UK Is Persecuting The Christian Minority?

 Media, Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Mar 302013
 

In something I first heard about in the Daily Mail, so there was an instant credibility gap, it seems that Lord Carey has been blathering on about how Christians feel like a persecuted minority, and that the government is discriminating  against them.

Which is of course complete rancid rhino bile.

And any christian who feels persecuted against needs to take a good hard look at things.

According to the 2011 census, 59% of the UK population claimed to be christian. Given that 59% is more than 41%, I’d say that any christian who feels that they are a minority probably needs to take their socks off to count above 10. It is the rest of us – humanists, secularists, muslims, buddists, hindus, atheists, agnostics – who have the right to claim to be a minority. Given that 2001 (72% christian) was the first time the question was asked, it is hard to make historical observations regarding levels of christianity in the UK. Christians would of course say that we have been historically a christian society where everyone was a christian; others would say those who weren’t christian were under a great deal of pressure to pretend.

There are occasions when we get forced to sit through some sort of christian ceremony, although it was more common in the past than today. And it can be quite creepy listening to you guys speaking to your imaginary friend (or is it friends?).

Nothing to do with what goes on inside your churches of course, but christian ceremonies in public life can be excluding to those who are not christian. Take for example, the infamous council meetings where pre-meeting prayers are no longer permitted. Or rather praying out loud as part of the meeting is no longer permitted. If such prayers are part of a council meeting, they are effectively an unconscious expression of the kind of people who should take part in the meetings – that is practising christians. Or in other words, you are saying that the real minorities – atheists, muslims, etc. are not welcome.

Not that a period of silent contemplation at the start of a council meeting is a bad idea – indeed, it is probably a very good idea. And nobody is saying that you cannot talk with your imaginary friend(s) in the silence of your mind.

Carey specifically mentions the legalisation of gay marriage as one of the symptoms of “aggressive secularisation” within the government. Actually legalising gay marriage is simply doing the right thing; there is nothing in the legislation that forces anyone to get married to someone not of their choice! So it is merely allowing those who choose to, to get married to the person of their choice.

What christians who oppose gay marriage are complaining about, is that they are no longer allowed to impose their views of what marriage should be onto those who believe differently.

In other words christians are complaining about not being allowed to persecute others.

If christians still feel they are being persecuted in the UK, perhaps they should look at some of the real examples of christians being persecuted around the world (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians). Any kind of inspection of what happens around the world will make any decent person claiming that UK christians are being persecuted thoroughly ashamed. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the case (and frankly in the case of the BA employee, both sides could do with being told to just grow up), being unable to wear a cross in jewellery form at work hardly compares to being stoned to death.

Banksy: Theft and Vandalism

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Feb 242013
 

When you think about what has happened to a certain Banksy’s artwork recently :-

Banksy from Wood Green

The stranger and stranger it gets.

First we have what is legally an act of vandalism, but the community in which that act of vandalism took place seems to approve of that act of vandalism. Vandalism could be defined as the destruction or defacement of some property; which given the protests since the removal of Banksy’s artwork could mean that whilst Banksy’s original artwork was an act of vandalism, so was removing it!

It seems strange for a community to have any rights over private property that is within that community; almost a denial of property rights. But it already exists – planning permission, maintenance enforcement notices, make a property a listed building, etc. Is it going too far to say that the community should have some say in how a building is “decorated” ?

As to the “theft”, people have been very quick to deny there’s been a crime here. But the community itself feels that something has been stolen from it – which is theft. It may not be legally theft, but if the community believes it to be theft, then perhaps the law is wrong.

Graffiti in general is a bit of an issue, as a good percentage of it has very little in the way of artistic value. Perhaps we need a way for a community to vote to protect “street art” and to condemn simple graffiti. That way those who have to live with it, get to choose what to keep and what to whitewash.

As for the property company that tried (and apparently failed) to sell the artwork in question here, it is rather hard to condemn them. If someone were to paint an artwork onto the side of my flat worth thousands, I would have a hard time saying no. Perhaps a ‘community street art protection order’ could expire after a certain period – perhaps 5 years – after which the property owner would be free to sell the artwork.

The Anti-Gun Lesson from Pistorius

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Feb 222013
 

So it looks like he’s out on bail.

He could be guilty of murder, or he could have been trying to protect his home from burglars.

Let us assume it’s the later. There are all sorts of problems with his story of what happened – if you were to tackle a burglar in your own home in the middle of the day with plenty of practice at that sort of situation.

But in the middle of the night ? Woken from a sleep and still in a daze? And not really knowing what to do ? It’s all to easy to imagine me doing something really daft in that situation is all too believable.

Add guns to that mixture, and you have the recipe for a disaster. Which if Pistorius is telling the truth is exactly what has happened.

There are those who argue that it is a right to keep a gun in the house to protect yourself from burglars. Ignoring whether it’s a right or not, it is for most of us a dumb thing to do. Most of us do not undergo the sort of training that will let us make sensible decisions in such a situation, and those that do have the training are not likely to operate at full effectiveness without the right level of caffeine.

Iceland: “It’s All The Fault Of The Councils”

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Feb 182013
 

The boss of Iceland has come up with this.

To which the only appropriate response is “horseshit”.

His argument is that councils (or local authorities) award contracts based solely on price. Now I am not directly involved in the tendering process, and indeed not directly involved in the council tendering process, but I do have some familiarity with the process – sometimes I am one of the “quality gates” to get past in an area which works to many of the same rules as local authorities.

And nobody awards contracts based solely on price. At least not if they want to keep their jobs for longer than 10 minutes.

It is true that the public sector will award a contract based on price with all other things being equal. But if you want to supply burgers to all of the schools in the county of Rutland, you’ll probably have a huge pile of paperwork to complete which includes specifying the size of the burgers, and what’s in them.

Once all that paperwork had been sent back to the council, some poor unfortunate has to go through all the paperwork whittling down the responses to those who meet the criteria – strange as it may seem an invitation to tender for supplying 10,000 beef burgers will solicit responses from people willing to supply 50 chickens! Once the responses have been whittled down, the cheapest response is selected – if there’s no good reason to reject it.

Does this result in a downward pressure on price? Of course it does – and councils would be criticised if they did not exert downward pressure on prices. But it doesn’t encourage corrupt practices.

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