Peyote, couldn’t see your email address for some reason, mine is kenadolphe AT hotmail DOT com if you want to shoot me a line I’ll send the essay.

Hmm, still not familiar with these new fangled forum thingies! Will send you an e-mail, thanks in advance!

What I was sarcastically trying to imply was that we all arrive at very strong opinions of things that we don’t actually know much about, other than bits and pieces we’ve picked up 2nd or 3rd hand over the years.

Well, not all of us. Some of us have been brought up within these relegions first hand, others have close friends/aquaintances who have experienced similar. The assumption that we’re all just regurgitating stuff we’ve read/heard from another source is probably not that accurate.

I think you’re in danger of making the kind of assumptions about people, that you’re accusing other people of making about relegion!

god hates those as well, apparently.

Only to the tenth generation though!

Are all of us arguing about Christianity on here Bible scholars with years of study at theological college (which would thus mean we know what we’re talking about), or are we doing what blokes always do which is just relating our opinion without really understanding anything about the subject matter?

You’re question implies there are only two categories: academically educated and ignorant! I’m not academically educated (in Theology anyway), but was brought up in a CoE, Anglican household so I think I do understand something about the subject matter, while recognising the limitiations of my experience and knowledge.

I hope that clarifies my own position, if not every other contributor to this thread!

Wasn’t me that wrote that Rusty S, it was speed12.

And the offer of reading my little essay is still open!

If it isn’t full on thesis length, then please could I have a look? My e-mail is in my profile.

Could do with some ammunition for when I see my parents. They are a bit full-on X-tians and still think Homosexuality is a disease that can be cured! :roll:

A spectacular misrepresentation of most religions there JY – but understandable at least when one looks at what has been/continues to be done in the name (sic) of religion. And that is the key. But one should not confuse actions that people “try” to justify on religious grounds with the core concepts of most of the world’s religions.

It is true that Religion is used as an excuse in many of the atrocities commited by humans in thier power struggles. However, it would be disenginuous not to also include the parts of the Bible, Koran or whtever text that do encourage or seek to justify violence/opression*. Most of these books are so full of contradictions you can use them to justify pretty much any activity!

*Including, but not limited to misogynism, xenophobia and homophobia

err – what’s the difference between a Special and a PCSO? I hadn’t realised they were different until the comments above.

My understanding is (and I hasten to add, I’m not in “the trade”), that a Special is simply a volunteer Constable, so has all the powers, training etc of a normal PC but doesn’t get paid for it and isn’t full time.

A PCSO seems to be a cut-down version of a PC, fewer legal powers, I guess less training and fulfils a different role to the PCs and Specials.

Oh and how did you identify the officer as a special?

That’s what I was going to ask, don’t they dress the same as normal PCs? Not like PCSOs who’ve got loads of blue on their kit?

Nah, it’s only the same as someone pointing out to them when they’re walking to avoid stepping in that dog sh*t, don’t scratch yourself on that barbed wire that kind of thing. Except they do it before they go out.

The “H&S gawn maaaaaad” thing should be reserved for more deserving causes!

Nissan Skyline, got to be an eighties classic no?

Toyota Supra and MR2 are classics aren’t they?

Not much before the eighties that’s true… …isn’t classic a bit of a subjective thing anyway?

Peyote – what do you drive?

I don’t own a car, but I often hire them and use car club vehicles. So it could be anything from a little 1.2 Corsa/Fiesta type thing, all the way up to a 7.5 tonne/Luton van.

What about you, anything interesting?

They’re great, purely on the basis of how they look, just like the Fiat Multipla!

Anything that forces car manufacturers and owners out of the generic golf/astra/3 series mould is a “good thing”. There’s no imagination on the roads anymore: everyone is just driving around in boxes the same dimensions and look as everyone else claiming they’re different because the badge on the front and the letters on the back are slightly different.

edited for spelling/grammar

but the moment anybody in this house utters ‘totes’ I’ll strangle them.

I like their slipper socks.

, and we are always shown the stuff we can’t get in adverts and on the telly phones, cars, houses, bodies and part if that is food programmes

You’re right, and it’s a shame that so many people are persuaded to validate themselves in the ways that Marketing people want them too. I had hopes for the generation following mine (I’m mid 30’s), that they’d be so immersed in a world of advertising and marketing that they’d be able to easily figure out what was rubbish and what the truth was. Trouble is so many resources are poured into telling people they’re cr*p unless they buy/eat/consume XYZ product it’s overwhelming and all consuming (if you’ll excuse the pun).

I do wonder how we’ll get out of the maelstrom we’ve got ourselves caught up in… …Going to read my kids “Affluenza” tonight, get in there before the Ad Men do!

neil armstrong

:-)

‘Sweet’ and ‘Ace’ were around when I was a kid, think ‘Sweet’ may have made a comeback, but ‘Ace’ is still reserved for elite pilots I think.

But we are all agreed that the pie is the very pinnacle of human culinary and nutritional evolution?

Yep, definitely

Possibly to the point where it warrants its own religion?

Not sure, don’t want the Pastafarians to start hurling canneloni and lasagne again. The gnocchi battles were bad enough, introducing a third carbohydrate into an already knife-edge situation could be asking for trouble.

Also it’s only a matter of time before the tarts start wanting their own outlets, then it’s just going to be patisseries everywhere.

However, my local Sainsburys in Surrey last year used to regularly have BOGOF or similar on apples, veg etc

My local Asda (just outside Surrey!) has regular BOGOFs on fruit and veg. Last week it was grapes and tomatoes. Pretty much every week there’s special offers on spuds, they even sell unwashed spuds at even cheaper prices.

It is easy to eat cheap and healthy, but it’s easier to eat cheap and unhealthy as Emsz illustrates in her posts.

Peyote – does she also correct you for mistaking a truncated spur for a hanging or U-shaped valley? Or was that a humorous attempt at demonstrating why accuracy/typos etc are/are not important!!!

:oops: It’s still early, and my A-levels were a long time ago! That’s over 10 years where I haven’t used that knowledge! Okay, okay so I messed up with the example! Nope, there was no deliberate humour there either.

Which does beg the question though does it not – the lack of knowledge of which item degrades you most?

It only begs the question if you want it answered! Not sure to be honest , I think in my current life and the intervening years neither my knowledge (or lack of it) of both Capital cities and Physical Geography have caused me undue stress or hassle.

my eldest daughters having passed through University didn’t even know who Admiral Nelson was and what he did.

Ha ha, that made me laugh! You sound like my Mum berating me for not knowing the capital cities of all the worlds countries “despite doing Geography at A-level”*!

I’m mid 30’s too!

* She’ll never understand truncated valleys or plate tectonic theory though…

NHS apparently rings back all interview candidates – successful or not.

Not with me they didn’t, had to call back and request feedback (I assumed correctly I was unsuccesful), was then told that feedback would not be given. Same from the Police (civilian position).

Quite odd really, thought they’d at least offer feedback.

However the Christmas Music in shops is what annoys me as it becomes an unavoidable aural assault

Aye, this is true. One thing always gets me a bit annoyed about Christmas is the pap that the secular musicians churn out. You can’t beat the old Christian Christmas Carols IMO, but when Wham, Wizzard et al start getting put on a loop I just “feel the urge to kill rising”.

I quite like celebrating Santa’s Birthday as early as possible, but I suppose we should wait ’til Satan has had his on the 31/10. It’s a wee bit cheeky otherwise.

Oh oh, forgot about firewroks too! That was the popes birthday, or was it Guido Fawkes…? Oh well, it’s all good fun!

Mmm, mulled wine season…

Not so sure having kids they do seem to innately like different things

Can’t argue with that, experienced it first hand! Although as always, anecdote isn’t the singular of data.

I just think that in situations like the OP is in, blaming or excusing behaviour based on gender is stereotyping and worse than that is potentially scientifically wrong!

That’s the rub though – nature vs nurture etc, and why I specifically framed it in emotional terms. Men and women are programmed differently when it comes to some biochemical responses – especially those to do with gender sexuality etc??

Men and women are programmed differently this is true, but to what extent is the big question. Personally I think it is a lot less than we are often led to believe. Gender/sexuality aren’t necessarily interchangeable and we as a species can see a wide range of both (XX, XY, XXY, XXYY, XXXY genes and an even wider variety of sexualities!) so subdividing us into male and female and applying virtues/vices based on this is a pretty blunt way of viewing the world.

However, it is very handy if you want to create certain myths about one (or both genders) that allow a certain amount of control to be exerted over the other…

Any validity in this?

Probably, but I doubt whether it’s gender specific. Womens and mens minds aren’t that different, they’re just trained to be different. This training would’ve been all the more obvious in previous generations.

Sexist But true

No, sexist and a generalisation based on your own perceptions. Probably not true.

Good point Onza, and the male reaction would be one of a million lifetimes of evolution telling him how to react if he saw a female in danger.

That’s one theroy. Another would be that he has been conditioned by society into believing that women are inferior and need to be protected by the men. These things are never as clear cut as first impressions suggest.

Why not?

70 years ago it would’ve been because they are “too emotional, irrational and prpne to hysterical behaviour”.

These days opinions like this are old fashioned.

Doesn’t Islam have stricter blasphemy rules than Christianity?

I doubt it’s that simple, probably some moderate Muslims have rules akin to some moderate Christians, and the more extreme elements have their stricter versions.

Chances are none of them bear up to much scrutiny when compared to what the Quaran or Bible say anyway. Bit like most relegions that rely on “the word of god” literally.

Funerals and marriages are always ripe events for families to emotionally blackmail each other. Just seems to go with the territory…

…if you want to go to support your Mum go, if you don’t want to see your Dad stay away. You’re damned either way really! Best to accept your position as a football in the relationship dynamics that are families and go with the path of least resitstance in my experience!

I would like to see someone do a comprehensive study assessing the ability of individuals to empathise with other people. Then correlate that with their voting behaviour and economic status.

That would be fascinating!

It’s not handy, or an excuse and I never said that it was fine for men to have affairs – it’s just a fairly fundamental difference between men and women and how their minds work that’s all. Try reading some books on the differences is pscychology between men and women and you can find out for yourself.

This stuff has been said a lot over the years, it is finally being challenged a bit and the recognition that ‘psychology’ is a young subject area and the differences between men and women may be due to society, rather than anything fundamental, has been a long time coming. I don’t believe there’s a fundamental difference and I think the proof that has been produced (think: Men are from Mars, Women from Venus and everything it spawned) has been routinely and professionally critiqued.

Anyway, OP you have my sympathies, I haven'[t been through what you’re going through so can’t offer any useful advice, except it might be an idea to get yourself down to the UG clinic for a check up. I believe this is standard advice for those finding out about affairs (even those claimed not to have become sexual).

Seems like he was given three perfectly reasonable and understandable options to avoid what could have been a potentially nasty situation (some people could have mistaken the intentions of a man walking naked near a children’s play area ?)

The police seemed to see that it could have been something that may have caused a problem and offered him a few alternatives, one of which was a lift past the area so he could carry on without potential issues.

It does seem a bit like victim blaming though. He wouldn’t be the one causing the problems, it would be those who choose to react aggressively, antagonistically or with any other negative emotion or physical act. Common sense is all well and good, but too often it is used a way of providing an easy way out. It’s the same logic as advising women not to walk through parks at night, when really the parks should be safe enough for women to walk through at any time without fear of being attacjed.

The problem when principled people meet practical people I suppose, although of course both of those adjectives are themselves subjective!

It’s not about semantics or being factually correct, its about attitude. ‘Right of way’ means some thing very different to ‘priority’ to me.

Yeah, I was taught this ‘back in the day’ when I learnt to drive, and more recently during cycle instructor raining. Right of way I believe is a legal definition, i.e. a legal right. Whereas priority is more behavioural, i.e. a bit more flexibility not necessarily enforcable in al situations.

I’d think “Knob”, but then a fraction of a second later I’d berate myself for prejudging someone based on their choice of car. Then I’d consider whether the stereotype I’d classed said driver as was born out by the way they drove. Then I’d move on to the next flash car that overtakes me too closely and the same though process would start up all over again.

Unless it was a car I thought may be a bit more interesting than the usual generic hulks of “sports” cars I see regularly, something like an 80’s Skyline or a Caterham. There’s a Lotus Excel and a Toyota Supra on my commute which are quite cool too…

Sorry Mike, continuing a longterm habit of mine, I’m one of the ones guilty of wasting my life.

I never knew about the Cochrane review, shame it’s aim was:

“To determine whether bicycle helmets reduce head, brain and facial injury for bicyclists of all ages involved in a bicycle crash or fall.”

Rather than covering the whole lot, i.e. whether they increased the likelihood of a fall in the first place, and whether they generated more of certain injuries than others (and if those injuries where more serious/detrimental), and whether they have an impact on the capacity of a cyclist to protect their own head when falling. The usual stuff that’s thrown up by these threads. Oh well, back to the drawing board for cycle-hlemet-researchers everwhere then!

I bet the Austrians had/have better Rights Of Way legislation than we do (NB – we is me and my English brethren, I know you Scots do things better).