Terrorist attacks and beheadings in France

[ManchesterBeth]

Yeah, because cops shooting people who cut teachers heads off is working so well!

Maybe you should stop shagging if you are worried about your offspring being protected by old bill then.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Maybe you should stop shagging if you are worried about your offspring being protected by old bill then.

The smoking ban was quite effective.

 

[Raheem]

Do I?

You're turning the question back on me and asking me to tell you what you think?

Come on, be the reflective Saul. "The Chinese approach to controlling religion is something I fully support, up to a point" just doesn't come across well.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

in the interest of peacemaking I just want to say:
je suis cunt

 

[Saul Goodman]

You're turning the question back on me and asking me to tell you what you think?

Come on, be the reflective Saul. "The Chinese approach to controlling religion is something I fully support, up to a point" just doesn't come across well.

I'm saying banning children from churches is a start. I had assumed that it was illegal in China for children to practice a religion before they were 18 but it seems I was mistaken.

 

[Pickman's model]

the point is a state of any kind, no matter how purportedly secular it pretends to be, can abolish religion by fiat. The decline of religion comes out of real clashes of material forces people face in their daily lives, not via decree.

Blimy this place has fully turned into 'I'm too old for anarcho communism' hasn't it.

Any state can declare the tide no longer comes in by fiat. Or volvo. But that won't make it so.and if a soi-disant democracy did so it could damage the legitimacy and stability of the state.

 

[Shechemite]

Has religion declined? New ones keep on popping up. In secular China the State forces ‘traditional healing’ on it subjects with zeal.

 

[8ball]

Has religion declined? New ones keep on popping up. In secular China the State forces ‘traditional healing’ on it subjects with zeal.

As in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine)?

 

[deeyo]

Any state can declare the tide no longer comes in by fiat. Or volvo. But that won't make it so.and if a soi-disant democracy did so it could damage the legitimacy and stability of the state.

the dutch has managed for quite some time, though. longer than that moses guy did.

 

[Edie]

You guys should raise the tone of the debate. All this talk of body parts (cocks, rectums etc) and weird sexual threats is vile and proper teenage. Grow up.

 

[Pickman's model]

the dutch has managed for quite some time, though. longer than that moses guy did.

Do proffer a link

 

[Spymaster]

I'm saying banning children from churches is a start.

Don’t you think banning children from churches is just as intolerant as forcing them to attend them?

 

[JimW]

Did I mention China's treatment of anyone? I mentioned not allowing children into churches.

That's not true AFAIK and a quick search just suggests I'm right, you can take your kids to church here. Only one I know for sure is stopping underage kids becoming monks and lamas, and that still happens out in the sticks anyway despite the rules.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Not in favour of state bans for religion any more than I am of state obligations to religion. But I do think some separation between religious spaces and public spaces is necessary.

Those in positions of power within organised religions, be they bishops, imams or rabbis, invariably argue in favour of a special place being given to religious sensibilities within public spaces, often arguing at their more liberal ends for that special place to be extended to religions other than their own, in something of a religious mutual support network.

That's where, imo, the non-religious can end up getting into something of a muddle, accepting restrictions within public spaces in order to accommodate the ideas of particular organised religions (or, more accurately, the ideas promoted by those in power in those orgainsed religions) because they shout loudest. The norms or moral codes of non-believers are all too easily relegated to a secondary position as their advocates cannot appeal to higher authority as justification - who cares if atheists are offended?

 

[brogdale]

- who cares if atheists are offended?

Where the ignostics have the upper hand; offence replaced by patient waiting.

 

[Pickman's model]

Not in favour of state bans for religion any more than I am of state obligations to religion. But I do think some separation between religious spaces and public spaces is necessary.

Those in positions of power within organised religions, be they bishops, imams or rabbis, invariably argue in favour of a special place being given to religious sensibilities within public spaces, often arguing at their more liberal ends for that special place to be extended to religions other than their own, in something of a religious mutual support network.

That's where, imo, the non-religious can end up getting into something of a muddle, accepting restrictions within public spaces in order to accommodate the ideas of particular organised religions (or, more accurately, the ideas promoted by those in power in those orgainsed religions) because they shout loudest. The norms or moral codes of non-believers are all too easily relegated to a secondary position as their advocates cannot appeal to higher authority as justification - who cares if atheists are offended?

Not even other atheists I suppose

 

[Pickman's model]

That's not true AFAIK and a quick search just suggests I'm right, you can take your kids to church here. Only one I know for sure is stopping underage kids becoming monks and lamas, and that still happens out in the sticks anyway despite the rules.

Yeh but the suppression and destruction of mosques in xinjiang suggests muslims there afforded rather less opportunity to worship, for those uighurs not in captivity anyway

 

[JimW]

Yeh but the suppression and destruction of mosques in xinjiang suggests muslims there afforded rather less opportunity to worship, for those uighurs not in captivity anyway

Yes, the tolerance afforded the "Three Self" patriotic versions of organised religion who submit to state oversight is not the same thing as any voluntarist assembly, even in Han areas. Throw in any whiff of ethnic separatism and it's as you note a whole different story. Has happened to Christian house churches and self-organised Buddhist institutes in Tibet too.

 

[kabbes]

If you want to have a debate about what is appropriate to include and exclude from lessons in schools, the literal worst context you can place that debate in is one where a teacher has been murdered for giving a lesson. It’s like choosing to frame a debate about the nature of medicine within the work of Harold Shipman or discussing the crystalline qualities of icebergs by talking about the Titanic.

I would suggest that if you are genuinely interested in lesson planning, go and start a thread about lesson planning that doesn’t even mention murdered schoolteachers. Preferably in a forum related to lesson planning rather than the current affairs one.

 

[Spymaster]

Only one I know for sure is stopping underage kids becoming monks and lamas, and that still happens out in the sticks anyway despite the rules.

Not in favour of state bans for religion any more than I am of state obligations to religion. But I do think some separation between religious spaces and public spaces is necessary.

Those in positions of power within organised religions, be they bishops, imams or rabbis, invariably argue in favour of a special place being given to religious sensibilities within public spaces, often arguing at their more liberal ends for that special place to be extended to religions other than their own, in something of a religious mutual support network.

That's where, imo, the non-religious can end up getting into something of a muddle, accepting restrictions within public spaces in order to accommodate the ideas of particular organised religions (or, more accurately, the ideas promoted by those in power in those orgainsed religions) because they shout loudest. The norms or moral codes of non-believers are all too easily relegated to a secondary position as their advocates cannot appeal to higher authority as justification - who cares if atheists are offended?

What kind of public spaces?

 

[Spymaster]

If you want to have a debate about what is appropriate to include and exclude from lessons in schools, the literal worst context you can place that debate in is one where a teacher has been murdered for giving a lesson. It’s like choosing to frame a debate about the nature of medicine within the work of Harold Shipman or discussing the crystalline qualities of icebergs by talking about the Titanic.

I would suggest that if you are genuinely interested in lesson planning, go and start a thread about lesson planning that doesn’t even mention murdered schoolteachers. Preferably in a forum related to lesson planning rather than the current affairs one.

This is wrong for all the reasons illustrated in the previous 50 pages, but it seems we've moved on anyway.

 

[JimW]

What kind of public spaces?

Did you mean to quote me too there?

 

[kabbes]

This is wrong for all the reasons illustrated in the previous 50 pages, but it seems we've moved on anyway.

I read all the way up to page 45 and then finally felt I had to say something. I will read the intervening 8 pages now and see if anybody said something that makes my statement irrelevant. It seemed unlikely when I wrote it.

ETA: actually, it became even more pertinent during pages 46 to 51. So there you go.

 

[Spymaster]

Did you mean to quote me too there?

No. Apologies. Don't know what happened there.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What kind of public spaces?

Schools, government, law courts, libraries, theatres etc. The powerful within organised religions are often very keen to involve themselves and have vetoes over certain things in many of these public spaces. Historically, of course, they have been particularly interested in schools.

 

[Spymaster]

Schools, government, law courts, libraries, etc. The powerful within organised religions are often very keen to involve themselves and have vetoes over certain things in many of these public spaces. Historically, of course, they have been particularly interested in schools.

Like what though? Give us a couple of examples.

 

[Pickman's model]

Schools, government, law courts, libraries, theatres etc. The powerful within organised religions are often very keen to involve themselves and have vetoes over certain things in many of these public spaces. Historically, of course, they have been particularly interested in schools.

Go on, do tell me about libraries

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Like what though? Give us a couple of examples.

Like the example that is the thread subject here, like sex ed in schools, like theatres being bullied into pulling plays, like exceptions being made in law to accommodate mysoginy within religious systems, like publishers caving in to pressure to remove evolution from biology books, like compulsory religious instruction in schools as we have here atm (a good example of religions joining forces - it doesn't have to be Christianity, but it does have to be a religion).

One of the confusions comes when, in the name of protecting vulnerable minority groups from persecution, people ally themselves with very powerful reactionary forces within the religious organisations that those minorities are indentified as belonging to.

 

[Pickman's model]

Like the example that is the thread subject here, like sex ed in schools, like theatres being bullied into pulling plays, like exceptions being made in law to accommodate mysoginy within religious systems, like publishers caving in to pressure to remove evolution from biology books, like compulsory religious instruction in schools as we have here atm (a good example of religions joining forces - it doesn't have to be Christianity, but it does have to be a religion).

And libraries...

 

[Spymaster]

Like the example that is the thread subject here, like sex ed in schools, like theatres being bullied into pulling plays, like exceptions being made in law to accommodate mysoginy within religious systems, like publishers caving in to pressure to remove evolution from biology books, like compulsory religious instruction in schools as we have here atm (a good example of religions joining forces - it doesn't have to be Christianity, but it does have to be a religion).

Ah, ok. It seemed that you were referring to physical public spaces.

But you are referring to the extremes of religion that I was talking about yesterday. Your common-or-garden Christian has nothing against sex-ed, most Muslims don't want to cut people's heads off ... etc