Christmas thoughts….

It is a time of year for reflection. With, inevitably, a Christian component.

As ever, our lives should be about doing good, being kind, being humble. But with an intellectual, scientific, edge.

Some short observations are as follows (I will expand on them during 2026):

I am sad for America. Many American people are great people, kind, generous, good values. Committed to the democratic process. Presidents that you may not agree with, but you would respect. At this moment I just wish George Clooney and Bruce Springsteen ‘job shared’ the role of President.

Instead we have President Trump, failing intellectually, trashing the reputation of the United States, narcissistic beyond belief, a joke. Sooner or later the ‘grown ups in the room’ – the senior military commanders – will have to tell him to step aside.

His latest ego trip are the new ‘battleships’, to be named after him. They are old technology, old strategy. Somebody, somewhere, must be developing ‘stealth’ hypersonic missiles. They will be literally dead in the water.

It is time for us all to step up and properly support Ukraine. Face down the bully Putin. If we do nothing, he will gradually extend through Eastern Europe. Our failure to fully support Ukraine – troops on the ground, air cover, naval support- is as shameful as our failure to support the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.

We come across as gutless. The average Ukraine has more guts than the whole political class in the UK. Maybe we are gutless – how many would even fight for the UK if necessary?

In the meantime Israel is not respecting the borders agreed after the second world war – as in settlements on the West Bank. As such they forfeit any moral claim that their own borders should be respected.

Looking more broadly at society, it is now evident that much type 2 diabetes is self inflicted. It would make economic sense to therefore to say that NHS treatment should not be free of charge. Plane tickets should be based on a ‘charge per kilo’. Maybe larger people should have to pay for two seats.

To be positive we need to do things about education and economic growth. I have said elsewhere that the Open University should be free of charge. Likewise there should be free access to all college based trade courses. The message should be that we encourage ‘self improvement’.

And why not make the first five years of any new business free of tax. It would be concrete evidence of enthusiasm for economic growth, linked to individual opportunity. And new businesses are good for the economy, creating jobs, funding a supply chain and so on. Creating demand for buildings, vehicles, professional support…..

Where does Christianity fit in? We are a secular society, but recognising Christianity as our primary faith. Anybody who wants to live here needs to happily accept that that is the case.

I would bring back ‘school assembly’, a bible reading and hymn. Compulsory for all students. But with a number of tough conditions:

The bible needs re-writing, to bring it up to date. The world has changed in 2000 years, God appears not to have anticiptated the changes, and much of what it says is very wrong. It cannot be taken literally.

Clearly ‘the Creation’, ‘Noah’s Ark’, the ‘Virgin Birth’ and ‘the Resurrection’ were stories of their time, but never valid. There is no evidence to support these stories. They go against science. It suits male Preachers to stick with these stories, but the world has moved on.

An Italian Arch Bishop has just observed that women should ‘obey’ and are happy to do so. The Churches approach to women is ‘institutionally sexist’. It appals me.

The English and Welsh churches have just appointed female Archbishops. Which is a good thing. But they profess to be guided by the Bible: if they have read Timothy’s observations on the role of women, they must be in some sort of intellectual turmoil, weak minded or hypocrits? Clearly the Bible needs updating.

Each Church should accept that there is no ‘one true faith’. It may be your faith, but you should not generalise. How arrogant would you have to be to claim that your subdivision of Christianity is the only valid faith. And clearly there is no ‘united’ christian ‘true faith’. You won’t find even the big divisions – Catholic, Protestant, Evangelic, the American Christian Churches geting into bed together. Some of the smaller ‘brands’, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Plymough Brethren, won’t even condone socialising or marriage outside of their narrow faith.

Likewise, I do not think you should ‘brainwash’ children into your faith. They should wait until they are adults to make a decision. In the same way ‘missionery’ activities, based on your faith being a superior or the only true faith is wrong.

In a rewritten Bible I would keep the Commandments(simplified and updated) and the Parables. If we all based our lives properly on the parable of the ‘Good Samaritan’ the world would be a better place.

Any church that does not accept the above should lose any charitable status and tax breaks.

What else? Well, the Bible is against sodomy. This includes bestiality (obvious), probably Oral Sex (not so clear cut) and sex that does not facilitate procreation. Arguably anal sex is not natural and should be banned. The argument about procreation is more complex – I think contraception and vasecomies are OK. Likewise a sexlife for a woman who no longer ovulates. This slightly links to abortion – no one would say it is desirable, but peronally I would leave that decision to the woman. And no men should try to tell women what to do in this situation.

I think sexism is still almost all-pervading. Sex is not about the man’s pleasure – in any relationship the woman should orgasm at least as often as the male…..

Bigotry is interesting. The ‘trans lobby’ now begin to look like bigots. My starting point would be that people with penises cannot be women, so they cannot be ‘trans women’. They should not participate in women’s sport or changing facilities. We need a new name for them – they used to be called ‘cross dressers’ or ‘transvestites’ – a modern term would be like ‘ladyboys’.

Finally, many of us feel pessimistic about the future. We had thirty bad years of the Cold War, then thirty years from 1990 of relatve stability and prosperity. Now we face upheaval – huge technological change, climate change, and political and religious instability. Who would bet on ‘West vs East’ political war, or Christianity versus Islam religious war.

It is not helped by changes in our culture. Tolerance apppears to be giving way to ‘cancel culture’ – I do not agree with what you say, so I will try to get the mob to destroy you. It makes me wary about expressing what I actually think on many topics. The ‘adults in the room’ appear outnumbered by the social media ‘keyboard warriors’. It’s a bit like in many elections there has been a Conservative majority, but quietly so, being ‘out voiced’ by the virtue signalling left…..

We now have a serious problem, as poor standards of living have disillusioned many people with the centralist political parties. So we seem to have huge growth in Right wing and Left wing parties. A growth in extremism and mutual antipathy. Just when we need to be strong as a nation and a democracy.

It’s as if we don’t need enemies, just leave us alone and we will tear ourselves apart. Hating each other more (a bit like Reds and Blues in football) than thinking about enemy action abroad (Russia threatening our underseas cables and pipelines for example).

The moderate politicians need to fight back, convince people that deep down we are one united nation, willing to fight for a good future for our children, and for our democracy.

I repeat, we need to do good, be kind, be humble.

So, time to wish you the best possible New Year, Haydn