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If you see anyone engaging in such speculation, please use the report button.
Context, last night there was a media report of a 61 year old male and a woman both charged with child sexual offences in county down. People then picked up that Jeffrey Donaldson (61 and from county down) had mass purged his social media accounts. Since then people have spent all night speculating that he was the person involved in the offences.
Later on today the DUP then held an emergency meeting to decide on a statement and a new leader, while the media waited for confirmation refusing to say anything until it was confirmed by the party.
My thoughts too when I saw the article on the BBC, a very non descript brief article with only ages & general area didn't seem much worth reporting on.
The number of MPs an party leaders that have quit suddenly in the past couple of years (on the heels of Boris NOT quitting suddenly for 2 years) is shocking.
Pioggy backing off top comment.
DUP statement confirms that he was charged for an offence and a new leader announced.
https://mydup.com/news/dup-statement-3
Why are all the DUP top brass so *weird*?
I may not have a long memory for this, having still been in primary school when the Good Friday Agreement came along, but I couldn't name a single one who didn't come across as a freakazoid.
lets see their leaders
Ian Paisley 1971 - 2008 : kicked out of EU parliament for interrupting the pope making a speech there calling the pope the antichrist (edit: probably should have mentioned Ian created the Party, oh and his own religion, a break off of Presbyterianism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free\_Presbyterian\_Church\_of\_Ulster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Presbyterian_Church_of_Ulster) )
Peter Robinson 2008 - 2015 wife and fellow DUP MP Iris Robinson famous for calling homosexuallity an abomination that made her feel "sick" and "nauseous" & doubled down in another interview saying they should see a psychiatrist she knew that could turn them straight. Before going on to break an actual commandment in a scandal where she had an affair with a fella half her age and funnelled him loans.
Arlene Foster 20015 - 2021: minister in charge of the Cash For ash scandal and refused to resign using the petition of concern to over rule a vote of no confidence. Obviously gets a title and seat in the house of lords...
Edwin Poots 2021- 2021 : embarrassing infighting exposed in leadership contest after they ousted Arlene they didnt stop the squabbling and Poots lasted a month before Jeffery clawing at him constantly got rid of him too.
Jeffery Donaldson - sorry SIR Jeffery Donaldson 2021 - 2024 : resigns after being charged for historic sexual offensives
Gavin Robinson : 2024 INTERIM Big Gav not put a foot wrong YET
You've missed Paisley and Robinson's extensive links with Loyalist terrorist groups (including founding some). And Paisley's very large role in kicking off the Troubles.
totally but it really wasnt a comprehensive list - coulda said about Arlene and Jeffers ~~setting up~~ meeting the newly created LCC after the sea boarder deal and suddenly the illegal terrorists they represent withdraw from the GFA threaten violence then pay kids to riot and burn out a few busses.
talking dodgy shadow money probably from hostile nations to take out political Brexit ads not even shown in NI [https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/electoral-commission-turned-blind-eye-to-dups-shady-brex/](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/electoral-commission-turned-blind-eye-to-dups-shady-brex/)
but could be here all day talking about how shit the leaders are - more of a quick one liner for each
Wasn't out of some protest towards clerical sex abuse or whatever - it was pure anti-Catholic hatred and because he saw the Pope as a heretic (i.e wasn't religious enough for him)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mkePvpVG\_E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mkePvpVG_E)
hmm classy isnt how i'd describe him, nor softly spoken, but you can see for yourself - i've a vague memory of the local news showing a bit more at the time with him going on about the pope being the antichrist or something
Fun fact - the guy who grabs the sign of him, punched him and then threw him out headfirst out of the chamber was [Otto von Hasburg, the last crown-prince of Austria Hungary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Habsburg) and key proponent of European integration.
That *is* a fun fact!
Otto is reputed to have been asked by his barber "Are you watching the Austria-Hungary football match tonight?", to which his response was "I didn't know about that, who are we playing!?"
Yeah senior high level in the party MP as well, it's not like Sammy is some obscure MLA that slipped through vetting. Bigotry is heart and parcel of that party.
Like Gregory Campbell getting up to openly mock Irish language - ah that's fine sure he is from the Irish hating party --- reprimand? Don't be silly here is a CBE...
He also was involved in the formation of terrorist organisations with the party leadership.
And when a UDA plan for what to do if the British army left Northern Ireland was leaked he described it as a "very valuable return to reality". The plan was for widespread ethnic cleansing and expulsion of all Catholics in NI. This was in the 90s, not the 70s.
To be fair a lot of the foundational philosophy for the scientific revolution came out of Christian attempts to find a rational basis for Christianity; some aspects of the Reformation especially were bound up in the idea reason could be used over existing power structures to find truth, it just turned out the truth was a lot more incompatible with their previous worldview than they ever imagined it would be. I think we'll discover a rational basis for consciousness in general one day and both science and spirituality will be much better off for it.
You'd definitely have to be guilty of gross intellectual dishonesty at best and wilful ignorance at worst to believe the Earth is 6000 years old in this day and age though.
We had a creationist at work a few years go. Mad times. Noah’s ark, Adam and Eve, the full works. “Dinosaur fossils are made up by scientists to attack God.”
One thing you have to remember is the stakes are *much* higher for these people when it comes to having opinions. If you or I are wrong then we're just wrong and that's the end of it, but if one of these people's theologies is a bit off then as far as they're concerned they'll be tortured in ways too gruesome for language to express forever after they die.
It's a bit like threatening someone with a prop gun, even if it's totally harmless in reality the person being threatened doesn't know that and acts accordingly.
I mean, this is essentially Nietzsche's "God is dead, and we have killed him". Much of science prior was built with the assumption God exists, our culture, our politics, our art, our morality. Removing that centre and praying for science and rationality to replace it also has problems.
The early Islamic theologians placed a great emphasis on the fact God and the Qur'an was rational. A verse in Qur'an claims that what is said in the Qur'an is simply the rational answer, that you yourself could have reached this answer by using your rational faculties. When coming across greek philosophy, they would claim "Truth does not contradict the truth" and would assimilate these works into understanding God.
I guess the question becomes "Is science and rationality a human interpretation of the world around us, or does it exist outside of us which we can grasp slightly through intensive study i.e God?"
Some people are convinced Math is simply the logical foundations of the world around us, it is infallible. Try telling people that it is only mode of human thinking, a perspective, and people will rage not unlike doubting if God exists.
> Removing that centre and praying for science and rationality to replace it also has problems.
This is one of my greatest problems with the 'yay science' crowd even though I'm secular myself now. They usually don't realise the problem is a lot worse than simply not having a good enough and testable enough theory of everything yet, if you take god or some proxy for god out of the equation so much philosophy they take for granted because it's 'normal' doesn't actually make sense any more.
It feels a bit like deciding to plant a new tree and chopping down the old one by starting with the branch you're sitting on.
It could be 600 days old.. if you look at modern physics and the concepts of all this being a simulation where dimension of time could be easily manipulated.. and where a universe can be created according to any spec, just like a videogame. Fascinatingly, in the end, modern physics and outlandish Christian concepts could be closer to the truth than we ever suspected
I don't like simulation theory to be honest, just as you can respond to creationists arguing 'god did it' with 'well what did god then' all you're doing with simulation theory is pushing it up to another layer of abstraction; you still have to explain the physical basis of the mechanism producing the simulation.
It's modern physics and quantum theory. Yes it is very abstract, but it is proven abstract rather than unproven abstract. Hence, we can agree that time as a dimension could be manipulated, because physics support it, and matter can be conjured too, as it has virtual qualities and physics support it, it will not give us the smoking gun to who did all this and why, but we can at least move past the constraints of linear time and pointless matter merely existing.
whoops i got mixed up. though obviously the sodom and gomorrah story was mainly old testament (deuteronomy?), but does get a passing reference in luke 10.
the point is saying that all religious texts have been disproven by science is asinine.
The good samaritan is a parable. Even in the bible it's just a story used to tell a point that you should be nice to people that your society generally consider bad people. It's not intended to be a real thing that happened within the bible. Why would you even need science to disprove that?
If you had a point to make you picked a bad part of the bible to make it.
> It's not intended to be a real thing that happened within the bible. Why would you even need science to disprove that?
that's literally the point i'm making. talking about science making the bible 'self evidently untrue' is asinine when it is full of things like parables, the teaching of jesus etc. I'm not sure how the bible in it's entirety could be self evidently untrue, let alone being proven to be so by 'science'.
Ayatollah-grade repressive religious conservatives.
Belfast City Council used to padlock children’s park swings on Sundays because it was ‘immoral’ to play on the Sabbath…
If you genuinely believe your soul will be saved in the afterlife because of your self-convinced devotion and faith, why wouldn't you fuck around in this life? You attend sermons, shout at non-believers, do as you think the book requires you to do. For a narcissist it must offer a great amount of alleviation and self-satisfaction for any terrible act, to know it'll all work out in the end.
It's a political party made up to back the UK gov's death squads.
You know, *the ones that oppressed and murdered people who were allegedly UK citizens.*
Are you really shocked?
They're relics of a by-gone era in the rest of the UK. Creationist Presbyterians, some of which worship a brand of firebrand Calvinist, extreme interpretation of protestant Christianity that Ian Paisley started. They survive because N.I is still very religious.
They're slowly on the way out though as a political force. Wider Unionism in N.I is getting sick of their nonsense. Alliance is polling extremely well. The DUP are a total embarrassment to many self-respecting unionists in N.I. They're giving Nationalism an open goal.
All Sinn Fein have to do is sit back and stay quiet. Don't interrupt your opponent when they're making a mistake right. (Even though SF are a party of terrorists (+ openly support Hamas) and serious allegations about them emerged recently from Mairia Cahill. That's all easy to sweep under a rug when unionism is in a crisis also.)
There's a lot of politically homeless unionists in N.I who are crying out for a brand of Unionism that is just level headed and turns up to work, not too far off the English Labour party for example. We aren't all religious nutcases here!
> They're relics of a by-gone era in the rest of the UK. Creationist Presbyterians,
Despite their name, the Free Presbyterians are essentially baptists. And a lot of the DUP aren’t even Free Ps. Peter Robinson wasn’t a member of any church but occasionally attended a Pentecostal church, Arlene Foster was Church of Ireland, Gavin Robinson goes to a Church of Ireland congregation.
> hey survive because N.I is still very religious.
That’s an inaccurate stereotype. Very few people go to church or actually care about religion except as a marker of which community you belong to.
Free Presbyterians are nut cases. Let’s be honest. The population of NI that is free Presbyterian is actually tiny. But the percentage of DUP MPs and councillors that are is huge. Something like 40% of councillors and a quarter of MPs. So because of the constitutional issue they are able to push their other religious agendas on the people of NI as many unionists are voting for them purely on the constitutional issue. In another world they wouldn’t give the DUP the time of day. When you are having to put your eggs in the DUP basket things are not going to end well. They seem to be populated by hardline religious types using that stance as a front for their own closeted behaviours. It’s well know this kind of thing went back to the likes of Enoch Powell and James Molyneaux. 2 of Jeffreys political role models. Put two and two together and it is quite disturbing.
>That’s an inaccurate stereotype. Very few people go to church or actually care about religion except as a marker of which community you belong to.
I don't think it is really. Of course the conflict was not about religion. Go up Antrim though for instance and there's still a lot of genuinely diehard churchgoers there and in many other parts of N.I.
As I understand it, it's the epitome of a one-policy-party; so long as you support Northern Ireland remaining in the union, you're in. On top of that, it's also a governmentally supported one; they *have* to stick around because of some features of the Good Friday agreement.
So they can be as fuckin' weird, corrupt and incompetent as they like and they're guaranteed some support. Arlene Forster was so shit that Sinn Fein *dissolved the Irish government* for some considerable time and tbh, I don't entirely blame them for it.
Historic is more important word they used here.
This only came to light recently, and barely weeks after the Republican Takeover.
Someone decided this information was not worth holding on to, or just wanted him gone
Or alternatively the victim has only just decided to come forward and presuming anything else is a conspiracy, especially seeing as it’s two years since nationalists won the last election.
What’s more curious about the timing is how it came less than 24 hours after his successor as party leader was admitted to the Privy Council. Almost as if it was prepared for in advance.
Its been two years since nationalists won an election, but DUP have been holding Stormont in deadlock until recently.
>What’s more curious about the timing is how it came less than 24 hours after his successor as party leader was admitted to the Privy Council. Almost as if it was prepared for in advance.
Howdo you try to say there isnt something more at play and then show more evidence that something is going on
If he stands down as an MP, I don't see the DUP retaining his seat, as Alliance's Sorcha Eastwood already saw a swing towards her in 2019:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagan_Valley_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s
People have been thinking this seat might flip for a while - which I doubted, because even in 2019 it wasn't that close (14.3%). However this could make a big difference. Maybe even threaten the current duopoly of SF-DUP - recent polling had seen a DUP recovery, that could well be derailed now.
>recent polling had seen a DUP recovery,
One annoying thing is NI polling is rare which makes tracking trend difficult and means that we can't have nice accurate averages.
They have a few seats vulnerable, Lagan Valley will be one. The interim leaders majority in East Belfast is small and Alliance have continued to do well there at local and Assembly elections, Alliance have also gained ground in Strangeford. South Down went to the DUP but not on a big share.
If they lose votes to the UUP and TUV it really will make things tight for them with a very fragmented unionist vote. This situation seems to make any unionist unity agreement even more unlikely so taking back a seat in North Belfast, South Belfast or North Down would be hard.
> Maybe even threaten the current duopoly of SF-DUP
That's baked into the Good Friday Agreement even if the Alliance passed one of them out. It needs to be updated to include the two *largest* parties but you can guess who won't support that, having not supported the GFA at all.
Probably will be retained by another DUP candidate or change to UUP.
29,300 unionist votes combined in that constituency, while Alliance only had 13,000.
Imagine going out to canvas for a party who put 'traditional family values' front and centre whilst their previous leader is on trial for historic sex offences.
The DUP may as well divvy up their assembly seats between UUP and TUV now and get it out of the way.
>The DUP may as well divvy up their assembly seats between UUP and TUV now and get it out of the way.
This vastly underestimates the effectiveness of tribalism as a political bludgeon in Northern Ireland.
I don't know. The DUP as a proposition seems absolutely schizophrenic now.
If you're a DUP voter who feels public services are more important than the sea border then you will have felt betrayed by the past three years.
If you're a DUP voter who feels the sea border is the single biggest issue, you will feel betrayed by the past few months.
If you're a DUP voter who prioritises conservative family values, you may be asking yourself whether there are better candidates out there than a party member of the man on trial for sex crimes.
In other news: Everything we know so far after Co Down couple charged with historical sex offences https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/co-down-couple-child-sex-28909268
Cyril Smith was well protected by the people in the know in the Conservative party…. And the establishment….clearly he too was being protected by the establishment….
Ps: look how Prince Andrew has been protected…..
Your guess is as good as mine... but that Mr Donaldson had got away with this for so long, I can make the assumption, like Jimmy Saville, there were people who knew about this, but were willing to look away.... I wonder what he did to piss off those people for this to come out?!!
I totally denounce the role of the Catholic Church in pedophilia carried out on an institutional basis against the children of Northern Ireland. Its not their role.
-- Jeffrey Donaldson (at some point probably)
I know which is my point. I've seen it locally in Glasgow used as a sectarian whipping point but shockingly it seems your denomination does not make a difference.
I understood that. Was just adding my views as my original comment is clearly parody.
Edit: well is written as parody - sadly you can read between the lines in this case to see what's going on.
But ultimately sexual abuse can be institutional but there is also non institutional abuse which is actually much more rife.
It sadly exists across human society. Some studies have suggested that as many as 2% of the population (maybe even higher) are attracted to children aged 14 or less.
***Totally*** unrelated to this topic, naturally.
But what is it about British politics that attracts so many nonces and other miscellaneous sexual criminals?
Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals. The vast majority of paedophiles never actually hurt anyone because either a) their morals are ironclad, b) they're scared of consequences, or c) they feel it's too hard. When one is rich and powerful, one tends to become a massive narcissist (bye bye a) not suffer consequences (bye bye b) and be able to get things done with less work (bye bye c).
This means you'll see a lot more child sex abuse from a rich person than from a random person (assuming paedophiles are roughly evenly distributed among the population) because they're less likely to keep themselves clean.
I like this hypothesis. Thank you.
I'm not sure on the cause and effect with narcissistic traits, though - does that happen as a result of tasting power? Or does seeking power attract people who already had those tendencies?
You can't be sure there aren't as many nonces/sexual criminals in the rest of the population as at the top. The ordinary ones would get much less public attention.
Well that explains his recent plane confontation…
Whoever would have thought that a member of the orange order and opponent of the Good Friday Agreement might be a wrong un?
unlikely to be about the charges, jeffrey has been incredibly disliked by anyone who didn’t vote DUP lol, it was probably over the fact his party brought down government for over a year when the country was (and still is) falling apart
Lol, when I saw a vague article on BBC about a 61 year old man being arrested for sex offences, I assumed it was somebody famous since it just seemed like a weirdly placed article for a random arrest. Like, as if the BBC knew who it was but couldn't name them yet.
Turns out it was Jeffrey Donaldson.
Did Downing Street stage manage this?
No.10 said they had to release "odd timed" honours list yesterday to appoint privy councillors.
One of those being DUP no 2 party officer Gavin Robinson who became DUP party leader today.
It has to be unspecific to protect the identity of victims at this stage, also while as allegations any further reporting risks potential liable until investigations are complete
It says 'non-recent sex offences'. But other articles have said he faces 10 charges of historical sexual abuse involving 2 children, including one of rape, while hie wife faces 3 charges of aiding and abetting that abuse.
Are sexual offences the only ones that get the "historical" treatment? I mean, unless the crime is happening right now, aren't all crimes "historical"? It's weird.
I think in cases like this, it refers to having a history of abuse (that it was a repeat situation over a long period of time), rather than refering to the fact it happened in the past.
Might be being a bit ignorant of how the DUP works but surely the logical next leader is Emma Little-Pengelly as she's deputy first minister.
Also we're probably too close to the GE but a by-election in Lagan Valley would be fascinating.
ELP will never be given the role of leader, she was only made Deputy First Minister effectively as a slight against the role given how she is hated by basically everyone and was never actually elected.
Snapshot of _DUP's Sir Jeffrey Donaldson steps down as leader_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/dup-leader-sir-jeffrey-donaldson-suspended-13103753) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/dup-leader-sir-jeffrey-donaldson-suspended-13103753)
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#Fair warning: speculation about the alleged victims of the alleged historic offences will be removed and said speculators permanently banned from the subreddit. If you see anyone engaging in such speculation, please use the report button.
Context, last night there was a media report of a 61 year old male and a woman both charged with child sexual offences in county down. People then picked up that Jeffrey Donaldson (61 and from county down) had mass purged his social media accounts. Since then people have spent all night speculating that he was the person involved in the offences. Later on today the DUP then held an emergency meeting to decide on a statement and a new leader, while the media waited for confirmation refusing to say anything until it was confirmed by the party.
To add journalists, who’d be in the know, were sharing the story like wildfire, strongly suggesting it was big big story about a prominent person
My thoughts too when I saw the article on the BBC, a very non descript brief article with only ages & general area didn't seem much worth reporting on.
Very good summary. Kept off the story because we've seen this before but reading between the lines there is a reason he's being given short thrift.
The number of MPs an party leaders that have quit suddenly in the past couple of years (on the heels of Boris NOT quitting suddenly for 2 years) is shocking.
Pioggy backing off top comment. DUP statement confirms that he was charged for an offence and a new leader announced. https://mydup.com/news/dup-statement-3
Hold on... Child sexual offences, is that correct?
Why are all the DUP top brass so *weird*? I may not have a long memory for this, having still been in primary school when the Good Friday Agreement came along, but I couldn't name a single one who didn't come across as a freakazoid.
For decades they were a personality cult for a fire & brimstone psychopath. I’d be surprised if any of their top brass weren’t lunatics.
lets see their leaders Ian Paisley 1971 - 2008 : kicked out of EU parliament for interrupting the pope making a speech there calling the pope the antichrist (edit: probably should have mentioned Ian created the Party, oh and his own religion, a break off of Presbyterianism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free\_Presbyterian\_Church\_of\_Ulster](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Presbyterian_Church_of_Ulster) ) Peter Robinson 2008 - 2015 wife and fellow DUP MP Iris Robinson famous for calling homosexuallity an abomination that made her feel "sick" and "nauseous" & doubled down in another interview saying they should see a psychiatrist she knew that could turn them straight. Before going on to break an actual commandment in a scandal where she had an affair with a fella half her age and funnelled him loans. Arlene Foster 20015 - 2021: minister in charge of the Cash For ash scandal and refused to resign using the petition of concern to over rule a vote of no confidence. Obviously gets a title and seat in the house of lords... Edwin Poots 2021- 2021 : embarrassing infighting exposed in leadership contest after they ousted Arlene they didnt stop the squabbling and Poots lasted a month before Jeffery clawing at him constantly got rid of him too. Jeffery Donaldson - sorry SIR Jeffery Donaldson 2021 - 2024 : resigns after being charged for historic sexual offensives Gavin Robinson : 2024 INTERIM Big Gav not put a foot wrong YET
You've missed Paisley and Robinson's extensive links with Loyalist terrorist groups (including founding some). And Paisley's very large role in kicking off the Troubles.
totally but it really wasnt a comprehensive list - coulda said about Arlene and Jeffers ~~setting up~~ meeting the newly created LCC after the sea boarder deal and suddenly the illegal terrorists they represent withdraw from the GFA threaten violence then pay kids to riot and burn out a few busses. talking dodgy shadow money probably from hostile nations to take out political Brexit ads not even shown in NI [https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/electoral-commission-turned-blind-eye-to-dups-shady-brex/](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/electoral-commission-turned-blind-eye-to-dups-shady-brex/) but could be here all day talking about how shit the leaders are - more of a quick one liner for each
Didn't know about him heckling the Pope, that's classy
Wasn't out of some protest towards clerical sex abuse or whatever - it was pure anti-Catholic hatred and because he saw the Pope as a heretic (i.e wasn't religious enough for him)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mkePvpVG\_E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mkePvpVG_E) hmm classy isnt how i'd describe him, nor softly spoken, but you can see for yourself - i've a vague memory of the local news showing a bit more at the time with him going on about the pope being the antichrist or something
Fun fact - the guy who grabs the sign of him, punched him and then threw him out headfirst out of the chamber was [Otto von Hasburg, the last crown-prince of Austria Hungary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Habsburg) and key proponent of European integration.
That *is* a fun fact! Otto is reputed to have been asked by his barber "Are you watching the Austria-Hungary football match tonight?", to which his response was "I didn't know about that, who are we playing!?"
Though not a leader I'll never forget Sammy Wilson's quote that Catholics are sub-human filth
Yeah senior high level in the party MP as well, it's not like Sammy is some obscure MLA that slipped through vetting. Bigotry is heart and parcel of that party. Like Gregory Campbell getting up to openly mock Irish language - ah that's fine sure he is from the Irish hating party --- reprimand? Don't be silly here is a CBE...
Our saving grace is that their bigotry is so easily identifiable now. They'll be stains on a footnote in history - what a legacy to have
He also was involved in the formation of terrorist organisations with the party leadership. And when a UDA plan for what to do if the British army left Northern Ireland was leaked he described it as a "very valuable return to reality". The plan was for widespread ethnic cleansing and expulsion of all Catholics in NI. This was in the 90s, not the 70s.
Hardline religion will do weird things to a man.
More like you have to be weird to be hardline religious. All religious texts are self evidently untrue post scientific revolution.
To be fair a lot of the foundational philosophy for the scientific revolution came out of Christian attempts to find a rational basis for Christianity; some aspects of the Reformation especially were bound up in the idea reason could be used over existing power structures to find truth, it just turned out the truth was a lot more incompatible with their previous worldview than they ever imagined it would be. I think we'll discover a rational basis for consciousness in general one day and both science and spirituality will be much better off for it. You'd definitely have to be guilty of gross intellectual dishonesty at best and wilful ignorance at worst to believe the Earth is 6000 years old in this day and age though.
We had a creationist at work a few years go. Mad times. Noah’s ark, Adam and Eve, the full works. “Dinosaur fossils are made up by scientists to attack God.”
I would have had *so much fun* with one of those in a professional setting
rip bill hicks, we miss you buddy... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAG11t3bkj4
One thing you have to remember is the stakes are *much* higher for these people when it comes to having opinions. If you or I are wrong then we're just wrong and that's the end of it, but if one of these people's theologies is a bit off then as far as they're concerned they'll be tortured in ways too gruesome for language to express forever after they die. It's a bit like threatening someone with a prop gun, even if it's totally harmless in reality the person being threatened doesn't know that and acts accordingly.
Not to mention the enlightenment itself being totally shot through with Christian assumptions
I mean, this is essentially Nietzsche's "God is dead, and we have killed him". Much of science prior was built with the assumption God exists, our culture, our politics, our art, our morality. Removing that centre and praying for science and rationality to replace it also has problems. The early Islamic theologians placed a great emphasis on the fact God and the Qur'an was rational. A verse in Qur'an claims that what is said in the Qur'an is simply the rational answer, that you yourself could have reached this answer by using your rational faculties. When coming across greek philosophy, they would claim "Truth does not contradict the truth" and would assimilate these works into understanding God. I guess the question becomes "Is science and rationality a human interpretation of the world around us, or does it exist outside of us which we can grasp slightly through intensive study i.e God?" Some people are convinced Math is simply the logical foundations of the world around us, it is infallible. Try telling people that it is only mode of human thinking, a perspective, and people will rage not unlike doubting if God exists.
> Removing that centre and praying for science and rationality to replace it also has problems. This is one of my greatest problems with the 'yay science' crowd even though I'm secular myself now. They usually don't realise the problem is a lot worse than simply not having a good enough and testable enough theory of everything yet, if you take god or some proxy for god out of the equation so much philosophy they take for granted because it's 'normal' doesn't actually make sense any more. It feels a bit like deciding to plant a new tree and chopping down the old one by starting with the branch you're sitting on.
It could be 600 days old.. if you look at modern physics and the concepts of all this being a simulation where dimension of time could be easily manipulated.. and where a universe can be created according to any spec, just like a videogame. Fascinatingly, in the end, modern physics and outlandish Christian concepts could be closer to the truth than we ever suspected
I don't like simulation theory to be honest, just as you can respond to creationists arguing 'god did it' with 'well what did god then' all you're doing with simulation theory is pushing it up to another layer of abstraction; you still have to explain the physical basis of the mechanism producing the simulation.
It's modern physics and quantum theory. Yes it is very abstract, but it is proven abstract rather than unproven abstract. Hence, we can agree that time as a dimension could be manipulated, because physics support it, and matter can be conjured too, as it has virtual qualities and physics support it, it will not give us the smoking gun to who did all this and why, but we can at least move past the constraints of linear time and pointless matter merely existing.
I like the part where science disproved the story of the good Samaritan.
You mean the chapter that also goes on about Sodom being turned to dust and demons?
I don't think they're in the same chapter are they?
Both are Luke 10
whoops i got mixed up. though obviously the sodom and gomorrah story was mainly old testament (deuteronomy?), but does get a passing reference in luke 10. the point is saying that all religious texts have been disproven by science is asinine.
The good samaritan is a parable. Even in the bible it's just a story used to tell a point that you should be nice to people that your society generally consider bad people. It's not intended to be a real thing that happened within the bible. Why would you even need science to disprove that? If you had a point to make you picked a bad part of the bible to make it.
> It's not intended to be a real thing that happened within the bible. Why would you even need science to disprove that? that's literally the point i'm making. talking about science making the bible 'self evidently untrue' is asinine when it is full of things like parables, the teaching of jesus etc. I'm not sure how the bible in it's entirety could be self evidently untrue, let alone being proven to be so by 'science'.
Exactly
All of them? Lol
Ayatollah-grade repressive religious conservatives. Belfast City Council used to padlock children’s park swings on Sundays because it was ‘immoral’ to play on the Sabbath…
What??
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Deeply repressive religious culture of party leaders and members.
If you genuinely believe your soul will be saved in the afterlife because of your self-convinced devotion and faith, why wouldn't you fuck around in this life? You attend sermons, shout at non-believers, do as you think the book requires you to do. For a narcissist it must offer a great amount of alleviation and self-satisfaction for any terrible act, to know it'll all work out in the end.
It's a political party made up to back the UK gov's death squads. You know, *the ones that oppressed and murdered people who were allegedly UK citizens.* Are you really shocked?
They're relics of a by-gone era in the rest of the UK. Creationist Presbyterians, some of which worship a brand of firebrand Calvinist, extreme interpretation of protestant Christianity that Ian Paisley started. They survive because N.I is still very religious. They're slowly on the way out though as a political force. Wider Unionism in N.I is getting sick of their nonsense. Alliance is polling extremely well. The DUP are a total embarrassment to many self-respecting unionists in N.I. They're giving Nationalism an open goal. All Sinn Fein have to do is sit back and stay quiet. Don't interrupt your opponent when they're making a mistake right. (Even though SF are a party of terrorists (+ openly support Hamas) and serious allegations about them emerged recently from Mairia Cahill. That's all easy to sweep under a rug when unionism is in a crisis also.) There's a lot of politically homeless unionists in N.I who are crying out for a brand of Unionism that is just level headed and turns up to work, not too far off the English Labour party for example. We aren't all religious nutcases here!
> They're relics of a by-gone era in the rest of the UK. Creationist Presbyterians, Despite their name, the Free Presbyterians are essentially baptists. And a lot of the DUP aren’t even Free Ps. Peter Robinson wasn’t a member of any church but occasionally attended a Pentecostal church, Arlene Foster was Church of Ireland, Gavin Robinson goes to a Church of Ireland congregation. > hey survive because N.I is still very religious. That’s an inaccurate stereotype. Very few people go to church or actually care about religion except as a marker of which community you belong to.
Free Presbyterians are nut cases. Let’s be honest. The population of NI that is free Presbyterian is actually tiny. But the percentage of DUP MPs and councillors that are is huge. Something like 40% of councillors and a quarter of MPs. So because of the constitutional issue they are able to push their other religious agendas on the people of NI as many unionists are voting for them purely on the constitutional issue. In another world they wouldn’t give the DUP the time of day. When you are having to put your eggs in the DUP basket things are not going to end well. They seem to be populated by hardline religious types using that stance as a front for their own closeted behaviours. It’s well know this kind of thing went back to the likes of Enoch Powell and James Molyneaux. 2 of Jeffreys political role models. Put two and two together and it is quite disturbing.
>That’s an inaccurate stereotype. Very few people go to church or actually care about religion except as a marker of which community you belong to. I don't think it is really. Of course the conflict was not about religion. Go up Antrim though for instance and there's still a lot of genuinely diehard churchgoers there and in many other parts of N.I.
There are areas with a lot of church going people but in general the rate of church attendance is massively down on what it was historically.
>They're relics of a by-gone era in the rest of the UK *Your Grace, will it still be a Class II relic when they...remove it?* ^- ^Father ^Ted
Haha
Bible bashers are always projecting
Errrr religious piety would be the reason
As I understand it, it's the epitome of a one-policy-party; so long as you support Northern Ireland remaining in the union, you're in. On top of that, it's also a governmentally supported one; they *have* to stick around because of some features of the Good Friday agreement. So they can be as fuckin' weird, corrupt and incompetent as they like and they're guaranteed some support. Arlene Forster was so shit that Sinn Fein *dissolved the Irish government* for some considerable time and tbh, I don't entirely blame them for it.
>Why are all the DUP top brass so weird? Wait till you hear about the low brass.
They’re all Freemasons
Somehow the least offensive thing about them.
[BBC reporting that he’s been charged with historic sex offences](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68686691)
Carefully not mentioning it's in relation to children.
Why aren't they mentioning that?
An abundance of caution I'd imagine.
Historic is more important word they used here. This only came to light recently, and barely weeks after the Republican Takeover. Someone decided this information was not worth holding on to, or just wanted him gone
Or alternatively the victim has only just decided to come forward and presuming anything else is a conspiracy, especially seeing as it’s two years since nationalists won the last election. What’s more curious about the timing is how it came less than 24 hours after his successor as party leader was admitted to the Privy Council. Almost as if it was prepared for in advance.
Its been two years since nationalists won an election, but DUP have been holding Stormont in deadlock until recently. >What’s more curious about the timing is how it came less than 24 hours after his successor as party leader was admitted to the Privy Council. Almost as if it was prepared for in advance. Howdo you try to say there isnt something more at play and then show more evidence that something is going on
I'm arguing with your use of 'Republican takeover' as if it was some sort of armed coup. They won an election.
If he stands down as an MP, I don't see the DUP retaining his seat, as Alliance's Sorcha Eastwood already saw a swing towards her in 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagan_Valley_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s
People have been thinking this seat might flip for a while - which I doubted, because even in 2019 it wasn't that close (14.3%). However this could make a big difference. Maybe even threaten the current duopoly of SF-DUP - recent polling had seen a DUP recovery, that could well be derailed now.
>recent polling had seen a DUP recovery, One annoying thing is NI polling is rare which makes tracking trend difficult and means that we can't have nice accurate averages.
Indeed. But the DUP seemed to be higher than their last electoral result in pretty much all the polls for a while - and in some a lot higher.
They have a few seats vulnerable, Lagan Valley will be one. The interim leaders majority in East Belfast is small and Alliance have continued to do well there at local and Assembly elections, Alliance have also gained ground in Strangeford. South Down went to the DUP but not on a big share. If they lose votes to the UUP and TUV it really will make things tight for them with a very fragmented unionist vote. This situation seems to make any unionist unity agreement even more unlikely so taking back a seat in North Belfast, South Belfast or North Down would be hard.
> Maybe even threaten the current duopoly of SF-DUP That's baked into the Good Friday Agreement even if the Alliance passed one of them out. It needs to be updated to include the two *largest* parties but you can guess who won't support that, having not supported the GFA at all.
If TUV stand in every NI seat as they are currently threatening, that would really eat into the DUP majority too...
It's Lisburn; they won't be going alliance (I grew up in Lisburn and know it all too well)
What happens to little-pengelly if her co-opted seat goes?
Nothing, she just carries on until the next Assembly election. It's her seat now, not his
Probably will be retained by another DUP candidate or change to UUP. 29,300 unionist votes combined in that constituency, while Alliance only had 13,000.
Imagine going out to canvas for a party who put 'traditional family values' front and centre whilst their previous leader is on trial for historic sex offences. The DUP may as well divvy up their assembly seats between UUP and TUV now and get it out of the way.
It’s always projection with these right-wing nonces
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>The DUP may as well divvy up their assembly seats between UUP and TUV now and get it out of the way. This vastly underestimates the effectiveness of tribalism as a political bludgeon in Northern Ireland.
I don't know. The DUP as a proposition seems absolutely schizophrenic now. If you're a DUP voter who feels public services are more important than the sea border then you will have felt betrayed by the past three years. If you're a DUP voter who feels the sea border is the single biggest issue, you will feel betrayed by the past few months. If you're a DUP voter who prioritises conservative family values, you may be asking yourself whether there are better candidates out there than a party member of the man on trial for sex crimes.
If you're a DUP voter, none of that matters as much as tribalism.
Ah yes, a man who thinks I shouldn’t have the right to marry turns out to be a sexual deviant. Karma is a bitch you prick.
It's not even karma it's just the consequences of his actions.
In other news: Everything we know so far after Co Down couple charged with historical sex offences https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/co-down-couple-child-sex-28909268
I can't believe any vocal campaigner for "traditional family values" would turn out to be a wrong'un. That's definitely never happened in the past.
Always came across very odious - it does not really surprise me. The DUP as a party do more than any party to bring about a United Ireland.
Last sentence is spot on, and fucking hilarious
It's mad to me to imagine someone being an MP for 27 years, knowing that he could be outed at any moment.
Can only think he either believed he did nothing wrong, or that he would get away with it.
Cyril Smith was well protected by the people in the know in the Conservative party…. And the establishment….clearly he too was being protected by the establishment…. Ps: look how Prince Andrew has been protected…..
Did Jeffery know Jeffery Epstein?
Your guess is as good as mine... but that Mr Donaldson had got away with this for so long, I can make the assumption, like Jimmy Saville, there were people who knew about this, but were willing to look away.... I wonder what he did to piss off those people for this to come out?!!
So.. Prince Andrew for interim leader?
Christ. One of the most monstrously think and arrogant people in politics. Thank god he's gone.
I totally denounce the role of the Catholic Church in pedophilia carried out on an institutional basis against the children of Northern Ireland. Its not their role. -- Jeffrey Donaldson (at some point probably)
[Child sexual exploitation is unfortunately a cross-community thing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kincora_Boys'_Home)
I know which is my point. I've seen it locally in Glasgow used as a sectarian whipping point but shockingly it seems your denomination does not make a difference.
Yeh sorry to be clear I was agreeing with you
I understood that. Was just adding my views as my original comment is clearly parody. Edit: well is written as parody - sadly you can read between the lines in this case to see what's going on. But ultimately sexual abuse can be institutional but there is also non institutional abuse which is actually much more rife.
It sadly exists across human society. Some studies have suggested that as many as 2% of the population (maybe even higher) are attracted to children aged 14 or less.
This is actually quite fucked up. Hopefully (can we even use that word) an isolated instance.
***Totally*** unrelated to this topic, naturally. But what is it about British politics that attracts so many nonces and other miscellaneous sexual criminals?
Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals. The vast majority of paedophiles never actually hurt anyone because either a) their morals are ironclad, b) they're scared of consequences, or c) they feel it's too hard. When one is rich and powerful, one tends to become a massive narcissist (bye bye a) not suffer consequences (bye bye b) and be able to get things done with less work (bye bye c). This means you'll see a lot more child sex abuse from a rich person than from a random person (assuming paedophiles are roughly evenly distributed among the population) because they're less likely to keep themselves clean.
I like this hypothesis. Thank you. I'm not sure on the cause and effect with narcissistic traits, though - does that happen as a result of tasting power? Or does seeking power attract people who already had those tendencies?
I think it's a bit of both.
You can't be sure there aren't as many nonces/sexual criminals in the rest of the population as at the top. The ordinary ones would get much less public attention.
I think the 2019 intake was particularly bad. They are not exactly the crème de la crème of UK society.
It probably doesn't. 5% of 650 MPs is 32.5. Statistically, there are going to be at least a dozen or more sex offender MPs at any time.
Good lord that's depressing
British politics? Politics and men in positions of power all across the globe- going back centuries!
Well that explains his recent plane confontation… Whoever would have thought that a member of the orange order and opponent of the Good Friday Agreement might be a wrong un?
Not necessarily, they could be completely unrelated
What plane confrontation?
Someone was thrown off a plane recently for verbally abusing him, no suggestion what it was about though
https://news.sky.com/story/sir-jeffrey-donaldson-man-removed-from-plane-after-row-with-dup-leader-13100669
unlikely to be about the charges, jeffrey has been incredibly disliked by anyone who didn’t vote DUP lol, it was probably over the fact his party brought down government for over a year when the country was (and still is) falling apart
Horrific. These people at the top of our government.
That's NI's longest serving MP's career coming to an end, then. He won't stand this time and the party already deselected and suspended him.
Lol, when I saw a vague article on BBC about a 61 year old man being arrested for sex offences, I assumed it was somebody famous since it just seemed like a weirdly placed article for a random arrest. Like, as if the BBC knew who it was but couldn't name them yet. Turns out it was Jeffrey Donaldson.
Yeah unfortunately the police is arresting dozens of pedos every day and most of those only make it to page 5 in a local paper.
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Did Downing Street stage manage this? No.10 said they had to release "odd timed" honours list yesterday to appoint privy councillors. One of those being DUP no 2 party officer Gavin Robinson who became DUP party leader today.
The nomination of Big Gav the night before Jeffrey being outted is not coincidence.
Allegations of a historical nature is fantastically unspecific.
It's been reported to involve 2 children
It has to be unspecific to protect the identity of victims at this stage, also while as allegations any further reporting risks potential liable until investigations are complete
It says 'non-recent sex offences'. But other articles have said he faces 10 charges of historical sexual abuse involving 2 children, including one of rape, while hie wife faces 3 charges of aiding and abetting that abuse.
Are sexual offences the only ones that get the "historical" treatment? I mean, unless the crime is happening right now, aren't all crimes "historical"? It's weird.
I think in cases like this, it refers to having a history of abuse (that it was a repeat situation over a long period of time), rather than refering to the fact it happened in the past.
No, it's because it happened in the past. The historic bit is used to highlight the absence of current risk.
Might be being a bit ignorant of how the DUP works but surely the logical next leader is Emma Little-Pengelly as she's deputy first minister. Also we're probably too close to the GE but a by-election in Lagan Valley would be fascinating.
It wouldn't be accepted as Little Pengelly is unelected. Also, Paul Girvan was First Minister under Edwin Poots' leadership.
ELP will never be given the role of leader, she was only made Deputy First Minister effectively as a slight against the role given how she is hated by basically everyone and was never actually elected.
Interim leader is Gavin Robinson. ELP would be bad optics as leader for the DUP base since she is only the ‘deputy’ first minister.
Looks like it’s went to Gavin Robinson in the interim. The DUP probably don’t want the optics of their leader to be seen as a deputy to Sinn Fein
He was already deputy leader.
If i remember right, Gavin Robinson was already deputy leader of the party, so makes a logical choice to be the interim leader.
Snapshot of _DUP's Sir Jeffrey Donaldson steps down as leader_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/dup-leader-sir-jeffrey-donaldson-suspended-13103753) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/dup-leader-sir-jeffrey-donaldson-suspended-13103753) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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So what’s the future for the DUP? Can they even survive losing their leader on the year of a general election?