this thread will NEVER die!

"Luke, I am your father."

( )

That means I ripped all the tracks to my hard drive and edited out the offending dialogue, which I don't care for.

Regarding the Great Hedge of India, you said – …..this sounds like something Linus would believe in.

In this case Linus would be right.

Read the book –

http://128.121.130.20/trbooks/184/1841192600.shtml

I agree, religion has bred a culture of intolerance, prejudice and fanaticism may be a pretty poor generalization of religious people, but you have taken my comment out of context. My remark was made in conjunction with the fact that many serial killers throughout history have claimed to be acting out God’s wishes.

You are right, I cannot claim to have observed ‘ALL of the Christian Church and its workings in the Earth.’

But, after 68 years of living in the real world, I can claim to have encountered a fair cross-section of humanity, including many, many good-natured, fair-minded and generous Christians.

However, I prefer to judge people on their own merits, not on what motivates them. You see, for every ‘good Christian’, there is a ‘Christian hypocrite’. For every good Christian deed, there is a bad ‘Christian’ deed.

I guess what I am trying to say is, people do good things because it is in their nature to do so, not because they are affiliated to a particular religion.

Let me make one thing clear. When I talk of religion breeding intolerance etc, I am not singling out Christianity. All religions are rife with hypocrisy, ie people tend to accept those areas of their religion that suit them, whilst rejecting the rest…..and, Christianity is no exception, particularly Catholicism.

As you know, as far as I am concerned, there is no God.

Indeed, only last night at the pub, my old chum Whit Burlington rightly pointed out, there is more evidence to support the existence of the yeti than there is of the ‘Creator’.

Here’s my league table of most unlikely entities (from least unlikely, to most unlikely) –

The Congo Floor Maggot – Auchmeromyia senegalensis

The Congo Floor Maggot, affectionately known as the Vampire Maggot, is a native species of Africa. With the help of the Dublin-based Cromwell Society, I have recreated the exact same conditions in which the creature thrives in one of my many outbuildings at my home in Somerset.

A section of one of my barns has been converted into the interior of an African mud-hut, complete with atmosphere control to maintain the correct humidity and appropriately tropical temperature levels. In its natural environment The Floor Maggot spends the daytime in the darkest recesses of the mud-hut, patiently anticipating its night-time meal. My good friend Professor Rudolfus Spittenblikker (catering consultant for the Dublin-based Cromwell Society), also a keen Floor Maggot enthusiast, and other local members of the Cromwell Society helped me to construct these perfect ‘Vampire Maggot’ conditions.

In all I have six floor maggots in my mock-mudhut – and each has its own name. There’s Michael Collins the Floor Maggot and Bobby Sands the Floor Maggot, named by the Cromwell Society, and there’s Puffin the Floor Maggot and Muffin the Floor Maggot, named by my grandkids, and finally there’s Jerry the Floor Maggot and Alexander the Floor Maggot named by me.

The Floor Maggot is a most fascinating creature. As dusk descends, the slumbering maggot’s saliva glands become activated, and the creature becomes frenzied with hunger. It is at this point that the maggot exudes a powerful aroma of ammonia, and sets about finding supper.

The human native African mud-hut dweller naturally sleeps upon the floor, and once unconscious exhales copious amounts of carbon dioxide. This immediately attracts the Floor Maggot, which then proceeds to wriggle and writhe across the floor from its mucous-covered lair toward the recumbent human. As the maggot approaches it begins to twitch and wriggle uncontrollably as blood-lust infects its whole being. With the carbon dioxide levels rising the maggot knows the human is not far distant.

The Floor Maggot closes in on the man’s head – it seeks the source of the carbon dioxide, and on reaching the man’s bottom lip is nearing its goal – the nose. The maggot eases itself into the man’s left nostril, and gently pierces the delicate skin of the inner nose with its powerful jaws – thus attached the maggot begins to draw blood from its victim. As it does so, the maggot begins to balloon, and its previously yellowish-white body, begins to redden with the blood of its human host. On and on the maggot slurps the human blood until it becomes several times its normal size, by which time it is a deep red in colour. Sated, it detaches itself from the nose and drops to the floor helplessly bloated. For the maggot, the rest of the night is taken up with a clumsy journey back to the safety of its lair where it can enjoy digesting its night-time feast.

To ensure that the maggots’ environment is replicated as authentically as possible, a fake human head has been placed on the floor of the pseudo-mudhut in the specially modified barn – a dummy’s body has been attached also to give the appearance of a genuine African mud-hut dweller to the onlooker. The dummy’s head is fitted with carbon dioxide dispensers, and is regularly filled with pigs blood (obtained from local abattoir owner Headley Durstan). . Many an exciting night has been spent witnessing the Floor Maggots. However, the maggots, especially Jerry the Floor Maggot, much prefer human blood, and on occasion I delight in spending the night on the floor of the pseudo-mudhut myself, allowing the maggots to feast on my own blood. I may feel a little drained in the morning, but a hearty breakfast of Black Pudding, liver and kidney soon restores the colour to my cheeks.

Hmmmm....

quote:

---

Originally posted by DANIEL2:
However, I prefer to judge people on their own merits, not on what motivates them. You see, for every ‘good Christian’, there is a ‘Christian hypocrite’. For every good Christian deed, there is a bad ‘Christian’ deed.

---

Unfortunately, you are very nearly correct here. There are a great many bad people in the world, and a large percentage of them spend time pretending to be good. You're wrong on one count though: there are bad deeds by bad Christian's, but there is no such thing as a bad Christian deed. Christian deeds, by defenition, are good things. If it's bad, it's not a Christian deed, even if it is performed by someone who claims to be Christian.
Also, I find it interesting that your two most unlikely things are the only two on the list that are absolutely certain to be true.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jonathan_little:
[b]My head hurts![/B]

---

This was post number 1701, and it had no creative content. I shall therefor designate it post No Creative Content-Seventeen-oh-one, or NCC-1701. That is all.

You said – ”there is no such thing as a bad Christian deed”

I agree that some people may regard what is described as a ‘Christian deed’ as being necessarily a good deed. However, I reject this reasoning.

The various Crusades were collectively a ‘Christian deed’…..However, I wouldn’t describe the Crusades as being good.

You then said – ”I find it interesting that your two most unlikely things are the only two on the list that are absolutely certain to be true.”

With regard to ‘a decent Goldsmith score’, perhaps I should have said, ‘the expectation of a future decent Goldsmith score’.

As far as God is concerned, I would agree that the word Jehovah does exist….it is the existence of the deity that the letters describe that I dismiss, simply because there has been no evidence provided to support the idea that a ‘divine being’ exists.

quote:

---

government made up of tolerant people of all persuasions (such as Bill Clinton...)

---

Clinton as tolerant? doubtful.
the man has had a big hand in divinding the USA along racial lines.
Pitting whites against blacks is not tolerance.
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
That Democrats are seen as the party of the people is the biggest farce ever propagated upon the American public

Exhibit A:
the James Byrd chain dragging ad played at the last moments of the presidential campaign

Exhibit B:
Bush so far, has a Cabinet that, ethnically, looks more like America (to use the Democrat vernacular) than Bill Clinton could ever think of.

more when I have more time this evening. gotta run for now.

Republicans are seen as dopey Alfred E. Newmans, thanks to George W. Bush.

BRITONS WITH BALLS – part I of an extended series

William Penn

Born Oct 14 1644, London, England
Died July 30 1718, Buckinghamshire, England

English Quaker leader and founder of the British American colony of Pennsylvania.

William Penn was the son of the great British Admiral Sir William Penn. He acquired the foundations of a classical education at the Chigwell grammar school in the Essex countryside, where he came under Puritan influences. After Admiral Penn's naval service in the West Indies in 1655, the family moved back to London and then to Ireland. In Ireland William heard Thomas Loe, a Quaker itinerant, preach to his family at the admiral's invitation, an experience that apparently intensified his religious feelings. In 1660 William entered the University of Oxford and then Lincoln's Inn and spent a year reading law.

In 1666 Admiral Penn sent William to Ireland to manage the family estates. There he crossed paths again with Thomas Loe and, after hearing him preach, decided to join the Quakers (the Society of Friends).

After joining the sect, Penn published 42 books and pamphlets in the seven years immediately following his conversion. In his first publication, the pamphlet Truth Exalted (1668), he upheld Quaker doctrines while attacking in turn those of the Roman Catholics. Penn was also sceptical of the Protestant faith, for which he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he wrote his most famous book, No Cross, No Crown (1669). In this work he expounded the Quaker-Puritan morality with eloquence, learning, and flashes of humour, extolling both Puritan conceptions of ascetic self-denial and Quaker ideals of social reform. No Cross, No Crown stands alongside the letters of St. Paul, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, and John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress as one of the world's finest examples of prison literature. Penn was released from the Tower in 1669.

It was as a protagonist of religious toleration that Penn would earn his prominent place in English history. In 1870 Penn also had an unexpected opportunity to strike another blow for freedom of conscience and for the traditional rights of all Englishmen. On Aug 14, 1670, the Quaker meetinghouse in Gracechurch Street, London, having been padlocked by the authorities, he preached in the street to several hundred persons. After the meetings, he and William Mead were arrested and imprisoned on a trumped-up charge of inciting a riot. At his trial in the Old Bailey, Penn calmly and skillfully exposed the illegality of the proceedings against him. The jury, under the leadership of Edward Bushell, refused to bring in a verdict of guilty despite threats and abusive treatment. For their refusal the jurymen were fined and imprisoned, but they were vindicated when Sir John Vaughan, the lord chief justice, enunciated the principle that a judge "may try to open the eyes of the jurors, but not to lead them by the nose." The trial, which is also known as the "Bushell's Case," stands as a landmark in English legal history, having established beyond question the independence of the jury.

Admiral Penn died in 1670, having become reconciled to his son's Quakerism. Young Penn inherited his father's estates in England and Ireland and became, like his father, a frequenter of the court, where he enjoyed a great friendship with King Charles II and his brother, the Duke of York (later James II) – after whom New York was named. In 1672 Penn married Gulielma Springett, a Quaker by whom he had eight children, four of whom died in infancy. In the 1670s Penn was tirelessly active as a Quaker minister and polemicist, producing no fewer than 40 tracts on religious doctrines and practice. In 1671 and 1677 he undertook preaching missions to Holland and northern Germany. The later years of the decade were also occupied with political activities. In 1679 Penn supported the Parliamentary candidacy of the radical republican Algernon Sidney, going on the hustings twice, at Guildford and later at Bramber, for his friend. During these years he wrote a number of pamphlets on behalf of the radical Whigs, including England's Great Interest in the Choice of this New Parliament (1679), which is noteworthy as one of the first clear statements of party doctrine ever laid before the English electorate.

Penn had meanwhile become involved in American colonization as a trustee for the Englishman Edward Byllynge, one of the two Quaker proprietors of West New Jersey. In 1681 Penn and 11 other Quakers bought the proprietary rights to East New Jersey from the widow of Sir John Carteret. In that same year, Penn sought and received from King Charles II of England a vast province on the west bank of the Delaware River, which was named Pennsylvania after his father. A few months later the Duke of York granted him the three "lower counties" (later Delaware).

As proprietor of Pennsylvania, Penn seized the opportunity to create a government that would embody his Quaker-Whig ideas. In 1682 he drew up a Frame of Government for the colony that would, he said, leave himself and his successors "no power of doing mischief, that the will of one man may not hinder the good of a whole country." Freedom of worship in the colony was to be absolute, and all the traditional rights of Englishmen were carefully safeguarded.

The city of Philadelphia (the city of brotherly love, named by Penn) was laid out on a grid pattern according to his instructions, and settlers were pouring in to take up the fertile lands lying around it. In a series of treaties based on mutual trust, he established good relations with the Lenni Lenape Indians. He also held an unsuccessful conference with the Englishman Lord Baltimore, the proprietor of the neighbouring province of Maryland, to negotiate a boundary between it and Pennsylvania. When this effort proved unsuccessful, Penn was obliged in 1684 to return to England to defend his interests against Baltimore.

Before his return, he published A Letter to the Free Society of Traders (1683), which contained his fullest description of Pennsylvania and included a valuable account of the Lenni Lenape Indians based on firsthand observation. With the accession of his friend the Duke of York as James II in 1685, Penn found himself in a position of great influence at court, whereby he was able to promote the interests of hundreds of Quakers, as well as political pioneers such as John Locke.

Penn's close relations with James brought him under a cloud when the Protestant William and Mary came to the throne, and for a time he was forced to live virtually in hiding to avoid arrest. He used this period of forced retirement to write more books. It was at this time that Penn drafted (1696) the influential first plan for a future union of the American colonies, a document that presaged the US Constitution. However, in time, Penn once more found favour with the English monarchy and in 1696, his first wife having died in 1694, Penn married Hannah Callowhill, by whom he had seven children, five of whom lived to adulthood.

In 1699 Penn returned to Pennsylvania, but, after less than two years, Penn's affairs in England demanded his presence, and he left the province in 1701, never to see it again. He confided his Pennsylvania interests to the capable hands of James Logan, who upheld them loyally for the next half century.

”I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

”No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself.”

quote:

---

Originally posted by DANIEL2:

Here’s my league table of most unlikely entities (from [b]least unlikely, to most unlikely) –

The Tooth Fairy
The Easter Bunny (or Harvey)
The Loch Ness Monster
An honest politician
The Wicked Witch of the West
The yeti
Santa Claus
A decent Goldsmith score
Jehovah[/B]

---

Hmmm interesting, I would think the list would go more like this:

Ghost's
UFO's
The Black Cats of Exmoor
Colonel Percy Fawcett's 100 ft long Anaconda
Bigfoot or Sasquatch
Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin's infamous Bigfoot film
Mokele-mbembe
The Patagonia Plesiosaur
Ogopogo
The Yowie
Nessie
Yeti
Santa Claus
Jersey Devil
Boggy Creek Creature
The Easter Bunny
Great Pumkin
Tooth Fairy
James Horner writing an original score

Bill Clinton is a champion of political-correctness and equality. One of Clinton’s greatest triumphs has been the coining of the phrase “fear of the other”….the man has unflinchingly attacked prejudice, seeing it as one of society’s last great ills. But that is what Clinton is all about….he purifies, he expunges the evils of society, he has led a hugely successful crusade to further erode the barriers that divide one man from his neighbour, at home and abroad. His response to the ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Balkans is proof positive that his devotion to world harmony extends well beyond the comfortable and secure boundaries of the USA. Clinton is not alone in this….he merely represents modern America, a nation that is serving as guiding light to all the world’s nations…..America is full of heroes like Clinton, and heroines like Hillary….Clinton is merely the temporary custodian of the further development and sophistication of global society.

Clinton’s successful presidential campaign of 1992 was made extremely difficult for this most cultured of gentlemen by the vile attacks of the opposition, who attempted to besmirch his character by dredging up claims of personal misconduct from his time in England. The way Clinton withstood and triumphed over this foul and cynical assault was a tribute to the man’s tenacity and strength of character. My respect for Bill was further reinforced following his weathering of the Whitewater storm. This finest of presidents emerged from this ‘dark’ period in his presidency an even better and stronger man.

Having been elected president, Clinton triumphed over opposition from Republicans and from his own ranks to gain budget approval, despite a demand for more spending cuts. Bill doggedly ensured that the wealth of the United States would continue to be meted out to its people with generosity and even-handedness.

However, it is on the international stage that Clinton has truly excelled, especially for a president elected primarily on popular domestic policies. With political issues erupting around the world, in places as disparate as Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, and Cuba, Clinton wasted no time in upholding American values of freedom and fairness through the protection of free trade and peace-keeping measures. Indeed, the Israel-Jordan peace agreement was signed at the White House in the summer of 1994 by Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein. In the autumn of that year, Clinton succeeded in restoring Haiti's ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to power. Clinton scored again by bolstering Russian president Boris Yeltsin's popularity with American economic aid, and would later persuade Yeltsin to ‘allow’ former Eastern Block countries to join NATO. And, during the entire course of Clinton’s tenure, the bond between the USA and Great Britain has grown ever stronger. When it comes to foreign policy, Britain is now seen by America as its greatest ally, and British approval is constantly sought before overseas action is considered. Indeed, Britain is once again a powerful force on the world stage (if mainly symbolically) as a loyal and trusty friend of America….that great bastion of democracy…..and Bill Clinton has played a major role in forging the stronger links between the American people and her close cousins in Great Britain. And, Clinton fuelled the success of George Mitchell’s peace brokering exercise in Northern Ireland.

Back at home, in 1996, Clinton enacted measures to improve access to health care, to raise the minimum wage above $5, and to impose sanctions on companies that do business with Iran and Libya. In a move to discourage teenage smoking, Clinton approved a series of curbs on cigarette advertising and introduced plans for the FDA to regulate nicotine as a controlled substance…..pretty impressive stuff! I must say though, I still enjoy the occasional pipe, cigarette and cigar.

Clinton’s second term was charcterized by a soaring economy, and his continued gentlemanly conduct in public and in private. The Starr investigations provided conclusive evidence of Clinton’s enormous strength and resolve, and his ability to lead the USA as a great leader and as a human being….a man of the people. The mature and enlightened people of the United States were willing to ignore Clinton's alleged human frailty…..anyway, the economy was in great shape, his policies were popular, and the United States remained strong abroad. The public had no desire for impeachment…..and autumn elections saw the Republicans lose five House seats.

Apart from all of the above reasons for admiring Clinton, there is the wonderful Hillary….and Chelsea too! Hillary has to be one of the most able and talented first ladies in the history of the USA. It is interesting to note that Great Britain’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair, also has an incredibly intelligent, witty and popular wife to support him, in Cherie.

More than ever, the political leaders of the free world are relying on teamwork….not just co-operation with government colleagues, but also consultation with their wives, families, and friends. Indeed, I’m sure that Clinton had the statesmanlike foresight to consult Lewinsky on policy at home and abroad. Apart from providing Bill with great friendship, Lewinsky served her country, and the free world, by helping to inspire its leader. The American People could see this, and respected Clinton’s conduct as the actions of a normal human being….the People could identify with Clinton’s human frailties.

Clinton and Blair…..they’re ’team people’…..bonding with the peoples of the free world, and reaching out beyond the constantly expanding borders of Western Civilization, to the less fortunate and oppressed.

It was quite fitting that the fine movie AIR FORCE ONE was made during Clinton's stint as president.....the movie is a serves as a great tribute to the courage and resolve of President Bill Clinton.....the Harrison Ford character and Bill Clinton are virtually interchangeable....it was quite moving to see the real-life president invite many of the cast and crew on to the real-life Air Force One.

You regard ’James Horner writing an original score’ as being an unlikely event.

I partly agree with this, but equally, I don’t see Horner’s apparent lack of originality as a reason to criticise the composer. After all, we are talking about film music, thus originality comes a distant second place to appropriateness when one considers the success of the movie score, in my opinion.

As we observe the tangible universe, we see limitless space and endless time.
Every atom in the universe is constantly in motion, and all matter exhibits infinite variety.

The LAW of Cause and Effect dictates:

The first Cause of limitless space must be infinite in extent.
The first Cause of endless time must be eternal in duration.
The first Cause of perpetual motion must be omnipotent in power.
The first Cause of infinite variety must be omniscient and omnipresent.

In our tangible universe we find creatures which exhibit consciousness and personality, which must be attributes of the Creator.

Everything in the tangible universe manifests in triunity:

energy/motion/phenomenon
space/time/dimension
past/present/future
spirit/soul/body

Our Creator is a triune Being:

I was personally disappointed by the revelation about the great Loch Ness Monster photograph, but not too surprised. It always looked a little TOO perfect.

The truth is out there ...

I believe that EVERYBODY requires at least some measure of proof of a thing in order to believe it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that!

There is not one shred of corroborated evidence to support the existence of any of the above phenomena.

The paranormal is another area of interest for me, not because poltergeists, ghosts and pixies exist, because they don't. I am merely fascinated at the lengths some people will go to embroidering their stories. Not only that, I freely admit that unusual and unexplained events take place, but the evidence is only ever anecdotal.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to believe there are ‘strange’ things going on in the world around us, but beyond the delusional and fictional confabulations of cranks and also some genuinely misguided souls, there is nothing in existence that provides proof of the supernatural or of the spirit world etc – we all want to believe in something beyond our own ‘mundane’ existences, but when we look at the real world around us, isn’t it pretty amazing already. Even those things that cannot yet be properly explained by science, such as the origin of the universe, cannot be put down to the work of a ‘divine being’ – in other words, just because something cannot yet be explained by science, it doesn’t mean to say there is a God.

There are hundreds of cases of individuals (and groups of people) who claim to have experienced or witnessed a paranormal or extraordinary event, where one’s instinctive reaction may be, ‘how can they be lying?’ – only to find out later that the extraordinary event was fabricated (such as that famous photo of the Loch Ness Monster) or was rationally explained (such as Roswell). There are cases where individuals may genuinely believe they have seen a ghost or even been abducted by aliens – but this does not mean that they actually did experience what they claim to have experienced.

General James Wolfe

Born Jan 2, 1727, Westerham, Kent, England
Died Sept 13, 1759, Quebec, Canada

Commander of the British army at the capture of Quebec from the French in 1759 during the fourth French and Indian War, a victory that led to British supremacy in North America.

The elder son of Lieutenant General Edward Wolfe, he was commissioned in the Royal Marines in 1741 but transferred almost immediately to the 12th Foot. Wolfe was on active service continuously until the end of the War of the Austrian Succession, fighting against the French at Dettingen (1743) and later at Falkirk and Culloden (1746) during the Jacobite rebellion. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1750 and served as brigadier general under Major General Sir Jeffrey Amherst in an expedition against the French at Cape Breton Island (1758). The capture of Louisbourg, a fortress on the island, was largely attributed to Wolfe's daring and determination.

Wolfe returned to England to restore his failing health, but there he received from William Pitt the acting rank of major general and command of the expedition to capture the city of Quebec. By late June 1759, Wolfe's entire convoy had passed up the St. Lawrence River and had reached the island of Orleans, which lay opposite Quebec along the river. The army of the French defender of Quebec, the Marquis de Montcalm, was strongly entrenched on the high cliffs along the city's river frontage.

Mortally ill with tuberculosis, Wolfe endured great pain and anxiety while the siege dragged on throughout August. At the end of that month, he and his brigadiers agreed on a plan to land troops across the river a short distance upstream and to the west of Quebec. The resulting attack, which involved scaling the cliffs only one mile from the city, was carried out on September 12 and surprised the French on the level fields of the Plains of Abraham. On September 13, after a battle lasting less than an hour, the French fled. Wolfe, wounded twice early in the battle, died of a third wound, but not before he knew Quebec had fallen to his troops. Montcalm survived him by only a few hours. Quebec surrendered on September 18, and in 1760 Amherst received the surrender of Montreal and the rest of Canada to the British Empire.