Campion

Yes quite so, the middle east has always been a strategically important area on profitable trade routes so it's not surprising it has been fought over for the whole of recorded history. The crusades can't be picked out as any worse. Well in practical terms many of us were brought up from childhood to believe in God as the boss of the universe which perhaps makes sense as a means of educating children with a sense of self-discipline and morality although it's got obvious drawbacks. But imo it's a very basic type of theology that's not suitable for everyone and anyone who wants to question things will soon develop a more nuanced position.

Leaving aside the self-reference of whether or not such a God would control himself, or if not, where his thoughts come from. If such a God does exist he would be completely controlling my mind and I can't claim to be a separate individual with my own free will which I could use to investigate questions like this and decide what I believe to be true. So I have an epistemological problem with the issue, as with the free will question. It's only worth trying to answer it by making a working assumption that I have free will and independent thought.

That poster in the X-Files on Mulder's wall comes to mind, 'I want to believe'. I can feel a proverb coming on, something like - if you're a believer, watch out for the deceivers!

Maybe Mr H, it's come back down to the long-term price now. Where do you buy gas futures, a specialist broker?

I've just started looking into Druidry, so this is very much my initial impressions. But most orders operate with a three level of training, the first stage is the Bardic stage which is about expressing our creative side. Bards are the storytellers, singers, poets and artists of the tribe but nowadays this seems to be taken more widely as creativity in general. They have rituals to receive the Awen, which is a Welsh name for the artistic muse and inspiration although I haven't started down this path yet. Maybe the spiritual (and artistic) work helps to relax the linear logical thinking mind and opening up space for the subconscious to emerge, the emotional to express itself.

Yes, I won't eat a meat curry unless I'm sure it's not halal. Which is hard to do, often it's not labelled or just labelled with that arabic word for halal.

What's so occult about slitting animals' throats, isn't that how mainstream religions do ritual slaughter instead of stunning them? The only difference here is that the animal isn't eaten, and ofc it's done without permission.

Now Monty Don has given in to the politically correct mob. Apparently the Chelsea flower show is too white and middle aged. https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/22485247/gardeners-world-monty-don-complaint-chelsea-flower-show/ I was kind of expecting Gardeners World to go woke, now there's very little left of our national icons to bother tuning into the beeb for. What's next, Antiques Roadshow? Last one out turn off the lights.

What's a rugpull? Is it like a boiler room pump and dump scheme?

The Japs need to do something to deal with their fertility rate (like many of us), currently on 1.4 when the break- even level is 2.1. This doesn't sound as much fun conceiving the natural way, but this way avoids women being pregnant. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_total_fertility_rate

In our recent local elections the turnout was about 25% in my area, yet the politicians still get the same amount of power. I wonder what would be the turnout if we had referendums for the big decisions instead of leaving the politicians to get on with it and do whatever they want.

I went to a 10 day meditation retreat that had no speaking & touching too. After about a week of being very serious someone started giggling and we all couldn't help ourselves laughing at the absurdity of it all. It was like a sober high . And I had an out of body experience too, it was an amazing time. My life is too full up of other stuff with family and work to do it now.

All part of the plan to keep us locked up in a containerised system where the easy choices are designed from the top down and wealth flows upwards. If you don't vote for their choices they still win. Especially in high density population areas like western Europe where there isn't much free space to go off grid.

I guess buying a home is better if you're wanting to settle down and build a long-term nest so it depends on where you are in your life plan. Not to mention that over the lifetime of boomers and gen-x houses worked well as a geared investment because house prices have risen much faster than the interest rates they've paid. No doubt that's why they're now forced to sell up to pay for care in many cases. How long do young people take out mortgages for nowadays? It used to be 25 years which sounds a long time when you're young but I think this kind of long-term financial planning is well worth it. Take pensions as another example, you need to save into them even longer 40+ years to have a decent retirement. I have friends who buy-to-let properties instead of having a standard pension and it seems to work for them. However perhaps the horse has bolted for all that now as property prices have spiralled so far ahead of the rest of the economy, and the smart money will look elsewhere for easy profit.

Yup, definitely, tho it's better than paying rent your whole life imo. And I think it's also a symptom of the collapse of our once close-knit and cohesive family and tribal structure, into this corporate-marxist run prison camp which we call modern society. Asians still have some of that cohesion when they lend money within the family for buying property and starting small businesses, and keep the wealth themselves. Tho perhaps the corporate-marxists are chipping away at them too these days.