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Post by wiganshrew2 on Jan 2, 2005 12:59:41 GMT 1
O.k.- this is not a disaster on the scale of a tsunami- but I felt really, really sad about this. It's so symptomatic of our age. The kid was only 14. All the things we laugh about regarding Telford girls- the pink tracksuit, she'd been wearing on that night- it seems unkind to laugh at such things, somehow. Yet I've done it- guilty, yes- cheap laughs. This business of so-called "free-love" started when I was young- yet we haven't spoken up -or campaigned for better advice and protection for our up- and- coming young generation. Things have only got worse. The kids are getting younger. Even those of my generation who've maybe been damaged by it- or found that there's no such thing as free, there's always a cost. O.K.- I know in some cultures- and also a long time ago, girls that young got married and had children. But they were looked after and protected by a very different social structure. So some poor little pregnant kid gets murdered and dumped, like rubbish, in a churchyard. What the **** are they teaching our kids in sex-education lessons these days? It's still illegal under 16, for heaven's sake. All they seem to do is to put condom machines in schools. I know- there's one in the school my eldest grandchildren attend. What message does that give out? It clearly isn't effective, even. I don't blame the kid; kids like that are easily influenced by the prevailing culture of the day. I blame the rest of society, and the way we've all sat back and done nothing about it. Is thee anyone else- maybe with teenage kids (or, in my case, grandkids) who feels like I do- Or am I a voice in the wilderness? (Sorry to be so serious at New Year.)
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Post by SeanBroseley on Jan 2, 2005 13:07:32 GMT 1
It begins and ends in the home pure and simple. It's no guarantee - after all it takes little effort to get preganant.
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Post by R6ix on Jan 2, 2005 14:13:10 GMT 1
i didnt see a funny side to it? and whats thr colour of her tracksuit or the fact she was pregenant to do with the fact she was murdered
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Post by pawlo on Jan 2, 2005 16:57:50 GMT 1
It begins and ends in the home pure and simple. It's no guarantee - after all it takes little effort to get preganant. Very true. Why do people sit back and lambast the government for not doing anything ( or not enough ) to stop teenage pregnancy. It is totally hypocritical. With one breath, people say the government interfere to much with people lives, then with another, claim the government should be stopping kids having underage sex. For **** sake, the parents should be stopping the kids having underage sex. Parents raise children, not the government of the day. What is the point of sex education in school, when the child goes back to a household with 5 or 6 kids Niether parent working ( if there still are two parents in the home ), instead, the state picks up the tab. How many people on here know house holds with 3, 4, 5, 6 kids. Parents dont want them around, they are just left to roam. Contravertial but in my opinion, the kids are victims of their parents. Condoms in schools? It will never work, because anyone who has ever had a brief and passionate sexual encounter will tell you that the last thing on your mind when you get that first chance of sex as a teenager, is putting on a condom, more a case of, quick get on with it before she changes her mind. A little crude perhaps, but also true I think. PS. I dont think wiggy was laughing at the young girl getting murdered. I think she was referring to the numerous times we have all mocked and laughed at the telford girl stereo type on here.
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Post by Chris J on Jan 2, 2005 17:04:18 GMT 1
It's so symptomatic of our age. Things have only got worse. The kids are getting younger. What the **** are they teaching our kids in sex-education lessons these days? It's still illegal under 16, for heaven's sake. Many of the things under-16s do are illegal; it's what gives them their glamour, and legality generally has no bearing on the decisions young people make. (I speak from my experience as a teacher and a dad of 2 girls aged 16 and 21!) The problem isn't that of school sex education, it's the context in which it's delivered. British culture is all about instant gratification without thought for consequences - look at binge drinking (which is widely celebrated - for example, on this message board!), personal debt (we owe more on credit cards than the rest of Europe put together!) and the numbers of pets bought then abandoned or mistreated for other examples. What we teach in schools can't compete with the consistent messages of just about every other entertainment, information and advertising medium they encounter. In other comparable societies, children are given extensive sex education, far more than we would be allowed to give British children without the Mail branding us perverts and printing a lot of bolllox about "political correctness"; yet these societies have lower rates of teenage pregnancy, abortion and STDs. The new bandwagon in the US is a Bush-backed campaign for pre-marital celibacy wherein virtually any sexual contact beyond 'light kissing' is categorised as 'risky behaviour'! Yet research show that while kids 'taking the pledge' are later to begin having sex, in the longer term their sexual habits are actually more dangerous. In the end, each individual must take responsibility for his or her actions, including giving others the information on which to make their own decisions. Final thought: at some traffic lights today I found myself behind a car with a jokey rear-window sticker giving instructions for anal sex. In the back of the car were two primary-age kids. I found myself wondering whether the adults in the car wouln't be the first ones to start an outraged press campaign if the kids' school actually dared to include a discussion of that behaviour in a Health Education lesson... Sorry to go on, I just despair at times!!
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Post by The Shropshire Tenor on Jan 2, 2005 18:27:19 GMT 1
Food for thought for the well meaning liberals among us is 'The Welfare State We're In' by James Bartholomew.
His premise is that the welfare state has helped to generate fatherless families, ruined health provision, education and housing.
His argument is that voluntary arrangements that preceded the welfare state fostered self reliance and self respect and the decline in the 2 parent family and the extended working class family is due to benefits.
There are some holes in his arguments, but of plenty of thought provoking material for people who think that there needs to be a radical re-think about the way we live today.
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Post by pawlo on Jan 2, 2005 18:45:37 GMT 1
This premise has been around for some time and has indeed been used by the right wing of politics, as an excuse ( not the reason ), for scrapping the Welfare State.
The welfare state was always intended to provide basic standards. It was not intended to pay for Nike Trainers.
I see the NHS and Education as being totally seperate to the welfare state. Good Health Care and a good education in my opinion, are basic human rights. Nike Trainers are a luxury. I will willingly pay my bit to keep pensioners warm, well fed and safe, but see no reason why my taxs should be used to pay some lazy slob to sit around the house and deck out thier 4 kids in clothes that i cant afford to buy myself.
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Post by ssshrew on Jan 2, 2005 18:46:29 GMT 1
Agree with the sentiment that everything starts at home. If parents do not respect authority (e.g., teachers, behaviour in public places, police, etc.) then there is no hope for their children.
However, I would not want to generalise about this particular incident. Suffice to say that my utmost sympathies go to the parents - what more can we say?
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Post by pawlo on Jan 2, 2005 18:52:42 GMT 1
Suffice to say that my utmost sympathies go to the parents - what more can we say? Totally agree.
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Post by RG on Jan 2, 2005 18:56:11 GMT 1
The Government HAS set each local authority a target for reducing teenage pregnancies in its area. They have not given them very much in the way of definative guidance on best practice in achieving these targets. Hence, local attempts at reducing teenage pregnancies by councils / schools may vary widely nationally in terms of quality and resources utilised
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Post by rob on Jan 2, 2005 19:24:22 GMT 1
Say you've got 3 kids recieve housing benifit, job seekers allowance etc.... why are you then going to go out and work for minimum wage when as a result you will lose some of the benifits that you'd otherwise recieve, have to find some sort of child care and in the end end up worse off??? Who in there right mind would do that? I know given the choice of working and being worse off than staying at home which one i'd choose. There is a fundamental problem with sex education. Schools are only allowed to brush on the major topics that arise and only then at a "suitable" age. Whenever 15/16 years olds are introduced too more "graphic" lesons, teachers are branded perverts,local rags and parents go off their nut and school retreats back into its shell. The only people to lose out are the children and teenagers. The way parents and a family conducts itself behind the four walls that make up most peoples house should also have a crucial role in how a child develops.
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Post by wiganshrew2 on Jan 2, 2005 20:29:33 GMT 1
"All the things we laugh about regarding Telford girls- the pink tracksuit, she'd been wearing on that night- it seems unkind to laugh at such things, somehow. Yet I've done it- guilty, yes- cheap laughs."
Yes- Sister Pab is correct.I phrased that bit badly. I didn't laugh at the report that said what that poor girl had been wearing. I read it- and was instantly ashamed at having laughed, in the past, about the "Telford stereotype." In the context of her murder, it was somehow really poignant.
Interesting that everyone, whatever their political leanings, seems to agree about a few key issues-
Examples set in the home.
The culture of instant gratification in our country.
A benefit culture that does nothing to encourage a sense of responsibility.
Lack of respect for authority and lack of standards of behaviour in public.
Sometimes, though- every effort of the parents to instill sensible and responsible behaviour is undermined by other, equally powerful influences.
I know a case in point. Parent's standards are constantly being undermined by ex-inlaws, in order to gain easy "popularity" and show parent up as being too strict and old-fashioned. (Of course if marriages were made to work- I suppose THIS situation wouldn't arise, either.)
There's been some interesting views.
At the end of the day, I agree so much with ssshrew when she said her utmost sympathies go to the parents. Whatever the rights and wrongs- a young life has been ended in a horrible way.
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Post by pawlo on Jan 2, 2005 20:40:47 GMT 1
Say you've got 3 kids recieve housing benifit, job seekers allowance etc.... why are you then going to go out and work for minimum wage when as a result you will lose some of the benifits that you'd otherwise recieve, have to find some sort of child care and in the end end up worse off??? Dignity and self respect? I fail to see how anyone could possibly be worse off by earning your money, rather than collecting it every 2 weeks from the post office. I dont believe for a minute that benefits should be stopped, but i do think that if you can work, then you should be made to work, top the money up to a descent income fair enough, if you dont want minimum wage then study and get a better job. If life is tough with 3 kids, then perhaps you will try harder not to have 4. Sounds harsh and right wing, but i dont think it is. Benefits should be a safety net, not a way of life.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 2, 2005 20:51:21 GMT 1
Living pretty close to the crime scene I know what it's like round here. I see how people are brought up and at times it sickens me. 10 years ago I would never have dreamt about sleeping around (i'm 24) but hearing the stories around here it seems like a decade on we are living in a totally different society. So many young children seem to think having underage unprotected sex is fine. As for benefits, the majority of people I know on my estate don't work and claim for all sorts. Is there anything wrong with them? Nope.
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Post by ShrewsandRoyals on Jan 2, 2005 20:59:37 GMT 1
Prior to the murder of this girl I was involved in a discussion about teenage pregnancy. One of the suggestions put forward for discussion was that any payments related to having children should only be payable for births where the mothers due date is 16 years and 40 weeks following their 16th birthday as anything else would be "rewarding" (I use their words) breaking the law. Provoked a good discussion that did! As a person who has taken sex education lessons, I can also categorically state there are parents out there who have not discussed anything to do with sex or periods with their children. Even by 11.
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Post by SeanBroseley on Jan 3, 2005 2:21:52 GMT 1
There are some holes in his arguments, but of plenty of thought provoking material for people who think that there needs to be a radical re-think about the way we live today. A radical rethink on the way we live today would involve something other than cutting people's entitlements to benefits. Is underage pregnancy only an issue if payments of social security are involved or if the child/mother is working class rather than middle class? We're running on emptiness - to quote the book title. We don't have a working class now because we don't have heavy industries and extractive industries that built communities around them. How many employers build houses for their employees nowadays? Where have the work-related sports clubs gone? And yet we spend more of our waking hours working than people in many other developed economies. I live in Broseley, work in Wolverhampton and spend my money in Telford and Shrewsbury or by direct debit and debit card via the post or internet. I work more hours and harder than my father did. And I have conversations with people on an internet messageboard. I don't see the progress there. But, if we go from thinking about radically changing our lives to actually radically changing our lives it again starts in the home. 1) Engage with our children as human beings and friends. 2) Switch off/smash the TV. 3) Examine the point of every expense. Why am I buying this item of clothing, DVD etc? Is it really going to make me that much happier, and if so for how long? Spending money is the opium of the people - and if it wasn't then the level of economic activity and therefore wealth generation would be so much lower - but not the level of happiness. 4) Walk rather than take the car. 5) Eat less processed foods. 6) Buy local produce. 7) Grow your own food. Your kids realise that vegetables have to be grown and work and patience (delayed gratification) reaps a reward. The route problem is that division of labour and economic surplus (originally in the form of agricultural surplus) stratifies and destroys communities, or at least those aspects of communities that do not act as conductors of economic or political power. We are on a 4,000 year treadmill which we can only get off by being as tough with ourselves as we tend to be with other people in these types of discussions. Don't expect politicians to solve these problems for you, they are only interested in you when they want your vote - roughly every five years.
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Sim
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Post by Sim on Jan 3, 2005 2:34:05 GMT 1
wiganshrew2, your first post was so disgusting and disrespectful it's unbelievable. I go to college with a girl who personally knew the murdered girl, and she's distraught. I can't believe someone of your age and experience laughed at such a thing. Underage pregnancies don't only happen in Telford, they happen all over the place, please show a little respect and refrain from practically criticising the poor girl for being pregnant.
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Post by JP on Jan 3, 2005 2:36:41 GMT 1
Sim, there is no way on this earth that Pauline was laughing at this terrible incident.
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Post by CuyahogaBlue on Jan 3, 2005 2:52:44 GMT 1
wiganshrew2, your first post was so disgusting and disrespectful it's unbelievable. No it wasn't, read it again and I'm hopeful that you'll understand the message.
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Post by rob on Jan 3, 2005 3:14:14 GMT 1
read it again michael......
unfortunatly Pab there are many people who are better off by not getting a job. Call them lazy, call them whatever. But to me its common sense. Why work nights in a pie factory for £4.98 (which is what i was on) when it pays less than benfits and takes you away from your children.
Education is a lovely thing. Unfortunatly Our wonderful prime minister is making it an increasing requirement to have some form of higher education experienace. Shame it costs significant money.......
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Post by Stevenelsonfanclub on Jan 3, 2005 10:39:45 GMT 1
Yes Rob, you make a good point about higher education there. However, it just again shows how much government bodies are out of touch with reality.
A large percentage of undergraduates and post-graduates, these days, fall into the following categories:
Do a degree / post-grad to avoid getting a job Do a degree because it seems like a good idea Think that once they have a degree their learning stops!!
I am appalled at the standard of graduates coming out of our university systems. Vast numbers seem unable to construct a simple letter, understand grammar or have a comprehension that the degree is the first step on the way to the job of your choosing, not the only step!! I interview large number of graduates and very few have the drive and determination to succeed at the middle level, let alone above that.
We expend far too much energy these days pointing sub-standard people in the direction of a 2:2 in animal psychology with IT and Sports science, instead of giving people a real chance in life. Prince Charles was spot on with what he said the other week about people getting above their ability.
This country has 80,000 HGV drivers short, average earning £23,000 per annum. How many people who would have followed this type of career 20-30 years ago have now been sucked into this "get a degree" jamboree to end up working for the council in administration on £13k a year and moaning about conditions??
30 years ago (its only a comparison, I was only 4 at the time!), I would have expected someone with a sound all-round education to be able to send letters out of my behalf. Today, I check everything myself, even if prepared by a graduate!
On another note, you show me a graduate with hunger, common sense and determination and I'll give them £25k OTE (£16k basic) in year one!!
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Post by theriverside on Jan 3, 2005 12:26:08 GMT 1
read it again michael...... unfortunatly Pab there are many people who are better off by not getting a job. Call them lazy, call them whatever. But to me its common sense. Why work nights in a pie factory for £4.98 (which is what i was on) when it pays less than benfits and takes you away from your children. It's been said already Rob - pride. I live 2 doors from a family where the father chooses not to work as its a waste of his life. 4 kids later and they have benefits than mean they can afford for Sainsburys to deliver their shopping for them so he can spend even more of his day shooting pellets into a target in his back garden. I'd turn the gun on myself if that was my sole aim in life. SNFC makes a good point about graduate calibre. All the degrees in the world do not guarantee to make a person. Our MD came into our company 9 months ago with all the reputation, degrees and theories that our parent company were looking for. He departed on Christmas Eve having lost us two contracts and £50 million in revenue in 9 months, and has left 400 of us behind possibly looking at no job in 6 months. Why? Because the guy had not got a shred of common sense or understanding of the business, and chose to do things his way and not listen to his staff.
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Post by ThrobsBlackHat on Jan 3, 2005 13:10:18 GMT 1
On another note, you show me a graduate with hunger, common sense and determination and I'll give them £25k OTE (£16k basic) in year one!! It's a deal!
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Post by wiganshrew2 on Jan 3, 2005 13:47:43 GMT 1
wiganshrew2, your first post was so disgusting and disrespectful it's unbelievable. I go to college with a girl who personally knew the murdered girl, and she's distraught. I can't believe someone of your age and experience laughed at such a thing. Underage pregnancies don't only happen in Telford, they happen all over the place, please show a little respect and refrain from practically criticising the poor girl for being pregnant. Sim- I can understand why you've said this- you know someone who knew this poor girl- and it's made an impact- and you've COMPLETELY mis-understood me! I later said I'd phrased it badly- I only meant that, in the past- I'd laughed about the Telford stereotype, fashionwise- and similar things are said about typical "St Helens" girls (Or "Sint 'elens" as they say, mocking their accents) I NEVER laughed when I actually read the newpaper reports - or heard them on the radio. Quite the opposite. What I said was that I suddenly felt that I, too, had laughed, in the past about silly superficial things like following peer-group's fashion ideas. As for criticizing her for being pregnant- read again. My only feeling was that here was a vulnerable young girl who'd been let down by society- and the prevailing influences of our time. Believe I'm the last person who would criticize anyone for anything like that. I was upset and don't even know the girl- so I can only guess how the girl who knows her feels. I'm sorry if I phrased it so badly that it sounds as if I was criticizing her. Please read again- and carefully. In fact, the fact that she was murdered probably has nothing at all to do with the fact that she was pregnant- she was probably the victim of some unspeakably horrible, unhinged and dangerous maniac. But- what was a girl like that doing out coming from a party without being picked up? We used to insist that we picked our daughters up from nightclubs, parties..etc... If they'd decided to come home earlier- we would have insisted that they phoned us. O.K- we had the grumbles about spoiling their street cred- and having to park so their friends couldn't see- but TOUGH! Better that and know they're safe. It's all about caring, surely? It's not even REALLY about benefits.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2005 14:17:04 GMT 1
If I managed to read the opening post and understood it then why couldn't some other people? You have nothing to apologise for Wiggy, it should be the people who couldn't be bothered to engage their brains that should be apologising to you.
After talking to the inlaws it seems that my family did know the girl and the boyfriend. And i've been told I almost got married in that church.
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Post by MarkRowley on Jan 3, 2005 15:30:52 GMT 1
Like all, the only thing to say about Amy's death is that it is an appalling tragedy for her family & friends and I hope that the police catch who did it asap (whether or not that is the bloke who is in custody). On the wider debate, some good points made by Sean & SNFC. British society in general is sadly dying on its arse and there are no obvious signs that we as a collective, the Govt or anyone else is doing a fat lot about it Pride is the key point : there are tens of thousands if not millions who have no pride in themselves and no respect for others. This has been a decline that has been happening for 30 years or more, under successive Govt's. Mention of reliance on benefits reminds me of 2 families who used to live opposite us over 20 years ago : man, wife, 3 kids in each, in 1 house bloke worked his arse off full time & loads of overtime, other house bloke hadn't worked for 10 years, both wives looked after the kids - you can guess which household was better off Don't want this to be a gloomy post but the only way out of this mess is to start making some radical changes to the way we all behave as a society and we need the press and politicians to get their fingers out of their arses and start doing something about: - Kids who know all about their rights but **** all about their responsibilities - General lack of respect in the youth for themselves, others and property : rather than worry about insisting on Citizenship studies for new immigrants, the Govt needs to sort out those of us who are already here first. - Consistently falling education standards, where families, teachers and Govt are all to blame. Whatever the stats show, I don't think students now are any brigher (if anything as a collective have gone the other way) and exams are clearly now easier. I went through GCSE's 15 years ago, was reasonably bright, worked hard and got some reasonable results. The top lad in our school, who went on to Cambridge to do Law, got 5 A's at GCSE : now students who are only good are walking away with 7 or 8 A's or more and it just demeans the whole thing. Like SNFC says, I've been boss of kids coming out of college & Uni with all sorts of qualifications but who struggle to write a coherent bit of work and are barely numerate. - Lack of respect for the police, not enough coppers about but also balance that with the police needing to put their own house in order and focus on crimes that society want solved not just quick wins to tick another box for their stats. - The constant fawning to civil liberties, human rights etc at the expense of sorting out what is seriously wrong with our society. I'm not of the hang 'em & flog 'em brigade but constant offenders are clearly not being deterred by the soft options of cautions, communitty service orders and lenient sentences by magistrates & judges. If we can get an ID card scheme that works I will gladly carry one & donate DNA to say who I am : the only ones who will be against this are those with something to hide. - Ongoing religious bigotry on all sides : e.g. our god is the only god, can't have gay priests, can't say this, can't do that : it's all bollox and all that will happen is that the Church will be more out of touch and extremism will increase - The general disgrace that is the gutter tabloid press and the reactionary voice of the Daily Mail - The vast %age of crime that remains directly linked to dealing drugs and/or committed by drug addicts. As time goes on I am more & more convinced that legalisation of all drugs is the only answer, if you want to be a smackhead, fine, waste your life, but go and get it on prescription from your GP rather than beating up old ladies to finance your next fix. - The gang culture that remains on the increase, particularly amongst young black and asian groups in major cities. These kids for any number of reasons have no purpose in their lives other than crime or violence, which is a sorry state of affairs. Rant over now, time for a lie down
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Post by ThrobsBlackHat on Jan 3, 2005 15:49:58 GMT 1
- Ongoing religious bigotry on all sides : e.g. our god is the only god, can't have gay priests, can't say this, can't do that : it's all bollox and all that will happen is that the Church will be more out of touch and extremism will increase I agree with most of what you say, but I have to take issue with this People must have the right to hold their own beliefs Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism to an extent and Islam all claim to be the only true religion You cannot take away their right to make that claim or you take away the rights of billions of people around the globe who adhere to a religion There is a big difference between holding a belief sincerely and being bigoted about someone else's beliefs. The paragraph there in my mind shows a bigotry against religious belief from yourself, the very thing you are chastising them for. Of the 11 relief agencies working together on the international Tsunami appeal 8 of them either have a background in religious groups or are still overtly Christian in their outlook. This is because their beliefs drive them to think of others and not themselves, and to stand up for the disadvantaged in the world They will be giving aid to whoever needs it, in fact, you have 8 Christian based agencies helping in Indonesia, the world's most populace Muslim country. Those organistaions would not exist without a very clear and defined set of values that are borne out of religious belief. To deny them that would deny them their liberty, deny them what motivates them
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2005 15:53:21 GMT 1
I have no figures to back this statement up but it seems less people would claim to be cristians in this day and age in this country than say 20 years ago. TBH - what do you think is the main reason for that?
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Post by MarkRowley on Jan 3, 2005 16:10:18 GMT 1
TBH - I have no issue with anyone having whatever (non-extreme) religious beliefs they want to have. What I do have an issue with is the lack of respect for others' views and the hypocrisy and bigotry that continues to surround all world religions. As loyalshrew highlights, church figures in the UK have plummeted over the past few decades for a variety of reasons, but one of which is that the church has become more & more out of touch with reality and doesn't attract people to it. Each Archbishop of Canterbury will continue to speak well about respecting others, but on the flip side you see the Church split on women priests (in the past, possibly still now), gay priests, and the lack of acceptance that Hindus, Muslims etc have a right to believe that their God is the only God....... if indeed there is such a thing
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