"Bill of Shame"

[Outrider]

The places I was referring to are those where quality education has been provided by British and other Western nations' aid agencies.

And it still tends to be measured in terms of literacy and mathematics, with no eye for any sense of history, geography, politics, ethics etc.

And on who's backs have they managed to do all this?  Remember that much of Europe's success and liberality has come on the back of destroying competitors' industries and monopolising their markets by dumping cheap product into them.   Our 'freer/fairer societies' are often based on unfair international trade practices and sharp industrial practice.  We have societies where individuals are forgotten and ignored, elderly 'put to the side', etc - situations that some of those uneducated and backward societies put us to shame.

Absolutely agree - the outright theft of resources and people from 'the colonies' by European powers (and their inheritors in places like Canada, Australia and the US) still needs to be redressed, and puts an onus on us to support the places that we wronged. One of the ways we can do that is to export not just the material things that we stole, but the cultural harvest that we've reaped from it.

We made our culture better at their expense, the least we can do is share the benefits of that with them.

O.

[Hope]

And it still tends to be measured in terms of literacy and mathematics, with no eye for any sense of history, geography, politics, ethics etc.

Can't say that the examples I refer to have had this narrowness. 

One of the ways we can do that is to export not just the material things that we stole, but the cultural harvest that we've reaped from it.

We made our culture better at their expense, the least we can do is share the benefits of that with them.

Sounds like cultural imperialism, and is no more than the exporting of culture that we Europeans used to practise in the 16th/17th/18th centuries.

After all, many of the ideas that we borrowed, still exist in those other cultures and are sometimes more honed then their borrowed versions.

[ProfessorDavey]

My mother is Finnish but I was born in London and moved to live eith my mother's people. Perfectly legitimate.

And in what way would choosing to move to Finland had your mother not have been Finish been illegitimate, which is the clear implication of your consideration of your own circumstances being 'legitimate'.

And you haven't fully answered my question. So your mother is Finnish, what about her parents, their parents and so on. Has her family always lived in Finland or were they perhaps, themselves, migrants to that land hundreds of years ago.

[ProfessorDavey]

This is not their land, not their culture and neither have they shed their blood for it.

Hmm - lots of rather nasty connotations there AO - particularly the notion that you need to shed blood to 'join the club'.

But also on the cultural aspect - I thought you religion (which seems to be be inherently a part of your culture) was orthodox christianity, which from a brief check is the religion of just one in one hundred Finns - just 1% - so it is a bit rich for you to claim that your culture is Finnish culture when one of the most important aspects to your life doesn't align with mainstream Finnish culture whatsoever. So there are a greater proportion of muslims in the UK than there are of your religion in Finland. Yet according to you - you are part of the club and they aren't - there is a rather unpleasant smell that emanates from views of that type.

[ad_orientem]

And in what way would choosing to move to Finland had your mother not have been Finish been illegitimate, which is the clear implication of your consideration of your own circumstances being 'legitimate'.

And you haven't fully answered my question. So your mother is Finnish, what about her parents, their parents and so on. Has her family always lived in Finland or were they perhaps, themselves, migrants to that land hundreds of years ago.

For as long as we've been able to trace back they're from Finland, Karelia to be precise.

[ad_orientem]

Hmm - lots of rather nasty connotations there AO - particularly the notion that you need to shed blood to 'join the club'.

But also on the cultural aspect - I thought you religion (which seems to be be inherently a part of your culture) was orthodox christianity, which from a brief check is the religion of just one in one hundred Finns - just 1% - so it is a bit rich for you to claim that your culture is Finnish culture when one of the most important aspects to your life doesn't align with mainstream Finnish culture whatsoever. So there are a greater proportion of muslims in the UK than there are of your religion in Finland. Yet according to you - you are part of the club and they aren't - there is a rather unpleasant smell that emanates from views of that type.

Orthodoxy arrived in Finland at least two centuries before Roman Catholicsm and received by the Karelian Finns. Both Roman Catholicism and later Protestantism was imposed upon us by the Swedes.

[Shaker]

Orthodoxy arrived in Finland at least two centuries before Roman Catholicsm and received by the Karelian Finns. Both Roman Catholicism and later Protestantism was imposed upon us by the Swedes.

Johnny-come-lately upstarts and interlopers compared to the pre-existing indigenous pagan religions, of course.

[ProfessorDavey]

Orthodoxy arrived in Finland at least two centuries before Roman Catholicsm and received by the Karelian Finns. Both Roman Catholicism and later Protestantism was imposed upon us by the Swedes.

And represents a teeny, tiny proportion of the population of Finland, so hardly part of the prevailing culture.

[ProfessorDavey]

For as long as we've been able to trace back they're from Finland, Karelia to be precise.

Well what was she doing in London then - don't tell be she was a migrant in the UK when you were born - surely that (according to your argument) shouldn't have been allowed. And there's you so terribly anti-migrants and yet it would appear your mother was one when you were born - tut, tut.

[ad_orientem]

Well what was she doing in London then - don't tell be she was a migrant in the UK when you were born - surely that (according to your argument) shouldn't have been allowed. And there's you so terribly anti-migrants and yet it would appear your mother was one when you were born - tut, tut.

I never said I was completely against migration. It's not healthy to completely close oneself off. I am, however, against migration from cultures which are completely opposed to ours, in this case Islamic countries. Islam by its nature imposes itself on everyone else by any means necessary, usually the sword. It's in its very DNA, right from the founder himself. Europe is Christian, or at least it's supposed to be. Apostasy is the reason why we're in this mess. We need to return to the faith which made Europe into the light of the world surrounded by darkness. We need a new Constantine.

[Shaker]

Islam by its nature imposes itself on everyone else by any means necessary, usually the sword.

See also: Christianity.

Europe is Christian, or at least it's supposed to be.

It isn't, and is becoming less so by the year, thank goodness. When given a free choice (historically recent and hard won) people don't want your dismal death cult in their heads or in their lives.

We need to return to the faith which made Europe into the light of the world surrounded by darkness.

Burning bodies give off quite a bit of light don't they, especially en masse.

[JP]

Mass migration is the problem. Migration in the past has been more of a dripfeed but when the numbers are in the millions it is possible to see why people have concerns.

Migration from Europe is also less problematic as we are cuturally similar however the further you travel the more diverse this becomes.

[ad_orientem]

See also: Christianity.It isn't, and is becoming less so by the year, thank goodness. When given a free choice (historically recent and hard won) people don't want your dismal death cult in their heads or in their lives.Burning bodies give off quite a bit of light don't they, especially en masse.

Christianity from its beginning was pacifict whereas Mohammed spread his religion with the sword. And yet again, what has burning heretics have to do with Orthodoxy or even pre-schism Rome?

[ProfessorDavey]

Christianity from its beginning was pacifict whereas Mohammed spread his religion with the sword. And yet again, what has burning heretics have to do with Orthodoxy or even pre-schism Rome?

Whether or not christianity aimed at being a non violent religion it, like most other religions, completely failed to achieve that pacifist aim and it and its adherents have been involved in countless acts of religiously motivated violence over the centuries. And this isn't just from centuries ago.

Don't forget that it was orthodox christians who perpetrated the most recent genocide on european soil, just 20 years ago in Serbia and Bosnia. And before you claim that this had nothing to do with the church, think again - the church were willing cheerleader to the ethnic cleansing - indeed Metropolitan Nikolaj, the primate of the Orthodox Church in Bosnia, proclaimed at Easter 1993 that those who accepted the leadership of Karadžić and Mladić were 'following the difficult road of Christ.'

While the murderous leaders regularly made it clear that their plans were religiously motivated:

Mladić stated that the problem of Bosnia would be solved if only the Muslims would convert to Orthodoxy.
Karadžić declared in 1994, 'Our faith is present in all our thinking and decisions, and the voice of the Church is obeyed as the voice of supreme authority'.
Karadžić proclaimed at a rally, 'Tonight even God is a Serb!'

[Hope]

It isn't, and is becoming less so by the year, thank goodness.

As I've said in the past, I'm not sure that the idea of a 'Christian' (replace with whichever philosophy one cares to choose) nation or continent is even valid.  I appreciate that it is a convenient shorthand, but a pretty meaningless one.

When given a free choice (historically recent and hard won) ...

If figures for the early part of the 20th century are anything to go by, I'm not sure that this is a particularly recent development, Shakes.  I don't have the sources to hand, but (iiirc) it is thought that, in the early years of the 20th century here in S. Wales, the number of Christians was at about the same level as it is now.  Over the years, there has been a steady growth, then fall; then growth, then fall over generations.  As for anything being hard won in this arena, it is basically personal choice.  One might be forced - by law, as is technically still the case - to practise one's archery at least once a week, but that doesn't mean one is interested in archery.  The same goes for religious faith.

... people don't want your dismal death cult in their heads or in their lives.

They're not obliged to belong to the Nazi Party.

Burning bodies give off quite a bit of light don't they, especially en masse.

That certainly seems to have been the experience of the Romans and their treatment of the early church.  Not sure that the church has ever managed to provide that level and consistency of illumination over a long period of time for all the horrors committed by the Inquisition and its likes.

[ProfessorDavey]

I don't have the sources to hand, but (iiirc) it is thought that, in the early years of the 20th century here in S. Wales, the number of Christians was at about the same level as it is now.  Over the years, there has been a steady growth, then fall; then growth, then fall over generations. 

Convenient that you don't have 'the sources to hand' because what you are saying is simply non-sense. Unless south wales was exceptionally peculiar (and I don't see why as it was a hot bed of 'Chapel', then the experience in this part of the Uk is likely to be the same as the rest. So largely level but with very gentle decline through the first half of the 20thC and then a much more accelerated and continuing decline from about 1960 onward.

And if you understand the reasons why then you can confidently predict this decline will continue for another 60 years at the very least. The only perturbing factor would be mass immigration of highly religious people - but that isn't actually an increase in the number of christians merely a redistribution from one part of the world to another.

[jakswan]

I never said I was completely against migration. It's not healthy to completely close oneself off. I am, however, against migration from cultures which are completely opposed to ours, in this case Islamic countries. Islam by its nature imposes itself on everyone else by any means necessary, usually the sword. It's in its very DNA, right from the founder himself. Europe is Christian, or at least it's supposed to be. Apostasy is the reason why we're in this mess. We need to return to the faith which made Europe into the light of the world surrounded by darkness. We need a new Constantine.

What culture you represent is as foreign to me any Muslim. In the UK we have marched a path towards more equality for women, homosexuals, people of different races, cultures and the Christian faith in some form has opposed every step.

[Hope]

What culture you represent is as foreign to me any Muslim. In the UK we have marched a path towards more equality for women, homosexuals, people of different races, cultures and the Christian faith in some form has opposed every step.

But then so have ordinary members of society who have no Christian faith, even no faith at all, jakswan.  At the same time, 'the Christian faith in some form' has often been at the forefront of the very developments you mentioned.  To dismiss anything on the strength of what it 'in some form' does on certain issues is too simplistic and ultimately unhelpful, as we could dismiss every aspect of and grouping in society if we were to follow this argument to its logical conclusion.

[Outrider]

But then so have ordinary members of society who have no Christian faith, even no faith at all, jakswan.  At the same time, 'the Christian faith in some form' has often been at the forefront of the very developments you mentioned.

Very, very few individuals have stood in the way of progress on all these issues, but the organised religions have.

To dismiss anything on the strength of what it 'in some form' does on certain issues is too simplistic and ultimately unhelpful, as we could dismiss every aspect of and grouping in society if we were to follow this argument to its logical conclusion.

On women's rights, gay rights and racial equality the formal religious structures have consistently acted against the forces of progress. In the most recent of times where they've finally, in this country, come to stand closer to the cultural norm, it has resulted in a fragmentation of the church as they move away from what the traditionalists consider the 'true' teachings. Christianity is still, in the main, a homophobic, misogynistic organisation, and they consider that to be divinely inspired. It's questionable whether the Anglican acceptance of women and gay people is part of their Christianity or in spite of it.

O.

[Shaker]

Very, very few individuals have stood in the way of progress on all these issues, but the organised religions have.

Yup!

On women's rights, gay rights and racial equality the formal religious structures have consistently acted against the forces of progress. In the most recent of times where they've finally, in this country, come to stand closer to the cultural norm, it has resulted in a fragmentation of the church as they move away from what the traditionalists consider the 'true' teachings.

Prime (and recent) example:

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=11445.0

Christianity is still, in the main, a homophobic, misogynistic organisation, and they consider that to be divinely inspired.

I could well have put it better myself, but not nearly as politely.

[wigginhall]

What culture you represent is as foreign to me any Muslim. In the UK we have marched a path towards more equality for women, homosexuals, people of different races, cultures and the Christian faith in some form has opposed every step.

This is a very good point.  Ad-O's views strike me as alien in the extreme.  When I'm in London, I am surrounded by Muslims, neighbours, shopkeepers, school-kids, mums pushing push-chairs; one of my best friends was a Muslim.  To me, they are civilized people, whereas Ad-O's stuff sounds primitive and from the backwoods.  And also like something out of the 30s. 

[Shaker]

This is a very good point.  Ad-O's views strike me as alien in the extreme.  When I'm in London, I am surrounded by Muslims, neighbours, shopkeepers, school-kids, mums pushing push-chairs; one of my best friends was a Muslim.  To me, they are civilized people, whereas Ad-O's stuff sounds primitive and from the backwoods.  And also like something out of the 30s.

Yeah, the 1430s.

[wigginhall]

Or 1543, Luther, 'The Jews and Their Lies'.   Quote, 'the Jews are a base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth.'

[Shaker]

Or 1543, Luther, 'The Jews and Their Lies'.

Great minds, wiggles (or is it fools seldom differ?    Anywho). I was thinking of Luther just a day or two ago, although in relation to Alan Burns rather than ad_o, thinking how much they have in common despite Alan's Catholicism - specifically reason being the devil's whore and what have you. The same appraisal of rational thought as a tool of Old Nick.

[Hope]

Convenient that you don't have 'the sources to hand' because what you are saying is simply non-sense. Unless south wales was exceptionally peculiar (and I don't see why as it was a hot bed of 'Chapel', then the experience in this part of the Uk is likely to be the same as the rest. So largely level but with very gentle decline through the first half of the 20thC and then a much more accelerated and continuing decline from about 1960 onward.

Sorry to disappoint you, PD; whilst attendance at church and chapel was reasonable, many of those who attended did so because it was the done thing to do, much as was the case in the latter part of the 20th Century.  The fact that some 100K people became Christians over the period of a year tells its own story.  What is also interesting is that the revival 'coincided with the rise of the labour movement, socialism, and a general disaffection with religion among the working class and youths. (Wikipedia)

And if you understand the reasons why then you can confidently predict this decline will continue for another 60 years at the very least. The only perturbing factor would be mass immigration of highly religious people - but that isn't actually an increase in the number of christians merely a redistribution from one part of the world to another.

The problem with your prediction is that faith doesn't necessarily follow statistical norms.  Just because our generation and that following us have decided to discard religion, there is no automatic dscarding of it by the next.  Currently, there is a belief amongst many that science is, or at least will be able to answer all our questions.  If that certainty becomes less 'certain', then interest in matters spiritual could return and become more influential in people's lives.  Similarly, if religious groups are seen to be at the forefront of working on issues that the government can't or choose not to - and in many places, that is what is happening even today, things could change.