Comments on: Where we go from here…

By: Pickled Politics » Why Human Rights Matter

Pickled Politics » Why Human Rights Matter — Tue, 23 May 2006 20:38:59 +0000

[...] Incidentally there is another twist which makes the Human Rights Act particularly relevant to Pickled Politics. As Sunny has consistently argued, one of the major problems with race relations in this country is the presence of community leaders and experts who end up serving themselves. Politicians influenced by a utilitarian mindset see responding to such groups as being both democratic, as well as a way of increasing their own support and popularity. To a certain extent such local institutions are necessary for democracies to work and the problem with Asian communities is the disconnect between older and younger generations. However, whatever the system, individual rights can protect the minority (or the under-represented) within the minority. [...]

By: Lopakhin

Lopakhin — Wed, 17 May 2006 19:15:53 +0000

Just to say – on most definitions, Moscow isnt in Asia. The traditional dividing line between Europe & Asia is the Ural Mountains (although that was made up itself, by a Swedish diplomat in the 18th century). I’m told on reasonably reliable authority (well,by a Russian friend) that on one of the roads leading through the Urals, there’s a two-handed sign, with ‘Europe’ one way and ‘Asia’ the other.

By: justforfun

justforfun — Wed, 17 May 2006 12:26:05 +0000

Santa works in mysterious ways and has many proxyies !!

Of course he has never given away his real identity and I am sure in the afterlife – its presents for all !! yeepee.

Bananabrain – please re-read your last post few posts and have a chuckle. Sounds a bit like , you know when the Government or Chancellor claims the credit for the good performance of the economy, when we down here on Earth know its the hard working people who have made the economy better, and it has nothing to do with the Government.

Justforfun

By: Roger

Roger — Wed, 17 May 2006 12:12:06 +0000

Givn the changes wrought by the Abrahamic religions: Good for Santa!
good for Akhenaton, Jove, Odin, Mithras…and every other religious system that didn’t work these changes too.

By: bananabrain

bananabrain — Wed, 17 May 2006 11:57:43 +0000

although santa claus hasn’t sustained a civilisation and wrought profound changes in human society over a period of 3500 years, of course.

b’shalom

bananabrain

By: sarcastic bugger

sarcastic bugger — Wed, 17 May 2006 11:25:45 +0000

bananabrain – exactly.
Few adults seriously criticise the practice of telling kids that Santa Clause delivers their christmas presents, because the criteria for whether the Santa Claus story ‘works’ isnt whether it’s ‘true’ but rather whether it’s a comforting myth that makes children feel nice.
Any adult that went around trying to tell kids the Truth about Santa Claus would be regarded as a fool and a killjoy.

By: bananabrain

bananabrain — Tue, 16 May 2006 11:36:55 +0000

john, that’s the point. historical evidence is there to provide evidence for *historians*, not religious people. religion has a totally different set of criteria, like “does it work?”, “does it provide answers for how we should live our lives?”, “does it enable us to develop a relationship with the spiritual dimension?” and “is this a sustainable way for our culture to develop?” – by all these judaism is a definite success. what i think seems to annoy academics, historians and archaeologists in particular, is that we ought not to exist. we’re an anomaly that still hasn’t been ironed out of history. in short, we are an exception to historical rules – it doesn’t make sense that judaism should have survived the last three and a half millennia or however long it is. have we been influenced by other cultures? surely. have we remained ourselves? even more so. have we exercised a disproportionate influence on human history given our numbers? certainly. all history can offer us is “well, based on our understanding of these documents or inscriptions, this is what we think was going on” – it’s done without any connection to the anthropological context. if you want a better understanding of what i mean then i can recommend mary douglas’ book “leviticus as literature”, which goes further than any outsider’s perspective i’ve ever seen to explain the internal logic of this most seemingly dated of documents. whether you believe in revelation or G!D or whatever or not, it does us an enormous disservice to suggest that judaism is basically a rip-off of an egyptian fad that just happens to have lasted thousands of years. not very likely, really, is it?

b’shalom

bananabrain

By: John Browne

John Browne — Mon, 15 May 2006 18:08:47 +0000

bananabrain ,
I apologise – I was simply going on the historical evidence (such as it is). No offence intended.
If you have better historical evidence for someone
else then please tell me.

Cheers john

By: sonia

sonia — Mon, 15 May 2006 16:44:00 +0000

yeah its a bit silly..

By: bananabrain

bananabrain — Mon, 15 May 2006 16:37:41 +0000

i’m a little concerned at all this rather glib “akhenaten invented monotheism” nonsense. it’s an opinion. frankly, i’d think that people had better things to do than to accuse my religion of being a bunch of derivative codswallop. come on, guys. it’s not exactly conducive to sensible discussion any more than saying “you’re all going to hell unless you accept jesus” or whatever. if you want to spout ill-informed second-hand crap about judaism, you’re welcome to try it over at http://www.comparative-religion.com.

b’shalom

bananabrain

By: John Browne

John Browne — Sun, 14 May 2006 19:06:52 +0000

Roger,
Certainly the Croat Nazi’s were infamous.
Franco had 11 members of Opus Dei in his cabinet so he was linked to the right of the Catholic Church. However towards the end of this “reign” the Church went left (Vatican 2) and supported the left-wing Spanish unions instead. But it was too little too late.

So you see, we both agree on the facts, its just our analysis produces different results. In my analysis the brits where more interested in money and perhaps freedom then they were in religion. In yours you put religion higher up on the agenda.

We agree to differ. Thanks for replying.

Cheers John

By: Roger

Roger — Sun, 14 May 2006 18:28:32 +0000

“But what ever figures
you use the Catholic church is by far the largest
in the USA.”

The largest individual one, certainly. However, as the one thing that unites the prods is not being papists it makes little difference against prods as a collection there and it is certainly a lot smaller than your original estimate of 40%.

Most of the peasants’ revolts were quasi-religious or expressed in religious terms- “When Adam delved and Eve span who was then the gentleman?”- and they weren’t about money but other matters- forced labour, nobles’ privileges and rents in kind. Look at the German Peasants’ Revolts in the sixteenth century and the Hussites too; you couldn’t separate the religious revolution from the political. What they all had in common though is that they were far from wishy-washy and the methods used to suppress them couldn’t be called that either.
The collapse of Yugoslavia was inspired by religio-cultural differences. Little more than sixty years ago the Croat Franciscan extermination/conversion camps for Orthodox Serbs shocked SS officers and Franco himself, you may recall, announced that he was leading a cruzada.

By: Roger

Roger — Sun, 14 May 2006 18:16:16 +0000

Roger – it was a gag, play on words.-
I wondered, Rohin: the problem is that in a sciece forum elsewhere I have spent so much time explaining that being right- saying the earth goes round the sun- is not enough- some of the Greeks said so too. You need to give reasons for it. I tend to automatically knee-jerk into a reaction like that. all the same, I’m grateful to come across Yajnavalkya.

By: John Browne

John Browne — Sun, 14 May 2006 09:41:15 +0000

Roger,
Sorry mate but you linked to a 2002 site.
These are the 2005 figures.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001481.html
Its of course growing faster each generation
as more Mexicans arrive. But what ever figures
you use the Catholic church is by far the largest
in the USA.
I am a bit of a historian Roger, and I feel it
pretty safe to say that the religious “uprisings”
you talk about are small compared to the “peasents
revolts” where people wanted more money.
For modern examples when Franco died so did much of Spanish catholicism – there have been no major counter-revolutionary attempts.

By: Jai

Jai — Sat, 13 May 2006 20:27:07 +0000

You can add Martin Luther King to that list too.

By: Jai

Jai — Sat, 13 May 2006 20:24:54 +0000

Rakhee,

Some would say that OBL and his closest cohorts have sacrificed a life of wealth and privilege for their cause.

Unfortunately, both their “cause” and their methods are wrong, morally and logically.

Sacrifice in itself isn’t the main thing, and neither is “standing up for what one believes in” — one has to be doing it for the right reasons and for the right aims.

It is interesting, however, that some of the most inspiring and admired leaders in history have so often ended up being assassinated — relatively recent examples being Guru Gobind Singh, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi and JFK.

By: Rakhee

Rakhee — Sat, 13 May 2006 18:01:18 +0000

Rohin, you’re right. The book is the compilation of those from the National Portrait Gallery, collated by Robin Muir.

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/1855143534.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

I know what you mean about Diana. I’d argue that Madonna is also one of the most photographed but I guess it’s just taking a snapshot over the century.

And yes, it is a huge debate but wouldn’t you agree a very interesting one nonetheless?

There are lessons to be learnt from leaders successes and failures, particularly when it comes to the political playing field.

Jai, you touched on an interesting point about sacrifice. How many of the world’s leaders today really sacrifice what they have/are for what they believe in?

By: Rohin

Rohin — Sat, 13 May 2006 15:00:41 +0000

Roger – it was a gag, play on words. I meant he changed the world by putting it in a different place in the universe. He didn’t actually physically change the world as much as others. In fact he didn’t have to stand up for his beliefs as he didn’t face opposition in India – the ones that opposed the heliocentric theory were Christians who came centuries later.

By: Roger

Roger — Sat, 13 May 2006 14:03:03 +0000

“on a quite literal basis of â€˜changing the worldâ€™, the winner has to be Yajnavalkya, the first person to put the Earth orbiting the Sun”
Why? Getting it right isn’t enough: showing you are right and persuading other people matters more.

By: Roger

Roger — Sat, 13 May 2006 14:00:39 +0000

[quote]1. Catholic USA. There are many misconceptions about the USA and one of them is that it is a protestant country when in fact the largest religion by a huge margin is the Catholic religion. I think its goes like this 40% catholic, 20% Anglican and 20% Baptist type stuff and the rest all over the place.[/quote]
Actually, http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#Pew_branches gives figures of over 50% prod, about 25% RC.
[quote]
3. Christianity mainly developed within Greek Culture. I stick by my â€œwishy washyâ€ label, it was not only Chaucer in England it was also, on a much bigger scale, Danteâ€™s Inferno – he put the pope in there! The proof? When Henry 8th said its was more or less â€œcods wallopâ€ the Country didnâ€™t get into too much of a tiss about it.[/quote] As the bases of christianity came from judaism- with a few Graeco-Roman additions- it is in essence a middle eastern religion. If it seems European now it is because it changed Europe. Dante put popes in hell because he hated them. Nothing wisdhy-washy there. He put most of the human race and most of the people he knew in hell, following good christian theology. Henry VIII inspired serious rebellions when he took over the church. In his reign, Edward VI’s, Bloody Mary’s [how do you think she gfot the nickname?] and Elizabeth’s there were a great many people tortured or killed for religious reasons and religious revolts of one sort or another. People don’t torture or undergo torture for wishy-washy opinions.
[quote]
4. The â€œFootball Testâ€. I think this is a bit of a valid point. The host nation should try – half heartedly at least, to try and pick immigrants who will get on best here. Its not like we donâ€™t have a big choice. There are loads of people who want to come here. Perhaps immigrants should be asked some cultural questions before they can call themselves British as they have to in Germany. Can you name the 1966 England Football team perhaps.[/quote] Anyone who supposes that identifying themselves with a bunch of flannelled fools or muddied oafs has anything to do with patriotism or will do any country any good should be stripped of their citzenship at once.