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andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2012-02-15 11:00 am
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Interesting Links for 15-02-2012

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azurelunatic: <lj user="azurelunatic"> wearing a silver pentagram. (star)

The comment I left on the prayers & councils post

[personal profile] azurelunatic 2012-02-16 10:42 am (UTC)(link)
(I come to this discussion as a US citizen, with no official state religion, although Christianity has a strong presence in the country.)

I happen to be a pagan, and while I can often find common cause with people of other faiths, I am generally none too happy to sit silently through prayers in the name of other religions when those prayers don’t directly speak to the reason I’m present. (I don’t so much mind Christian weddings, for example, as presumably the happy couple has made a deliberate choice to solemnize their partnership in this fashion.) Even when I agree with the topic of the prayers, if not the name in which it is offered, it is an uncomfortable reminder that I am a member of a minority religion. It does not give me a sense of peaceful purpose, it makes me angry, defensive, and prepared to give as good as I get. That is generally a counterproductive sentiment, and regardless of my personal work in trying to keep a clear head regardless, I would be much happier at college graduations, hockey games, and the like, if prayers were omitted. I cannot imagine attempting to usefully engage in government under those circumstances.

[identity profile] naath.livejournal.com 2012-02-15 11:18 am (UTC)(link)
Baroness Warsi appears to think that mandatory Christian prayers for councillors are a good idea... AIUI she is a practising Muslim. I don't really understand where she is coming from on that though.

[identity profile] philmophlegm.livejournal.com 2012-02-15 11:26 am (UTC)(link)
Did someone confuse "Scott of the Antarctic" with "The Antarctic of the Scots"...?

[identity profile] kerrypolka.livejournal.com 2012-02-15 11:38 am (UTC)(link)
‘implying that [Palestine] is not free is the contentious issue’

Who thinks this is contentious? Not to mention I'm sure this sort of commentary about other countries wouldn't face the same kind of censorship...

[identity profile] danieldwilliam.livejournal.com 2012-02-15 12:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I’m not sure if the article on the Antartic being devolved to Holyrood is a spoof or not but…


… Given the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty Westminster can just legislate to change the Scotland Act and return powers over Antartica to Westminster. The Scottish Government has pretty no come back to that at all.

The negotiaion over the Indepedence referendum arises because the Westminster government genuinely recognise the legitimacy of the people of Scotland having a referendum and the genuine but remote possibility that Salmond could place himself at the head of an angry mob / organised insurrection if the wishes of the people of Scotland were ignored.

I don’t see myself rioting over Antartica – no matter how much oil you could extract from penguins if you minced them finely enough.

[identity profile] danieldwilliam.livejournal.com 2012-02-15 12:47 pm (UTC)(link)
As an atheists (and speaking for my people) I might well be irked by formal prayers before procedings.

Perhaps not as much as a member of another faith group would be.

[identity profile] steer.livejournal.com 2012-02-15 04:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Did you hear Dawkins being skewered on Radio four in an interview about that poll? Hilarious... he was huffing and puffing in his way about "not proper christians if" (which always winds me up as I fit his definition of "not proper christian" -- seriously, do I tell him how to be a biologist?)... and one of his points was "can hardly be a proper Christian if they don't know the name of the first book of the new testament"... in a brilliant moment the interviewer asked him if he knew the full title of "Origin of the Species". He replied that of course he did. The interviewer asked him what it was. There was a couple of minutes of spluttering sounds and vague guesses that there was some kind of subtitle (to be fair it's long and I can't remember it). I doubt it will dissuade him of the idea that somehow a lack of knowledge is the same as a lack of sincerity but it was a marvellous moment.

[identity profile] strawberryfrog.livejournal.com 2012-02-15 08:48 pm (UTC)(link)
The jury said in a statement on Monday: "Shitstorm fills a gap in the German vocabulary.."

And they didn't translate it? to my ear, sheissensturm has a certain ring to it.

[identity profile] skreidle.livejournal.com 2012-02-17 06:21 am (UTC)(link)
That article about RPGs is terribly written, by someone who has apparently never played one, and certainly not WoW.

RPG games?
Dwarven warrior mage?
Puh-lease. Regardless of the actual study, the article lost my interest two paragraphs in.

[identity profile] theweaselking.livejournal.com 2012-02-17 08:11 pm (UTC)(link)
The fact that the "common sense on prayers and councils" dude open his piece with an offensive, ignorant, bigoted paragraph, wherein he demonstrates the quality of thinking and education one normally only sees from young-earth creationists, does not incline me to read him further.
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