White is probably the greatest Chef on the planet bar none and it is the Mail hating success, which is the irony I love about that rag. Tories want success and hate people that hate it (the left) but as soon as someone is successful the Mail is at the fore fisting the shit out of them for being crass/rich/ott/rich/popular/rich. Mainly it’s down to a ‘working class’ person becoming rich without being a captain of industry.

http://thorts.wordpress.com/2008/07/20/punishing-knife-carrying-youngsters/

The great scientists, couldn’t agree more with your statement on their motives. However, first you (people) have to allow for the fact they were (Newton more so of the two you mentioned) of an age where a full blown belief was the norm, creationism wasn’t known as that, it was simply belief. Yet I see in their work a search for the underlying reasons for the world and universe around them. To understand how this wonder works at a base level to to see the work of God, to herald the beauty of creation itself. So no matter what they found, or how they explained how it worked (i.e. equations etc) the source was God and their work was a tribute to His greatness.

If you are religious this is the way to do it. I have no argument with people who strive to uncover the truth of how things work for their own reasons, the answer is the answer: this is how gravity works. The cause doesn’t alter this.

What I fear it that we are drifting back to the age before when it was heretical to even want to understand it. It was the work of God and that is that.

I am not a theist, though theology interests me. I actually find some of the older religions such as Hinduism have a slightly more level headed view to it all, but I think that is more to do with the politicisation of the western church for so many centuries.

Quantum fluctuation, well I did have to have a slight refresher here! I looked here for a lowdown if others are interested: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mark_vuletic/vacuum.html

Anyway, I don’t believe the universe was created by a ‘reasoning source’. It came into existance. The actual event that sparked the Bang etc is yet to be completely explained and may never be, but I think the human soul wants to believe in a greater being behind it all, hence religion since man looked a the stars. Much comes from our own ‘awakening’, we are the only creatures on this planet to have intelligent thought (I don’t buy the Dolphin thing, sorry, when they go into space or split the atom we’ll talk!). But grasping that we are, in effect, gods on Earth, in that we can fundamentally alter the planet to our whim (food chain, environment, whole rainforests and species) purely through our own intelligence and force of will, is too much to take in.

We pander for a parental figure to look to - it isn’t just us, it can’t be just us etc.

My view is that we exist, so does everything around us, if we doubt this then it a path to insanity. Whether the universe is real or not is really of no concern to us, we are in it and therefore it is our own reality to perceive.

If we accept that we are who we are then maybe things would improve. What I mean here is that perhaps if we accepted us as the highest form (I don’t mean this arrogantly) then we may realise that everything is in our hands. We have the power to save, to create, to shine a light and discover and explain. You could say that, biblically speaking, we are, in actual fact, still in the Garden of Eden. We are not fully aware at all, we are like children when they realise they can walk and talk and throw and hurt…but we have still to grow up and mature, to understand and leave home.

I have no issue with those that believe in divintiy at all, none whatsoever, but I have an issue with those that wrap themselves in it, they hide from the world, absorb themsleves totally so that they become hateful of others and distrust anything else they are told.

Anyway, that’s enough philosophy for today, feel free to reply though, it’s all very interesting really.

If you are not a Christian, are you still a theist? Do you account for the existence of matter by quantum fluctuation or the like? If you acknowledge that the complex matter of the universe had to have a reasoning source, then you have a starting point for our thoughts being rational and meaningful. But if there is no rational source for our being, then how can we have any confidence that our own thoughts are connected to reality?

You on the other hand seem to think that if he were a socialist then his paper would be run like willy wonka. My understanding is that most papers pay their staff peanuts and then they do keep the profits (well any profit left, most lose a fortune). Business is about profit.

Sorry for the confusion, if you were refering to my comment you should have said so rather than ‘you lot’.

That would be where you called Dimbleby a socialist. Oh, and “socialist” newspaper proprietors who pay their staff peanuts and keep the profits - not socialists.

KB

“Then Dimbleby makes little comments that all add into the BBC filter of Britain being a lefty country, somehow starved of the socialism it needs.”

That is not calling Dimbleby a socialist.

Question Time is viewed across the board as a left leaning show - just like the beeb itself and other programs like Newsnight Review - and Dimbleby has a habit, on this and others, of making snide remarks against peoples comments in a way that he shouldn’t, in that he is meant to be a neutral chair of a political debate show on neutral broadcaster.

You also make an error previously by basically saying that socialist newspaper proprietors don’t run a harsh business.

In fact, out of a whole article about Question TIme and its undoubted bias you have managed to come to the conclusion that John is calling Dimbleby a raving socialist.