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As specific as "inappropriate" and "insulting"?
What does that mean?
Like Ronseal?
I was having a debate on Saturday with some devout Catholics, some atheists, some agnostics over lunch.
I am jealous of your life!
[quote=grum ]Saying they are incorrect would be one thing. Saying they are deluding themselves is a very loaded and partial phrase.
Yet still a world away from suggesting that somebody is deluded in a way which would make you prejudiced against them. Do you really not understand that the issue is not the language used, but your suggestion of prejudice? A prejudice which you've consistently failed to justify. Well that and completely failing to see the context of the expression.
Yet still a world away from suggesting that somebody is deluded in a way which would make you prejudiced against them.
Not really.
Do you really not understand that the issue is not the language used
So you say.
A prejudice which you've consistently failed to justify.
In your opinion.
I see no-one is going to answer this question:
So the next question is, why is he misrepresenting the entire argument so badly? That's much worse than just being a bit impolite.
From the quotes given, there is no reference to calling anyone deluded.
So despite the fact he is saying some folk are deluding themselves he is not calling anyone deluded 😯
Anyone who thinks like that has shit for brains*
I assume i have not insulted anyone with that one then.
There are literally loads of way to do this
* reductio ad absurdum I am not really saying that to anyone to be clear but even if i was i am not really saying it apparently anyway so I did not even need to say that did I ?
To be worth answering, a question needs to have a valid premise.
Where in the letter from the 55 public figures does it suggest that Christian historical influence on our society is going to 'disappear overnight', or that it should?
SIR – We respect the Prime Minister’s right to his religious beliefs and the fact that they necessarily affect his own life as a politician. However, we object to his characterisation of Britain as a “Christian country” and the negative consequences for politics and society that this engenders.Apart from in the narrow constitutional sense that we continue to have an established Church, Britain is not a “Christian country”. Repeated surveys, polls and studies show that most of us as individuals are not Christian in our beliefs or our religious identities.
At a social level, Britain has been shaped for the better by many pre-Christian, non-Christian, and post-Christian forces. We are a plural society with citizens with a range of perspectives, and we are a largely non-religious society.
Constantly to claim otherwise fosters alienation and division in our society. Although it is right to recognise the contribution made by many Christians to social action, it is wrong to try to exceptionalise their contribution when it is equalled by British people of different beliefs. This needlessly fuels enervating sectarian debates that are by and large absent from the lives of most British people, who do not want religions or religious identities to be actively prioritised by their elected government.
Seeing as it doesn't - anywhere - suggesting that it does (and saying they are deluding themselves on that basis) is a total misrepresentation of their views. So the premise of the question is perfectly valid.
The reason you don't want to answer is because you can't.
So despite the fact he is saying some folk are deluding themselves he is not calling anyone deluded
Just to clear up here - there is a difference betwen being deluded and deluding onesself. Deluding onesself is simply a coarse way of saying that someone is wrong on a particular point - it's a figure of speech.
Being deluded is a continued state of ignorance, most likely by an external influence.
According to what laws of language molgrips? Just sounds to me like your opinion - others are available.
If someone on here were to say "people who believe in some sort of supernatural higher power are deluding themselves", would anyone complain?
If someone in a high position of government were to say "people who believe in some sort of supernatural higher power are deluding themselves", would anyone complain?
Oooh yes. A few, I suspect. Haven't seen barnesleymitch around lately although PigFace did tell me my opinions were "vile" the other day...
😀
Wikipedia only I'm afraid - perhaps you have a better source?
I do take back that he is a cabinet minister which is quite incorrect - in fact, he only attends cabinet. The idea that the AG can be advisor to government is an absurdity - government cannot advise itself. Possibly one could say the AG advises cabinet.
In any case - the point is that he is a political figure who is not expected (or desired to be) neutral, his political prejudices are what recommend him for the job, and it's quite open to him to spout off any ill-advised old bollocks he likes. Your mock concern that he is doing so is entirely misplaced.
What "this country" is, may well be based on centuries of broadly Christian thinking and practises, but that doesn't preclude us being a broadly secular and multi denomination country now.
"This country" is also what it is because of years of child labour (industrial revolution), imperial conquests, and slavery, but that doesn't mean that we all support such things now. Absurd examples yes, but they make the point that the path that got us to where we are today, can be separated from what we think and do now and in the future.
kb - that's just about the worst apology for getting pretty much everything wrong (while being incredibly haughty about it) that I've ever seen. 😆
Have you ever thought about becoming an MP?
+1 kelvin
If a country is its institutions...
This is a broadly Christian country. The USA is not.
If a country is its people...
This is a broadly secular country. The USA is not.
It's a good thing that David Cameron is such a committed Christian:
grum - Memberkb - that's just about the worst apology for getting pretty much everything wrong (while being incredibly haughty about it) that I've ever seen.
Have you ever thought about becoming an MP?
But it's you who's refusing to budge from your erroneous position grum.
As konabunny points out the Attorney General is not some sort of neutral civil servant who is expected to suppress all his own personal opinions.
He is in fact a very senior politician, and a government politician at that, who is perfectly entitled to express his opinions when giving interviews to newspapers.
Indeed he got to the position of high office precisely by making a career of telling people his opinions.
As konabunny says : [i]"Your mock concern that he is doing so is entirely misplaced."[/i]
grum - MemberIt's a good thing that David Cameron is such a committed Christian:
So now after spending several pages denigrating those who express religious views, specially those who do so in the public arena, you use the opinions of 42 Anglican bishops and more than 600 clerics to attack David Cameron ?
Have you no shame ?
Or is this you being "ironic" ?
Only on STW could we have a thread discussing religion which is more concerned with semantics than semitics.
Homo stipula and grammar police aside, the linked articles there mention "Christian values" time and again. Now, I know this is a Callmedave soundbite with so much spin that it has its own doppler shift, and largely designed to look good on a headline rather than mean anything, but quite a few people are talking about similar things.
What does this actually mean? There are plenty of positive values that a society can live by, being nice to each other and so forth, but these aren't "Christian values" exclusively, rather they're "values." Some may be attributable to Christianity if that's what they brought to the great unwashed masses a couple of millennia past, but I reject absolutely the implication that you cannot have values without Christianity (or religion generally for that matter).
Plus let's not forget, our modern "Christian values" are a [s]cherry-picked[/s] evolved subset of their original teachings. As a general rule, we don't stone our wives if they aren't virgins, beat our slaves (so long as they deserve it), execute rape victims, burn witches or sell our daughters for sex any more.
So it seems to me that in isolation "Christian values" is nonsensical. Do we take it to mean "values as preached in modern-day Christian churches"? And how is that different from any other values?
I thought you were suppose to be an impartial moderator.....are you entitled to express your own personal opinions on such matters ?
I'm sorry I don't live up to your Erniean values. What you thought is neither here nor there.
What you thought is neither here nor there.
Well that's nice !
Next you'll tell me that you give interviews to the Daily Telegraph.
😐
Steady ern, you don't want to risk a month in the naughty dungeon getting spanked by the cloderators...
😉
Clear signs of prejudice on display there ernie.
Cougar - I know Ernie chose to omit the smiley, but you did get the (not so) hidden joke in the post at the top of the page?
Cracking form Ernie, it's a pity when the efforts are not fully appreciated. I was waiting for Grum to pick it up first!
If (as I doubt) you're actually serious; I'm posting as a user, not a moderator. I've discussed this at length before now.
Cougar - I know Ernie chose to omit the smiley, but you did get the (not so) hidden joke in the post at the top of the page?
I think I must've missed that. But I assumed he wasn't being serious and responded in kind.
Oops, looks like the joke was missed!
X-post!! My interpretation goes back to grum's assertion that the AG should not be commenting on such manners. If correct, I thought it was a good joke from ernie in the circumstances!!
There may come a point when the Attorney General has to give his opinion on something like, say, the legality of invading another country. If he's previously made a point that this country is a Christian country and that other country is a Muslim country, I can see that causing issues.
It'd be like if, for example, the [url= http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/06/eric-pickles-britain-christian-nation-atheists ]Communities secretary had made a big deal about being a Christian country[/url] a couple of days after [url= http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/apr/04/investigation-tower-hamlets-mayor-lutfur-rahman ]ordering the investigation of a local authority that is run by Britain's first Muslim executive mayor[/url].
Things like that would worry me, if I were a non-"Christian".
THM > Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah, I got that, I thought you meant there was more to it.
Shall we start that again? (-:
Only on STW could we have a thread discussing religion which is more concerned with semantics than semitics...
What does this actually mean? ...So it seems to me that in isolation "Christian values" is nonsensical.
Oh, the ironmongery!
Can a moderator acting as a moderator moderate themselves? The UK is a moderate country, after all, and people who deny that are deluded.
I'm more mean than mode, on average.
[url= http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/22/david-cameron-vague-faith-christian-country ]A sensible article[/url]
[url= http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/clegg-calls-disestablishment-church-england-and-hes-right ]Another sensible article[/url]
Someone else is absurd and [s]deluded[/s] deluding themselves - but this time it's a former Archbishop of Canterbury: