lansbury

It isn't just the contributions of one person, there are several others as well.

moneypenny20

I've sat through one of those events. Can't remember why now but at least a quarter of attendees remained sitting. No one was remotely bothered.

Going back to this pledging thing... It has a North Korea vibe to me. Can't continue with the programme until everyone's pledged allegiance. I didn't realise it happened as frequently as it appears to from this thread.

SultanOfSwing

Could be any number of reasons, or they could have already received communion in an earlier service (I believe convention dictates you only receive it once in a given week/weekend, but I'm not Catholic so don't quote me).

Nobody will bat an eyelid.

I don't know that it really happens that frequently in most people's day to day lives if they're not teachers or council members. Like I said the other night, I can't remember the last time I was anywhere where it was recited and honestly that last time might have been when I volunteered as a classroom assistant for my son 12 years ago.

dc koop

Well I'm glad that she has friends and there are activities to participate in. IMO church or any religion serves no useful purpose as far as extending one's knowledge of the world. It exists to worship a deity who may or may not exist. My granddaughters play volleyball, attend a public school and play with and sit next to kids from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and cultures. Although we don't expose them to newsreel photos of kids being killed by airstrikes and chemicals thy are aware that these things exist and they also know that in this day and age there are a lot of other bad things as well as good. Having an English grandfather has also exposed them to much about Britain, what a Parliamentary system of government is. A monarch as head of State instead of a President.

They don't go to church, neither do their parents and neither do we. They do believe in God however and I make no attempt to influence them otherwise. They may be luckier than me someday in being able to figure it all out one way or the other

SultanOfSwing

Hey Kim, did you realise you'd started a pissing contest?

Giantaxe

I've been to a communion service about a dozen times in my life but never taken communion. The only reaction I can recall is being asked very politely at Cardiff Cathedral whether I was going to take communion. They weren't the slightest bit bothered when I said no.

Can't remember the last time I heard the pledge live, so I wouldn't assume it's that common outside of schools, government and political rallies. But, yeh, definitely makes me think "North Korea". I mean, if the US is so great, why do we have to indoctrinate school children from an early age to pledge allegiance to it?

SultanOfSwing

That wasn't the original intent. It was written originally to aid a campaign to sell flags to schools, when Francis Bellamy penned a short line to be recited to said flags, while performing an interesting looking salute that was once favored by the Romans but fell out of use in the mid-1900s for some obscure reason ...

But yeah, written in 1892 as part of what was ostensibly a nationwide ad campaign but now, according to some people in this thread who have the authority to speak for 350 million Americans, it's somehow now the real-life equivalent of the light in the heart of the Island

kimilseung

Not like this, it might be good to just stop, but I feel a bit of responsibility to stay involved as I started it.

SultanOfSwing

You have no responsibly other than to continue to represent yourself in the way you have been throughout the thread.

I tried to stop shitposting though, I really did. Low hanging fruit, what is a guy to do?

dc koop

It's nothing like North Korea. Here you are reciting allegiance to the republic and democracy you are living in not to some individual with an overblown sense of his own importance and a lust for maintaining absolute power.

Do you think that standing to attention after a concert or some other event to sing praises to a Queen who is definitely NOT long to reign over us and wishing her "victories... happy and glorious" makes more sense than the Pledge? Or do people in the UK bother about that any longer ?

I like the Queen, don't get me wrong but I'll be the farm she thinks it's a load of old bollacks

dc koop

Why stay? Just drop it. I'll find some other thread to make someone else's life a little miserable.

kimilseung

It is funny how it is a Brit that is so worked up about it, none of the Americans I know (other than one teacher) could care less beyond it being a bit of a cultural habit. I wonder if he really lives in one of those scary places he makes his home out to be or if he is just trolling? I'd hate to think there really are places like he says.I hear about them, but I have never actually seen one.

SultanOfSwing

I wouldn't be surprised if there are some regions in the country where there would be a more visceral reaction to this, but I'm not convinced they could be found in California.

dc koop

Some of us Brits are more patriotic than the home grown Yanks. Don't forget that it was another Brit Thomas Paine who wrote a book "Common sense" which inspired George W to lead an Army which ended up packing that other George back to England.

SultanOfSwing

Nobody cares.