• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

R.I.P. The Scottish Enlightenment 1697-2024

by C.J. Strachan
20 March 2024 7:00 AM

The Scottish Enlightenment will die on April 1st 2024, exactly 327 years, eight months and 24 days after the incident that provoked it. For on April 1st the Hate Crime and Public Order Act (Scotland) 2021 comes into force, an Act which will criminalise speech and opinion deemed ‘hateful’ even if spoken in the privacy of your own home.

On January 8th 1697, Thomas Aikenhead, a 20 year-old student, was marched the two miles from the Old Tolbooth Prison on the High Street to a windswept sandy hillock just to the west of the causeway that crossed the marshes between Edinburgh and the port town of Leith, known as Gallow Lee. Surrounded by the pious prayers of the clergymen of the Kirk (the Church of Scotland), Thomas was hanged by the neck until he was dead.

What was Thomas – a murderer? A rapist? Was he one of Edinburgh’s notorious ‘Resurrection Men’? No. Young Thomas’s crime was that in an Edinburgh tavern on Christmas Eve 1696, he had a drink and went on a rant offending the Church and its stranglehold on Scottish culture. He was reported, arrested and tried: “The jury found Aikenhead guilty of cursing and railing against God, denying the incarnation and the Trinity and scoffing at the Scriptures.”

Thomas Aikenhead was the last person to be hanged for Blasphemy in Britain. As such he became a martyr and inspiration. The hanging of a young man for the crime of having a rant in a pub late at night became seen as an act of tyranny and oppression so heinous it was the spark that turned a barren minor nation on the north west fringe of Europe into the blazing furnace of ideas that was the Scottish Enlightenment. Ideas that would change the world forever.

The execution appalled Scottish Society at the time and was both the high tide of the theocratic tyranny of 17th Century Kirk and its tombstone. With Aikenhead’s execution died all moral authority of those who would control the speech, conscience and opinions of others.

Scottish intellectuals queued up to condemn the act and their voice of outrage coalesced into arguably the most important and internationally influential Enlightenment of all.

The great 19th Century historian Lord Macaulay famously wrote of the incident:

The preachers who were the poor boy’s murderers crowded round him at the gallows, and… insulted heaven with prayers more blasphemous than anything he had uttered.

The exact spot where Thomas died has long been built over. The Leith causeway became modern Leith Walk, the marshes were drained and the city expanded to the sea. General consensus has the spot somewhere in the vicinity of Shrub Place about halfway down the walk.

On the morning of his execution he wrote to his friends the following words:

It is a principle innate and co-natural to every man to have an insatiable inclination to the truth, and to seek for it as for hid treasure.

As a Scot who grew up in the 1970s in the drawing rooms of Edinburgh’s New Town, the architectural manifestation of the Scottish Enlightenment, I am truly appalled that the legacy of Aikenhead and the Scottish Enlightenment – a historical event far more relevant to the modern world than the War of Independence of the early 14th century that so enthrals the SNP and its activists, an event which put Scotland on the map of the world and one of which the nation can be rightly proud – has been trashed by the Scottish Parliament and the Yousaf Government. From April 1st 2024, saying the wrong thing at your own dinner table, let alone in a drunken pub rant like young Thomas did, will once again land you in significant trouble with the law, 327 years, eight months and 24 days after Thomas died.

Mr. Yousaf, his ministers and those who drafted and will enforce this law would do well to remember how history judged those who hanged Thomas Aikenhead on that bleak winter morning on the road to Leith. In doing so they should recall that this gross act of overreach and tyranny was the high tide of the power of the Kirk, power which was swept aside by the forces unleashed when the people said ‘enough’.

C.J. Strachan is the pseudonym of a concerned Scot.

Tags: AuthoritarianismBlasphemyCancel CultureCensorshipFree SpeechHate CrimeHate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) ActHate speechScotlandWoke Gobbledegook

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

News Round-Up

Next Post

It’s Never Wrong to be Wrong When You’re Christian Drosten

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

35 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
LionelMan
LionelMan
11 months ago

“In conclusion, Clauser argues that the negative feedback mechanisms in the Earth’s climate system stabilise temperatures against warming due to increases in radiative forcing.”

Yet one more amazing example among so many of intelligent design – that makes us literally unique in the universe we experience in our lives, in time and space. Our fine tuning is so fine that an infintesemal change in gravity or weak force that holds matter together and we don’t exist.

Last edited 11 months ago by LionelMan
45
-16
Sceptic Paul
Sceptic Paul
11 months ago
Reply to  LionelMan

It’s called the Anthropic Principle – things are the way they are because it they weren’t, we wouldn’t be here to notice them. Strictly speaking, this is the Weak Anthropic Principle. Read ‘Just Six Numbers’ by Sir Martin Rees (Astronomer Royal) for an interesting discussion on just how ‘finely balanced’ six fundamental constants have to be for us to be here.

For some people, this provides evidence of a Divinity that arranged the Universe for us. For other (perhaps more humble) people it is not evidence that we are so special as to deserve the attention of the Divinity.

Consider the puddle which observes “Isn’t it amazing! This dip in the ground is EXACTLY the right shape to accommodate me”

39
-13
godknowsimgood
godknowsimgood
11 months ago
Reply to  Sceptic Paul

So do you think all the incredible fine tuning that enables us to exist just happened by accident for no purpose?

11
-18
Roy Everett
Roy Everett
11 months ago
Reply to  godknowsimgood

I’m fascinated by the way Earth-colliding asteroids always manage to land in a crater. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220403-an-icy-mystery-deep-in-arctic-canada 😉

24
-2
Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
11 months ago
Reply to  godknowsimgood

Yes, it did. Because if it hadn’t, we wouldn’t exist. There is no old man with a beard hiding out of sight, or even behind the curtain.

Rolling the dice a lot of times got us to where we are, with advantageous conditions leading to things persisting and disadvantageous ones destroying them.

28
-13
Mogwai
Mogwai
11 months ago
Reply to  Tyrbiter

Well I’m inclined to agree because if there were a ‘God’, not only would he not allow kids to suffer and die from terminal cancer but he wouldn’t have invented wasps. They’re not even very effective pollinators, compared with all the lovely, benign bees and flutterbies. No, wasps are the jihadis of the insect world, they lurk in litter bins and wait for an unsuspecting victim to pass by then chase them down the street, completely ignoring all other people, and I think they get a smug satisfaction out of making people behave like Mr Bean doing a demented windmill impersonation, basically humiliating themselves in public. They’re really hard to kill and i once squirted one with WD40 and it didn’t even die. It was like a bloody terminator! One stung me below my eye last year ( a wheelie bin ambush ) and it hurt like a f***er, so when one landed next to me I squashed it with my sandal and thought that was payback at least.
Creatures are only meant to attack you if they feel threatened or you’re on their menu, therefore there can’t be a god because such a benevolent being would never create such evil little b’stards. 🐝
Speaking of being on critters’ menus, I’m an ‘all you can eat’ buffet for 🦟, but I find staying consistently keto and those plug-ins you use overnight very helpful. No amount of garlic consumption works, alas.

29
-11
LionelMan
LionelMan
11 months ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Yes, it is difficult to understand why God allows suffering. You need to know that you would not exist to comment on the Internet if not for cancer, heart attacks etc. If nobody dies from disease then you have no chance at life at all because the planet could not support life at those levels. Suffering, ie Pain, is necessary to stay alive in our world so we know when things are harmful, when we become sick and that we shouldn’t put our hands in fire. If you have an alternative that is more sustainavle for the big picture,
love to hear it.

7
-3
varmint
varmint
11 months ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Bees mind their own business and are pretty polite. But wasps are nasty pieces of work sticking their nose into everything. “The jihadi’s of the insect world” is a pretty good analogy. A bee would never pass Net Zero, but wasps are a combination of Jim Dale, Ed Miliband and Antonio Guterres.

16
-1
Mogwai
Mogwai
11 months ago
Reply to  varmint

🤣
But wasn’t Jim Dale on Neighbours? Then he seemed to pop up all over the place after that, a bit like Guy Pierce..🤔
Something that I’ve often wondered about bees though is why is it only the fluffy bumble bees i regularly rescue from getting squished on the ground during summer? I’ve never ever needed to come to the rescue of a honey bee.
Answers on a postcard please….✏📮🍯

3
-1
varmint
varmint
11 months ago
Reply to  Mogwai

Are we getting mixed up with our Jim Dales?—-The one I am talking about is the cretin always on GB news spouting junk science and running rings around Eammon Holmes and Anne Diamond etc because they don’t know anything about the issue.

3
0
godknowsimgood
godknowsimgood
11 months ago
Reply to  Tyrbiter

Why do you assume that the only two possibilities are a man with a beard controlling everything or a universe which came into being somehow by complete accident with no purpose, and therefore as the former is implausible, it must be the latter? Those are clearly not the only two possibilities.

17
-1
Free Lemming
Free Lemming
11 months ago
Reply to  godknowsimgood

Quite. Given what we don’t know, the chances of what we do know explaining our reality is close to zero. Most people seem unable to grasp any other idea of an overarching force other than the one of God as depicted by religion. And, for most people, that depiction of God explaining our reality is either true or false – there are no grey areas. But it seems to me to only be a small step to consider other possibilities for our perception of reality. One possibility, for example, is that it is an old man with a beard. This old man, however, sits in a lab, in a future time, running an infinite number of simulations with subtly different inputs. That’s a possibility the ‘there is only science’ people should be able to consider.

Not sure what I believe, but I’ve had a small handful of experiences that cannot be adequately explained by our common understanding of reality. I don’t know what reality is, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t this.

11
0
LionelMan
LionelMan
11 months ago
Reply to  Tyrbiter

Total nonsense and defies logic.

This is what I send to people that aren’t sure or, amazingly, are sure there is no God.  Yet alone intelligent design.

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ajqH4y8G0MI

1
-2
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
11 months ago
Reply to  godknowsimgood

I don’t know about purpose. I don’t see how anyone can know about purpose. But we’re all different and I can only see this from my perspective.
Existence and consciousness seem utterly miraculous, mysterious and intrinsically inexplicable to me. I sometimes wonder if that’s what others call God. The whole business of existence seems utterly surreal to me. And we should keep using hydrocarbons and build more nuclear power stations.

19
0
JohnK
JohnK
11 months ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Carbon mechanics are a useful long term storage method, but it’s also reasonable to make real time use of light from the Sun, in a similar fashion as the plants do. Alright, the plants do the medium to long term storage that we exploit, but the somewhat simplistic route of grabbing some energy to generate electrical power is still a decent idea.

1
-1
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
11 months ago
Reply to  JohnK

Well maybe but you need a backup when the sun isn’t shining, which costs money, or affordable storage.

2
0
JXB
JXB
11 months ago
Reply to  godknowsimgood

There is no ‘fine tuning’ – just billions of years of evolutionary trial and error, spontaneous order.

1
0
Kone Wone
Kone Wone
11 months ago
Reply to  godknowsimgood

in a word: Yes.

0
0
Matt Dalby
Matt Dalby
11 months ago
Reply to  Sceptic Paul

It isn’t known, and probably can’t be known if other combinations of values for the six numbers would also result in a universe in which life could exist. If physicists ever manage to produce a grand theory of everything it could turn out that the values of the six numbers can’t be any different to what they are.

4
-2
Kone Wone
Kone Wone
11 months ago
Reply to  LionelMan

All that means is that in the entire Universe we are exceedingly, infinitely, rare; a probability with lots of zeros to the right of the decimal point, and no integers to its left. One doesn’t have to invoke ‘intelligent design’ – a concept with even even lower probability.

The point is that if some thing, some state, some combination of states, is possible (i.e. that is not prevented by physics) then in a big enough arena, of time and space, the probability of it happening is 100%. We just happen to be it; our universe has adequate temporal and spatial dimensions.

0
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
11 months ago

In terms of corporate capture I think the university provides a good illustration of the malaise at large generally in society. You become so dependent on sources of funding and rather used to lavish amounts of money for fancy new buildings – always soulless though regardless of how much they cost, that to go back to a purer time is both unthinkable and unworkable.. And at the point of deep capture it is impossible to relinquish them because everything has been scaled up. Just like how we are complentely dependent on existing systems of trade and global finance because huge populations means there is no credible way to scale back without catastrophe. This Ponzi scheme problem has already started to manifest in terms of falling numbers of overseas cashcow students and loans that were taken out on the assumption of ever growing numbers.

17
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
11 months ago

There is a real emergency which could’ve been prepared for if it hadn’t been clouded by the fake one and therein lies one of its evils. Virtually no potato crop in Britain this year because of the wetness. Any attempt to grow stuff in your garden would’ve been met by an unvanquishable number of slugs and snails. There are natural cycles and any responsible leadership would be thinking about how to maintain such high populations under current conditions given long term trends There would be no easy fix but with international collaboration it could be done but it is too late now. We, the golden billion as the Russians call us, think we can just always rely on imports because of the permanence of the petrodollar. The luxury of imports is closing down on many levels. And many other countries are experiencing weather-related difficulties. I used to buy a litre of olive oil for £3 in the supermarket. Now it is £7.50. Things are at crisis point when you can’t even grow your own tatties. Do you really have to meet up with a spiv under furtive conditions in order to buy a vegetable. We think root vegetables are as hard as nails and will be with us forever.

16
-2
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
11 months ago

We thought the events of 22/11/63 meant very little at that the time to us.All over Europe there was a geneartion who called themselves Kennedy’s children It was the start of a slow moving plague. Killed in broad daylight. They could’ve killed him by poison but they wanted it to be in the bright sunshine for maximum trauma. Any movement towards redemptive change acknowledges this. Dylan wrote a song about it a couple of years ago called Murder Most Foul.

14
-1
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
11 months ago

It is sad for me because I love the Brits but all I see is a suicide pact or acquiesence to doom. No direction home. We are beyond the eleventh hour.

11
-1
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
11 months ago

Off-T

https://thenewconservative.co.uk/sunaks-mask-slips/

Frank Haviland gives Fishy a good going over for his desertion at the D-Day ceremony. He’s a horrible weaselly little traitor.

“Unfortunately for Rishi, there is a reason beyond the general election why this D-Day storm is unlikely to blow over: it perfectly adumbrates the fault line along which all political issues are now at play in our nation– the stark divide between patriots and traitors.”

As I have posted more than once, Fishy is definitely on the side of the traitors.

Last edited 11 months ago by huxleypiggles
17
-1
Ron Smith
Ron Smith
11 months ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

True but I have been slagging them off when they are there including Charles that GBN are sycophants over. Neil Oliver alluded to similar lines in his monologue, maybe he reads the comments LOL.

1
0
varmint
varmint
11 months ago

I like the very simple quote from Judith Curry (Climatologist formerly of Georgia Tech) ———-“Sure, all things being equal CO2 may cause a little warming, but all things in Earth’s climate are not equal”.
How many ordinary people have head of John Clauser or other people like him, and how many will ever read an article like this or these type of studies? I suggest a tiny percentage only will do that. This means they will only be hearing the alarmist version of reality as presented on mainstream media (BBC, SKY News etc)
Here is a little story I read in a book by Stephen Einhorn called “Climate Change, What they rarely tech you in College”———-According to Jewish folklore, The Lord sent two Angels down with a sack full of foolish souls to be evenly distributed over Earth, but they tripped and fell spiling them in a little Polish town called Chelm. Soon a heated argument started in the town about what was more important, the Sun or the Moon. After careful consideration the Chief Rabbi decided the Moon was more important because it shone light at night when people needed it and not during the day when there as already plenty of light. It therefore quickly became settled that the Moon was more important. In fact there was a “consensus” and those who disagreed were classed as “Moon Deniers”.
There is something very similar happening today and many people getting their information from mainstream TV News are like the people of Chelm. They don’t look at facts and empirical science. They listen to Authority.

24
0
RTSC
RTSC
11 months ago

I don’t pretend to understand all this.

But I do know when I’m being fed bullshit and am being scammed – and the Climate Change propaganda is clearly bullshit and Net Zero is just a scam.

31
0
JXB
JXB
11 months ago

Put another way: what caused 12 000 years of global warming prior to Mankind burning fossil fuels, and when C02 levels were much lower, and what evidence is there that this process stopped at the end of the 20th Century or was so weak to be replaced by Man-made – and only Man-made – CO2 emissions?

Since nobody can answer that, the whole Man-made climate change crisis is a pack of lies. (Like CoVid and ‘vaccines’.)

12
0
allanplaskett
allanplaskett
11 months ago

Am I mistaken in what I seem to read here? A recently accoladed Nobel laureate, qualified in a highly relevant field, denouncing the entire climate scare as a scientifically-illiterate scam?

Why isn’t this covered by the BBC?

Since 2005, BBC policy has been to give no coverage to the climate sceptic viewpoint. And apparently never to revise or even reconsider that policy.

Prof Clauser is by no means alone. His thesis above is a condensed version of Prof Roy Spencer’s small highly readable book Global Warming Scepticism for Busy People. Prof Ian Plimer, distinguished emeritus professor of geology, would stand beside them both in a debate, if the BBC would allow one.

Add Professor William Happer, Professor Richard Lindzen, and many others.

The story of unanimous science support for AGW is simply a lie. It incenses me to think of it.

I will not pay the BBC’s wretched license fee. Let them come and put me in jail.

Last edited 11 months ago by allanplaskett
1
0

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

Episode 36 of the Sceptic: Karl Williams on Starmer’s Phoney Immigration Crackdown, Dan Hitchens on the Assisted Suicide Bill and Tom Jones on Reform’s Local Council Challenge

by Richard Eldred
16 May 2025
0

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Miliband Could Axe Pylons to Fight Reform Threat

18 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

News Round-Up

18 May 2025
by Toby Young

Why Are Older Gay Men Who Have Age-Gap Affairs Held to a Lower Standard Than Older Straight Men Who Do Exactly the Same?

18 May 2025
by Steven Tucker

Worldwide Embalmer Survey Reveals Striking Rise in White Fibrous Clots Following COVID-19 Vaccination

17 May 2025
by Will Jones

Schoolchildren Taught Black People Built Stonehenge

18 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Schoolchildren Taught Black People Built Stonehenge

28

Miliband Could Axe Pylons to Fight Reform Threat

27

We Need an International Health Organisation That’s Fit for Purpose – Unlike the WHO!

19

Asylum Hotel Fires Blamed on Migrant Couriers’ E-bikes

18

NHS Directs Trans Patients to Use ‘Gender Construction Kit’

17

The Folly of Starmer’s Surrender Summit – Not so Much ‘Ruthlessly Pragmatic’ as Cravenly Sycophantic

19 May 2025
by Tilak Doshi

We Need an International Health Organisation That’s Fit for Purpose – Unlike the WHO!

18 May 2025
by David Bell and Ramesh Thakur

Why Are Older Gay Men Who Have Age-Gap Affairs Held to a Lower Standard Than Older Straight Men Who Do Exactly the Same?

18 May 2025
by Steven Tucker
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Can Monkeys Teach Us About Fairness?

17 May 2025
by Noah Carl

Why We Politicise Science

17 May 2025
by James Alexander

POSTS BY DATE

March 2024
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Feb   Apr »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

POSTS BY DATE

March 2024
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Feb   Apr »

DONATE

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

Miliband Could Axe Pylons to Fight Reform Threat

18 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

News Round-Up

18 May 2025
by Toby Young

Why Are Older Gay Men Who Have Age-Gap Affairs Held to a Lower Standard Than Older Straight Men Who Do Exactly the Same?

18 May 2025
by Steven Tucker

Worldwide Embalmer Survey Reveals Striking Rise in White Fibrous Clots Following COVID-19 Vaccination

17 May 2025
by Will Jones

Schoolchildren Taught Black People Built Stonehenge

18 May 2025
by Richard Eldred

Schoolchildren Taught Black People Built Stonehenge

28

Miliband Could Axe Pylons to Fight Reform Threat

27

We Need an International Health Organisation That’s Fit for Purpose – Unlike the WHO!

19

Asylum Hotel Fires Blamed on Migrant Couriers’ E-bikes

18

NHS Directs Trans Patients to Use ‘Gender Construction Kit’

17

The Folly of Starmer’s Surrender Summit – Not so Much ‘Ruthlessly Pragmatic’ as Cravenly Sycophantic

19 May 2025
by Tilak Doshi

We Need an International Health Organisation That’s Fit for Purpose – Unlike the WHO!

18 May 2025
by David Bell and Ramesh Thakur

Why Are Older Gay Men Who Have Age-Gap Affairs Held to a Lower Standard Than Older Straight Men Who Do Exactly the Same?

18 May 2025
by Steven Tucker
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Can Monkeys Teach Us About Fairness?

17 May 2025
by Noah Carl

Why We Politicise Science

17 May 2025
by James Alexander

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment
Perfecty
Do you wish to receive notifications of new articles?
Notifications preferences