New Green Party leader was hypnotherapist who claimed women could increase breast sizes with minds

Scotland isn't. We are used to ignorance and intolerance.
Yup, and with the completely insignificant - certainly these days - demographic differences we have. Fuck knows what it will be like here as we get more like england in our population mix.
 
Yup, and with the completely insignificant - certainly these days - demographic differences we have. Fuck knows what it will be like here as we get more like england in our population mix.

I have said many times before, we won't.

The most recent 2022 census in Scotland shows that the majority of the population has no religion (51.1%), with Christianity being the largest religious group, though its adherents have significantly declined to 38.8%. Other religions include the Roman Catholic Church (13.3%), Islam (2.2%), and smaller groups such as the Church of Scotland, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, and Hindus.

Panic ye not.
 
I have said many times before, we won't.
Do you mean we won't end up with a population mix similar to them? We are going to have to given our population is aging faster due to the lack of it. Its actually started in the post covid years: we now have proportionately similar levels of migration having been miles behind for decades.
 
Do you mean we won't end up with a population mix similar to them? We are going to have to given our population is aging faster due to the lack of it. Its actually started in the post covid years: we now have proportionately similar levels of migration having been miles behind for decades.

I tweaked my response above. There will have to be have some amount of riding, even us papes didnae manage that.
 
I tweaked my response above. There will have to be have some amount of riding, even us papes didnae manage that.
The Scottish picture you quote is like England 2001. We are twenty years behind them - ie we have just caught up with what Blair initiated there 2003/4, so this fits. We are now on the same trajectory though and will catch up in time unless all that riding commences toot suite.

Latest figures are 2023 in which year we added 82k from outside the UK and 48k from rUK. So getting along for 2.5% of the population in a year. By way of comparison total migration to the UK was in the 50K range for chunks of the 90s. A few more years of that and Indy's goose is probably cooked. A decade or so and we will have a very different mix.

Again like England, tons of these are students, so i guess a lot depends also on who stays on. One way or the other though, it has to happen if that riding doesnt swing into action quickstyle.

Ps we didn't manage it in Scotland but we did in NI. From 30 odd per cent of the population to a majority over the course of our lifetimes.
 
Its based on faith articles which not only are not supported by the facts of reality but in conflict with it. Its adherents simply do not behave like supporters of other political systems; it quite clearly offers a sense of self, a core worldview, a moral system, and more, which resemble religious adherence more than competing political outlooks. It proceeds from books produced by prophets of the movement. It chases heretics with more vigour than it pursues its enemies.

In a nutshell it wholly shot through the very being of its followers. That simply is not the case for liberals, conservatives or whatever.

Religions don't have to be theistic. Plenty of atheist Buddhists, Hindus and Jews for example. Marxism is a political religion - specifically an offshoot from Christianity where it gets its contra darwinian principles around equality, distribution of wealth etc. And those become completely incoherent outside a theistic context. What does equality even mean, for example, if you take nature as your only yardstick?
Noam Chomsky agrees with you. He said the very fact that it is named after an individual should make us deeply suspicious. There is no Einsteinism in Physics, for example. It has it's holy books, it's prophets and the intellectuals who act as its priesthood.
 
It is Dub. You or I don't reach for resources from our politics to determine our position on any given issue. We don't take our worldview from its vision. We don't employ metaphysical structures from it, such as oppressor / oppressed, to reach moral conclusions. We don't adorn ourselves with it's symbols, seek guidance from its old texts, or view politicians or economists as heroes or prophets.

These are religious behaviours, often hardline ones at that. I could go on; communism blatantly transports Christian concepts into a secular context. Not just stuff like equality, and the 'last shall be first' but the achievement of - in their case, earthly - paradise through a millennarian struggle, and loads more.
You're doing your damndest to convince someone, perhaps yourself, that what you're saying is correct when everyone else knows that Marxism is a political ideology and not a religion. If it were a religion, it would have millions of acolytes prepared to believe that Marx was a god, despite any proof in much the same way that actual religion works. At the very least though, we can prove the existence of Marx, which we can't do with any of the [one true] gods that folk irrationally [IMHO] cleave to.
 
You're doing your damndest to convince someone, perhaps yourself, that what you're saying is correct when everyone else knows that Marxism is a political ideology and not a religion. If it were a religion, it would have millions of acolytes prepared to believe that Marx was a god, despite any proof in much the same way that actual religion works. At the very least though, we can prove the existence of Marx, which we can't do with any of the [one true] gods that folk irrationally [IMHO] cleave to.
I'm not trying to convince anyone though i'd be happy to get people thinking about it, I'm stating my position. Marxism absolutely has millions of acolytes, where other political traditions have mere voters or supporters.

Marxism is based on a metaphysical vision. Its substantially different to conservatism, labour politics, or liberalism. Take God out of your above - and as I've already noted, not all religions or religious adherents have a God - and you are pretty close to it. Marx is certainly treated more like a prophet than an economist; you don't get people who believe Adam Smith or Keynes were on the money, making pilgrimages to their graves.

Don't agree with me, thats fine. I could ask you what the difference is between an ideology and a religion - because as above, its not simply a question of the inclusion of God. I'd argue that wherever you draw the line, Marxism with it's vision of a global utopia and perfected mankind (a left wing staple that precedes Marx) crosses it. Its a metaphysical vision that explicitly bucks nature and a scientific account of our condition. It is very substantially secularised Christianity - it certainly could not have emerged outside 'Christendom' though Chinese Confucianism (great example of 'is it religion or ideology') gels really well with what it looks like in practice.

This is not my invention by the way, but a fairly common view, even among left wingers like Noam Chomsky according to @Sancho Panza above.

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Noam Chomsky agrees with you. He said the very fact that it is named after an individual should make us deeply suspicious. There is no Einsteinism in Physics, for example. It has it's holy books, it's prophets and the intellectuals who act as its priesthood.
Noam Chomsky considers himself to be an anarcho syndacilist,a proponent of anarcho syndicalism.Whether he follows Bakunanism,Proudonism,Kropotkynism is a moot point.
 
Ps @Dub afaik you are an atheist and not an ideologue of any kind. As you know, I am a Catholic. Maybe that is a factor here.

It is clear as day to me that for the likes of G and Findlay, Marxism is to them similar to what Catholicism is to me, rather than how you or I view the SNP, independence or any other political thing, however strongly we may feel about it.
 
Well, this thread has gone off track.

Point being, yon guy thinks birds can get their tits bigger by just thinking about them.
Fair enough if true.
The important bit is though, can that work for a man’s penis.
Obviously (for most) a penis will get bigger thinking about a bird’s tits, but will thinking about them constantly make one’s penis bigger?
But it’s hardly ( @BILLYHIBS) a long term thing (@BILLYHIBS) or is it?

Can thinking about tits make your penis bigger permanent?

Or does thinking about having a bigger penis make you a bit of a tit?


I know.

I apologise.
No pics.
 
Ps again @Dub how many purely political traditions bend or ban science to conform with their faith articles? I'm not talking about venal cover ups like trying to claim that global warming doesnt have man made contribution, but really foundational things like rejecting darwinian evolution or genetics because they don't fit with the vision? This wasn't for simple reasons like money grubbing but because scientific discovery threatened faith articles. What does that remind you of?

Per Findlay's quote this is less about Marx - who would probably spin in his grave at it, as he would those pilgrimages - but about those who built a religion around him.
 
Well, this thread has gone off track.

Point being, yon guy thinks birds can get their tits bigger by just thinking about them.
Fair enough if true.
The important bit is though, can that work for a man’s penis.
Obviously (for most) a penis will get bigger thinking about a bird’s tits, but will thinking about them constantly make one’s penis bigger?
But it’s hardly ( @BILLYHIBS) a long term thing (@BILLYHIBS) or is it?

Can thinking about tits make your penis bigger permanent?

Or does thinking about having a bigger penis make you a bit of a tit?


I know.

I apologise.
No pics.
At last, some sanity in this debate.
 
Ps again @Dub how many purely political traditions bend or ban science to conform with their faith articles? I'm not talking about venal cover ups like trying to claim that global warming doesnt have man made contribution, but really foundational things like rejecting darwinian evolution or genetics because they don't fit with the vision? This wasn't for simple reasons like money grubbing but because scientific discovery threatened faith articles. What does that remind you of?

Per Findlay's quote this is less about Marx - who would probably spin in his grave at it, as he would those pilgrimages - but about those who built a religion around him.
To be honest mate, I'm a bit more simplistic than the complex tapestry you've woven in the last couple of tagged posts.

There is no god. Religion was designed to subjugate the masses. However, you believe in it and it's not my place to dissuade you.

Global warming is a thing and whether it's cyclical or man made is open to conjecture.

Darwin was right which takes me back to their not being a god who created man and then woman from the man's rib and somehow they populated the entire world without everyone being gibbering inbreds.

Rum is the best drink known to man.

GGTTH

What else is there?
 
At last, some sanity in this debate.
Fair comment we have done this to death D. I will leave you with this and be done. Thousands of scientists were murdered to suppress it, and millions died from famine because natural selection and genetics were rejected by marxists as incompatible with Marxist metaphysics and 'immutable laws'.

That doesn't really happen with lib dems.

Google lysenkoism in the event you are curious.
 
To be honest mate, I'm a bit more simplistic than the complex tapestry you've woven in the last couple of tagged posts.

There is no god. Religion was designed to subjugate the masses. However, you believe in it and it's not my place to dissuade you.

Global warming is a thing and whether it's cyclical or man made is open to conjecture.

Darwin was right which takes me back to their not being a god who created man and then woman from the man's rib and somehow they populated the entire world without everyone being gibbering inbreds.

Rum is the best drink known to man.

GGTTH

What else is there?
Fair enough. But things like Marxism aren't simple and defy attempts to make them so. My point on science is Marxists denied science when it conflicted with the faith, and not just for financial interests like climate change deniers. A faith based system is religious in nature in my eyes.

Anyway as above, done to death comrade. Next year in Moscow...Za vashe zdorovye!
 
Religion was designed to subjugate the masses.
Designed?! By who? The nasty high-ups?

I'd argue that in all its expressions, it's a natural product of man's need for meaning and to make sense of -- and live with -- the ineffable.

(I don't follow any denomination, btw.)
 
Designed?! By who? The nasty high-ups?
That particular canard, which is so ahistorical and counter factual, is itself testament to mankind's need to believe.

I mean take Christianity. It isn't immediately obvious why the power structures of it's day should coin a religion that absolutely set about them; which eviscerated the religious and secular authorities of the day, along with the rich.

It also isn't immediately obvious why said power structures would give the world the principles of the equal value of all persons and individual freedom which is the only reason why this misguided point could even be made.

And it is isn't obvious why those power structures, first Jewish and then Roman, spent centuries trying to eliminate their creation, as have despots ever since.

One could argue that Hinduism's caste system is well suited to the mighty (it was and is popular among esoteric Nazi types for a reason) and that Islam is well suited to warriors - but then these are entirely different to Christianity, as they are to other religions.

Its always amusing to me that people who have kittens when one tries to be precise about these differences and the different societies they produce - seemingly convinced that accuracy must be racist- are happy to deploy the most broad brush nonsense. Which is kinda the definition of bigotry.

Dub should stop listening to these people. He's too smart for them. In any case they pretty much all went on to become blue haired moonhowlers or, conversely, to declare themselves 'cultural Christians' - in growing alarm at the ruinous consequences of their simpleton creed.
 
Designed?! By who? The nasty high-ups?

I'd argue that in all its expressions, it's a natural product of man's need for meaning and to make sense of -- and live with -- the ineffable.

(I don't follow any denomination, btw.)
Perhaps designed is the wrong word but the first person who decided that everyone should pay homage to, say, the sun as a god, and anyone who didn't become supplicant was sacrificed to said sun god, could be said to have designed religion, albeit in its earliest form. It doesn't take a quantum leap of thought for someone to realise that this was a way to keep people in thrall to one thing or another,
 
Perhaps designed is the wrong word but the first person who decided that everyone should pay homage to, say, the sun as a god, and anyone who didn't become supplicant was sacrificed to said sun god, could be said to have designed religion, albeit in its earliest form. It doesn't take a quantum leap of thought for someone to realise that this was a way to keep people in thrall to one thing or another,
Dub, the only reason we even conceive of a departure from the natural state of the weak surviving at the pleasure of the strong - while very much doing what they are telt - is because of religion. Or certain religion anyway.
 
Dub, the only reason we even conceive of a departure from the natural state of the weak surviving at the pleasure of the strong - while very much doing what they are telt - is because of religion. Or certain religion anyway.
I knew I'd be wron:read:


You have your view, I have mine, and no matter how much you try to convince me that you're the expert, you aren't, so you carry on believing what you believe, and I will carry on believing what I believe, and let's leave it at that.
 
Ps again @Dub how many purely political traditions bend or ban science to conform with their faith articles? I'm not talking about venal cover ups like trying to claim that global warming doesnt have man made contribution, but really foundational things like rejecting darwinian evolution or genetics because they don't fit with the vision? This wasn't for simple reasons like money grubbing but because scientific discovery threatened faith articles. What does that remind you of?

Per Findlay's quote this is less about Marx - who would probably spin in his grave at it, as he would those pilgrimages - but about those who built a religion around him.
Imagine building a religion around a figure.Jesus Christ!
 
Your on form the day the poster formerly known as Moaty
 
I knew I'd be wron:read:


You have your view, I have mine, and no matter how much you try to convince me that you're the expert, you aren't, so you carry on believing what you believe, and I will carry on believing what I believe, and let's leave it at that.
Yeah but yours is refuted by even the most cursory look at history, and that isnt changed by a mic drop.
 
to be fair at least of of them actually existed.
I'm not sure anyone seriously disputes both existed EGers. Assuming atheists are correct one of them still gave rise to our civilisation and the very way we see the world.

The other spawned a reality rejecting offshoot from the same, which turned into a movement of batshit craziness that destroyed everything it touched. That said, most of it would likely be scorned by the man himself.

So, like I say, top Marx.
 
I'm not sure anyone seriously disputes both existed EGers. Assuming atheists are correct one of them still gave rise to our civilisation and the very way we see the world.

The other spawned a reality rejecting offshoot from the same, which turned into a movement of batshit craziness that destroyed everything it touched. That said, most of it would likely be scorned by the man himself.

So, like I say, top Marx.
Everyone wrong again and the Catholic Church a paragon of virtue throughout history.
 
Everyone wrong again and the Catholic Church a paragon of virtue throughout history.
Nobody said that. These lame straw men and non sequiturs just underscore that once bluff is called on a bunch of chattering class canards you've picked up, you run out of road pretty quickly.

Anyway, let's not waste further time here. Hop over to the Fabian thread where I have put in this mornings alloted time to waste, in explaining how history isnt a product of what one would like it to be, but of what happened in the past.
 
I'm not sure anyone seriously disputes both existed EGers. Assuming atheists are correct one of them still gave rise to our civilisation and the very way we see the world.

The other spawned a reality rejecting offshoot from the same, which turned into a movement of batshit craziness that destroyed everything it touched. That said, most of it would likely be scorned by the man himself.

So, like I say, top Marx.
Crikey, there was no civilisation before Mary had an affair, got pregnant, and lied to her husband [who doesn't appear to have consummated the marriage for some reason] about still being a virgin and being impregnated by a made-up God. I didn't know that.
 
Crikey, there was no civilisation before Mary had an affair, got pregnant, and lied to her husband [who doesn't appear to have consummated the marriage for some reason] about still being a virgin and being impregnated by a made-up God. I didn't know that.
There wasnt a civilisation like ours, no. There was might is right, plums for the plebs, sexual slavery, Infanticide, pederasty and exterminatory war as the norm.
 
There wasnt a civilisation like ours, no. There was might is right, plums for the plebs, sexual slavery, Infanticide, pederasty and exterminatory war as the norm.
And if anyone disagrees it will be the Spanish Inquisition for ya!
 
Quite an extraordinary few months for the lad


I was quite impressed with him during this interview on The News Agents too. Whatever you make of his policies he was articulate and honest throughout. It made me think this might not be a flash in the pan.

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