Happy Easter everybody.
I am no longer a church-goer, so I can’t remember the answer to this one. If Christ was crucified on Good Friday and rose again on Easter Sunday, surely that’s two days not three? Especially as he had vanished during the night as Mary Magdalen discovered when she turned up in the morning. He was crucified pretty late on Friday as there were a series of events that day beforehand, then rose again on saturday night/sunday morning? Isn’t that the next day rather than three days?
Speaking of timing, I told a friend a week ago that if the Tory lead increased to ten points (as it now has) then I didn’t think Brown would go for May 6 but rather wait till 3 June in case something turned up. New Labour would keep their money in store and not hold a national campaign for the May 6 elections, letting the Tories spend some of their powder. There are obvious disadvantages to letting the Tories build up momentum, but also the hope that Tory triumphalism after the council elections might put people off. There is nothing more unpleasant than a braying toff,
Don’t get me wrong – I think New Labour are toast, and good riddance. But I don’t think they’ll walk manfully to their doom. I think they’ll kick, scream, wet themselves and try to buy a few more seconds in the ministerial limousines.
Finally, I confess I do not share the outrage at Chris Graylings’ comments. I don’t think in general it is useful for the state to try to co-erce tolerance, except in preventing extreme and harmful intolerance. I am not sure where the line comes, but I am not really sure you increase tolerance by forcing bigots to give bed and breakfast to gay people. I think the ancient right of the publican, for example, to refuse to serve people without reason had something going for it. It’s his pub. I once got sacked as a barman for selling someone who ordered a Talisker and coke to fuck off.
On the other hand, if Christian establishments are gay free, where will paedophile priests stay on holiday? (Am I wrong, or were the Catholic priests concerned nearly all after little boys rather than little girls?) Maybe christian establishments should be allowed to ban gays, but only on condition that they erect a large sign saying “A Narrow Minded Joyless Bigot Establishment”. They could display an Ian Paisley mark, and be awarded from one to five Paisleys depending on just how bigoted they are.
“I am not really sure you increase tolerance by forcing bigots to give bed and breakfast to gay people.”
Really, how about black people Craig?
Wasp-Box
This isn’t the southern USA. I am not convinced that legislative coercion played an essential role in achieving racial integration in the UK – insofar as we have achieved it.
I think it’s just little boys sadly. One of the worst crimes IMHO. Their lives are ruined and their abusers have gone scot free mostly.
http://www.private-eye.co.uk/covers.php?showme=1259&
Trust P Eye to make a joke of it.
Or they could have hung out a sign saying, ‘In keeping with tradition there is no room at the inn but you can sleep in the stable.’
My understanding is that ‘three days’ (with or without the nights) was a current Jewish idiom which should be interpreted ‘on the third day’. That explains why the Apostles’ Creed has the expression ‘the third day’.
I’m not sure how to answer your question, I think Easter like Christmas were celebrated in Europe long before Christianity.
Christmas being the winter solstice and Easter being the time of the Germanic Goddess of Spring Eostre.
But after European Conversion the dates were kept but the meaning altered.
Early Christians kept all Jewish laws, beliefs and celebrations, with the addition of the Prophet Jesus pbh and rejection of the Talmud.
So Passover maybe another factor in this, where it was kept but its significance, meaning and date altered?
Anyway, I’m not sure I’m allowed to comment on this because my views are biased because Muslims don’t believe in the Crucifixion, so can not believe in the resurrection. But we do fast two days to celebrate passover though, which could have been the origins of Easter. According to the Hijri calender though, so the date would move forward a few days each year.
We believe that Jesus was raised up alive and someone else was made to look like him and crucified. This view was shared by the Early Unitarian churches and mentioned in the Gospel of Barnabas which states that Judas was made to look like Jesus, crucified, and some people stole his body.
Anyway, I think equality laws might just step over their remit when they start telling people who is and is not allowed to share their houses with them?
It was a room in a couple’s house wasn’t it?
Arsalan
I quite like the story that Jesus and Judas swapped places and Judas died on the cross. It makes perfect sense. Jesus escapes a very unpleasant death and Judas avoids being damned for betraying Jesus.
Win-win.
“I think it’s just little boys sadly.”
That’s an odd comment. Would it be less horrendous if it were little girls being abused and raped?
I timely discussion of the absurdity of the central Easter story: Jesus died to save us!
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/sunday_sacrilege_the_silliest.php
Also this on that topic:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/sin_trans.htm
The ancient Egyptian man-god Horus did the crucified-then-resurrected thing before Jesus anyway. In fact, Horus did Jesus’ entire life before Jesus.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa5d.htm
In my experience as an altar boy, the Blood of Christ tasted more like Sherry than Wine
And never did I get even a hint that any of the Catholic Priests wanted to stick their penises up my bum
Whilst I rejected it all at the age of 15 and left the Catholic priest wanking in the confessional, when I told him all about my fantasies about shagging a girl in my class at school, my family are still really big on the Catholic Church
My nephew is training to be one.
He has got a PhD in Maths from Cambridge, and got bored with designing weapons of mass destruction
So far as I am aware, he has never had a girlfriend, but he is a nice bloke and will probably make a great priest, and its far better than designing bombs.
Tony
dya think when they stole the Pagan dates for there own, if was the first example of copyright/logo theft?
And this is an enlightening discussion of the Trinity and the Easter story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mII6-IyaT3o
KingofWelshNoir
I’ll find the quote for you:
http://barnabas.net/chapters/264.html?task=view
Barnabas was one of the roughly 300 Gospels banned and destroyed by the emperor Constantine when he adopted trinitarianism Christianity as the official religion of the Roman empire.
“I think they’ll kick, scream, wet themselves and try to buy a few more seconds in the ministerial limousines.”
And if – hopefully when – they lose, they’ll unleash pandemonium via the civil service and their soviet unions.
I’ll declare an interest, I’m gay. But as far as this kind of thing goes, especially as far as real discrimination goes. If you are taking public money, like Catholic Adoption Agencies do, or provide a purely universal public service like a hotel, then you shouldn’t be allowed to turn people away.
But this is a private house, run as a B&B, they should have the right to refuse customers if they wish. What they shouldn’t be allowed to do is to accept a booking and then turn people away at the door because they don’t like them because they’re gay, black, Jewish etc.
If you want to discriminate, make it clear that you’re an old fashioned bigot and say you don’t accept gays, blacks, Jews etc. on the phone beforehand. Before you accept a couple’s deposit, wait till they turn up, refuse them entry, disrupt their plans for the evening and ruin their holiday.
Maybe a discrete ‘We’re bigots’ sign on their advertisements next to the contact details.
Let’s not forget that this B&B had entered into a contract with the couple when they accepted their booking.
Gays in B and B was less the issue when we got to see the two guys.
One of them had a tattoo-that would be grounds enough to bar them for me! What a pair of scruffy bastards they look!
Mind you I wouldn’t be too keen to give a bed to a narrow-minded bigot either.
People’s sexuality seems an object of vicarious fascination in this country.The British are just bloody nosey and many are bigoted too.
Strikes me this case involves two of the worst types of Brits-the scruffs and the bigots.
Bar them!
As for Paisley-aside from his anti-Catholic bigotry isn’t he most remembered for his quoted reaction to the prospect of homosexual equality legislation finally being enacted in N.Ireland?
“IT’S A BUGGERS’ CHARTER!”
Presumably he was referring to the Kincora Boys Home being turned into a B and B!
amk Of course that was not my meaning. You are twisting my words.
It’s not only RC priests. Listen to Trevor Baylis on Broadcasting House recently.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8591534.stm
TREVOR BAYLISS OBE
The inventor Trevor Baylis told us on a recent programme of how sexual abuse in a church has left him with a lifelong hatred of religion. In language that goes further than the euphemism of abuse, he told us that he was the victim of oral rape at the age of five. Whilst the Vatican is dealing with its gravest crisis in many years, Trevor Baylis says his attacker was an Anglican vicar who’s since died. He wants to encourage victims of abuse in any religion to come forward.
Do you know what the advantage of being a Muslim on Easter is?
I get chocolate Easter eggs from my friends and I don’t have to give anyone any because celebrate it!!!!
Mary
I really think the death penalty needs to be brought back for people like that.
I think the key issue is to get people to speak. the only reason why people like that do what they do is they know they will get away with it because no one will speak.
People need to scream and shout.
What is a curate?
Happy Easter, Craig.
“This isn’t the southern USA. I am not convinced that legislative coercion played an essential role in achieving racial integration in the UK – insofar as we have achieved it.”
What a strange non-answer.
Your post suggests that you believe discrimination on the grounds of sexuality is acceptable. Why do you consider discrimination on the grounds of race different?
These people are running a business. Why should the fact that their business is small allow them to ignore, what seem to me to be, reasonable laws?
Yes, it’s well-known that often behaviour follows legislation rather than the other way around. And I’m not sure ‘integration’ is the issue here; it is direct discrimination that is the central question in this case, not integration.
Can anyone deny that if the Race and Sex Discrimination Acts had not been passed, some employers and landlords would still be framing adverts with ‘No Blacks, Please’?
My father, a doctor, was turned away by countless landladies during the late 1950s in Hull because he had a dark complexion, while my mother, who’d gone along to the same place just three hours earlier, had been welcomed in and told there were vacancies – she was white Afghan and wore Western clothes. When she took my dad along, the door was slammed in their faces. Not always, of course, there were very good people as well, but a significant number of times. Nearly everyone form the ‘New Commonwealth’ has similar tales to tell.
Of course, as a whole, attitudes have changed for the better in the past 50 years and legislation alone would not have been enough to have effected that sort of societal change, but it was an absolutely essential part of making it happen.
Lol.. great post Craig. 😀
I reckon people’s expectations are generally too high. They think it is all going to work and be brilliant.
I meanwhile have much lower expectations. I think well, it will probably all fuck up like it usually does.
If it turns out better than that, then I can be happy.
So we had been walking for about 15 minutes, and I felt my pockets and thought
“Oh Fuck”
Have you got any money Love? She thinks she is the Queen and rarely carries any money at all.
I said I have left my wallet at home.
And so we got in. It was Free, as is The Water.
And I go to the bar to try and buy us a drink
And I have ordered the drinks
And I have this funny feeling running down my leg
It was all the coins – all the money I had left….
I suddenly realised, that not only did I have no notes, all my coins had poured down my leg
Cos I now had a hole in my pocket
Great Gig though….
A friend of ours lent us £40.
So I could also put £10 in the pot for the band
I was the First on the Dance Floor
Tony
Arsalan: You celebrate passover? What does anyone who doesn’t consider themselves descended from slaves freed by mass slaughter of innocents get to celebrate about this?
As it happens, my re- and re-reading of these chapters of the Christian Bible made me – a ‘born again’ Christian – abandon my faith, because I realised, with not inconsiderable horror, that this God I was worshipping could not possibly be the God of love.
Why would the first born of all Egyptians have to die, when most if not all were incapable of influencing the decision of the Pharaoh, and why had the Lord ‘hardened the Pharaoh’s heart’, so there could be no peaceful solution ? (Exodus 9:12)
I also wondered why this God of Love had allowed the Egyptians to follow the fleeing Israelites into the opening of the Nile, and then collapsed it on them, drowning the soldiers and horses. Why not simply close it up following after the Israelis?
And a bunch of other things, of course. There is no way this God of the Jews/Christians is a loving or merciful God.
I digress… Arsalan, why the heck would you celebrate Passover?
*
I’m not sure why it’s OK to throw people out of your hotel for being gay any more than one is entitled to because they’re black. Or Welsh, for that matter. For holding objectionable opinions? Hmm. Difficult to say. But I’m surprised that B&B’s of such delicate sensibilities this don’t ask mixed sex couples, “Err… sir and madam, before we confirm the booking, could you please assure us that no anal sex is likely to take place during your stay?”
*
It seems that the choir-boys were indeed the victim of choice for these priests. A combination of the girls being rapped across the knuckles by the nuns and associating with them rather than males, the close association of priests/choir-boys, and that aspiring Good Boys would be guided from a young age into the mission by priests. Studies indicate the abused are more likely to go on to abuse others in turn. It seems true for many cases of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Perhaps we’re seeing the result of sexual abuse cascade down – it only appears to take one nonce priest to generate scores, maybe hundreds of victims. If just one in a dozen were sufficiently twisted by the experience to abuse themselves, it becomes an endless cycle. Also, nonces might be attracted to a position which gives authority over young boys. The Catholic church values obedience above nearly all else – what could be more attractive to such hideous deviants?
“I also wondered why this God of Love had allowed the Egyptians to follow the fleeing Israelites into the opening of the Nile, and then collapsed it on them, drowning the soldiers and horses. Why not simply close it up following after the Israelis?” Glenn
It makes for a better narrative, to have the baddies punished good ‘n’ proper, for all time-and-a-day.
Anyway, if they’d not been comprehensively drowned, the Egyptians could’ve got boats and sailed across.
And the first-borns are in Heaven, where they are now teenagers with I-pods.
Glenn, these are points which even the most lateral-thinking C of E vicars with hippy hair (are there any of those left?) cannot answer, except by referring to metaphor and simile, analogy and parable and the retrospective ishq (divine love) counterpoint of Yeshva.
Meanwhile, those who believe in the literal meanings of texts, who think that one word can have only one meaning, ever, in any language and in any time and it’s their word and no-one else’s, will affirm that God is merciful but also vengeful and jealous, just like the flawed hero in a soap-opera.
Sorry, I’m being slightly facetious. i just think that soemtimes it’s good to be able to have a sens eof humour about such matters, as did the old wise wanderer, Nasireddin Hodja.
It’s “on the third day”, not after three days, Friday was the first day of the event.
Half of me says that a B&B should have the right to turn people away, however there is that old slippery slope argument, what other reasons would they devise to turn away guests ?