Any serious study of Roman history explains clearly why Jesus would have been executed. He was proclaimed by his followers as the “Messiah”, i.e. the anointed king of the Jews, and therefore he represented a rebel movement trying to unify the 4 tetrarchies into which Rome had divided Israel. This is backed up by the genealogy in the New Testament which claims his descent from King David, and thus making him the rightful King of Israel. The mocking label of INRI at his crucifixion, as well as belittling the rebel movement, would have been a serious warning to others .
So we can forget all the preaching, miracle-working and prophecy-fulfillment which has been tacked onto the history in order to make him a martyr, and to give weight to the idea of descent from a semi-divine ancestor. The earliest Christians were simply an anti-Roman Jewish sect in Palestine, but were skilfully hi-jacked by the likes of Paul of Tarsus and turned into something with more universal appeal, and later legitimized by Constantine for political reasons.
The Christian movement has always been about grubby politics.
Must we tolerate the offensive manifestations of religious fascism in a liberal society? Uber-PC values advocate that we must respect all other cultures and religions or be labeled racist.
The arguments for and against the wearing of face-coverings in public all hinge on this, and they come down basically to pedantic discussion of whether the niqab/burqa is religious, cultural or political. It is certainly not seen as necessary or even acceptable by the majority of Muslims.
But if a society must widen its scope to accept what is deeply offensive to its cultural values, then on the same basis, as well as the burqa we must accept female circumcision, enforced marriage, honour killings, polygamy, and perhaps some other more bizarre and disgusting traditions.
You can’t have it both ways.
The BBC always claim that they strive to keep an unbiased stance on the news, however their understanding of ‘unbiased’ is very limited, based on legislation, and it means simply ‘politically non-partisan’. On many other issues they have no qualms about being blatantly biased, only covering favourably what they think the majority of their audience want to know, and totally ignoring or covering scornfully many other events.
This can be seen at a basic level in the hierarchy of importance with which they report the main news items - domestic events of minor significance coming well before important international items.
Back in the 1980s they were guilty together with most of the media of ignoring or belittling the gay movement, only briefly and sneeringly report 10,000-strong Pride marches and so on, while giving great prominence to a story about half-a-dozen ladies presenting a petition at Number 10 about street litter in the suburbs.
The ultimate was in 1988, when thousands marched - on an officially permitted route - down Whitehall to protest against the infamous Section 28; there was a total media blackout of this, nothing was mentioned in the news at all, even though the march exploded into a full-blown riot when some of the protesters attempted to enter Downing Street to present their grievances to Thatcher. At that time there was no gate at the entrance to the street, just a bar raised to allow cars through, and the few police manning that bar were almost overwhelmed by the crowd - I witnessed their batons being brandished, people being beaten up, dragged by the hair as reinforcements rushed in, and on the rooftops there suddenly appeared sinister figures with what looked like automatic rifles. It was the stewards who eventually calmed things down, but the march never managed to reach its intended rally in Parliament Square.
The BBC didn’t report any of this, even as a footnote. I’ve never trusted them since that day.
That idiot Jeremy Clarkson
Talks shit on each subject he starts on:
His comments so crass
All come out of his ass,
So his underwear has dirty marks on.
Thanksgiving celebrates the date back in the 17th century when Britain rid itself of a bunch of narrow-minded bigots, who sailed off to America and founded a colony of ugly puritanism. Good riddance!
However, other narrow-minded bigots are nowadays trying to impose their perverted ideas here, since there’s nowhere else for them to go and colonize - we must not allow it!
We struggled for centuries to develop an enlightened, virtually secular government in the UK, and this must not be watered down by misguided politically ‘correct’ ideas of allowing backward cultural values to have ascendancy over hard-won rights.
Fundamentalists of all kinds have no moral reservations about imposing their fascist principles on the rest of us against our will, and respecting them is the thin edge of a very dangerous wedge.
When we hear Britain and other countries are in debt, who are the actual creditors? Who is so rich they can bail out every country in Europe as well as the USA, and then demand stringent repayment conditions? The answer is the same financial institutions who created the credit crunch in the first place, the same crooks who created toxic debt in the property markets, the same corrupt people who give countries a credit rating, and the same people who are playing fast and loose with the stock markets right now so that they can buy up even more of our counties on the cheap – while at the same time forcing governments to make cuts and squeeze ordinary people of every last penny to make themselves even more powerful. It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s a conspiracy fact.
I know it’s fuddy-duddy to say this, but I think the roots of all this trouble go back to the 1960s when teaching self-discipline and respect for others became unfashionable, and now it’s instilled through 2 or 3 generations who, like Thatcher, have no concept of society nor social responsibility. Heavy manners needed!!
My Nightmares
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http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2951&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter