When did we last execute someone for heresy? (To save your the trouble, it was 1697.)

Glad to see you take it as sign of civilisation to not execute people for heresy.

We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. [Orwell]

Out of pure morbid curiosity, I looked it up, and based on the indictment, a lot of HOL posters are lucky things have changed:

That ... the prisoner had repeatedly maintained, in conversation, that theology was a rhapsody of ill-invented nonsense, patched up partly of the moral doctrines of philosophers, and partly of poetical fictions and extravagant chimeras: That he ridiculed the holy scriptures, calling the Old Testament Ezra's fables, in profane allusion to Esop's Fables; That he railed on Christ, saying, he had learned magick in Egypt, which enabled him to perform those pranks which were called miracles: That he called the New Testament the history of the imposter Christ; That he said Moses was the better artist and the better politician; and he preferred Muhammad to Christ: That the Holy Scriptures were stuffed with such madness, nonsense, and contradictions, that he admired the stupidity of the world in being so long deluded by them: That he rejected the mystery of the Trinity as unworthy of refutation; and scoffed at the incarnation of Christ.

In other IOUSA news........

The total commercial bankruptcy filings in 2016 jumped 26% from a year earlier (American Bankruptcy Institute). This is the first rise since 2010 and shows no sign of improving anytime soon.
This is on top of the downward trend in property prices/sales, new car sales and the rise in car payment defaults amongst other things.

Good luck Donald. You're gonna need it.

Buy Litecoin.

Pretty much when religion was beginning to fade as a major influence on politics. Moving away from concepts of theocracy makes a big difference. The rise of Islamist movements in the middle east has largely been driven by political agendas, and the failure of political solutions to regional political issues between states and the public.

If you look back at the 60s and 70s, most of the 'terrorism' associated with the middle east was political, and left wing. The 80s began to see the rise of Islamist movements, following the success of the Iranian Revolution and the rising power of Saud and Kuwait (particually as an opposition to Baathists and pan-Arabic movements).

Israel funded, covertly, Hamas, because it undermined the PLO and Fatah. Similarly, Islamist movements found support in Saudi and the like, because they were not leftist, and less oppositional to the states.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

I agree with Kermit... you can only use China's President Xi in comparison as Bercow was not Speaker for the other visitors.

However.....

Bercow is supposed to be politically impartial and has no right to stick his oar in now, particularly as he sat on his hands and said nothing about President Xi - with China's human rights history FFS!

Hope this will be the final straw for Bercow and he is forced to resign.

He was not representing the majority of the Commons when he made his outburst far from it, nor the majority of the UK population... last time I looked only 1.8 Million had signed the Ban Trump petition, which is roughly 3% of the population.

People would petition against their own arses if you gave them a chance. It means nothing.

I always think of all those numbskulls marching for CND.
Well meaning but clueless.

Edited by Hrolf The Ganger (07 Feb 2017 12.49pm)