"the trainers allow wearers to 'walk on water' "
I think the best remark on that has already been made. Go here and skip to the 3:42 mark to have a laugh.
No ghosts but the Holy one as vicar exorcises spooky tour from UK's most haunted village
A vicar has said there's no room for ghosts in the UK's "most haunted village" of Prestbury, Gloucestershire – unless it's one of the Holy variety. Spooky tales of the "Black Abbot" and a "spectral horseman" have made the locale ripe for macabre attractions, and Mark James had run one under the name Cotswold Ghost Tours for …
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Saturday 12th October 2019 03:12 GMT jake
Re: I find it best just to ignore them
There is no harm, but the constant re-quoting of Python and HHGTTG (and etc.) without adding content is way past boring. We've all heard 'em all already. Enough.
AC downvoted anyway. Curses are nonsensical inventions of diseased minds.
(No, I'm not the AC, I always post under this handle... unless one of the cats manages to "help" and I don't notice the tick mark ... in which case, I always post a follow-up claiming the post, kitty typoes and all.)
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Monday 14th October 2019 08:56 GMT Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse
Half a dinari for my whole life story???!!!
You've come to the wrong place if you want originality brother. So let us praise Jehovah, a fine halibut and stick-on ginger beard that you are not the arbiter of "what" gets posted onto the hallowed forums by the El Reg faithful... and I should know, because I've followed a few.
I'm pretty sure we're all more than happy with the Python and HTTG regurgitations and I'm sure we'll be posting them long into the future... and amen to that.
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Friday 11th October 2019 19:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
" Also he's responsible for Easter eggs and Christmas presents."
Hmm - both are coincidental with pre-Christian seasonal celebrations of the Spring Equinox and Winter Solstice. That the Spring festival of the rebirth of nature is named after the goddess Ēostre is a clue. Even the biblical references to the birth of Jesus Christ place it in about July - except that the Roman census apparently didn't happen.
All in all you have a good example of how to do a PR makeover of an existing fact - and then claim it as your own invention.
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Monday 14th October 2019 10:04 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Anon,
Christmas was obviously picked by the church for maximum impact. They had to put it somewhere. Although I don't think the bible has any kind of mention of timescale - apart from the census bit.
But Easter is a bit different. As the timing of that is related to the Jewish Passover festival.
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Monday 14th October 2019 10:28 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Christmas was obviously picked by the church for maximum impact
It's all part of the cultural assimilation done by the mid-period church (much like the concept of the Trinity, the idea of an immortal soul and a literal devil - all imports from pagan religions).
The process goes like this:
1. Send missionaries into an area and convert the rulers.
2. Once the rulers are converts, don't make them give up their usual festivals but re-brand them.
3. Over time the origianl source gets muddled and people forget.
s the timing of that is related to the Jewish Passover festival
That's because Jesus died at Pesach.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 21:06 GMT jake
Not that kind of orgy, silly!
It was the kind of orgy where the priests got drunk for several days or so, until they were so out of it they'd happily castrate themselves. For some reason, the Catholics decided that completely emulating the ancient Mysteries wasn't all that necessary to sucker the rubes, so they just made their priests celibate instead ... and we all know how that worked out, don't we?
This very condensed bit of history brought to you by the letter þ and the number V.
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Monday 14th October 2019 10:54 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: Not that kind of orgy, silly!
so they just made their priests celibate instead
No - that comes from a very different idea (the Church is the Bride of Christ so 'priests' can't be married to anyone else).
One of the many departures from 1st Century Christianity that the Catholic church is responsible for (the 10th Century Celtic church had no such rule but they eventually got borged by the church of Rome..)
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Monday 14th October 2019 13:42 GMT Teiwaz
here in Scotland it also coincides with the older festival of Beltane,
Sorry, neither Easter nor Midwinter coincides with Beltane, which is halfway between Spring Equinox and Midsummer (and usually calendarily celebrated in or around 1st May*).
But, yes, Beltane is a Fire Festival, fire doesn't necessarily mean winter, the Japanese prefer their fireworks for summer, not later autumn for example.
* Do the conservatives still want to abolish Mayday for it's acquired socialist associations and replace it with something tacky, empty and artificial like Trafalger Day???
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Monday 14th October 2019 17:11 GMT Danny 2
From Calvary Hill to Corporate Calton
Leith folk used to go up Calton Hill and light a bonfire on Beltane. Now we can't get in because Edinburgh artsy fartsy tossers put fences around it and charge an entrance fee to watch them dance a pseudo pagan event on what is nominally common land. Part of the corporate disneyfication of the tourist tat town.
It's an apt mention in the context of Jesus gutties, maybe not as you intended though.
Ghosts are real - but not immortal, they die with living memory.
- Reverend Dan, Universal Life Church
[
Yosser - I'm desperate, Father
Priest - My son, call me Dan
Yosser - I'm desperate Dan
]
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Monday 14th October 2019 10:23 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Also he's responsible for Easter eggs and Christmas presents
Errr.. no and no.
(While I'm pretty sure that your comments were firmly in the tongue-in-cheek territory, both those festival trappings that you mention are pagan.. especially as Jesus was most probably born in 3BC and around April..)
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Friday 11th October 2019 19:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: @jake - And after you've spent your $3,000 ...
"[...] stupid is not the one who asks the price but the one who pays."
"nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people"
Attributed to H.L. Mencken, "Notes on Journalism", Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1926
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Saturday 12th October 2019 08:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Mencken's a great source of pith.
"In this case, someone else edged him:"
Whilst the "Barnum" quote suggests there is a continual supply of gullible marks for conmen - the "Mencken" one casts the aspersion to cover a much wider base.
Thus "You can fool all of the people some of the time - and some of the people all of the time - but not all of the people all of the time".
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Sunday 13th October 2019 07:54 GMT Fruit and Nutcase
Re: @jake - And after you've spent your $3,000 ...
an Apple fanboi would not be silly enough to buy a pair of these shoes - For $3000, they can buy 3 monitor stands and have $3 left over.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/06/03/apple_wwdc_macpro_itunes/
Looks like a booing audience at the announcement has fallen foul of copyright law and the video is no longer available
"Video unavailable
This video contains content from Apple, who has blocked it on copyright grounds."
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Sunday 13th October 2019 07:40 GMT Fruit and Nutcase
Re: And after you've spent your $3,000 ...
buy a pair of flip-flops for £335!
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/shortcuts/2019/sep/03/pass-notes-hermes-flip-flops
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Sunday 13th October 2019 08:10 GMT jake
Re: As for ghosts (holy or otherwise) ...
"Ghosts are real - people see them all the time."
Are you offering to show me one? Or are you just telling me they exist?
"I suspect what you really are asking for is proof that the phenomenon of ghosts is caused by an afterlife rather than some trick of the mind."
You suspect wrong.
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Sunday 13th October 2019 17:34 GMT Fruit and Nutcase
Re: As for ghosts (holy or otherwise) ...
If you go down to the
woodscoast today...you may run into the Holy Ghost (along with the Father and Son);
"And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died
And they were singing
Bye, bye Miss American Pie"
With thanks to Don McLean
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Monday 14th October 2019 11:38 GMT Fruit and Nutcase
Re: As for ghosts (holy or otherwise) ...
Network SouthEast??? That was pre-privatisation BR!!!
http://www.projectmapping.co.uk/Reviews/Resources/NSE%20Slatter%201992.jpg
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Monday 14th October 2019 04:01 GMT jake
Re: As for ghosts (holy or otherwise) ...
Again, are you offering to show me one, or are you simply telling me they exist? Also, I invite you to re-read my first comment in this thread.
No, go ogle is not my friend. I never feel the need to go ogle anything.
We don't need no stinkin' IT angle ... this is bootnotes. New here?
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Monday 14th October 2019 11:15 GMT CrazyOldCatMan
Re: As for ghosts (holy or otherwise) ...
Ghosts are real - people see them all the time
So are UFOs real then? Cos people see those all the time too..
There is large prize that's been outstanding for many, many years that will be given to someone that can conclusively prove that ghosts exist. It has yet to be claimed.
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Friday 11th October 2019 17:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Ghost tours
Of course, some people believe that ghosts are simply projections from parallel Universes existing in different time frames, caused by a combination of proximity of branes in M-space and nearby gravitational fields along with electromagnetic resonances. Also for some reason gravity alone won't work but there is a tenuous link between ionizing radiation and strange events due to radon and other decay products.
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Friday 11th October 2019 17:45 GMT Dinsdale247
Sweet Kicks
As a practicing (rather orthodox) Catholic I see nothing wrong with the shoes themselves. The miss-appropriation of the Papal Seal may be an issue. While some may claim that "walking on water" could be blasphemous, I will point out there is water in the sole (soul?) of the shoe so the wearer is literally walking on water.
I might point out, though, that instead of spending $3000 on shoes, perhaps said purchaser should spend $100 on a pair of shoes and give the rest to charity. It would be a more appropriate action for someone in love with the Lord.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 09:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Sweet Kicks
"[...] perhaps said purchaser should spend $100 on a pair of shoes and give the rest to charity."
In Germany the State collects a religion tax from Catholics - which is then given to the Church. Wouldn't it be nice if the tax was given to a people's charity instead?
In the UK religions are allowed to be registered as charities. Thus enabling their congregations to avoid paying income tax on their dues and donations to the religious organisation. The State could have used the avoided tax to help fund necessary services for people in need.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 13:28 GMT Claverhouse
Re: Sweet Kicks
In Germany the State collects a religion tax from Catholics - which is then given to the Church. Wouldn't it be nice if the tax was given to a people's charity instead?
THE PEEPLE'S CHARITY !
Obviously administered by a Blairite-type-independent-agency-thing run almost entirely by the sort of short-haired women who become pious New Labourite/Thatcherite MPs, with a remit not to waste the money on the actual poor, who must be compelled to help themselves; but instead to stop people smoking; or otherwise having fun.
And Jimmy Wales.
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Monday 20th July 2020 11:16 GMT onemark03
Church Tax in Germany
In fact a religious tax is collected from all church members (RC's, Lutherans and a few other "official" religions, including some Jewish and Moslem religions). It is collected by the German inland revenue authorities on behalf of these "official" religions.
The tax is 9% of what you pay in income tax (8% in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg) and is mostly used by the religions to fund social welfare and educational activities. There are a few other uses that I can't recall at the moment. NB: It is not a tithe in the strict sense of the word.
You can get out of the religious tax by filling in a form at your local town hall but that also means that you're leaving the religion, which means you're not eligible for a religious funeral, for example. (Some clergy are flexible on this, however.)
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax
and scroll down to "Germany".
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Monday 14th October 2019 10:28 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Sweet Kicks
Apparently Pope John Paul II had special pairs of White DM's made or him.
Steel toe-caps included? For giving heretics a good kicking.
I remember reading about a slightly embarassing conversation when they ordered the Popemobiles - after John Paul II got shot. So they obviously went to an armoured limo company - and got their special bulletproof standy-uppy-wavy bit bolted on. Then the company asked the Vatican if they wanted gun-ports included - so the Swiss Guard could fire back into the crowd...
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Friday 11th October 2019 18:49 GMT Anonymous Coward
G K Chesterton
Chesterton pointed out that if you were a good Catholic you did not believe in ghosts -because in Catholic doctrine all the souls of the dead are in Heaven, Hell or Purgatory and so not available to wander around on Earth. In the same essay he pointed out, very correctly in my view, that the problem with unbelief is that when people drop their religion they do not stop believing in anything, they start believing in everything. Hence, though somewhat after his time, vaginal eggs and tinfoil hats.
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Friday 11th October 2019 19:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: G K Chesterton
"Chesterton pointed out that if you were a good Catholic "
I thought the Popes tell us that all Catholics are sinners in need of redemption? The dogma generates plenty of "sins" for the faithful to commit and be shamed into a confession. I would think the word "obedient" would better suit the hierarchical power structure of the Church. On second thoughts that is also true of just about any of the Abrahamic religious organisations - and probably others too when allied to a political ruling elite
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Monday 14th October 2019 15:41 GMT jmch
Re: G K Chesterton
"...all Catholics are sinners in need of redemption? The dogma generates plenty of "sins" for the faithful to commit..."
Coming to think of it, this is no different to lay governments having masses of obscure laws to ensure that everyone is unknowingly breaking some sort of law, that can then be used as leverage
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Friday 11th October 2019 19:51 GMT veti
Re: G K Chesterton
according to the disposition of divine providence, separated souls sometimes come forth from their abode and appear to men . . . It is also credible that this may occur sometimes to the damned, and that for man’s instruction and intimidation they be permitted to appear to the living.
- St Thomas Aquinas.The Bible itself gives us stories of ghosts (2 Macc 15:11-17, Matt 17:1-9). Human logic is not proof against divine providence.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 08:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: G K Chesterton
Wasn't St T the origin for many of the "witch hunts" back in the day?
Seems that quite a lot of the time they were innocent, and as the Vatican records are sealed until (IIRC) 2110 we may never know.
Also relevant: it was said that you can tell someone's religious or other beliefs from the mark on (usually) the top of their stone. Often Freemasons had a combination of the set square and protractor or some other symbol, and other denominations use a specific combination unique to them. Also an anchor symbol usually means they either were lost at sea or lived a lot of their life there.
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Sunday 13th October 2019 23:46 GMT veti
Re: G K Chesterton
He was a great advocate of papal and church authority, which later came to be used as a strong pillar of the war against heretics of all kinds - Protestants, witches, you name it. But I think it's a bit harsh to tax him with everything that was done with his writings two centuries later. That's like blaming Napoleon for Brexit.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 07:57 GMT Rich 11
Re: G K Chesterton
in Catholic doctrine all the souls of the dead are in Heaven, Hell or Purgatory
What about Limbo? The Church had to invent this to cover a gap in their theology, and GK Chesterton was certainly speaking in the time before Limbo became a rejected hypothesis more in line with a modern interpretation of theology.
he pointed out, very correctly in my view, that the problem with unbelief is that when people drop their religion they do not stop believing in anything, they start believing in everything
Please tell me what equivalent nonsense I started believing in once I got rid of my god belief. Yes, you will get some people who will pick up beliefs in nonsense after leaving religion, but equally you have people in a religion who will also believe in that same nonsense (jade fanny eggs, ghosts or otherwise). Chesterton was an apologist attempting to blacken unbelievers with this remark; it makes no logical sense and I tend to think that the people who think it's an accurate observation have usually either not given it any actual thought or have their mind clouded by their religious position.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 08:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: G K Chesterton
Ooh, ooh, what snark.
I am by the way an atheist who once studied psychology and sociology of religion.
I think if you look around society you will see that while educated people may well reject supernatural religion, for the majority an awful lot of guff comes in to fill the void. Among examples I would cite:
Superhero comics and films
The "wellness" industry
Psychoanalysis (not, of course, psychiatry or psychology)
Fantasy in general
Homeopathy
I agree that Chesterton was extremely biased in general (I consider him unreadable nowadays and he was much too influenced by that ghastly anti-Semite Belloc), but I consider that there is truth in his observation. All religions too tend to descend into superstition - the Catholic Church, Buddhism being particular examples - but what the educated believe and what the uneducated believe tend to be very different.
(and for the person who mentioned Aquinas - a pox on him. He did immense harm.)
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Saturday 12th October 2019 09:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: G K Chesterton
"[...] for the majority an awful lot of guff comes in to fill the void. [...]"
Human cultures have probably always had story tellers. The stories were history, educational devices, and attempts to explain phenomena.
Only some of these categories require people to believe they are true. The ability of the human mind to imagine other scenarios - even if apparently impossible - is an exercise in forward thinking and empathy.
A person's level of formal education is largely irrelevant. It is the way of thinking that their society and learning system imbues that inclines someone to hold particular beliefs as being true. This is particularly so when their social well-being in a community depends on paying at least lip service to particular shibboleths. The human mind is adept at deluding itself beyond reason - especially when their ingrained group identity is at stake.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 22:27 GMT Rich 11
Re: G K Chesterton
Do you actually believe that some people believe in superheroes the same way that some people believe in Jesus? I'd think that someone who'd studied the psychology of religion would have a better grasp of what the word belief means.
Maybe your confusion explains why you agree with Chesterton's claim, seeing it even in your own educated self.
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Monday 14th October 2019 09:02 GMT Mooseman
Re: G K Chesterton
" when people drop their religion they do not stop believing in anything, they start believing in everything"
A thought I have often echoed. There seems to be a need in some people to believe in "something" that is running their lives, be it a bloke with a beard in the sky or some nebulous "them" who secretly run everything.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 13:31 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: My imaginary friend is better than your imaginary friend
That reminds me of the old joke about a Catholic priest, a Protestant vicar and a Jewish rabbi out for a round of gold and discussing the their congregations contributions and how much goes to God. The Catholic says he draws a circle on the ground, throws the money up in the air and whatever lands in the circle goes to God. The Protestant says he does the say, but whatever lands outside the circle goes to God. The Rabbi says, "I don't bother to draw the circle. I throw the money in the air and what God wants, he catches.
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Thursday 17th October 2019 09:32 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: My imaginary friend is better than your imaginary friend
The rabbi joke you mention was used on "Short Circuit" to hilarious effect.
Incidentally, I once asked some folks whether a self aware machine should have rights. The problem is how do you define self awareness, would the machine asking for the rights to be granted be sufficient proof?
"The Measure of a Man" comes to mind here.
Not sure on exactly how much advancement would be needed for such a monumental step but it looks like the original estimate of sometime in 2036 is way off. The problem isn't so much hardware as power usage over time, 4 Titan X's running on a Core i9 based mining board with custom firmware may be enough for certain subsets if the more complex tasks are ported to a few Movidius (tm) sticks.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 06:04 GMT MachDiamond
A down payment
$3,000 would go a long way to the down payment on a new (used) car. It would also put a big dent in what's left of my mortgage. I could cover my roof in solar panels (sans the permits and city fees) and not pay for much electricity going forward. I could spend a couple of weeks in Prague with a room right on Wenceslas Square and fill up every memory card I have for my camera several times over.
$3,000 for a pair of shoes? Not bloody likely.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 20:54 GMT MachDiamond
Re: cover my roof in solar panels
There's a couple of places not too far away that get scratch and dent panels from commercial installations. All tested and you can pick and choose. Some have busted glass but work fine otherwise and aren't hard to fix. They run about 50p/watt. If you want new, yeah, you'll pay much more. If you want them tomorrow, you have to pay full price. If you have time and assemble a system as and when good deals come along, you can save a boatload.
I'm hoping to flog off some stuff on eBay and buy 3-4 panels as soon as I can for winter. I put together a MPPT circuit to dump power into a oil-filled room heater at the best efficiency. That should mean around 800W of heat for a good portion of the day. In the summer I'll rig up something to power my evaporative cooler from solar (about 400W or so).
I have some more exotic plans for heat storage that I'm messing with. You can store a whole bunch of heat with low-melt alloy metals and extract it with the heater core or two from a junk car.
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Saturday 12th October 2019 09:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Ghost stories
"I'm saddened to see the church used to promote nonsense to children, [...]"
It is the dogma and proscriptions that are often dangerous to the well-being of children as they grow. They are expected to have a tribal loyalty to their hierarchical authorities' dictates that adversely affect their health and social interactions.
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Tuesday 15th October 2019 07:55 GMT jmch
Re: Ghost stories
"They are expected to have a tribal loyalty to their hierarchical authorities' dictates"
Which is no different from the school system, which in turn is (partly by design) set up to churn out obedient citizens. I encourage my children to be independent, go their own way, and to be aware that authority figures aren't always right, even while treating them with respect.
Of course having independent-minded kids sometimes comes to bite you in the ass as a parent, but you can't have it both ways... if you want kids to be totally obedient to you as a parent, that's instilling a mindset of total obedience to parents, authorities etc...
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Monday 14th October 2019 03:59 GMT jake
I had A Pair of Jesus Boots once. Somehow it was included in a box of books that I shipped back to California after a stint in Yorkshire in the mid 1970s. Not sure where it came from, it was definitely not my kind of fiction. After reading it, I donated it to the Mitchell Park Library in Palo Alto. It was probably pulled from the shelves decades ago as "culturally insensitive" ...
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
