I remember snippets of a debate between my parents when I was a small child. My father had just informed me that Father Christmas did not exist & my mother was horrified that I had been told this at such an early age. I still remember dad looking up at her from his armchair and saying 'I will not tell lies to my son.'
My father was not a Christian & the closest he ever came to faith was a belief that 'something doesn't come from nothing.' The fact that something did in fact exist had to have a cause , and dad called that cause God. He had difficulty in accepting Jesus as God though, because he was a man. He could never accept that a man could be God despite the evidence of the gospels.
Reluctantly I have to admit that all this happened a long time ago & I am no longer a small boy, but a grown man fast approaching his sixties. In that time there has been a seismic shift in how our society thinks.
Recently whilst I was drinking coffee in my favourite watering hole I read an article in the Daily Mail that grabbed my attention. No, not that wedding, but an article that concerned TV presenter and historian Dan Snow. Apparently he has admitted to lying to his daughters during a visit to an aviation museum.
So what, you might say. Is not our world full of lies, deceit and fake news? Well apart from the fact that I naively didn't think that Dan Snow would lie, it was also to whom he was lying that shocked me. It was his own flesh & blood, his daughters. How could a father lie to his children. It went against everything that I had been brought up to believe. Then he explained why he lied & I understood. Not that I agreed with him, but at least I understood where he was coming from.
Snow is a historian so it came as a double whammy that he had lied about an historical fact. The lie he told his daughters was that women pilots flew in combat in Spitfires during world war two.
This is not true, they did not, but Snow told his daughters that they did. Why? So that his girls would feel free to 'follow their dreams' when they grew up. Implied in this is the idea that if the girls thought that the role of women in the past was not the same as the role of men then this might make them feel inferior to men today.
Now it is obvious that Dan Snow's motives were good. However I believe this to be an example of how evil can hide within good motives. The role of women in WW2 society was much different to how it is today, but just because it was different does not mean that their contribution to the war effort was not of the highest value.
We must remember the land girls who replaced men on the farms growing food for the nation. The women who made ammunition in the factories, who became mechanics, who flew new planes from the factory to the airdromes & like my mother were involved in the posting of armies across Europe.
Without the women of our nation back in the dark days of WW2 we would have lost that war no matter how brave the men were on the battle field. Snow should have used the facts of history to make his daughters proud to be female and proud of the women who lived before them. Yet he did not.
Unfortunately Snow had fallen (pun) for one of the lies that grip society today. That is the lie that to be equal you have to be the same. To Snow the fact that only men flew Spitfires in combat highlighted the inequality of the genders of WW2 Britain.
What about the fact that women risked their lives in the munitions factories which were a chief target for the Luftwaffe? If they survived air attack then the dangerous ordinance they handled would regularly detonate in the factories that made them. Did these women not risk their lives as did the men who went into battle?. Who can say that a woman blown up in a munitions factory had given less than a man who had been shot by the enemy on the front line? Their roles were different, but they both had the same end in sight.
Yet by playing down the roles actually played by women at the time Snow was showing the creeping political correctness & overt gender politics of today. As a good father Snow wants the best for his daughters & I applaud him for that. I also applaud him for not wanting his daughters to be treated as second class citizens. However for Snow that means women being treated as men, and ignoring the differences between us. That is where we differ.
However having said all this the purpose of this blog is not to discuss gender politics or the very real inequalities of WW2 Britain. The purpose of this blog is to look at what political correctness is doing to us, to truth, to history.
At the end of the day Dan Snows view of gender politics is such that he (a historian) was willing to rewrite history for the sake of his politically correct views on gender. Not for him 'I will not lie to my daughters'. His politics meant more to him than the truth, and this is what worries me. If a society were to throw out truth for the sake of its politics then you have to question its values.
I hope and pray that Dan Snows error was only his, and that those who share his liberal views would not go down that road. I fear that they would though.
Thursday 31 May 2018
Saturday 31 March 2018
A tale of two worlds
Long ago in a far off galaxy lived a people who began to be tech savvy. Using their new found tech knowledge they developed a system by which their personal tech machines could speak to others far away or near. They called it the mesh. Businesses & individuals could access news & information on a colossal scale & in an instant. Everyone was happy
After a while the people developed what became known as the relationship media which allowed people to keep in touch easier, old friends to get back in touch and families all over the world to keep in contact. Everyone was happy.
Then the suppliers of the relationship media realised that they could make a lot of money by advertising products to those who used their sites. But the people didn't want to hear about goods or services that they would never want & the advertisers didn't want to waste their time or money. So wanting to maximise profits the relationship media watched what people were buying or the sites they visited. Between them & the advertisers this information was sold & targeted adverts began to appear on peoples screens whenever they accessed the relationship media. But as it was for goods or services the people might want everyone was happy.
Politicians observed what was going on and they began to realise that they could use the relationship media to their advantage. They understood that most people only want to hear opinions close to their own, challenged they went away & valuable advertising opportunities were lost to the relationship media. So they allowed the interference of the politicians who targeted floating voters & the undecided in an effort to get them to think their way & hence vote for them. But the people did not mind or care. Everyone was happy.
Then strange things began to happen in the political world. Political leaders began to be elected who never would have been in the past. In some countries the population woke up to find that important decisions had been made without them realising what was really at issue. The relationship media had been manipulated, cutting proper debate & half the country didn't really know how the other half felt. But it was all democratic so everyone was happy.
In the dark world of international politics some less democratic countries realised that they could flex their muscles, become more influential in the world by manipulating the relationship media in the same way as local politicians. False sites appeared on the relationship media making comments about issues that people were concerned about, but which led the people to be sympathetic to the aspirations of these other nations. But as few knew this was going on everyone was happy.
Soon the relationship media was seen as the most effective propaganda machine ever devised. Politicians employed mesh companies to farm information from the relationship media & use it to help them get elected. The political spectrum became more & more polarised as people were pulled to one side or the other of the political spectrum. It was at this point that a certain unease started amongst the people as they began to see what was going on.
Soon it was big business and powerful politicians who decided what was true or false & the people believed whom they wanted to be right. Information & personal data became the new currency amongst the elites, but distrust of politicians grew to new heights & the very democratic process was endangered as a result. People were no longer happy.
They began to consider what had gone wrong & whose fault was it. Some blamed the interference from other countries, others the power hungry politicians of their own land. Then others began to blame the owners of the relationship media for their greed. Slowly it began to dawn on the people that these were only symptoms of the actual malaise that gripped their world. That the politicians & business leaders of their nation & others were only people the same as themselves. If roles were reversed would anything have developed differently? They thought not. They began to realise that they were the problem. They were definitely not happy.
They cried out in anguish as they racked their brains trying to think of what they could do. Then someone remembered their sacred texts & an old story of a Saviour & a Cross.
This is a story of a people who lived long ago in a far off galaxy. If it resembles a world you know of it is purely coincidental.
After a while the people developed what became known as the relationship media which allowed people to keep in touch easier, old friends to get back in touch and families all over the world to keep in contact. Everyone was happy.
Then the suppliers of the relationship media realised that they could make a lot of money by advertising products to those who used their sites. But the people didn't want to hear about goods or services that they would never want & the advertisers didn't want to waste their time or money. So wanting to maximise profits the relationship media watched what people were buying or the sites they visited. Between them & the advertisers this information was sold & targeted adverts began to appear on peoples screens whenever they accessed the relationship media. But as it was for goods or services the people might want everyone was happy.
Politicians observed what was going on and they began to realise that they could use the relationship media to their advantage. They understood that most people only want to hear opinions close to their own, challenged they went away & valuable advertising opportunities were lost to the relationship media. So they allowed the interference of the politicians who targeted floating voters & the undecided in an effort to get them to think their way & hence vote for them. But the people did not mind or care. Everyone was happy.
Then strange things began to happen in the political world. Political leaders began to be elected who never would have been in the past. In some countries the population woke up to find that important decisions had been made without them realising what was really at issue. The relationship media had been manipulated, cutting proper debate & half the country didn't really know how the other half felt. But it was all democratic so everyone was happy.
In the dark world of international politics some less democratic countries realised that they could flex their muscles, become more influential in the world by manipulating the relationship media in the same way as local politicians. False sites appeared on the relationship media making comments about issues that people were concerned about, but which led the people to be sympathetic to the aspirations of these other nations. But as few knew this was going on everyone was happy.
Soon the relationship media was seen as the most effective propaganda machine ever devised. Politicians employed mesh companies to farm information from the relationship media & use it to help them get elected. The political spectrum became more & more polarised as people were pulled to one side or the other of the political spectrum. It was at this point that a certain unease started amongst the people as they began to see what was going on.
Soon it was big business and powerful politicians who decided what was true or false & the people believed whom they wanted to be right. Information & personal data became the new currency amongst the elites, but distrust of politicians grew to new heights & the very democratic process was endangered as a result. People were no longer happy.
They began to consider what had gone wrong & whose fault was it. Some blamed the interference from other countries, others the power hungry politicians of their own land. Then others began to blame the owners of the relationship media for their greed. Slowly it began to dawn on the people that these were only symptoms of the actual malaise that gripped their world. That the politicians & business leaders of their nation & others were only people the same as themselves. If roles were reversed would anything have developed differently? They thought not. They began to realise that they were the problem. They were definitely not happy.
They cried out in anguish as they racked their brains trying to think of what they could do. Then someone remembered their sacred texts & an old story of a Saviour & a Cross.
This is a story of a people who lived long ago in a far off galaxy. If it resembles a world you know of it is purely coincidental.
Wednesday 28 February 2018
A ribbon of defiance
For the many fans who went to the Carabao cup final at Wembley last Sunday a small yellow ribbon on the jumper of Pep Guardiola, the Manchester City manager would not have raised many eyebrows. The fact that 6000 of them had been given away outside Wembley would probably have been of equally little interest for most. The fact that these ribbons were snapped up by fans, and worn during the match probably had more to do with supporting their manager than with anything else.
You see the Football Association (FA) had brought Pep Guardiola up on a charge for wearing this seemingly innocuous adornment during previous matches & now he had done it again. What on earth could be wrong with wearing such a thing you might ask?
Well for the FA it was not the actual ribbon, but what it represented that was causing the problem. It was a political statement
Pep Guardiola is from a small town in rural Catalonia. It is staunchly independent and Catalan speaking. I think all of us are aware that Catalonia briefly declared independence from Spain last year & a symbol of this independence movement is the yellow ribbon. The problem that the FA have with this is that they try to promote keeping politics out of sport. They deem the ribbon to be a political symbol and have banned it.
Now most of us reading this blog are not Spanish or Catalan & have only a passing interest in the politics of the region. However we might realise that for Pep Guardiola this ribbon has special significance, & have no problem with him wearing it. We might wonder why the FA are being so hard. But things are not always as black & white as we would like them to be. Do we think that politics should be kept out of sport or should we allow people like Pep Guardiola to be political?
A yellow ribbon that has little significance for us in the UK is one thing, but what if Guardiola had sported a cap for or against Brexit? What if he wore a sweatshirt supporting Donald Trump or Jeremy Corbyn? What if the yellow ribbon was a Nazi swastika or the flag of the Islamic state? Would we allow these things to be worn at a sporting venue?
The problem is that you cannot keep politics or philosophy or religion out of sport. The reason is the fans. Some sports fans may have difficulty articulating their philosophy, politics or religion, because they are not used to doing so, but they all hold a position in all three never the less. Your philosophy is just your way of life, how you live it. Your politics also involves your views on the NHS, taxation, the price of a pint or the level of immigration into the UK. And your view of religion may be just that you have never accepted any religion.
If we all have views, points of view or beliefs then how can we keep politics out of sport. My own view is that you can't, but you can keep people from using sport for their political ends which is a laudable aim.
When I consider these matters my mind always drifts towards the subject of freedom of speech. I am a democrat in that I believe that we all have the right to our own views. No-one should try to stifle other opinions. If you have conservative or liberal leanings then you have the right to debate these with others who might oppose you, but you have no right to ban those who disagree with you. One caveat to this is that no-one has the right to threaten actual bodily harm. Hence 'kill all Muslims' or 'kill all gays' should never be part of civilised discourse.
So I have no problem with Pep Guardiola sporting the yellow ribbon that has go him into trouble although I also understand why the FA don't like it. I also think that Christians should be able to wear crosses at work if they want to, and members of other faiths wear what they think is appropriate. I may not agree with them, and I should be able to say this, but stopping them is another matter.
Rather than becoming more tolerant our society is actually becoming less tolerant. Liberal, politically correct views are being forced onto the public including very small children which I find abhorrent. The call of this blog is that our society becomes more inclusive. Allow dissention, allow disagreement, allow debate. Don't try to ban it.
You see the Football Association (FA) had brought Pep Guardiola up on a charge for wearing this seemingly innocuous adornment during previous matches & now he had done it again. What on earth could be wrong with wearing such a thing you might ask?
Well for the FA it was not the actual ribbon, but what it represented that was causing the problem. It was a political statement
Pep Guardiola is from a small town in rural Catalonia. It is staunchly independent and Catalan speaking. I think all of us are aware that Catalonia briefly declared independence from Spain last year & a symbol of this independence movement is the yellow ribbon. The problem that the FA have with this is that they try to promote keeping politics out of sport. They deem the ribbon to be a political symbol and have banned it.
Now most of us reading this blog are not Spanish or Catalan & have only a passing interest in the politics of the region. However we might realise that for Pep Guardiola this ribbon has special significance, & have no problem with him wearing it. We might wonder why the FA are being so hard. But things are not always as black & white as we would like them to be. Do we think that politics should be kept out of sport or should we allow people like Pep Guardiola to be political?
A yellow ribbon that has little significance for us in the UK is one thing, but what if Guardiola had sported a cap for or against Brexit? What if he wore a sweatshirt supporting Donald Trump or Jeremy Corbyn? What if the yellow ribbon was a Nazi swastika or the flag of the Islamic state? Would we allow these things to be worn at a sporting venue?
The problem is that you cannot keep politics or philosophy or religion out of sport. The reason is the fans. Some sports fans may have difficulty articulating their philosophy, politics or religion, because they are not used to doing so, but they all hold a position in all three never the less. Your philosophy is just your way of life, how you live it. Your politics also involves your views on the NHS, taxation, the price of a pint or the level of immigration into the UK. And your view of religion may be just that you have never accepted any religion.
If we all have views, points of view or beliefs then how can we keep politics out of sport. My own view is that you can't, but you can keep people from using sport for their political ends which is a laudable aim.
When I consider these matters my mind always drifts towards the subject of freedom of speech. I am a democrat in that I believe that we all have the right to our own views. No-one should try to stifle other opinions. If you have conservative or liberal leanings then you have the right to debate these with others who might oppose you, but you have no right to ban those who disagree with you. One caveat to this is that no-one has the right to threaten actual bodily harm. Hence 'kill all Muslims' or 'kill all gays' should never be part of civilised discourse.
So I have no problem with Pep Guardiola sporting the yellow ribbon that has go him into trouble although I also understand why the FA don't like it. I also think that Christians should be able to wear crosses at work if they want to, and members of other faiths wear what they think is appropriate. I may not agree with them, and I should be able to say this, but stopping them is another matter.
Rather than becoming more tolerant our society is actually becoming less tolerant. Liberal, politically correct views are being forced onto the public including very small children which I find abhorrent. The call of this blog is that our society becomes more inclusive. Allow dissention, allow disagreement, allow debate. Don't try to ban it.
Friday 19 January 2018
Last orders at the end of the world saloon.
At the beginning of the month the BBC commenced a new drama called 'Hard Sun'. Two cops Renko & Hicks are investigating a murder when they stumble on proof that the world faces destruction in fives years time. Apart from the obvious shock & horror this gives them a dilemma. Do they make this known to the public or not? The intelligence services, who already know about this, & are searching for the lost 'proof' are adamant that it is not. In the first of the series Renko & Hicks are hunted down ruthlessly with MI5 threatening the detectives families in an effort to bring them in with the evidence. I have currently only watched the first of the series, but it promises to be very thought provoking.
As I watched episode one it got me thinking of what it would be like if this unlikely scenario were ever to come true & the general public learn of it. I imagined a sort of slow breakdown of law & order as the years went by with criminals no longer afraid of long term jail sentences.
Even law abiding citizens who wanted to keep the status quo for as long as possible would start to think why bother. Why bother with the career ladder when there will be no career? Why bother with your job at all when there will be a bucket list of things you want to do before you die? And with the imminent collapse of the worlds economies and banking system there would be no job, probably no food and riots in the streets. This is indeed a nightmare scenario.
Now scientists have told us that there will be an end to the world. However the timescale they have given us is considerably longer than five years. A cursory google of 'end of the universe' taught me that current theories are that the universe will end in the next 2.8-22 billion years in three possible ways. They are called either the big freeze, big crunch or big rip. You can look up what these are at your leisure.
For those of you who believe that the universe will end in billions of years time there is a lot of comfort. Even the earths own destruction is forecast for billions of years in the future so providing the earth can dodge the odd rogue asteroid, super nova or the stupidity of its inhabitants etc we have a lot of time before we have to consider our species mortality. Of course not so our own personal mortality.
Soothsayers, & self proclaimed prophets regularly preach 'the end is nigh' According to the Daily Express Nostradamus prophesied the end of the world in 2018. The Daily Mirror reported that on Sept 23rd last year a mysterious planet named Nibiru was set to destroy our planet or this year on Oct 15th was set to start a series of natural disasters that will culminate in the earth's demise. I wouldn't hold my breath.
Now those of you who know your bibles will be aware that it also teaches that there will be an end of the world. This prophecy appears in the Book of Revelation and chapter 21 v 1
'Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.'
It may seem a throwaway statement to say that the earth had passed away, but it means that the earth as it was, is now, will have ended.
When will this happen? Will it be in five years or 22 billion years time. Well the bible does not tell us despite many such attempts by people over the years to try & make it do so. Matthew 24 v 36
'No-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.'
Of course atheists will claim that the bible is no more reliable than Nostradamus or the conspiracy theorists that abound in the media. Yet the bible has a proven track record with prophets prophesying the destruction of the Old Testament nations of Israel and Judah and their subsequent return.
For me the most amazing prophecy comes from the Book of Daniel and chapter nine where Daniel is given a vision of how long it will be from his time until the Jewish Messiah or Christ in the Greek comes. This prophecy fits exactly with the time of Jesus & is so accurate that sceptics have suggested that Daniel could not possibly have known this, so these details must have been written in later. You can't win.
For me it is logical to assume that if the bible is accurate with prophecies that have already happened then why not with the ones still to come. Of course this does not leave us as comfortable as if we were to consider the end of the world as being billions of years in the future. If we don't know the time then it could be today or even in the next few minutes.
The bible teaches us that the end will be preceded by the return of Jesus Christ, but not as a baby, but as God. Then He will judge us & we will all fail. However those who have repented of their wrongdoings (sins) will have received forgiveness as Jesus will have taken their punishment on the cross. For them eternity will be very pleasurable. For those who have never sought forgiveness from Christ eternity will not.
As I watched episode one it got me thinking of what it would be like if this unlikely scenario were ever to come true & the general public learn of it. I imagined a sort of slow breakdown of law & order as the years went by with criminals no longer afraid of long term jail sentences.
Even law abiding citizens who wanted to keep the status quo for as long as possible would start to think why bother. Why bother with the career ladder when there will be no career? Why bother with your job at all when there will be a bucket list of things you want to do before you die? And with the imminent collapse of the worlds economies and banking system there would be no job, probably no food and riots in the streets. This is indeed a nightmare scenario.
Now scientists have told us that there will be an end to the world. However the timescale they have given us is considerably longer than five years. A cursory google of 'end of the universe' taught me that current theories are that the universe will end in the next 2.8-22 billion years in three possible ways. They are called either the big freeze, big crunch or big rip. You can look up what these are at your leisure.
For those of you who believe that the universe will end in billions of years time there is a lot of comfort. Even the earths own destruction is forecast for billions of years in the future so providing the earth can dodge the odd rogue asteroid, super nova or the stupidity of its inhabitants etc we have a lot of time before we have to consider our species mortality. Of course not so our own personal mortality.
Soothsayers, & self proclaimed prophets regularly preach 'the end is nigh' According to the Daily Express Nostradamus prophesied the end of the world in 2018. The Daily Mirror reported that on Sept 23rd last year a mysterious planet named Nibiru was set to destroy our planet or this year on Oct 15th was set to start a series of natural disasters that will culminate in the earth's demise. I wouldn't hold my breath.
Now those of you who know your bibles will be aware that it also teaches that there will be an end of the world. This prophecy appears in the Book of Revelation and chapter 21 v 1
'Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.'
It may seem a throwaway statement to say that the earth had passed away, but it means that the earth as it was, is now, will have ended.
When will this happen? Will it be in five years or 22 billion years time. Well the bible does not tell us despite many such attempts by people over the years to try & make it do so. Matthew 24 v 36
'No-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.'
Of course atheists will claim that the bible is no more reliable than Nostradamus or the conspiracy theorists that abound in the media. Yet the bible has a proven track record with prophets prophesying the destruction of the Old Testament nations of Israel and Judah and their subsequent return.
For me the most amazing prophecy comes from the Book of Daniel and chapter nine where Daniel is given a vision of how long it will be from his time until the Jewish Messiah or Christ in the Greek comes. This prophecy fits exactly with the time of Jesus & is so accurate that sceptics have suggested that Daniel could not possibly have known this, so these details must have been written in later. You can't win.
For me it is logical to assume that if the bible is accurate with prophecies that have already happened then why not with the ones still to come. Of course this does not leave us as comfortable as if we were to consider the end of the world as being billions of years in the future. If we don't know the time then it could be today or even in the next few minutes.
The bible teaches us that the end will be preceded by the return of Jesus Christ, but not as a baby, but as God. Then He will judge us & we will all fail. However those who have repented of their wrongdoings (sins) will have received forgiveness as Jesus will have taken their punishment on the cross. For them eternity will be very pleasurable. For those who have never sought forgiveness from Christ eternity will not.
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