What..?

Good old Frank. A great one for pushing the envelope. I would respond with a question of my own...what are we to make of a society that is becoming unshockable?

I think Billy Conolly did something about this subject a few years ago as well. It's interesting and to a certain extent revealing: myself, I find "cluster bomb" more offensive than "fuck" and phrases like "the national interest" or "economic growth" a good deal more upsetting than a perfectly good word for a part of a woman's body. While we're on the subject, "military" is a pretty sensitive word in my lexicon unless it's accompanied by a long list of expletives. I'm sorry to say though that Frank had it wrong, at least in respect of society being primitive. The pervasive fear of certain forms of honest or direct language has to do with very complex and deep-seated mechanisms of social control. I do not argue that a restricted language alone leaves us in chains, but rather that the dictates of respectability and acceptable language are just more evidence of our enslavement. Forget swear words for a moment and think about blasphemy. I find some blathering idiot insisting that his god created the world and that we are all steeped in sin highly offensive and yet I am supposed to put up with it in good humour for the sake of tolerance of all the people of faith. In short we are taught to tolerate blissful ignorance because to say the contrary, that the whole idea of a creator and of sin is a crock of shit that serves only to keep us on our knees and mired in self-doubt and guilt is and always has been dangerous to the status quo. If language can corrupt, then those of us who would argue that our society is already all but dead, must use the power of corruption to full effect in the hope that something might just wake people up to the realities of the world they choose to recreate everyday. Unfortunately I just don't think that language alone is that powerful.

Language, or words within a language, are given power by society. As a teacher, I have to be very careful about certain words at school. The kids I teach are not, however! Personally, I believe that we should not add to the negative power of a word by subscribing to its selective use. I am totally desensitised to them anyway! However, certain innocent (supposedly) words used in a negative way, i.e. 'That's really gay' to express displeasure in something, I do find offensive, as I do all prejudice.

Its not what you say, but how you say it. The Sophists knew it, so do we. Its romantic to think the words themselves have power; only the speaker does.

Sheikyerbouti is my favourite album by Zappa. FZ was a bit barking really. Once I read Beckett whilst listening to Zappa on my way home from work. I felt quite traumatised when I got off the train like someone had dropped an alkaseltza in my head. (If that's how you spell it.) I agree with keleph mainly...although I would add society to that - society has the power to make certain words taboo and deem certain words offensive. I find the whole idea of taboo and symbolism interesting though...beyond the offensiveness or not of certain words - the idea that certain words and symbols can be gender assigned, only used at certain times, ritualised language and symbol I suppose I mean. I did once read Freud's Totem and Taboo, but it was so annoying I wanted to tear it in half with my bare hands. I wouldn't recommend it.

Women want... the right to change their mind at any time.

But these are all very generalised statements too: 'Suprisingly enough some of the greatrest minds and artists did and do! And about sin, look around you a God-less society isn't really a cause for rejoicing. The `Christian` God's `morality` as found in the bible is the basis for Western civilization and it's laws'

They are generalisations that you are making. 'Suprisingly enough some of the greatest minds and artists did and do! To say this is AS much of a generalisation as calling the religious 'blathering idiots', it doesn't really mean that SOME religious people who get very hung up about language and not say human rights abuses aren't, in fact. probably blathering idiots. And about sin, look around you a God-less society isn't really a cause for rejoicing. There are plenty of good things about a God-less society (if you could truly argue that's what we live in) as well as bad just as there were many drawbacks to living in a highly religious society - feudalism in the deeply Christian Middle Ages, for example. Which society are you talking about anyway? Or are you concentrating on the West? The `Christian` God's `morality` as found in the bible is the basis for Western civilization and it's laws' Really? And what about the influence of so many other areas of human thought - philosophy, politics, art, literature - here is the humanist side of ethics and morality in practice which is perhaps more influential than Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Yes, I wasn't really intending to instigate reams of polemic. I just found it interesting that you were upset about a generalised statement of opinion and your retort was, ironically, a collection of generalised statements of opinion regardless of their grains of truth or fact - this is true of most sweeping generalisations. I'm not very clear what my ancestors' take on religion has to do with anything including my own beliefs or lack of them. I don't see what bearing this has on your argument or what you're saying it ought to have on me?

Now, I did not say that all people of faith are blathering idiots, I said "some blathering idiot". There are indeed intelligent people of faith and some less intelligent atheists, still one position is right and the other wrong, that much is clear. As for the basis of western this and western that, I do not deny that the Christian churches have been extraordinarily influential. I do not accept that any of this has been for the good. The Ten Commandments are not built on common sense they are largely framed by the bigotry of some ancient genocidal maniacs whose god was decidedly not a very nice character. I direct you to Dawkins' 'God Delusion' for an excellent dismantling of the "Ten Commandments are really terribly nice" cobblers. It's probably a shame that the majority of Christians have for two thousand years been associated with organisations apparently desperate to distance themselves from that humble man from Galilee. In any event the most lazy thing of all is to suggest that the Judeo-Christian legacy has largely formed western civilisation, western civilisation is good and therefore Christianity is good. That's not an argument, that's intellectual baby food. I reject every one of these assertions, but not wishing to embark on an essay several thousands of words long, I'll leave it for another time.

Science does not have to prove the non-existence of god or gods; what science says is here are answers and theories which can be verified, challenged, disproved or improved, they explain the way the world works, the way our bodies work, the way the universe works and from them we can perhaps develop better ways to live. Faith in a creator is different, it is not founded on the scientific method, you can adduce no substantial proof for the existence of your god or indeed for many of your major prophets; your belief system rests on nothing but assertion and feeling. Dawkins by the way does not set out to prove the non-existence of God, what he says is that no religionist can prove that existence and that there are many better explanations for the way the universe works.

Why do you imagine that I have never looked with an open heart? How do you know that I do not understand a great deal about Christianity and Christians? How do you dare to imagine that there is no spirituality in understanding the material grandeur of this universe? I have considered this idea of god a great deal in fact and it is because I believe I understand love (a powerful proof for me of the value of humanity which needs absolutely no divine explanation) that I reject the values embodied in the fictional Christian and every other god. What kind of love demands a blood sacrifice for sin? What kind of love demands obedience and worship, fear even and awe? What kind of love says to its children that they may choose freely but one way means life and the other death? The judgemental Christian god is incompatible with love. "Love beyond all understanding" is more like the vengeful conditional love of a petulant child than unconditional love that should be the basis of fatherhood. I tell you this and it is not mockery: even if I were proved wrong and I could no longer deny the existence of the Christian god I would not worship him. And god so loved the Earth that he sent his only son? What? To be nailed to a tree so that we could all be freed from death and sin? You can take your blood-stained altar and you can keep it mate, because that ain't love, at least not love comparable to the love of which humanity is capable.

'Philosophy, politics, art and literature,yes that shapes our thinking and most of it's roots are Christian.' NO! Just NO! So wrong... Christianity is so NEW in relation to all these things... it wasn't influential upon any of the above until round about the first millenium (1000 AD) when Christianity became widespread in Northern Europe. And then it only influenced the above in Northern Europe!

The Ten Commandments are not strictly speaking Christian. Christians have incorporated them into their religion via the Old Testament but the Commandments were given to the Jews long, long before Christ came along. Both Christians and Muslims have adopted much of the Old Testament and of course the Jews still profess to follow its laws but so far as I know it is only the Muslims that have remained faithful to it. As for the Crucifixion - I have to admit that I always had trouble understanding why Christ had to die on the cross. That weird American comedian set me thinking when he said “Thank God Christ wasn’t executed recently or we’d all be walking round with little electric chairs around our necks.” It was C S Lewis that clarified things for me with the death of Aslan on the stone table to fulfil the laws of the old magic. Aslan – son of the Great Magician – was quite obviously Christ and of course this becomes plain in the last book of the Tales Of Narnia. It’s very arrogant to believe that just because you’ve thought a bit about something that this means you understand it... some things are not always logical, not always even comprehensible and love is certainly one of those things – but there is an old saying that has little to do with religion which aptly expresses the Christian concept of the Crucifixion : No greater love hath any man than he lays down his life for his friends. Christ died for what He believed in as have so many others since... Maybe it’s the mark of a superior man that he has principles he will die for or maybe it’s the mark of the mad or the brain-washed... it all depends on your perspective. Yet nowadays for some it’s still the fastest way to Heaven.

God will forgive you all of your sins so long as you subsribe to a church? Plenty of religious affiliates are worse sinners than those that merely live in a moral way without being a member of any church.

Mark, it is clear that there is little or nothing to be gained by you and I carrying on a debate between the two of us. Nevertheless, the business of the blood sacrifice is not so easily brushed away. Of course I am aware of the concepts of the wrath of god and the lamb of god and of Jesus dying for all our sins, it's just that I find the whole thing repugnant and a clear enough insight into the nature of the origins of your religion that I want nothing to do with it at all. Sin is interesting. Of course I deny the existence of original sin and see no utility in the concept of sin at all. If I am to take all this talk of "the father" and "love beyond all understanding" seriously then it is clear to me that there needs must be no damnation and no salvation. In other words if I were to arrive in Heaven and find that Ghengis Khan and Adolf Hitler had been denied life everlasting on the basis of their "sins" then I would know that god's law was not based on love at all. Either "Our Father" gives us all eternal life because we are his children or he is no father and his "love beyond all understanding" is not love at all as I understand it. Here is an atheist parable for you: There was a father with many children. He said he loved them all equally. For all that he loved his children he remained somewhat distant from many of them, preferring that they should have to search out the backstairs to his study to find him than that he should have to come downstairs regularly to remind them that he was watching them. All around the house there were dangers and front and back there were very busy roads, but he had told them all a long time ago that they should be careful and some of the children who felt closer to him were always echoing his warnings. Still, all day long from below he could hear the sounds of painful and fatal accidents in the cellar and the kitchen; on the roads trucks screeched and skidded regularly smashing the bodies of wandering infants. "I love you all" the father would say through his tears, but he would not leave his study, "and I am with you all the time". One day one of the children closest to the father came to the closed study door and said loudly "Dad, why don't you come downstairs and help me try to keep the little ones safe?" "Don't worry I'm with you all the time and there was that one time I sort of came down, don't forget that. They have to learn for themselves. Just tell them that I love them and at bedtime bring all of the family that has not been wiped out by cars and lorries or electrocuted by the dodgy power tools in the garage upstairs with you and I'll read you all a nice story. Okay?" Well, all that is of course rather beside the point. Right I'm off to put a tooth under a pillow and hang up my stocking for Santa Claus. When I've done that I might go and talk to the fairies at the bottom of the garden or read a chicken's entrails. Hmmm, the world of superstition, so many choices eh?

I don’t suppose it would occur to you, Mr K, that if Heaven were to admit everybody then it would hardly be Heaven would it? Surely the whole point is that people are given a chance to exercise free will and to be as good or as bad as they choose... then, they are judged and sent to the appropriate destination. Personally I think three score years and ten (or so) is quite long enough for the meek to endure the mad and the bad. I have a sneaking suspicion that should the Christians turn out to be right you will quickly discover that there are a lot worse people than Hitler or Genghis Khan... eternity is a very long time to regret your mistakes :O)

It has come to my attention that recent evidence has cast doubt on the existence of Father Christmas! In an effort to ascertain the truth I propose a Santa Search Site. No point in traipsing to the North Pole in search of Santa's Grotto - which of course might be invisible anyway – but rather the creation of an internet site on which all those who have actually seen Santa can register their witness vote... i.e. I confirm that I have seen Santa. To be honest, I cannot see why anyone would wish to invent such a character should he not exist... let's face it the power of "You won't get any presents from Santa if you aren't good!" has rarely had lasting benefit and who in their right mind would support a deception which involves the expense of buying gifts and giving someone else the credit? Still, we must be certain that our children are not being misled with tales of an imaginary chimney crawler (hmmm, actually, maybe he has updated his delivery system due to increased workload). Makes you wonder if he still flies Air Reindeer. So, anyone with the suitable skills to design and implement a suitable web site should contact me at "I've Spotted Santa@coolmail.com". Thank you for your time.

I read somewhere recently that the stories in the bible weren't literal, I maybe wrong but I'm sure it was in the Guardian, the stories are complex metaphores, you know the rising from the dead etc, which made more sense of it. For what it's worth, I believe religeon, (when it's not being distorted for another agenda), is about telling people how to treat others. Not a bad thing. Craig

Hey Moimo, are you sure it wasn't the stories in the Guardian that aren't literal? Mark, I should have stopped with the obvious point that this is getting us nowhere. Still, it seems to me that there is something of an unbridgeable gulf between love and the justice of the death penalty. Okay, what I'd like to know is can we make any of this relevant to Ewan's original point? Mark, I don't want a window on your soul, it's all the same to me if you're a blue-arsed pagan or a Sunday morning saint, right up, that is, to the point at which you begin evangelising. If you lived next door to me could we be friends and neighbours, help one another out and never arrive at the point at which I had to say to you "Mark, if you mention your god to my children again without them asking you to I'm going to punch your lights out"? I could guarantee you the opposite. I would not try to undermine the faith of your family, I would not scream "idiot" at you as you went off to church in the morning. Much of the problem with Christianity (and Islam while we're at it) is they are converting religions.... it seems to me that if we are to suffer blasphemy laws and inhibitions we should at least try to stop the spreading of religion in the same way. No? I started off by saying that I find unsolicited preaching offensive, so here's my attempt to re-rail a thread that I have been as responsible as anyone for de-railing.

Hey Krypto, don't know what you mean. This is a chat room not a rant room, keep your posts to a level where I can be bothered to read the lot. Can't be arsed to see if you were throwing an insult or not. Blieve me I probably know more about the workings of the media than your good yourself. The Guardian, in my humble opinion, is better than most in delivering what's going on. It all depends on the consumer to read between the lines. Craig

Umm, it was a joke. I just have to say though that I suspect that I know at least as much about the workings of the mass media as you do... I have devoted more than a reasonable fraction of my life to the study of just that. You're of course right this is a chat room, but here, if anywhere we are free to express our ideas. I would be very surprised if I have caused grievous hurt to Mark, despite the fact that we disagree vehemently on the question of religion. I suggest that if you can't be bothered to read posts that you not comment on them.

Thinking about The West Wing when the President pointed out all the prejudiced views in the Bible, wholly UnChristian...

kropto, suggest all you want, as you said here of all places we can express what we like, may I suggest you don't contradict yourself as much. I don't think I suggested for one minute you'd upset Mark in any way, so again may I suggest you look to your own advice and if you can't be bothered to read a post don't bother commenting. Or is that covered by the first suggestion. For what it's worth regarding views on the media etc I dread to think what your analysis was judging by what your posts. Oh and my experiences haven't come from just studying other peoples analysis. No harm meant. Regards Craig

"No harm meant" From my perspective you entered this thread like a bull in a china shop. Feel free to disagree with my analysis when you know what it is, but you have offered no analysis. You know nothing about me or my experiences and quite evidently you don't know the difference between an argument and a rant. I've never met Mark, but I suspect that he and I could happily argue with one another for hours and still part on good terms. I've never met you, but I can tell that discussing anything with you would be a horribly painful experience. I don't like your tactics, they remind me of playground bullies. You can use your strongarm attitude on someone else mate because I've got nothing else to say in a forum with you.

Come on people, heated debate on an intellectual level is not something people fall out over, I have been enjoying this thread so far...

Oh I'm really hurt. Thry not to be so judgemental or grow up a bit. Don't worry as you get older you'll get wiser, I'm guessing your in your late teens early twenties. Craig

You're!

Sorry You're ha ha Craig

Ahh, the witch bitch in full and fine swingery... Have you seen this test (below) where you have to add the proper punctuation to the sentence in order to give it meaning? James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher

This is like a blogger version of the Jeremy Kyle show.

I'm stumped.

James while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher Even when I stammer I can't work this out! Can anyone?

It's in Wikipedia: James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher. The meaning could thus be rendered, after some reordering and changing a few words, "While John had used 'had', James had used 'had had'. The teacher had preferred 'had had'."

What a load of codswallop. If you want to confuse people, stick to extended metaphors!

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Naked greeting naked greeting naked greeting naked greeting naked greeting naked greeting naked greeting. Buff! Allo! And by the way that Had had... still makes no sense!