As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs
I wonder what Jesus would have made of the whole 'VAT exemption for temple repairs' thing. Maybe he'd be all for temple repairs being tax-exempt. I'm not scholarly enough to know the nuance.
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
Why is that trouble for the left? (Also, the left are still not some homogeneous whole.)
I may be wrong but I'd suggest relatively few would want to acknowledge it. And if you are no longer a believing Christian why stick to the ethics?
🚨BREAKING: Israel is preparing to strike Iranian energy facilities but is waiting for a green light from the U.S., a senior Israeli defense official said, adding it could come within the next week.
I have no doubt Israel could take out Tehran's power grid in one night of bombing. Repeat as necessary in a new city each night.
It is what Putin could dream of in Ukraine - if he'd had air supremacy.
But he didn't.
Unfortunately for its neighbours, Iran can easily destroy desalination plants as by their nature, they are on the coast. Without water, what do Dubai and Kuwait and Bahrain and Abu Dhabi look like?
This just gets worse and worse. We really are at the point where there needs to be a break with the US (and Israel). We should be making it clear that this war was not only illegal but a disastrous mistake and it should stop now. The absolute last thing we need is any further escalation.
I think that all the "middle rank" (in Carney's terms) countries should declare formal neutrality in Trump's War on Iran. That would wake him up, remind him that NATO and other countries are not his bitches to be shafted, and aiui give his forces and staff a formal 24 hours to exit or be interned for the duration (which would not be strictly enforced).
Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea have too much to lose. They will assume the same grovelling posture as the UK: suffer the indignities and adopt a hope based strategy that somehow normal service will be resumed in 2029.
Obviously this was a joke, but is it that different from Lucy Connolly? Sir Keir as DPP did all he could to get someone locked up for a joke about an airport bomb
I'm generally a peaceable man, but whoever came up with Making Tax Digital For Income Tax needs to die in a fire.
Just a question, if a Muslim had done what this lady did but had said it about Jews would you support them being arrested or not?
I will answer, but what difference does putting "Just a question" make there?
So what is the answer?
Why did you preface your question with "Just a question"? What else would it be?
So the answer is, if it was a Muslim you’d call for their arrest. I thought so.
I can't speak for isam but what I'd say is that we need consistency. Genuine incitement to violence is the obvious red line. Should hate speech be prosecuted? Maybe in some form. Trouble is the term hate has been trivialised.
Don't worry, that nutter is speaking for me anyway
Obviously this was a joke, but is it that different from Lucy Connolly? Sir Keir as DPP did all he could to get someone locked up for a joke about an airport bomb
I'm generally a peaceable man, but whoever came up with Making Tax Digital For Income Tax needs to die in a fire.
Just a question, if a Muslim had done what this lady did but had said it about Jews would you support them being arrested or not?
I will answer, but what difference does putting "Just a question" make there?
So what is the answer?
Why did you preface your question with "Just a question"? What else would it be?
So the answer is, if it was a Muslim you’d call for their arrest. I thought so.
I can't speak for isam but what I'd say is that we need consistency. Genuine incitement to violence is the obvious red line. Should hate speech be prosecuted? Maybe in some form. Trouble is the term hate has been trivialised.
Don't worry, that nutter is speaking for me anyway
What a lovely person you’ve grown up to be.
Thank you
You are welcome. Have a good evening.
As we are answering our own questions, you said “Just a question” because you were implying I would treat Muslims differently for the doing the same thing as Lucy Connolly. No doubt you thought of it as some kind of cunning, Paxman-esque trap.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs!
If the CofE was sustainable with, say, 2,000 churches would that be a bad thing compared to it struggling to survive with ~16,000?
I read recently that the Victorians went mad with building churches and a lot of the churches they built were never well used because there wasn't the demand for them at the time either.
There's an issue with some historical churches being in the wrong place, following population movements, and so you might want to see what could be done to preserve some of those. A lot of precious history on those buildings.
But there are lots of churches where that is not so much the case. My daughter used to go to an indoor climbing centre that was in an old, but not that old, church building.
Quite a lot of the Victorian churches around my place have been converted into fairly nice - and somewhat(ymmv) 'affordable' flats. Which, to follow from my previous comment - I could imagine Jesus being quite gung-ho on. Some of them even have disability ramps to the front stairs now.
🚨BREAKING: Israel is preparing to strike Iranian energy facilities but is waiting for a green light from the U.S., a senior Israeli defense official said, adding it could come within the next week.
I have no doubt Israel could take out Tehran's power grid in one night of bombing. Repeat as necessary in a new city each night.
It is what Putin could dream of in Ukraine - if he'd had air supremacy.
But he didn't.
Unfortunately for its neighbours, Iran can easily destroy desalination plants as by their nature, they are on the coast. Without water, what do Dubai and Kuwait and Bahrain and Abu Dhabi look like?
This just gets worse and worse. We really are at the point where there needs to be a break with the US (and Israel). We should be making it clear that this war was not only illegal but a disastrous mistake and it should stop now. The absolute last thing we need is any further escalation.
I think that all the "middle rank" (in Carney's terms) countries should declare formal neutrality in Trump's War on Iran. That would wake him up, remind him that NATO and other countries are not his bitches to be shafted, and aiui give his forces and staff a formal 24 hours to exit or be interned for the duration (which would not be strictly enforced).
Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea have too much to lose. They will assume the same grovelling posture as the UK: suffer the indignities and adopt a hope based strategy that somehow normal service will be resumed in 2029.
Doing nothing and hoping for the best is often an attractive option when there's big risks, so that's probably right, but it is a misplaced one in this case.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs!
If the CofE was sustainable with, say, 2,000 churches would that be a bad thing compared to it struggling to survive with ~16,000?
I read recently that the Victorians went mad with building churches and a lot of the churches they built were never well used because there wasn't the demand for them at the time either.
There's an issue with some historical churches being in the wrong place, following population movements, and so you might want to see what could be done to preserve some of those. A lot of precious history on those buildings.
But there are lots of churches where that is not so much the case. My daughter used to go to an indoor climbing centre that was in an old, but not that old, church building.
I climb in an old church too. It’s a religion in itself to some people.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs!
If the CofE was sustainable with, say, 2,000 churches would that be a bad thing compared to it struggling to survive with ~16,000?
I read recently that the Victorians went mad with building churches and a lot of the churches they built were never well used because there wasn't the demand for them at the time either.
There's an issue with some historical churches being in the wrong place, following population movements, and so you might want to see what could be done to preserve some of those. A lot of precious history on those buildings.
But there are lots of churches where that is not so much the case. My daughter used to go to an indoor climbing centre that was in an old, but not that old, church building.
Quite a lot of the Victorian churches around my place have been converted into fairly nice - and somewhat(ymmv) 'affordable' flats. Which, to follow from my previous comment - I could imagine Jesus being quite gung-ho on. Some of them even have disability ramps to the front stairs now.
Not all Victorian churches are even listed, there was an overproduction of them in the 19th century in cities and large towns,
Ancient medieval churches, often grade 1 listed, in rural areas and small market towns are another matter
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
This is part of the overargument of the rooted in Christianity premise. It'd be one thing to argue the historic and continued influences of it on the West in particular, and even beyond because of the spread of Western culture, but a) contrary examples in Christian societies are usually waved away as 'you only thing it wrong because of Christianity, therefore Christians doing the bad thing just proves the point even more' (even Dominion did a similar thing, albeit not from a proselytising position), which is incredibly convenient, and b) they often don't address any non-Christian examples of similar moralities at all - when a comparison to say why some of those things are particularly rooted in Christianity might be quite compelling and possibly even have some basis, but would be a more complex and muddy position to try to take.
One can certainly see these things in other religious belief systems and in non-religious philosophies. They are not unique to Christianity.
However, I do think that the adoption of Christianity marks a change in moral attitudes, in the territories of the Roman Empire. The kind of moral outlook which is expressed in the Iliad and Odyssey, or in the writings of Caesar, is utterly alien to us, now.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs!
If the CofE was sustainable with, say, 2,000 churches would that be a bad thing compared to it struggling to survive with ~16,000?
I read recently that the Victorians went mad with building churches and a lot of the churches they built were never well used because there wasn't the demand for them at the time either.
There's an issue with some historical churches being in the wrong place, following population movements, and so you might want to see what could be done to preserve some of those. A lot of precious history on those buildings.
But there are lots of churches where that is not so much the case. My daughter used to go to an indoor climbing centre that was in an old, but not that old, church building.
in rural areas especially C of E churches are normally the only church of any denomination in the village or hamlet, we must preserve them
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
Why is that trouble for the left? (Also, the left are still not some homogeneous whole.)
And if you are no longer a believing Christian why stick to the ethics?
I see that kind of question a lot and I never really understand it. The ethical arguments might seem to be appealing without needing to believe that Jesus was the son of God.
Now, a popular take now might be to say finding the ethics appealing is itself rooted in the Christian underpinnings of the culture, but believing in the moral position without accepting the religious dogma behind them seems perfectly logical to me. Like to take it down to the most basic of all positions, you don't need to believe Moses was a prophet to agree thou shalt not kill.
It seems a classic case of when theists and atheists (and waverers in the middle) fundamentally talk past oen another.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
My christian heritage is very different to yours and Jesus would not agree that the wealth of the church should be not used to maintain its estate
As for the rest of your post it is hysterical nonsense
If you aren't willing to fight for our Christian heritage as Kemi and Jenrick are then really you are on the wrong side of the culture wars to the vast majority of conservatives
Britain IS a Christian country in very significant ways. The English were converted in 600AD (some of the Celts and Romano Brits were Christian 300 years earlier). This has shaped us ever since - from our laws to our language. The monarch is still the head of our Established faith. We have an incredible inheritance - almost peerless - of magnificent Christian architecture, churches chapels and cathedrals
We also have much great Christian art and wonderfully British Christian music. The Anglican choral legacy is exceptional
It is not xenophobic to be proud of this, and a true conservative should seek to defend it and preserve it. Denying our Christian identity is a denial of our true identity
God Save the King
Lots of folk express their pride in it. Hardly anyone is willing to invest time and/or money in keeping it alive. Things are now much more precarious than they were just ten years ago. It won't just keep muddling on. Reality is about to bit and bite hard.
Tax unbelievers
In all seriousness, there should be a Swedish-style Church (or nice building) tax at 1% which you can opt out of. Put your money where your mouth is, don’t expect others to pick up the bill.
Can't parishioners just make donations? I'm in the "the church is very rich and quite mean" camp.
Obviously this was a joke, but is it that different from Lucy Connolly? Sir Keir as DPP did all he could to get someone locked up for a joke about an airport bomb
I'm generally a peaceable man, but whoever came up with Making Tax Digital For Income Tax needs to die in a fire.
Just a question, if a Muslim had done what this lady did but had said it about Jews would you support them being arrested or not?
I will answer, but what difference does putting "Just a question" make there?
So what is the answer?
Why did you preface your question with "Just a question"? What else would it be?
So the answer is, if it was a Muslim you’d call for their arrest. I thought so.
I can't speak for isam but what I'd say is that we need consistency. Genuine incitement to violence is the obvious red line. Should hate speech be prosecuted? Maybe in some form. Trouble is the term hate has been trivialised.
Don't worry, that nutter is speaking for me anyway
Obviously this was a joke, but is it that different from Lucy Connolly? Sir Keir as DPP did all he could to get someone locked up for a joke about an airport bomb
I'm generally a peaceable man, but whoever came up with Making Tax Digital For Income Tax needs to die in a fire.
Just a question, if a Muslim had done what this lady did but had said it about Jews would you support them being arrested or not?
I will answer, but what difference does putting "Just a question" make there?
So what is the answer?
Why did you preface your question with "Just a question"? What else would it be?
So the answer is, if it was a Muslim you’d call for their arrest. I thought so.
I can't speak for isam but what I'd say is that we need consistency. Genuine incitement to violence is the obvious red line. Should hate speech be prosecuted? Maybe in some form. Trouble is the term hate has been trivialised.
Don't worry, that nutter is speaking for me anyway
What a lovely person you’ve grown up to be.
Thank you
You are welcome. Have a good evening.
As we are answering our own questions, you said “Just a question” because you were implying I would treat Muslims differently for the doing the same thing as Lucy Connolly. No doubt you thought of it as some kind of cunning, Paxman-esque trap.
Nuclear ought to be a near zero chance but with an evil befuddled losing maniac in charge it's a touch higher. To put it at its absolute mildest, let us hope not.
"Near zero? Zero would be nice!"
Yes. But it can't be absolute zero if there's war involving people who have WMDs.
Hence why CND have it right.
CND supported *unilateral* disarmament because they thought it would be a lead the Russians would follow.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs
I'm happy as an atheist to contribute to preserving the cultural heritage of the nation, including churches in some cases, but ultimately faiths have to stand on their own two feet and ensure their relevance to the people of the current day and age. Many churchgoers make efforts to do just that in some admirable community and other works, but there isn't an inevitability that every part of the vast heritage can be maintained without the active faith element being significant enough to do so.
45% of grade 1 listed buildings in England are churches and cathedrals and 75% of grade 1 listed churches are in rural areas, they are the nation's heritage, even for non believers
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
So, you're saying the problem is that the Church of England isn't established enough?
Heseltine: "[Farage] is Donald Trump’s vicar in Britain."
Times
I don't actually think that is quite true. He does support Trump and many Trumpian positions, and those that like Trump are much more likely to be voting Reform, but Farage sometimes goes quiet when Trump is doing something particularly egregious, downplaying how much he supports the man, whereas his vicar would probably be less coy about it even in those situations.
So he's a bit more cynical about how much he supports Trump.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs!
If the CofE was sustainable with, say, 2,000 churches would that be a bad thing compared to it struggling to survive with ~16,000?
I read recently that the Victorians went mad with building churches and a lot of the churches they built were never well used because there wasn't the demand for them at the time either.
There's an issue with some historical churches being in the wrong place, following population movements, and so you might want to see what could be done to preserve some of those. A lot of precious history on those buildings.
But there are lots of churches where that is not so much the case. My daughter used to go to an indoor climbing centre that was in an old, but not that old, church building.
I have two local churches that have been converted into flats, and three more local churches still functioning as churches, with interesting buildings, but congregations that seem too small to sustain them. Oh, and also a big Catholic church that I think has a good-sized attendance.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
My christian heritage is very different to yours and Jesus would not agree that the wealth of the church should be not used to maintain its estate
As for the rest of your post it is hysterical nonsense
If you aren't willing to fight for our Christian heritage as Kemi and Jenrick are then really you are on the wrong side of the culture wars to the vast majority of conservatives
Britain IS a Christian country in very significant ways. The English were converted in 600AD (some of the Celts and Romano Brits were Christian 300 years earlier). This has shaped us ever since - from our laws to our language. The monarch is still the head of our Established faith. We have an incredible inheritance - almost peerless - of magnificent Christian architecture, churches chapels and cathedrals
We also have much great Christian art and wonderfully British Christian music. The Anglican choral legacy is exceptional
It is not xenophobic to be proud of this, and a true conservative should seek to defend it and preserve it. Denying our Christian identity is a denial of our true identity
God Save the King
Lots of folk express their pride in it. Hardly anyone is willing to invest time and/or money in keeping it alive. Things are now much more precarious than they were just ten years ago. It won't just keep muddling on. Reality is about to bit and bite hard.
3 million still attend churches each week in the UK, more at Christmas and Easter and for the right preserving our Christian heritage is now effectively the key cause in the culture wars
I think you are being naive. The purpose of the culture wars is not to preserve our Christian heritage. It’s to promote right-wing politicians and to grift money from the enraged. The culture wars put Trump into office, a man who has done basically nothing for Christianity, whatever his claims, and whose behaviour is consistently un-Christ-like.
He got abortion bans in some states, he set up a Task Force to fight anti Christian bias and set up the Religious Liberty Commission, and protected the right to prayer in schools, for the conservative right he has done things
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
This is part of the overargument of the rooted in Christianity premise. It'd be one thing to argue the historic and continued influences of it on the West in particular, and even beyond because of the spread of Western culture, but a) contrary examples in Christian societies are usually waved away as 'you only thing it wrong because of Christianity, therefore Christians doing the bad thing just proves the point even more' (even Dominion did a similar thing, albeit not from a proselytising position), which is incredibly convenient, and b) they often don't address any non-Christian examples of similar moralities at all - when a comparison to say why some of those things are particularly rooted in Christianity might be quite compelling and possibly even have some basis, but would be a more complex and muddy position to try to take.
One can certainly see these things in other religious belief systems and in non-religious philosophies. They are not unique to Christianity.
However, I do think that the adoption of Christianity marks a change in moral attitudes, in the territories of the Roman Empire. The kind of moral outlook which is expressed in the Iliad and Odyssey, or in the writings of Caesar, is utterly alien to us, now.
It's also a liberal fallacy that all religions are the same, and said more in hope than judgement.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
My christian heritage is very different to yours and Jesus would not agree that the wealth of the church should be not used to maintain its estate
As for the rest of your post it is hysterical nonsense
If you aren't willing to fight for our Christian heritage as Kemi and Jenrick are then really you are on the wrong side of the culture wars to the vast majority of conservatives
Britain IS a Christian country in very significant ways. The English were converted in 600AD (some of the Celts and Romano Brits were Christian 300 years earlier). This has shaped us ever since - from our laws to our language. The monarch is still the head of our Established faith. We have an incredible inheritance - almost peerless - of magnificent Christian architecture, churches chapels and cathedrals
We also have much great Christian art and wonderfully British Christian music. The Anglican choral legacy is exceptional
It is not xenophobic to be proud of this, and a true conservative should seek to defend it and preserve it. Denying our Christian identity is a denial of our true identity
God Save the King
Lots of folk express their pride in it. Hardly anyone is willing to invest time and/or money in keeping it alive. Things are now much more precarious than they were just ten years ago. It won't just keep muddling on. Reality is about to bit and bite hard.
Tax unbelievers
In all seriousness, there should be a Swedish-style Church (or nice building) tax at 1% which you can opt out of. Put your money where your mouth is, don’t expect others to pick up the bill.
Can't parishioners just make donations? I'm in the "the church is very rich and quite mean" camp.
In terms of income not assets the church is much less rich and much of that income also has to support clergy pensions etc
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs!
If the CofE was sustainable with, say, 2,000 churches would that be a bad thing compared to it struggling to survive with ~16,000?
I read recently that the Victorians went mad with building churches and a lot of the churches they built were never well used because there wasn't the demand for them at the time either.
There's an issue with some historical churches being in the wrong place, following population movements, and so you might want to see what could be done to preserve some of those. A lot of precious history on those buildings.
But there are lots of churches where that is not so much the case. My daughter used to go to an indoor climbing centre that was in an old, but not that old, church building.
The Victorians went mad with building churches because the country went mad with population growth.
The Church of England was becoming increasing southern and rural and non-conformists were moving in their droves into industrial cities and the North, so mass church building in these new areas was the response to preserve the national church.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs
I'm happy as an atheist to contribute to preserving the cultural heritage of the nation, including churches in some cases, but ultimately faiths have to stand on their own two feet and ensure their relevance to the people of the current day and age. Many churchgoers make efforts to do just that in some admirable community and other works, but there isn't an inevitability that every part of the vast heritage can be maintained without the active faith element being significant enough to do so.
45% of grade 1 listed buildings in England are churches and cathedrals and 75% of grade 1 listed churches are in rural areas, they are the nation's heritage, even for non believers
Just do it for grade 1 then, church or not. Westminster Hall has a half-decent roof on it, worth preserving, and it’s not a church.
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
Why is that trouble for the left? (Also, the left are still not some homogeneous whole.)
I may be wrong but I'd suggest relatively few would want to acknowledge it. And if you are no longer a believing Christian why stick to the ethics?
You have rather odd views of people on the left, if I might say so. Plenty who know their history would entirely acknowledge the central role of Christian belief.
If you think your ethics are correct, you stick to them. You can think your ethics are correct and be an atheist and acknowledge a history of ethical thought that was frequently related to religion. It’s like how chemistry has its roots in alchemy. You can be a chemist and reject alchemy, while still acknowledging the history.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs
I'm happy as an atheist to contribute to preserving the cultural heritage of the nation, including churches in some cases, but ultimately faiths have to stand on their own two feet and ensure their relevance to the people of the current day and age. Many churchgoers make efforts to do just that in some admirable community and other works, but there isn't an inevitability that every part of the vast heritage can be maintained without the active faith element being significant enough to do so.
45% of grade 1 listed buildings in England are churches and cathedrals and 75% of grade 1 listed churches are in rural areas, they are the nation's heritage, even for non believers
I outright said I'm happy as a non-believer to support them as part of the cultural heritage of the nation. Indeed, I welcomed that many believers are trying their best to remain and even increase the relevance of their faith to the wider nation.
The point was that people in general will only support something so much, and if the base level of true believers is reduced the rest are at some point not going to be willing to step in to fill the gap from reduced numbers of true believers forever.
Spouting off platitudes about cultural heritage will lose in the face cold reality about money and other priorities at some point, and that can be tackled through difficult conversations about priorities, hard work to demonstrate the continued relevance of such historic structures to the modern culture, or whinging about how everyone else needs to step up and tough if they don't like it.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
My christian heritage is very different to yours and Jesus would not agree that the wealth of the church should be not used to maintain its estate
As for the rest of your post it is hysterical nonsense
If you aren't willing to fight for our Christian heritage as Kemi and Jenrick are then really you are on the wrong side of the culture wars to the vast majority of conservatives
Britain IS a Christian country in very significant ways. The English were converted in 600AD (some of the Celts and Romano Brits were Christian 300 years earlier). This has shaped us ever since - from our laws to our language. The monarch is still the head of our Established faith. We have an incredible inheritance - almost peerless - of magnificent Christian architecture, churches chapels and cathedrals
We also have much great Christian art and wonderfully British Christian music. The Anglican choral legacy is exceptional
It is not xenophobic to be proud of this, and a true conservative should seek to defend it and preserve it. Denying our Christian identity is a denial of our true identity
God Save the King
Lots of folk express their pride in it. Hardly anyone is willing to invest time and/or money in keeping it alive. Things are now much more precarious than they were just ten years ago. It won't just keep muddling on. Reality is about to bit and bite hard.
3 million still attend churches each week in the UK, more at Christmas and Easter and for the right preserving our Christian heritage is now effectively the key cause in the culture wars
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
But that's the catch, isn't it? The only way to do that is to close churches. And who looks after them then? Some of course may not be worth preserving but I think we would feel rather a loss if the likes of Lichfield Cathedral or Malvern Priory were knocked down.
So we're back to private charities (which can't cope, as is being seen in Scotland) selling for other uses, which is not always possible, or the taxpayer via Heritage Scotland/English Heritage/Cadw.
I've been in a couple of rather nice Wetherspoon pubs which were formerly places of Christian worship. Transformed in one way but very tastefully preserved.
The Church restaurant in Skibbereen was formerly a church.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs
I'm happy as an atheist to contribute to preserving the cultural heritage of the nation, including churches in some cases, but ultimately faiths have to stand on their own two feet and ensure their relevance to the people of the current day and age. Many churchgoers make efforts to do just that in some admirable community and other works, but there isn't an inevitability that every part of the vast heritage can be maintained without the active faith element being significant enough to do so.
45% of grade 1 listed buildings in England are churches and cathedrals and 75% of grade 1 listed churches are in rural areas, they are the nation's heritage, even for non believers
I think there’s more to our heritage than listed buildings, and I think there are a few too many listed buildings!
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs
Yes but it is also NOT a heritage organisation like the National Trust. Christianity is a faith who's 'business' is saving souls and bringing them closer to Jesus. If they can't do that in their medieval churches then they should pack up and move on. Do you seriously think that Jesus would have cared where his message was preached? The state has an obligation to protect listed buildings but that doesn't extend to keeping their original owners in place. We don't insist that listed windmills have to actually produce bread and subsidise millers to work in them.
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
This is part of the overargument of the rooted in Christianity premise. It'd be one thing to argue the historic and continued influences of it on the West in particular, and even beyond because of the spread of Western culture, but a) contrary examples in Christian societies are usually waved away as 'you only thing it wrong because of Christianity, therefore Christians doing the bad thing just proves the point even more' (even Dominion did a similar thing, albeit not from a proselytising position), which is incredibly convenient, and b) they often don't address any non-Christian examples of similar moralities at all - when a comparison to say why some of those things are particularly rooted in Christianity might be quite compelling and possibly even have some basis, but would be a more complex and muddy position to try to take.
One can certainly see these things in other religious belief systems and in non-religious philosophies. They are not unique to Christianity.
However, I do think that the adoption of Christianity marks a change in moral attitudes, in the territories of the Roman Empire. The kind of moral outlook which is expressed in the Iliad and Odyssey, or in the writings of Caesar, is utterly alien to us, now.
I really like historical novels which make an effort to express different attitudes that might have existed. It's never going to be perfect - I would lack the knowledge to know what was really correct or not - but it helps sell that it is a different time and reality, so it doesn't seem like 20th century people in Ancient Rome or early medieval Denmark or whatever.
What it usually amounts to is a much more cavalier attitude towards killing and slavery, but the protagonists, for obvious reasons, will usually draw the line at being accepting of rape.
Or having the main character be some kind of outlier who has much more modern attitudes than usual for the time (since presumably some people will have felt differently about things, as we have outliers now).
Obviously this was a joke, but is it that different from Lucy Connolly? Sir Keir as DPP did all he could to get someone locked up for a joke about an airport bomb
I'm generally a peaceable man, but whoever came up with Making Tax Digital For Income Tax needs to die in a fire.
Just a question, if a Muslim had done what this lady did but had said it about Jews would you support them being arrested or not?
I will answer, but what difference does putting "Just a question" make there?
So what is the answer?
Why did you preface your question with "Just a question"? What else would it be?
So the answer is, if it was a Muslim you’d call for their arrest. I thought so.
I can't speak for isam but what I'd say is that we need consistency. Genuine incitement to violence is the obvious red line. Should hate speech be prosecuted? Maybe in some form. Trouble is the term hate has been trivialised.
Don't worry, that nutter is speaking for me anyway
Obviously this was a joke, but is it that different from Lucy Connolly? Sir Keir as DPP did all he could to get someone locked up for a joke about an airport bomb
I'm generally a peaceable man, but whoever came up with Making Tax Digital For Income Tax needs to die in a fire.
Just a question, if a Muslim had done what this lady did but had said it about Jews would you support them being arrested or not?
I will answer, but what difference does putting "Just a question" make there?
So what is the answer?
Why did you preface your question with "Just a question"? What else would it be?
So the answer is, if it was a Muslim you’d call for their arrest. I thought so.
I can't speak for isam but what I'd say is that we need consistency. Genuine incitement to violence is the obvious red line. Should hate speech be prosecuted? Maybe in some form. Trouble is the term hate has been trivialised.
Don't worry, that nutter is speaking for me anyway
What a lovely person you’ve grown up to be.
Thank you
You are welcome. Have a good evening.
As we are answering our own questions, you said “Just a question” because you were implying I would treat Muslims differently for the doing the same thing as Lucy Connolly. No doubt you thought of it as some kind of cunning, Paxman-esque trap.
Heseltine: "[Farage] is Donald Trump’s vicar in Britain."
Times
Hezza's 93 years old.
Dunno why, but I'm always encouraged when these big figures from the past muscle back into the conversation. The older the better.
And Heseltine was unimaginably superior to the political leaders we have to suffer now.
It's remarkable how much airtime Heseltine gets.
I can't say I'm a fan. Whatever his strengths I've always found him very pompous.
Mrs Flatlander has a dim view of Heseltine.
He was supposed to be giving a lecture on the governments plans for the environment - to which she turned up - but he decided to drivel on about Europe for the whole evening instead, which was pretty insulting to everyone there.
Whether this was so something could be planted in the press ('said yesterday') or he had nothing else to say, I don't know.
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
This is part of the overargument of the rooted in Christianity premise. It'd be one thing to argue the historic and continued influences of it on the West in particular, and even beyond because of the spread of Western culture, but a) contrary examples in Christian societies are usually waved away as 'you only thing it wrong because of Christianity, therefore Christians doing the bad thing just proves the point even more' (even Dominion did a similar thing, albeit not from a proselytising position), which is incredibly convenient, and b) they often don't address any non-Christian examples of similar moralities at all - when a comparison to say why some of those things are particularly rooted in Christianity might be quite compelling and possibly even have some basis, but would be a more complex and muddy position to try to take.
One can certainly see these things in other religious belief systems and in non-religious philosophies. They are not unique to Christianity.
However, I do think that the adoption of Christianity marks a change in moral attitudes, in the territories of the Roman Empire. The kind of moral outlook which is expressed in the Iliad and Odyssey, or in the writings of Caesar, is utterly alien to us, now.
It's also a liberal fallacy that all religions are the same, and said more in hope than judgement.
Religions are not the same and some have more positive messages than others, just as not all cultures are the same and some have much more negative aspects than others.
The latter sometimes seems to be seen as controversial because it can be used as a disguise by racists, but it is surely still true - just by comparing our own culture which had been accepting of slavery as being inferior to our modern culture not being accepting of it.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
My christian heritage is very different to yours and Jesus would not agree that the wealth of the church should be not used to maintain its estate
As for the rest of your post it is hysterical nonsense
If you aren't willing to fight for our Christian heritage as Kemi and Jenrick are then really you are on the wrong side of the culture wars to the vast majority of conservatives
Britain IS a Christian country in very significant ways. The English were converted in 600AD (some of the Celts and Romano Brits were Christian 300 years earlier). This has shaped us ever since - from our laws to our language. The monarch is still the head of our Established faith. We have an incredible inheritance - almost peerless - of magnificent Christian architecture, churches chapels and cathedrals
We also have much great Christian art and wonderfully British Christian music. The Anglican choral legacy is exceptional
It is not xenophobic to be proud of this, and a true conservative should seek to defend it and preserve it. Denying our Christian identity is a denial of our true identity
God Save the King
Lots of folk express their pride in it. Hardly anyone is willing to invest time and/or money in keeping it alive. Things are now much more precarious than they were just ten years ago. It won't just keep muddling on. Reality is about to bit and bite hard.
3 million still attend churches each week in the UK, more at Christmas and Easter and for the right preserving our Christian heritage is now effectively the key cause in the culture wars
I think you are being naive. The purpose of the culture wars is not to preserve our Christian heritage. It’s to promote right-wing politicians and to grift money from the enraged. The culture wars put Trump into office, a man who has done basically nothing for Christianity, whatever his claims, and whose behaviour is consistently un-Christ-like.
He got abortion bans in some states, he set up a Task Force to fight anti Christian bias and set up the Religious Liberty Commission, and protected the right to prayer in schools, for the conservative right he has done things
He has done things for the conservative right, but the conservative right are not the same as Christians. Abortion is not a problem for many Christians. The things you list are fronts in the culture war: they’re not actually delivering for Christians in general, and they’re not delivering Christian values.
Trump has just proposed a budget cutting help for the poor and needy, while massively increasing spending on the Department of War. That is not Christian values. This is what the Bible says, this is at the core of Christian values:
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Trump could not be working harder to do the opposite of that.
Heseltine: "[Farage] is Donald Trump’s vicar in Britain."
Times
Hezza's 93 years old.
Dunno why, but I'm always encouraged when these big figures from the past muscle back into the conversation. The older the better.
And Heseltine was unimaginably superior to the political leaders we have to suffer now.
It's remarkable how much airtime Heseltine gets.
I can't say I'm a fan. Whatever his strengths I've always found him very pompous.
Considering his age and how long ago he was in government, it does seem odd that he is still gets so many calls to comment on politics of the day. Not that people lose value because they are over 90 or anything, but just that there have to be others with much closer political connections to call upon - if I were not a political nerd I'd have never really heard of him.
I think several here have benefitted from Buildhub advice (I am a moderator there) at various times.
It is a volunteer run, community owned (Company Limited by Guarantee), self-build and renovation forum now with 23k members, which does not do adverts or sponsorships.
There is a donations drive currently, to top up an income received from tool loans (we have a library of things like anemometers that are posted around the country) and Octopus referrals. This is the first one for 3 years.
If you have benefitted (and it taught me much of what I know), then please consider a donation.
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
Not necessarily. That builds in an assumption that there is a subjective explanation for ethical principle. Whereas it is overwhelmingly implausible that, for example, 'torturing children for fun' is only wrong because because by chance it happens to have some survival value, and if it didn't it wouldn't be wrong at all.
Why is it overwhelmingly implausible? It feels as if it should be but that's because of the intense emotional response we have.
You may have read the book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. Very interesting book.
Haidt explores the evolutionary origins of what he calls "moral receptors" . He argues that human morality evolved, not just through reasoning, but as a set of innate psychological systems—similar to taste buds—that allowed our ancestors to form cohesive communities and survive.
He suggests that we are born with a set of several evolved instincts like Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation. He argues that moral judgements are primarily driven by quick, automatic intuitions (the "Elephant") rather than slow, strategic reasoning (the "Rider"). We are repulsed by the idea of torturing children because the provide care/ prevent harm instinct is so strong.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
My christian heritage is very different to yours and Jesus would not agree that the wealth of the church should be not used to maintain its estate
As for the rest of your post it is hysterical nonsense
If you aren't willing to fight for our Christian heritage as Kemi and Jenrick are then really you are on the wrong side of the culture wars to the vast majority of conservatives
Britain IS a Christian country in very significant ways. The English were converted in 600AD (some of the Celts and Romano Brits were Christian 300 years earlier). This has shaped us ever since - from our laws to our language. The monarch is still the head of our Established faith. We have an incredible inheritance - almost peerless - of magnificent Christian architecture, churches chapels and cathedrals
We also have much great Christian art and wonderfully British Christian music. The Anglican choral legacy is exceptional
It is not xenophobic to be proud of this, and a true conservative should seek to defend it and preserve it. Denying our Christian identity is a denial of our true identity
God Save the King
Lots of folk express their pride in it. Hardly anyone is willing to invest time and/or money in keeping it alive. Things are now much more precarious than they were just ten years ago. It won't just keep muddling on. Reality is about to bit and bite hard.
3 million still attend churches each week in the UK, more at Christmas and Easter and for the right preserving our Christian heritage is now effectively the key cause in the culture wars
I think you are being naive. The purpose of the culture wars is not to preserve our Christian heritage. It’s to promote right-wing politicians and to grift money from the enraged. The culture wars put Trump into office, a man who has done basically nothing for Christianity, whatever his claims, and whose behaviour is consistently un-Christ-like.
He got abortion bans in some states, he set up a Task Force to fight anti Christian bias and set up the Religious Liberty Commission, and protected the right to prayer in schools, for the conservative right he has done things
He has done things for the conservative right, but the conservative right are not the same as Christians. Abortion is not a problem for many Christians. The things you list are fronts in the culture war: they’re not actually delivering for Christians in general, and they’re not delivering Christian values.
Trump has just proposed a budget cutting help for the poor and needy, while massively increasing spending on the Department of War. That is not Christian values. This is what the Bible says, this is at the core of Christian values:
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Trump could not be working harder to do the opposite of that.
Very much agree with this and as a confirmed Christian who with my wife have a quiet faith
The problem with these right wingers is they do not ask what Jesus would do ?
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
Why is that trouble for the left? (Also, the left are still not some homogeneous whole.)
I may be wrong but I'd suggest relatively few would want to acknowledge it. And if you are no longer a believing Christian why stick to the ethics?
You have rather odd views of people on the left, if I might say so. Plenty who know their history would entirely acknowledge the central role of Christian belief.
If you think your ethics are correct, you stick to them. You can think your ethics are correct and be an atheist and acknowledge a history of ethical thought that was frequently related to religion. It’s like how chemistry has its roots in alchemy. You can be a chemist and reject alchemy, while still acknowledging the history.
I'm sure chemists still have their moments where they wish to find a way to turn lead into gold though (which doesn't require a nuclear reactor).
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
My christian heritage is very different to yours and Jesus would not agree that the wealth of the church should be not used to maintain its estate
As for the rest of your post it is hysterical nonsense
If you aren't willing to fight for our Christian heritage as Kemi and Jenrick are then really you are on the wrong side of the culture wars to the vast majority of conservatives
Britain IS a Christian country in very significant ways. The English were converted in 600AD (some of the Celts and Romano Brits were Christian 300 years earlier). This has shaped us ever since - from our laws to our language. The monarch is still the head of our Established faith. We have an incredible inheritance - almost peerless - of magnificent Christian architecture, churches chapels and cathedrals
We also have much great Christian art and wonderfully British Christian music. The Anglican choral legacy is exceptional
It is not xenophobic to be proud of this, and a true conservative should seek to defend it and preserve it. Denying our Christian identity is a denial of our true identity
God Save the King
Lots of folk express their pride in it. Hardly anyone is willing to invest time and/or money in keeping it alive. Things are now much more precarious than they were just ten years ago. It won't just keep muddling on. Reality is about to bit and bite hard.
3 million still attend churches each week in the UK, more at Christmas and Easter and for the right preserving our Christian heritage is now effectively the key cause in the culture wars
I think you are being naive. The purpose of the culture wars is not to preserve our Christian heritage. It’s to promote right-wing politicians and to grift money from the enraged. The culture wars put Trump into office, a man who has done basically nothing for Christianity, whatever his claims, and whose behaviour is consistently un-Christ-like.
He got abortion bans in some states, he set up a Task Force to fight anti Christian bias and set up the Religious Liberty Commission, and protected the right to prayer in schools, for the conservative right he has done things
He has done things for the conservative right, but the conservative right are not the same as Christians. Abortion is not a problem for many Christians. The things you list are fronts in the culture war: they’re not actually delivering for Christians in general, and they’re not delivering Christian values.
Trump has just proposed a budget cutting help for the poor and needy, while massively increasing spending on the Department of War. That is not Christian values. This is what the Bible says, this is at the core of Christian values:
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Trump could not be working harder to do the opposite of that.
An oldie but a goodie
Moore told NPR in an interview released Tuesday that multiple pastors had told him they would quote the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part that says to “turn the other cheek,” when preaching. Someone would come up after the service and ask, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?”
“What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,’” Moore said. “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.” https://newrepublic.com/post/174950/christianity-today-editor-evangelicals-call-jesus-liberal-weak
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
This is part of the overargument of the rooted in Christianity premise. It'd be one thing to argue the historic and continued influences of it on the West in particular, and even beyond because of the spread of Western culture, but a) contrary examples in Christian societies are usually waved away as 'you only thing it wrong because of Christianity, therefore Christians doing the bad thing just proves the point even more' (even Dominion did a similar thing, albeit not from a proselytising position), which is incredibly convenient, and b) they often don't address any non-Christian examples of similar moralities at all - when a comparison to say why some of those things are particularly rooted in Christianity might be quite compelling and possibly even have some basis, but would be a more complex and muddy position to try to take.
One can certainly see these things in other religious belief systems and in non-religious philosophies. They are not unique to Christianity.
However, I do think that the adoption of Christianity marks a change in moral attitudes, in the territories of the Roman Empire. The kind of moral outlook which is expressed in the Iliad and Odyssey, or in the writings of Caesar, is utterly alien to us, now.
It's also a liberal fallacy that all religions are the same, and said more in hope than judgement.
Religions are not the same and some have more positive messages than others, just as not all cultures are the same and some have much more negative aspects than others.
The latter sometimes seems to be seen as controversial because it can be used as a disguise by racists, but it is surely still true - just by comparing our own culture which had been accepting of slavery as being inferior to our modern culture not being accepting of it.
The mistake is to see religions (or cultures) as being homogenous. The study of religion starts with the recognition that religions are always very diverse things. Their adherents do not behave the same or believe the same things.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
My christian heritage is very different to yours and Jesus would not agree that the wealth of the church should be not used to maintain its estate
As for the rest of your post it is hysterical nonsense
If you aren't willing to fight for our Christian heritage as Kemi and Jenrick are then really you are on the wrong side of the culture wars to the vast majority of conservatives
Britain IS a Christian country in very significant ways. The English were converted in 600AD (some of the Celts and Romano Brits were Christian 300 years earlier). This has shaped us ever since - from our laws to our language. The monarch is still the head of our Established faith. We have an incredible inheritance - almost peerless - of magnificent Christian architecture, churches chapels and cathedrals
We also have much great Christian art and wonderfully British Christian music. The Anglican choral legacy is exceptional
It is not xenophobic to be proud of this, and a true conservative should seek to defend it and preserve it. Denying our Christian identity is a denial of our true identity
God Save the King
Lots of folk express their pride in it. Hardly anyone is willing to invest time and/or money in keeping it alive. Things are now much more precarious than they were just ten years ago. It won't just keep muddling on. Reality is about to bit and bite hard.
3 million still attend churches each week in the UK, more at Christmas and Easter and for the right preserving our Christian heritage is now effectively the key cause in the culture wars
I think you are being naive. The purpose of the culture wars is not to preserve our Christian heritage. It’s to promote right-wing politicians and to grift money from the enraged. The culture wars put Trump into office, a man who has done basically nothing for Christianity, whatever his claims, and whose behaviour is consistently un-Christ-like.
He got abortion bans in some states, he set up a Task Force to fight anti Christian bias and set up the Religious Liberty Commission, and protected the right to prayer in schools, for the conservative right he has done things
He has done things for the conservative right, but the conservative right are not the same as Christians. Abortion is not a problem for many Christians. The things you list are fronts in the culture war: they’re not actually delivering for Christians in general, and they’re not delivering Christian values.
Trump has just proposed a budget cutting help for the poor and needy, while massively increasing spending on the Department of War. That is not Christian values. This is what the Bible says, this is at the core of Christian values:
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Trump could not be working harder to do the opposite of that.
The problem with these right wingers is they do not ask what Jesus would do ?
Buy a jet?
A US televangelist has asked his followers to help fund his fourth private jet - because Jesus "wouldn't be riding a donkey".
Jesse Duplantis said God had told him to buy a Falcon 7X for $54m (£41m).
He added he was hesitant about the purchase at first, but said God had told him: "I didn't ask you to pay for it. I asked you to believe for it."
Although preachers owning private jets is not unusual, this particular appeal has caused controversy.
Egyptian President El-Sisi: We appeal to the United States and the international community to save us from the unrestrained Ethiopian administration, which has caused harm to Egypt’s water security.
Heseltine: "[Farage] is Donald Trump’s vicar in Britain."
Times
Hezza's 93 years old.
Dunno why, but I'm always encouraged when these big figures from the past muscle back into the conversation. The older the better.
And Heseltine was unimaginably superior to the political leaders we have to suffer now.
It's remarkable how much airtime Heseltine gets.
I can't say I'm a fan. Whatever his strengths I've always found him very pompous.
Considering his age and how long ago he was in government, it does seem odd that he is still gets so many calls to comment on politics of the day. Not that people lose value because they are over 90 or anything, but just that there have to be others with much closer political connections to call upon - if I were not a political nerd I'd have never really heard of him.
People will call him because he will give them what they want - a newsworthy quote.
Major doesn't get called so often because he's chosen to be more circumspect.
I am a staunch atheist but it does seem strange to me that the head of the Church of England should be happy to release messages for Eid and Ramadan but not for Easter.
Counterintuitively it's mainly non Christians, and I regret to say those interested in creating division and trouble, who are exercised by the lack of an Easter message from the King.
He released a bland message about Ramadan on his Instagram channel, which is surely appropriate for a major religion amongst his subjects. He talks quite a lot about his Christian faith on social media and there were several posts about the traditional royal activities for Maundy Thursday. He gives an address to the nation at Christmas.
I suspect his Christian faith is the main reason for him not traditionally giving an Easter message. Easter is the most solemn festival in the Christian calender, so he should let it speak for itself.
He has given one every year since he became king
I don't think so. He's issued Maundy Thursday messages each year including this year. I just checked. Last year's "Easter" message was issued on Maundy Thursday.
Do you have a link for this year's Maundy Thursday message?
I suppose not a message as such, but various social media posts including one on their Instagram account "recognising outstanding Christian service in North Wales at this year's Maundy service" with various photos.
Let’s be hopeful and presume even Trump isn’t mad enough to drop nukes on Qom. What then is he threatening to do to Iran with his “overwhelming force”. How is he going to take them “back to the Stone Age” and “rain terror”?
He’s got about 10,000 marines there hasn’t he? What can they do? Seize Kharg island maybe? Then what?
This is hardly going to terrify the Iranians back to the Neolithic. So what is he up to?
I'm off this now. I find detailed military stuff an eyeglazer. But just one interjection, I'm not keen on your "mad" here. It would be an act of unmitigated evil. The madness of it is relevant but secondary. So, revised framing, let's presume Donald Trump isn't EVIL enough to nuke Iran. Then, yes fine, as we were, how is he going to etc etc ... ??
I’ve just spent 50 minutes reading military experts on X so you don’t have to. They all believe Trump is going to do “something big” - he’s gone too far to chicken out this time. And he’s put his pieces in place
The two good but unlikely options are
1. They’re wrong. He’s bluffing again 2. Iran blinks and surrenders
More likely are these options
3. A ground assault that goes surprisingly well, America seizes key sites with minor losses and Iran surrenders 4. A ground assault that goes predictably badly, America is sucked into a new Vietnam/iraq and the world spirals into a terrifying energy shortage, and much else
And finally
5. Nukes
The obvious thing would be to embargo Iranian exports through Hormuz. Is he co-ordinating with the other Persian Gulf countries? One senses that he prefers dropping bombs to make a point.
The order of ease would be:
1) Stop Iran's oil exports 2) Open Hormuz to allow Arab oil exports ... big gap ... 3) Invade Iran
Inevitably Leon turns the volume up to 11 and thinks the hardest option is the only one available.
lol
How are you going to do 1 and 2? It’s not exactly easy. America and Israel have been trying their best for weeks with all their energy
No they haven't. Trump hasn't wanted to block Iranian oil because the global price would go even higher. Now some argue that if he did an embargo Iran might go full scorched earth (e.g attacking desalination plants) and take everyone else down with them. So it's an option with possible upsides and downsides. But they definitely haven't tried it.
That’s what I mean. I wasn’t clear - my bad
Just “stopping irans exports” has all kinds of unpleasant second order effects. Like another surge in oil prices and, as you say, guaranteed backlash from Iran taking out more oil infra elsewhere in the region
Opening the straits is very very difficult as it takes just a few missiles and drones to freak out insurers and then the tankers are stuck
Fact is there there are no easy options in Iran for America let alone any good options. Only degrees of bad
My guess is Donald will try this: not nukes, not yet. But Trump will seize kharg island and try to seize the Iranian coast next to the straits. He will simultaneously attack Iranian power stations and water supply hoping to cripple the regime within. Basically what Putin did to Ukraine
And it will probably fail and it will lead to horrible consequences worldwide. But at least it’s not nukes
He should just stop in the same spirit he started - with no thought for the consequences. That's the best bad option. And the easiest.
Well yeah. TACO
Let’s hope he goes for it. Trouble is I don’t think his ego can stand it, this time
Incidentally, and I don’t want to get your hopes up, there are truly wild rumours that he’s very sick in hospital and possibly dying. I think it’s probably bullshit and he’s gone silent BECAUSE there is an impending attack
More likely he's just having another round of treatment for his dementia.
I mean, he wouldn't be silent just because he was planning to blow up the world, would he?
Someone told me the other day that it’s tertiary syphilis not dementia
I am a staunch atheist but it does seem strange to me that the head of the Church of England should be happy to release messages for Eid and Ramadan but not for Easter.
Counterintuitively it's mainly non Christians, and I regret to say those interested in creating division and trouble, who are exercised by the lack of an Easter message from the King.
He released a bland message about Ramadan on his Instagram channel, which is surely appropriate for a major religion amongst his subjects. He talks quite a lot about his Christian faith on social media and there were several posts about the traditional royal activities for Maundy Thursday. He gives an address to the nation at Christmas.
I suspect his Christian faith is the main reason for him not traditionally giving an Easter message. Easter is the most solemn festival in the Christian calender, so he should let it speak for itself.
He has given one every year since he became king
I don't think so. He's issued Maundy Thursday messages each year including this year. I just checked. Last year's "Easter" message was issued on Maundy Thursday.
Do you have a link for this year's Maundy Thursday message?
I suppose not a message as such, but various social media posts including one on their Instagram account "recognising outstanding Christian service in North Wales at this year's Maundy service" with various photos.
Not our King sprayed on St Asaph Cathedral walls and banners as well
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
Not necessarily. That builds in an assumption that there is a subjective explanation for ethical principle. Whereas it is overwhelmingly implausible that, for example, 'torturing children for fun' is only wrong because because by chance it happens to have some survival value, and if it didn't it wouldn't be wrong at all.
Why is it overwhelmingly implausible? It feels as if it should be but that's because of the intense emotional response we have.
You may have read the book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. Very interesting book.
Haidt explores the evolutionary origins of what he calls "moral receptors" . He argues that human morality evolved, not just through reasoning, but as a set of innate psychological systems—similar to taste buds—that allowed our ancestors to form cohesive communities and survive.
He suggests that we are born with a set of several evolved instincts like Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation. He argues that moral judgements are primarily driven by quick, automatic intuitions (the "Elephant") rather than slow, strategic reasoning (the "Rider"). We are repulsed by the idea of torturing children because the provide care/ prevent harm instinct is so strong.
That book has been recommended on PB before, and I really ought to read it, as it does sound interesting.
A few challenging thoughts arise. Why are there so many paedophiles if the provide care/prevent harm instinct is so strong? Also, why did this moral evolution accommodate slavery almost (maybe totally, I don't know) universally in all cultures?
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
Tax breaks and Lottery handouts for Mosques.
An interesting Reform policy.
Mainly for historic churches and cathedrals but Listed Mosques and Synagogues and Temples could also apply
It is (or was) the "Listed Places of Worship" scheme - so covers all places of worship.
The stats are that the Church of England has half of England's Grade 1 Listed buildings, so I think some specific support is justified. The setup they have in France, with ancient churches maintained by the Govt (aiui) is far more expensive.
I'd say restitution of the 5% VAT rate for all listed buildings, or Grade 1 listed buildings, would be a good compromise - and would also help with developers who burn them down.
The arguments about "but but but they are so rich" have been a red herring for a very long time, as the wealth was overwhelmingly dedicated to staff pensions, and each local church is a separate charity. The implication is that staff pension funds should be ransacked to maintain buildings, which is absurd on its face.
It's also infamously bad at looking after churches, although the burning down of Notre Dame by incompetent renovators was an extreme case. Neglect and decay is more usual.
Having been involved in this stuff, I don't agree wrt to the Church of England. "Collapsing Church of England" is one of about 6 or 7 standard press templates - along with "Rich Church wants your money", "Naughty Vicar has affair with parishioner", "Trendy Vicar upsets congregation", "Church is dying with it's congregation", and several others. They just don't want positive stories, and their dream is to kill institutions; that's just our media.
The system is well set up with required 5 yearly inspections by an architect, sinking funds, long-term schedules of work/repair, and so on. And for the complexity of the buildings, the maintenance is cost-effective and a huge amount is done by volunteers.
AFAIK money raised for routine maintenance and repair by congregations in the CofE is of the order of £150-200 million per annum.
BigG's buildings point is interesting - I think he is mistaken but I'll do a comment after supper.
I was talking about France!
One reason why the CofE does NOT want state funding for church fabric is precisely that reason - they think they look after it much better themselves.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
Tax breaks and Lottery handouts for Mosques.
An interesting Reform policy.
Mainly for historic churches and cathedrals but Listed Mosques and Synagogues and Temples could also apply
It is (or was) the "Listed Places of Worship" scheme - so covers all places of worship.
The stats are that the Church of England has half of England's Grade 1 Listed buildings, so I think some specific support is justified. The setup they have in France, with ancient churches maintained by the Govt (aiui) is far more expensive.
I'd say restitution of the 5% VAT rate for all listed buildings, or Grade 1 listed buildings, would be a good compromise - and would also help with developers who burn them down.
The arguments about "but but but they are so rich" have been a red herring for a very long time, as the wealth was overwhelmingly dedicated to staff pensions, and each local church is a separate charity. The implication is that staff pension funds should be ransacked to maintain buildings, which is absurd on its face.
It's also infamously bad at looking after churches, although the burning down of Notre Dame by incompetent renovators was an extreme case. Neglect and decay is more usual.
Having been involved in this stuff, I don't agree wrt to the Church of England. "Collapsing Church of England" is one of about 6 or 7 standard press templates - along with "Rich Church wants your money", "Naughty Vicar has affair with parishioner", "Trendy Vicar upsets congregation", "Church is dying with it's congregation", and several others. They just don't want positive stories, and their dream is to kill institutions; that's just our media.
The system is well set up with required 5 yearly inspections by an architect, sinking funds, long-term schedules of work/repair, and so on. And for the complexity of the buildings, the maintenance is cost-effective and a huge amount is done by volunteers.
AFAIK money raised for routine maintenance and repair by congregations in the CofE is of the order of £150-200 million per annum.
BigG's buildings point is interesting - I think he is mistaken but I'll do a comment after supper.
I was talking about France!
One reason why the CofE does NOT want state funding for church fabric is precisely that reason - they think they look after it much better themselves.
Let’s be hopeful and presume even Trump isn’t mad enough to drop nukes on Qom. What then is he threatening to do to Iran with his “overwhelming force”. How is he going to take them “back to the Stone Age” and “rain terror”?
He’s got about 10,000 marines there hasn’t he? What can they do? Seize Kharg island maybe? Then what?
This is hardly going to terrify the Iranians back to the Neolithic. So what is he up to?
I'm off this now. I find detailed military stuff an eyeglazer. But just one interjection, I'm not keen on your "mad" here. It would be an act of unmitigated evil. The madness of it is relevant but secondary. So, revised framing, let's presume Donald Trump isn't EVIL enough to nuke Iran. Then, yes fine, as we were, how is he going to etc etc ... ??
I’ve just spent 50 minutes reading military experts on X so you don’t have to. They all believe Trump is going to do “something big” - he’s gone too far to chicken out this time. And he’s put his pieces in place
The two good but unlikely options are
1. They’re wrong. He’s bluffing again 2. Iran blinks and surrenders
More likely are these options
3. A ground assault that goes surprisingly well, America seizes key sites with minor losses and Iran surrenders 4. A ground assault that goes predictably badly, America is sucked into a new Vietnam/iraq and the world spirals into a terrifying energy shortage, and much else
And finally
5. Nukes
The obvious thing would be to embargo Iranian exports through Hormuz. Is he co-ordinating with the other Persian Gulf countries? One senses that he prefers dropping bombs to make a point.
The order of ease would be:
1) Stop Iran's oil exports 2) Open Hormuz to allow Arab oil exports ... big gap ... 3) Invade Iran
Inevitably Leon turns the volume up to 11 and thinks the hardest option is the only one available.
lol
How are you going to do 1 and 2? It’s not exactly easy. America and Israel have been trying their best for weeks with all their energy
No they haven't. Trump hasn't wanted to block Iranian oil because the global price would go even higher. Now some argue that if he did an embargo Iran might go full scorched earth (e.g attacking desalination plants) and take everyone else down with them. So it's an option with possible upsides and downsides. But they definitely haven't tried it.
That’s what I mean. I wasn’t clear - my bad
Just “stopping irans exports” has all kinds of unpleasant second order effects. Like another surge in oil prices and, as you say, guaranteed backlash from Iran taking out more oil infra elsewhere in the region
Opening the straits is very very difficult as it takes just a few missiles and drones to freak out insurers and then the tankers are stuck
Fact is there there are no easy options in Iran for America let alone any good options. Only degrees of bad
My guess is Donald will try this: not nukes, not yet. But Trump will seize kharg island and try to seize the Iranian coast next to the straits. He will simultaneously attack Iranian power stations and water supply hoping to cripple the regime within. Basically what Putin did to Ukraine
And it will probably fail and it will lead to horrible consequences worldwide. But at least it’s not nukes
He should just stop in the same spirit he started - with no thought for the consequences. That's the best bad option. And the easiest.
Well yeah. TACO
Let’s hope he goes for it. Trouble is I don’t think his ego can stand it, this time
Incidentally, and I don’t want to get your hopes up, there are truly wild rumours that he’s very sick in hospital and possibly dying. I think it’s probably bullshit and he’s gone silent BECAUSE there is an impending attack
More likely he's just having another round of treatment for his dementia.
I mean, he wouldn't be silent just because he was planning to blow up the world, would he?
Someone told me the other day that it’s tertiary syphilis not dementia
Reform UK supports plummets in Scotland following chaotic start to Holyrood campaign, @NorstatUKPolls finds.
Constituency:
🟡 SNP 34 (-1 vs Feb) 🔴 Lab 19 (+2) ➡️ Ref 15 (-4) 🔵 Con 11 (+1) 🟠 LibDem 10 (+2) 🟢 Green 8 (=)
Saw my first political poster in the village today. It was for Reform, and surrounded by Union Jacks. It was at the house next to the polling station, so in an excellent position.
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
Not necessarily. That builds in an assumption that there is a subjective explanation for ethical principle. Whereas it is overwhelmingly implausible that, for example, 'torturing children for fun' is only wrong because because by chance it happens to have some survival value, and if it didn't it wouldn't be wrong at all.
Why is it overwhelmingly implausible? It feels as if it should be but that's because of the intense emotional response we have.
You may have read the book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. Very interesting book.
Haidt explores the evolutionary origins of what he calls "moral receptors" . He argues that human morality evolved, not just through reasoning, but as a set of innate psychological systems—similar to taste buds—that allowed our ancestors to form cohesive communities and survive.
He suggests that we are born with a set of several evolved instincts like Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation. He argues that moral judgements are primarily driven by quick, automatic intuitions (the "Elephant") rather than slow, strategic reasoning (the "Rider"). We are repulsed by the idea of torturing children because the provide care/ prevent harm instinct is so strong.
That book has been recommended on PB before, and I really ought to read it, as it does sound interesting.
A few challenging thoughts arise. Why are there so many paedophiles if the provide care/prevent harm instinct is so strong? Also, why did this moral evolution accommodate slavery almost (maybe totally, I don't know) universally in all cultures?
In answer to your first question, not everyone is the same. The idea that we have some evolved moral instincts does not imply that everyone is morally perfect. Our eyesight is evolved, but lots of people are shortsighted or longsighted or both, or have other visual impairments.
In answer to your second question, look at some of those other proposed instincts, like Authority/Subversion.
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
This is part of the overargument of the rooted in Christianity premise. It'd be one thing to argue the historic and continued influences of it on the West in particular, and even beyond because of the spread of Western culture, but a) contrary examples in Christian societies are usually waved away as 'you only thing it wrong because of Christianity, therefore Christians doing the bad thing just proves the point even more' (even Dominion did a similar thing, albeit not from a proselytising position), which is incredibly convenient, and b) they often don't address any non-Christian examples of similar moralities at all - when a comparison to say why some of those things are particularly rooted in Christianity might be quite compelling and possibly even have some basis, but would be a more complex and muddy position to try to take.
One can certainly see these things in other religious belief systems and in non-religious philosophies. They are not unique to Christianity.
However, I do think that the adoption of Christianity marks a change in moral attitudes, in the territories of the Roman Empire. The kind of moral outlook which is expressed in the Iliad and Odyssey, or in the writings of Caesar, is utterly alien to us, now.
I really like historical novels which make an effort to express different attitudes that might have existed. It's never going to be perfect - I would lack the knowledge to know what was really correct or not - but it helps sell that it is a different time and reality, so it doesn't seem like 20th century people in Ancient Rome or early medieval Denmark or whatever.
What it usually amounts to is a much more cavalier attitude towards killing and slavery, but the protagonists, for obvious reasons, will usually draw the line at being accepting of rape.
Or having the main character be some kind of outlier who has much more modern attitudes than usual for the time (since presumably some people will have felt differently about things, as we have outliers now).
It was really driven home to me, when I read a letter from a senator visiting Egypt to his pregnant wife, in Rome. If she gives birth to a boy, rejoice. If she gives birth to a girl, kill her.
This was a world where infanticide was normative, rape an entirely legitimate form of punishment, murder of close kin was unexceptional, genocide was unremarkable.
🚨BREAKING: Israel is preparing to strike Iranian energy facilities but is waiting for a green light from the U.S., a senior Israeli defense official said, adding it could come within the next week.
I have no doubt Israel could take out Tehran's power grid in one night of bombing. Repeat as necessary in a new city each night.
It is what Putin could dream of in Ukraine - if he'd had air supremacy.
But he didn't.
Unfortunately for its neighbours, Iran can easily destroy desalination plants as by their nature, they are on the coast. Without water, what do Dubai and Kuwait and Bahrain and Abu Dhabi look like?
This just gets worse and worse. We really are at the point where there needs to be a break with the US (and Israel). We should be making it clear that this war was not only illegal but a disastrous mistake and it should stop now. The absolute last thing we need is any further escalation.
I think that all the "middle rank" (in Carney's terms) countries should declare formal neutrality in Trump's War on Iran. That would wake him up, remind him that NATO and other countries are not his bitches to be shafted, and aiui give his forces and staff a formal 24 hours to exit or be interned for the duration (which would not be strictly enforced).
Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea have too much to lose. They will assume the same grovelling posture as the UK: suffer the indignities and adopt a hope based strategy that somehow normal service will be resumed in 2029.
I don't see it. Iran are running rings round the US and countries around the world with the dishonouable exception of the UK are queuing up behind them. Yvette Cooper was embarrassing
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
This is part of the overargument of the rooted in Christianity premise. It'd be one thing to argue the historic and continued influences of it on the West in particular, and even beyond because of the spread of Western culture, but a) contrary examples in Christian societies are usually waved away as 'you only thing it wrong because of Christianity, therefore Christians doing the bad thing just proves the point even more' (even Dominion did a similar thing, albeit not from a proselytising position), which is incredibly convenient, and b) they often don't address any non-Christian examples of similar moralities at all - when a comparison to say why some of those things are particularly rooted in Christianity might be quite compelling and possibly even have some basis, but would be a more complex and muddy position to try to take.
One can certainly see these things in other religious belief systems and in non-religious philosophies. They are not unique to Christianity.
However, I do think that the adoption of Christianity marks a change in moral attitudes, in the territories of the Roman Empire. The kind of moral outlook which is expressed in the Iliad and Odyssey, or in the writings of Caesar, is utterly alien to us, now.
I really like historical novels which make an effort to express different attitudes that might have existed. It's never going to be perfect - I would lack the knowledge to know what was really correct or not - but it helps sell that it is a different time and reality, so it doesn't seem like 20th century people in Ancient Rome or early medieval Denmark or whatever.
What it usually amounts to is a much more cavalier attitude towards killing and slavery, but the protagonists, for obvious reasons, will usually draw the line at being accepting of rape.
Or having the main character be some kind of outlier who has much more modern attitudes than usual for the time (since presumably some people will have felt differently about things, as we have outliers now).
It was really driven home to me, when I read a letter from a senator visiting Egypt to his pregnant wife, in Rome. If she gives birth to a boy, rejoice. If she gives birth to a girl, kill her.
This was a world where infanticide was normative, rape an entirely legitimate form of punishment, murder of close kin was unexceptional, genocide was unremarkable.
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
Not necessarily. That builds in an assumption that there is a subjective explanation for ethical principle. Whereas it is overwhelmingly implausible that, for example, 'torturing children for fun' is only wrong because because by chance it happens to have some survival value, and if it didn't it wouldn't be wrong at all.
Why is it overwhelmingly implausible? It feels as if it should be but that's because of the intense emotional response we have.
You may have read the book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. Very interesting book.
Haidt explores the evolutionary origins of what he calls "moral receptors" . He argues that human morality evolved, not just through reasoning, but as a set of innate psychological systems—similar to taste buds—that allowed our ancestors to form cohesive communities and survive.
He suggests that we are born with a set of several evolved instincts like Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation. He argues that moral judgements are primarily driven by quick, automatic intuitions (the "Elephant") rather than slow, strategic reasoning (the "Rider"). We are repulsed by the idea of torturing children because the provide care/ prevent harm instinct is so strong.
That book has been recommended on PB before, and I really ought to read it, as it does sound interesting.
A few challenging thoughts arise. Why are there so many paedophiles if the provide care/prevent harm instinct is so strong? Also, why did this moral evolution accommodate slavery almost (maybe totally, I don't know) universally in all cultures?
On the last part, my take is that we have a pretty strong ingroup/outgroup divide in our psychology: so we can behave "nicely" and cooperatively in ways that help people we see as in our group/tribe, but when we see somebody as "the other" that doesn't apply and instead we can behave in very different and worse ways. I haven't read the book (just added it to my list), but this quote from the introduction on the book's website seems similar in view: "Once you see our righteous minds as primate minds with a hivish overlay, you get a whole new perspective on morality, politics, and religion. I’ll show that our “higher nature” allows us to be profoundly altruistic, but that altruism is mostly aimed at members of our groups. "
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
My christian heritage is very different to yours and Jesus would not agree that the wealth of the church should be not used to maintain its estate
As for the rest of your post it is hysterical nonsense
If you aren't willing to fight for our Christian heritage as Kemi and Jenrick are then really you are on the wrong side of the culture wars to the vast majority of conservatives
Britain IS a Christian country in very significant ways. The English were converted in 600AD (some of the Celts and Romano Brits were Christian 300 years earlier). This has shaped us ever since - from our laws to our language. The monarch is still the head of our Established faith. We have an incredible inheritance - almost peerless - of magnificent Christian architecture, churches chapels and cathedrals
We also have much great Christian art and wonderfully British Christian music. The Anglican choral legacy is exceptional
It is not xenophobic to be proud of this, and a true conservative should seek to defend it and preserve it. Denying our Christian identity is a denial of our true identity
God Save the King
Lots of folk express their pride in it. Hardly anyone is willing to invest time and/or money in keeping it alive. Things are now much more precarious than they were just ten years ago. It won't just keep muddling on. Reality is about to bit and bite hard.
3 million still attend churches each week in the UK, more at Christmas and Easter and for the right preserving our Christian heritage is now effectively the key cause in the culture wars
I think you are being naive. The purpose of the culture wars is not to preserve our Christian heritage. It’s to promote right-wing politicians and to grift money from the enraged. The culture wars put Trump into office, a man who has done basically nothing for Christianity, whatever his claims, and whose behaviour is consistently un-Christ-like.
He got abortion bans in some states, he set up a Task Force to fight anti Christian bias and set up the Religious Liberty Commission, and protected the right to prayer in schools, for the conservative right he has done things
He has done things for the conservative right, but the conservative right are not the same as Christians. Abortion is not a problem for many Christians. The things you list are fronts in the culture war: they’re not actually delivering for Christians in general, and they’re not delivering Christian values.
Trump has just proposed a budget cutting help for the poor and needy, while massively increasing spending on the Department of War. That is not Christian values. This is what the Bible says, this is at the core of Christian values:
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Trump could not be working harder to do the opposite of that.
An oldie but a goodie
Moore told NPR in an interview released Tuesday that multiple pastors had told him they would quote the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part that says to “turn the other cheek,” when preaching. Someone would come up after the service and ask, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?”
“What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,’” Moore said. “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.” https://newrepublic.com/post/174950/christianity-today-editor-evangelicals-call-jesus-liberal-weak
'Either this is not the gospel, or we are not Christians.' A chap who first read the Bible quite late in life.
This seems to have proven to be completely idiotic. Because he said he was going to fuck up Iran and that is exactly what he is doing.
Not taking him literally is the excuse he and others trot out when something ridiculous has been said. At other times they would insist we take every word he says seriously.
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
"the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity"
Don't many religions have those same principles? It's almost like having those morals bestows some kind of survival advantage.
Not necessarily. That builds in an assumption that there is a subjective explanation for ethical principle. Whereas it is overwhelmingly implausible that, for example, 'torturing children for fun' is only wrong because because by chance it happens to have some survival value, and if it didn't it wouldn't be wrong at all.
Why is it overwhelmingly implausible? It feels as if it should be but that's because of the intense emotional response we have.
You may have read the book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. Very interesting book.
Haidt explores the evolutionary origins of what he calls "moral receptors" . He argues that human morality evolved, not just through reasoning, but as a set of innate psychological systems—similar to taste buds—that allowed our ancestors to form cohesive communities and survive.
He suggests that we are born with a set of several evolved instincts like Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation. He argues that moral judgements are primarily driven by quick, automatic intuitions (the "Elephant") rather than slow, strategic reasoning (the "Rider"). We are repulsed by the idea of torturing children because the provide care/ prevent harm instinct is so strong.
That book has been recommended on PB before, and I really ought to read it, as it does sound interesting.
A few challenging thoughts arise. Why are there so many paedophiles if the provide care/prevent harm instinct is so strong? Also, why did this moral evolution accommodate slavery almost (maybe totally, I don't know) universally in all cultures?
On the last part, my take is that we have a pretty strong ingroup/outgroup divide in our psychology: so we can behave "nicely" and cooperatively in ways that help people we see as in our group/tribe, but when we see somebody as "the other" that doesn't apply and instead we can behave in very different and worse ways. I haven't read the book (just added it to my list), but this quote from the introduction on the book's website seems similar in view: "Once you see our righteous minds as primate minds with a hivish overlay, you get a whole new perspective on morality, politics, and religion. I’ll show that our “higher nature” allows us to be profoundly altruistic, but that altruism is mostly aimed at members of our groups. "
That seems like a compelling initial explanation for the oft observed phenomenom of how the same person can engage in good and bad acts.
I believe that Preston North End got its name from a Christian denomination that was convinced Communion had to be celebrated with the minister standing at the North end of the altar. (I might have got it wrong, or it might have been just a story when I read it.)
I am a staunch atheist but it does seem strange to me that the head of the Church of England should be happy to release messages for Eid and Ramadan but not for Easter.
Counterintuitively it's mainly non Christians, and I regret to say those interested in creating division and trouble, who are exercised by the lack of an Easter message from the King.
He released a bland message about Ramadan on his Instagram channel, which is surely appropriate for a major religion amongst his subjects. He talks quite a lot about his Christian faith on social media and there were several posts about the traditional royal activities for Maundy Thursday. He gives an address to the nation at Christmas.
I suspect his Christian faith is the main reason for him not traditionally giving an Easter message. Easter is the most solemn festival in the Christian calender, so he should let it speak for itself.
He has given one every year since he became king
I don't think so. He's issued Maundy Thursday messages each year including this year. I just checked. Last year's "Easter" message was issued on Maundy Thursday.
Do you have a link for this year's Maundy Thursday message?
I suppose not a message as such, but various social media posts including one on their Instagram account "recognising outstanding Christian service in North Wales at this year's Maundy service" with various photos.
Not our King sprayed on St Asaph Cathedral walls and banners as well
I hope those who did it were arrested for criminal damage, appalling behaviour
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs
Yes but it is also NOT a heritage organisation like the National Trust. Christianity is a faith who's 'business' is saving souls and bringing them closer to Jesus. If they can't do that in their medieval churches then they should pack up and move on. Do you seriously think that Jesus would have cared where his message was preached? The state has an obligation to protect listed buildings but that doesn't extend to keeping their original owners in place. We don't insist that listed windmills have to actually produce bread and subsidise millers to work in them.
To an extent it is a heritage organisation, the Church of England is responsible for the upkeep of large numbers of historic cathedrals and churches, some dating back to medieval times. It is not just an evangelical church like say Pentecostals who will just preach the gospel on the street, set up a church in a modern hall or backroom.
What Jesus may have thought about preaching his message is only part of the C of E does, it also must preserve its historic churches and for worship, especially in rural areas.
There aren't many listed windmills relative to churches but those around sometimes still do produce bread
The trouble for the left is that whether they like to admit it or not, the basic morality of liberalism or fairness that they espouse is essentially rooted in Christianity. As for the right, they want to reclaim our Christian heritage but which bits exactly? I doubt it is medieval Catholicism or puritanism (Quakerism would be funny) so what exactly is it that they want to preserve beyond basic rituals and festivals? They don't seem to like contemporary Anglicanism much. The kind of wishy washy do goodery that I'm told goes down well on thought for the day?
As the Chief Constable of Manchester has said Jews in Britain live with a greater threat to their day to day safety than anyone else. Now our Christian heritage isn't exactly an unblemished record of kindness towards Jews is it? So what of our Christian heritage do we wish to keep?
Why is that trouble for the left? (Also, the left are still not some homogeneous whole.)
I may be wrong but I'd suggest relatively few would want to acknowledge it. And if you are no longer a believing Christian why stick to the ethics?
You have rather odd views of people on the left, if I might say so. Plenty who know their history would entirely acknowledge the central role of Christian belief.
If you think your ethics are correct, you stick to them. You can think your ethics are correct and be an atheist and acknowledge a history of ethical thought that was frequently related to religion. It’s like how chemistry has its roots in alchemy. You can be a chemist and reject alchemy, while still acknowledging the history.
My grandparents on my father's side were from a nonconformist Christian background and that was the basis of their leftwing views. While I don't find the description of God in the Bible very convincing (I see it as people in the past trying to make sense of the world lacking the scientific knowledge we have now) I do acknowledge that the teachings of Christ form the basis of the moral framework I inherited from my family and still subscribe to. I also view the CofE as broadly a "good thing", I am a big fan of our local vicar and attend services from time to time, partly because I like the songs and also because I know people in the congregation. I also donate to the upkeep of the church, because it plays a central role in the life of our community.
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
It is not 'far right nonsense' to preserve our ancient Christian churches, it is what conservatives should be doing!
Of course it is nonsense
The conservative party has to be a broad church not pandering to a pew. !!!
The COE has vast wealth and must not receive taxpayers subsidies
If you have no interest fighting to preserve our Christian heritage in the culture wars BigG then really you shouldn't be in the Conservative Party at all, indeed you shouldn't even be in the LDs given they also back restoring the VAT exemption for places of worship as do Reform.
You should probably just go off and join Starmer Labour or even the Greens!
My christian heritage is very different to yours and Jesus would not agree that the wealth of the church should be not used to maintain its estate
As for the rest of your post it is hysterical nonsense
If you aren't willing to fight for our Christian heritage as Kemi and Jenrick are then really you are on the wrong side of the culture wars to the vast majority of conservatives
Britain IS a Christian country in very significant ways. The English were converted in 600AD (some of the Celts and Romano Brits were Christian 300 years earlier). This has shaped us ever since - from our laws to our language. The monarch is still the head of our Established faith. We have an incredible inheritance - almost peerless - of magnificent Christian architecture, churches chapels and cathedrals
We also have much great Christian art and wonderfully British Christian music. The Anglican choral legacy is exceptional
It is not xenophobic to be proud of this, and a true conservative should seek to defend it and preserve it. Denying our Christian identity is a denial of our true identity
God Save the King
Lots of folk express their pride in it. Hardly anyone is willing to invest time and/or money in keeping it alive. Things are now much more precarious than they were just ten years ago. It won't just keep muddling on. Reality is about to bit and bite hard.
3 million still attend churches each week in the UK, more at Christmas and Easter and for the right preserving our Christian heritage is now effectively the key cause in the culture wars
As a low key Christian I agree it is very niche and speaks to a minority
Far more important issues
Pleased he is in his natural home of far right nonsense
Obviously you've not seen Kemi Badenoch's tweets this evening.
Britain is a Christian country.
The Conservative Party will always celebrate our Christian heritage with deeds, not just words.
This Easter, we want to ensure local churches are properly maintained and repaired so we’re announcing a plan to restore funding for the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme which the government has recently placed caps on.
Churches matter. They aren’t just important places of worship, in many towns and villages they are the centre of the community and the pride of local people, often steeped in hundreds of years of history. It is critical we maintain them properly, because when they’re gone, this history and heritage could be lost forever.
@Conservatives believe we have a responsibility to protect our churches and make sure they endure for future generations. What are we for if not to conserve the very best of our country and our society for those yet to come?
Conservatives will protect our heritage and build a stronger country.
No I hadnt and I do not agree the taxpayer should fund the wealthy COE estate
The Church of England does not unfortunately have the money to maintain all of England's parish churches. It can help cathedrals, but not others. I don't think it's altogether understood how many they are or how much money they cost to run. Tewkesbury Abbey, for example, calculates its costs to survive at £10 per minute. OK, that's an extreme case, but even for Linton Parish Church in Herefordshire it was £300 a week 15 years ago.
Let's say a reasonable average would be that a church costs £50,000 a year to keep open. It's probably on the low side, but let's see what that gets us.
There are 27,000 of them.
I make that £1.35 billion a year.
They would need a rather more than 10% return on their assets to stay afloat without drawing on capital to manage that. They're getting more like 3.5% and an income of £430 million. Not negligible, but not sufficient.
Or, to put it crudely, they would need to find just under £1 billion from capital every year to survive on their investments alone. So it would all be gone in around 10 years on current figures.
In Wales, they are squaring this circle by rapidly closing parish churches, especially in your diocese (which is in colossal financial doo-doo anyway). I would not like to think the same will be true in England, although it already is with the Nonconfromist chapels precisely because they don't have endowments, but if we want to save parish churches even just as architectural landmarks we will need to think about where the money comes from.
Is that an argument for or against VAT on church repairs? No. The argument against VAT is it's a stupid tax designed by stupid people and tinkered with usually for stupid reasons. Far better to get rid, or radically reform it so it's a much lower rate but on absolutely everything. But Hyufd isn't talking total nonsense on this.
The Church of England gets just over £1 billion in income a year once investments and share and rental income is added but that still only gets close to break even. As does the tourist income for cathedrals
If you cannot live within your means then you have to cut your cloth accordingly
Do what any business does and cut costs
The church is NOT a business you complete philistine, it is the cultural heritage of the nation!!
It has cut costs but it should certainly not have to do so more than required because the hopeless Reeves removed the VAT exemption on church repairs
I'm happy as an atheist to contribute to preserving the cultural heritage of the nation, including churches in some cases, but ultimately faiths have to stand on their own two feet and ensure their relevance to the people of the current day and age. Many churchgoers make efforts to do just that in some admirable community and other works, but there isn't an inevitability that every part of the vast heritage can be maintained without the active faith element being significant enough to do so.
45% of grade 1 listed buildings in England are churches and cathedrals and 75% of grade 1 listed churches are in rural areas, they are the nation's heritage, even for non believers
I outright said I'm happy as a non-believer to support them as part of the cultural heritage of the nation. Indeed, I welcomed that many believers are trying their best to remain and even increase the relevance of their faith to the wider nation.
The point was that people in general will only support something so much, and if the base level of true believers is reduced the rest are at some point not going to be willing to step in to fill the gap from reduced numbers of true believers forever.
Spouting off platitudes about cultural heritage will lose in the face cold reality about money and other priorities at some point, and that can be tackled through difficult conversations about priorities, hard work to demonstrate the continued relevance of such historic structures to the modern culture, or whinging about how everyone else needs to step up and tough if they don't like it.
I'm on the side of the hard work crowd.
No you are weak and appeasing to the atheist left and all we are talking about anyway is restoration of the VAT exemption
🚨BREAKING: Israel is preparing to strike Iranian energy facilities but is waiting for a green light from the U.S., a senior Israeli defense official said, adding it could come within the next week.
I have no doubt Israel could take out Tehran's power grid in one night of bombing. Repeat as necessary in a new city each night.
It is what Putin could dream of in Ukraine - if he'd had air supremacy.
But he didn't.
Unfortunately for its neighbours, Iran can easily destroy desalination plants as by their nature, they are on the coast. Without water, what do Dubai and Kuwait and Bahrain and Abu Dhabi look like?
This just gets worse and worse. We really are at the point where there needs to be a break with the US (and Israel). We should be making it clear that this war was not only illegal but a disastrous mistake and it should stop now. The absolute last thing we need is any further escalation.
I think that all the "middle rank" (in Carney's terms) countries should declare formal neutrality in Trump's War on Iran. That would wake him up, remind him that NATO and other countries are not his bitches to be shafted, and aiui give his forces and staff a formal 24 hours to exit or be interned for the duration (which would not be strictly enforced).
Canada, Australia, Japan and South Korea have too much to lose. They will assume the same grovelling posture as the UK: suffer the indignities and adopt a hope based strategy that somehow normal service will be resumed in 2029.
Alternatively, they're in the same boat as us, unable to rely on the US as an ally if push comes to shove, and suffering major economic damage which threatens to be disastrous if this folly carries on much longer.
How much they have to lose is a very different calculus compared to even a month ago.
Nuclear ought to be a near zero chance but with an evil befuddled losing maniac in charge it's a touch higher. To put it at its absolute mildest, let us hope not.
"Near zero? Zero would be nice!"
Yes. But it can't be absolute zero if there's war involving people who have WMDs.
Hence why CND have it right.
CND supported *unilateral* disarmament because they thought it would be a lead the Russians would follow.
Yeh right.
In no way did CND have it right
CNDs in each nuclear country have it right. Including ours.
Comments
Times
Ancient medieval churches, often grade 1 listed, in rural areas and small market towns are another matter
However, I do think that the adoption of Christianity marks a change in moral attitudes, in the territories of the Roman Empire. The kind of moral outlook which is expressed in the Iliad and Odyssey, or in the writings of Caesar, is utterly alien to us, now.
What did you think?
Now, a popular take now might be to say finding the ethics appealing is itself rooted in the Christian underpinnings of the culture, but believing in the moral position without accepting the religious dogma behind them seems perfectly logical to me. Like to take it down to the most basic of all positions, you don't need to believe Moses was a prophet to agree thou shalt not kill.
It seems a classic case of when theists and atheists (and waverers in the middle) fundamentally talk past oen another.
I'm in the "the church is very rich and quite mean" camp.
Yeh right.
In no way did CND have it right
So he's a bit more cynical about how much he supports Trump.
Dunno why, but I'm always encouraged when these big figures from the past muscle back into the conversation. The older the better.
And Heseltine was unimaginably superior to the political leaders we have to suffer now.
The Church of England was becoming increasing southern and rural and non-conformists were moving in their droves into industrial cities and the North, so mass church building in these new areas was the response to preserve the national church.
If you think your ethics are correct, you stick to them. You can think your ethics are correct and be an atheist and acknowledge a history of ethical thought that was frequently related to religion. It’s like how chemistry has its roots in alchemy. You can be a chemist and reject alchemy, while still acknowledging the history.
The point was that people in general will only support something so much, and if the base level of true believers is reduced the rest are at some point not going to be willing to step in to fill the gap from reduced numbers of true believers forever.
Spouting off platitudes about cultural heritage will lose in the face cold reality about money and other priorities at some point, and that can be tackled through difficult conversations about priorities, hard work to demonstrate the continued relevance of such historic structures to the modern culture, or whinging about how everyone else needs to step up and tough if they don't like it.
I'm on the side of the hard work crowd.
Typical Sundays attendence in 2024 was 582,000
Regular worshippers were just over 1 million
https://www.churchofengland.org/media/press-releases/church-england-attendance-rises-fourth-year
I can't say I'm a fan. Whatever his strengths I've always found him very pompous.
What it usually amounts to is a much more cavalier attitude towards killing and slavery, but the protagonists, for obvious reasons, will usually draw the line at being accepting of rape.
Or having the main character be some kind of outlier who has much more modern attitudes than usual for the time (since presumably some people will have felt differently about things, as we have outliers now).
He was supposed to be giving a lecture on the governments plans for the environment - to which she turned up - but he decided to drivel on about Europe for the whole evening instead, which was pretty insulting to everyone there.
Whether this was so something could be planted in the press ('said yesterday') or he had nothing else to say, I don't know.
[1990s, I might add]
The latter sometimes seems to be seen as controversial because it can be used as a disguise by racists, but it is surely still true - just by comparing our own culture which had been accepting of slavery as being inferior to our modern culture not being accepting of it.
Trump has just proposed a budget cutting help for the poor and needy, while massively increasing spending on the Department of War. That is not Christian values. This is what the Bible says, this is at the core of Christian values:
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Trump could not be working harder to do the opposite of that.
------------------------
I think several here have benefitted from Buildhub advice (I am a moderator there) at various times.
It is a volunteer run, community owned (Company Limited by Guarantee), self-build and renovation forum now with 23k members, which does not do adverts or sponsorships.
There is a donations drive currently, to top up an income received from tool loans (we have a library of things like anemometers that are posted around the country) and Octopus referrals. This is the first one for 3 years.
If you have benefitted (and it taught me much of what I know), then please consider a donation.
Link with details: https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/46969-funding-the-forum-appeal-to-members-2026
(I'll post this again tomorrow, and on Monday, only. I hope I can get away with that.)
You may have read the book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt. Very interesting book.
Haidt explores the evolutionary origins of what he calls "moral receptors" . He argues that human morality evolved, not just through reasoning, but as a set of innate psychological systems—similar to taste buds—that allowed our ancestors to form cohesive communities and survive.
He suggests that we are born with a set of several evolved instincts like Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation.
He argues that moral judgements are primarily driven by quick, automatic intuitions (the "Elephant") rather than slow, strategic reasoning (the "Rider").
We are repulsed by the idea of torturing children because the provide care/ prevent harm instinct is so strong.
The problem with these right wingers is they do not ask what Jesus would do ?
Moore told NPR in an interview released Tuesday that multiple pastors had told him they would quote the Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part that says to “turn the other cheek,” when preaching. Someone would come up after the service and ask, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?”
“What was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, ‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak,’” Moore said. “When we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.”
https://newrepublic.com/post/174950/christianity-today-editor-evangelicals-call-jesus-liberal-weak
(And I am entirely contradicting myself here.)
A US televangelist has asked his followers to help fund his fourth private jet - because Jesus "wouldn't be riding a donkey".
Jesse Duplantis said God had told him to buy a Falcon 7X for $54m (£41m).
He added he was hesitant about the purchase at first, but said God had told him: "I didn't ask you to pay for it. I asked you to believe for it."
Although preachers owning private jets is not unusual, this particular appeal has caused controversy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44305873
2 - 1 with 5 minutes left
Major doesn't get called so often because he's chosen to be more circumspect.
A few challenging thoughts arise. Why are there so many paedophiles if the provide care/prevent harm instinct is so strong? Also, why did this moral evolution accommodate slavery almost (maybe totally, I don't know) universally in all cultures?
One reason why the CofE does NOT want state funding for church fabric is precisely that reason - they think they look after it much better themselves.
Constituency:
🟡 SNP 34 (-1 vs Feb)
🔴 Lab 19 (+2)
➡️ Ref 15 (-4)
🔵 Con 11 (+1)
🟠 LibDem 10 (+2)
🟢 Green 8 (=)
But .... oh dear, how sad, never mind.
Still think we end up with a straight Tory and Labour contest by the end of the parliament.
How DARE you !
In answer to your second question, look at some of those other proposed instincts, like Authority/Subversion.
Founded by the parish church of Southampton St Mary in 1885!
The Church of England gets everywhere:
https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/st-marys-fc
This was a world where infanticide was normative, rape an entirely legitimate form of punishment, murder of close kin was unexceptional, genocide was unremarkable.
This seems to have proven to be completely idiotic. Because he said he was going to fuck up Iran and that is exactly what he is doing.
NEW THREAD
What Jesus may have thought about preaching his message is only part of the C of E does, it also must preserve its historic churches and for worship, especially in rural areas.
There aren't many listed windmills relative to churches but those around sometimes still do produce bread
https://www.heckingtonwindmill.org.uk/#:~:text=OUR FLOUR,oats make perfect porridge & flapjacks
https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html#:~:text=Church Attendance in Britain,the equivalent figure is 8.9%
How much they have to lose is a very different calculus compared to even a month ago.