After years of "will they, won't they?" and multiple protests, CalMac eventually planned to run a ferry between the strongly presbyterian Western Isles and the mainland this coming Sunday…..

An engine problem has hit the ferry scheduled to be used on the first Sunday sailing from the mainland to Lewis in the Western Isles.

Proof?

of what? shoddy scottish engineering?

🙂

Parting the sea would have been more ….you know showy …..but convincing enough for me
Hallelujah
JEHOVAH
ALLAH AKBAR

I dont believe in god. Wriggled like a good'un 😉

I heard of someone the other day (racking my brain where) who is suing the church for claiming that god exists. Why didn't I think of that? Prove that one in a court of law!

wasn't that a film, starring Billy Connolly?

Why didn't I think of that? Prove that one in a court of law!

It was a film

But – they wouldn't have to, the plaintiff would have to prove he/she/it didn't

Proof of what druidh?

It'll be a re-run of Whisky Galore.

Proof of what druidh?

Proof of some dodgy sabotage work probably.

Clearly not the 'hand of God'.

God is a Catholic – wtf would he be helping presbyterian heretics ? ffs

Most entertaining reason for the existence of God.

My mother in law is irritatingly evangelical and what more sensible Christian folk would probably sdescribe as Not A Good Witness. She once advised the RAC man at the motorway services that she didn't need a membership as she was (and I quote directly here) "with the Lord".

20 yards out of the car park and her car dies.

*booming Almightly voice* I may have created the heavens and the earth but i don't do ****' breakdown recovery.

They need to pray to the Korean gods of RORO …

😆

If God was a bit more logical and cunning, he/she/they would have allowed the ferry journey FROM the godless mainland, but then caused the failure on the way back, thus trapping godless people among the believers and enabling them to have been burned at the stake.

Anyone got any good "If God was…" aphorisms.

My favourite: "If God was a woman, sperm would taste of chocolate"

All it proves is the existence of coincidence. Now, if it happens the next half-dozen times…

Sod that ,lets see some water into wine, or some virgins created in Oldham!

Or maybe some hellfire raining down and global floods and plagues and stuff.

Funny how none of this has happened for a couple of thousand years, or ever really.

She once advised the RAC man at the motorway services that she didn't need a membership as she was (and I quote directly here) "with the Lord".

20 yards out of the car park and her car dies.

*booming Almightly voice* I may have created the heavens and the earth but i don't do ****' breakdown recovery.

LMFAO(Laugh My **** Arse Off)

Maybe it was the spirit of Noah. Perhaps he had ARC withdrawl symptoms.

Religion = stupidity

Maybe the curing of Cancer, cessation of wars, stop the odd natural disaster or even just save a few kids from a fire etc.

You know…. anything any half competent omnipresent, all seeing/knowing, all powerful and compassionate deity could do in the blink on an eye.
Maybe.. you know… that would be more believable?

God is a Catholic – wtf would he be helping presbyterian heretics ? ffs

Exactly, he'd be away fondling kids in ireland.

The people in Lewis and Harris are good people who take their christianity very seriously. As well as observe their sabbath, they also try to obey all the other commandments. They're not perfect, but they try.

If you ever need help over there you'll be stunned by the kindness and hospitality you will receive.

That said, I'm pleased at having a Sunday ferry now – but I won't be using it because I have no wish to offend the people I visit there.

I used to ride with a bunch of christians, won't say where. But none of them had pensions because they truly believed the four horsemen of the apocalypse would come marching in before then and put an end to this world. Maybe they're right…

Are they borrocks!

Absolute proof!
God rules the Highlands,
CalMac rules the Islands.

Progress?

I saw an tabloid TV article that was quite fair about this situation. It wasn't really just about religion. The creep of seven day, twenty four hour convenience life was a threat to a more community and family oriented society on the island. If you run the ferry, the terminal staff have to work then the cleaning staff, then the shops feel they have to open or "they're losing out" and the remote owners of the businesses use it as an excuse to change the terms and conditions of the poorest workers.

One of the (many) reasons I so detested working in retail was the fact that it is run in a state of constant panic in which any pretence of participation by the staff is just an excuse to get more out of them for less. You're supposed to be protected from having to work on Sunday but you watch a Tesco worker try to claim that right and see how soon their hours are cut down to less than they need.

It's a crap thing, this lack of a rhythm to the week. Every day is the same and you can never escape the noise of pointless activity. As a point of order, I do believe in God but I don't really take the books and commandments as divine word: for the purposes of this subject I'm really making a secular anti-capitalist argument. Good on the protesters, and if it was God's hand, I think it proves his sense of humour more than his rancour.

–Quick sidenote to surfer: "If his majesty sends a ship to the East, does he worry whether the ship's rats are comfortable?" Voltaire.

You're supposed to be protected from having to work on Sunday but you watch a Tesco worker try to claim that right and see how soon their hours are cut down to less than they need.

I very much doubt I could claim that right either, so cut out the crap.

Bit of a difference between emergency services and the need for retail though Drac.

Mind, if folk did less on a Sunday then there'd be less scope for accidents and therefore less for you to do to! Everyone wins.

–Quick sidenote to surfer: "If his majesty sends a ship to the East, does he worry whether the ship's rats are comfortable?" Voltaire.

I dont get your point?
Voltaire was a 15c philosopher who was a critic of the Catholic church. Are you doing what you appear to be doing with the bible? A "pick and mix" of the good bits.
Cant we talk about the murder of children, gang rape and all that? or is that so 1st testament?

Bit of a difference between emergency services and the need for retail though Drac.

Same laws apply pretty much, you can ask to opt out employee may oblige but they don't have need to pay you.

Drac, I'm a little offended by the 'crap' comment. If you're unhappy with your conditions of employment, is that any reason to deny the rights of other people?
Anyway, I was only illustrating the point the Lewis residents had made.

Surfer, I'm not 'picking and mixing': I'm pretty much accepting it's a human artefact; an amazing and varied one, but human in source. The quote from (18th century) Voltaire suggests that God's apparent indifference to human suffering doesn't invalidate the existence of a creator. It could just be that we're not quite as cosmically important as we want to believe, as in Douglas Adams' 'You are here' gag.

It's your claim of it being retail only employee rights effect all, if you don't want to work certain days why should an employer be forced to pay you or offer other days. There's also the reversal people also have the right to work on Sundays to earn a living just because some god bothers on a comfy little island want otherwise doesn't make it right.

jesus was welsh!

but now he is a member of the taliban.

i know which one my money is on…..

anyone ever read Goldilocks?

Whoever Photoshopped our Lord with a gun is a blasphemer and is damned..

in the eyes of gun geeks – the Taliban use the AK47 and later variants, infinitely superior for irregular combat to the American weapon depicted

At least the ferry won't now suffer countless punctures due to all the tacks that some religious fruit-loop Jock will have already spread in the waters to disrupt the 'event'…

Surely Jesus would use an Uzi.

A Winchester according to Luke

It's a crap thing, this lack of a rhythm to the week. Every day is the same and you can never escape the noise of pointless activity.

have you never worshipped at the Saturday altar of commercial bladder chasing? There is a rhythm to the week, outside the Barclays FA Premiership.

"When Saturday Comes", I think it goes…

ok I'll take my tongue out of my cheek now, but millions of people do exactly that

Some excellent quoted on R4 this morning from the religious front about the sabbath being for rest etc… all "backed up" by quotes from the Old Testament (which is the book of the jews and they take Saturday off…go figure)

I am pretty sure these people don't follow a lot of the other stuff in the OT as it is outmoded and wrong (stoning blasphemers, banishing women on the blob, incest, not eating shellfish….)

Stick to the "rules" in the whole of the book or make up your own and have the guts to chart your own moral course. Which ever you choose please don't think that you can impose it on others (this goes for secularists too…)

SSP

Related to the post above about Jews taking Saturday as their sabbath:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6513866.ece

A Jewish couple are suing neighbours over motion sensors that turn on the lights in their communal stairwell, which they claim make it impossible for them to leave their flat during the sabbath.

Like many Orthodox Jews, Dena and Gordon Coleman will not use electricity between sundown on Friday and Saturday night, which they regard as a day of rest.

I thought it was the 21st century?

A Jewish couple are suing neighbours over motion sensors that turn on the lights in their communal stairwell, which they claim make it impossible for them to leave their flat during the sabbath.

Like many Orthodox Jews, Dena and Gordon Coleman will not use electricity between sundown on Friday and Saturday night, which they regard as a day of rest.

a good dose of GFY is in order i think.

god top trumps anyone?