gdp's Comments

Heresy Corner : So what is Paul Dacre playing at?

Thu, 3 Oct 2013 15:51:03 +0000

Interesting timing.

Heresy Corner : Invisible Girl

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 19:59:33 +0000

That sort of melodrama is inherent in VISs, yes, the idea presumably being that the more tear-jerking the victim's statement and tougher the sentence is likely to be. I've never liked them in principle or practice. It turns the law into a mawkish arms-race. A criminal sentence shouldn't be influenced by the emotional articulacy of the victim. The fact that the daughter feels there hasn't been an impact is more relevant than her mother's wailings in an assessment of what the damage actually was.

Heresy Corner : Invisible Girl

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 19:39:21 +0000

You're being subjective.

Heresy Corner : Invisible Girl

Fri, 28 Jun 2013 19:18:33 +0000

No, I set that up myself. I don't want any nonsense on here. Subjectively, the law may be an ass. Objectively, it exists for a good reason.

Heresy Corner : Permissive Britain is a fertile recruiting ground for Choudary

Sat, 25 May 2013 18:33:59 +0000

I do actually see some plausibility in this, especially if you interpret "feminised" as meaning "not hyper-masculinised and oppressive of women". I think there is a subgroup of disenfranchised male youth, some of whom get in trouble with the law, who find in Islam's perceived strict gender norms a vindication of their manhood. Note the words of one of the Woolwich killers that "I apologise women had to see this". I detect in this a view of himself as a noble warrior who sees himself as a protector of women etc. But yes, going back to the bad old days is neither a solution nor an option; but rather infinitely worse than the odd exceedingly rare terror attack.

Heresy Corner : Dawkins and the Flying Horse

Thu, 2 May 2013 07:05:49 +0000

That's a shame.

Heresy Corner : Explaining the peace paradox

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:58:38 +0000

It's a long term trend over the centuries, I'd agree with that, but how would you account for the huge rise in recorded violent crime since the Fifties? One possibility, of course, is that most violent incidents simply weren't counted in the crime figures. People has fights, even stabbed each other, and there was also a lot of domestic violence, but the police didn't usually become involved.

Heresy Corner : Explaining the peace paradox

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:52:57 +0000

I quite agree. The homicide rate is very low in this country and hasn't really changed much over the past several decades. That's why I ignored it.

Heresy Corner : Dawkins and the Flying Horse

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:18:24 +0000

Ther are various different interpretations of the moon-splitting story. Collective hallucinations are certainly possible, though - people at Fatima seeing the Sun dance, for example. If people did see the moon apparently split in two at Mohammed's command, though, it was presumably only people in Mecca who saw it. There are no records from China, say, of such a thing occurring at that time?

Heresy Corner : Dawkins and the Flying Horse

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:22:47 +0000

It would certainly be strange if the two of them, for all their differences, shared such a crudely materialist misunderstanding of religious experience, I agree. But given Hasan's latest Tweet, I somewhat doubt it. What I think may be going on is that because of the status of scientific materialism in our culture some religious people have come to share the suspicion that visions and so on are mere delusions, therefore not "real", so that to admit that the Night Journey was a vision would in their minds be tantamount to saying that it was a delusion, that it didn't really happen, or whatever. And perhaps Hasan didn't want to hand Dawkins such an easy apparent victory.

Heresy Corner : Dawkins and the Flying Horse

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:14:33 +0000

Yes, except that I'd be wary, in this particular kind of case, of talking in terms of symbolic or metaphorical truth. It's possible to believe that the Night Journey is literally true, in the only rational (indeed only meaningful) sense that Mohammed had an actual experience of being taken to heaven on a flying horse and meeting the prophets. He might have made it up, of course, but it seems to me more likely that he had a powerful mystical experience that was real to him, and that (for him) was a divine revelation. And if you're a Muslim, which of course I'm not, then you'll believe quite validly that this experience was true, and ordained by God, and conveyed truth and the divine will - specifically in the matter of praying five times a day. But all this has nothing to do with some crude, indeed impossible, notion that it took place in the physical world, with Mohammed sitting on a flesh-and-blood animal. After all, the text says quite plainly that the prophet was "between sleep and wakefulness" when he was visited by the angel, and anyone who knows anything about visionary experiences will recognise the significance of what is called a hypnopompic state.

Heresy Corner : Dawkins and the Flying Horse

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:50:32 +0000

Perhaps ylu could explain that a bit, because I'm struggling with the concept of believing such things "literally". The text clearly describes a visionary experience. Was Mohammed's belly split open by the angel too? Did he have the scars to prove it?

Heresy Corner : Why Thatcher deserves a proper funeral

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:07:47 +0000

Until the Yanks came along with their new-fangled written constitution, making things up as they went along was the norm for most states.

Heresy Corner : Why Thatcher deserves a proper funeral

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 16:02:38 +0000

Historic feat of being first woman prime minister? Would his death make headlines all over the world? We'll see. But yes, in general TB does probably deserve a state funeral.

Heresy Corner : Maggie the moderate

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:08:56 +0000

Thanks for noticing that. But who knows, it may just have been a Freudian slip!

Heresy Corner : Maggie the moderate

Mon, 8 Apr 2013 21:58:51 +0000

I see your friend Morrissey is having a go: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/margaret-tha...

Heresy Corner : City bonuses pay for our schools

Thu, 7 Mar 2013 20:09:35 +0000

I would interpret it as economic rent extracted from the whole world and redistributed to London; so from a local perspective it's extra money.

Heresy Corner : City bonuses pay for our schools

Thu, 7 Mar 2013 07:05:58 +0000

That's true. "Prolonged era of low growth" is better.

Heresy Corner : Nicola Edgington, mental health and the failure of justice

Tue, 5 Mar 2013 09:41:14 +0000

Whoever made that suggestion? I certainly didn't.

Heresy Corner : Nicola Edgington, mental health and the failure of justice

Tue, 5 Mar 2013 07:42:43 +0000

It doesn't matter how transient it was. If she was under its influence when she killed, the conviction for murder is unsound. And if the judge accepted that she was, as he appeared to do, his remarks and sentence are illogical. Of course she needs to be kept from society for a long time. That's a different question.