I would like to think there is a straight forward explanation for the alienation of some of our young people whose family origins are from other countries/cultures but I’m not too sure. Saying multiculturalism has failed raises more question then it answers. I have never been too sure what multiculturalism is. Does it mean allowing people to keep close to their cultural origins? Does it imply separate development? And what is the alternative? Is it assimilation to the extent that the newcomers give up their other cultural attachments?
I understand the USA does assimilation but they have their share of home born terrorists too. They also have clear separate identities. It is a good few years since I was last in Los Angeles but I distinctly remember being taken to the Japanese quarter; the Latin Quarter and so on. I remember thinking at the time that my street in London was very mixed and very neighbourly compared to the separation I saw there. Most of the people I knew in my area regarded themselves as British.
I also wonder how much racism aggravates the problem. Many Commonwealth immigrants came with a strong belief in British values and the British way of life. That was particularly true of the Afro Caribbean immigrants of the 1950’s. The children of these groups were between two cultures. They also had to deal with racist attitudes as children. They became more alienated – remember the concern about young black delinquents in the 1970’s/80s? I remember one young black teenager when I was a probation officer in the early 1970’s who was convicted of carrying an offensive weapon – a steel comb. He was stopped and searched and when asked why he had it replied it was to defend himself. He was used to being threatened. His parents could not understand why he felt so alienated. One of the many reasons I set up the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal was to create a permanent reminder to people from all backgrounds of Britain’s incredible mixed heritage – it has long and deep roots.
We do have to confront groups that are soft on violence and terrorism – I am 100% in favour of that. Choosing to opt for assimilation as opposed to multiculturism however might be far more difficult than the Prime Minister thinks – and the roots of alienation by a small minority might have other causes.
So what are your views?
It’s not racism, its economics.
We have Trevor Phillips on the TV claiming it was racism when an immigrant didn’t have a job.
Question. Why was the immigrant allowed in if they didn’t have a job?
Why are they allowed here when they don’t earn more than 40K (12K in taxes)
Why aren’t illegal immigrants expelled?
There are well over a million illegal Nigerians alone in the UK (FCO figures)
Why don’t we expel the bone-idle natives, that’s what I want to know. Just throw everybody out who doesn’t live up to my personal standards. Fortress Britain? Not enough. We need dungeon Britain. Trial by ordeal, and if you cannot take it it’s France for you!
Is there actually a difference between “multiculturalism” and “assimilation”?
Other than getting all shouty in an “it’s not racism because i’m just saying the non PC truth that everyone understands” sort of way towards 1st generation immigrants who might want to, oh, I don’t know, go to the same place of worship as people from their country of origin?
While I know you don’t respect me, and know further some posters here like to pigeonhole me along a rather unfair biased views they hold to people of my specific beliefs (Which they never ask what are, only assume) I will answer anyway.
I am not a fan of David “Call me Dave” Cameron. While I am rather evidently a Conservative, my Conservatism I of the Old Empire Days, when people had civility, manners, and a sense of Society that was much different form today’s. While I am not an old man, confounding others with why I would thus act like an Englishman of the 1940’s or before in many ways, I do think my perspective holds Relevance.
A large part of why Multiculturalism fails these days has to do with how we see it. In the past, people assimilated into British Culture Via the Imperial View of that Culture. There was an overarching British Identity, which united us to specific Values and beliefs, and to a central Cultural Tradition centred around Queen and God, which even Atheists used to love. (God to them being a Metaphor or a Personification of Nature and our Highest Ideals, as opposed to today’s stock like Dawkins who seem offended hat God should even be mentioned.)
This overarching Culture operated in much the same way the Empire itself did, by allowing Regional differences to exist so long as those central ideals were also still held to. Its rather like our Military Uniforms. Those in India looked at the same time Distinctly Indian, but R cognisably British. They blended the Indian heritage with the British Imperial Heritage and created a Synthesis that reflected who they were.
Even in the United Kingdom Herself, this was True.
We allowed then o blend ourselves together and allowed the Cultural Elements to merge in such a way that they remained present while still absorbed into the Greater British Identity. As with the Empire, which was several Nations under one Banner, so with the Mother Country, several Heritages under one prevailing Heritage.
While praise for the Empire is nowadays not Politically correct, it was still possessed of many fine and admirable Traits, and this was one of them. I don’t pretend the Imperial Age was perfect, but neither is our own, an many things we see today as improvements will tomorrow be seen as horrible mistakes. That is how History works. But that’s a side topic, needed here only briefly.
But the main point, I think, is that today’s world is not as Organic as the one of old. In the past, they had Natural Relationships and pretty well respected the differences. Today we have a sort of Tick Box Mentality that tries to Pigeonhole (to twice use the word) people.
Mr. Cameron also seems to take his Ques from the American Republican Party, which has a similar problem in trying to define what it is to be American in terms of its own Grand Stereotypes and peculiar Party vision of the Culture.
This is not to imply Racism, as I don’t think its really Race that matters, but rather its about how Mr. Cameron and many o the “New Conservatives” understand what it is to be British, which is filtered though a mainly Nationalistic standard that fixates on Cultural Norms and Standards and beliefs as defined by their interpretation of it. An interpretation, I may add, that’s thoroughly Modern.
Out of my many disagreements with the Left, though, this is not one of them. With the Left, and thus with you, Lord Soley, I agree that Multiculturalism is not really the problem, though I do think it can be taken too far. I just think that Minister Cameron is under the NeoCon spell of Nationalism and National Identity, which explains his stance on the matter. All one needs to do to understand this is to examine the TEA Party here in the States. Contrary to its critics, its not really Racist driven, but it is highly Nationalistic, and operates on a sort of Mythology of what the Nation is, that is really a modern creation.
While I am rather evidently a Conservative, my Conservatism I of the Old Empire Days, when people had civility, manners, and a sense of Society that was much different form today’s.
Also, women were disenfranchised and it was considered perfectly acceptable to send an army halfway round the world to nick stuff from people because their skin was darker. Frankly, I think it’s OK that we’ve sacrificed a class of people who know how to tie a cravat on a Tuesday in order to rid ourselves of that odious way of thinking.
We allowed then o blend ourselves together and allowed the Cultural Elements to merge in such a way that they remained present while still absorbed into the Greater British Identity.
Unless, and this is important, we killed them. Which we did. A lot.
While praise for the Empire is nowadays not Politically correct,
Praise for most Empires is frowned upon, on account of the way they kill a lot of people and cause excessive economic damage even after they’ve crumbled.
This is not to imply Racism, as I don’t think its really Race that matters,
Spoken like a true White Man.
One of the things about romanticising the past is that you end up confusing yourself. The British Empire did not crumble through losing the stiff upper lip. It crumbled because it is in the nature of empires to rapaciously overexpand and then collapse inwards through the gravitational pull of their own bloat. In the process they kill, maim, rape and pillage. Romanticising empire gets people to wax lyrical about how Forward Thinking Britain outlawed the slave trade in the early 1800s, while forgetting that it only needed to be outlawed because somewhere in the region of 3.5 Million Africans had been taken across the Atlantic on British ships in the preceding 200 years. It permits people to believe that we were basically a force for good who made some mistakes, rather than a bunch of greedy racists. It then permits us to think that there is something noble and special about our allegedly immutable British culture, and that while we may have exterminated the native Tasmanian people entirely from the face of the Earth, this was just a spot of overexuberance caused by trying to protect the noble ideals of Britain from any foreign interference.
There were definitely advantages to some degree to Empire. We benefited immensely from all the theft. But to define it as somehow a better time is entirely dependent on being white, and a particular class of white Englishman at that.
This is going to be a dicey one isn’t it.
Let’s look at the British abroad, they do exactly what we accuse others of doing in this country. They form enclaves with pubs and fish & chip shops, they stick together and do not appear to cross the divide into the culture of the country they live in to any extent. There are of course exceptions but they are just that and not the rule. Tribes stick together and that is for a good reasons, for protection.
The reason Britain was so ideal for multiculturalism was it’s concept of being fair and just. This only works when there is one set of law and regulations for everyone once we start making exceptions it causes problems.
If we go back to the 50’s and 60’s we can see that now we have differences in our approach. Lord Soley points to the Afro Caribbean immigrants of that time but there was one slightly earlier that also goes back centuries, Jews. Judaism has always undergone discrimination and racism, it still is to an extent. The point was in the 50-60’s no special rules or laws were bought in to make these people different. To a great extent these immigrants fitted in with our existing society although forming enclaves. Asians later did the same, there were problems with racism but in general we managed to keep to the same law for all.
The expected melting pot was never going to happen to any large extent and cultural/tribal differences would always stand to cause problems.
Problems appeared to erupt when the law/rules started appearing to favour minorities.Immigrants getting Council houses before our children,more money from benefits to them because of what is percieved their greater problems, laws being changed to allow religious killing of animals on streets and other differences. This makes the cultural divide worse, the perception that Government is holding one higher than the other. This leads to fear of something alien taking over the nation and racism.
Islam has possibly existed in the UK for similar amounts of time as Judaism, centuries but has not come to the attention as it has now. This is mainly due to fear, fear our society will be changed into something we don’t want.
The last Government, Labour, in fear created all types of terrorism laws. Laws that meant we became a big brother society under surveilance at all times. Yet no such laws existed when the larger threat of the IRA were causing death and destruction, no one invaded the USA because they were supporting terrorism in that form.
One law for one people is what a Nation needs and if in that Nation the people have worn crosses for centuries don’t make them remove them say to the other cultures you can wear your Star of David, Burka or whatever.
Religion not culture will eventually cause problems in our mostly secular society and it will do so because most are unfair, unjust and prejudicial. Islam is what we are really talking of here and Islam is not really a culture but a religion, there are black, brown, white and yellow Muslims as there are Christians.
To a large extent I go along with Carl.H. However, he simplifies the entire immigrant manifestation to nothing more than a difference in religion, which has lead to unfairness and, frankly, stupidity of ‘governments’ plural. Who having brought in laws of discrimination toward the indigenous population, because they cannot cope with the influx they have encouraged, so take on a knee jerk reaction. How did they not observe and witness the ‘real’ situation in the most obvious of all melting pots, the great US of A. Were they all blind to the obvious taking place there?
I have to applaud ‘Dave’ for daring to open up this debate. It is about time and its also about time the real contention here is addressed. And Racism is a word used to silence differing views not approved of by those who fear the outcome of ‘real discussion.’
Racism has very little to do with the reality of mankind rejecting massive influx of differing peoples from throughout the world. (Did they embrace the ‘white mischief’ in India or did Gandhi rid his country of them?) The most driving force behind rejection is the loss of ‘standards and quality of living’ as well as the massive introduction of different lifestyles not able to be absorbed into the existing peoples form of reference. Colour of skin or their race is irrelevant, in the main. Although White, black Asian, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Somali, and on and on, peoples are all in the same degree happier and more comfortable with their own tribes. Hence the desire and ‘deliberate need’ to form their own communities. It’s where we belong that we feel safe with.
Differing expectations and what is acceptable to one and not to another is the basis of this discontent.
And I don’t believe governments are unaware of this factor. They are men and women who live in this country. If they are not au fait with our lifestyle and culture, the very best solution to that is to send them to live on a Hackney, Brent, Haringey, Peckham, Birmingham, Leicester, Dudley, housing estate and see just how it feels for the home grown disaffected white man to cope with a change in cultures he was unaware existed prior to the late eighties and nineties. When, not only was their way of life changed beyond recognition but they were abused by the State if they dared to voice their discomfort and utter fear of what they were having to raise their families in.
The pretence by successive governments that what was taking place was an ‘illusion’ or as a result of ‘white prejudice’ is the cause of the disquiet we now face. The people have been overwhelmed and are demanding our leaders take notice.
Children being taught to accept a lifestyle and differing cultures as equal to their own and as acceptable, is an affront to their spirit and identity. Look how Muslims want to educate their children separately from ours, because they believe their social cohesion is eroding if they remain in a British society. Why is it not felt okay for British white people to feel just as intently about their way of life and their expectations. Especially when those ways of life from elsewhere have such a high level of violence and inequality toward their female children have shown.
A complete rethink is needed here and this is only the beginning.
People who came to our country did so because they could identify with its fairness and expected standards of community, which were based, strangely, on the colonisers. Those thought of as respectable and Christian people who went with bibles under their arms. In part, yes, it is because they can dramatically raise their standard of living here, but, they also thought they could raise their social standing because of what we stood for in our schools and way of life. Our, Englishness drew them to our shores, and what does government do, it tears it apart, creating chaos and discontent in all the people, no matter where they come from.
Watch some old movies, example, Brief Encounter or the old Dickie Attenborough war films, this is where they got heir idea we were the stiff upper lip but highly respectable society they felt they could make their lives in. Where they felt they could assimilate.
Then to raise the now dead spirit of triumph over adversity, watch the modern American film, ‘Seabiscuit’ and weep at a lost sense of what the white man once stood for.
And Racism is a word used to silence differing views not approved of by those who fear the outcome of ‘real discussion.’
Actually, it’s a word used to describe the prejudicial treatment of groups of people on the basis of skin colour or ethnicity. I can understand how white people get confused about this but, really, it’s the kind of thing you should swot up on with flashcards.
(Did they embrace the ‘white mischief’ in India or did Gandhi rid his country of them?)
Dear Christ on a Crutch. You genuinely just compared white British racism to the rebellion of a native people against an Imperial power, didn’t you?
That’s *insane*.
Look how Muslims want to educate their children separately from ours, because they believe their social cohesion is eroding if they remain in a British society. Why is it not felt okay for British white people to feel just as intently about their way of life and their expectations.
There’s nothing as amusing as Fatwah Envy.
People who came to our country did so because they could identify with its fairness and expected standards of community, which were based, strangely, on the colonisers.
Wait, which is it? Are immigrants fearing the erosion of their culture or admiring our colonial invention of society? Did anyone tell the Chinese and the Persians that the colonial western powers invented morality and community?
Those thought of as respectable and Christian people who went with bibles under their arms.
And guns! And opium! Let’s not forget the fun stuff as well as all that religious claptrap. Where would the fun of empire have been without economic warfare and straight up genocide?
Watch some old movies, example, Brief Encounter or the old Dickie Attenborough war films, this is where they got heir idea we were the stiff upper lip but highly respectable society they felt they could make their lives in.
If this is true, I guess they got what comes to all people who base their conceptions of reality on stuff they saw in fictional movies. What a shame you seem to have suffered from the same critical lapse.
Well, I’ve certainly disturbed your sense of justice haven’t I? Could that be because I may be onto something you want to keep quiet, as it doesn’t suit your particular gravy train?
You seem to be full of hatred. Isn’t it odd how people so full of prejudice and fear of exposure always want to attack those who will draw attention to their scam. This diatribe of yours is meant to divert attention from real debate to your buffoon like opinions.
And, yes, it is a lot like India. The only real difference is, immigration hasn’t been declared a colonization. Yet.
However, I don’t remember several million British people settling on the ‘vast’ continent of India in the way several million immigrants have settled here. Do you? And besides, if all these immigrants wanted to be rid of us, and didn’t like our ‘Britishness,’ which you claim, why did so many follow us home?
I aways feel that when someone gets this excited about a discussion it’s because the speaker has hit on something the opposite number wants to keep hidden. Now why do you think that is? And why the hatred of white people? Does that mean you want rid of them from this island of democracy?
And I think you need a little education from a different perspective. Might broaden your horizons.
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-British-Rule-Over-India—A-Perspective&id=3924389
And as a side bar, are you suggesting I should feel bad about the British Empire and what my countries rulers did in the distant past? If that is the case, should I equal your madness at the Danes, Norseman or Vikings? Whichever you may wish to call them.
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab86
Well, I’ve certainly disturbed your sense of justice haven’t I? Could that be because I may be onto something you want to keep quiet, as it doesn’t suit your particular gravy train?
Yes, you’ve got me. I’m personally benefiting from immigration and multiculturalism through, um, some… sort of mechanism. Which is interesting, because not so long ago I was an “illiterate” working class scumbag — traditionally, the kind of person you’d expect to feel the pinch when being undercut by the dastardly foreigners. But, nope, bang to rights. Whatever peculiar twisted conspiracy you’ve got brewing in your head about how I somehow sit on a “gravy train” because I’m not an unreconstructed imperialist like you is bound to be right.
But, just so I can confirm it, what the blithering hell are you actually accusing me of, here?
And, yes, it is a lot like India. The only real difference is, immigration hasn’t been declared a colonization. Yet.
*slaps head* Of course. Here was me thinking that there was a difference between, on the one hand, a population of lower to lower-middle class individuals crossing borders in response to migratory pressures and exchanging lower status for higher wages, and on the other hand government-funded groups of armed aristocrats and mercenaries taking over large swathes of the local infrastructure by bribery, warfare and slavery in order to establish monopolistic trade routes and industrial primacy for their sponsoring nations. But of course I forgot the most important fact: that both events involved people from one country physically moving to another country. If only I’d remembered that, I would have realised that both things were, of course, exactly the same.
I aways feel that when someone gets this excited about a discussion it’s because the speaker has hit on something the opposite number wants to keep hidden.
Yup, again, bang to rights. I’m all about hiding the fact that Pakistan and Sudan are gearing up for an imperialist fight over who gets to control the rights to white slaves and the vast mineral wealth of the British Isles. I’d hate for that secret to get out; it could ruin everything!
And why the hatred of white people?
Oh, bless you. OK, let me try small words because I know this is hard for you race essentialists to understand. I don’t hate “white people”. I am a white person. I have little time or tolerance for upper class idiots who are so enmired in privilege that they cannot open their eyes and crack open an economics textbook once in a while and figure out that they’ve been lied to about history from the fluffiest depths of their schooldays and that perpetuating jingoistic narratives about the primacy of empire screws everyone over good and proper.
Do work it out, Maude. It’s not race, it’s class. Us illiterate northerners are all Socialists, don’tchaknow?
And as a side bar, are you suggesting I should feel bad about the British Empire and what my countries rulers did in the distant past? If that is the case, should I equal your madness at the Danes, Norseman or Vikings? Whichever you may wish to call them.
Once more, what are you blithering on about? The Vikings were a bunch of rapists and pillagers. Last time I checked, that wasn’t popular behaviour. That’s why they needed the swords and the helmets when they came over here.
I could talk about the difference in scale of imperialist projects post/pre industrialisation but, really, I have no inclination to explain such things to someone who’s apparently never heard of a tariff in their lives and can’t tell the difference between these people and Cecil Rhodes. I don’t have the stomach for being blinked at by someone to pompous to admit their own confusion.
Gor blimey guvner !
If it aint Henry XIII( See Lord Knight) it`s multiculturism (blog title), I think it is supposed to be “multiculturalism”.
If you change it quietly Baroness Deech may not notice, she’s still smarting from getting D’Souza wrong.
Never mind Carl H, he hates Religion. Never mind that the Secularism that he loves is itself a Religion, like Baroness Murphy or McDuff, they ignore this an pretend that as they don’t believe in God, they aren’t Religious, just like they ignore the fact that all the things they complain about in Religion exists in their own Secular, completely nonreligious views. EG, Intolerance of those who do not hold to the same beliefs, beliefs that rest on Philosophical presumptions that aren’t proven, and imposing a Moral Standard onto people who do not share their persona belief system. But because they have no Religion, its right they do this. If a Religious person does it, it proves how evil Religion is and why we need Secularism.
Carl is a run of the Mill hate-monger in that way and has been since I’ve known him, complain gin about Paedophile Priests whenever he can and mentioning how our Secular Society must have standard Laws that ringer religion, sneering at all those primitive Religious people for their hatefulness and Intolerance. its all rather comical except its taken too seriously and people actually try to implement it.
I personally tire of having this Secularism rammed down everyone’s throats. It really is just a Rival Religion in and of itself, and despite what Carl said about Religion causing our problems in mostly Secular Britain he seems to ignore the fact that not too long ago Britain was mostly Christian, and the Secularists got their way mainly by forcing compliance onto everyone else, and by demonising those who held “religious“ beliefs, mainly Christians. In the end, Secularists are guilty of what they complain about.
Personally I think this Secularism we hold to today, which is nothing more than Secular Humanism, is a problem, in that it pretends it’s not a Religion, an acts as if only people who agree with it are rational Human Beings worthy of consideration, and because its not a Religion, and is purely rational, can then order people to act against their conscience whenever their conscience tells them something different from the approved Secularist position.
They also seek to brainwash everyone’s Children by closing Faith Schools and make sure that everyone only hears “The Truth’ in schools so they can “Get a grip on ideas”, which translates to hearing things from only one perspective.
People like Carl want everyone to be forced into their own beliefs and standards, whilst elevating their own beliefs to a position that can’t be criticised, all the while encouraging criticism of other beliefs, which must never be considered as possibly right if they contradict this high and mighty secularism of today’s world.
Its rather a joke, and the Secularists are far more a Problem to Multiculturalism than is someone like David Cameron.
Never mind that the Secularism that he loves is itself a Religion, like Baroness Murphy or McDuff, they ignore this an pretend that as they don’t believe in God, they aren’t Religious,
Oh do shut up, you insufferable broken record of a man.
If you weren’t such a blinkered boor you’d realise that there’s just as much variation within the ranks of that broad church of seculiarism as there is within the godbotherers and that your constant droning whine on the subject is as irrelevant as it is boring.
They also seek to brainwash everyone’s Children by closing Faith Schools and make sure that everyone only hears “The Truth’ in schools so they can “Get a grip on ideas”, which translates to hearing things from only one perspective.
This is an ironic objection coming from someone who’s interest in religion has precious little to do with the existence or non-existence in any particular God and a great deal to do with establishing the authority of a particular moral code rooted in a fictional historical time of empire when racism wasn’t a problem and everyone was polite.
I don’t care about your God. You may worship a lump of cheese, for all it matters to me. Your lump of cheese may even actually be the actual inventor of the universe and it will be my hard luck when it damns me to dairy hell. I don’t care. I care about presenting an accurate and non-romanticised version of the historical record that includes all of the incredibly negative things the British Empire did, all of the people both white and otherwise that it killed and oppressed, and the generally crappy time that was had by people before we got our heads around this “respecting cultures that aren’t our own” lark. This is nowhere to be found in the nonsense you witter on about when you get on your hobby horse about secularism being “just like a religion.”
And to think, you almost veered into having a semi-sensible-if-outmoded opinion, up there. I guess things never change.
@Zarove: One quick observation on your issue of pedophile priests.
I feel this needs to be looked at and debated as so many are oblivious of the truth in this matter.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/clergy_sex8.htm
http://www.the-bastard.com/index.php?section=6&page=1170
How interesting that rather than protect children from these men, both at the time of abuse and now, they cover for them and ask their identity be kept anonymous. I don’t recall the handful of women who abused young teenage boys are allowed to remain anonymous! Now why do you think that is?
Is it because they fear they will all be outed and the current pretense will cause them personal havoc?
The women who abuse are undoubtedly sent to jail after enormous tabloid exposure. Equality? I don’t think so.
Zarove you rather prove my points on Religion (the generalised veiw of such as opposed to the pedantic one you’d like).
Your inability to forgive and forget past argument, to differentiate me and act in a hostile way toward me is stereotypical of how many perceive religion. The inability to live by your own rules.
Your stance in debate always appears hostile and unforgiving which forgive me if I’m wrong is against everything I always thought alien to Christians.
You appear unable to concentrate on the issue in hand always holding a grudge and deflecting to something you think in the past was wrong.
Problems appeared to erupt when the law/rules started appearing to favour minorities.Immigrants getting Council houses before our children,more money from benefits to them because of what is percieved their greater problems, laws being changed to allow religious killing of animals on streets and other differences. This makes the cultural divide worse, the perception that Government is holding one higher than the other. This leads to fear of something alien taking over the nation and racism.
Moral panics about the “other” coming in and taking what’s rightfully the property of the natives are nothing new whatsoever. For all the fact that if you squint and lie in the press things can “appear” to favour immigrants, you must remember that the press doing the reporting is full of racist liars who would gladly incite a mob to burn down a camp full of Roma if they thought they could get away with it and it would flog a few more papers. The laws do not, in fact, favour immigrants, but the facts of the matter are neither here nor there.
We are an insular people in all senses of the word, and as such we are very easy to part with good money for nationalistic old rope. The issue with “Muslims” is the same issue as we had with the Hugenot, the Jews, the Afro-Carribeans, the Polish, whoever. We’re just not happy as a culture unless we’re imagining that we’re standing athwart some imaginary ballistrade holding back the imaginary hordes of foreign invaders lest the pollute our imaginary eternal British culture.
You can’t reason people out of a position they haven’t reasoned themselves into.
“Choosing to opt for assimilation as opposed to multiculturism however might be far more difficult than the Prime Minister thinks – and the roots of alienation by a small minority might have other causes.”
Using the word ‘multiculturism’ is never likely to be helpful where the difference between ‘a multicultural society’ and ‘multi-culturalism’ is so significant and the key to this debate.
Brian Walden reflects on the huge difference those three little letters, i, s, and m make.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6183873.stm
Is David Cameron really being that different from the liberal media in saying that if Catholic adoption agencies and Christian hoteliers don’t seem to enjoy freedom of conscience these days, that other religious groups are now expected to toe the line on civil and human rights such as free speech ?
I think ‘Liberal’ media is somewhat of a misnomer.
It is only ‘Liberal’ when pushing its own agenda. Don’t dare to raise an issue they find PC or want to hide from the public.
Facts are continuously distorted, slants so biased they ooze slime.
CarlH, Islam is a totally alien culture in these islands (but in my view an entirely welcome one,like all other principal world faiths) The Invading Muslim armies never got any further than Tours in central France and that was only ever for a matter of months, in about the 12thC. Spain has a vestigial Islamic culture, in the south. Toledo had Muslim libraries in the 11thC, which forever enriched Spanish civilization.
Is the opposite of “Multiculturalism” not “Separate development”? Apartheid?
Perish the thought of apartheid, or racism, anywhere in the world!
My Dad was Welsh. The Howell “tribe” of West Wales and Southern Ireland (Welsh,Houlden,Powell, Walsh and so on) must have been considered to be dirty at some time during their history.
In fact there was legislation in the English parliament in the late18thC to ensure that they received proper moral and spiritual education on account of their dirty ways.
It may surprise you to learn that the very strong musical and singing traditions of Wales originate in these English laws!!!!
I am not in the habit of going to Rugby internationals but it is possible that Separate development is essential in the stands;I don’t know.
The last time real problems occurred regarding multi-culturalism was between the Anglo Saxons, the Normans, and the Welsh.
They did not mix noticeably for a hundred years or more, after 1066,but when they did, there was one cause for having done so!
S….E….X & L…O…V…E…! (But not rock and roll)
I may say that the cause of the Irish name “Walsh” and “Houlden”(Howellden)being Irish,
was that Princess Nest, a Welsh warrior princess,took an army of invaders to colonize Kilkenny, which they did with great success, in about 1180.
She was herself CAMBRO-NORMAN, as were a good many of her invading army. It had not taken Welsh princes (read Earls today)long to diversify their genes!
——————————–
Even so the problem for the English of “Welshness” or being Irish, has surfaced a good many time ever since, has it not?
Islam in the UK
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/uk_1.shtml
There is great debate about whether Islam is a culture but I say not, it is a religion and one can maintain a National culture within Islam as many prove.
As far as the personal history goes I suppose on my Fathers side I am of immigrant stock coming at the time of the Norman Conquest or there about. The name could be Viking in origin so there are some doubts if forefathers came with Normans or before, the Normans being Viking stock in most cases. De Hulkbrwe which is the original spelling seems to suggest a Norman link as the “De” would mean man on horse.
On Mothers side are Scots of the Graham clan who date pre-Roman invasion.
Whomever the past generations were the probability is we are all descended from immigrants who originated from Africa.
You have to love the EDL defending our great British culture of Lager, Curry and probably Reggae music. Well I didn’t notice them Morris dancing !
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/uk_1.shtml
Carl’s link and his comment that we are all out of Africa is surely the most up to date and wise thinking.
The Muslims sect found in London in the 17thC was certainly formed by people who were working for The Venice, Turkey and Levant company, even back to the early 16thC.
It must have made a good deal of sense to understand what they were letting themselves in for whilst in that region and trading with the Ottomans, at the time.
The Howell link with those days, since we have gone completely off topic, in a way, was the founder of the Howell school, Denbigh, and Llandaff, who left money for the education of “Virgins of the Blood” ie daughters named Howell.
Unfortunately there were none, Howell girls being so lusty and straightforward in their interests, so some years after his death they had to reconstitute his will to allow for any young woman seeking education. Skinner’s Company foundation.
Thomas Howell was himself a trader in the flesh pot, and vast trading centre of Seville, Spain, which was an outpost of the Turkey VL Company, of the day.
The Trading companies were monopolies for importing goods from various parts of the world.
They were the trading outcome of the Crusades, which were intended to loot and rob any non-Christian who stood against them.
After the abject failure of successive Crusades, they proceeded to trade in a more gentlemanly and business like way.
I’m curious, Gareth, that seems to be a particularly long view of history that you’re taking there. Go back long enough and everything is “totally alien”, and it strikes me that since the Middle Eastern Islamic culture can quite reasonably hold to have invented a lot of the enlightenment principles that underpin our society that the overall picture might not be quite as simple as all that.
Looking it up, you may be interested to know that the oldest mosque in the UK is actually in Wales! You do learn new things every day.
straight forward explanation for the alienation of some of our young people whose family origins are from other countries/cultures but I’m not too sure. Saying multiculturalism…
Alienation is mono-cultural not multicultural, and the mono-culture is that of all people of the United Kingdom. It is the culture of the large city, lack of space,
conflicting loyalties, cyber-space cramming more and more people in to the mega-metropolises of the world.
What is more, mono-cultural alienation is a problem of ALL developed and urbanized countries of the world to which people of the under developed gravitate in search of something ‘better’,and of good fortune.
The word “race” is a misuse of terms of classification, and surely by now in abeyance or extinct, from the language of all thinking people.
Mcduff, th “I donrt care what you worhsip” rubbish is why I post these sorts of things anyway. You ” I dont care ” peopel wo “Hav eno reliigom” still seem to want to blame those horribel religiosu people with all of societies woes, claim we need to “Stop privlidging eeligion’ by foricng peopel to do thing syu ways, and despite “Haveing no religion” still tellign others what to think or how to feel.
Which is exactly the opposite of Multiculturalism.
I am with Gareth. I don’t hve a problem with peaceful Muslim Immigration. Or really with Atheists. I have a prohlem with an attemot to impose onto everyone the same beleifs and standards, rather than learning from one another and givign them all equel voice.
After all, a different perspective is often helpful.
Small words again, for Zarove.
I don’t want to stop you doing anything.
I want to stop you dictating your personal morality through legislation, and I want to ensure that other people who also have every right to believe what they believe can do so without being forced to pick between their job and their sexuality, for example.
Preventing you from imposing your own personal anachronistic and imperialist morality on others is not the same as discriminating against you. And calling you an idiot for not understanding this very simple point is not bigotry. The moment you stop behaving like an idiot who cannot grasp simple concepts, I will stop calling you an idiot.
Ball. Court. Yours.
@mcduff: You are very prone to writing others as idiots, uneducated or whatever other variety of slur you wish to throw on those whose views differ from yours. You are another who feels ‘if you beat them up’ they will stay quiet. Very north of the border that.
First, you are no genius. Your posts are so flawed and off key it appears you suffer from ‘indoctrination’ rather than have the ‘education’ you try to tell us you’ve gained.
Make no mistake, I knew without doubt you were a white man. Of that there could be no confusion. However, your propensity to see immigrants as of decidedly non white, shows how misinformed you really are.
Immigrants come in all shades of skin colour.
Immigration difficulties arise from the absolute ‘fact’ that no government of either colour, put to the people a referendum, or, asked whether ‘they’ in the majority agreed with a mass influx of people into this island country. They have not, to date, explained in any coherent manner the benefit of such a change in the ‘diversity’ of our people. And come to that, been open and clearly explained the cost to the tax payer of such an overwhelming growth in our population.
After all, we tax payers foot the bill for these policies, as we do for all policies government takes on under the auspices of ‘running our country’ for the good of ‘us’ all. Now who are these us-es. When this policy was first spouted, we were, in the main, an entirely Judeo/Christian, people. Did your kind of thinkers run on a manifesto or platform of ‘we are going to change that make up of population to a multicultural, diverse society which may cost you peaople a great deal of your tax paying pounds, which may reduce your standard of living dramatically, and to boot, create a health service that cannot function as you would wish it to, or, that your schools will now longer be able to adequately educate your children. To where they will leave university, if they can get there, because we will have to bring in fees that you may well not be able to afford, without the education they once could have aspired to. That our prisons will be overwhelmed with these incomers to the point where we cannot assure you we will be able, any longer, to jail those who commit horrendous crimes against you?’
Were our consecutive governments straight with us? In order to give us the information needed to make a responsible decision at the point of the democratic ballot?
No, they were not and still they are not.
What immigration has done to the indigenous people of this island is reduce their standard and quality of life to a point of unconscionable difficulty. Some areas of this country are virtually no go areas because of violence and fear created by the mass immigration of known criminals. Many of our girls and women are abused to the level of third world annihilation.
And you think this is acceptable? And that we should be paying for it.
You feel it is acceptable to have wages so low people are unable to afford a living without doing three jobs or getting a subsidy from government, thereby reducing their freedom from state control. And don’t try to tell me that this vast influx of immigrants, who are pushed to take jobs so poorly paid, is not reducing us to a level of slave labour. Because it is. Drastically.
To add insult to injury, you think we should be happy about this and welcome them with open arms. Are you some kind of nut?
As a side bar, how many do you have in mind we should take in? How much lower are we to sink in standard of living and quality of life before you feel there should be a halt to all of this?
And could this be because you left wing leaning people feel, without such an overwhelming influx of needy people, will reduce your vote to the point where you will all be out of work?
You see, I don’t see your call as even remotely altruistic. There is something in it for you. Some quango, some pay off, you would be unable to live, high on the hog, without.
What do you think we pay our taxes for? Your so called idealism? If that is so, go to the people with the truth. Tell them you are going to create special jobs for all these diverse people, at a cost to the majority tax payers of small fortunes, in their eyes, so that you can spin the story of all are worthwhile and we should be paying these people just for coming here. Because they are of such benefit to our society.
At the same time, show film of the housing queues, the hospital lines, benefit recipients collecting from the post office, with six or eight kinds in tow. Add to that the GP’s surgeries, schools, prisons, alongside the cost ‘to these tax payers’ of how their ‘hard earned’ money pays for it all. Whilst they can’t meet their fuel bills. And tell them in real terms, what it is taking from them and their elderly, disabled, ill families and uneducated children.
If they vote for it with an honest understanding of all this and feel it is right for their life, then, I will concede to it being the will of the people. But, until you and your ilk can show me, categorically, and without your cheating statistics, biased, incomprehensive papers, having paid for the line you want to present, I will reject your phoney back story.
No taxation without representation.
There is a culture here, a homeland for our people. An ancient culture that, by any standards, must be preserved.
Immigration difficulties arise from the absolute ‘fact’ that no government of either colour, put to the people a referendum, or, asked whether ‘they’ in the majority agreed with a mass influx of people into this island country.
Also, no government has put it to us what we all think of this “gravity” lark. I demand a referendum on whether I should be subject to the laws of physics!
What, precisely, is it that you think the all-powerful governments are able to do about global migratory pressures in the 21st century, Maude? The United States built a big fence and empowered its citizens to patrol their southern borders with guns and that doesn’t seem to have prevented the usual expected flows of people over borders that you get when inequalities in wealth and opportunity exist.
When this policy was first spouted, we were, in the main, an entirely Judeo/Christian, people.
What the blazing blue hells is “Judeo/Christian”? There is no such cultural grouping, certainly not one that would also find itself excluding other Semitic religions such as Islam.
We, on this island, are a peculiar synthesis of paganism and resynthesised Christianity. To the extent that Judaism has had much impact on us it has been, like much of Europe, to provide convenient boogeymen until the end of the 2nd world war when Anti-Semitism suddenly became incredibly unfashionable and Christians rushed to tell the world that they absolutely acknowledged that the Jews didn’t kill Christ after all, no sir, they weren’t *that* kind of Christian.
The notion that we have any significant Jewish component to our culture is barmy.
What immigration has done to the indigenous people of this island is reduce their standard and quality of life to a point of unconscionable difficulty. Some areas of this country are virtually no go areas because of violence and fear created by the mass immigration of known criminals. Many of our girls and women are abused to the level of third world annihilation.
Really? How are we defining “indigenous” here? What areas are these? What does the “mass immigration of known criminals” entail: do you have names, since they are known? Or even numbers? Who are “our” girls and women when they are at home? Does it bother you in any conceivable way that these same racist tropes are always wheeled out to argue that the furriners are coming to get us and that they are always wrong? Feel free to answer in order.
And don’t try to tell me that this vast influx of immigrants, who are pushed to take jobs so poorly paid, is not reducing us to a level of slave labour. Because it is. Drastically.
Do you know what the word “slave” actually means? And, on a further note, have you looked at the world outside your window without putting a Daily Mail in front of it, recently? I, for example, am neither wealthy nor enslaved. I’d be curious to know what your personal experience with enslavement has been, and whether you, yourself, with your posh accent and belief that those from the provinces are illiterate, have suffered unduly at the hands of swarthy criminals who have stolen your jobs and your ladyfolk.
There is something in it for you. Some quango, some pay off, you would be unable to live, high on the hog, without.
Indeed, this is absolutely and unassailably true. As a freelancer in the music industry who gets most of his winter income providing services to banks and theatres, my lavish, high on the hog lifestyle is funded by that quango everyone knows about, and my stipend from some think-tank or other is keeping me in a bathtub full of margaritas even as we speak
There is a culture here, a homeland for our people. An ancient culture that, by any standards, must be preserved.
Nah, it really isn’t, and it really doesn’t. British culture as we know it is, at best, 150 years old. The biggest changes in our society have been caused by industrialisation, mass communications and WWII, and they’re all pretty recent. As for the preservation of culture at any cost, well, it just so happens that I think the kind of pompous, petty racism that you so richly embody and that we are so scornfully known for is really something we’d be better off without.
Really, is this the best you can do? Immigrants are criminals who rape our women and reduce our standard of living, and anyone who disagrees must be in it for the cash? I bet you think you thought of that yourself, don’t you?
@ McDuff: Your quips are losers, give them a pass.
The US has not put up almighty borders as you spout. What it has done is tried to appear ‘as if’ it is putting up an effort to reduce migration. As, the voter is distressed at the remarkable changes in their society coming from a mass influx South of the border. They have interfered tragically in the lives of the South American peoples, which has resulted in human movement north. Too numerous to go into. But if you don’t know about it, look it up. And the USA is the last example to offer as an explanation or way to go. Their efforts are toxic and too entwined with organizations making a great deal of money drug and sex running. And as a little filler, the US, because of its policies have been completely colonized to the extent that officially 60% of its population is no longer of white European decent. This stat, of course, being an underestimate.
In the main, you cannot sort out the wheat from the chaff, and are playing at being ignorant. Judeo/Christian is a term used as the Old Testament is in fact the Jewish Torah.
As you appear to need a little clarity, please peruse this explanation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_culture
The meaning of Slave:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery
Being enslaved is not simply being a person who is sold by their tribe or their owner. It has an extended meaning. Which you want to pretend doesn’t exist under your idea of Liberty. Whose Liberty are you vying for? You are by far the racist not I. It would be ridiculous, as you have done, to call me such. But people with your viewpoint always resort to slagging with this word when you lose the relevant argument.
You are as racist as the BNP. Except your racism has its brown stuff on the other end of the stick. White hatred in all its forms is what you spout in the diatribe you have put forward.
Now for the nub of this post, you have no idea what you are pushing here. A nation is evolutionary. Ours began in earnest with the signing of the Magna Carta under Henry II. This was long before the 150 years ago you are claiming. It was in fact 300 years ago.
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/westn/industry.html
In short, here are a few pointers that will help you along.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108078.html?pageno=2
You need little refreshers on your history detail.
And lastly, yes, we can do something to reverse the mass immigration into the UK. First there has to be the political will to do so. Which, had we really lived in a true democracy, would have long been in practice some time ago.
The UK has been advertising for migrants relentlessly for at least 20 years. Under the guise of workers needed. This for a society that has gross unemployment amongst its present residents which it refuses to educate and train adequately. Which is a flagrant misuse of information as well as an abuse of power.
In fact, under the Blair/Brown government immigration was used as a direct result of wanting to change the ethnic make up of the UK population in order to expand their policy of diversity and multiculturalism. Whilst they knew the majority of the population were heavily opposed to such an ethos. To take it from another view, it was in fact an ethnic cleansing of the existing population. A hatred of the people and culture of the country in favour of something they could not openly expose as riots would have ensued.
“And as a little filler, the US, because of its policies have been completely colonized to the extent that officially 60% of its population is no longer of white European decent. This stat, of course, being an underestimate.”
Provided that you define “The USA” as “certain Southern states” then yes. On the other hand, much of the population of the USA that is not of “White European descent” was originally brought over on ships by the White Europeans.
Incidentally, why is it the skin colour or ethnic descent that’s problematic here, Maude?
“You are by far the racist not I.”
Keep telling yourself that. I’m sure your constant repetition of BNP talking points isn’t considered “racist” down your local boozer. It’s pretty clear from where I’m sitting, though, that when given rope and lumber you will jump to build the gallows on which to hang yourself.
To repeat the question, what have you personally suffered at the hands of those evil, enslaving immigrants who are so maliciously torturing the native peoples of this isle?
Your objective is to divert debate by misinformation, name calling and barely veiled threats.
You cannot respond to a single fact or put up an answer to put your case intelligently. Your writing indicates a person simply unable to cope outside a box of twisted rhetoric and indoctrination. The same old learned responses. The tired philosophy of hate the British.
You are an example of the cloned, dead heads we see and hear relentlessly on radio and in the press. Droning in single whining voice. A waste of space and time.
Your objective is to divert debate by misinformation, name calling and barely veiled threats.
We are all suffering from ill conceived policies bought by people like yourself. To the point where they cannot see from being blinkered by their mendacity.
I make it a point not to get bogged down in debating the “facts” spewed forth by racists. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to spell out that we are not, in fact, enslaved by evil nasty immigrants, on account of how anybody with more than a couple of brain cells to rub together can go for a walk and see that this is not the case in any aspect.
I hate “The British” now, I see. As well as hating white people. Isn’t it funny how only people who disagree with you can have opinions rooted in unreasonable hatred for particular classes of people, including those groups to which I belong, or because we benefit from it personally (are you still holding that I must benefit from immigration somehow?) wheras all your beliefs spring from the pure wellspring of human compassion. As long as we define “human” in a way that doesn’t include the non-British, that is.
As for “blaming religion for all society’s woes” (or “blame those horribel religiosu people with all of societies woes” as you so cheerfully put it), stop nailing yourself to that cross. I’m a socialist – religion comes a distant and somewhat academic fourth behind the god-like power of international capitalism, the discriminatory structure of the nation state, and the tendency of democracy to entrench power bases on a more permanent level and securing the easy distribution of bread and circuses.
To be honest, I wouldn’t even really classify “religion” as a separate category of human behaviour, and would probably roll it up into the general hackability of primate cognitive architecture by authoritarian meme systems. See also: nation state.
I don’t blame you for anything. You’re an authoritarian looking for justification for your personal values structure. Blaming you for that would be like kicking a puppy for chewing your shoes.
On a multicultural issue I suspect that many that have posted here are totally unaware that we are now in the Chinese year of the ‘Intransitive Verb’ the Rabbit. Here is an example of its use: “He spent over 250 words rabbiting to his mother on the phone” or “They rabbited on for more than 250 words contrary to rule 12 of the blog”.
Lord Soley’s a bit absent, so I wonder if I should restate the parts of my response that are not tangled up with the cheerleaders for imperialism up there.
We do have to confront groups that are soft on violence and terrorism – I am 100% in favour of that.
I think I’d like some more detail on precisely what “confronting” these groups would entail and how we are defining “soft on violence and terrorism”. These seem like gateway drugs to governments that are used to mainlining post-911 power grabs.
Choosing to opt for assimilation as opposed to multiculturism however might be far more difficult than the Prime Minister thinks – and the roots of alienation by a small minority might have other causes.
Two questions to this.
a) What, precisely, is the difference between “multiculturalism” and “assimilation” in actual real terms. Is a family which sends their children to school here but still attends a bilingual Mosque “assimilating” or “multicultural”?
b) What makes us think that central government does or even can have that much impact on the degree to which people who move here from other countries “integrate” in the first place? Talking a good game is not the same thing as actually making a difference one way or the other.
McDuff: Below the ‘Post a Comment’ section on each blog page is an undertaking given by Hansard that says “Your email is never shared. Required fields are marked”.
Yet here you are advertising an email address contrary to this promise and clearly in breach of blog rule 10 which states:
“Protect your privacy and that of others. Please don’t post private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details.”
How ARE things in Newton Aycliffe this time of year?
I wouldn’t know, I live in Manchester. In any event the email address thing seems to be a bug with the way Hansard have implemented the WordPress install and I am afraid I cannot seem to get rid of it. I would, of course, be grateful for someone in Hansard to let me know exactly how I can post as plain old “McDuff” since doing so seems to land me with a boatful of error messages.
Nonetheless, I find it pretty telling that you’ve gone off and googled it. Moved up from self appointed guardian of the sacred rules to petty stalker, now, have we?
McDuff, you entirely miss the point on a number of counts. An anonymous blogger cannot be a political threat to anyone. What is said is akin to a message sprayed painted on a wall by person(s) unknown. Nobody can reasonably acknowledge formally what is said by anyone that is anonymous.
You however, have a domain registered to you. Now your political point of view becomes associated with a real person. Recently in Egypt certain bloggers became the victims of the state; they disappeared and their families were threatened and all because the anonymity of the blogger was lost or was never valued.
You use a .com domain. The contents of its web pages fall to US legal jurisprudence by way of the State Department; because you are identifiable anything said that criticizes US policy automatically brings you to the attention of Homeland Security.
It is illegal to falsify a domain registered address as it impacts upon national security. I have Flagfox installed and by using just a few mouse clicks your real identity became known.
LotB owners have a duty of care to protect bloggers and the best way to do this is to protect their privacy. The blogs moderators are falling short of what is required of them by allowing posts to be published with an individuals email address. How can they give a credible assurance of maintaining privacy when they allow this to happen? You say the blog is faulty, I say it is not, you are simply spamming your own blog.
Middle Eastern Islamic culture can quite reasonably hold to have invented a lot of the enlightenment principles that underpin our society that
Not really. The great migration from the first homo sapiens tribes to the middle east and then to northern Europe, and fanning out through central Asia, took place an awful long time before Mohamed the spin merchant, arrived to set down his Quran in about the 8thC(?)
The movement, for example, of Lebanese/Egyptian traders around the coasts of Europe, which led them to the gentle, temperate climate of Western Britain, some would have predated, and been quite uninfluenced by Mohamed.
This was the whole point of the Crusades, to return to the “Holy” lands they had left behind centuries before, and which by then had an alien culture to be conquered for Christ.
The great migration from the first homo sapiens tribes to the middle east and then to northern Europe, and fanning out through central Asia, took place an awful long time before Mohamed the spin merchant, arrived to set down his Quran in about the 8thC(?)
And, of course, there was no such thing as “trade” in those days, and nobody ever talked to anybody else.
The Islamic world was up there on the forefront of research and scientific development from the 7th to the 16th centuries, more or less. Industrial and scientific ideas were either developed or reformed by various flavours of Muslim, and were then developed onwards by westerners once the Peace of Westphalia put the European powers in a position to expand outwards and began to threaten the Ottomans et al.
This was the whole point of the Crusades, to return to the “Holy” lands they had left behind centuries before, and which by then had an alien culture to be conquered for Christ.
Well it’s a good job we did that, isn’t it! Can’t be having alien cultures allowed to live in countries we might want. What would Jesus say if we didn’t slaughter people?
It’s amazing how 12th century propaganda about the rationale for war still convinces people now.
Mcduff, how is it that I am an Authoritarian? unlike you, given your past comments, I don’ want to impose my moral standard sonto all of society. EG, I’m quiet willign to let peoepl decide if they will support with their resoruces any lifestyle they choose, ro to refuse to. They can buy and sell to whimever they like their goods and services.
I harldy think this is Authoritarian.
Also, drop tje “Religion as a Meme system and you can’t help it as you can’t think for yourself”. Religion is simply beleifs abotu our world,a nd as I’ve said many times, and been mocked for, even the Nonrelgiiosu socialists liek you actulaly really do have a Religion. Just sayign its not a Religion and Relgiion is prmitive superstitioon doens’t mean that your own beleifs funciton radiclaly differnelty form Religion itself.
But the self agrandistic view you hold is rather telling.
Nonrelgiiosu socialists liek you actulaly really do have a Religion. Just sayign its not a Religion and Relgiion is prmitive superstitioon doens’t mean that your own beleifs funciton radiclaly differnelty form Religion itself.
If you’re saying what I think you’re saying here, I’d express some tentative agreement. “Religion” considered as a broad class of behaviours is observably similar to patriotism, nationalism, tribalism, party affiliations, the supporting of particular football teams and the holding of particular beliefs about the nature of right and wrong, whether these are defined as ‘religious’ or not.
But if we consider that “religion” is simply “beliefs about the world” then it essentially makes the word utterly meaningless. As I’ve said I consider it less useful than people think it would be to an atheist, and don’t consider “religion” to be particularly far removed from other beliefs about social structures. Nonetheless, as a broad type of belief it seems to me to be generally useful in distinguishing itself from belief in, say, gravity, or the general desirablity of food to a hungry man.
Saying that people’s beliefs are “just like religion” seems to me to be wanting to have one’s cake and eat it too, where you get to claim a moral high ground for a subset of religions such that they get to enjoy positions of privilege within the state, yet also use the very justification for their elevated status as a means of pulling other systems down.
Do you really mean to suggest that your own belief system is no more valid as that of homeopaths, satanists and astrologers? Are you making a statement to the effect that all knowledge, no matter its form, is basically unknowable?
As for how you’re authoritarian, one of the noted symptoms of that is a longing for a bygone age when people knew how to behave properly, and you’ve got that by the truckload, you have.
Maude Elwes, MY point was that too often the term “Paedophile Priest: is sued as a smear absent all Christians, and is just a bandied about term.
Carl even brought them up in a list of criminals which included wife beaters and such when I said people ought not be forced to do business that conflicts with their moral standards. He never said wife beating bankers or drug using school teachers, but did mention the profession of the Paedophile, as if only Priest are Paedophiles and all of them are in some way guilty. It also shows how rotten Christians are in general even though not all Churches even have a priest good, and the scandal mainly focused on Catholicism.
That said, I’m afraid your own views are skewed. The actual percentage of Paedophile Priests is miniscule, and often the accused priest is found Innocent. Many started claiming abuse after the Catholic Church paid out huge sums of money in damages, resulting in fraud, mad possible by the same refrain of “Paedophile Priest!” that so gripped our Culture.
The Blog below gives some excellent information and links.
http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2010/03/pedophile-priests.html
AND, you can try this.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Myth+of+a+Catholic+crisis%3a+the+truth+about+%22pedophile+priests%22.-a0225249028
These links really undermine the popular fiction of he paedophile Priest, that somehow its common for the Catholics, that the cover-ups are as extensive as claimed, that the Priesthood has a much higher percentage of Paedophiles, all just Imagined, cultural stereotypes no more Valid than the Redneck Southerner who can’t accomplish anything and is slow witted, or the Welshman who has sex with sheep.
I’m sorry but the whole idea that somehow the Priesthood is chocked full of Paedophiles is just a caricature, no more valid than the idea that most of not all Mosques are funded by Terrorists and most Imams promote Terrorism. Its simply a reflection of our rather shallow way of approaching topics as a society, in which we fall prey to easy black and white simplicity, are seduced just as easily by sensationalism, and are ready and willing to allow our way of seeing the world o be drawn up from an oversimplified, often erroneous paradigm built from our prejudices and from these matters which we frankly prefer to believe because it seems we feel good when outraged.
To end, here is a link to the book the blog mentioned.
http://www.amazon.com/Pedophiles-Priests-Anatomy-Contemporary-Crisis/dp/0195145976
And the article (its from a Catholic site but the article is not written by a Catholic and can be found on other sites.)
Read carefully.
http://www.zenit.org/article-3922?l=english
Lets not jump on a bandwagon and fall prey to false claims.
@ Zarove: Thank you for your urls: Very interesting and informative all of them.
However, my thrust here was really to do with how the Church and governments have acted more in the interest of protecting ‘priests’ who, in the main, are ‘not’ peadophiles at all, but homosexuals who pray on boys between 11 years and 17 years.
Their collective thrust has been to hide the identities and the crimes of these men, where they can, and move them around, thereby giving them access to further vulnerable boys, in order to conceal the overwhelming evidence that those in power, do not protect children’s interests above homosexuals. The use of the word peadophile is to hide the fact that 90% of these crimes by Priests were against little boys, not girls. Peadophile implies men and women who molest children aged under 12 of the opposite sex.
And by doing this, they have used the handful of women who have sexual relations with youths, to appear as if molestation with them is as prolific as it is with homosexual men.
There is a political agenda here. The agenda of the homosexual right to adopt children. If it were widely known that homosexual men go out of their way to be in positions of power over children, in order to sexually molest them, could it be pushed as a benefit to place children in homosexual male partnerships. Especially boys.
Here you will see how they go so far as to take positions, which will give them ease of access and almighty power to silence those who have employed them. The threat being, we will bring down your organization if you reveal our crime. Blackmail in other words.
Which leads to the conclusion that, for whatever reason, powers that be are more apt to protect men with deviant sexual preferences, rather than protect children from being in a position of exploitation.
This has to be opened up, especially as schools are now teaching that homosexuality is normal and that should a child be approached by a homosexual man, this man is only doing what is ‘normal.’ Does the Public agree with this? How can you know if the facts are hidden from their knowledge?
This reaction is not the same from those in power when it is women who crosses this boundary. And that is because they want to use the old spin technique of, you see, ‘women’ are equally culpable as men with sexual exploitation, therefore children are just as exposed to molestation by women as they are by homosexual men.
Hence the CRB register and on and on.
These last court cases criminalising Christians is what you call , dazzle with your footwork whilst I pick your pocket. All these nasty people who ‘hate’ homosexuals are fanatic Christians. Notice, no Muslims have been brought to court, no Sikh, or any other religion that has similar beliefs on homosexuality. The Christian being the most lenient and the one religion that would not have threatened the litigants with death.
http://qa.sunnipath.com/issue_view.asp?HD=1&ID=8448&CATE=42
http://sikhism101.com/node/137
http://www.religionfacts.com/homosexuality/christianity.htm
It is time we had open debate on this most important matter. Without the ramifications being hidden from the public as it is presently, it is imperative laws coincide with what is factual on all sides of this question, including the mental and physical health of those children concerned.
McDuff-
If you’re saying what I think you’re saying here, I’d express some tentative agreement. “Religion” considered as a broad class of behaviours is observably similar to patriotism, nationalism, tribalism, party affiliations, the supporting of particular football teams and the holding of particular beliefs about the nature of right and wrong, whether these are defined as ‘religious’ or not.
Correct. We agree on this note.
But if we consider that “religion” is simply “beliefs about the world” then it essentially makes the word utterly meaningless.
It actually is near Meaningless. The Japanese have no original word for “Religion”, for example, that delineates things we think of as Religion, like Shinto or Buddhism, from everything else. The beliefs expressed in them, such as Spirits of objects or the Eightfold Path, are seen as Teachings similar to how we understand Philosophy. They make no real distinction as ”Religion” like we do.
As I’ve said I consider it less useful than people think it would be to an atheist, and don’t consider “religion” to be particularly far removed from other beliefs about social structures.
Then while we are not on the same page, we are on the next page over.
Nonetheless, as a broad type of belief it seems to me to be generally useful in distinguishing itself from belief in, say, gravity, or the general desirablity of food to a hungry man.
But that’s sort of the thing, Relgiion is not a belief at all.
When Baroness Murphy became offended at me for calling her Religious, she did so under the assumption that she was not Religious as she’s an Agnostic I did not say Atheist. Loads of Atheist get offended at me and post he definition, but none read it.
She later explained that she doesn’t belie in God and insulted those who do by comparing them to those how believe he Earth is Flat and Fairies live at the bottom of gardens. This means that to her, and to too many other Atheists, Religion is simply another word for Theism. If you believe in a god, you are Religious, if you do not believe in a god, you are not Religious. But that’s not what Religion is defined as, and even if we excluded Humanism form Religion as the Humanists prefer, we still find Religions, like some forms of Buddhism, that do not explicitly believe in a god.
Religion is not characterised by a singular trait and is certainly not about one belief. Its about the Foundational understanding we have of ourselves and our world, and as such, while not all beliefs are Religion, like Political affiliation or Economic Policy, any belief system that details how we came to be, what if anything the meaning of our existence is, and informs us of the nature of our existence, while acting as the basis of our moral character, ultimately is Religion, regardless of its stance on God, supernatural events, or Nature.
Saying that people’s beliefs are “just like religion” seems to me to be wanting to have one’s cake and eat it too, where you get to claim a moral high ground for a subset of religions such that they get to enjoy positions of privilege within the state, yet also use the very justification for their elevated status as a means of pulling other systems down.
This is like saying I am Authoritarian. Its meaningless as you have no real examples of me doing this.
Do you really mean to suggest that your own belief system is no more valid as that of homeopaths, satanists and astrologers? Are you making a statement to the effect that all knowledge, no matter its form, is basically unknowable?
No, I’m making a statement that people have foundational beliefs about the world which to them are not abstract or mystical but real. EG, people who believe in God don’t believe in God in a radically different way than they believe in rocks, trees, and mountains, or other people. While God is understood to be different form hose things, Gods existence is understood to be the same, as in, God actually exists in our real world. The same is True of Astrologers who think that our Destinies can be charted by looking at the Alignment of the Heavens, or the Secular Humanist who insists on Materialism. The actual Truth of these claims is a distinct topic, as is ones reaction to said Reality.
As for how you’re authoritarian, one of the noted symptoms of that is a longing for a bygone age when people knew how to behave properly, and you’ve got that by the truckload, you have.
But, that’s simply idiotic. Basically Nostalgia is equated with Authoritarianism? So someone who longs for the 1960’s because of Free Love and the Beatles is an Authoritarian?
Come now, that’s just daft.
“But that’s sort of the thing, Relgiion is not a belief at all.”
Then surely atheism, defined as “the non-belief in God” also cannot be a religion?
If we are looking at behaviour round the belief, such that we would differentiate the social institution of The Church and the act of being Catholic from the simple affirmative belief in the Trinity, for example, then of course atheistic beliefs can form the foundation for religious-type behaviour. But it is far from necessarily the case, and it doesn’t make “religion” into a meaningless term. Fuzzy and perhaps ill-defined, but I think you would find most people understand that the adverb form “religiously” incorporates a particular kind and style of behaviour, and that claiming the word itself loses all meaning in our culture because it doesn’t exist in others is muddying the waters a little.
“EG, people who believe in God don’t believe in God in a radically different way than they believe in rocks, trees, and mountains, or other people.”
This very much depends on the answer to the questions “which people?” and “which God?”
Nonetheless, you mention that religious beliefs tend to make things that can be tested as a claim of truth, in much the same way that a tree or a rock can be tested. Do you hold that things like literal existence of God or the impacts of the stars on our lives are untestable truth claims?
“Basically Nostalgia is equated with Authoritarianism? So someone who longs for the 1960’s because of Free Love and the Beatles is an Authoritarian?”
Nope, that’s not what I said. What matters is what you’re nostalgic for. The Beatles did literally exist. The mythical time of well mannered children and ethnic minorities who knew their place did not exist. Seeking to go back to a time when God and Empire created a foundation for Good Morals relies on a particular view of history that does not view support for torture or genocide as being particularly immoral.
The sentiment “if only we could re-establish the dominance of social institutions which could provide a sense of place and social guidance” is an Authoritarian one.
Well, OK then.
Does it occur to you that if the US State Department wanted to find me that they probably have several other ways of doing so? No, probably not, because that wouldn’t have the right mix of *utterly insane paranoia* and utter pomposity for you, would it?
You say you tracked me down. Did you notice that you did not, in fact, track me down? Your whois-fu notwithstanding?
I might be at increased risk of spam until Hansard let people log in properly and change usernames (this is the 3rd email address I’ve registered now), but I don’t think my comments here put me at risk of a black bag operation just yet.
Islamic world was up there on the forefront of research and scientific development from the 7th to the 16th centuries, more or less. Industrial and scientific ideas were either developed or reformed by various flavours of Muslim
It might be better to say Moorish, since Islam would include all those people of the world from Morrocco to Indonesia. These “ideas” that you mention were specifically those of people of North Africa/ Arab world.
—————
Of course (Re-ligio= to tie again)
a group of atheists who discuss things together, have a religion; they are tied by their discussions.
Wow! Some of you are getting pretty angry here so a bit more tolerance and respect in the use of language might discourage me from reaching for the ‘edit’ button.
The complexity of these issues should not be glossed over in fits of rage – real or artificial.
A few points. If we are having difficulty defining assimilation and multiculturalism then maybe David Cameron hasn’t thought it through either.
The debate on Empire. There are vey few great powers or empires which haven’t been both creative and destructive. The conflict between Muslims and Hindus in India dates from the Islamic empire but it doesn’t mean that the Islamic empire was all bad.
Why do some people refer here to ‘English’ and others to ‘British’?
Our ethnic mix is deeply rooted and we are a very successful multi racial country – check it out if you like!
Carl-
Zarove you rather prove my points on Religion (the generalised veiw of such as opposed to the pedantic one you’d like).
Your inability to forgive and forget past argument, to differentiate me and act in a hostile way toward me is stereotypical of how many perceive religion. The inability to live by your own rules.
Stop tryign to shift the blame. The reason I don’t “Forgive and forgrt” is becaue you make the same arguments endlessly. Am I suppose to develop amnesia and not learn what sort of man you are or what sort orf arguments you always produce in the interst of Charity? Because I had rather thought it’d be better to tell the Truth than to pretend we don’t know it.
I’m not hostile to you, but yru never-ending hatred of Christianity is a factor in too many of yoru posst, and you do use bugoted, ill thought out arguments based mroe on emotion and a desir to slant things ot make Christianity, and all “Religion’ look bad.
Thats not a personal invictive agaisnt you, its simply the Truth. You are bigoted and narrow minded, no different than many other bigoted and narrow monded “We have no religion” types who want to dictate to others hwo they shoudl live and want free reign to insult others and use them as targets to pin all our problems on.
Your stance in debate always appears hostile and unforgiving which forgive me if I’m wrong is against everything I always thought alien to Christians.
You resort fto lyign now. In the past you’ve said Christains were always intoelrant and nforgivign and its a hateful religion.
Sill me for remembeirng.
Incidentlaly thee is a difference between forgiveness and pretendign somethgn doesn’t exist each time you tlak to a person, and begn perpetually shocked by their arguments. I’m not shocked by your limited and hatful views, and its not Hostility toward you when I point them out.
You appear unable to concentrate on the issue in hand always holding a grudge and deflecting to something you think in the past was wrong.
The past issue is the issue at hand. Despite how we like to try to box off relgiion as some special, seperate thign some peopel haneve and others dont’ that has no impact on anythign else, the Truth is that Religion is the root of all Culture. Even the Secular Culture of no religion is really based upon a Religiosu beleif, and even peopel like you who proffess to habe no relgiion do fit the actual definition of it.
Religion really is just what popel beleive in, and focus on, and this topic is abotu Multiculturalism. Why shoudl only peopel of yoru Religion be allowed to shape the Culture, carl?
Zarove, there is no hatred in my posts you are very much mistaken.
What you are stating clearly is that you can, as a religion, oppress homosexuality, those that want abortion, other religions and many other things but in your liberalism there is no place for me to say religion(of the organised variety) has made, is making things worse ?
That religion past, because I’m allowed to now state due to your last statement about mentioning the past, is less than humane. That religion has been at the root of some of the most horrific acts known to mankind.
Religion as preached by you is divisive, I am not, as a man I say your say is equal to mine but singularly not as an organisation or church. The fact the western world is becoming more secular is obviously not to your liking so you scream we are all sinners and that homosexuality is evil and people should have the right to hate them. The fact is Zarove you are a minority and your view like that of BNP is detested by those of a secular nature who appear to hold truer to your beliefs than you.
We have a democracy where unfortunately for you the majority decide. You are entitled to dislike and think it is wrong however when you appear to oppress another minority in the name of an organisation you will find the majority against you.
Regards you preists sexual abuse post below might I suggest you do a little more research. Abuse cases in Ireland alone were reported from 2004 and before so it is not something that happened many years ago only. It is fact the Catholic Church moved preists away from possible legal repurcussions without punishment.
Judging the Catholic Church of 50 years ago by todays standards without looking at the Cultural Climate the people lived in is, however, a mistake, for as much as they are Servants of God, they are also Human, and still reflect the Values of their times as much as Catholic teaching.
I have heard some defences in my time but this about the most laughable naive one yet.Where is your christianity for the victims, not one mention of them but we have to understand the criminals, the deviants, the animals who betrayed and abused children in their care ? I think not.
And yet…..Homosexuality and letting two men stay together in the same room is an appalling crime according to you Zarove. Oh please your hypocrisy knows no bounds does it !
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2010/mar/11/catholic-abuse-priests
Carl, why is your reply to me above my post that you reply to?
That said…
Zarove, there is no hatred in my posts you are very much mistaken.
No, I’m not. I’ve heard all your arguments before, you re just peddling the same line I hear from other malcontent militants. EG, the “If the Church really cared it’d sell all its land and give the money to the poor” argument. I called you on it and never got you to reply that you were wrong. But you were. No one expects the Government to show it cared by selling all its land and offices and giving hr money to the poor as they understand that once doe the Government couldn’t function. The same is true of a Charity or an Institution. Yet somehow the laws of Economics doesn’t apply to the Church and its just greedy.
The other arguments are of the same level of pedantic foolishness. Its fairly obvious that you hate Christianity, we all know it, and I shant pretend this is about anything else. Even framing the discussion as “You want to as a religion oppress us” is proof of this.
What you are stating clearly is that you can, as a religion, oppress homosexuality,
No, I say that people should have the right to be morally opposed to Homosexuality, and that the Government should not impose the moral standards of the day onto others that disagree. That is not oppression, on the contrary, what you want is oppression. Why should people be forced to accept Homosexuality as moral when this is not their True Conviction?
those that want abortion,
You have a funny way of defining “Oppression”, Carl. But what about all those people who are oppressed who want to own Slaves? We don’t let them, gosh! That’s wrong. How about those oppressed people who love to have sex with Children, or animals?
If he oppression argument doesn’t work on the above, it doesn’t work here. Being Pro-Life only means I want to end Abortion because its Murder, not because I want to oppress people, and depicting me as some sort of monster who just wants to oppress people is dishonest.
other religions
This one’s a bald faced lie. How, exactly, am I oppressing people of other Religions? Oh that’s right, I am a Christian and we all know Christians automatically hate people of other Religions and don’t wan them to have any rights, so it doesn’t matter that I’ve actually stood up for Muslims in the past when Baroness Murphy described Muslim Faith Schools as simply reciting he Koran, or when others say they are all terrorists, I somehow want to oppress them.
Carl, just because you think all Christians hate anyone who is not Christian doesn’t make it True, and unless you present real evidence that I am somehow of the desire to oppress those of other Religions, this is slander. Why should you be allowed to get away with lying about me?
I’ve always stood for Free Speech, Freedom of Assembly, and Freedom of Religion, and never sought to impede anyone’s Religious Liberty, and find this accusation simply deplorable.
and many other things but in your liberalism there is no place for me to say religion(of the organised variety) has made, is making things worse ?
Given that you lie about what Religion is, and lie about me wanting to oppress people, I’d say you have no case.
What you really want though is the same as Baroness Murphy, to impose your own Religion onto everyone else. I’m not being pedantic, that’s what this is. You have a specific code of moral and ethical conduct and a specific way in which you see the world working, and want to make everyone else in society comply to that belief system.
I want people to be free to hold whatever beliefs they want and to act in accordance to their own conscience.
That religion past, because I’m allowed to now state due to your last statement about mentioning the past, is less than humane.
Actually it was more humane in some ways_ History is often a very misunderstood thing.
That religion has been at the root of some of the most horrific acts known to mankind.
Not really. The Ahem “Nonreligious” like you or McDuff or Murphy have been far more willing to kill those who don’t follow your Ideological beliefs than have the “Religious”.
This old cobbler worked in the 19th Century, but not now.
Religion as preached by you is divisive,
Prove this statement.
I am not, as a man I say your say is equal to mine but singularly not as an organisation or church. The fact the western world is becoming more secular is obviously not to your liking so you scream we are all sinners and that homosexuality is evil and people should have the right to hate them.
I suppose you can quote me on this one Carl, right?
Also, since when is this topic even about Homosexuality?
The fact is Zarove you are a minority and your view like that of BNP is detested by those of a secular nature who appear to hold truer to your beliefs than you.
The old “Atheists act more Christian than Christians do” rubbish is silly. Exactly how does someone outright lie about what I believe in get the right to say they are far better adherents to my beliefs than I am?
Especially as you Condemned me for holding belief I never claimed to hold before. Or is this sort of Dishonesty really worth your while, in the hopes that others will buy into it?
We have a democracy where unfortunately for you the majority decide.
The thing about Majorities are that they exist in Flux. How do you know that 15 years form now people like me won’t be a Majority?
Society Changes, and so does its Values.
You are entitled to dislike and think it is wrong however when you appear to oppress another minority in the name of an organisation you will find the majority against you.
But you haven’t really shown that I am being oppressive, but I can show you in this post how you are being both Oppressive and a Liar.
Regards you preists sexual abuse post below might I suggest you do a little more research. Abuse cases in Ireland alone were reported from 2004 and before so it is not something that happened many years ago only.
I hate to break it to you Carl but, Sex Abuse cases happen in every profession. The only reason we fixate on the Catholic Church is because its become a popular stereotype, so now if one new case shows up, its added to the table as confirmation of said Stereotype. However, it still a distinct Minority, and most cases of abuse are still in the Family, and Catholic Priests are still far less likely to be abusive.
Judging the Catholic Church of 50 years ago by todays standards without looking at the Cultural Climate the people lived in is, however, a mistake, for as much as they are Servants of God, they are also Human, and still reflect the Values of their times as much as Catholic teaching.
I have heard some defences in my time but this about the most laughable naive one yet. Where is your christianity for the victims, not one mention of them but we have to understand the criminals, the deviants, the animals who betrayed and abused children in their care ? I think not.
The whole “you aren’t acting Christian here” comes off as Shallow from a Liar. You still lied about how I want to oppress others, especially of other Religions, so of what value is your Judgement?
That said, explaining the times people lived in is Vital in understanding why they acted the way they did. I didn’t excuse the abuse, nor would Sympathy for the Victims really serve as an explanation for how Institutions behaved in the Past.
This is like if I try to explain the Mindset of Southern Slave Owners in the American Civil War without bringing up the specific beliefs of the Slaves. it’s not that I support Slavery, it means I want people to understand the perspective in Historical Context.
Trying to make me into a Monster for that is itself rather dishonest.
And yet…..Homosexuality and letting two men stay together in the same room is an appalling crime according to you Zarove. Oh please your hypocrisy knows no bounds does it !
Actually I said that people should be allowed to turn business away form whomsoever they choose. You impute the hatred I feel towards Homosexuals into the affair based on your own prejudices, it’s not something I actually said.
This is why I called you a Liar.
Its also Hypocritical form you. You think people should be able to get Abortions if they like and if someone object style want to oppress others. SO you are OK with murdering Babies, yet you think that allowing a Hotel to not rent a room to a gay Couple out of moral objection is somehow wrong? I’d think Baby Murder was far more heinous, but you are OK with Baby Murder.
Check it out! A religious person who’s never heard of quickening and knows very little about the historical construction of when the soul enters during pregnancy, relying on 19th century notions in order to brand others with the Totally Non Inflammatory label “baby murderers”.
Maude Elwes, History matters here. While it is not a justification for the actions of the past, we must still understand past actions in the context of their History. EG, we today consider Slavery morally reprehensible, but many Great and Moral men have owned Slaves.
In this regard we should consider how life existed during the abuse, which by and larger took place between 60 and 30 years ago. These scandals are not recent.
It’s not that the Catholic Church wanted to protect Homosexuals, even Governments didn’t want this. It was that in that era they did not understand people who abused others fully, and simply thought that they could dress them down and scare them into not doing it again. It was also an era of propriety, in which they sought to cover up scandals in order to preserve the Image of institutions, and this was done in more than just the Roman Catholic Church, but every institution. If a Government official did the same thing they’d cover it up. If a Schoolteacher did the same it’d be Covered up. The people of the era favoured saving face for the Institution and felt such a scandal could hurt the perception of said Institution.
Judging the Catholic Church of 50 years ago by todays standards without looking at the Cultural Climate the people lived in is, however, a mistake, for as much as they are Servants of God, they are also Human, and still reflect the Values of their times as much as Catholic teaching.
@ Mcduff: I made an error in my writing. The Magna Carta was, of course, signed in the 12th century. I meant to write industrialization you wrote of began 300 years ago. Not as you claim 150 years ago.
Forgive the error.
Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow, born in Bourne almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the county of Lincolnshire?
And, they even tracked her calves to their stalls.
But they are unable to locate well over a million illegal immigrants wandering around our country. Maybe we should give each of them a cow.
Let’s face it Clive, you’re incompetent along with the rest of government.
With this number of illegal immigrants, working in the black economy (not a racist point), they aren’t paying tax, they are driving low paid workers onto benefits, and at the same time consuming government resources, and causing a housing shortage.
That’s why people are angry, not because of race, but because of incompetence of government, and its general corruption and lies and sleaze.
Yes, it’s almost as if cataloguing human beings and expecting them to remain to where they were shipped like cattle is a mug’s game, isn’t it?
Do you even listen to yourself talk?
working in the black economy (not a racist point), they aren’t paying tax, they are driving low paid workers onto benefits.
Just a minor point. It’s an employers responsibility to ensure that foreign employees are legal to work and have the necessary paperwork. If these wonderful taxpayers you keep harping on about didn’t hire the cheap labour to make more money there wouldn’t be a problem.
You spend so much time talking of the Lords apparently breaking the rules for money you forget it is pretty endemic in our society from top to toe. In a life spanning over 50 years I have only met two people I can be reasonably assured are 100% straight and legal.
So even if those two are lords, where does that leave the other 750 odd.
Quite.
Legal immigration, where each migrant earns over 40K a year and pays a min of 12K in tax, no problem. In fact there should even be any quotas. However, if your income drops below the threshold, then you should leave.
Illegal migration, they need to be removed asap. Since the government can track cows, but not immigrants, its a farce.
How would you suggest the government “track immigrants”? Since it’s so easy, y’know, you must know how they can do it.
Also there’s a strange conception of economics there where you think only people earning over £40K contribute to society. Do British citizens earning less than £40K also constitute a drain on our society? Should we deport those too?
Zarove, if I was as you say full of hatred I would get extremely angry at being called a liar when I’m clearly not. However I’m not angry I just know we do not agree.
I feel you do your arguments no serious good, nor help your cause, perhaps this is the complexity of the medium. You have however fixated on Baroness Murphy, McDuff and myself as adversaries rather than recent content of blogs. Might I suggest you re-evaluate, I myself will leave this one how it is I can see no point in continuance.
ALSO, to the above, Atheistm is not really defined as “Non-beleif in a god”, its defined as rejextuion of beleif in a god. Thas the Epytemology. Its not an absence of beleif, but a positive assertion. I also don’t care for the semantics between “Weak” and “Srong” atheism.
Also, when I say Atheists have a Religion, this is not sayign Athism is itself a Religion. I am merley sayign that Being an Atheist doenst make you nonreligious.
I don’t really care how you define atheism, Zarove, it is what it is. If you, like many other religious people before you, want to define your personal belief system as the default and redefine people who don’t share it as “rejecting” that default then you go ahead and do that, but it’s not in any sense accurate.
Would you be declaring, here, that everybody has “a religion”? And what are the practical implications of that?
My view, Lord Soley, is:
That we
(and of course the United Nations, whose title incidentally means “United Peoples” and not overtly “United Nation-States”)
should peacefully-institute a unified worldwide Individual Human Development learning-curriculum and thousand-year Programme.
Distinctly this needs to be lifespan development of each individual human-being;
as distinct from the dominant UN Human Development department and its Aggregate-Index*.
———–
* the UN HDI is (Longevity x Knowledge x Wealth = 1.0000000)
i.e. we English shall be 100% human-developed if the whole nation is very-old, lengthily-lettered, and extensively propertied & rich !!!
The United Nations means, in fact, exactly “United Nation States,” regardless of what you might want it to mean, or what they in their high-minded uselessness might imagine they mean.
“should peacefully-institute a unified worldwide Individual Human Development learning-curriculum and thousand-year Programme.”
You forgot the pony.
McDuff-
I don’t really care how you define atheism, Zarove, it is what it is.
But it isn’t how I define it at all, its what the word literally means. A means without, Theism means God. Atheism is literally Without God. It is not, in the Greek, a term of absence of belief, but of outright rejection. It is a belief that no gods exist, or alternately a rejection of gods even if they do. The latter definition has become extinct.
If you, like many other religious people before you,
The point I make is that the way you see me as a Religious person, and thus yourself as separate from people like me, is flawed. The divide between Atheists and Religious People is artificial. Religion is not the same thing as Theism, and saying that you don’t believe in God is not the same thing as saying that you are not Religious.
Why is it that people like you think that being an Atheist means one has no Religion? Why do you conflate Religion with Theism?
Must we do this stupid “aha but if you go back to the ancient greek…” balls? Words change their meanings, particularly over spans of thousands of years. The word as it is currently used, with perfectly adequate understanding between speakers who do *not* have an ideological axe to grind, is “people who do not believe in God.”
If you wish to claim that people believe something they do not, that is entirely your prerogative, but it doesn’t make you right, it just makes you arrogant enough to think you get to define other people’s beliefs so that they better fit your bizarre view of the world.
Check, The-ism means belief in (some sort of) “God” ((or even “Gods ? as in the Religion of Hindusium ? = so shouldn’t Christianity be more cooperatively or diplomatically called “Christanism”) ?
————
It all depends what you mean by …
McDuff-
want to define your personal belief system
This is the other weird part. Somehow Religion is only Theism, and belief in God is a belief system.
I hate to break it to you, but merely believing that God exists is not a Belief system, and is not a Religion.
Theism is no more a Religion than is Atheism.
as the default and redefine people who don’t share it as “rejecting” that default then you go ahead and do that, but it’s not in any sense accurate.
Its also not accurate that I did this. I simply said that being an Atheist is not the same as not having a Religion. I also said that Technically Atheism is not defined as a lack of belief in a god.
I am correct on both. The Dictionary does not define Religion as belief in and about a god or gods, but as a set of beliefs about the nature, cause, and purpose of our existence. This is why I say that Atheism is not the opposite of Religion, for I’ve too often seen Atheists try to tell us how we should understand our existence, and trying to impose moral standards based upon their beliefs regarding how the world should work, all based on their understanding of the nature of our existence. In what way are they not the same as Religious People? Because their beliefs are Atheistic?
The whole point is that modern day Atheists who basically follow the Enlightenment’s ideas are really not simply Rationalists who see the world as it is thanks to reason and logic, but rather still rely on a subjective interpretation of the Data they see, and still try to bend things to fit their idea of how the world works. Their beliefs may be Atheistic, but this does not in itself mean they have no Religion, and the Humanist Philosophy they hold to covers the same basic ground and answers the same questions as Religion, and fills the same role that Religion fills. Exactly what is the real distinction?
That is my argument, not saying “Everyone who doesn’t agree with me is rejecting the default position of Religion’.
Indeed, I’ve had similar discussions with others who basically try to make me say what you have, base they are arguing from stock arguments and assume I’m saying Atheism is a religion in and of itself and tat Religion, by which I mean belief in God, is the default.
That’s clearly not what I’m saying, but you never bother to really read what I’m saying at all.
“Their beliefs may be Atheistic, but this does not in itself mean they have no Religion, and the Humanist Philosophy they hold to covers the same basic ground and answers the same questions as Religion, and fills the same role that Religion fills. Exactly what is the real distinction?”
Microprocessors and GPS devices, mainly.
I’ve seen this tack time and time again. Belief in God fails to be defended on its own merits, so people embark upon a well-poisoning attack on the limits and definitions of knowledge itself. “But yooou’ve got a religion too, so you’re no better than me.”
I’m not making a claim as to my own personal metaphysical superiority, Zarove. I’m making a claim as to the fact that there is some mechanism of making testable truth-statements about whatever passes for objective reality. “Religion”, be it based on atheism or deism or football hooliganism or the healing power of the blood of Jesus Christ shed for your sins, does not concern itself with testability.
You seem to be making a basic error that lots of religious types make. You think that because your theism is central to your belief system, such that the truth of the statement “there is a God” is necessarily affirmative for all your other beliefs to be true, that this is true of Atheism too. But, honestly, the truth of the statement “there is not a god” is pretty irrelevant to me, or to most other people who would no doubt be classified under your system. If considered at all, it is an ancillary belief at best. Oh, I’ve no doubt there are some for whom it is pretty central, but even Dawkins’ atheism has it as a conclusion rather than an axiom. You could prove without a shadow of a doubt that God exists and it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to me.
This is where you start projecting. Why do religious people get so concerned about “faith schools”, and homeschooling, and education in general? Because they know that’s their window. Religion’s strength is in its capacity to entrench authoritarian ties to a tribe, and this is best done in the formative years, before people have had a chance to gather information for themselves. They know, they have always known, that the biggest threat to them is not us miserable atheists over here denying the reality of justice and the possibility of eternal life: we’re selling something inherently unpalatable. The biggest threat to religion, in its strongest and most authoritarian form, is other religions. How can there be no God but Allah if Vishnu exists, and what’s special about Jesus if these here Buddhists are right? Atheism isn’t a threat but heresy most certainly is.
Your problem isn’t that us evil nasty secularists over here get to indoctrinate kids. It’s that in the modern age, particularly in this country where people have never been particularly keen on the strong kinds of religion and are increasingly uncomfortable with it, we don’t want nutters in beards being the only source of information the kiddies get. That’s what you can’t abide. Not the idea that kids will get indoctrinated, but that someone other than their church gets to decide what they learn. Shock horror, kids might grow up disrespecting their parents! Questioning long-held beliefs! Possibly even outright rejecting the “faith”. Better put them in a faith school quick, so that before they get old enough to properly work out how to reason we can instill a mortal fear of asking questions in the little suckers.
Rationalism is a cold, hard mistress that very few people find compelling. But a mishmashed belief system of “well I don’t really believe in God but I believe in spirituality and angels” or whatever people end up with doesn’t get bums on pews and tithes in the collection box.
I’m all for other points of view. Ecstatic about it. Couldn’t be happier with it. Because unlike those who rely on faith, I don’t need to tell people that science works. I got Moore’s Law and nuclear reactors on my side. What you got, some crying statue in Brazil and a bunch of sweaty old frauds getting increasingly frustrated because people just won’t hate on the gays like they used to? When religion figures out a way to come up with something like an iPhone, that’s when I’ll start to respect your regressive ass enough to think you might have something worthwhile to teach in those “faith schools”, how’s that sound?
But if all you want to do is make sure that you get to instill in them a mortal fear of questioning the truth of some shaky old religion, nah, sorry dude. I had that done to me as a kid. It made my life a hell from about 16-24 while I tried to work out what I was allowed to ask questions about. And I had *good* parents who also taught me how to question them. I’ve seen what that kind of training does to people with real fundamentalists for parents. Might as well bring them up locked in a cupboard. We don’t let you lock your kids in a physical cupboard, why should we let you indoctrinate their minds into one? Ain’t fair on them, is it?
McDuff-
Would you be declaring, here, that everybody has “a religion”? And what are the practical implications of that?
I am declaring that everyone has a Religion, and the Practical Implication is that the self described “Rationalists” can get off their high horse and start realising that they can’t just step in and make a decree and act as if contradicting or questioning them is questioning reason itself, and presenting their own beliefs as unassailable Truth and Inviolable. The Practical Implications is that all those Religious people would be able to legitimately argue cases for why they believe they should be let to run their own affairs according to the dictates of their own conscience, without having s Humanist force them into Humanist values and beliefs, or brainwash their children in schools with Humanist Dogma, all in the name of “Secularism’ over “Religion”.
When you realise that it really is just a difference of beliefs, and that the Humanist belief system is really no different than those of Christians or Indus in terms of how it functions, or even in how it can be rationally argued for, then you also elevate people who are, ahem, “religious” to the true Status of Equals, rather than tell them they can be Religious in their homes and in their Churches but must obey a Humanist Value System and Moral Code, and live in a world run by Laws rooted in Humanist thought, without recourse to any hearing of their own ideas.
The Practical implication is that the Humanists no longer get to sit above all and remain unquestioned. There beliefs would be subject to as much public scrutiny and not simply assumed to be True, and could be challenged, and those who do not share the Humanist beliefs would no longer be slaves to it.
It means treating everyone the same way and not favouring one persons beliefs above the others as if it cannot be questioned, whilst allowing criticism of all others. The End.
It all depends upon what you mean by
(e.g. “God”)