​If there were anything in this world or any other more guaranteed to get my father, my grandfather turning in their graves, stirring their stumps, thinking they ought to do something, take a break from a peaceful eternity of talking to interesting people, catching up on their reading and walking in celestial forests, it is their little ewe-lamb being made subject to the authority of religious monkeys and the surrender of England to said monkeys: metaphorically if not literally my ancestors sustain me, another way of putting that of course being grounded in fact.

 Thus an old Labour man speaketh unto Blair from beyond the grave.  Love does after all conquer death.

Do not by the way, filthy animal, product of intellectual if not physical slum, sewer where men beat up women, even think of telling me about England, where men beat up lice who beat up women.  
 
For the millionth time:
 
THEREFORE, VICE-CHANCELLOR
 
Well, yes, repeatedly being clubbed has failed to stop the daughter of Marxist-Leninism who is also a student of Voltaire and a child of Woodstock with a distinct fondness for Greece from accepting that it is inconceivable and ridiculous to mock, criticize and condemn religion, no-one ever has, no-one ever either had views deviant from orthodoxy or felt entirely free to voice them, as is has failed to convince an Englishwoman that no-one previously has ever said the Vatican is a crock of shit, but then no-one not severely mentally damaged would have thought it would.
 
I suppose these nutcases think atheism is and always was proscribed. My father was an atheist.  My grandfather was an atheist.  Do they think Marxists crept around in terror of being overheard by the 'holy'?  I have of course pointed out that, whatever cosy chats Uncle Richard and Cousin Rodney, being card-carrying members of the Communist Party,  might have had with the security services, they lived happy untrammelled little Communist lives, not forced out of employment, crippled or otherwise victimized. 
 
Post-Enlightenment, post-Marx, post Woodstock and post Anglican.  Nothing is going to persuade a nation raised on trilling ‘The King of Love my Shepherd is’ in Morning Assembly and ingesting things like you love your enemies and pray for them that despitefully use you, that though a person may have faith such that he move mountains if he has not charity he is nothing, a sounding brass, a tinkling cymbal, that if a man say he love God and hateth his brother he is a liar, that God is Love, that apes with clubs are holy.  The message of the NT is that Love conquers death.  That is not Mohammed’s message.  Jesus taught that you never kill: other-worldly but why should religious teachings not be other-worldly, they’re supposed to be other-wordly.  That is not Mohammed’s message.   The teachings of Jesus are markedly different from those of Mohammed and no matter what terror tactics, what slime, what corrupt laws are brought to bear, those too are simple facts that will not go away.  
 
The last enemy that shall  be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15: 26.  Also, as I have noted, on the tombstone of James and Lilly Potter.
 
These things are central to our culture, far removed from any pulpit, any particular interest in religion.  The millions of Potter fans are clearly not repelled by very clear messages about good and evil, love and death.  Love stands up by itself.  It is not remotely necessary to believe in the Christian revelation to love your neighbour as yourself.  Jesus stands up by himself.  What does a member of the unchurched masses put on the gravestone of her child: ‘safe in the arms of Jesus’.  Whether candle-lit vigils with banners saying ‘Love’ are a cutting-response to Islamist terrorism is doubtful but they’re a hell of  lot better than other possible responses.  A society not  rooted in Jesus’ teachings would probably simply have razed all Muslim enclaves to the ground. 
 
Every element of the Creed has been found inessential; of course hardly anyone goes to church   (‘I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.  On the third day he rose again from the dead.  He ascended into heaven, where he sitteth at the right hand of God, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.’ From memory. 

The full Nicene Creed is as follows:
WE BELIEVE in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven:
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.
Amen

Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
Matthew 21:31
​
27And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. 28And he left all, rose up, and followed him.
29And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them. 30But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners? 31And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. 32I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Luke 5
 
But guys they need me, you good folks don’t….Jesus is out in the public square, where he always was, where we publicans and sinners can find him if we need him.  The ‘good folks’ are far too preoccupied with mutual admiration societies of those of faith to notice. 

The number of people attending Church of England services each week has for the first time dropped below 1 million – accounting for less than 2% of the population – with Sunday attendances falling to 760,000. The statistics, published on Tuesday, reflect the C of E’s steady decline over recent decades in the face of growing secularism and religious diversity, and the ageing profile of its worshippers. Numbers attending church services have fallen by 12% in the past decade, to less than half the levels of the 1960s. The figures from the church’s latest annual survey of attendance show that a weekly average of 980,000 people attended its 16,000 churches during October 2014, comprising 830,000 adults and 150,000 children. The vast majority attended on a Sunday, and there is likely to be some double-counting in the weekly figure.
www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/12/church-of-england-attendance-falls-below-million-first-time  (January 2016)

Organized Christianity is dead in England.  It is not co-terminous with Jesus, who I think you will find is alive and well and particularly present at for instance pop-concerts in Manchester.  
 
As of course at other rock-concerts

Actually organized Christianity committed suicide, in so many ways it's hard to enumerate them all. By neurosis about women priests, which must be regarded as distinct from other doubts about women moving into traditionally male roles, such as flying jets or driving HGVs.  Are women not intellectually capable of grasping theology, then?  Oh, puh-lease.  Oh but women aren't traditionally nurturing, caring. (To delve into their 'reasoning', which of course most people don't, is to uncover a primitive morass worthy of the Middle Ages.)  By neurosis about gays, of course.  By siding with suppression of freedom of speech.  By ludicrous attacks on atheism and on most people in general for being flawed, making themselves look completely ludicrous by making out there is something wrong with people for being reasonably rational and grounded in reality, familiar with science, not ignorant and gullible peasants, and thus not being able to recite the Creed.  Oh and by ditching the theology of love.  We don't want to say anything that might offend Muslims, do we.    I mean, to say if you have all faith such as you can move mountains but you have not charity you are nothing is just being inflammatory, isn't it.  As for 1 John, particularly appalling bits which clearly ought to be suppressed are Verse 8 (He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.) and Verses 18-20 (18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. 19 We love him, because he first loved us. 20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?).  They deny Jesus.  There's something wrong with the rest of us.  You have to laugh.

Since the Popes have spent 2000 years upholding a travesty of Jesus’ teachings, a sexually sick fascist death-cult of obedience, the Islam of the West, Catholics presumably do not notice any of this.  Others, however, do.  Caution, monkeys, caution, you have crossed Checkpoint Charlie: you are now in the post-Protestant world.
 
Yes, of course it gave rise to great art and literature, as did Islam.  Despite them. I do not think this was fused by screaming about heresy, the evils of the body, and the evil of women.

Or this:

​Nothing is more vital to the creation of an infrastructure composed entirely of lies than ignorance and thus, as I might just have said before, education had to be corrupted and literacy derided; nothing is more vital to maintaining that infrastructure than the illiterate and intellectually incapable, strutting monkeys full of it such as Doctor and Nurse.  At all cost, as we have clearly seen, the brute is to be ‘protected from’ knowledge and reason, its ignorance and irrationality given free rein; free to wield its club.
 
'The Government has been convinced that common sense would make the State go up in flames and the country become the most miserable on earth.'
 
Quite so, yes.
 
FREEDOM OF THOUGHT (Voltaire, Dictionnaire philosophique, 1764, my translation)
 
Around 1707, at the time when the English won the Battle of Saragossa, were protectors of Portugal and briefly gave a king to Spain, Lord Boldmind, a general who had been wounded, took the waters at Barege. There he met Count Medroso who’d fallen off his horse a league and a half from the battle-field. He was an intimate of the Inquisition. Lord Boldmind was intimate only in conversation. One day, after drinking, they had the following exchange:
 
BOLDMIND: So you’re a sergeant with the Dominicans. That’s a rotten job.
 
MEDROSO: True, but I’d rather be their servant than their victim and I chose the misfortune of burning my neighbour to that of being cooked myself.
 
BOLDMIND: What a dreadful choice! You’d be a hundred times better off under the dominion of the Moors, who’d leave you free to wallow in your superstitions and who, conquerors though they are, do not have the presumption to chain up minds.
 
MEDROSO: What do you expect? We’re not allowed to write, to speak, or even to think. If we speak, they find it easy to twist our words and our writings even more so. Finally, since no-one can burn us for our private thoughts, we are threatened with burning for eternity at the command of God himself if we don’t think like the Dominicans. The Government has been convinced that common sense would make the State go up in flames and the country become the most miserable on earth.
 
BOLDMIND: Do you think that we English are so wretched, we who cover the seas with our ships and who have won battles for you the length of Europe? Does it seem to you that the Dutch, who taken over practically all your possessions in the Indies, and who today count among your protectors, are cursed by God because they have given complete freedom to the press, and trade in ideas? Was the Roman Empire less powerful because Cicero wrote in freedom?
 
MEDROSO: Who’s he? I have never heard the holy Hermandad pronounce that name.
 
BOLDMIND: He was a product of the University of Rome who wrote what he thought, like Julius Caesar, Marcus Aurelius, Titus Lucretius Carus, Plinius, Seneca and other scholars.
 
MEDROSO: Never heard of these guys. [Translator’s note. Sorry…] I have been told that the Catholic religion is finished if people start to think.
 
BOLDMND: You don’t have to believe it You’re sure that your religion is divine and that the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. If that is the case, nothing will be able to destroy it.
 
MEDROSO:. No, but it can be reduced to a trifle and it’s because of thinking that Sweden, Denmark, the whole of your island, half of Germany groan under the terrible misery of no longer being subjects of the pope. People even say that if men continue to along their false paths they will soon come to simple worship of God and virtue. If the gates of hell prevail thus far, what would become of the Holy Office?
 
BOLDMIND: If the first Christians hadn’t had freedom of thought, is it not the case that there wouldn’t be any Christianity?
 
MEDROSO: What do you mean? I don’t understand.
 
BOLDMIND: I can believe it. I mean that if Tiberius and the first emperors had had Dominicans to keep the first Christians from pen and ink, if freedom of thought hadn’t been established in the Rman Empire , it would have been impossible for the Christians to establish their religion.
 
If, therefore, Christianity only came about because of freedom of thought, isn’t it a contradiction and a wrong that today it wants to extinguish this liberty to which alone it owes its existence? If someone offers you a business proposition, don’t you consider it for a long time before deciding? What greater preoccupations can we have in the world than our happiness or our eternal suffering? There are a hundred religions in the world and they all damn you for your beliefs, which they call absurd and blaphemous. Examine your beliefs, therefore.
 
MEDROSO: How can I? I‘m not a Dominican.
 
BOLDMIND: You‘re a man. That‘s enough.
 
MEDROSO: Oh dear You‘re more of a man than I am.
 
BOLDMIND: All you have to do is learn to think. You were born with a mind. You‘re like a bird caged by the Inquisition; the Holy Office has clipped your wings. They can regrow! Someone who knows no geometry can learn it. It is shameful to put your soul in the hands of those to whom you would not entrust your money. Dare to think for yourself.
 
MEDROSO: They tell us that if everyone thought for himself there would be Babel.
 
BOLDMIND: It’s quite the opposite. When you’re in the theatre, everyone freely gives his view of the play and no-one’s upset. But if some arrogant defender of a bad playwright tries to force people of discrimination to find good what they think is bad, then the whistles and the fruit-throwing start, as happened once in London. Big Brother (Translator’s note: literally tyrants of the mind) has caused half the misery in the world. We have only been happy in England since everyone has been able to freely exercise the right to speak his mind.
 
MEDROSO: We’re also quite contented in Lisbon where no-one can speak his.
 
BOLDMIND: You are content but you are not happy. Yours is the calm of the galley-slave rowing silently away in sync.
 
MEDROSO: You think my soul is in the galleys?
 
BOLDMIND: Yes, and I want to liberate you!
 
MEDROSO: Suppose I like it in the galleys.
 
BOLDMIND: Then you deserve to be there.
 
(Dictionnaire philosophique, 1764)
 
 
What you do not do, cunts, is chain everyone else to the oars.
 
After enjoying some time in conversation with Socrates, he went forward with my guide into a grove situated above the thickets where all the sages of antiquity seemed to be tasting sweet repose.  
I saw a man of gentle, simple countenance, who seemed to me to be about thirty-five years old. From afar he cast compassionate glances on these piles of whitened bones, across which I had had to pass to reach the sages' abode. I was astonished to find his feet swollen and bleeding, his hands likewise, his side pierced, and his ribs flayed with whip cuts. " Good Heavens! " I said to him, " is it possible for a just man, a sage, to be in this state? I have just seen one who was treated in a very hateful way, but there is no comparison between his torture and yours. Wicked priests and wicked judges poisoned him; is it by priests and judges that you have been so cruelly assassinated? "  
He answered with much courtesy--"Yes."  
"And who were these monsters? "  
"They were hypocrites."  
"Ah! that says everything; I understand by this single word that they must have condemned you to death. Had you then proved to them, as Socrates did, that the Moon was not a goddess, and that Mercury was not a god? "  
"No, these planets were not in question. My compatriots did not know at all what a planet is; they were all arrogant ignoramuses. Their superstitions were quite different from those of the Greeks."  
"You wanted to teach them a new religion, then? "  
"Not at all; I said to them simply--' Love God with all your heart and your fellow-creature as yourself, for that is man's whole duty.' Judge if this precept is not as old as the universe; judge if I brought them a new religion. I did not stop telling them that I had come not to destroy the law but to fulfil it; I had observed all their rites; circumcised as they all were, baptized as were the most zealous among them, like them I paid the Corban; I observed the Passover as they did, eating standing up a lamb cooked with lettuces. I and my friends went to pray in the temple; my friends even frequented this temple after my death; in a word, I fulfilled all their laws without a single exception."  
"What! these wretches could not even reproach you with serving from their laws? "  
"No, without a doubt."  
"Why then did they put you in the condition in which I now see you? "  
"What do you expect me to say! they were very arrogant and selfish. They saw that I knew them; they knew that I was making the citizens acquainted with them; they were the stronger; they took away my life: and people like them will always do as much, if they can, to whoever does them too much justice.'' . . .  
" You therefore contributed in no way by your speeches, badly reported, badly interpreted, to these frightful piles of bones which I saw on my road in coming to consult you? "  
"It is with horror only that I have seen those who have made themselves guilty of these murders."  
" And these monuments of power and wealth, of pride and avarice, these treasures, these ornaments, these signs of grandeur, which I have seen piled up on the road while I was seeking wisdom, do they come from you? "  
"That is impossible; I and my people lived in poverty and meanness: my grandeur was in virtue only."  
I was about to beg him to be so good as to tell me just who he was. My guide warned me to do nothing of the sort. He told me that I was not made to understand these sublime mysteries. Only did I conjure him to tell me in what true religion consisted. [47] "Have I not already told you? Love God and your fellow-creature as yourself."  
" What! if one loves God, one can eat meat on Friday? "  
"I always ate what was given me; for I was too poor to give anyone food."  
" In loving God, in being just, should one not be rather cautious not to confide all the adventures of one's life to an unknown man?"  
"That was always my practice."
" Can I not, by doing good, dispense with making a pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella? "  
"I have never been in that country."  
" Is it necessary for me to imprison myself in a retreat with fools? "  
"As for me, I always made little journeys from town to town.''  
[56]" Is it necessary for me to take sides either for the Greek Church or the Latin? "
 
"When I was in the world I never made any difference between the Jew and the Samaritan."  
"Well, if that is so, I take you for my only master." Then he made me a sign with his head which filled me with consolation. The vision disappeared, and a clear conscience stayed with me.  
Dictionnaire philosophique, Religion. Translated Hanover Historical Texts Project.
 
'And death shall have no dominion'
Thus 'A Hymn of Thanksgiving for the  final overthrow of Death' (The Libretto of Handel's Messiah). It's probably not a 
good idea to think you can walk over the Christian tradition without first understanding what the Christian tradition is. That half  the 'Christian priests' are Death-Eaters, servants of the Dark Lord, should not confuse the issue.

Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 In a moment, in the twinkling of 
an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be  raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put  on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this 
corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on  immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is  swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy 
victory? 

1 Corinthians

“Supposing you’re a soprano,” said Shavli. Sarat looked a bit surprised but did his best. “You hit all the top 
notes. That’s fine. That’s cool. Your voice dominates the stage. But what you  need to do is go higher, beyond the range of the human voice.”
“Now, Sarat, if you will just tell our viewers, and remember, there must be a hundred million tuned in worldwide, exactly what you think about death. Shall I tell them about  the throne too?”
“Now you come to mention it…”said Shav. 
Shavli

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain. 

When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting  rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die. 
Mary E. Frye 
 
For I am persuaded, that  neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things  present, nor 
things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,  shall be able to  separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our  Lord.
Romans 8:38

"Dear  people, I thank you. I shall not say in my worst dreams I never imagined but of course the reality. Some have called us heedless, foolhardy. We pay then for our  folly? We do not skulk, cringe before Death the Great Master – “ The contempt in  his voice was palpable. “And so some will say is this devastation we experience, is this ceremonial we conduct, not in obedience, obeisance to Death.”Oh Sarat,  breathed Mitch. “We are human. To be human is to love. We grieve because we  love, but love must conquer our grief, our fear. We feel the pain and pass  through it into love. We are here today in love to love, to affirm the triumph  of love. Love endures. We are here because we love Maya, not because we loved  her, an ephemeral state, soon forgotten. This flame symbolizes that love. It is no feeble thing, readily extinguished. It is Light. It is power. It is all  power. Death has no power over us. And so there is not an ending but a change,  as every atom in the flame changes from moment to moment. Once more things are different but also they are the same. There is no faltering in our resolution,  no dent in our love.
 “‘They came, the skull-faces, but we laughed.’ This Narulis wrote in his Journal – “  When a very large number of people gasp, it makes a noise, however quietly they  try to do it. Sarat continued. This I say to you today. They cannot destroy  laughter. Today we feel far from it, I perhaps most of all, but all sorrow must  pass. 
Shavli

Death be not proud,  though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore  death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy  pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And  soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And  dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou  then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die. 
John Donne 


The last enemy that shall  be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15: 26 

Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.
Romans 6:9


And death shall have no  dominion.
Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and  the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones  gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they  shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise  again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no  dominion.

And death shall have no  dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet  they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the  unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And  death shall have no dominion.

 And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the  seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the  blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the  characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion. 
Dylan Thomas 


Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, 
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the  profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. 
As he rose and fell
He passes the stages of his age and youth
Entering the  whirlpool.
Eliot: The Waste Land 4. Death by Water

“I know, I know! But mentally we’ve taken ourselves over the top and that’s what we don’t know.”
“Because it’s we who are calling the shots. Our little brains are  squealing that there’s something we need to let hang out here…”
“Life is death. It only sounds so repulsive because time programmes us to see it  linearly.”
“When my grandfather died, I knew he just wasn’t there. He was  somewhere, but not there. A dead person is sort of conclusive.”
Mel thought  of his dead.
“Yes.” Then, “It’s what Mitch said. But not linear. Every moment in life is the opportunity to come out of the dark into Light.” But then  he frowned. “I can’t believe the Anile court didn’t know that.”
“Anile Throne  Excursions,”said Cantilip. “Suppose – there’s the Interface, capital I. What all the trips are about is interfaces. No barriers. What is being screamed at us is  everything is whole.”
Sarat
 
Rowling is of course not the only female writing about the conquest of death by love.  What we have in common is that we are modern languages graduates, which may be significant: a French cast of mind, an advanced capacity to can the crap.
 
What we have in common apart from being witches, Satanists, and other ravings.  Well, actually, since a witch is a strong and learned woman, we both are witches.