Margin4Error – I agree that religion shouldn’t be confused with conscience, otherwise we ought also to discuss the religious doctrine of those MPs whose faith-based conclusions we happen to agree with.

Much of the problem of debate as a format for political progress is the difficulty in trying to fathom a unifying basis for agreeing or disagreeing with any specific proposal, in order that the process which is designed to tease out improvements does so, rather than simply defining and reinforcing camps of opposition.

I guess I think that like people of other religions it makes so little difference to their politics that they never ‘declare’ it one way or another because it doesn’t really come up.

I imagine it makes some difference to who they are – but it is a defining aspect to their politics for so few (Robin Cook springs to mind) that declaring a belief that there is no god seems irrelevant.

I may be wrong of course.

Fair enough, I hope you are right.

It may be that I am confusing the amount of media attention that is given to the words of religious representatives, the easy access that they seem to have to the corridors of power and the general difficulty most politicians seem to have with declaring an atheist sensibility are just overegging it a bit…..

I don’t think we do get hung up on tiny minorities in UK politics.

This article is hung up on those tiny minorities – but those four or five MPs that make up the subject of the blog are massively outweighed by hundreds of MPs of whatever religion they have and who think stem cell research is a good thing.

It is rare in UK politics that an issue even has a religious element to it. Religion has been largely sidelined and has little say in any significant policy area.

Occasional matters of ethics cause a minor stir like this one – but the legislation still tends to pass, and the interest here is only because a couple of ministers were among the tiny minority this time.

you might want to re-read my point about east and west african descended athletes. I thought I was quite clear I was talking about those descended from east and west africa, rather than only those who grew up there.

But anyway – you seem to have come round to my “its culture not nature” position on sport – so thats cool.

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if everything is genetics and all genetic science is decided between conception and implantation, then aren’t you arguing in favour of pre-determination?

Is science a religion now? If so, then Hugh Laurie must be God!

It is strange then, is it not, that the beautiful game nowadays takes such care to regulate the diet of footballers with an almost religious zeal?

I thought it was a given that a crap diet could cause defects; bandy legs, rickets, extreme fatness and the like? If you know otherwise, please share. It would be far better that we had an informed discussion, rather than a spat.

The consequence of this is that extreme voices are repeated in order to create contrast to the exclusion of any acceptable moderates or reasonable voices, which ultimately leads to dissatisfaction with the process and disillusion with any individuals involved.

The by-product for the audience is the tendency to create stereotypes of the organisation associated with the representative quoted on their behalf – which is why it is so important that contexts are clearly understood and we each accept our obligations to avoid pettiness and triviality.

It’s a question of trust.

But hey, that’s politics!

Anyway, I think it is helpful to quote seneca the younger at this point:
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.”

It always gets my goat to read polarised arguments, be it smart/stupid or whatever, as this always fails to grasp concepts beyond any conventional understanding based upon a category mistake, because that there is more to it than is being described. Even where Seneca is concerned on this point ‘common’, ‘wise’ and ‘a ruler’ aren’t completely incompatible – although a precise combination leads one to draw conclusions, as with the case of Tony Blair!

There is also some evidence to say that bad diet during periods of childhood or adolescence is at least partly responsible for propensity towards one longer term physical condition or another, although what I understood was that this is hard to seperate from genetic predispositions, and may even be responsible for minor genetic mutations during those critical phases, but it’s complicated stuff and is hardly conclusive.

Your just denying science. It’s all genetics baby.

With the following, fairly obvious caveats.

So caveats first then?

1: You have to care. If the Japanese keep caring, they could get better. If they surrender to something stupid like baseball, then they won’t become part of the true planet.

2. Don’t know that size matters exactly. And I don’t think every Japanese is short.

3. This is all theoretical, as Scotland are about to win the next World Cup.

Alternative points of view:

Franz Beckenbaur, who was only probably the second best attacking centre back in the histrory of football, was not, as far as I know, noted for his ‘high twitch fibres’ whatever they are. Neither was the best. Smooth stuff matters too. And the ability to jump over an otherwise, crippling tackle.

Ho hum, ’tis a beautiful and misunderstood game, perhaps both by you and me?

No Cricket does not have much athletic bearing and is why white people can actually compete. Look at the track events. Why are Kenyans better at long distance running? Because it’s there national sport? I bet the field events are rarely even shown to African children and when they actually are they’ll own those to. Of course there will obviously be a minority of other genetic heritages competing as that is only natural but every sport.

The more tactics, strategy and reaction time involved the more even the playing field becomes.

High twitch fibres any-one? Now I really am off.

Besides the point.

The minorities thing is all to do with the media. Constant news cycles searching for stories out of nothing if all else fails.

Don’t really get what the rest of your post is on about. Anyway I’m off to pick up.

Neither of you have answered my substantive point that, in the UK at least, Church attendance hovers around the 10% mark. I’d actually like an answer as to why politics in the UK is hung up on the opinions of small minorities within small minorities.

I’d have thought it was bloody obvious that if a game is your national sport, then you’d tend to be quite good at it. IIRC the Hungarians are dead keen on pentathalon, and keep winning medals at it.

Doh!

Japan used to be pretty shit at football, but they aren’t anymore. Might have something to do with taking an interest? The only true international mass participation sport – apart from soccer -is probably golf, and it throws up winners from all around the world.

And even I can see a huge difference between the followers of Martin Luther King and those of Gerry Falwell. I’d say there was a big a difference between those two and most atheists.

I don’t how how racism came into this but hey.

Last point don’t forget the roles of the Marxist/Communists in the civil rights battle.

Good day.

1 – so if a nuclear family is more likely to go to uni – does that explain why religious people are more likely to go to uni? (are they are more likely to grow up in nuclear families?)

2 – What does past or present racism have to do with religion? Britain grew rich off the slave trade and the industrial revolution was born of protestantism. Germany undertook the holocaust. yet neither is particularly religious now, nor puts any particular premium on religious adherance. Meanwhile Russia has a long history of skepticism towards religion and yet is one of the most racist countries on earth today. (ps – was Australia created by very religious people? Its history is surely more dominated by notions of colonial trade and of course the convicts sent there in large numbers.)

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I fear you are perhaps confusing a range of prejudices about religious people and imagining that they constitute evidence.

For example – I understand that in the USA some religious firebrands tend also to have supported racism over the years. This leads to a handy northern stereotype of southerners. But it was also the religious that led the civil rights movement in the USA, something that is often glossed over by a flippant understanding of american history and society.

Are you suggesting less natural muscle mass results in lower stamina? That seems to run contrary to evidence that athletes of East African descent dominate long distance running while those of West African descent dominate sprint running. (note not East and West Africans – but athletes descended from East and West Africa, even where they were born and grew up in North America, Europe and elsewhere).

Likewise – I can’t help but note a flaw in your understanding of Cricket. The three best national teams of my lifetime have come The West Indies, Australia, and India. Genetically those are very different populations represented.

At the same time Football in Africa is dominated not by a west African nation, but by egypt, which has won four ANCs. And elsewhere predominantly white nations like Germany and Italy have won World Cups in equal measure to Brazil (better than equal measure when population size is accounted for).

is it not more evidence based to note that India, like Australia and the West Indies, had cricket spread across its culture by the British Empire – and thus it is a cultural issue not a biological one?

Doesn’t mean India could never have a World Cup winning football team (there is 1 billion people) but the sports played are far less stamina base.

What I was trying to get at before is that with a nuclear family the child will be far more likely to go to tertiary education. Also in Australia and America it is beneficial (socially positive) to say your Christian. Both countries are somewhat racist (or at least have race issues spanning a long time which have never been addressed), and both were made by very religious people (not the founding fathers but afterwards).

I’m never that worried about causing offense when the evidence is plain to see. There are genetic differences Indians have higher risks of heart disease and cannot digest wheat products properly, Oriental people have a harder time with alcohol. No-one is better then any other but there ARE differences.

There is no biological reason why India is good at cricket and Brazil is good at football – its just that young athletes in india are socially pressed towards cricket while young athletes in brazil are pressed towards football.

Thus you can make the same point about social influence without racial offence.

I dare say social factors have some impact here – both on educational attainment and on religiousity. Bought up by two atheists I was always likely to be atheist too – and education follows a similar route across society as a whole. (kids whose parents have a degree are more likely to go to uni than kids of parents who don’t have one)

So are you saying religious people have better education because religious people have a better family setup? And if so – does that not somewhat validate that Kate’s “And remember the more education, the more likely you are to be an atheist” comment was not true? (as a couple of argued.