228 forum messages posted by
Simon Morden

According to the figures I've found, the UK PM earns a total of  £197,689 pounds (ministerial salary plus MPs salary). He has two houses (Downing Street and Chequers), drivers, cars, and a great deal he can claim on expenses.

A Primary school headteacher, not so much.

Dave, you might have been trying to start a serious debate - but as I can only read what you've written, not discern the motivation or intent behind it. As to cheap point scoring: you're the one guilty of that by quoting highly partisan sources without stating your sources were highly partisan, written by people and organisations with an ideological motivation for attacking any group that dares question the Israeli government's policy towards the Palestinian people.

If you want me to comment on the Guardian article, okay: it's written by Adam Levick.

Before moving to Israel in 2009, Adam Levick worked in the Civil Rights Division at the National Office of the Anti-Defamation League, where he was responsible for monitoring progressive journals and political blogs in the United States. He has published in the Philadelphia Bulletin and the Jewish Exponent.

An independent voice? I don't think so.

So the only reason you're now having to acknowledge your sources are (almost grotesquely) biased is because I've pointed it out in public.

Dominic Lawson is Jewish and a pro-Israel. Andrew Roberts is self-described as 'extremely right wing'. None of this precludes them from being correct in their analysis of Christian Aid, Oxfam, Amnesty et al - but to simply drop these articles into your post and suggesting by omission they represent the truth of the matter is wildly misleading. Personally, I think they represent a hatchet-job on a Christian charity, whose bias is towards the poor.

So what is it you actually want to debate? Is it the Israeli government's policy towards Palestinians, or is it the rightness or otherwise of Christian Aid's questioning this policy, or is it the criticism of Christian Aid by the Israeli government's friends in the media?

While I'm passing - Dave, did you actually check the sources you quoted?

NGO Monitor has been heavily criticised for being a right-wing pro-Israel group, and cannot be expected to give unbiased comment. Christianaidwatch is one blog: to suggest that the whole blogosphere has renamed Christian Aid 'Christian Hate' is mendacious in the extreme.

It is not anti-semetic to criticise the Israeli government's policy of land seizure, economic disenfranchisement and collective punishment. To supply aid to people is charity: to ask questions of a system that requires them to need aid is prophetic.

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist." Dom Helder Camara

He said it better than I can - I'll keep on supporting Christian Aid, thank you very much...

Two points: the ordination of women to the priesthood and the episcopate is the correction of an error made by the early church when they embraced the old model of patriarchy rather than the new wine of the gospel. Some of the first churches were run by women, and there were female apostles ministering to all. That these were airbrushed out of church history and we have let the situation continue for nigh on two thousand years is scandalous and a cause for deep and abiding repentance.

Secondly, the deal made in Synod regarding resolutions and the provision for flying bishops was wrong. It was appeasement, not a compromise. That a new generation of delegates wish to overturn that deal is entirely laudable.

Matt - I'm sorry, I didn't realise I had a cause. I've read stuff by Behe, Dembski et al - it's cleverly constructed for sure, but ultimately meaningless. Science is about testing hypotheses and reproduceability: ID is 'God of the Gaps' which is explicitly anti-science. 'We can't explain it so it must be divine' is tedious in its repetition after every retreat. The ground ID stands on simply gets smaller and smaller: it's a busted flush by its very nature.

Strong and Weak Anthropic principles? Again, you can argue the existence of a Creator from that, along with using the suspiciously benevolent phase diagram for Dihydrogen Oxide. It's just not an argument I'd want to rely on: there are several alternative explanations, including blind chance.

If you want to argue for God, point to Jesus.

I was somewhat confused by this, too. Since when has Penal Substitution been the acme (and end point) of atonement theories? No mention at all of Christus Victor, or that the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches hold to a different doctrine.

Nersen - being a Christian isn't a bar to being a jerk. No one has lost their job for being a Christian. Some Christians have lost their jobs for being jerks. They are encouraged in this by other Christians who seem to think the rule of law ought not apply equally, to everyone, and want special clauses and special courts to enshrine their special status.

Millions of Christians manage to go to work every day, and manage not to get sacked for being a Christian. They manage this throughout long and successful, and sometimes high-profile careers. It might be because they're timid, closet Christians who daren't rock the boat. Or it might be that they're not jerks.

I'm glad to see that you're still 'not getting it' regarding banks. All is right with the world: Goldmann Sachs is accused of fraud, Merrill Lynch are putting all their losses through the UK so they don't have to pay tax here for the next decade, and that northern bank Lloyds have their headquarters in London. I've moved my accounts to a mutual - I suggest everyone else does the same.

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But most of all, I've gone around with a big, fat grin on my face all week. Something called democracy, having fallen out of fashion over the last few years, seems to have had a resurgence of late. The two party "to me, to you" system has temporarily fractured, and we're sailing on uncharted seas. Isn't it brilliant? I have no idea of the destination, but I'm enjoying the journey!

ID is used as a trojan horse to infiltrate places of learning, in order to open the gates to YEC. YEC textbooks in the US have been rewritten, essentially by striking out "creationism" and writing in "intelligent design".

There's not really much else to be said about the subject that hasn't been said before. The reason atheists have conflated ID and YEC is because they're right: they are the same.