DrKrettin

You might object to it, it is objectionable, but the reality is that generally people vote on the most primitive, uninformed and ridiculous criteria. If you are happy with that, then great, and the USA get a manifestly incompetent arsehole as POTUS and we have the present situation in the UK. I see the only alternative is that peoples choice should be restricted to choosing an MP to represent their interests. Parliament stands a much better chance of making the best political decisions, and the people can change their politicians of not satisfied.

But it is precisely because we have a democracy that we got into this mess in the first place. It is, or should be, a representative democracy in which everybody votes for a person the represent them in parliament and make political decisions on their behalf. That kind of democracy makes sense. But the brexit referendum was the expectation that an average person could make an informed decision about something as complex as the EU. This was not realistic, and the net result of a combination of apathy by the youth and misinformation and xenophobia by the older generation gave us this result. So being a democracy is not always a plus, it can also be mob rule.

I've remembered - legs?

Today I learned that the four-tusked elephant was an elephant-like animal with ...... damn I've forgotten.

There was a time when people viewed politicians with some kind of respect. Either these times have gone, or it was a myth and the internet has provided a medium for the insults to be expressed. Teresa May had reduced the number of police, and gave a speech to the Metropolitan police, during which she said it was not the number of police that mattered, but how you employ them. The police were furious. Anyway, the Met Police have an unofficial community forum, and they have just tweeted: Dear Theresa, it's not the number of MPs that counts, it's how you use them.

I'm afraid they are a bunch of extremely primitive and stupid Christian fundamentalists. They (used to) have children's playgrounds closed on Sundays, oppose abortion under any circumstances and are openly opposed to homosexuality as a sin. How can the Tories expect to be able to deal with these morons when, for example, the leader of the Scottish Tories is openly gay? Nothing will be agreed this weekend because these bigots refuse to discuss politics on a Sunday but spend all day in church. On a lighter note, I hear that they will be sending a Conservative and Union Negotiating Team to Brussels, and are looking for a handy acronym for us to remember them.

Unfortunately I fear the DUP are a crowd of ignorant bigoted religious nutters, supporting Trump's denial of global warming, against abortion, etc. etc.

Our Daily Mash has a series of articles which effectively nominate stupidest political acts, namely: My idiot sons could run this country better than you, Queen tells May Jubilant Corbyn celebrates defeat by an idiot Please stay while we savour your humiliation, Britain tells May Brexit to take 250 years and a reference to the Northern Ireland protestant politicians which whom she is making a coalition May hoping for 'constructive relationship' with creationist homophobes who think Pope is Satan

I don't see it quite like that. I see Cameron as a belonging to a highly privileged wealthy minority and he moved into politics because he didn't need to work and he had to do something to get a few kicks. He agreed to a referendum only because he gambled that brexit would not happen. They even had the champagne ready on the night. Being totally divorced from the harsh realities of life in some deprived areas of the country, he along with his chums totally underestimated the grievances people felt (even when unrelated to Europe). So when his little plan fails, he declares he is not putting up with the sh1t and walks out of politics, leaving the country in a political mess. I think the man is a disgrace, and I say this as someone who has never voted for Labour.

That works until your phone rings whilst doing it.

Which is the essence of my quotation from Goethe on page 1 of this thread.

That's fair enough, but if you are a rational atheist or sceptic and are trying to understand the world and our own species in particular, you have to try to come to terms with the fact that huge numbers of people are fundamentally irrational, and a religious belief is the largest manifestation of it. This means that an atheist will feel himself marginalized, and will feel at a loss realising that he doesn't actually know what makes most of his species tick.

I don't. I think the vast majority just ignore it. The minority who discuss it on internet forums are those who are genuinely baffled by how this form of ignorance can affect so many lives in so many ways.

How do they claim it to be beneficial? Sounds bloody frustrating to me. Anyway, what do they mean by energy, and if you lose it, what difference does it make if somebody else benefits from it? (can't think how, nor do I want to).

I think the modern view is that there is no such thing as objective history, and that even the primary sources are biased when written. We then get into the mysterious region of historiography.

Since when was history a science?

Hope for what? Hope of something better than a crap life on Earth? Would it not be more constructive to embrace life and accept reality?

I find it very sad that something has to have an application for it to be of value.

If you have the good luck to have a hen go broody, try getting her to hatch out some duck eggs, as I did once. Poor thing thinks she's got half a dozen chicks when they hatch, and proudly marches them off on foraging expeditions. That works until she walks past the pond, and she goes totally berserk when the "chicks" all go for a swim. It's the funniest ever farmyard scene.

No, I don't think humanity will ever drop superstition, because they won't have the kind of vision that Goethe had. Some will, but it requires a level of education and study as well as intelligence. Our species has a long way to go for an enlightenment - the fact that the USA can vote for an ignorant arsehole as their leader shows just how far.

Does a goat have any frontal lobes?

I don't think so - that subjunctive in line four has the meaning "let him have religion" (because he has nothing else). That's how I understand it, anyway.

He is a greater figure in German literature than Shakespeare is in English. Born 1749, I guess he wrote this around 1800. Certainly not the Dark Ages, but a time when it was very courageous to suggest that religion was unnecessary. It seemed appropriate for this thread.

Your translation fails totally, because you did not spot the subjunctive "habe" in the fourth line, which is the whole point. I thought the quotation was obvious - that anybody who has science and art has no need for religion. If you don't have these, then you might as well take up religion. And do you really have to ask when Goethe lived?

And this joke doesn't work, because he has to be a fun guss in the singular.