Another Soul here, all second hand components though. Built it up last week, tis rather nice.

Didn’t get in trouble for it, but my first day in the Army we had been told not to bring any money with us, however my Dad pressed £200 cash into my hand as we said goodbye. That evening I used the pay phone to call home. Wasn’t until about an hour later I realised I’d left my wallet in the phone box. Funnily enough it wasn’t there when I went back. Never did tell my Dad!

Surely it’s just that you pushed the pistons back in, you just need to pump the levers a few times til the pads contact the rotors then it’ll be fine.

I have to disagree with the others. A few years ago I went from alivio to deore on my Scott aspect. The difference is noticeable and well worth it imo. I also couldn’t get a 9 speed deore mech to work nicely with the 8 speed alivio stuff. Depending on your budget it might be worth looking at a 10 speed groupset from Merlin or similar.

On my second date with a rather nice young lady I fell asleep during ‘Reloaded’. She nudged me and woke me up. ‘What!’ I snapped at her.
‘You were asleep’
‘Was I snoring?’
‘No.’
‘Well leave me alone then.’
We got married a year later, still happily married and she still loves me!

If he can put his budget up a bit he can have my 2012 Trek Fuel Ex 5 for £600. Postage extra. Seem to be quite a few Fuels about for that sort of money.

So, is it any wonder, really, that a great many people, fed up of years of fighting and anger, choose to have nothing to do with the church and religion?

No wonder at all, just a deeply sad tragedy that people who claim to follow Jesus should behave like that. Sadly many of Cromwell’s chaplains were what we might call ‘proto-Baptist’ and returned from Ireland to found churches which later became Baptist. So in fairness, we’re not entirely innocent.

Aracer – Nice, see what you did there, but I just can’t help myself.

gonefishin – as I responded to Cougar, my questions were not aimed specifically at MMR, but at vaccines in general. Have those who are so pro-vaccine fully engaged with all the issues surrounding vaccines before makein their decisions?

My comments about Bubonic Plague and Scarlet Fever refer to the fact that these diseases died out without any medical intervention from humans. There is evidence to suggest that smallpox was already declining significantly before the vaccine was introduced.

My comment on the Ukraine comes directly from an HPA recommendation that all visitors to there have MMR before they go, so if there is any racism blame the HPA, not me.

Whilst it is undeniable that those things (with the exception of strengthening the gene pool!) will have helped the reduce the incidence of the disease they are not responsible for its eradication. Only the vaccine can ultimately do this.

Can you back that assertion up with hard and fast evidence? I believe the answer is no. There is no possible way to tell whether vaccines or other factors are the primary reason for the decline in disease.

Molgrips – to reiterate what I’ve tried to articulate already. The first MMR jab is generally given at 12-13 months. The second is given at 3-5 years. MMR is not claimed to be fully effective until the second jab has been given. Therefore, every single child under 3, and a significant proportion of under 5s, is at risk of contracting and transmitting the disease. Not just the ones who’s parents choose not to vaccinate, but every single child who has not had two MMR jabs, for whatever reason.

You’ve got evidence that vaccinations are worse than the diseases? Can you share some?

I know that wasn’t aimed at me, and my googlefu is weak at this time of night, however a study conducted in Denmark suggests that for every 1000 MMR jabs, 2 children will suffer from febrile seizures. Just off the top of my head, with regards to the HPV vaccine, there are some pretty unpleasant side effects, and there have been a few well documented occurences of breathing difficulties leading to death.

gonefishin, I point you to my post above.

Last post from me here.

Aracer – I’m sorry but the picture you posted up of ‘how herd immunity works’ is laughable. It’s not even a scientific theory, it’s just an idea. If you can link to any hard and fast scientific proof that that is how it works then fine, I’ll review my opinion. The fact remains that if ‘Herd Immunity’ does work the way it’s spun to us, then any child who has not had an MMR jab remains a risk to the community. That’s typically all children under a year old. The same applies to all children who have not had a second MMR jab, typically given between 3 & 5 years. Furthermore if the vaccine is 90% effective then 10% of those who have recieved both jabs are a risk also. So to lay the blame for the outbreak in Wales solely with those who choose not to vaccinate is somewhat unfair. It probably originated from someone who came back from the European Championships in Ukraine, which has the highest rate of Measles in Europe.

Cougar – My rhetorical questions didn’t particularly highlight issues I have concerns about, rather my point was that those who are aggresively pro-vaccine need to ensure they have engaged properly with those issues and other ones, before they condemn those who have not vaccinated.

Are people asserting that vaccination was solely responsible for the eradication of smallpox? If so that’s a pretty wobbly stance to take. What about all the other factors that been influential in a similar timeframe to vaccination; hygeine, nutrition, the strengthening of the gene pool through migration to list a few. What about Bubonic Plague and Scarlett Fever? Both historically rampant in this country, neither vaccinated against and neither exist today.

Globally you may be right, but we can get bloody close, and we can wipe some out within a given community.

Last year 0.003% of the UK population got measles, 1 person out of over 60 million died. Surely that’s ‘bloody close’?

Well, I’m supposed to be writing two sermons for tomorrow and having just got back from a rather pleasant evening ride I ought to be getting on with it, but I thought I’d just pick up on a couple of point. (Although I do rather think this thread has run its course!)

I seem to recall that all the “we’re offended” complaints one hears about in the news are from people foaming at the mouth about how they are offended because someone has said something critical about their religion, or some aspect of it.

I said it before and I’ll say it again. You only see the very worst of religion, in fact of any group in the media. You cannot tarnish all people of faith with the same brush just because one or two get uptight about not being able to wear a cross at work, or the fact that someone drew a cartoon of the Prophet.

I think we often forget the cultural legacy of intolerance that belongs to religion when they appealto us to be tolerant

At risk of appearing critical of my Catholic and Anglican brothers and sisters, I don’t feel you can fairly level that accusation at the Free Churches (Baptist, Methodist, URC, Brethren, Congregational, etc). Historically anyone in this country who didn’t belong to the state religion was persecuted heavily by the church and state. Baptists, Anabaptists and Congregationalists were especially heavily persecuted. This is why you’ll often find tiny little chapels hidden down little lanes miles away from towns and villages. Baptists from their very early origins in the 16th Century have campaigned for religious tolerance.

Even if ‘Herd Immunity’ did work the way its claimed to, you simply cannot acheive the vaccination rates required to completly wipe out a disease. I’ll say it again, the biggest group of unvaccinated children are the ones that are too young, followed by the ones that cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. These groups will always exist and will always be potential carriers and spreaders of the disease. These groups will always be the primary ones that compromise ‘Herd Immunity’.

The demonization of the few parents who choose not to vaccinate, is simply a convenient scapegoat, to blind the populace from the fact that actually Human medical science is not capable of completly wiping out diseases (althought to get it as low as 0.003% is pretty good going). How many parents who have vaccinated have actually bothered to read for themselves the packaging insert that came with the vaccine? How many, like nonk has said, have actually bothered to read the leaflet about vaccines from their doctor? Are you content with the levels of mecury in the vaccines? Are you content that they contain material from aborted foetuses?

geetee1972 – If a child does die in Wales, and I sincerly hope one doesn’t, it doesn’t help either side of this debate at all. Did that child have both MMR jabs, or just one? Did it not have the jab for medical reasons? Was it too young for the jab? Did its parents decide against the jab? Did it have a genetic weakness that made it particularly vulnerable to measles? Too many questions.

This is not as black and white as people are trying to make out. To call non-vaccinating parents ‘cretins’ and ‘a **** disgrace to human intellect’ is in itself disgracefully cretinous, because these parents have probably done a lot more reading and research around the subject than those that just blindly accept what the government and NHS tells them. *And breath*

Of course it’s panic and hysteria. In 2012 there were 2016 cases of measles in the UK, that’s 0.003% of the population. I can’t find stats for deaths from measles but a doc quoted by the BBC said it’s 1 in every 1000 cases. The Health Protection Agency website says that a healthy person that contracts measles is highly unlikely to develop complications and even then it would be treatable by antibiotics.

There are many reasons that children are unvaccinated. The largest group is those who are too young, this group will always exist and will always be at risk of catching and transmitting the disease. The next largest group are those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. The group who’s parent decide not to vaccinate is very small.

In just two pages of posts we’ve read about two vaccinated children contracting the disease, so it’s not quite as reliable as ‘they’ would have you believe anyway.

[conspiracy theory hat on] The current hype about unvaccinated children from the press and government has more to do with earning profits for mega-pharma than it does a genuine concern for children’s health and wellbeing [conspiracy theory hat off]

Glad you like it Cougar, I think I articulate in it fairly well my attitude towards scripture… Right, I’ve had a long and emotionally challenging day, so I will post up a few thoughts here, but probably won’t come back to the computer this evening as I need some space.
I’ll start by reposting the 1st founding principle of the Baptist Union of Great Britain. ‘That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, is the sole and absolute authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and that each Church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to interpret and administer His laws.’
Not keen on the word ‘Laws’, probably doesn’t mean quite what it’s supposed to. Anyway, that’s a statement that I fully agree with, indeed that attitude is one of the reasons I chose to become a Baptist minister and not part of another denomination.

It’s been a surprise to me to read in this thread that many people with no faith are perturbed by the fact that people of faith can agree to disagree or can change their stance on certain issues. This has never been a problem for me. There are a few things that I believe are central to being a Christian – belief in the deity of Christ, belief in the Holy Trinity, and belief that through faith in Christ, his life, death and resurrection, we are somehow made ‘right’ before God. These are my ‘Primary theological issues’.

Notice that in that founding principle it’s Jesus who is the sole authority in matters of faith, and not the Bible. I believe that I’ve experienced a personal revelation of Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit and it’s that experience which is the ultimate foundation of my faith, and not the Bible. So where does the Bible fit into my faith? I believe that the four Gospels are a reliable account of the life, works, and teachings of Jesus. And being that Jesus is God, what the four Gospels tell us Jesus was like is what God is like. When I say reliable, I don’t mean perhaps what we as 21st Century Westerners with our thought processes heavily influenced by Greco-Roman philosophy might think.

Matthew and Mark (probably a disciple of Peter) were Jews and wrote as Jews; people who knew the Old Testament intimately and saw Jesus as the Messiah foretold by the Jewish faith. Luke was gentile, probably the Doctor Luke of Paul’s letters and wrote more scientifically probably to non-Jewish, non-Christians in Rome. John, probably the ‘beloved disciple’ of Christ put a far more spiritual emphasis and interpretation on his recollection of events. Luke also wrote Acts as a history of the early church and of Paul. So for me the Gospels and Acts are fundamental to my faith. The epistles (letters) of the New Testament were written to specific churches in specific contexts, and whilst inspired by God their instructions may not apply specifically to context today. As one of my lecturers was fond of saying ‘It’s not about “the Bible says…” it’s about “what does the Bible mean when it says…”’ For example; Paul instructs women to cover their heads in church. The only women in his context who didn’t cover their heads were prostitutes. It’s as if Pauls says ‘Christian women, you are free from your culture’s rules, but it’s probably best not to dress like a prostitute.’

The Old Testament is a bit more tricky, we journey with a nation as it covenants with God and develops its understanding of God and God’s expectations for it. These were people who were used to telling and hearing stories, some of the OT stories probably have their origins in the most ancient stories known to humanity. The OT can be divided into four categories; The Law, History, Wisdom and The Prophets. These four categories all have different purposes and we see a development of the Jewish faith and understanding of God as we move through the OT, from a God who calls on the destruction of his enemies in the law and some historical books, to the suffering servant of Isaiah. The OT points towards a coming Messiah who will put all things right; this is not Christians reading back into the OT but is something that Jews believe, God will send the Messiah, but the Jews don’t believe it was Jesus. Indeed the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that the community at Qumran believed that two Messiahs would come as they couldn’t see that one person could be both Priest and King.

I don’t think the original readers/hearers of the OT stories cared in the slightest whether the stories were true, they were interested in what the story could teach them. Whilst Jesus did on occasion teach by giving lists and instructions, the majority of his teaching was in parables, made up stories he used to illustrate his point. If that’s how Jesus (who is God) chose to teach when he walked the earth, why is it so hard to view the OT stories as parables? Some of them are probably true, many probably have their origin in truth, some may be complete fabrications, but that’s not the point.

Besides which, I say to all the Christians, given that Jesus (who we believe is God) didn’t seem to give two hoots about the creation story, the flood, homosexuality etc why do you? Given that Jesus did get particularly upset about issues like justice, tolerance, inclusivity, generosity, forgiveness etc why don’t you?

This ‘shifting goalposts’ thing that some are so upset about, I’m not sure I understand why. Life is a journey and we as individuals change during that journey. We see in the OT the Jews as a nation on a journey with God, and I believe that all humanity is on a similar journey where deeper truths and realities will become apparent at different stages in time. This is not just in faith, but we see scientific, technological, ethical etc development going on all around us. I know you don’t like arguments from scripture, but Jesus said he would send his Holy Spirit to teach his disciples – there was more for us to learn than what Jesus had time to teach us.

The Christian faith has changed over the course of history, but that’s not to keep up with society, we are part of society and as humanity learns and grows so does the church. As I wrote in the essay a couple of you have read, the early Jewish Christians had to come to terms with non-Jewish Christians. Christians were instrumental in the abolition of slavery, despite the Bible, even the NT appearing to condone slavery. Victorian Christians had to come to terms with women being given more rights (ok, some Christians still struggle with that one) and today the Church, at least in the UK is having to decide where it stands on homosexuality. Sometimes the Church drives the change in the wider society and sometimes the society drives a change in the Church. So yes the goalposts do move, but isn’t that kinda the point of life and being a human? Change, development, learning etc is all good and exciting stuff.

Anyway I’ve drivelled on for long enough, anyone would think I don’t get enough attention or something. Goodnight, God bless – go and enjoy the life that God gave you. I’m going to walk the dog and buy some bike parts I can’t really afford.

I am here just having a very busy day, got lots of ministerish things to do like drink tea and visit the sick. If I get a few moments this eve I’ll try and comment on a few things that have been said.

I stopped reading when someone said “the whole world being covered in water over just 40 days would really churn up the soil layers and muck up the dating systems used currently” and I spilt me tea everywhere.
Can someone summarise the rest as I’ve got 4 wheels to build before bedtime

Hora got excited about Chris Hoy whilst watching a Nigerian wedding and wants us all to praise someone with love.

Good contribution from kja78
Second that. Completely disagree with him, but a polite and thoughtful contribution (well, it is his job and all )

Thanks chaps and chapeses, I’m now off to write the ‘thought for the day’ that I was supposed to be doing whilst chatting with you lot! After I cook dinner for my wife and three daughters (how’s that for Biblical equality!)

Well, a pay rise and a decent summer wouldn’t hurt I suppose. Reckon you could have a word with your god, see if he can sort out the weather for us this year?

Reminds me of a joke –

I wanted a nice new mountain bike so I prayed to God to give me one. Then I realised that God doesn’t work like that. So I nicked a bike and prayed for forgiveness.

Don’t worry Solo, I wasn’t offended, just confused by this

It’s extremely important to Christians that all people are created in God’s image, our morals and ethics hinge on it.

Oh dear. Tea break is over. normal service is resumed.

Wondered if I was being thick?

Oh and just to make you truly wince, we all have/had a God shaped hole in our lives.

Yes, gonefishin, I think that sadly it has been convenient for certain sectors of the church over the years, and I think that theologies of oppression and abuse have been formed and founded on very shaky arguments. If you want an apology from a Christian from that then I’m very sorry indeed and deeply saddened.

Hora, as I said not all Christians always behave like they believe that’s true.

Solo – Eh? Have I missed something? Christians may not behave as though that’s the case, but they certainly should.

It’s extremely important to Christians that all people are created in God’s image, our morals and ethics hinge on it. But we don’t have to bear God’s image perfectly do we? Some might say that my daughter is ‘the image’ of me – like me she’s chubby, blue eyed and fair haired, but clearly she’s not exactly the same as me.

Forming a belief system around a very few passages that cannot be read properly is indeed hazardous and presumptious. However, there are not many parts of the Bible that are quite so difficult to translate, funnily enough it’s mainly the parts on women and homosexuality in Paul.

Mrs. Toast, – Jesus came to pay the price for sin. He put an end to the punishment that men and women had been suffering because of Adam, Eve and the serpent’s sin.

I’d love to have a proper conversation about Paul’s attitude to women (if it was even Paul), but there’s not the time or space here. The main problem with Paul’s commment to Timothy that ‘I do not allow a woman to teach or have authority.’ is that we do not know the true meaning of the word ‘authentein’ which is translated ‘authority’. It occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, and nowhere in the Greek version of the Old Testament. We find it later than Paul in legal documents where it refers to murder. I’ve studied this in quite some depth. It seems to be that Paul was dealing with a proto-Gnostic heresy which taught that Eve was created before Adam and that Yahweh lied to them and Satan was good. In this context, Paul’s statement might read ‘I do not allow women to teach that men should be subservient to them [on that issue] they should be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve.’

Another issue of context was that Paul was writing to churches in the Roman Empire and he knew full well what the Romans did to people who disturbed the status quo, whilst Christians are free from rules of their cultures, Paul encouraged (perhaps wrongly in my view) men and women to observe the cultural norms so as not to bring persecution upon the church.

Well, here’s how I look at it. If God inspired me to do something (which I believe God does) would I do it perfectly? No, of course not. Therefore if God inspired the Bible writers and translators(which I believe God did) would they have done it perfectly? My answer has to be no.

There are generally thought to be three things that dictate Christian beliefs, they are scripture, reason and tradition. The first founding principle of the Baptist Union of Great Britain says this: That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, is the sole and absolute authority in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and that each Church has liberty, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to interpret and administer His laws.

I guess if you don’t believe in the Holy Spirit then we’re pretty much stuffed.

badnewz – much to the amusement/annoyance of many atheists, Baptists don’t have a set position on that. My personal believe is no, they cannot. Whilst Paul does wrestle with this issue in Romans and Corintians, I think he draws that conclusion that only faith in Christ can lead to salvation. I do have a couple of people in my congregation who believe firmly that all Jews will be saved, but they think that they will come to faith in Christ rather than be saved through the Old Covenant.

mefty – I thought Cougar was getting a bit bored by my long and tedious writing. But yes, that would have been pretty radical in 1st Century Palestine, as was the fact that the shepherds were the first to hear about Christ’s birth.

Cougar – I think the underlying message of those sorts of stories is that God hates arrogance, injustice, oppression, poverty etc etc. What he loves is equality. Whilst those women where responsible for the downfall of individual men, they were men who represented the very worst of a male dominated society. Neither women nor men should be trying to get one up on each other, but where there are clear injustices, then subversion may be a way of making things better.

No need to get narky gonefishin, Jesus’ life, death and ressurection brought a New Covenant which replaced the Old one. Christians quote his words every time we take communion ‘In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”‘ Jesus did in fact move the goalposts, that’s the whole point of Christianity. If you don’t understand that then you don’t understand the faith you are getting upset with. The covenant that existed between God and the Jews is not the same as the one that exists between God and Christians. So in fact ‘the old part doesn’t count.

gonefishin – look up!

Well, Cougar if you’re a young, liberal, post-modern Baptist minister it’s

Because they’re strong, dynamic characters easily equal to their men

in fact I might even nick that statement for my next sermon.

Mrs. Toast – How about the bits where both Jesus and Paul state catergorically that Christians are not bound by Old Testament Law? In fact Jesus was touched by a woman who had a permanent menstrual bleed and didn’t consider himself to be unclean, indeed he alone in the society was kind to her, and showed she was valued.

As for Lot and his daughters, as with many things in the Bible it is recorded as ‘history’ but not neccessarily as a good thing. It seems to me that Lot wasn’t thinking straight and was desperate for the two angels (if that’s what they were) not to be raped. As it was, the angels prevented Lot from giving his daughters to the men of the town, and struck them down with blindness to protect Lot’s family.

Lot and his daughters lived in a time when not having children or family was a disgrace and so slept with him to get pregnant, again though, the Bible doesn’t comment on whether they were right to do this.

I don’t see how I’m turning myself inside out. The Bible is full of stories of women bringing men down, yes. This is a good thing. That’s my point. God calls women to subvert the unacceptable male dominated society in which the Bible was written.

Why not mention the Catholic Church, well I’m not a Catholic for a start. But from what little I do know, what goes on in local churches comapared to what the media chooses to tell you about denominational hierachies are often not the same thing. I think that the Roman Catholic Church, and the Church of England, and many other denominational heirachies lost the plot a long time ago when it comes to issues of leadership. Jesus said ‘Whoever wants to be first should be slave to all’. By that reckoning the true ‘leaders’ of the Catholic church are not the ones living in palaces in Rome.

Cougar – If you’d like to read an essay I wrote entitled ‘A Biblical attitude to Homosexuality’ you’d be very welcome, it deals with the passages of scripture you’ve quoted. I did offer the last time there was a discussion on STW about the church and homosexuality but on one person actually read it.

Cougar, again we are in agreement. But we are post-modern thinkers (or perhaps even post-post modern!) The majority of churchgoers are stuck in modernity where the overarching ‘truths’ they have grown up with cannot be challenged or questioned.

bencooper – Samson is not meant to be a Biblical hero. Paul also calls husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church, as well as calling all Christians to submit to one another out of reverence to the Lord.

Regarding the issue of women in leadership, as I understand there are three houses in the Church of England; Bishops, Preists and Laity. Both the Bishops and Priests voted in favour of women bishops but the Laity didn’t get quite a high enough vote. All three houses needed to be in agreement for the motion to carry. Actually the majority of people who voted, voted in favour. Baptists have been ordaining women for over 100 years and we don’t have bishops, or priests for that matter.

gonefishin – I wasn’t primarily referring to the Bible having being written by male human beings, but primarily to them being the ones who have had the power over the centuries to be the ones interpreting it for the masses.

Rusty, are you a Jew living in the wilderness having just escaped from slavery in Egypt? If not then I wouldn’t worry about it.

What part of Genesis gonefishin, the part where Adam, Eve and the serpent are all punished because they all did wrong?

What passages in the Bible specifically deal with homosexuality as we see it now? Erm, none. What references do the four gospels make to homosexuality at all? Erm, none. Just because ‘the church’ is hung up on sex, doesn’t mean that it’s supposed to be.

bencooper – but do they really have a problem with women, Judaism and Christianity at least? Again have you actually read the Bible yourself? The story of the Hebrew midwives, Pharoah’s daughter, Moses’ mother and his sister conspiring together to keep Moses alive. The story of the Judge Deborah, the story of Rahab the innkeeper, the story of Ruth and Naomi, the story of Queen Esther, the story of Abigail disobeying her husband and so saving his life. How about Jesus’ own attitude to women; the woman at the well, Mary Magdelene, his vindication of Mary the disciple over Martha the housewife – I could go on. Sorry, but it’s men (and I mean male human beings) which are sexist, not the God spoken about in the Bible.

Cougar, I totally agree and I get very upset at Christians who rant and rave and get upset about things that they really shouldn’t. However, churches, in the UK at least, are generally made up of people in their sixties and above, they have been used to ‘Christendom’ and they struggle to cope with the concept that not everyone believes in or respects Christianity.

There are a couple of great books out there at the moment ‘A new kind of Christianity’ by Brian McClaren and ‘Reading the Bible after Christendom’ by Lloyd Pietersen. Unfortunetly the older generation of Christians often refuse to engage with material like that for fear it will weaken their faith.