The term "born again bikers" has been around a while now, and to my mind its usage - informally, verbally, if not in print in registered media - really marks the point at which mainstream routes into motorcycling stopped being the preserve of the working class, skilled-trades and blue-collar "grease monkeys" and opened up into the stratosphere of executive boys' performance toys. I also though the credibility and resonance the phrase carries was allied to the proselytising influence of the satellite broadcasters--beit Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham or street theatre and charismatic healing and gospel services the hysterical mass enthusiasm demonstrated by the theologically naive, the way they become refocused, learn new words and phrases, philosophical frameworks, ethics, manners, mores and so forth, even the way a discernible chunk of their earnings is now spoken for at source...all bore the hallmark of the new convert. Yet the MCN seem to use it to mean people who used to ride bikes then gave them up and then took back up with it all again. But they made some major revisions to their format in the late nineties, kept a steady editorial and production team together for quite some time, then started with an approach to recruitment and selection akin to being pulled out of the hat in an old-style media write-in comp. They've certainly had a few difference faces at the helm this decade. So is it possible we have a St Peter at the gate to the garden of two-wheeled delights who not only looks at good and bad biking deeds (Running up the motorway to fill a jerrycan for the campervan run out of fuel vs that video of doing 185 through rural Kent as posted to YouTube) but also is an icompetent traitor to the cultural factors preserved in the aspic amber of biking lore? Well, I thought I'd better look to the hoary old OED, in its 10th edn from 2001, for some guidance and here's what I found: born-again * adj. 1. relating to or denoting a person who has converted to a personal faith in Jesus Christ 2. newly converted to and very enthusiastic about (an idea, cause, etc.). Which suggests that not only is the original defintion of the term absolutely correct - authoritatively - and, being taken to mean what I thought it to mean in the first place, such that the dichotomy of "Born Again" and "Convert", in relation to motorcycles, has no meaning, there is no real alternative but to give the MCN the benefit of the doubt that it is actively seeking to be "helpful" in achieving the OUP lexicographers' next milestone of 1 000 000 million words yet seek also to tactfully point out that dictionaries haven't started being compiled since they collected six coupons, wrote up a short piece called "What I did on my Trackday instead because it was raining" , and sent it in and that the OED had its finger on the pulse when it drafted the word in from the two-wheeled circles in the first place. G DAEB COPYRIGHT (C) 2008 SIPSTON
What is the value of this, given that you seem incapable of writing anything that is worth reading let alone copying? I suggest that you drop it and let the sheer boredom generated by your prose protect you from the plagarists.
The source is St. John's Gospel, 3,3, "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." The practical point is found in the pathology of religion when one sect claims special privileges on the basis that it alone is authentic and others professing the same religion are inauthentic and thus disqualified. The word "Reform" was the main badge of difference between Christian sects in the 15th-19th centuries, and is unambiguously claimed in the name of most Protestant churches. When Protestants disagreed among themselves (cf. Anabaptists, Wesleyanism (Methodism) and 19th century evangelicals) they commonly cited: "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" in order to claim that their particular sect was authentic and all the others heretical or misguided (as in Edmund Gosse's autobiography on Plymouth Brethren in Victorian England.) American evangelical or revivalist preachers have for more than a century invoked "born again" as a necessary religious process only they can confer, and other denominations cannot. Its application to other styles of life or hobbies (e.g. motorcycles) is metaphorical.
Yes, yes, but MCN's problem is that, when applied to bikers, the gap between being "born again" and seeing the kingdom of god is often lamentably short.
On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:42:51 -0700 (PDT), FCS <snip dreadful prose style> Did no one teach you to edit? There was an interesting (to me and possibly Phil) point about the usage of 'born again' in amongst that lot. Are you aware of why that particular phrase is used?
Oh that's right go and give him the answer to the question I just posed. I wanted to see if he actually knew anything, it was difficult to pick out in his writing. Oh and do you want to come and sit with Phil, AndrewR and myself in the biblical nit picking corner?
I've only just spotted the xpost, now I have to work out if I can be bothered finding the group that knew the answer.
At this rate I may have to hand back my TEAR# -- Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3 Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply) 116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 145 2.0 Cloverleaf 156 V6 2.5 S2 Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see. www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk
Oi fuckwit. Haven't you worked out that it is ok to have more than one sentence per paragraph? Bloody troll.
AR snipped from the post: "Its application to other styles of life or hobbies (e.g. motorcycles) is metaphorical" -- so we do not know whether he understands "metaphorical" in some non-standard way or simply disagrees.
That's blog material - why not create one? -- Dave GS850x2 XS650 SE6a "It's a moron working with power tools. How much more suspenseful can you get?" - House
At this moment I've got more crap on my plate than I can deal with (dying cat, screw-ups at work while I've been on hols, my first bad headache for 2 weeks..) so I'll pass.. Plus 2100 UKRM articles to igno^Wread. Phil
