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Size isn’t important, it’s what you do with it that counts, just ask Jeremy Corbyn
Size isn’t important, it’s what you do with it that counts, just ask Jeremy Corbyn – politicalbetting.com
Reminder that at the time of their landslide defeat in 2019, Labour had more members than they did in 1997. https://t.co/jprlvHfQgh
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Betting PostF1: I mentioned this before but there's a long time and the odds haven't changed yet. Lawson each way at 26 (boosted to 29) in Australia is worth backing with a little stake. The car matters most and I expect him to do a decent job, at least to start with.
I am encouraged that she clearly dislikes Farage and Reform though.
Incidentally, why would anyone join Reform? It's not a party that decides policy democratically, but rather by the Fuhrer.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the LDs. Their vote was much more efficient at the last election.
Do they get more efficient still at the next election, where they are incumbents and it is now clearer where they were in second place?
Or do they get mauled in a three-way media dogfight between Labour, Reform, and the Tories?
1) Russian air defense missile struck the plane.
2) Russia forbade the damaged aircraft from emergency landing in Russia and ordered it to fly across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan.
3) Russia jammed aircraft navigation over the Caspian Sea.
https://bsky.app/profile/igorsushko.bsky.social/post/3lea4umglgc2b
If one were partial to the Fukkers' brand of idiotic, far right fucktardery then why wouldn't one join, is the more cromulent question.
Then covering up their mistake with barbarity.
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold:
1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend.
2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I
sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I
(a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time;
(b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting;
(c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife;
(d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
b) is the obvious answer but is also the biggest pain in the dick. You know what you have to do, soldier.
They don't have enough "wasted votes" that could be the basis of a push towards 150 seats.
For example, the seat with the 100th highest vote share for the Lib Dems was Kenilworth and Southam. The Lib Dems came third with 19.6% (C:36.4;L:24.1). Their 125th seat was Clapham and Brixton Hill with 14.4%, second behind Labour (56.5) and 393 votes ahead of the Greens. Their 150th seat was Newcastle upon Tyne North, where they were third with 12.2% (L:50.3;C:13.7) only three votes ahead of Reform.
To make any further progress the Lib Dems need to be making waves in the national political consciousness.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/26/51st-state-usa-trump-starmer-eu-special-relationship/
(I don't think they realise that becoming a US State would require abolishing the Monarchy and disestablishing the CoE amongst a few other trivial changes)
Allegedly air defences were triggered by an incoming Ukrainian raid (this does *not* make the incident Ukraine's fault). In which case, the air defences would have been on high alert. The order to cross the Caspian Sea may therefore not have been to let it crash in the sea, as some have claimed, but simply to get a damaged plane out of an area of danger as there was likely to be more missiles and guns fired into the sky.
In addition, according to Ryan McBeith, one of the alternative airfields was in a mountainous area, and the other might have had poor weather conditions. Crossing the sea might have been the 'best' alternative of a very poor lot, and indeed, it might have been the crew's choice as well.
The CVR and FDR will be able to tell us more. I have the Khazak authorities are more open and transparent than Russia's have traditionally been.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=belTVOf073Q
A Russian military plane crashed into a daycare centre killing loads of kids. It was, quite literally, rapidly covered up.
"By 21:00 on May 16, less than 9 hours after the crash, the debris had been cleared, and the aircraft wreckage along with the remains of the victims had been removed. By the morning of May 17, a small park had been established on the site of the kindergarten. To minimize public attention, suburban trains were canceled, and road traffic connecting the regional center to Svetlogorsk was restricted on the day of the victims' funerals."
Explain that you are wanting to continue attending, and therefore open to his ministry, but not wanting a one to one.
There is also the risk that you could precipitate a crisis of faith in him, with continuing ramifications. He may well be headed that way already, but doesn't need a push.
I think c) is your best option, to be honest. Obviously I think you should respect your wife's views but I doubt very much whether anything she or the vicar say bis going to shift you, or indeed anything you say she to herbs going to shift her!
I would wonder, too, if constantly harping on the subject, especially with a third party involved, could threaten your marital relationship.
Whatever you decide, it sounds as though it will be a good decision.
And good morning everyone.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/dec/27/nasa-probe-safe-parker-solar-spacecraft-closest-approach-sun
I think you're trying to take too much responsibility for his reaction to these talks, but you've got to let him make his own mistakes. Option b feels like the option that is truest to yourself, while being polite and respectful.
Russia should now be an aviation destination cut off from the world. Surely the insurance industry could refuse to cover any plane with a Russian destination?
IMO, if MaxH is going to turn to the faith, it will be a journey he makes inside himself.
(My parents brought up their three kids as non-religious. There was no religion in the house; it was not banned, just not present except when religious relatives visited. Religion was an irrelevance. My dad said something like: "There are many different faiths; you have to choose for yourselves what you want to believe." Both my brother and sister became Christians. I did not, but I am agnostic. I'd argue that's a good strike rate for a hands-off approach.)
https://www.timesofisrael.com/el-al-pausing-flights-to-moscow-for-a-week-after-passenger-jet-said-downed-by-russia/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=bluesky
#Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
I sincerely hope trump learns from Canada and the UK in that having endless Indian immigration does not in fact make your country a tech superpower or rich.
I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas
This was the first Christmas in 62 years my wife and I did not have family lunch, but really enjoyed the family coming round in the morning and the grandchildren opening their presents before we had a pleasant rest and a quiet time for the rest of the day
I looked in and am amazed at how good posters are on the crossword [I am hopeless at them] but quickly logged out when catching up on Trump's idea of annexing Greenland, Canada, and the Panama canal.
Also, I really cannot be bothered with the childish games Farage and Badenoch are playing over who has most members.
I can understand it tickles Farage's self importance but really does Badenoch need to engage with him ?
With Labour's unpopularity, Badenoch needs to take the fight to Labour and leave Farage to swim in the wake of Trump and his idiotic ideas
And to @maxh I would be polite but try not to become too involved.
Depending on how much time you have on your hands, or how seriously you want to take this, there is another way out:
You could actually read John’s Gospel and then point out all the conflicts with the synoptic gospels, asking if that doesn’t undermine the Vicar’s argument as it’s clearly meant to be an allegory for living a Christian life based on Greek ideas of Logos and Stoicism, and not a study of the life of Jesus.
(Anyone wanting to do the latter should start with Mark, which is a straightforward biography of Jesus and is very different from John.)
Harrington wrote several short and readable books on this including this one:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Spiritual-Theologian-Jesus/dp/1856072681
But, depending on what resources you have access to, unit 3 of the Edexcel A-level RS is New Testament Studies and includes John as a case study. You may find your school already has some stuff (or can get it from ZigZag) that you could just skim quickly.
However
I suspect he genuinely likes you, so be prepared (based on what you've told us) for (d) - I have had a lot of wide ranging discussions with my vicar who has became a good friend, and it turned out he needed someone he could off-load on, and switch off with, as much as debate theology. You may find a listening ear is what he's looking for, from someone close enough to understand, but detached enough not to be involved.
The OP could insist the vicar reads some Richard Dawkins in return, for a more balanced deal!
With respect to @Dura_Ace's no prisoners approach (which is probably closest to my own instincts) the consensus is with @Foxy and others. I think I'm in a bit too deep and can only disappoint by meeting again.
Although, having read the various posts, I stand by my original one. The best option is c); neither participant is going to get anywhere.
Full engagement is the most honest and respectful way to proceed. If the vicar finds it troublesome he can always say so and politely end the conversation but in my experience most people in such positions actually enjoy such discussions with skeptics.
Getting views challenged in private conversations can be a good way to help people think through and develop their own views, not convert people which doesn't often happen.
Engaging like that in public interrupting a Sunday sermon would not be respectful, but in a private conversation it absolutely is.
Better is to find things to agree on, and to build on that common ground. I recently listened to an interesting book on this from a liberal agnostic daughter of a MAGA pentecostal preacher:
https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/1705277306?source_code=ASSORAP0511160007
She does a great TikTok too, indeed that's where I found her book.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGdkFrx25/
I would tell the vicar that it’s not your thing but thanks and if he needs a chat about issues he has that you might be able to help with then go for a pint together and stay well clear of his vicarage or whatever he lives in. Sounds like a pint or two and a chat would sort him out.
Never change. This place would be all the duller without your rapier like wit.
You may both enjoy and learn from it.
The minister who brought me into membership of the Church of Scotland was very taken by that passage. He talked of "the leap of faith" which we, in these benighted times, had to take before we could be "blessed".
My own faith died a long time ago, falling into agnosticism and even beyond. I would meet with him and engage fully but of course respectfully. He is no doubt a decent man with a genuine belief that wants to share the benefits it brings him. Unless he changes your mind it is an entirely respectful (which you need given your wife's faith) to say that you are not ready to make that leap of faith, even if there is much to admire in the teaching.
Especially when they start gaining more and more councillors too.
It didn’t work for UKIP as they really had no ground game to build on the councillors they gained.
This time may be different.
'Come for the hymns, stay for the muddle headed hypocrisy and the acceptable kind of noncing!'
For the last few years every day on Boxing Day my daughter has in some way expressed that Christmas is 'over' so should we take down the tree, or something similar. When she was in Year 1 at school she asked for her school uniform on Boxing Day morning as she said she should go to school that day since Christmas is over.
This year (now aged 8) she seems to understand that her Christmas holiday was 2 weeks off school, so I joked with my wife on Christmas night that I was expecting that annual tradition of her expecting Boxing Day to be 'back to normal' not to be repeated tomorrow (now yesterday).
Got through Boxing Day until bedtime without any such remarks this year, at which point she brought her mini Christmas Tree down from her bedroom into the living room saying she doesn't want it in her room now as Christmas is over.
It was something that I thought about when writing my PB header on US Evangelicals in October. One theme of the piece was how Evangelicalism in the USA transformed in the postwar period to embrace capitalism, consumerism and show business thereby meeting people where they were and not requiring too much change in their lives.
I think too that applies to those of us who chose a religion or tradition that we are not born to. We choose a sect that comes closest to our worldview rather than one that challenges it too directly. Hence I am in a non-heirarchical Nonconformist Church with a strong strand of environmentalism, so pretty similar situation in many ways to the consumerist US Evangelicals.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
We know the history of how humanity has created its religions, many religions over thousands of years, how they've evolved, why they've evolved and how they're evolving still (as @Foxy says at 9:48am).
There is much to be known about religion. There is some bits of science we don't yet know, but there is no reason to ascribe that to religion.
Isn't Farage on the point of being taken over by Musk, and from there by the Chinese?
https://x.com/benobesejecty/status/1872370270679544308?s=61
Good luck.
What is God
Answer - God is the supreme spirit who alone exists of itself and is infinite in all perfections.
I learned this at the age of 7. I didn't know what it meant then, and I don't know what it means now, but I can still remember it word perfect 75 years later.
The nuns who taught me had leather belts.
We don't stick to full 12 days either as my wife's birthday is in early January and it was her parents tradition (and ours we've continued) that Christmas is over and the tree down etc in the window after New Years day and before her birthday, so that her birthday is about her and not Christmas.
Christmas began in November when the kids went to see Santa in his grotto, we could start to listen to Christmas music and our lights on the house and tree went up late November.
1st December it begins in earnest with the arrival of the Elves and Advent calendars.
24 December the Elves went back to the North Pole to help Santa who arrived that night.
Now its just the Christmas holiday until New Year and sometime on the 2nd or 3rd we'll pack the tree away and get ready for my wife's birthday before things then get back to normal.
Whilst there are plenty of tall tales, it’s clear that he studied records and interviewed eye-witnesses to write his work.
Etc
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
In times gone by, Advent - the four weeks leading up to Christmas - was a period of quiet and reflection. Christmas only started in Christmas Eve. Decorations stayed until 12th night, but the period of excess lasted until Candlemas (February 2nd). Nowadays, we have swapped that around: feast in December, fast in January. There are arguments for both approaches, and as you say, there are personal circumstances to take into account, but I'd say the old fashioned approach better fits the peruod of excess to the bleakest time of year.
Almost noone has said (a) which I agree with - what's the point?
To those asking why I am even engaging if my mind is made up - I think they way I expressed myself in my initial post is too strong - I am closest to @algarkirk's agnosticism in that I am perfectly prepared to accept that some form of faith may be accurate, but that the details of any specific faith are probably culturally determined and at best a deeply imperfect human attempt to know the unknowable.
I think faith is amongst our most fascinating human questions so will always take opportunities to engage. I had a similar discussion with a previous vicar and we both really enjoyed it.
I'm genuinely torn between what I'd call the "varnished Dura Ace view" that if you choose to be a vicar you should be up for the challenge of someone thoughtfully and respectfully challenging your faith, and a concern for a fellow human who I think is probably neither very happy nor very secure in his own faith and has a 'need' to convert me in some way.
No need to be concerned about my marriage btw - we have plenty of challenges but negotiate this one pretty well (it's why I attend church).