The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, last night gave evidence to the Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill. Following him, we heard evidence from representatives of THEOS, a Christian think tank, and the British Humanist Association. Earlier, the House of Lords Library published a useful Library research note on religious representation in the House. It can be read here.
The written evidence from the witnesses to the Joint Committee, along with the other evidence submitted, can be read here. The submission from the Chief Rabbi is especially well worth reading. His approach appears to be shared by the two Anglican archbishops as well as by the Muslim Council.
It is interesting to read submissions seemingly from random members of the public. Some are purely opinion and contain no evidence or research at all, with many people suggesting from scratch how they think the new upper chamber should work. Some could even be described as cranks.
The funny thing is, had the Draft Bill been submitted by one of those members of the public, we would no doubt have dismissed him or her as a crank, and the proposal as something poorly thought out by an amateur, given that it looks like it was made up as they went along with no forethought about what the role of the House of Lords is.
Can I download and save those pdf files to Adobe digital editions, or are they copyrighted in some way?
(from Wikipedia)
” “Crank” is a pejorative term used for a person who unshakably holds a belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false.
[1] A “cranky” belief is so wildly at variance with commonly accepted belief as to be ludicrous.
Cranks characteristically dismiss all evidence or arguments which contradict their own unconventional beliefs, making rational debate an often futile task. ”
(Doesn’t that latter resonate cracked-bell-like with both the British Establishment and the “Democratic” Houses of Parliamentarians ?)
Wouldn’t there be a life-threatening difference between “a ludicrously false belief” and “a belief ‘wildly-at-variance-against’ a/the commonly-accepted belief” ?
e.g.
1) a religion reducing the seven-sacramental-energies to other, or fewer, holisticly-healthy-life-essentials,
as is the Case with every religion everywhere in the World but, especially here in Britain we must be concerned, in Christianity where merely one ‘sacrament’ suffices namely ‘The Last Supper’ (‘Mass’, ‘Eucharist’, ‘Lord’s Table’,
‘Holy Communion’);
yet unwilling to in-clude such science-and-lifeplace validated advances, in individual-human-development and cooperative-civilisational-progress, as “Awareness Through Movement” by Moshe Feldenkrais, and many others ?
2) With every religion on Earth supporting the Abusive and Civilisationally-Suicidal Political & Economic & Academic double-destruction of both Renewable and Non-Renewable Resources (Lifesupports), of all other Lifeforms and Lifesupports on Earth,
it has to be The Case that the majority of Human-Beings, but especially of their Governors, is majorly “cranky”.
How can any-one tell what is “true” and what “false” under such mal-feasance, mal-education, and dis-information ?
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My LotB current second submission to Lord Soley’s “The Boarding School Bomber”, put forward a case for a new Evaluative, to classify civilisations according to their internal and externally-cooperative Sustainworthinesses, as in contrast or conflict with their Destructivenesses or Un-sustainworthinesses:
A = the ideally and longest-possible-term sustainworthy civilisation (of which I find none on Earth nor any both willing & able to advance out of lower categories);
F = failed or failing civilisations (such as today’s Greece, Italy, Spain) still possibly ‘rescuable’ by UN-governance measures;
X = outrightly destructive civilisations, both internally and externally (such as Gaddafi’s Libya, PolPot’s Cambodia, Hitler’;s Third Reich, Idi Amin’s Uganda and his version of Christyian Anglicanism therein).
Neither is such a submission ever ascended reasonably-verbatimly to the Parliaments, nor even laterally shared with other existing or would-be democratic ‘minorities-of-one’.
Who is ‘cranky’ – the Established Empowered ‘Majority’ ?
or a Minority-of-One dis-empowered, dis-informed but would-be-democratic life-expert and thinker ? –
Or could it be that given a Win-Win-Win governance-methodology such as Method III, both could be found to contain Truth and Falsehood* ?
* we avoid using an ampersand here, because in formal-reasoning ‘&’ means ‘both are True’).
@milesjsd: I should clarify that my comment about “cranks” wasn’t specifically about views on religious representation. I was referring more to the ideas about how the entire membership of the House should be chosen (election, appointment, etc.) Many of them are hard to take seriously, yet they are no worse than the Draft Bill.
Religion is hard to define.
What does it really mean? A philosophy or ideology is constantly being reinterpreted. Now how can that be? The claim is always, God, has come to us and given us the message.
Well, when the message is given, who has the ‘God’ given the gift of mind to interpret what is right by him?
Religion is a business. And those in the business change their views to suit the day. Politics play a big game in the machinations of religion. So, one has to be suspect of any man who claims he is in direct contact with the almighty. As the almighty appears to be as fleeting as the honey bee. He stops at blossom after blossom, leaving with each with a different message.
Or, does he?
Maude, let us say that God is that ‘factor’ in the Account-of-Life-On-Earth that was instrumental in defying the Sun’s utter inhibition of all lifeforms, and providing such security as Shade-from-the-Sun’s killing-rays, so that Earth-Life could both begin and evolve ?
Let us also say that God is each individual lifeform’s designer that (‘Who’) directly creates in each the specific DNA and Sacramental-Energies that make both the individual and its surrounding Life supportiveness.
Religions are supposed to be the ever-intimately-present external nurturers of those innate sacramental-energies;
and now I not only agree that Religions are just Businesses like any other Businesses, but that as far as fitness-for-Purpose goes, Religions are unfit, and do little to holisticly nurture the innate sacramental-energies neither of the individual nor of the collective.
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Jonathan. I believe, and think, that the sine-qua-non for membership of either House is a Fitness-for-Purpose based on the candidate’s Workplace-Skills, Lifeplace-Abilities & Exemplary-Leadership records.
Without that, the ‘choice’ between “appointment” and “election” remains vapid.
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The other points I put forward seem to be being avoided ?
You know Miles, I felt this morning that the secular society that we have become, imposes so many oppressive conditions on Christians, which go directly against their belief system and doctrine, it can no longer be tolerated as an acceptable way of life.
In essence, the laws changing what one is allowed to accept as the right way of life, as a Christian and to be comfortable in such a life, is now utterly eroded.
It would therefore seem only right under such extreme opposition to this religion, to allow the people, who are of it the right to exodus. A place, akin to Israel, should be offered Christians who want to settle and raise their family accordingly, and have a welcoming homeland to embrace for their salvation, must be made available.