The passing of wood through glass is a remarkable feat. There are those who believe that royalty can perform miracles – there is a well developed cult around the vain and vicious Charles I, for example. It now appears that the presence of the future Charles III also has the ability to suspend the laws of physics.
The police have now issued extensive CCTV footage of the attack on the vehicle of Charles and Camilla on the fringes of the anti-tuition fee demonstrations, and the media have been replete with more nonsense about Camilla being poked with a stick. Yet of all the CCTV footage and numerous photographs, there is no evidence at all of this attack and all the images show the car windows to be closed – as they would be. One gets cracked but not holed.
There is in fact no evidence at all of any intent to harm the persons of the expensive royal layabouts, as opposed to discomfiting them and damaging their vehicle. It is fascinating that the media continually repeats the “Camilla attacked with a stick” line when it is so blatantly untrue. There appears to be a closing of ranks by the whole Establishment to perpetuate the myth – both the Home Office and St James Palace have deliberately fostered the myth by refusing to confirm or deny.
Personally I would not touch Camilla with a bargepole. I dislike violence at demonstrations. Demonstrations, good, riots, bad is my basic mantra. Attacks on people in a civil demonstration are always wrong, including attacks on the police unless in self defence. I did not join in the outrage at the prosecutions of violent demonstrators after the big Lebanon demonstration in London, because I personally witnessed the group hurling dangerous missiles at police who were neither attacking, threatening nor kettling them. That is absolutely unacceptable.
But a policy as appalling as the withdrawal of state funding from university teaching, carried out by Nick Clegg by one of the most blatant political breaches of fatih with the public in history, , is bound to provoke huge anger. The government reaps what it sows. Demonstrators should not set out to hurt people. But all the evidence shows they had no intention of hurting Charles and Camilla.
I have personally worked closely with the royal family’s close protection officers in organising two state visits abroad, and plainly they too could see there was no intent to injure – that is why weapons were not drawn. They deserve commendation rather than the crap spouted out by Sky News, who seem to think they should have gunned down the odd student.
All of which serves to take the focus off vicious police attacks on students and the use of kettling to detain people who were seeking peacefully to express their views. Kettling people in extreme cold and with no access to toilet facilities raises questions on illegal detention which genuine liberals in government would wish to address. What is it? Is it a form of arrest? What is the status of the fenced pens into which people are herded? Should they not be formalised as places of police detention, and individuals booked in and given access to lawyers? If that is not possible, this detention – which can be for many hours – is not lawful.
May I also thank RTDT for his wisdom and camera at the ready, sheer intuition that something’s going to happen.
Watch out with camilla, thumbs up eh, say no more…(;-). Seriously, its brilliant footage and we are looking forward to the 3D,triple HD version on here.
Dare I say this, we would be absolutely going nuts for it, I mean that woman.+*#))))r?>#’]ccchrrrratttshppppttuuuiiiii
closest I have ever come to spitting over the 7 yard line.
BTW. Tonights Sir Hughh Orde’s show on neswnight was msierably unaccountable. He called concerned campaingers ‘criminals’, Well he’s turned it down from eco terrorists. he was also cooling it on numbers, ‘not that many’ where the words.
Its to be seen who really is scum, I mean real scum, Sir Orde. RESIGN!
i reject to being policed by a private comapny that is activelyt undermining the democratic principles of the country.
They are unaccountable and one should propose that ACPO should be subjected to an alternative bid in future, the full force of a competitive market, hey there is the new Monsatnto XE lot, they are, after all, a private company.
I’m sure that some squaddie outfit would do an equally pathetic job, just without the pretence and self pity displayed by Sir Hugh and those chief constables who’re seemingly unaware that they are hopelessly off skew, stupifyingly lawless and trying to justify it. At best, they have wasted Millions on court cases and undercover costs, at worst, they have put casmn’s between the words police and Trust.
I do not disagree with seriously spying on those who are threatening the state, but these green groups and NGO’s have never done this and it has never been their aim.
They used legitamite non violent direct actions to sling spanners into the works, I’ve done it and if it gels, it works.
But this is different, they are trying to make out you are the one who is planning to interupt the electricity supplies, egging you one, being very enthusiastic, taking the lead and making sure people get to the action, hiring vans and driving them, getting the physical evidence in place and then,
pounce. What was known By EON?
maybe I see this a little too serious, but thats exactly what it is. serious shit.
Nobody can have a police force in charge that is prepared to undermine the state it purports to serve, conspire to pervert the cause of justice, entice others to act unlawfully, although the latter is disputed and then have chief executive of pribvate security companies in charge of policing come on and excuse their actions by calling descent democratioc citizens, soory, subject, ‘criminal’.
Sir Hugh Orde is the criminal,afaik his silence and complicity to such despicable acts, makes him part of this perversion of justice, by the minute. Should he not resign, he needs sacking.
It was on his watch that this hairbrain scheme fell apart. Or was it an act to sustains one’s jobs? make it more plausible, coin a few neat terms and tag people with it. Thing is those who called you to account, who meant it when they said cut CO2 will still be there when you’ll be long gone.
Go Now!
The next word I shall not use has to do with a particularly nasty regime during the 1930’s, Sir Hugh has to understand, what has happened was modelled then, thats one of their tactics and he decided to use it.
take care.
Glenn, shouldn’t you have a little more respect for beliefs from the past? OK, they weren’t as good as some of what we have now, but they were better than what came before, and besides, we couldn’t have got to *here* without passing through *there*. Someone in the future might call us “ignorant, fearful, superstition old men”, but we’re doing our best!
Clark: I’m not sure we should have respect for useless, damaging throwbacks to our primitive, fearful ways. Nor should we practice those dark-ages ways. Should we still keep an eye out for witches, burning the odd woman at the stake? Ought we sacrifice the occasional virgin, to keep the gods happy? How about burying a load of servants when the master dies, so they can continue to serve him in the afterlife.
Agreed, yes – these ridiculous explanations about how the world worked did bring us to where we are now. But so did a huge amount of decidedly evil practices – putting people to deal to the gallows or the wheel for no good reason. Why should we respect and continue to practice this particular mumbo-jumbo nonsense from the past, rather than any other which is plainly wrong and inhumane, simply because it is a “belief from the past” ?
Sure – they might rightly call us ignorant in the future (assuming we have one). But they shouldn’t be able to call us _all_ fearful and superstitious too. Entitlement to that particular description belongs to the religionists among us. Those who have cast off the shackles of imagined ghosts, sky-spooks and belief in the evidence-free will be regarded as the free-thinkers, those who finally became unafraid to think for themselves.
In my more pessimistic moments, which means most of the time, I don’t think we will ever achieve such a state, and the whole world will descend into ecological unsustainability and destruction, with half the world thinking Jaysus is about to come back and instantly put all things right. The other half will think this is Allah about to sort out the infidels. They’ll fight it out as this ship of our ecology – the planet Earth as we know it now, damaged as it is – sinks as a result of our greed, hate, superstition, fear and ignorance.
@anno
Yes that’s me chanting, no I’m not a student… I think two or three people joined in, it seemed an appropriate thing to say.
@Vronsky – I don’t think it is impossible to *incrementally* change one person’s perspective at all – whatever their job. I am not proposing such an action will change the nature of the hard state, but I still think it’s useful.
Glenn
How does it feel having all these Robin Hoods and merry men riding through you all the time? Just you, the forest valley and the open, empty sky stretching to infinite. Not a sky spook in sight, only the occasional rabbit and RAF jet to spoil the illusion of being master of your own destinies.
And did those feet in ancient time? Blake sums it up completely. This human being’s perception and love for Almighty God, cuts through the barriers of time and place. My faith is the same as the faith of Jesus and Moses and Abraham. The world I inhabit in Islam is vaster, and inhabited by multi-winged angels crossing the sky up to heaven. I like your illusion of solitude. It’s great. But I also like the vastness of faith which connects through dimensions which you shut off from your mind.
@glenn – on the Justice For Women thing, I intend to keep it. It is well debunked by various contributors, and is a fairly stark example of people turning up to spread propaganda and disinformation.
@anno – you like @glenn’s “illusion” of solitude. That’s fine as a statement of faith, but I presume you accept that, if it comes down to the issue of proof, the onus is on religionists to prove that god(s) exists, rather than on atheists to prove that god(s) do not exist?
Me, I quite like the idea of there being a god, so I suppose I’d make a crap atheist. But having had a very poor experience of religion, I’ll not try it again, and anyway it seems to cause a great deal more (violent) problems than it solves.
Perhaps religionists could practice it quietly, and out of public view? And if it were to die out as a result, I don’t think it would be a bad thing – we’d still have all that rich history to look back on, and regard with quaint curiosity.
Don’t know about the rest of them but I wouldn’t have minded getting a bit of justice for my ex. wife. I was shocked to hear that half the children in this country are living in broken families. Call ourselves a great nation? Put a woman in charge, viz Mrs T., and use her idiocy as a model for the next century. At least we are united in ruin, from young to old, male and female, black and white, left and right. Where can you get some of this justice for women from? Ebay? Awaiting moderation.
@jfw – you’re welcome to post here. I don’t think you’re the same poster as referred to above, to be honest 🙂
We’re agreed that putting a Thatcher back in will unite us in ruin – and one wonders how different the current Tories are from her perspective. Society? Pah! No such thing, etc…
My apology for the off-topic essay that follows. I hope some find it interesting.
Glenn, it seems to me that the God / No God argument is mostly semantics. If we equate God with Good, and Good is the creative principle, then God is “that which creates”, or “The Creator”, and most of these arguments disappear.
Our ancestors had little scientific explanation of the world, thus events were assigned to various agencies or “gods”. These “gods” slowly coalesced into one – people unconsciously recognise the unity of reality, at some level they accept that they are just part of something much larger and greater. Nature apparently does destructive things as well as creative, but our dependence upon nature as a whole was recognised, so individually damaging events were rationalised, as in “God moves in mysterious ways”, ie “I don’t understand why God (the creative principle) has hurt me, but probably it’s all to the Good in the larger picture”.
So if you asked someone why they were planting seeds or tilling the soil or helping their neighbour when they could be sunbathing and eating fruit, they might say “it is God’s will”, in other words “it is for the greater good”. The vast majority of humans over time have contributed to this “greater good” on just this basis. If someone grows crops or helps the sick “because it’s God’s will”, I’m not going to criticise them for doing the right thing for the “wrong” reason.
The problems arise because power structures see a way to exert influence over people by subverting their natural belief in a supernatural agency. “God” becomes used just like the bogeyman that you describe – to scare and control people.
It also seems that interference by power structures is responsible for the objectification of God. The statements “God is above all things” or “God is beyond human understanding” are recognisably more “spiritual” than “God says give money to an organisation” or “God says fight for this leader”. Leaders have to claim communication with “God”, so “God” has to be presented as some kind of “Human Plus” that talks to the leaders.
Typically, the antics of the powerful always make the headlines, while the unglamorous good works of the majority barely get a mention, and this is unjust.
Glenn, you should also remember the roots of this argument, which has been going on for hundreds of years. True, it was mostly started by churches, the Catholic church vs. Galileo being an obvious example. It was a fight between religions in general, and belief in science. But the science was deficient in just the way religion accused it of being. Classical science describes a deterministic reality, with no room for free choice, and hence no morals, no consciousness, and no conscience.
The new fundamental science, quantum physics, blows the deterministic model out of the water. It does so, in case you hadn’t noticed, by reintroducing an abandoned concept that is suspiciously similar to the “soul”. The wave function spreads and proliferates, and only collapses into a well-defined location when WE CHOOSE to observe it. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, the collapse of the wave function occurs upon *observation by a conscious observer*.
But the less fundamental sciences haven’t caught up yet. Thus we have the ludicrous situation where many neuroscientists and proponents of artificial intelligence postulate that free will is “an illusion”, while the science at the base of it all, physics, REQUIRES consciousness as a fundamental element.
So what is consciousness? So far, scientific approaches are vague and confused, and the best description we have comes from religion – “Man is made in God’s image” or “God is within everyone”. So “God” is That Which Creates, or That Which Chooses, and our personal consciousness is that part of the creative principle which is operating through us personally.
I agree that the atrocities you list are atrocities, and were associated with religion. However, I would point out that they were performed by power structures associated with (ie using) religion, and were not motivated by the religious feelings of ordinary people.
Maybe our problem with “God the Creator” stem from a modern confusion between “Creation” and “Manufacture”. Certainly our religious creation myths read more like manufacture than the ongoing process of creation that we witness in the Universe.
Hey, I’m on-topic! “The Laws of Physics…”!
Incidentally, you probably can pass a stick through glass, so long as you do it slowly enough at a low enough temperature. Was that some kind of cryogenic hearse they were traveling in?
It’s Friday. Was it a pub lunch for you, Clark!? It was for me. Here’s my 3 kopeck’s worth. I do not feel in awe of the universe in its complexity, somehow. To me it’s not a “wonder”. It is what it is. I feel mildly curious instead, enough to make me read Hawking, Dawkins and a whole bunch of others trying to make sense of some specific aspect of the physical world. Karl Popper’s philosophy of science I find illuminating. Yes, I am comfortable with ignorance. So many things are unknowable here and now, but that is no reason to replace them with superstition and pseudo-knowledge. I guess there must be a fundamental human need to fill in the blanks which is served by religion (religion in a wider sense that includes pseudo-science like AGW, epidemiology, “alternative” medicine etc). I feel lucky that I do not feel it as an urgent need, just a mild desire which leaves room for cool reflection.
Morality used to be one of these blanks but happily game theory came along and the concept of evolutionary stable equilibrium was elaborated. Tit-for-tat at the core of morality accords well with what I observe in myself and others.
I am not so pessimistic about humanity. I think collectively we appear to be quite sensible as evidenced by the Swiss experience of proper democratic governance at local and federal levels. Those guys protect their environment very well at all levels. When everyone is allowed to participate in the decision-making then profit motives are suppressed, SIF and ideological groupings tend to balance each other out, and common sense usually prevails.
“Classical science describes a deterministic reality”
No it doesn’t. Read Popper, “The Open Universe”. He gives the example of a ball dropped on to a blade; it will fall to one side or the other with equal probability, and we cannot predict which without perfect knowledge of the initial conditions. Popper asks the intriguing question: just what exactly is it that has that 50/50 distribution? No appeal to quantum indeterminism is needed – it’s an everyday fact at the classical level. You could also take a squint at the Wiki entry for Laplace’s Demon.
To suggest that religion is required for morality is logically absurd. It reduces to the only virtue being obedience to an authority whose morality we are not competent to judge (which is why religion is so useful). It is the morality of the guards at an extermination camp.
I agree that we know utterly nothing about consciousness, and that is a very considerable ignorance. However you’re straying towards the old ‘god of the gaps’ sort of argument. Look out, those gaps keep shrinking.
The unrest is spreading in N Africa. Ben Ali has dismissed the government and the army have taken over the airport and airspace is closed.
Sky are saying that the situation is also tense in Algeria and also Jordan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12195025
A long time since I posted here, but have been persuaded by the religion discussion above.
I’m still undecided about the existence of a “God”, after over 60 years. Maybe I’ll be like my mum, who a year or two before her death, at 82, (still undecided) had long discussions with me, saying she was looking forward to ‘the end’, because at last she’d learn the truth about religion and Gods and afterlife. As time progressed her curiosity became so great that death came to have a fundamentally new meaning for her.
She felt she would be ‘meeting the truth’, not a million miles from ‘meeting your maker’ I suppose. She realised that if atheism is the reality of life and the universe, she would cease to exist and meet and know nothing.
So, my views divide between different aspects:
The idea of ‘proof’ of religious faith is completely nonsensical. If a person has faith in something, then finding ‘proof’ of it, through science or otherwise, means that it isn’t a faith anymore, it’s knowledge.
If religious faith, of any sort, were ever proved, it would no longer be faith.
Humans are predisposed to have faith. We have the ability to have or feel faith in things completely unproveable. Who knows why that is? But we have existed, developed and adapted for thousands or millions of years with that ability, so it must have some use or purpose.
So I feel that anyone who does not have faith, that is, a belief in something unproveable, is missing out on a chunk of spiritual life.
I’ve read in many places that doctors often report that patients who have a strong faith often make better progress in illnesses than those without.
And I’d like to add to Clark’s post above, where he talks about ‘good’ or ‘that which creates’.
From time to time I’ve read the occasional religious text and sermon. (Including the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent Christmas message, “….the most prosperous have yet to shoulder their load” – it almost inspired me to attend Sunday service at my parish church, it may yet do so – has that Barclays’ chief exec decided what to do yet? – whither philanthropy?).
I’ve explored Buddhism a little, and recently spent quite a time in various Moslem countries and African countries where Anglicanism is widely practiced.
And I started to realise that, in many religious texts, if you remove the word “God” (or other names for “God”), and replace it with “nature” they begin to make perfect sense. Something to have faith in. And nature is something I’ve always had some sort of faith in – probably more so now.
And the notion of ‘obedience’ becomes ‘respect’.
Clark’s ‘that which creates’, or ‘good’, will probably make equal sense.
Finally, yes, nearly all religions have been hijacked by people of bad intent as a route to riches and power. That’s not to say that belief in unknowable things is bad for mankind.
Evgueni, of course you don’t feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the universe; you live in a golden age of discovery and access to knowledge, more is being learned, faster, than ever before. I find that exhilarating. Did I sound pessimistic about humanity? I didn’t mean to. I just think that leaves shouldn’t be contemptuous of stems.
Vronsky, with quantum physics, the gap has been determined not to close any further, because our conscious, decision making selves are stuck in it. Exactly where do you want the buck to stop? I’m happy to accept my bit of responsibility, that my choices matter in a moral sense. That until I die, I’m going to be constantly collapsing wave functions, and thus shaping the future form of the Universe, and that there is some sort of “Me”, that could, at least theoretically, be held accountable for the consequences. I hope you can see the similarity with a religious outlook here.
Your other point seems to be at cross purposes. I don’t think religion causes morals. I think both arise from a (true) sense of being a small part of something greater, and that ordinary people use a “God” concept to communicate about such things. And balls falling on blades (ouch!) might be deterministic but not predictable. But that has little bearing on the reductionist, closed-minded and mechanistic attitudes that have been very prevalent in science, which have dominated the public image of science, and about which you have complained yourself, if I remember rightly. Those attitudes emphasise law rather than creation and are rather fatalistic. I’m not surprised that many people prefer religion to that.
technicolour@7:26 (13th) – yes, exactly. Particularly “The point is, if one accepts that it was a terrifying experience for most people on both sides, what the hell?”
Gather into a camp, see nothing outside exept “the other camp”, identify all of that with the things you’re afraid of, and shout at them … Suhayl’s advice against “essentialising” people would be relevant here, perhaps ? People have objections to “the Police” and give them to Steve as if he was “the Police” as a whole. But it doesn’t actually happen, does it ? “the Police” hasn’t heard them, only Steve.
And, suggestions of “changing his mind”, was that right ? people who want to do that, are they equally open to the possibility of him changing theirs ?
Shall I point out that he’s the only person here who couldn’t possibly be an undercover infiltrator ? *grin*.
I’m getting to like the ex Ambassador to Afghanistan. He keeps blowing the lid off the crapaganda machine.
From medialens
‘We went to war to keep the army busy’
Posted by margo on January 14, 2011, 6:57 pm
Democracy, freedom and Afghan women’s rights? Nah, here’s the real reasons:
– to keep the lads busy – use them or lose them;
– fostering much-needed raison d’etre for the army;
– job security;
– feathering nests;
– redeeming reputations;
– saving face vis-a-vis the Yanks;
– justifying new resources on an unprecedented scale which had the added benefit of…
– making a bundle for the arms industry
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1347075/We-went-war-Army-busy-Top-diplomat-sparks-outrage-saying-troops-sent-Afghanistan-forces-numbers-cut.html
a~~
PS I expect you have heard that the dictator Ben Ali has left his country Tunisia. ‘Shock waves throughout the Arab world’ say Ch 4 News
@clark, you seem to be saying that quantum physics provides proof of the existence of a soul, or that science one day will prove the existence of god? I am not a quantum physicist – or an experimental scientist, really – but I nevertheless suspect scientists would take issue with you 🙂
I guess morals *could* come from the feeling of “being a small part of something greater”, but that could not be their only source – otherwise people who do not have such a feeling would not have the capacity for morality.
Jesus is said to have pointed it out, but it is learned from an early age – morality can be derived from “do unto others”. Surely that could be said to be of greater immediate impact on the development of a human moral code whilst we share this astral plane – for believers and non-believers alike?
It’s funny, I’ve never thought that the rigorousness of science has removed our free will. I am of the view that no-one has an entirely free will, since one is a product of environment, upbringing, circumstances. But most of us still have a fair bit of wiggle room, and if science can’t explain why, perhaps we should just be content, for now, not to know?
@evgueni – religion is a fine topic to discuss, and I don’t wish to derail it. But you referred to man-made global warming (AGW) as ‘pseudo-science’, and I hate to let that slip by. Are you not persuaded that there is a majority view amongst climate scientists that the mean earth temperature is rising, and that we could and should do something about it?
Craig, are you dead?
Monsterravinghatenergy: Ha! Thanks. Hmn… impossible, yes, elementary, one might say, unless, of course, one were (say) a communist-pretending-to-be-a-policeman-pretending-to-be-a communist. A triple, a treble, a trio… I feel a Gilbert and Sullivan song coming on.
Somebody, yes, does this mean that there are sections of one or other of the elites in the UK – SIS, perhaps – who are engaging in gamesmanship with the Americans? Like, ‘give us something [I don’t know what, leverage of some sort, perhaps], or we’ll begin to allow true stuff to seep out, very slowly, about Afghanistan’? Nah, that’s probably fanciful, the SIS are slaves of the USA. I’ve probably been reading too many spy novels.
S’good something real is emerging.
Paul (8:14pm), do not fear, for it is a fixed logos in the firmament that He is risen again and will appear before thee!
Will this deposed dictator Ben Ali seek asylum in Britain? Apparently he is airborne looking for a safe haven. No doubt he will claim his human rights have been violated in his home country and would fear for his life if returned home. Surely our Govt wouldn’t refuse him sanctuary given his reputation? They’ve bent over backwards for far worse!
Jon at Jan 14 7:52 PM
“Are you not persuaded that there is a majority view amongst climate scientists that the mean earth temperature is rising, and that we could and should do something about it?”
Having looked into this thing in some detail, I am deeply sceptical of the AGW hypothesis. But first let’s be precise ?” whether the temperature is rising is besides the point since it is the anthropogenic claim that is the defining element of AGWH. Sure we might have to do something to counter the undesired effects of any climate change but again this statement is true whether or not the cause is man-made.
I take issue with “science by consensus”. Eugenics was such a “science”. One hundred German scientists famously publicly rejected Einstein’s theories, to which his response was ‘Why 100? If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!” Consensus is a political term and it has no meaning in science. Whenever science is politicised, expect nothing less than widespread fraud. Those from the left of the political spectrum are easily tempted into an alliance with proponents of AGW because the perceived “enemy” is the same. Pragmatic politicians of all hues know a good band-wagon when they see one. This scare is being monetised on a grand scale. From a layman’s perspective the above are powerful reasons to doubt AGW. But there are genuine scientific criticisms which are silenced.
This is where the journey of understanding started for me:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/number%20watch.htm
And I leave you with this early reflection on human nature:
“The educated man and the scientist is as prone as any other to become the victim…of his prejudices….He will in defence thereof make shipwreck of both the facts of science and the methods of science…by perpetrating every form of fallacy, inaccuracy and distortion” – John H. Noyes, fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, Essay on Scientific Propagation , 1872
Parky – you’re right. But in this case, probably it’ll be France.
Police people are not allowed to go on strike, moreover, encouraging them to go on strike, or for them to encourage each other, can count as ‘obstructing the police in the course of their duty’ and is illegal too.
So if you were a police person who wanted to go on strike, you would have to do it in a very discursive way, I suppose. Not ‘everybody out’ but ‘I wonder what would happen if we all downed batons’ kind of thing. Tricky.
It’s not illegal for them to march, I don’t think.