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[Boreades]

He thought there was no such thing as Original sin and he actually believed that Christians should follow the words and teachings of Christ rather than the ex tax collector.

That would be a shocking revelation to many Christians. As Father Ted might say, it would be an ecumenical matter. But of profound and fundamental significance to all of Britain and Ireland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptd_h0dF7NE

[TisILeclerc]

Now then Jesus what's that?

Drink.

No, what is that?

Drink

No, what is that? Oh, it is drink. That was clever.

[Boreades]

I forget some things. But drink reminds me of other things.

Where was it said that Jesus turning water into wine was miraculous because it broke with Judaic tradition? Up to then, only the priests got the good stuff, the audience had to make do with water. Jesus broke the tradition by sharing the wine with everybody. Those old-school priests were so tight with the wine it was a miracle anyone else got some.

Likewise Jesus feeding the 5000. Previously, only the priests got the goodies. Jesus shared the goodies with the whole crowd.

[Boreades]

As the TME team is a highly literate and scholarly mob, it will not surprise them to be told that:

The Bodleian is home one of the world’s oldest and greatest collections of books, maps and documents dating from 1602. These include the largest number of books printed before 1500 held in a university library, manuscripts from medieval Europe and the Byzantine Empire, and one of the largest concentrations of modern British political manuscripts.

The Register has a rather lovely article on the new Bodleian Weston Library
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/18 ... n_library/

Not a lot of people know that most of the Bodleian Library's books are not in Oxford, they are next to the Honda factory in Swindon. By an amazing coincidence, my dear departed Dad was on the very same site in 1941. But he was, at that time, in charge of an anti-aircraft gun, next to the Supermarine Spitfire factory.

There's a couple of specific things in The Register's article of special interest to TME folk.

(1) The Gough Map.

a large, detailed reference of Great Britain showing 650 cities and towns, created in the 13th or 14th century for purposes unknown. ... It is a rich source of historical information, but because the circumstances of its making are so obscure, it raises as many questions as it answers. When and where was the map made? Is it an original map, or was it derived from a lost earlier map? Does the map show signs of revision? Many of the settlements identified on it are linked by a series of straight red lines, which provide information on the distances between them and appear to be associated with particular itineraries, but what is their exact purpose? The fact that a number of the key settlements of the time are not linked in this way adds to the mystery. What, indeed, was the overall purpose of the map itself?

http://genius.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/exhibit ... gough-map/

(2) The Google book deal

Between 2004 and 2009, Google scanned some 300,000 out of copyright Bodleian books, mainly from the nineteenth century. As part of the deal, the library got its own copies of the scans to use in perpetuity, and these are accessible free to anyone as PDFs, through the library’s online catalogue Solo.

http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_lib ... onfig=true

[TisILeclerc]

Is it my imagination or bad eyesight but have they put Dogger Bank in there as well as river systems going out into the North Sea?

Same on the west coast there seem to be river channels out in what is now the Irish sea.

There's a more accessible map here.

http://www.goughmap.org/map/

[Boreades]

Foreign traders are still busy buying and selling British land and livestock. Guernsey and Jersey are doing especially well in the Megalithic Land Owning League. Large chunks of historic Wiltshire have quietly been acquired by offshore companies.

e.g.
Winterbourne Down --> Temple Estates Ltd (Guernsey)
Maizey Manor Farm in Ogbourne St.Andrew (site of one of Hattie's walks) --> Stanmore Gate Nominees (Jersey)
Manton Estate --> Megalodon Ltd
Most of the land surrounding the Savenake Forest --> Ramsbury SARL, Luxembourg
Beckhampton (just west of Avebury) --> Tern Properties Ltd (Jersey)
Fox Hill area --> BGL Reads Trust Company (Guernsey)
and close to Old Sarum, --> Lutea Trustees Ltd (Jersey)

Plus a fair few chunks of Somerset and Dorset.

V.good clickable map courtesy of Private Eye magazine.

[Boreades]

Dunno. That was my original point. I leave you to investigate.

Pelagius was clearly a major threat to the business model of the Catholic Church. Just imagine - people might start waking up to the idea that they could choose to be good, and happy, all by themselves, and live fulfilling lives in this lifetime. Why then would they need priests to tell them they are miserable sinners who could only be fulfilled after they had died? And only if they did what the priests told them to do?

Even now, the very idea that we can make a conscious choice over whether to be good or bad is still a radical concept for some people. In the psychology of Personal Development, it is allied with self-awareness and personal responsibility. That is, the ability to respond, as a liberation, and a casting-off of the psychological chains that bind us, rather than a burden imposed upon us.

[hvered]

People are good when they're obliged to be i.e. when the cost of being bad outweighs the benefits. The Catholic Church understood this very well, hence everlasting hell fire and damnation. Ever since the Milgram experiment no-one can honestly claim that people choose to be good rather than bad.

[TisILeclerc]

Mae West was able to reconcile good and bad in a way that Bishops would no doubt appreciate.

“When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better. ”

Solves a lot of philosophical heart searching.

http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1597-wh ... en-i-m-bad

[Boreades]

I fear I've been a bad boy by luring you into a moral maze of good -v- evil?

Perhaps it would be better if I posed the Pelagius position as simply one of individual people having a personal choice. (full stop). With no judgement as to whether that is good or bad. And no job for the priests to make judgements on behalf of God as to whether people were making good or bad free-will choices.

As such, in current terms, perhaps that is the Libertarian -v- Authoritarian positions?

Of course, "Libertarian" is very much a US & French ideal, which we Brits are rather uncomfortable with. Despite that, there is a tiny UK Libertarian Party.
http://libertarianpartyuk.com/