Harry's Place

Kinda late in the game for the CoE to get alll evangelical, if you ask me.

Radical Islam is threatening to fill a ‘moral vacuum’ in Britain as a result of a decline of Christian values

Again, the tired and patronising old lie about how belief in an all-powerful sky-god is necessary maintain good behaviour.

very good comment and analysis brett…also if you interested…do a google search to see the lenghts that catholics/christians go to in not only appeasing but actively helping islamists and other despots; just look at the actions of the catholic church using its observer status in the UN to oppose (along with the islamist and despotic govs of eypt, saudi, sudan, iran) UN conventions on womans rights…

‘Jihadi vs. Crusader’ sounds like a good Xbox game.

The best part is, whoever you choose to play, you get to kill lots of Jews!

mesquito: ‘Kinda late in the game for the CoE to get alll evangelical, if you ask me.’

tbh, the CoE has been moving in an increasingly evangelical direction for quite a while now – however it’s been mostly a bottom-up, rather than a top-down process. There are quite a few nominally CoE churches which IMHO now totally reject the message of conciliation and respect that was historically the hallmark of the Anglican Communion. Where as before the most radical CoEers were likely to be at the ’smells and bells’ end of the church (i.e. High Church) now the church is being infiltrated from the Evangelical wing. You could describe it as the religious equivalent of entryism. However, all is not lost with the likes of John Sentamu on the scene.

I think he’s more or less right (although my sympathies are decidedly not low church).

He and Archbishop Sentamu are about the only voices of reason in the CofE these days.

Soon we will be speaking of ‘Political Christianists’ in everyday discourse too.

I don’t think so, not in the UK anyway. Nazir-Ali has enough of a mountain to climb trying to persuade Anglican vicars to believe in God. I don’t think his new evangelist approach will have any marked effect on the British population, except maybe to convert a few gormless new age crystal and solstice obsessives into equally irrelevant God-botherers.

Did you really mean “suation” by the way? If so, it’s a new word on me and I need a definition!

tbh, the CoE has been moving in an increasingly evangelical direction for quite a while now – however it’s been mostly a bottom-up, rather than a top-down process.

Well, I guess that’s good to know. One of the problems with an established church is that discourages healthy schisms. When a church divides in the the States, the losers set up in a strip mall somewhere, and in a few years they have a great big chapel, just like the one they left.

Comparing Nazir-Ali to the Taliban is dangerous and stupid nonsense – there is nothing inherently violent in his ideology, and he is absolutely right that radical Islam is filling a vacuum of some sort, particularly amongst aggravated young males.

So he thinks that Christianity is civilised. What a shock! Have you ever met a religious believer? Most Muslims happen to think their religion is synonymous with civilisation too.

So, he wants to proselytise and convert others to his religion. What’s new? No different to what the vast majority of Muslims want, both mainstream and radical. Islam and Christianity are both evangelical religions in the sense that their teachings instruct their followers to convert the world. Once you get into this religion game the premises are usually the same.

I was wondering just how long it would take Brett to panic about this.

Did it whell up from the pit of your stomach, and are you in need of a few valium?

Christian values ARE western values, Brett, and as that Christianity has been repressed and lampooned, the values western democracies once championed….free-speech etc….have become empty caracitures of what they once were

Again, the tired and patronising old lie about how belief in an all-powerful sky-god is necessary maintain good behaviour.

Remember a time, back in the “repressed” 50s when bobbies didn’t even carry fire-arms?

Of course not.

Remeber when suicide was almost non-existant?

Nope.

Remember when youth crimes consisted of little more than petty vandalism?

Naw.

His ambition is to make “Christian values” synonymous with “Western Values” – even though the two are often at odds with each other.

His “ambition” is restricted to merely pointing out the connection.

And if Western values aren’t Christian in inspiration, then what the hell are they?

Buddhist?

Brett suspects ulterior motives on the part of the good Arch, but such conspiracy-tinged thoughts result from a complete inability/incapacity/unwillingness to actually see what’s going on.

And so we vainly seek some sort of cryptic self-serving subtext in a piece designed to do nothing more than give Britian the straight fucking dope.

The edifice crumbles because the theological support pillars were removed in the erroneous belief they were merely decorative and therefore expendable.

Always consult an expert before renovating.

Mr Locke’s secularism is so all-pervading and fundamentalist it hinders clear perceptions and risks making him a “troofer”.

Behind this scaremongering is a much more duplicitous agenda.

Why, of course!

And geez, the only reason they sunk the Titanic was to stimulate sales of life-boats, ya know!

Icebergs and goodness had nothin’ to do with it.

And there is a world of difference in acknowledging the obvious rapport between The West’s Christianity and its values and being forced to believe in Christ.

Just as we can all acknowledge the intimate and undeniable relationship between violent Jihad, muslim anti-semitism etc and Islam’s core texts without having to actually believe in those texts.

I’m interested to see that Brett has tagged this post with the keywords: Islamism, Moonbattery and Secularism; but not with Christianity, nor with Religion.

What, if anything, might this indicate?

Best regards

That Secularism (wrongly understood, at least) leads to Moonbattery (or is a form thereof), perhaps?

“Christian values ARE western values”

Pshaw! ‘Western values’ in the sense that this term is usually used, are practically defined by their rejection of ‘Christian values’. In simple form, that is pretty much what the enlightenment was all about.

The Times piece somewhat vulgarises the bishop’s argument, although it’s still not very good. The essay itself is here, I’ve got some ruminations here.

“Christian values ARE western values”

Nonsense; what we commonly call “western values” are Enlightenment values, something which the Christian churches of the time were very much against.

P.

Is this ‘John Palubiski’ character for real? He seems a tad unhinged, and his historical knowledge is flawed, to say the least.

I don’t know why anyone thinks John Sentamu is more sensible than Nazir-Ali. Like all of them, he also likes to suggest the usual nonsense about all of the nation’s problems being caused by a lack of bums on seats in Anglican churches every Sunday. He’s just less of a shit stirrer than the Bish of Roch.

The question is which can stand up better to radical Islam: secularism or Christianity? Bear in mind that Christian and secular values are 99% compatible, as are nearly all faiths except Islam. Western (or what we thought in 1945 were “universal”) values derive in part from Christ – there are unique additions from Christ that you will not find in Greek, Judaic or Enlightenment thought. Whether you believe he was divine, a prophet or just a man, Christ was an important Philosopher.

People need more than bread, Brett. Like it or not, we have a need for transcendence.

“Did you really mean “suation” by the way? If so, it’s a new word on me and I need a definition!”

*blush*

No, I meant “suasion”

Oh lord please save us from all these god botherers polluting Harry’s Place with their ‘My Jesus is better than your Mohammed anyday’ diatribes.

The people do need more than bread. Sometimes they need a good burning at the stake to remind them of Christ’s universal love.

Oh lord please save us from all these god botherers

Hey! Don’t bother god with your god-botherer complaints!

“Remember a time, back in the “repressed” 50s when bobbies didn’t even carry fire-arms?”

And when the founder of computer science was subjected to hormonal treatment for entering into a homosexual relationship…

“Remeber when suicide was almost non-existant?”

Causing him to commit suicide.

“Like it or not, we have a need for transcendence”

I don’t. I have a need for music.

My sister has a need for ‘transcendance’ though.

Christian values ARE western values, Brett, and as that Christianity has been repressed and lampooned, the values western democracies once championed….free-speech etc….have become empty caracitures of what they once were

I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Is it that free speech can only exist if Christianity isn’t lampooned? Baffling.

Remember a time, back in the “repressed” 50s when bobbies didn’t even carry fire-arms?

Naw.

Yes yes yes… Church numbers have declined, crime has gone up… one must be causing the other.

Mind you England were much better at cricket in the 50s.

Are you sure it isn’t the decline in the numbers of people playing cricket that’s causing the crime spree?

Perhaps we should introduce compulsory cricket?

Scientology is the only force strong enough to stand up to Islamism and to put some backbone back into British youth! And Scientologist values are 99.95% Western values, with the added advantage that if you give enough money to the Church you get to hang out with…er….Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise is a midget though.

Incidentally, I see that the CofE newspaper is editorialising in a similar vein.

http://www.churchnewspaper.com/Editorial.aspx

Is this ‘John Palubiski’ character for real?

Of course I’m real….and I’m also well-hung!

Nonsense; what we commonly call “western values” are Enlightenment values, something which the Christian churches of the time were very much against.

Baloney Maloney!

Aquinas was Christian and it is through him that The West accesses Aristotle…the ultimate fountainhead of Enlightenment thought.

People need more than bread, Brett. Like it or not, we have a need for transcendence.

Agreed, totally agreed, but you’re wasting your time telling Brett that. He is far too pig-headed, opinionated and secular-papist authoritarian to even entertain such ideas.

Mr Locke should engage in a series of interviews with British converts to Islam( just wear a hijab!), almost all of whom were raised in neutral secular households, and ask them pointed questions as to just what waltzed them down the garden path to Allah.

He’d be forced, thus, to listen to the same tired story over and over again.

Perhaps then he’d understand something about the thirst for transcendance, a thirst that has inadvertently, and thanks to rank amature social engineers, now become that hallmark of our age.

Since the 60s we’ve been dominated by so-called secular types who are merely anti-Christian in orientation, and nothing more.

Academia, gov’t, the arts community and the entertainment industry……all have engaged in a systematic trashing of Christianity, all the while facilitating the introduction, expansion and legitimisation of a myriad of non-western religions, Islam first and foremost among them.

Only Islam is accorded visibility by “secularists”.

Only Islam recieves respect on the part of “secularists”.

Only Islam is accomodated in schools, in public and even in gov’t tax laws by those “secularists”.

Only Islam has been graced with mechanisms of automatic censorship…”islamophobia”… thanks to these same secularists.

And the results of this are there for all to see; they are undeniable.

Mr Locke should engage in a series of interviews with British converts to Islam( just wear a hijab!), almost all of whom were raised in neutral secular households

Well, that tells us nothing, because ‘almost all’ of UK households are neutral and secular.

“Aquinas was Christian and it is through him that The West accesses Aristotle…the ultimate fountainhead of Enlightenment thought.”

The Enlightment was opposed to much of Aristotelianism. Even if it wasn’t, the West accessed much of Aristotle through Islamic scholars, so you might equally praise them as well.

P.

“Aquinas was Christian and it is through him that The West accesses Aristotle…the ultimate fountainhead of Enlightenment thought.”

This is utterly irrelevant. Aquinas was certainly influential in his promulgation of empiricism, but his theological teachings were rejected by enlightenment scholars.

“Secular types…Islam…academia…Islam…media…islam…islam islam islam.”

This must be a parody.

I think he’s channelling Mary Whitehouse.

Now with added Islam!

“Like it or not, we have a need for transcendence.”

No we don’t. Which is just as well because none is available.

yeah, I’ve heard it said that JP is a cross between Patton, Bela Lugosi and all of those nasty things left over at Little Green Footballs?

if he didn’t drone on like a Catholic convert on heat then you’d never know

Ah, so someone who comes along speaking truth is mocked and demonised!

Quelle surprise.

“Ah, so someone who comes along speaking truth is mocked and demonised!”

Bare assertion fallacy.

Point out a clear point that has been made to support the thesis that the decline of ‘Christian values’ will lead to a rise in radical Islam. Canya doit?

If he was ’speaking truth’, he would actually have to provide some evidence that the decline in Christianity has directly led to the uptake of radical Islam.

He hasn’t.

Correlation is not causation.

BenSix beat me to it.

The Enlightment was opposed to much of Aristotelianism. Even if it wasn’t, the West accessed much of Aristotle through Islamic scholars, so you might equally praise them as well.

With all due respect, statements like that are part of the probleme.

Islam didn’t “save” the Greeks; Islam murdered them.

And just to underscore that point, today is the 555th anniversary of the conquest of Constantinople, a conquest that saw the slaughter of most of its inhabitants.

The scholars that fled established themselves in Northern Italy ( although a good number had already left) and their presence there ignited the Renaissance.

Islam is parasitic and irrelevant. It has no science, technology or philosophy, and far from playing a role in the building of The West, has, in fact, been a millstone around our necks for centuries.

yeah, I’ve heard it said that JP is a cross between Patton, Bela Lugosi and all of those nasty things left over at Little Green Footballs?

You heard wrong, Modernity.

I’m not a cross between things at all, and am certainly not nasty.

I am, in fact, an oscillator, moving from Mae West to Mother Teresa, depending on my moods.

The Bishop of Rochester is spot-on.

Which is why his pro-pos have caused Brett no end of angst.

How’s poor Mr Locke holding up, anyhow?

If he was ’speaking truth’, he would actually have to provide some evidence that the decline in Christianity has directly led to the uptake of radical Islam.

The decline of traditional religious faith in the 60s was followed by a tremendous upsurge in the growth of looney cults demanding unquestioning obediance to the leader, be they the Moonies or Jim Jones.

In the 70s, though, Islam had yet to make its entrance, but it now has.

It is the ultimate cult and an irresistible magnet for many, many marginal, sociopathic types.

“Islam is parasitic and irrelevant. It has no science, technology or philosophy, and far from playing a role in the building of The West, has, in fact, been a millstone around our necks for centuries.”

This is patently nonsense. You brought up that Renaissance, so think of Geber, Avicenna, Averroes and Ibn Bajjah.

“The decline of traditional religious faith in the 60s was followed by a tremendous upsurge in the growth of looney cults demanding unquestioning obediance to the leader, be they the Moonies or Jim Jones.”

And before that there was Aleister Crowley, Israel Regardie etc. Besides, Jim Jones had only a few thousand followers.

“It is the ultimate cult and an irresistible magnet for many, many marginal, sociopathic types.”

Bollocks.

The decline of traditional religious faith in the 60s was followed by a tremendous upsurge in the growth of looney cults demanding unquestioning obediance to the leader, be they the Moonies or Jim Jones. In the 70s, though, Islam had yet to make its entrance, but it now has.

Again, this is just assertion.

Correlation is not causation.

Christian values are Western values – very funny.

This is patently nonsense. You brought up that Renaissance, so think of Geber, Avicenna, Averroes and Ibn Bajjah.

Translating ideas is not the same as inventing ideas

When Catholic kings retook Toledo and booted the Arabs out, Averroes begged to be allowed to stay.

He knew much better than anyone just how ammenable to ‘free inquiry’ Islam really was.

And when crusader kingdoms were established in the Levant in the Middle Ages, many, many Muslims chose to live under The Franks because the Franks were considered far more fair and equitable.

Once again, Islam is irrelevant. It conquered more advanced civilsations and merely adopted some of the more advantageous aspects of those cultures.

“Arabic” numerals are a good example of this. They aren’t ‘arabic’ at all, existed centuries before Mohammed and are of Indo-Persian origin. But when your whole “culture” is based on theft, brigandry and razias a reliable number system is an absolute must when counting and distributing the loot.

No one is allowed to say anything positive or flattering about Byzantium, making it perhaps the most underappreiciated civilisation around, and this for religious as well as geo-political reasons.

The Roman Catholic Church began a campaign of vilifying and downplaying Orthodox Christianity’s achievements and accomplishments after 1453.

That denigration continues to this day.

In the 19th century Britian and France allied themselves with The Ottomans in order to contain Czarist Russia, and in the 20th century with Turkey ( Nato), to contain the Soviet Union.

No one, thus, has any interest in promoting it, and to do so would undermine not just Turkey’s legitimacy but also Islam’s claims of academic excellence and philisophical brilliance.

In fact, “byzantine” is now a kind of an insult, denoting something incomprehensible, retrograde and needlessly complicated.

Yet it is to them that we owe everything.

“It is the ultimate cult and an irresistible magnet for many, many marginal, sociopathic types.”

Bollocks.

Really?

From the “converts” posting just above;

Converts seem overly represented in terrorist activities, outside of the Middle East. Perhaps some of them are more intellectually susceptible to being preyed upon by extremists. Others do not have the religious background or contacts in mainstream Islam to counter such views effectively.

Bollocks eh?

Yes, but a ‘convert’ is someone who has changed their religious faith. That is to say, someone who was religious already.

That is to say, the ‘marginal sociopathic types’ of which you speak have discarded their Christianity and converted to Islam.

Perhaps the problem lies with religion full stop?

“Translating ideas is not the same as inventing ideas”

That’s odd, you were very keen to praise Aquinas for propogating the ideas of Aristotle. Besides, it’s just a strawman. Avveroes created an entire school of philosophy, Geber is considered by many to be the father of chemistry, Avicenna wrote an influential standard medical text and Ibn Bajjah’s law of motion was an influence upon Galileo.

“Really?”

Yep.

“Bollocks eh?”

Indubitably so.

The Enlightment was opposed to much of Aristotelianism. Even if it wasn’t, the West accessed much of Aristotle through Islamic scholars, so you might equally praise them as well.

With all due respect, statements like that are part of the probleme.

What, the first one (bolded) which you completely ignore?

Pardon me if I don’t want to get into an argument with someone who comes out with statements they can’t support.

P.

Geber is considered by many to be the father of chemistry, Avicenna wrote an influential standard medical text and Ibn Bajjah’s law of motion was an influence upon Galileo.

The fathers ( there were two of ,em) of chemistry were Syrian monks who fled the arab invasions, set up shop in the Byzantine empire and created greek fire; a substance that could not have been invented without at least a rudimentary knowledge of modern chemistry.

Orthodox Christian world also understood the principles of electricity and there is some evidence they were capable of electroplating.

Avicenna did nothing more than cribb Galen, the famous Roman surgeon.

He was a plagiarist who exploited the ignorance of those around him to claim originality.

And I suspect that “Ibn Bajjah’s” law of motion to have similar palgarised origins

Just one question; why are you unable to cite any figures from less than a 1000 years ago?

Because Islam just doesn’t do science and technology, that’s why.

The three above gentlemen are cited ad nauseum by those desperate to “commit” to Islam qualities and properties it never possessed, and in fact one of these gentlemen may even have been retrofitted with a false muslim identity.

The ‘Burning glass’ in Alexandria’s lighthouse, a giant pivoted magnifying glass that could set ships alight at a distance of miles, is a stunning testamony to a knowledge of early optics.
When turned around it allowed its user to see miles and miles out to sea.

And the lighthousie itself was utterly brilliant, estimated by some to have been 600 feet high, and its engineering, done in three different phases ( levels), has served, unbeknownst to most westerners, as the model for mosque minarets.

And Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, one of the world’s most impressive structures, is the very template for nearly every mosque on earth.

Intellectual inquiry in the Muslim world has been utterly moribund for centuries and centuries.

Islam eshews ALL innovation, science and technololgy included, because the faith’s Koran purports to contain ALL the knowledge that humanity needs to ever know.

Mullar Omar, for example, Mohammed’s immediate successor, burned what was left of Alexandia’s great library, setting the ‘tone’, thus, for Islam’s thirst and drive for knowledge.

Islam’s intellectual claims are all bullshit, and when one sets about seriously investigating of its claims, one enters a world of counterknowledge akin to that of the “X Files”.

tbh, the CoE has been moving in an increasingly evangelical direction for quite a while now – however it’s been mostly a bottom-up
Unlike the Catholic church which would seem to be rather more inclined to be up-your-bottom – at least for small boys!

“Like it or not, we have a need for transcendence”
What cultivar is that, or is it a hybrid …like Pinotage?

“Like it or not, we have a need for transcendence”

I don’t. I have a need for music.

Such hubris!

All of your post, Mr Kilroy-Silk, was a bare assertion fallacy, most hilariously indicated by your comment that you “suspect” Ibn Bajjah to have been guilty of plagiarism. I expect multiple links or citations that suggest that Avicenna ‘cribbed’ from Galen, and also hope that you learn the meaning of the words ‘considered by many’.

“Just one question; why are you unable to cite any figures from less than a 1000 years ago?”

You’re still blathering. There have been influential scientists that happen to have held Islamic beliefs from Ibn al-Haytham to Abdus Salam. There have been, indeed, far too many to list.

““commit” to Islam qualities and properties it never possessed.”

Well, there’s nothing about the Islamic faith that enhances materialistic study. There’s nothing about faith that enhances materialistic study. Faith is the antithesis of reason.

By the way, you’re not merely opposed to ‘Islam’, you’re opposed to the Islamic world and those who inhabit it. There’s a term that is applied to those who hold these beliefs…

I also have no need for transcendence, thank you. If the universe can manage without it then who am I not be able to.

What do you mean “the universe can manage without it “…..the universe isn’t conscious…or perhaps you think it is? Have you asked it? On the other hand you, like everything in it , is part of it. Some humans have a need for transcendence…and as they are a part of the universe then the universe does need it (…in part!).

I also have no need for transcendence, thank you.

SUCH hubris!

John

I believe Al Hazen made some genuine contributions to optics, and was the first to appreciate that light went into, rather than out, of the eye. But he was about the only Muslim to show any true innovation. Many others to whom we attribute enlightened thinking were either secular (like Ar-Razi) or apostate (like Akhbar).

Back to the Bishop. He was always Christian, but had to leave Pak for his own safety in 1986 after the ghastly Zia ul-Haq introduced the Hoodud laws, and now finds his life under threat in UK. Like Patrick Sookhdeo, he has experienced full-blooded Islam at first hand, and does not like it. Believe me, Brett, neither would you – it is very different visiting a Muslim country from which you can leave at will than to be trapped in one. Unlike India, Persia and North Africa, we are fortunate in being forewarned about the devious, ruthless and utterly unscrupulous nature by which Islam is spread. Ignore his warning at your peril.

belljar,
I was merely making a rather facetious (and not entirely relevant) reference to the theological concept of God transcending the universe. I have indeed asked the universe whether it has powers of consciousness, but frustratingly it replied that it had no capacity for it.

Venichka,
Thank you, but I believe that those who are displaying the most hubris in this dialogue are those who are dismissing an entire civilisation. In contrast, my own presumptuous but relatively neurotic self stands in awe.

Alcuin,
Yes, such are the dangers of aligning politics and religion. Our own nation attempted it with Christianity for centuries, but thankfully the past years have shown significant change.

belljar,
In reflection, my universe comment made no sense whatsoever. I was curiously aligning to entirely separate concepts of transcendence. The lengths to which will go to sound snappy…

Well, there’s nothing about the Islamic faith that enhances materialistic study. There’s nothing about faith that enhances materialistic study. Faith is the antithesis of reason.

Faith is the precurser of reason.

Islam, particularly its radical incarnation, doesn’t do faith particularly well, preferring instead to harness its adherents to an endless treadmill of obsessive/compusive purity rituals until their entire consciousness is monopolised and rendered incapable of independant logic and thought.

And to come back to the subject of this thread; it appears that Brett and Inyat B. are largely in agreement, though for entirely different reasons.

Inyat for aims of of deception, knowing as he does, that the Bishop is spot on, and that any disquiet raised must be managed, coralled and then quashed for fear Nazir-Ali’s comments will resonate with the public.

The Bishop is a very brave man.

Saying JP is part Bela Lugosi is just plain wrong. Palubiski is Polish after all, not Hungarian!

“Faith is the precurser(sic) of reason.”

It’s a shame that people treat it as if it were a conclusion.

“The Bishop is a very brave man.”

Well, Standpoint has at least three articles wondering “what the bloody hell can we do with these muslims?” so he’s apparently aiming for strength in numbers.

“Inyat for aims of of deception, knowing as he does, that the Bishop is spot on, and that any disquiet raised must be managed, coralled and then quashed for fear Nazir-Ali’s comments will resonate with the public.”

Sorry, but there’s no adequate reply to this except ‘lol’.

As for those answering JP, don’t dance with a maniac, otherwise the men in white coats think they have two patients for commitment.

Christianity had (force-ably) its soul saved by Secularism and Islam will too. Have a little ‘faith’, Comrades.

for instance-

‘Faith is the precurser of reason’
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…hahaha…haha..ha!

Beyond our petty minds, Comrades, this is the loigic round the walls of Halicarnussus, not the streets of 21st cebtury Soho. We have been outdated by the forward thinking epistomology of the cross and flaming sword, of the Archangel and epiphany.

The only thing I can’t work out is under such thinking if Christ is doomed or merely playing weak to tempt his mortal enemies into some theological Kutusov style trap? Is it war or inevitable, I can never tell from such ’smells and bells’, defeatist shit.

But then I am spouting ‘Sociological bullshit’.

The streets of 21st century Soho are a model of the sort of society than one wants to live in?

No thanks.

Were the rest of England, or even London, like Soho, or the morality of this country the morality of Soho (how lovely to be surrounded by drug dealers and prostitutes and clients of prostitutes and those who behave as though they were prostitutes or clients of prostitutes!) I would have emigrated long ago.

A more debached, amoral and disgusting place one would have to try hard to find in the UK today. (Although one could find worse in, say, Amsterdam or, despite its redeeming qualities, Riga)

So the Bishop of Rochester, like his opposite number the Archbishop of York, is a militant Christian rather than a wishy washy one and unlike the woolly theologian the Archbishop of Canterbury.

What is wrong with that? I don’t have any interest in any organised religion but the Protestant faith in the UK has been the standard bearer battleground since the 17th century for many of the freedoms we enjoy today.

Brett I assume you are a non-believer? Fine but not everyone is convinced by Richard Dawkins. Some people need religion in their everyday lives and if there has to be a choice I think we should be supporting the Church Militant of Nazir-Ali and Sentamu (who after all speaks out against what is going on in Zimbabwe and other contemporary issues) to go head to head with fundamentalist Islam.

Both have the added advantage that because of their ethnic and religious backgrounds, it is easier for them to criticise fundamentalist islam than it might be for some white Christian clergy who would inevitably be accused of racism if they did.

Is it me or is Ven getting rather reactionary? More so than I, actually, certainly in matters of culture…

Faith is the precurser of reason’
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…hahaha…haha..ha!

And so you’ve never acted on a hunch? You’ve never had a ‘feeling’ that something just might be true before you’ve any tangible proof it really is?

People do that all the time, Socialrepublican.

Human beings act on “faith” all of the time, and the whole process begins with an insight, a hunch or a suspicion that is then transformed into reason, into ‘fact’ through trial and error.

Sorry, but there’s no adequate reply to this except ‘lol’.

I can think of adequate reply. When Inyat B. strongly disagrees with individual’s opinions on Islam, you just know that individual is correct.

The Bishop of Rochester is from Pakistan, and so what would he know of islam compared to enlightened progressive Britons?

Beyond our petty minds, Comrades, this is the loigic round the walls of Halicarnussus, not the streets of 21st cebtury Soho. We have been outdated by the forward thinking epistomology of the cross and flaming sword, of the Archangel and epiphany.

Oh really?

It might surprise you to know that I spent years inhabiting the moral/philosophical *space* expressed in that statement before deciding to move on.

I don’t reject modernity, I just eschew its more escahtological excesses that hold forth the promise of perfection and such because THAT whole mindset is nothing more than the expression of a constricted, truncated religious sentiment.

JP -

Faith was brought up on this thread in the dogmatic sense as in faith in a deity or a supra-individual narrative. I would say that subconscious ‘hunch’ you label as faith is of the sort described by Koestler as ‘the spark and the flame’. It is imagination, a jump of perception, yes. Faith by its very nature is more existential, it is not fruitful whimsy or the unpredicted thought. Indeed Dogma might co-opt this as the gift from Sky Pixie tm, yet is origins lay within the individual. Faith in such circumstances is merely faith in one’s self.

My point is that the most fruitful ’sparks and flames’ occur when we venture outside of our conventional epitomological contructs, when we see previously uncharted connections between two seemly incompatable ‘matrix’. Thus we go beyond learnt doctrine and expectation and reason begins there.

But I grant you this might be a difference in vernaculars rather than a great fissure.

‘It might surprise you to know that I spent years inhabiting the moral/philosophical *space* expressed in that statement before deciding to move on.’

I’m not sure which space you mean, my secular sarcasm or the ‘faith of the free spirit’, but either way, JP, very little would surprise me about you, you are systemically surprising :)

Ven –

I was not suggesting that Soho or any place in that spawning ugly necro-polis of London is utopic, merely that those streets represent what faces us now, not Turks at the Gates or Puants in the provinces or Fascists in Kiev or Infidels in the attic. If a multiplicity of religious faiths, a inevitable part of human nature, are to exist side by side rather than seek violent hegemon or insular control of their particular ghettos, I think there needs to be a change. Religious faith is individual, it can inspire creation, but the agents for that change remain mere human beings, not gods or the dialectic.

Should read ‘but the agents of that change remain mere human beings, not gods or the dialectic’

My point is that the most fruitful ’sparks and flames’ occur when we venture outside of our conventional epitomological contructs, when we see previously uncharted connections between two seemly incompatable ‘matrix’. Thus we go beyond learnt doctrine and expectation and reason begins there.

Yes, “sparks and flames” is good way of putting it. My “faith” is really just a hunch, but it’s a hunch that is constantly teased and tweaked by situations, things and people that I encounter on a daily basis….but never to the point were my faith becomes a proven, empirical certainty.

I never see the object of my faith and I’m never supplied with proof of its existence, but at times I think I can perceive the ripples from its wake, its presence.

That’s all.

Have a good weekend!

“but never to the point were my faith becomes a proven, empirical certainty.”

That’s your own decision, John, but it does make it slightly hypocritical to attack Islam for supposedly nullifying scientific study.

Have a wonderful weekend.

“To make sense of world events, we have to separate Islam from Political Islamists. ”

Statements like that show how little the writer knows about Islam. If Brett can find me any senior Muslim cleric who thinks Islam is purely a matter of private belief I’ll be very interested to hear about them. Islam is clearly a totalitarian ideology that expects the belief system to regulate every aspect of life – including sex, education, scientific belief, music, the arts, sport, clothing. There is nothing that Islam doesn’t have an opinion on. There is no equivalent of “render unto Caesar” in Islam.

I respect the Bishop as someone who understands what Islam is and what it wants in this world. Beyond that I don’t think the Anglican Church is going to save us from Islam.

However, I think it is true that Christian culture sustains our democracy and our freedoms through its stress on the individual, its “render unto Caesar” approach, its concern for the poor and the underdog, its rejection of violence and its theological subtlety (again a basis for philosophical and scientific inquiry). Equally important are our
classical, pagan heritage; our wonderful science; and our secular arts.

The classical heritage, with its wonderful resonant myths is still highly relevant to our culture. We don’t have to literally believe in Zeus or Prometheus to appreciate its value. So with Christianity. We don’t have to have faith in Jesus to recognise the incredible and benevolent power of the Christian narrative.

JP –

Those ’sparks and flames are yours, not god or allah or class consciencness, yours and yours to treasure. Enjoy them fella!

Enjoy yours too

And in other news Ed Balls ( whom I’m convinced is a convert) is planning to introduce imams (radical ones) into public schools to give lectures to vulnerable, naieve students on islam and violence.

In all schools to all students, it appears. No doubt any and all connection between islam and violence will be portrayed as merely ‘circumstantial’ and simply a question of ‘misperception’.

Now if Brett and company are so concerned about sacro-sanct secularism instead, as I suspect, of just this brain-fart driven trashing of Christianity, he’d have a posting on this.

Your public ’secular’ school systeme is being turned into a vehicle for Islamist proslytisation and yet only Bishop Ali Nazir, the least offensive cleric by far, is the only religious figure being raked over the coals.

As a result of this soft anti-Christian bigotry, and the harmful distractions it creates, Britian is going to get hardcore religion right up its butt.

Giving far-right islamist radicals unfettered access to maleable 12 year-old minds is NOT the way to go, but the dimwit athesist school commisioners don’t see that.

Ed Balls, by the way, is the same guy who promotes London as a centre of sharia banking.

How do you get on the Saudi payroll, anyhow?

I’m still in a public school, John. We’ve had several vicars and a couple of evangelists but, you can be sure, no Imams.

There’s really very little to be worried about.

Hang that, I’m in a state school. A minor distinction, maybe, but an important one to any pretentious collectivist.

“Palubiski is Polish after all”

Explains it all really.