Dibbles old paperboy

I think you may have taken the pity reference more personally than I intended. Imagine is often quoted as one of the most popular songs of the 20th century or as pointing the way to a new spirituality freed from religion. Lennon dabbled temporarily in the occult, buddhism, transcendental meditation, hare krishna, Christianity, astrology but most consistently in drugs. His own life as you say was remarkably complicated and contradictory and a long way from the ideal painted in Imagine and a lot more religious in practice than the lyrics for "God" might suggest. For what it's worth... I quite like most of his songs on Double Fantasy as well (and quite liked the stripped down remixes from a few years ago), one or two from Milk and Honey (one of which was sung by a friend at my own wedding) and like most of his first couple of (proper) solo albums, but would only say he did a handful of good songs from 1972-75 when he took a break from recording for 5 years. "The Beatles said 'all you need is love' and then they broke up".

One week later. Perhaps I should have checked which weekend you were going to watch them. I was interested that you say Lennox doesn't provide "any evidence" for his viewpoint in the debates with Hitchens and Dawkins. I had posted the videos in response to you saying no sane person could give any good reasons for believing in God. So far you haven't answered my questions about whether you judge John Lennox in these debates to be sane or not and whether he gives any good reasons along the way in these debates for his beliefs. You don't have to agree with Lennox's conclusions to accept that he can hold his own debating and dialoging with Hitchens and Dawkins and can make a reasonable job of explaining his reasoning for believing in God. I don't agree with lots of Dawkins conclusions in lots of areas but he does have a memorable turn of phrase and speaks well on a popular level for people on his side of the argument which means despite lots of schoolboy errors and poor research (when he starts dealing with philosophy and theology in his later books) he's still worth a read.

My post was questioning the judgment of John Lennon from the era he wrote the song "God" and more generally as a leader or trend setter. Most of the people and religions he lists in the song as not believing in were people and movements he promoted in the 60's at one point or other before changing his mind again and jumping on to his latest guru of the moment. "I just believe in me. Yoko and me. That's reality". He was a heroin addict during the time he was writing his first solo album, and then trying to kick that habit and did primal scream therapy. A year before writing God Lennon had convened a meeting at Apple and announced to everyone there that he was Jesus. Pete Doggett's book on the Beatles' break up and their financial wrangles which continued from the break up until his book was published in 2009, highlights the fact that Apple was set up as a 1960's tax evasion scam with Lennon (and the others) wanting to hide money offshore, Lennon brought in Allen Klein to sort out Apple's finances and then insisted on hiring him as the Beatles' manager (one of the central events leading to the break up of the band when McCartney refused to agree). The same guy who wrote "Imagine" and the lines about "Imagine no possessions" lived in a mansion (and recorded the song there in his home studio) and was hiding money offshore, later he would give money to the IRA at the same time as campaigning to give peace a chance and was violent towards both wives and negligent towards both his sons, Lennon and the other Beatles spent every year since the break up suing each other and Allen Klein and Capitol Records, EMI Records, Apple Computers... "Imagine no possessions I wonder If you can. No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man". The Beatles were still fighting about money in the 80s and this delayed their catalogue going on CD, and again in the 90s before and after their Anthology CDs and DVDs and book, the 1 album, the Love project, and the 2009 remaster and legal wrangles delayed their catalogue being made available for digital downloads and streaming. The first part of Mark Lewisown's Beatles biography chronicles the bad business deals struck on the Beatles' behalf as well as how Lennon and McCartney shafted George and Ringo on the business side. Even after he had officially gone cold turkey Doggett points out that several political activists in the mid-late 70s who had hoped to get Lennon behind their causes dropped their interest in having him promote their causes because he was privately still addicted to hard drugs and was too unreliable or incapable to be of much practical help to them. It would seem that he let Yoko and her astrologers run his life for him for much of the 70s when he and Yoko were together. If we return to the last few lines of the song: "I just believe in me. Yoko and me. That's reality". I genuinely pity anyone thinking that John Lennon hit the nail on the head with the song "God" and called it correctly. From 1966-80 John Lennon was mostly off his face on drugs and doesn't show many signs of believing much in himself. Nothing is real except him and Yoko. Brilliant! Of course John and Yoko weren't able to stay together peacefully and split and reunited after 'God' was written and released. Years later John Lennon phoned a TV evangelist and asked for prayer and made some sort of commitment before Yoko banned him from following things up... and then one of the last songs Lennon wrote was his dig at Dylan's conversion, "Serve Yourself". You'd be hard pushed to find a bigger hypocrite or someone who changed their mind as wildy and as often as John Lennon did... and I say this as someone who has all the Beatles official releases and plenty of bootlegs and most of their solo work.

The daftest contribution on this thread.

... and now your spelling is slipping as well.

Was John Lennon not a heroin addict when he wrote that song? All that's real is just him and Yoko... Ok whatever. His solo career began and ended with digs at Dylan, unable to handle the fact that while he had dried up creatively Dylan was touring and releasing Planet Waves, Blood On The Tracks, Desire, Slow Train Coming and even while he was playing house-husband and looking after Sean he was still on heroin and a nightmare to live with (ask Julian Lennon).

So, how are you getting on with the John Lennox debates with Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins? Hopefully you've not been so busy arguing with people on here that you haven't had time to watch them yet. I believe you stated on the first couple of pages of this thread that no sane person could give a good reason for believing in God. The comment seemed to stereotype anyone believing in God as either insane or irrational. Back to my question when I posted the John Lennox videos. Is Lennox appearing to you that he is neither sane nor struggling to give any good reasons for his belief in God?

John Lennox steps in at the last minute to debate with Christopher Hitchens (who supposedly destroyed Christianity according to Shull):

I don't intend to reply often on this thread. Would you say John Lennox in this debate exhibits signs of mental illness, insanity or struggles to show good reasonong in his debate with Richard Dawkins?

Your grammar is slipping.

He'll struggle to stay fit and play 90 minutes during the busy periods of the season. My recollection of last season is he was often an impact sub for most of his second spell with us and he was struggling with 2 games a week - eg the 2nd leg of the play off against Dundee United. I'd be happy if we get 25 x 90 minutes out of him in a season, or 30 x 60 minutes.

Alex Rae did give him his debut at the age of 16 and would have played him more often had it not been for injuries.

And yet we signed him and he presumably passed a medical with us and he was one of our first properly scouted signings in the January window. Still not to worry, we're still loaded and haven't blown most of the £2m in transfer fees received in the last 3 seasons. Another mutual consent deal too.

I think you are forgetting GLS is on record as saying it was entirely Oran's decision to leave!

It's too early to read much into the performance or result or how the new signings did. 1 year ago Stubbs' team did well away to Kilmarnock in the League Cup and beat Dundee at home in the first league game and Danny Mullen was the top scorer in the league.

If Goodwin is saying his aim is to bring in 4 or 5 players between the end of the League Cup campaign and the close of the transfer window does Durmus' signing end the chat of us also signing a second winger (Kyle McAllister)? We certainly need two defenders, better striking options and if Foley is signing that's our 4-5 signings priorities taken up before adding a 2nd winger.

... and at least the World Cup isn't delaying our transfer spree this season!

I'm not the one who has acted poorly in this episode at all. I have two reasons for not elaborating about it on the forum but I would suggest that fans who would like to see us maintain our good reputation for bringing through young players under David Longwell might want to take more of an interest in the academy set up after David Longwell. Longwell brought through Stephen and John McGinn, Kenny McLean, Sean Kelly, Jason Naismith, Kyle McAllister, Stevie Mallan, Lewis Morgan, either from an early age or by picking them up as teenagers when Rangers academy deemed them surplus to requirements. In the three years since Alex Rae appointed him who has our current youth academy director brought through into first team football who wasn't already on our books before he arrived? Many of the players I've listed from Longwell's era at the academy represented us at Scotland youth international levels and the club celebrated their achievements, and we got varying amounts of transfer fees for all those players bar Sean Kelly I think. All of which is a stark contrast to what happened last season.

Ask Allan McManus or Andy Webster.

It's not self-contradictory to post that the debate should not be dead, and that we should be beginning to see the fruits a year or two after Gus has been appointed - i.e. the debate should be lively throughout this transfer window (which ends after Gus will have had 2 full windows and will have been in post for just under 12 months). I think we will only have a more definite sense 2 or 3 years down the line whether recruitment has improved and whether he has brought stability to the club. For now there aren't many signs that having him around has helped our transfer activity so far in this window to date or lessened the disadvantage caused by changing managers this summer.

It shouldn't be a topic that's dead. Gus' second transfer window and 2nd manager he has been working alongside 10 months after taking on the job. If we take the view that managers deserve time to settle into the job and assemble their own squad and stamp their own style on the club can we not assume once Gus has been in post for a year or two we should be beginning to see the benefits of the change in structure and continuity and eye for detail with recruitment that his appointment was designed to bring to the club?

and McPherson is injured too?

Something I do from time to time with people I have on ignore if I think they might be making decent contributions on a topic. I've taken people back off ignore if they have moved on from bombarding lots of different threads with a particular hobbyhorse.

Having never seen Muir play I take a neutral view on whether he could have become our No.1 or would have succeeded at our level in the long run. I've mentioned him as an example of our wastefulness, we don't have many reserve players at Scotland youth level, and had circumstances been different in our youth academy we could well have gone through the season without signing a few goalkeepers less than we had to last season and saved ourselves some cash and maybe helped a young player on our own books developed into the bargain (surely the point of having a youth academy).