Canonizing Sports Stars

2

Comments

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    rhubarb wrote: »
    Trouble is that these 'fun events' are becoming more frequent. I counted ten occurrences last year. The days of Sunday church seems to be dying a rapid death.

    I think it more accurate to say that they died their death at least 20 years ago. And your figures give church access more than 4 times the days given to the runners.
  • Leorning CnihtLeorning Cniht Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Gee D wrote: »
    I think it more accurate to say that they died their death at least 20 years ago. And your figures give church access more than 4 times the days given to the runners.

    By your logic, if a thousand people want to regularly run past your house, allowing you access to your house on one day a year is being generous.


  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Gee D wrote: »
    I think it more accurate to say that they died their death at least 20 years ago. And your figures give church access more than 4 times the days given to the runners.

    By your logic, if a thousand people want to regularly run past your house, allowing you access to your house on one day a year is being generous.

    Isn't that the real reason churches should (continue to) die?
    Their adherents view them as exclusive, private spaces, despite the fundamental tenet of the philosophy being about sharing and the greater well-being.
  • Well, perhaps you could host a refreshment point/first aid station at the church. If you've got a few thousand people passing by, plus spectators, a bit of Christian charity might make them come back the week after, when there isn't a run on...
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    @Gee D, @Leorning Cniht and @RooK, as a person who lives where we are domestically messed about by several road closures a year for these sort of events, my sympathies are entirely with both @rhubarb and his/her church on this. Why should the fans of various sports feel they have a virtue that somehow entitles them to inflict inconvenience on the public at large?

    It's not just having the roads blocked so we can't get in or out. Sometimes there are tannoys urging competitors along, on one occasion every few minutes from 8 am on a Sunday morning.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Enoch wrote: »
    @Gee D, @Leorning Cniht and @RooK, Why should the fans of various sports feel they have a virtue that somehow entitles them to inflict inconvenience on the public at large?

    I'm pretty sure I'm on solid ground saying that the runners and their supporters are a larger part of that public than churchgoers.
  • But why should fans of various gods feel they have a virtue that somehow entitles them to inflict inconvenience on the public at large?
  • Why should car drivers think they have any right to drive on roads? Roads are for the people.

    The runners or anyone else who blocks them for a day have as much right to use them as anyone else. Church people need to give the road and if asked also the walking paths (sidewalks or pavements). And do so with joy.

    As others noted, it might do to contribute to the community for a change and get out of your comfortable pews.

    This tangent has nil to do with canonizing sports figures and much to do with exclusive church clubs of people who probably care little for the average citizen. Does your church donate a little to some worthy starvation cause on some other continent but care little for normal everyday folks? Thought so.
  • Re road closures for events:

    {I realize this is a serious situation for people on both sides, but in the interest of lightening the mood a bit...}

    You could have it worse ;) SF incurs many naked runners in the annual Bay to Breakers race. Then there's the World Naked Bike Ride.

    Not to mention all the many other runs, walks, street fairs/festivals, Chinese New Year parade, Pride parade...

  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Regular Sunday church services are an important part of the lives of many. There should be a way for the entitled Lycra-wearing invaders to share the roads with those who depend on getting into their churches, just as there should be for residents to get into their houses.

    Where I live, there's an annual event that's even worse: a rock-n-roll marathon, where streets are closed so that residents can't get out of their neighborhoods. Worse, their ears suffer a barrage of hours of overloud rock that they cannot escape. (Nobody in those neighborhoods was consulted on how they felt about this, of course.)
  • Why should car drivers think they have any right to drive on roads? Roads are for the people.

    In the US, the answer would be, because the taxes that fund the lion's share of road construction and maintenance are on petrol. Cars have a right to drive on roads because they pay for them.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Why should car drivers think they have any right to drive on roads? Roads are for the people.

    In the US, the answer would be, because the taxes that fund the lion's share of road construction and maintenance are on petrol. Cars have a right to drive on roads because they pay for them.

    Not lion's share. In your country apparently about 50%. https://taxfoundation.org/gasoline-taxes-and-user-fees-pay-only-half-state-local-road-spending/ But it's a good point. They should. But that's not all the costs because carbon pollution isn't properly factored in.

    It isn't a legit argument about church "ownership" of streets. They pay for what exactly by taxes?
  • mousethief wrote: »
    Why should car drivers think they have any right to drive on roads? Roads are for the people.

    In the US, the answer would be, because the taxes that fund the lion's share of road construction and maintenance are on petrol. Cars have a right to drive on roads because they pay for them.

    Not lion's share. In your country apparently about 50%. https://taxfoundation.org/gasoline-taxes-and-user-fees-pay-only-half-state-local-road-spending/ But it's a good point. They should. But that's not all the costs because carbon pollution isn't properly factored in.

    It isn't a legit argument about church "ownership" of streets. They pay for what exactly by taxes?

    I wasn't replying to a question about churches but cars.
  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    My parents' church has this issue a few times a year, and the people who suffer aren't the wicked car-owners. The wicked car-owners drive the long way round, thus maximising their carbon emissions. The people who are cut off are the virtuous people who come by public transport, and who find that their bus has been re-routed.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »
    Enoch wrote: »
    @Gee D, @Leorning Cniht and @RooK, Why should the fans of various sports feel they have a virtue that somehow entitles them to inflict inconvenience on the public at large?


    I'm pretty sure I'm on solid ground saying that the runners and their supporters are a larger part of that public than churchgoers.
    As to whether the number of runners who are being pandered to is more or less than the number of the general public, residents, churches, people wanting to get to somewhere else, bus users etc who are being messed about so they can enjoy their hobby - that is something that no tools exist to measure.

    If people want to run, why can't they be expected to run on a sports' track? It's not even as though it's interesting to watch.

    I'm with @Rossweisse also on the rock-n-roll marathon.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Enoch wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    Enoch wrote: »
    @Gee D, @Leorning Cniht and @RooK, Why should the fans of various sports feel they have a virtue that somehow entitles them to inflict inconvenience on the public at large?


    I'm pretty sure I'm on solid ground saying that the runners and their supporters are a larger part of that public than churchgoers.
    As to whether the number of runners who are being pandered to is more or less than the number of the general public, residents, churches, people wanting to get to somewhere else, bus users etc who are being messed about so they can enjoy their hobby - that is something that no tools exist to measure.

    If people want to run, why can't they be expected to run on a sports' track? It's not even as though it's interesting to watch.

    I'm with @Rossweisse also on the rock-n-roll marathon.

    Can we validly talk of people being pandered to by allowing them use of the road to go to church, not just a few Sundays of the year but every Sunday. OK, I know and understand it's a nuisance, but many things in life are from time to time.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    If people want to run, why can't they be expected to run on a sports' track? It's not even as though it's interesting to watch.

    The built environment is designed for and dominated by the car. Our houses are not connected by pavements, but by roads. I have to wait, often at specific signal-controlled crossing points, simply to access the other side of the same road. Some roads I am, as a pedestrian, simply barred from.

    Closing roads for a running event - not even a race, but a mass participation event - is in itself a subversive act.
  • Rossweisse wrote: »
    Where I live, there's an annual event that's even worse: a rock-n-roll marathon, where streets are closed so that residents can't get out of their neighborhoods. Worse, their ears suffer a barrage of hours of overloud rock that they cannot escape. (Nobody in those neighborhoods was consulted on how they felt about this, of course.)
    Ah yes. We had that for a number of years. The first year of it, the marathon fell on Palm Sunday, and churches (and citizens) made their displeasure known to the city council, with the result that changes were made so that (most) churches could be gotten to without too much trouble and weren’t disturbed by the noise.

    We were not included in “most” churches, though; in fact, we were surrounded by the marathon. So we made the decision to have church at 5:00 in the afternoon, followed by a potluck. It worked so well that it became what we did every year on the day of that marathon. And now, even though that marathon doesn’t happen any more, we still choose a Sunday in April or May to do late afternoon church and a potluck.

    We have one other marathon that happens on the first Sunday of November, but it’s usually cleared out by mid-morning, so that only early services are affected. We have no early service at our place, but we generally cancel Sunday School that day and replace it with something a little more informal that doesn’t depend on everyone being there by the usual time.

    Otherwise, most races around here happen on Saturdays.

  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Doc Tor wrote: »
    Closing roads for a running event - not even a race, but a mass participation event - is in itself a subversive act.

    My experience of such events is that they are a vehicle for city council members to press the flesh and to burnish their "green" reputations, despite the fact that none of them rides a bike, takes the bus, or walks anywhere. They're always going on about this being a bike-friendly city, when the reality is that 70% of workers here have jobs outside the city, too far away for people to commute by bike. The mass participation events with closed streets come off as pandering, not subversion. Sure, everyone who attended had fun, but the next day they were all back in their cars. These events don't do anything to change our built environments, enable people to afford to live near their jobs, or improve mass transit. They're fun for the people who go and inconvenient for the rest of us.
  • Would it were so, but we're losing well-established road races in my neck of the woods because the local councils are pulling permissions and adding costs far beyond the means of the (mainly working class and lower middle class) club committees.

    My club train twice a week, on the roads. So do almost every local club. We don't have access to a track, or anything of the sort.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Why should car drivers think they have any right to drive on roads? Roads are for the people.

    In the US, the answer would be, because the taxes that fund the lion's share of road construction and maintenance are on petrol. Cars have a right to drive on roads because they pay for them.

    Not lion's share. In your country apparently about 50%. https://taxfoundation.org/gasoline-taxes-and-user-fees-pay-only-half-state-local-road-spending/ But it's a good point. They should. But that's not all the costs because carbon pollution isn't properly factored in.

    It isn't a legit argument about church "ownership" of streets. They pay for what exactly by taxes?

    I wasn't replying to a question about churches but cars.

    But you also said taxes on fuel pay the lion's share of road costs. Which isn't true, it's 50%.

    Others were noting the whining about church attenders being inconvenienced when going to these exclusive Christian social clubs. Got to drive there and park close by. Which they haven't actually any right to expect. Even if it works out that convenient way nearly always.

    One continues to wonder about the exclusivity of churches and them not being parts of the communities they're in. Jesus of course would never think of jogging alongside runners nor supping with unwashed tax collectors. He'd be watering the roses of reverance in the churches and sharing in the complaining about parking.
  • One continues to wonder about the exclusivity of churches and them not being parts of the communities they're in. Jesus of course would never think of jogging alongside runners nor supping with unwashed tax collectors. He'd be watering the roses of reverance in the churches and sharing in the complaining about parking.
    And you are able to judge that these churches in places where you don’t live are exclusive and not part of the communities around them how?

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    One continues to wonder about the exclusivity of churches and them not being parts of the communities they're in. Jesus of course would never think of jogging alongside runners nor supping with unwashed tax collectors. He'd be watering the roses of reverance in the churches and sharing in the complaining about parking.
    And you are able to judge that these churches in places where you don’t live are exclusive and not part of the communities around them how?

    Absolutely when they're complaining about people who also live there, not part of their church inconveniencing their church going.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    One continues to wonder about the exclusivity of churches and them not being parts of the communities they're in. Jesus of course would never think of jogging alongside runners nor supping with unwashed tax collectors. He'd be watering the roses of reverance in the churches and sharing in the complaining about parking.
    And you are able to judge that these churches in places where you don’t live are exclusive and not part of the communities around them how?

    Absolutely when they're complaining about people who also live there, not part of their church inconveniencing their church going.
    Wow. You sure do pack lots of assumptions into your judgments—exactly why people might be complaining, who lives where, whether “complaints” were to make races go away or to see if something could be worked out to minimize problems for everyone, whether the “inconvenienced churches” nevertheless looked for ways to be with those participating in races.

    Your biases are showing.

  • mousethief wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Why should car drivers think they have any right to drive on roads? Roads are for the people.

    In the US, the answer would be, because the taxes that fund the lion's share of road construction and maintenance are on petrol. Cars have a right to drive on roads because they pay for them.

    Not lion's share. In your country apparently about 50%. https://taxfoundation.org/gasoline-taxes-and-user-fees-pay-only-half-state-local-road-spending/ But it's a good point. They should. But that's not all the costs because carbon pollution isn't properly factored in.

    It isn't a legit argument about church "ownership" of streets. They pay for what exactly by taxes?

    I wasn't replying to a question about churches but cars.

    But you also said taxes on fuel pay the lion's share of road costs. Which isn't true, it's 50%.
    Car users should not pay 100% of the road costs because everybody benefits from roads whether they drive or not. The main source of damage to roads are heavy vehicles such as lorries and buses. But if they are charged, that cost is passed onto the public anyway. And that is not even considering government's general inability to plan for the future and the typical pennywise, pound foolish road designs.

  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    mousethief wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Why should car drivers think they have any right to drive on roads? Roads are for the people.

    In the US, the answer would be, because the taxes that fund the lion's share of road construction and maintenance are on petrol. Cars have a right to drive on roads because they pay for them.

    Not lion's share. In your country apparently about 50%. https://taxfoundation.org/gasoline-taxes-and-user-fees-pay-only-half-state-local-road-spending/ But it's a good point. They should. But that's not all the costs because carbon pollution isn't properly factored in.

    It isn't a legit argument about church "ownership" of streets. They pay for what exactly by taxes?

    I wasn't replying to a question about churches but cars.

    But you also said taxes on fuel pay the lion's share of road costs. Which isn't true, it's 50%.

    Yes which point you made. I did not dispute that. Then you went on to attempt to hold me accountable for other people's opinions.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Gee D wrote: »
    Enoch wrote: »
    Gee D wrote: »
    Enoch wrote: »
    @Gee D, @Leorning Cniht and @RooK, Why should the fans of various sports feel they have a virtue that somehow entitles them to inflict inconvenience on the public at large?


    I'm pretty sure I'm on solid ground saying that the runners and their supporters are a larger part of that public than churchgoers.
    As to whether the number of runners who are being pandered to is more or less than the number of the general public, residents, churches, people wanting to get to somewhere else, bus users etc who are being messed about so they can enjoy their hobby - that is something that no tools exist to measure.

    If people want to run, why can't they be expected to run on a sports' track? It's not even as though it's interesting to watch.

    I'm with @Rossweisse also on the rock-n-roll marathon.

    Can we validly talk of people being pandered to by allowing them use of the road to go to church, not just a few Sundays of the year but every Sunday. OK, I know and understand it's a nuisance, but many things in life are from time to time.
    Churchgoers are not being "pandered" to. Churches are an important part of their communities in many ways. Mine, for instance, does a great deal to provide support for a half-dozen local organizations that help poor, marginalized people, from former sex workers to poor black unwed mothers, as well as a school and other services in Haiti. We cook for first responders; we help many people in many ways.

    Corporate worship may not be important to you, but it's a major source of strength and support for many of us, as it is for me. (And if it weren't for the food ministry at my church, I could not stay in my house; I'd have to give up my beloved cats and move to the cheapest assisted living place I could find.) The prayers, music, readings, sermons, and community in my parish do much to sustain me as I make my way through a painful terminal illness.

    Churches are not "social clubs," as in @NOprophet_NØprofit's libel, as noted above. And my parish draws from a wide geographic range; for most of us, it would be very hard to reach it without a car.

    I fail to see why we should be expected to give up so much of great importance for the sake of a mob of occasional runners or cyclists enjoying their weekend hobby. And, again, is there a good reason why they can't have just half the road, and let the rest of us attend the worship that matters so much to us? Why so much hostility toward churchgoers?

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Rossweisse, . I agree with much of what you say. But I stick to the argument I, along with others, have presented. We're told that the road is closed 4 times a year - and on my mathematics that leaves 48 Sundays for people to go to church unhampered. Not much interference there, just letting others in the community have a bit of special use on one-thirteenth the Sundays.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    BTW, I picked up pandering from a post by Enoch who supports your position in this. He used it to describe the actions of those who decide to close the road for a short time.
  • Re using half the road:

    Respectfully, I know that makes sense on the surface, but it's a recipe for accidents.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Is that surface asphalt?

  • Others were noting the whining about church attenders being inconvenienced when going to these exclusive Christian social clubs. Got to drive there and park close by. Which they haven't actually any right to expect. Even if it works out that convenient way nearly always.

    One continues to wonder about the exclusivity of churches and them not being parts of the communities they're in. Jesus of course would never think of jogging alongside runners nor supping with unwashed tax collectors. He'd be watering the roses of reverance in the churches and sharing in the complaining about parking.

    One can wonder, but if actual experience is anything to go by most churches are very firmly part of their community. Not merely as church organisations, but through the stuff undertaken by their membership. As part of the institution I'm happy to rumble on about the warning over becoming too clubby and exclusive to our members. And sometimes Sunday mornings at church look that way.

    However, 'church' is also about the plumbers and joiners and shop assistants who work in the local area trying to be helpful, kind and honest as part of their everyday Christian witness. It's the members who fundraise, collect for and support the town's family contact centre, the food bank, the rehoming low-income families charity, or the Nobody Dies Alone scheme at the hospital, or the talking books for the blind work. Church includes the people who have worked hard all their lives and now as elderly people, usually restricted to home, and finding it ever harder to get out and about, now take a special pleasure and need in their worship opportunities. They're mothers and father, brothers and sisters, social workers, council workers, police officers, nurses and teachers. Some of them will have instituted charities for abused children; choirs for the community, set up educational projects in the local prison and school breakfast clubs. And certainly, some of them will have done none of these things, and will have tried their best to do as little as possible. That's what human beings are like. Jesus knew that, which is why he came to save them.

    Now I don't know if missing easy access to worship a handful of times a year is likely to be that much of a big deal. I could see it might, depending which days are involved. I can also see that it might actually be salutary for many of our members to know that the 'right' to worship is in fact a privilege. However, you can save the condescending tone for those cases you know of, instead of universally condemning 'church-attenders' as if they are some kind of different species to you and thus worthy of your sneering superior attitude towards them. They're ordinary people, living ordinary (sometimes quite extraordinary) lives. Lessons probably ought to be learned about exclusivity and clubbiness, but the people who attend church are no different to you, humanly speaking.

  • Anselmina wrote: »
    However, you can save the condescending tone for those cases you know of, instead of universally condemning 'church-attenders' as if they are some kind of different species to you and thus worthy of your sneering superior attitude towards them. They're ordinary people, living ordinary (sometimes quite extraordinary) lives. Lessons probably ought to be learned about exclusivity and clubbiness, but the people who attend church are no different to you, humanly speaking.
    Amen.


  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Re using half the road:

    Respectfully, I know that makes sense on the surface, but it's a recipe for accidents.

    Our city seems to successfully manage runs, triathlons, and things on Sunday mornings whilst also preserving access for people to get in and out of their homes, to church, and whatever else they want to do.

    Sometimes, people have to wait for a few minutes. Some people have to drive the long way around. That's OK.

    There doesn't seem to be anything special about this city, so I see no reason why it couldn't be managed by anyone else.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Which is really what I've been saying - a bit of give and take all around.
  • And there we go. @Leorning Cniht and @Gee D have got it.

    As for generally parts of community, it's faded here. Nice to know it's not elsewhere.
  • There should be no complaints about former Liverpool footballer Ian St John.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    ?
  • RooKRooK Admin Emeritus
    Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
  • I think it's a weak joke based on the St in his name.
  • Telford wrote: »
    There should be no complaints about former Liverpool footballer Ian St John.

    Famously(around here anyway) a church near Liverpool FC's home ground had a notic board with 'Jesus Saves!' Under which somebody added, 'But St-John scores on the rebound'
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Gee D wrote: »
    Rossweisse, . I agree with much of what you say. But I stick to the argument I, along with others, have presented. We're told that the road is closed 4 times a year - and on my mathematics that leaves 48 Sundays for people to go to church unhampered. Not much interference there, just letting others in the community have a bit of special use on one-thirteenth the Sundays.
    And not allowing the roads to be closed bars part of the community 52 Sundays a year.
    Communities need to be about compromise.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    And not allowing the roads to be closed bars part of the community 52 Sundays a year.
    Communities need to be about compromise.

    The thing is, I rather think that this is a false dichotomy. You're assuming that the choice is between "close the roads and have a run" and "don't have a run". I suspect that, with adequate planning, there may be a way of enabling the runners without barracading anyone else.

    And that should be the goal.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    The fun run with which I am most familiar is the City to Surf - Town Hall in the city centre to Bondi Beach, 14km overall. From about 1,500 runners in its first year, it's now up to around 80,000. For much of its history, all runners started at the same time but there is now a staggered start. The first half is run on the main road from the city centre to the Eastern Suburbs; the second over major secondary roads. No doubt that it interferes with considerable normal use by cars and buses. It's accepted, some complain but very few, most enjoy it.

    A declared interest is that I ran it a dozen times and enjoyed it. Best time just under 64 minutes, last time 71. Then Dlet arrived and I stopped running.
  • Every time I see this thread I see it as "Canonizing Sports Cars." I want to canonize the 1967 Ford Mustang fastback.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    There is one lives a couple of streets away from us, with a few more coupés and convertibles around the area.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    And not allowing the roads to be closed bars part of the community 52 Sundays a year.
    Communities need to be about compromise.

    The thing is, I rather think that this is a false dichotomy. You're assuming that the choice is between "close the roads and have a run" and "don't have a run". I suspect that, with adequate planning, there may be a way of enabling the runners without barracading anyone else.

    And that should be the goal.

    You can only do that by taming the motor vehicle. Roads are closed for these events because drivers can't be trusted not to drive into people. Given the number of knocked over signs and bollards you see it's clear some drivers can't even avoid driving into them, so groups of squishy people are particularly vulnerable.
  • Less than 24 hours after Kirk Douglas' death, same thing. I feel like screaming, "Are there any dead male celebrities who WEREN'T rapists?" Rhetorically, of course.

    Wait - Kirk Douglas was a rapist?
  • Possibly. There are claims he was the unnamed film star who raped Natalie Wood, I gather.
  • Yikes.
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