal. Atheism is the disavowal of possibility without evidence. Atheism is therefore fundamentally irrational. Agnosticism allows an open mind rather than a closed one.
No, atheism is just a lack of belief in god. The "but one can't know" goes without saying.
Nope, atheism is the belief in a lack of gods. Not the same thing at all.
I think it's splitting hairs really. Many people are functionally firm atheists even if technically agnostic in the sense they are not prepared to close their minds 100% to the possibility, just 99%.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
I think that's right. Even the likes of Dawkins admit they're technically agnostic, as it's logically possible that God does exist in some remote corner of the universe but is totally undiscoverable and there's not a single effect of his existence anywhere. But as you have no reason to believe that scenario whatsoever (although you can't completely rule it out either) you may as well call yourself an atheist.
I think you may have picked on a logically impossible god for your example.
However it reminds of the fascinating American philosophical school of thought which argues - rather well too - that if god exists in any possible world (including all the ones that could be the case but are not) then god must exist in every possible world including of course the actual one. Plantinga's snappily titled 'The Nature of Necessity' sets it out in full. Not for the faint hearted.
I'm genuinely disappointed, even though Cleverly was a much stronger candidate and this scarcely believable fiasco suits Labour.
Cleverly is a nice guy, a thoughtful decent man – and an atheist. It would have been interesting – and overdue – to have atheists leading both big parties, which reflected the irreligious nature of our nation.
The nation is irreligious and agnostic.
That is *not* the same as atheist
Yes it is. They are pretty much synonyms.
The idea that atheism is a definitive belief is a fallacy spread by theists.
Atheism is a lack of belief in any god. Agnosticism is a lack of definitive knowledge on whether there is or is not anything.
On a Venn Diagram those two are almost a completely overlapping circle.
Don't fall for theists fallacies in letting them define atheist to mean any more than what it means.
Indeed:
Do you believe in God?
If Yes, goto 1. If No, goto 2.
1: You are a theist 2. You are an atheist
Yes, atheist vs agnostic is a superficial distinction. It mainly crops up as a rhetorical 'divide and rule' play by people who have (and good luck to them) made the Leap of Faith that there is a God and for some reason are bugged that others have not.
It's not a meaningful exercise to try and split atheism from something called "agnosticism". Why? Because everybody (the religious and the not religious) ultimately is an agnostic on the Big Big Picture in the sense they must accept, if they are rational, that there could be things unknown (and possibly unknowable) to us.
So there are theists and there are atheists and that's it. If you're not in the first lane you are in the second. And everyone in both lanes, ie everyone on the planet, is an agnostic.
I don't really think that argument stacks up. There is a distinction between belief and knowledge. You're quite right that it's not terribly rational to say I "know" God exists or not - we all must accept the limitations of science at this time and the reality that something could happen to change our view.
But it does appear to me to be possible not to have a belief about something. "Belief" implies a level of confidence or trust that something is likely to be true, and a level of consistency over time.
I accept the strict linguistic point about "atheism" in the sense that the word technically encompasses everything that isn't theism. But it seems to me there is a difference between someone who believes there is no God and someone who doesn't have any (or has no consistent) view on the matter.
You may think there is a difference but both are atheists.
Which is the point, atheism is not a belief system, it is merely the absence of one. It covers the set of people of everyone who is not a theist, without any regimented beliefs or orthodoxies.
Closed minded ignorant theists trying to pigeonhole atheism into something they dislike which it's not is just them showing their ignorance.
I think a big, potential difference between agnostics and atheists is the level of credence they'd probably give to God existing. I'd consider myself an agnostic for instance because I'm pretty on the fence whether there is a 'creator being' of some kind or not. With Dawkins, by comparison, his level of credence would be near 0. Of course, you might get an agnostic who thinks the probability of there being God is only around 10% or so and just has a preference for the term of agnostic rather than atheist. But I think the point is that there probably a good chunk of agnostics (like myself) who'd be uncomfortable being referred to as atheists.
One less-uninteresting thing about Dawkins is that he varies categories within "atheist" - he has long called himself a "protestant atheist". I'm not clear precisely what he means as he tends to word-salad a bit, but that's his chosen label.
There has long been an atheist movement within Christianity. In the Church of England this has been embodied in the Sea of Faith network.
Writers associated are people like Don Cupitt, John Hick and Maurice Wiles.
Perhaps in recent memory most prominent in the book The Myth of God Incarnate, which is a lovely punny title containing at least 3 different simultaneous meanings.
All an indication that it is nothing like as simplistic as some would pretend.
I'm a Protestant atheist of the more umcompromising sort. Catholicism and Orthodoxy leave me cold. If my religious loins could be stirred, they would be stirred by the austere whitewashed chapels of the far North West of Scotland, or perhaps of the cinematic churches of the deep south. The only religious song which has ever inspired me is Johmny Cash's "When the man comes around".
But what makes you a *protestant* atheist?
Discerning Dawkins I think - but I'm not sure - it is his attachment to what he characterises as 'logic', and his lack of feeling-at-home in a culture which is based on ritual, as happens in Roman Catholic or Orthodox milieus.
But that would be him using the term to characterise a culture, rather than his beliefs / values.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
I don't know what just happened. So I can't explain it. Mutatis mutandis I think more people wanted Kemi and Bobby J to be in the final 2 than Cleverley. Others have had more complex explanations, but sometimes simplicity is best.
Probably. Also you should really go for the candidate who represents your values rather than someone you think might win an election.
As a non-Tory who has voted Tory in the past and might conceivably do so again, Cleverly is a plausible candidate while Badenoch and Jenrick absolutely are not. But I'm not a partisan and rightly don't get a say in this selection.
However if it was misfiring tactical voting as everyone assumes, this would mean they rejected someone who both represented their values AND may win them the election in favour of a pair who will do neither. Which is bonkers.
Anyhow Keir Starmer is the big winner tonight. Mediocrity should win out against imbecility every time
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
I don't know what just happened. So I can't explain it. Mutatis mutandis I think more people wanted Kemi and Bobby J to be in the final 2 than Cleverley. Others have had more complex explanations, but sometimes simplicity is best.
Probably. Also you should really go for the candidate who represents your values rather than someone you think might win an election.
As a non-Tory who has voted Tory in the past and might conceivably do so again, Cleverly is a plausible candidate while Badenoch and Jenrick absolutely are not. But I'm not a partisan and rightly don't get a say in this selection.
However if it was misfiring tactical voting as everyone assumes, this would mean they rejected someone who both represented their values AND may win them the election in favour of a pair who will do neither. Which is bonkers.
Anyhow Keir Starmer is the big winner tonight. Mediocrity should win out against imbecility every time
I should hope so, that's what I bank my own career on.
Ed Davey (£584) - LIB DEM Bridget Phillipson (£522) - LAB Catherine McKinnell (£2,000) - LAB Wes Streeting (£1,160) - LAB Keir Starmer (£4,000) - LAB Darren Jones (£3,400) - LAB Dan Carden (£900) - LAB Kim Johnson (£900) - LAB Ian Byrne (£900) - INDEPENDENT Joe Morris (£1,660) - LAB Chris Ward (£1,660) - LAB
LOL, it’s almost as if these concerts were almost instantly sold out, and normal people couldn’t get a ticket for them.
Would anyone like to FOI the communications that led to these tickets being issued, and take a guess how many were initiated by the MP vs initiated by the eventual sponsor?
Many years ago in 1984 Jerry Adams was gunned down by Margaret Thatcher - he survived . The idea that the Irish would someday kick the British the fuck out of Ireland would have been thought impossible . Untill it wasn’t .
Justice will come for Palestine
For clarity, my assumption is that this is not THE John Cusack
Could be, nothing so annoying as an actor who gets political and thinks they know stuff
Reading his views, Cusack seems to be one of those actors with left-field views that have tipped over the edge in some areas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cusack
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
I don't know what just happened. So I can't explain it. Mutatis mutandis I think more people wanted Kemi and Bobby J to be in the final 2 than Cleverley. Others have had more complex explanations, but sometimes simplicity is best.
Probably. Also you should really go for the candidate who represents your values rather than someone you think might win an election.
As a non-Tory who has voted Tory in the past and might conceivably do so again, Cleverly is a plausible candidate while Badenoch and Jenrick absolutely are not. But I'm not a partisan and rightly don't get a say in this selection.
However if it was misfiring tactical voting as everyone assumes, this would mean they rejected someone who both represented their values AND may win them the election in favour of a pair who will do neither. Which is bonkers.
Anyhow Keir Starmer is the big winner tonight. Mediocrity should win out against imbecility every time
I should hope so, that's what I bank my own career on.
So is nobody going to try to explain what we just witnessed?
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
I don't know what just happened. So I can't explain it. Mutatis mutandis I think more people wanted Kemi and Bobby J to be in the final 2 than Cleverley. Others have had more complex explanations, but sometimes simplicity is best.
Probably. Also you should really go for the candidate who represents your values rather than someone you think might win an election.
As a non-Tory who has voted Tory in the past and might conceivably do so again, Cleverly is a plausible candidate while Badenoch and Jenrick absolutely are not. But I'm not a partisan and rightly don't get a say in this selection.
However if it was misfiring tactical voting as everyone assumes, this would mean they rejected someone who both represented their values AND may win them the election in favour of a pair who will do neither. Which is bonkers.
Anyhow Keir Starmer is the big winner tonight. Mediocrity should win out against imbecility every time
I should hope so, that's what I bank my own career on.
Ha! Proud to be mediocre. I can relate to that.
When all about you is chaos and incompetence, you can rely on kle4 to be...fine.
Many years ago in 1984 Jerry Adams was gunned down by Margaret Thatcher - he survived . The idea that the Irish would someday kick the British the fuck out of Ireland would have been thought impossible . Untill it wasn’t .
Justice will come for Palestine
I don’t know who this chap is and have no recollection of interacting with him but am blocked by him.
What's that an allusion to?
It was in 1984 that Jerry Adams attempted to have Margaret Thatcher murdered.
Gotta say, whatever else happens, four years of @KemiBadenoch telling Labour MPs Britain's history is something to be proud of, Britain isn't full of structural racism & women don't have penises is going to be a lot of fun.
She seems the option with the widest range of outcomes, positive and negative. Go big, go bold, go Badenoch?
Watching @TheScreamingEagles go from a couple of dozen “Kemi-kaze” headers, to…
Comments
Do you believe in God?
Yes = theist
No = atheist
'cos if she can tack leftish spend on run-down places economics onto her social conservatism then maybe she will have a chance against a failing Labour in 2028.
I didn't even disagree with the premise that most people have an inherent inclination towards belief in things, and that's why many ideologies are treated like religious faith, I just disagree on what that means and what to do about it.
But it did remind me that often theists and atheists simply totally misunderstand one another, whilst thinking they understand perfectly.
I believe people should have equal rights and should have as much as is realistically plausible equal opportunities, but I also believe people should accept the consequences of their choices.
So I have absolutely no qualms with someone who works hard becoming qualified at something and being paid well and keeping more of their money.
I do have qualms with people being told they were born to be serfs.
I have come out without my reading glasses so have just been to Boots for a new off-the-shelf pair SPECIFICALLY so I can see what you lot are saying. Though it doesn't hurt to have a spare pair and I am blown away by the cleanliness.
Now in the finest bar in Manchester - the Victoria Tap - drinking an excellent pumpkin spiced bitter from Thornbridge - reminiscent of a wonderful evening I had in Haliax, Nova Scotia 20 years ago. "Avant Gardener" by Courtney Barnett is on the stereo. It really is the most wonderful place to spend an hour.
If you don't believe in something religious, then atheism is quite literally that, the absence of belief, and not as some fallaciously claim the belief (or the insistence upon) the absence of possibilities.
(I mean, it'd be nice to care about rosettes less too, and reversed landslides suggests that's true too, to an extent).
The same slogan hurled - 'f*ck off and join the Tories'
Only this case it is a little more gentile and to join the Liberals.
Allison Pearson
@AllisonPearson
·
3h
Well, Gavin, looks like I have more sway over Tory MPs and members than you ever had.
I’ve seen off Cleverly.
Run along and join the Lib Dems..
Gavin Barwell
@GavinBarwell
·
20h
I think he means @AllisonPearson. If she is saying she will leave if James Cleverly wins, that's a pretty compelling argument for voting for James...
There has long been an atheist movement within Christianity. In the Church of England this has been embodied in the Sea of Faith network.
Writers associated are people like Don Cupitt, John Hick and Maurice Wiles.
Perhaps in recent memory most prominent in the book The Myth of God Incarnate, which is a lovely punny title containing at least 3 different simultaneous meanings.
All an indication that it is nothing like as simplistic as some would pretend.
But this idea that the government talked right and acted left is evidence of an infantilism on the right. The Conservative government attempted to implement a right-wing policy agenda and it failed, and it failed by its own metrics of success or failure, and it failed badly. Simply saying that it failed because it was actually left-wing is so much masturbatory hogwash.
For forming an opinion, or belief, there is tons of evidence in both directions. Evidence is that which, cumulatively,. tends towards a particular belief or conclusion. Just as the well known problem of evil and innocent suffering is an excellent piece of evidence against the existence of a god with godlike qualities, likewise the way in which science can explain what used to be attributed to god, so existence itself, values, beauty, moral sensibility, the intelligibilty of the universe are pieces of evidence the other way.
BTW, totally agree we are all agnostics. It isn't a thing we can choose. But lots of people (maybe Dawkins and friends, and dogmatic religious types) are not good enough at seeing beyond their own certainties.
The distinction there would only seem to serve to seek to gotcha someone by getting them to accept even a slight possibility when we know very well what 90% mean when they say they're atheist.
I think Jenrick knew he was through - he made a slip of the tongue in one of the interviews that he was pleased to be in the final 2.
So I think definitely Jenrick had lent voters to Cleverly. And then Kemi did too? Then in the event, both sets of lent voters came home to roost, and in addition, Cleverly's team played silly buggers to get Jenrick not Kemi in the members' ballot.
I haven't got the spare attention/brain power to put any numbers to it though.
And I still don't know why Kemi and Jenrick both wanted Cleverly to get through, not Tugendhat. Tughendat was the least impressive during the conference, so if anything, surely they should have lent him votes? Perhaps their private conversations led them to believe that Tugendhat was the bigger threat with the members (see HYUFD as a sample of one), despite the ramping of Cleverly as being the members' fave.
I'm an atheist. Because I believe there's no God. But I happily concede I don't know. And I envy the believers their God and the happiness He brings them and one day sonething might happen such that I join them. But in the meantime, my belief is that there is no God.
But my wife is agnostic. She does not believe, as I do, that there is no God, but nor does she believe, as, say Leon or HYUFD do, that there is a God. It is not that she is more open minded than me; she is just unable and/or unwilling to draw a conclusion. It's not that she hasn't thought about it. It's that she hasn't reachrd a conclusion either way.
Some people are just more prone to reaching a conclusion than others. About God and many other matters.
So I'm unsure what to think.
Your second paragraph explains why so many centrist and centre-right voters had no motivation to vote Tory in the summer, knowing that to do so would be to continue the trend which, if that's what you're going to have, you might as well get the genuine article. It's a better summary than anything I could have come up with myself of why, although I've voted Tory about half the time over the years, I wasn't seriously considering them for a vote this time even before the nonsensical decision to delay HS2 became the final straw.
People, typically but not always theists, trying to pigeonhole people into being one or the other are doing so out of ignorance.
I'm not an atheist instead of being an agnostic, I'm both. I don't rule out the possibility, however improbable I find it, of some divine being, but I don't believe in one either. That is both agnosticism and atheism, while keeping an open mind.
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
1h
The name Gavin Williamson is being muttered darkly by Cleverly backers.
The plot thickens.
Still - the members will be happier than Leon at a free airport bar where there are three women for every man, given the two put to them as the "choice".
Where Dawkins is sub-optimal is believing that he is good at arguing philosophically and theologically. It's toe curling.
However theists trying to (and incorrectly) define atheism as something it is not are simply wrong to do so.
The number of theists in this thread who have tried to insist upon what atheists believe without listening to what atheists themselves say is quite bemusing is it not?
Atheism is no more and no less than the lack of theism. People can choose to identify with that or not, free choice, but there is no insistence, no absolutes and no closed minds in any of that.
The reason would be to knock out Tugendhat.
You don’t get to ignore the bit of the definition you don’t like.
I would also argue that a lack of belief is a positive statement of disbelief- it is strong than “I dunno”
Tory leadership elections are normally known for skullduggery, entertainment value and/or the occasional incompetence of the most sophisticated electorate on earth, but this one was a special case. It's rare that a candidate's supporters conspire to knock their own candidate out
That may perhaps be slightly harsh
I'm always amused that he seemed to make more money from property he inherited, than from everything else.
Anyone with a lack of belief in a god is an atheist.
Anyone who believes there is no god is also an atheist.
They both meet the or condition.
I'm sure it happens, but when speaking to the regular public different skills are needed.
Catholicism and Orthodoxy leave me cold. If my religious loins could be stirred, they would be stirred by the austere whitewashed chapels of the far North West of Scotland, or perhaps of the cinematic churches of the deep south.
The only religious song which has ever inspired me is Johmny Cash's "When the man comes around".
Atheist well describes agnostics who do not believe there is a god
Theist well describes agnostics who believe there is a god (full disclosure, I am one such agnostic).
Theists and atheists who are under the illusion that they 'know' these incompatible items of alleged knowledge are well described as 'wrong'. They are of course usually lovely, nice, well disposed people who do good in the world. I like them. I believe God does too, though of course.......
We are all dystheists now.
The concept of 'dull competence' has certainly taken a good bashing in recent years. Anyone still think the members should give up their right to elect leaders and leave it to 'the grown ups'?
That's not meaningful to me. Not on this "God" topic.
If you are incorrectly stating what others believe then yes that is invalid. If you are describing your own beliefs then that is perfectly valid.
If you believe that atheism is only the belief in the lack of a god or gods then you are wrong. It is that and the lack of belief generally. That is quite literally (using the word literally literally) what the word means.
As a non-Tory who has voted Tory in the past and might conceivably do so again, Cleverly is a plausible candidate while Badenoch and Jenrick absolutely are not. But I'm not a partisan and rightly don't get a say in this selection.
It was in 1984 that Jerry Adams attempted to have Margaret Thatcher murdered.
I'll stick with Oxford, thanks.
Andrew Lilico
@andrew_lilico
Gotta say, whatever else happens, four years of @KemiBadenoch
telling Labour MPs Britain's history is something to be proud of, Britain isn't full of structural racism & women don't have penises is going to be a lot of fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqKCkk8qWxs
Gauke's Tweet above is amusing, but at the same time, it's disheartening that a cadre of prominent Tories' only interest in the party is to subvert it's core values.
https://youtu.be/qjlDDZkGONs?t=35&si=4atWB5PhkWX2xyrq
Take comfort that the winner will not lead them into the election.
Has the book opened for the next Con leadership election because if Kemi wins she won't last long
More than almost all politicians, when she speaks, you note what she says.
Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
Sky News can reveal Home Secretary Yvette Cooper went for free to a Taylor Swift concert as guest of Swift’s music label Universal Music.
Ms Cooper went as a guest of her huband, Ed Balls who was given four tickets.
Later that month the home secretary had discussions about boosting protection for Ms Swift when she was in London after concerts were cancelled in Vienna because of a foiled attack
Mr Balls received the tickets on August 4, before the Swift's shows in Vienna were cancelled
This has not appeared in the public register to date because the tickets were understood to be worth £170 - less than the £300 that would make it a declarable expense.
Earlier today the home secretary made the declaration to the cabinet office.
This is not surprising, when you consider what we select for in MPs. Mountebanks who in addition to balancing balls on their noses can recite some nostrums with appearance of sincerity.
From these we select the best back stabbers and in fighters in the circus. To be the leaders.
And then discover that their ability to run one of the largest organisations on Earth (the U.K. government) is lacking.
Exhibit 1: Sir Keir Starmer.
You must be a pretty awful lobbyist, hating half the party you support. Hardly surprising you can't get something off the ground if you consider half your target audience too ghastly for you to engage with.
MPs that have declared Taylor Swift tickets
Ed Davey (£584) - LIB DEM
Bridget Phillipson (£522) - LAB
Catherine McKinnell (£2,000) - LAB
Wes Streeting (£1,160) - LAB
Keir Starmer (£4,000) - LAB
Darren Jones (£3,400) - LAB
Dan Carden (£900) - LAB
Kim Johnson (£900) - LAB
Ian Byrne (£900) - INDEPENDENT
Joe Morris (£1,660) - LAB
Chris Ward (£1,660) - LAB
However it reminds of the fascinating American philosophical school of thought which argues - rather well too - that if god exists in any possible world (including all the ones that could be the case but are not) then god must exist in every possible world including of course the actual one. Plantinga's snappily titled 'The Nature of Necessity' sets it out in full. Not for the faint hearted.
Discerning Dawkins I think - but I'm not sure - it is his attachment to what he characterises as 'logic', and his lack of feeling-at-home in a culture which is based on ritual, as happens in Roman Catholic or Orthodox milieus.
But that would be him using the term to characterise a culture, rather than his beliefs / values.
Anyhow Keir Starmer is the big winner tonight. Mediocrity should win out against imbecility every time
Would anyone like to FOI the communications that led to these tickets being issued, and take a guess how many were initiated by the MP vs initiated by the eventual sponsor?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/14/newsid_2543000/2543503.stm
Reading his views, Cusack seems to be one of those actors with left-field views that have tipped over the edge in some areas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cusack
Home sec given free Swift tickets
https://news.sky.com/video/share-13231043