The 9th Commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor."

[Jerry_Atrick]

I am no theologian by any stretch of the imagination, so I find ironic I live in an Old Rectory where rectors past of the village church lived. In my case, the Church is next door and is Grade I listed (heritage listed with the highest protection).

 

As the church itself has no loo, the local parishoners and church admin decided they wanted to build an outside one (apparently, getting permission for a bolt-on one is a no-no with Grade 1 listed buildings).So, they applied for planning permission and, based on where it was being sited, we did not object.

 

However, we noticed that where they decided to build the loo was not where it was originally sited. In fact, it is a good 5 - 6m away - and now occupies front and centre of the view form out living room window! Personally, I don't think anyone except for the odd dog walker is going to use it, but a wooden shack spoiling the view is not what we envisaged. So, the partner contacted the church committee who insisted the council had approved the move due to soil being too soft where it was originally to be sited.

 

My partner was furious at the council - how could they approve a change in planning without consulting the neighbours? I suggested she look at the council's planning portal as I smelt a rat. And sure enough, there is no change of planning listed. Of course, it may not have been published, so the partner was hot onto the council planning team - and I asked her to ask questions - not accuse.

 

The council planning team claimed they approved no amendments to the planning permission. My partner tool photos for them, and the council were adamant it was a material change to planning and that they had not received any request, however, in case things got lost in in-boxes and the like, they would search.. After acouple of days, my partner receives a call.. Apparently, there were 3 pre-conditions that were requested before the byuilding was erected and none were provided, including an excavation and report - none have been done (we would have noticed) and the vicar insists they have been. However, no reports have been since submitted.

 

In addition, the vicar has apparently claimed to the council the building had only moved only a foot from its original plan! Of course, this is the word of the planning officer - but why would we doubt that?

 

The council is not impressed and has asked work to stop on the outhouse - but it is all but finished... The council may well ask them to take it down and if they want to build one, they can in its original position and subject to the pre-conditions.

 

Now, as I said, I am no theologian, however, it seems Commandment 9 is equivalent to thou shall not lie (https://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2014/12/31/what-is-the-9th-commandment/) ... Seems they don't need to practice what they preach...

 

[facthunter]

Why are you surprised?  They may not be used to being challenged..  Are questions taken after sermons are given?  It's that kind of show,  (in principle)   Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

Agreed..

 

Though, despite the backing of the parish council (sort of a lower-level local council for the village and environs), no doubt we will become the village pariahs despite the shennanigans of others.

Edited April 23, 2021 by Jerry_Atrick

[Bruce Tuncks]

Jerry here is what amazes me...  the population of England still support the aristocracy even when it is now known that they need dunnies just like us common folk.

[spacesailor]

jerry-atrick, I hope your place is not down ' St Johns terrace, ' across the Brook from the church, were l Used to live ?.

spacesailor

[pmccarthy]

Half a stick of gelignite would solve your problem.

[Jerry_Atrick]

40 minutes ago, spacesailor said:

jerry-atrick, I hope your place is not down ' St Johns terrace, ' across the Brook from the church, were l Used to live ?.

spacesailor

Sounds idyllic, so can't be where I live..

1 hour ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

Jerry here is what amazes me...  the population of England still support the aristocracy even when it is now known that they need dunnies just like us common folk.

They support the Queen, but the royals are a different story, I think. Once the queen popps her cloggs, I think there will be a lot of soul searching. Not many like Charlie (although I think he is OK); Of course Andrew and Harry are hated, which leaves Willy. .who is still adored, I think.

 

Personally, I couldn't care too much about them, but Liz actually brings stability to the country... When I was on a MOD project, the military brass here made it very clear their allegiance is to the Crown and not the pollies.

 

Religion here is on the way out. In our village of about 240, they may get 40 to a Sunday mass.. almost entirely elderly (which also questions the need for a dunny that is a decent walk from the car park/church itself - with no flat path). Westiminster still has a place with religion, but it is ceremonial and tradition; also monarch's succession for some reason has to be ordained by the Archbishop.. but I am not sure what law actually states it - maybe it is a common law thing (I didn't do the lkaw if succession).

[facthunter]

The eternal Canterbury verses Rome thing and you say religion is on the wayout. Personally what I noticed above all about Phils do, was how very religious in nature it all seemed. My LOT left  Scotland (or northern England) 3 sons, around 1862 due religious persecution if the various family oracles are to be believed. Living near THAT border had it's difficulties. Nev

[Yenn]

Religion on the way out? When I was a kid in Trunch in Norfolk, my father insisted that I go to the church choir. Village population 300 approx. maximum attendance numbers would have been about 20. That is in the early fifties.

There was one redeeming factor about having to go to church, there were a couple of good looking girls of my age in the choir. I never sang as I think the church would have closed completely if they heard me sing.

A few years ago friends who lived on an island invited my wife and I over for a weekend. They had a new toy, a karioki machine and they insisted we sing along. Next time I saw Don I asked him how he was going with the machine and he had sold it.

[facthunter]

Nothing worse than someone thinking they are a great singer and doing it loudly and off key. I hate the "tremor" in  some women's voices and I can no longer hear their higher register notes. I can still fill them in with my brain though  if the music is known to me which is an interesting thing.. Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

At the upper echelons of society, religion (or paegantry) is still important, but at the grass roots of society, it seems to be diminishing - at least iun the developing world. Many still hold onto traditions or take an each way bet - such as baptism, communuion, going to the off festival service, etc. As education progresses, people realise it appears religion is an anathema to the world we live in. My kds went through a Christian school for most of their schooliong life and they would come home and ask how in religious studies they can teach A, but in science, they teach B.. 

 

I once asked a moderate Rabbi how he can hold faith in light of the Holocaust.. His response was that most seem to continue from tradition than an innate belief (although he did say he did, and of course, the more orthodox Jews obviously believed). I asked a catholic priest why the abstinence of one of the most instintive actions of being a mammal - and why god or anyone else would want to deny the most basic of instincts. He muttered something about a sacrificing for the sake of god and holiness, blah blah blah... I didn't get the feeling he believed it, and tbh, I didn't get the feeling he practiced it. 

 

As natural mortality comes closer, people start finding faith, but the younger seem to more or less shun it. Also, as education and science gets advanced, people realise that what people thorught or wrote about how the world and spiritual world works is probably not correct.

 

There is debate about a "god" or some creator - some people argue that it takes conscience to create things with a conscience. Science does not flatly deny a creator does or could have existed.. but one as embodied by the various religiions around the world is extremely unlikely.

 

 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Maybe I shold have been a little more explicit in my last para, above. Dawkins et al (and science in general) does not believer that there was a conscience creator.. or a god As I say to my son, that would then imply, there was a conscious creator who created the conscious creator creator, and one that created that last one, and the cycle continues. However, science concedes that there is currently no irrefutable proof there wasn't a god of some sort, so, in theory, it is possible. Maybe once the new force/s that explain Muons are discovered/identified, then it will unveil all...

[Old Koreelah]

On 26/04/2021 at 10:54 AM, facthunter said:

Nothing worse than someone thinking they are a great singer and doing it loudly and off key. I hate the "tremor" in  some women's voices...

Me too, Nev. I often have to run and shut off ABC Classic when they put on some woman approaching death...

Another noise I can’t stand is rap.

 

[Bruce Tuncks]

England has an unresolved class war, and an Australian company went broke from building Wembly stadium due to not seeing this. So why do workers support the monarchy? It's a mystery to me.

[onetrack]

There's more than one American company that had a massive failure in their manufacturing forays in England, where they failed to understand the British labour hatred of the management class.

I can't recall which American company it was - but they had so many labour disputes during the construction of their manufacturing facility, they canned the project completely, and the factory was abandoned.

[facthunter]

Some of the  anti company feeling was counter intuitive. In the last days of the British motorcycle Industry  the workers at Meriden left new bikes due to be shipped to the USA out in the weather so they were of no value at all for their intended Market.. There's FAULT on both sides in the Brit story. Coal mining companies treated pit ponies better than workers in Wales, 400 died in one incident causing a strike during WW1. The feudal system was the go there and young kids were chimney sweeps.. A far from desirable situation.. Nev

[onetrack]

The Americans treated their workers little better, and the stories and photos of child labour in American factories and mines in the 1800's and early 1900's are very revealing.

The most poignant is probably "Shorpy" Higginbotham, a child greaser in an Alabama coal mine in the early 1900's. He is the child labourer behind the Shorpy name for the interesting historic photos website.

 

https://www.shorpy.com/shorpy

[spacesailor]

AND

The ' apprentice ' is an carryon of the old, indenture. 

The parents were given a sum of money and the oldest child went into ' servitude 'for many years. 

The coal mines had dormitories,  were the indentured slept, they didn,t go up to the surface for many years.

spacesailor

[facthunter]

Apprenticeship places a legal  obligation on both Parties. The apprentice comes out of it having a skill recognised in the society. There were things  called
"Craft Guilds".  Nev

[Yenn]

The apprentice system was similar in Australia to Britain and was just a way of getting cheap labour for 4 or so years and slowly teaching a trade. there is nothing stopping someone absorbing all the training from a 4 year apprenticeship in six months, except that it would cost the trainer more and also reduce the labour available to sweep the floor.

[Jerry_Atrick]

There are some apprenticeships that would take longer but I agree with the sentiment 

[Old Koreelah]

10 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

England has an unresolved class war, and an Australian company went broke from building Wembly stadium due to not seeing this. So why do workers support the monarchy? It's a mystery to me.

Probably the same reason so many Russians supported Stalin, one of the worst murderers in history: a preference for stability.

[Jerry_Atrick]

11 hours ago, Bruce Tuncks said:

England has an unresolved class war, and an Australian company went broke from building Wembly stadium due to not seeing this. So why do workers support the monarchy? It's a mystery to me.

I think there are remnants of the class society - such as the Duke of Westminster, where property from feudal times is handed down - are still an issue (https://news.sky.com/story/new-duke-of-westminster-owns-half-of-london-10530530).

 

And of course, the political class - especially the conservatives - are classed as old Etonians.. the school where the royal boys go to. However, the traditional heredity class system is all but broken in the UK. Like most other countries, if one has exceptional talent and fortitude; or money, one can make it into the halls of the upper class. Sadiq Khan is an example (regarldess of the political divide you follow) and is tipped to be the next Labour PM - there is no one in the Labour Party, at least that the public or press are aware of, who looks likely to lead them to pwoer.

 

Interestingly, Boris Johnson is being accused (for want of a better term) or not having enough personal wealth to be a PM: https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2019/07/23/can-boris-johnson-actually-afford-to-be-prime-minister/, despite a handsome earning profile previously.

 

The anomoly is the royal family, but it isn't seen as a class war here.. well not by the vast majority. The Royals to get a subsistence payment from the government, and since the fire at Windsor Castle, they have padi taxes on their earnings to the same level as everyone else. However, they are the icon of British sovereignty, and they are seen as philathropists - their role is wide and varied. Yes, Andrew and Harry are both a burden and the whole forching Charles to marry Dianna was also a mistake ( apparently Camilla didn't have the right face). However. even Charles, who's outspoken views 30 years ago about climate, pollution, and the like, seem to have been ahead of his time. I personally aren't interested in them, but they enjoy widespread indigenous support. Once Lizzie sails off into the sunset, who knows - personally I don't think the royals will see out this century, but who knows. As it happens, I think Charles will make a fine king..

 

So, to the other bastion of the old class wars - the house of lords. It is still an unlected chamnber and it still has heredity peers. But once they die out, there will ne no more, as Blair put a stop to the hereditary peerage. I am not sure about the lords ecclesiastical - I think they stay - but they play no role in votes per se. I think their inclusion is an anachranistic eccentricity but I guess they can indirectly influence other members.

 

They are still an unlelected mob and once appointed, are members for life (unless ejected by a vote in the house for conduct inbecomming. They are usually appointed by the monarch on the advice of the PM - and by convention, the PM takes nominations from the opposition parties, too. They are definitely part of the olf boys/girls clubs, but as they are members for life, they tend to become a bit more moral and active in their approach - it is common that they vote against their pary's wishes as a result. Also, the House of Lords doesn't enjoy absolute ability to block the passage of legislation from the House of Commons; inthe past, PMs have threatened to flood the house [of Lords] with peers of their party if the Lords wouldn't vote it through. But ultimately, the Parliaments Acts of 1947 and I think 1949 allow the house of commons to overrule or ignore the house of lords vote and present to the Queen for assent (which, by convention, she will never withhold). So even the power of this old class club is diminishing.

 

The UK doesn't have a constitution (lawyers will argue they have an unwritten one; my argument is that the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy is the consitution meaning there is none). Since Brexit and the breachs of long held conventions, there has been an increading call for a written constitution. I am not sure I will see it in my lifetime, but events of a progressive society mean than there is some bits of the old class war hanging on.. but hereditary class has very little, if any real impact on society.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Australia does not have a written constitution either. PM's have said that all it would do is to make millions for lawyers, and I concede this point.

However, it also means that Australians have no rights and we are legally subjects.

I would like a bill of rights, I am not sure about a constitution.

[octave]

We do have a written constitution don't we?

 

https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/the-australian-constitution/the-australian-constitution-in-focus/#:~:text=Australia%2C India and the United,majority vote of its Parliament.

Edited May 16, 2021 by octave