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Jehova's witnesses..

Religion and Philosophy
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we are introducing this on a trial basis and that respect for other's views is important e.g. phrases like "your imaginary friend" or "you will go to hell" are not appropriate
beeswax
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Jehova's witnesses..

#142911

Postby beeswax » June 1st, 2018, 6:28 pm

They hang about in Town Centres and elsewhere with their leaflets and posters and nobody takes a blind notice of them at least when I see them and invariably I stop and have a chat with them asking them how many converts have they had that day etc and I explain to them how I was a bible believing Christian for 50 years and then when I actually decided to THINK about what it was that I believed, I rejected the lot as the musings of mostly ignorant men and we discussed evolution and atonement and all the usual stuff and they refused to believe any view except their own including evolution which is obviously the death knell for Genesis and Jesus the Saviour of Mankind etc. I think the two were Elders at their local Church and they really had no answers other than its in the bible and its the word of God and so it must all be true...I said you mean God ordering Samuel to tell Saul to go and kill all the men, women and children of the Amacelites and when Saul captured their leader alive, he wanted to spare him and Samuel went into a rage that he had disobeyed God and immediately killed that man...I asked them "where was this so called loving and compassionate God you all preach"?

You may not be surprised at their answer...."Oh the explanation is simple. These were not very nice people and needed destroying" .

I then bade my farewell and left them to their ignorance and its not them I feel sorry for, its all their young children that they and other religions indoctrinate with these obvious horrible untruths. I said that story ought to explain that it wasn't God that ordered anything to anyone but a power mad religious nut case that had the people in the palm of their hands and that didn't change much for 2000 plus years and luckily people today have rejected them all and as a result don't think we would ever fight a 'religious' war anymore like they used to..

Luckily Churches are mostly filled by old fogies and are closing by the score but I fear that some other religious faiths won't be as easy to stamp out as being born into them almost guarantees their strong life long beliefs and as we see in the Middle East, they are still fighting not over their faith per se but over which interpretation is the right one and to the death as well....When will they ever learn that it was all based on myth and fairy tales designed to control our minds and our bodies. I don't see God anywhere in any of them, at least in my humble opinion.

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#142955

Postby midnightcatprowl » June 1st, 2018, 9:14 pm

Luckily Churches are mostly filled by old fogies and are closing by the score


Well some of them are filled with older people and some of them have closed, are closing, or will close. However you are probably looking at more traditionally mainstream churches. There are, in fact, many less traditional which are full of people of all ages but with a goodly proportion of younger folk which are not in the least danger of closing and, in fact, are busy expanding and taking over new premises and so on. I'm just mentioning this as a matter of fact rather than support for either the idea that churches and church members are a good or a bad thing.

I think it is unlikely that the Jehovah's witnesses you met on the street were Elders of their Church (this is just a suspicion not a certainty). I've been told that it is newer members of the congregation who to be 'saved' as it were have to convert a certain number of people to their way of thinking. In the past this was mainly done door to door but I assume that ever greater resistance to people 'selling' door to door whether they are 'selling' goods or faith, is leading to a greater emphasis on the sort of street activity which involves standing (and I fear it must be standing sadly though the people you see doing it don't show this) in front of a rack of pamphlets.

I'd make these points:

I am not myself a believer but I have respect for those who do believe and who act on that belief. There are many Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and so forth who proclaim belief while merely despising those who don't proclaim the same belief rather than focusing on what their beliefs command them to do. On the other hand you will find many from those faiths and others who in their own way do in fact try to live out the commands of their faith in a day to day way and are often doing work which no one else will bother to do or deign to do. I have no particular liking, for example, for the type of faith proclaimed by The Salvation Army but years ago when I was working in the education sector I was in a school in an extremely deprived area and talking to a headteacher who herself had no sympathy with the Salvationist's faith as such but who said to me how grateful she had to be to the Salvationists who ran the local after school club. As she explained they accepted the children that no other youth movement was interested in, the kids who always had head lice, the kids with fleas, the kids who always smelled, the kids wearing cast-offs, the kids whose home life was at the least chaotic and at the worst sheer hell and gave them the respite of a happy couple of hours after school in a situation where they were warmly welcomed and valued as individuals regardless of their clothes and dirt and head lice.

I also have to say that some denominations/sects/faith sectors, call them what you will, however much we may find their teachings odd or even in some ways repugnant, do actually support their members in a way which is hard to find elsewhere. I used to work as an educational psychologist a role which brings you into contact and mostly into the living rooms of people from all sectors of society and though I tend to deplore organisations such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormon's and similar, I've certainly known families in desperate straits who have been buoyed up to such an extent by these organisations and by the constant practical help they gave, even if it did come along with indoctrination, that all you could say was well if others be they religious organisations or secular organisations or local government organisations or what have you did a similarly good job then people would not fall into the hands of some of the odder organisations.

On the issue of age I think it is sad that you can think of nothing better to say of older people than that they are 'old fogies'. The other side of this coin is the belief that all teenagers are hooligans or irresponsible or that all millenials suffer from an extreme sense of entitlement or that all women in the menopause (or indeed men in the 'male menopause') are suffering from a form of insanity and you can go on and on with this sort of assigning of negativity to whole cohorts of folk who have nothing in common except a date of birth between a certain number of years of each other. Frankly this is all rubbish and the sort of thing which newspapers use for their headlines. Some people are stuck in their ways from early youth. Some people are still eagerly grasping new ideas in their nineties. Some (many) teenagers are kind, insightful and entrepreneurial in their attitudes. Some people over 60 or younger are under the impression the world owes them a living and that age entitles them to be negative about everyone else. Some people - of both sexes - are pulled down by the menopause, while others at the same age and regardless of their hormones are steaming ahead intellectually and personally.

Frankly you can't support any argument on the basis of name calling.

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#142958

Postby Spet0789 » June 1st, 2018, 9:28 pm

Well Beeswax old chap, what was it like speaking with religious zealots who don’t listen to facts or evidence?

Now perhaps you know how some of us feel about Brexit!

The only difference there is that the zealots are taking the rest of us along for the ride. We can’t throw the leaflet in the bin and walk away....

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#142968

Postby beeswax » June 1st, 2018, 10:48 pm

I actually asked them if they were 'elders' of their church and they said they were....Their pat answers reflected it really..

I am sorry if people don't like being called 'old fogies' as I am one myself and wouldn't be insulted if someone called me that but I'm from the Industrial north and so that's par for the course. My experience of churches including the Salvation Army where I went as a youngster and then again about 6 years ago for a time when I was trying to rediscover or learn what my faith was really about is mostly negative and I couldn't care less if they all closed.

I think now in history and today when we look at the Middle East I think religious brainwashing does more harm than good and we have evolved now into a much more tolerant and compassionate society than ever in the past when religion was more dominant.

I respect that its people's choice to believe what it is they want to believe but that should not include preaching doctrine that is not true and in the process harming young minds so they shout 'God is great' while murdering innocents etc. Its not just that and for our Physchologist? Friend here...A lot of these Christians reject evolution and and common sense in their desire to believe the bible. Is that harmful to others that myth and superstition should be believed over facts and truth. I believe so now and I know now that the majority of them never really think that deeply about what it is they believe other than its what they were 'mostly' taught as children. The bible is full of stuff that is obviously not true even where it says Jesus is returning when he said he would and so one would think that was pretty important thing for one's faith. Most people I knew went to Church as going to a social club and just somewhere to go...Which is fine, their choice. But we really have to see the damage it has done over the centuries. And indeed today in some parts of the world and billions of people believe this stuff too and so even if Christianity fades, then Islam will be the dominant one and is that something to fear in the future? They all still believe in animal sacrifice even in this day and age which is astonishing and cruel with their so called halah nonsense. I would stop all that tomorrow if I could like circumcision and so its not all harmless!

In my limited experience over 50 years is that religion acts to weaken people and not strengthen them as some of them feel guilty they cannot match up to the life of Jesus. I've seen grown men and women weep and kneel in front of the Cross they have in these places and its harming their self worth and self confidence.

One thing though is I don't see religious people knocking on my door like perhaps they used to years ago. The Pope is the best thing for the anti Christian movement as he doesn't believe much of the bible either! ;)

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#143053

Postby Stonge » June 2nd, 2018, 12:26 pm

I wonder if it'll take 50 years for Brexiteers to really ponder the dire consequences and falsehoods of their 'religious' faith. Probably not.

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#143081

Postby Sussexlad » June 2nd, 2018, 3:22 pm

Stonge wrote:I wonder if it'll take 50 years for Brexiteers to really ponder the dire consequences and falsehoods of their 'religious' faith. Probably not.


Can i just ask why thinking being an independent democracy (which cooperates on issues of mutual interest) is any more a 'faith' than thinking it's preferable to be a member of a large political union?

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#143350

Postby colin » June 3rd, 2018, 9:21 pm

I don't see God anywhere in any of them, at least in my humble opinion.


no, bizarre really .Perhaps they have all been hypnotized. i wonder what Galileo thought of all the weird beliefs of his age?

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#147846

Postby GrandOiseau » June 25th, 2018, 10:32 am

I rarely engage people in conversation about their faith. It seems to serve no purpose unless they are genuinely interested in my viewpoint. Better to engage with a completely neutral stance and brush over any religious references IMO. I'm not an athiestic evangelist. I'm more interested in people for who they are and how they behave in everyday life. If they have certain rituals they do in their own time who cares.

Of course in a broader sense I care as I find it odd more than anything - why people have faith in deities, religions, etc. And what I often perceive as the harm it does. But that's a different conversation.

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#148032

Postby beeswax » June 25th, 2018, 11:47 pm

GrandOiseau wrote:I rarely engage people in conversation about their faith. It seems to serve no purpose unless they are genuinely interested in my viewpoint. Better to engage with a completely neutral stance and brush over any religious references IMO. I'm not an athiestic evangelist. I'm more interested in people for who they are and how they behave in everyday life. If they have certain rituals they do in their own time who cares.

Of course in a broader sense I care as I find it odd more than anything - why people have faith in deities, religions, etc. And what I often perceive as the harm it does. But that's a different conversation.


I love to engage with religious people on the street or on the internet being that I was so entrenched in my former Christian faith for so long and so I can't criticise them for having their beliefs but for me its almost the opposite of a damascene conversion when I realised what a fake it was and any goal I have is to try and get people to THINK about what they believe by references to biblical text and its a hopeless task i know but to stop the competition between all these faiths so that they don't harm each other as they have done and are doing in some parts of the world. But then to try and challenge their views on eg homosexuality and divorce. I'm probably in a minority but I don't accept that moral guidance comes from scripture but by progress of the individual via education, logic and reason and the secular governance and collective representation to do what is best for humanity, love and compassion for others and basically the golden rule. Religion imv has done the opposite as we can read for ourselves in any holy text and the cruel history of trying to force it down our throats. It wasn't that long ago that people were actually fined for not attending church services such was the power of the Church in society.

I say to believers its really OK to believe in a Creator God as I do but do not believe in the God of the bible or the Quran. Men made their own God in their OWN image and then used that God to control our minds and our bodies and that is still happening today..They are not the innocent bystanders here and its the children of religious parents I care about. Indoctrinating them into the myths and untruths in the 21st century is not my idea of a progressive society but of a backwards looking one. One death due to religious faith is one too many...

Secularism of course has its own problems but one step at a time until we eradicate all the ills we can to make a better world for everyone..Until all the hate stuff is removed from all religious text, we won't move on because each new generation can read it and some act on it...

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#148081

Postby GrandOiseau » June 26th, 2018, 9:43 am

beeswax, I don't think you are in a minority any longer. At least not in the UK, or much of the "first world".

I think baby steps is the way to go - but keep pushing. I'd like it to happen quicker of course. But slowly is less painful.

I do wonder how other parts of the world can be turned though.

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#148089

Postby beeswax » June 26th, 2018, 10:12 am

GrandOiseau wrote:beeswax, I don't think you are in a minority any longer. At least not in the UK, or much of the "first world".

I think baby steps is the way to go - but keep pushing. I'd like it to happen quicker of course. But slowly is less painful.

I do wonder how other parts of the world can be turned though.


Yes of course you are right about baby steps as trying to force people into giving up anything is hard and ingrained religious beliefs even more so. Its why I engage with them so that they may just think about them and my long experience as a Christian and going to many Churches helps I think.

I'm all for religious faith in order to make a better world for everyone but I am not convinced it has or is does and there will be evidence from both sides. However, Saudi Arabia has just allowed women to drive which sounds so outrageous to us but it is a small step and the world has become so much closer where we are all interacting more with each other now and so lessons can be learned that its possible to uphold human rights of the individual and to have equal opportunity alongside their long held beliefs.

Religion grows where ignorance abounds like in third world countries and where fundamentalism is more evident and we can just hope that it won't take another 2000 years to get them all to realise that we have to all get on with each other and stop the harm and as I said that goes for the non religious too.

Its all work in progress and you are again right that the UK is going in the right direction and why most of our churches are empty which is sad in one way but spending billions on repairing them would be better spent on the poor and hungry of the world and think even Jesus would agree with that..He proved you don't need bricks and mortar to preach love and kindness to anyone..

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#148106

Postby redsturgeon » June 26th, 2018, 11:45 am

I was sitting outside a restaurant in the Cathedral square of my home city having a nice pizza and a beer with my daughter last week when three smartly dressed young men with neat haircuts arrived and started having a quiet conversation by the cathedral gates.

"Mormons" my daughter suggested.

"Or Jehovah's Witnesses", I replied.

After a couple of minutes one of them stepped forward and started loudly proselytising at nobody in particular for a couple of minutes before stepping back to join his two mates. The next in line then stepped forward to repeat the process, albeit in a less confident manner and finally the last one took his turn at barely a whisper while looking down at his feet. I felt a little sorry for him.

This being Winchester nobody stopped or even glanced in their direction, daily life continued around them. They probably wished they had got the African gig where the pickings might have been better.

The three men then moved off as quietly as they had arrived. I continued with my pizza and beer ( very good sourdough wood-fired pepperoni and a locally brewed IPA.), the sun shone and all was good with the world.

God 0 Winchester 1

John

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#148123

Postby beeswax » June 26th, 2018, 12:47 pm

redsturgeon wrote:I was sitting outside a restaurant in the Cathedral square of my home city having a nice pizza and a beer with my daughter last week when three smartly dressed young men with neat haircuts arrived and started having a quiet conversation by the cathedral gates.

"Mormons" my daughter suggested.

"Or Jehovah's Witnesses", I replied.

After a couple of minutes one of them stepped forward and started loudly proselytising at nobody in particular for a couple of minutes before stepping back to join his two mates. The next in line then stepped forward to repeat the process, albeit in a less confident manner and finally the last one took his turn at barely a whisper while looking down at his feet. I felt a little sorry for him.

This being Winchester nobody stopped or even glanced in their direction, daily life continued around them. They probably wished they had got the African gig where the pickings might have been better.

The three men then moved off as quietly as they had arrived. I continued with my pizza and beer ( very good sourdough wood-fired pepperoni and a locally brewed IPA.), the sun shone and all was good with the world.

God 0 Winchester 1

John


Haha...Nice one John..

They would have been Mormons ie LDS..as that is how they dress and have name tags with Elder on it...I always though that was a bit strange for young men and women starting out when its traditionally a label for a senior member of the Church...I once joked with them and asked if one was named 'Berry', you know Elderberry....;)

I was invited to attend their Church service a few years ago and because it was part of my research I went along to see how they do their worship thingy...and it was not much different than most others really...a sermon, a few songs and they are nice young men and women who are almost cajoled by their faith and family into overseas missions and I read up how they spend their days and its pretty gruelling and uninspiring but it does allow them to experience life in other countries for free...I did read that they were not allowed to contact their families during that period and don't know why...Man made rules obviously and probably to stop them getting home sick as they must I suspect...

I also read that a lot of Mormons no longer believe their founders story of the golden plates and an angel speaking with Joseph Smith but like any other huge church, it doesn't stop them doing what they do and they have an hierarchy of erm 12 MEN and no women, I wonder why? :)....They believe Jesus will return one day, not to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem but to, well no need to guess...Salt Lake City...The NEW Jerusalem!

Just to add that in my area the Jehova's Witnesses who hang around with their notices and pamphlets are mostly elderly, in fact all have been that age and I have engaged with them when I can...They don't think Jesus is coming back to rule on the Earth as some Christians think because they say he is in heaven now and he likes it . ;)...But one day He will catch all believers in the sky both the dead and the living....St Paul preached that actually...

From memory, think its called the Perusia or some such name..

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#148129

Postby dfrgth » June 26th, 2018, 1:22 pm

Beeswax wrote:
Its all work in progress and you are again right that the UK is going in the right direction and why most of our churches are empty which is sad in one way but spending billions on repairing them would be better spent on the poor and hungry of the world and think even Jesus would agree with that. He proved you don't need bricks and mortar to preach love and kindness to anyone..


I take it from your statements that you think society is improving as religious attendance declines, so compared with say 50 years ago we are a more caring society that better looks after the sick and vulnerable, the elderly are not struggling with loneliness, child abuse is reducing, we are becoming less materialistic and more altruistic? and your evidence for this is?

I agree that spending billions on repairing church buildings could possibly be spent on other/better things but as that money is raised from church attenders and they, as you say, have been reducing maybe it could be questioned if a small minority of the country is able to raise billions for these projects what are the vast majority of the country doing? if their giving to charity matched the giving of church attenders then clearly we could have many more billions to spend on the poor and hungry of the world. As the Old Testament recommends tithing, i.e. giving 10% of your income then if we take an average wage of £25,000 and a working population or 30,000,000 but taking off 6% for the Christians who are already giving 10% but to their churches (I don't know if 6% generous or not but for regular church attenders I suspect it might be high) then we should have £70.5 billion pounds available each year for charity or perhaps it is only Christians who you think should give to the poor and hungry.

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#148141

Postby beeswax » June 26th, 2018, 2:17 pm

dfrgth wrote:
Beeswax wrote:
Its all work in progress and you are again right that the UK is going in the right direction and why most of our churches are empty which is sad in one way but spending billions on repairing them would be better spent on the poor and hungry of the world and think even Jesus would agree with that. He proved you don't need bricks and mortar to preach love and kindness to anyone..


I take it from your statements that you think society is improving as religious attendance declines, so compared with say 50 years ago we are a more caring society that better looks after the sick and vulnerable, the elderly are not struggling with loneliness, child abuse is reducing, we are becoming less materialistic and more altruistic? and your evidence for this is?

I agree that spending billions on repairing church buildings could possibly be spent on other/better things but as that money is raised from church attenders and they, as you say, have been reducing maybe it could be questioned if a small minority of the country is able to raise billions for these projects what are the vast majority of the country doing? if their giving to charity matched the giving of church attenders then clearly we could have many more billions to spend on the poor and hungry of the world. As the Old Testament recommends tithing, i.e. giving 10% of your income then if we take an average wage of £25,000 and a working population or 30,000,000 but taking off 6% for the Christians who are already giving 10% but to their churches (I don't know if 6% generous or not but for regular church attenders I suspect it might be high) then we should have £70.5 billion pounds available each year for charity or perhaps it is only Christians who you think should give to the poor and hungry.


I mean we are a more tolerant society towards minorities, homosexuals and divorce, same sex marriage. As a society we have a welfare state that guarantees people's incomes and pays out tens of billions in housing allowance. In my youth, none of that was available, young single women who got pregnant were sent 'away' to either have the baby born or get an abortion. The Church sickens me with its holier than thou attitude while abusing young children and protecting the abusers and its own reputation..Read about the hundreds of babies that were buried by Catholic Nuns etc.

I agree that community spirit has been lost but that was nothing to do with the church. Hardly anyone in our street were Christians or went to Church but we all did good deeds for each other. The sick and vulnerable died younger than today, retiring at 65 you may have lived a couple more years and why the government have had to put up the pension age. We are more materialistic because we are a more materialistic society because of opportunity to fly anywhere we want, buy what we want and have equal pay generally where most married women go out to work and again that has nothing to do with religion.

The evidence we have is that huge amounts of money is raised for charities by non church goers and although the Church raises money its generally to support its Priesthood and its building like the Vatican and other palaces. Its one reason I stopped giving money to the Salvation Army. We had far more people living in poverty in older times than today for the reasons above. Older people are lonely because family members move away more than they did and children want to live more independent lives which is understandable.

My MIL went to the same church for 70 years and she and her late husband gave them lots of money for their Pastors wages and repair of their church, money they could ill afford and when she had to leave due to infirmity, all her so called 'friends' and members of her so called 'church family' abandoned her when she needed them most. Not one of the hypocritical buggers went to see her, or phoned her or asked her if she would like a cup of tea and yet twice a week they had a notice outside their church with offers of tea and refreshment, no doubt to brainwash the unsuspecting into joining their unholy alliance and naturally to give them money.

The history of the religion is one of brutality and enforcement of its sexual repression and power and control over us for centuries and its just my view but the day it all ends is when mankind really do come of age and they actually wonder how they all came to be so hoodwinked by the pagan myths and men in frocks..

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#148187

Postby Sussexlad » June 26th, 2018, 7:11 pm

beeswax wrote: I agree that community spirit has been lost but that was nothing to do with the church. Hardly anyone in our street were Christians or went to Church but we all did good deeds for each other.


Although many wouldn't have described themselves as committed Christians, many children I believe attended Sunday School or were exposed to some basic religion at school, perhaps just something along the lines of the Ten Commandments. Where are those basic social rules learnt today? Of course some parents still instil those values but many don't, we have largely moved from a situation where society came first to one where the individual rules.

I don't believe anyone owes anyone else a living, that would be a good starting point. You either provide for yourself or make an alliance and work together, apart of course from the genuinely disabled. Can you imagine a primitive village where one family decided not to build a hut, not gather wood for the fire or hunt food to eat but expected the other villagers to do those tasks for them ! Too many don't understand this basic lesson, they are content to scrounge and rob and little is done to discourage it.

We hear far too much about rights and entitlements but little about responsibilities and duties and without doubt the church provided those fundamental rules even if they didn't always adhere to them ! Unfortunately no one in the secular world seems willing to grasp that particular nettle, mainly for fear of becoming unpopular.

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Re: Jehova's witnesses..

#148235

Postby beeswax » June 26th, 2018, 11:42 pm

Sussexlad wrote:
beeswax wrote: I agree that community spirit has been lost but that was nothing to do with the church. Hardly anyone in our street were Christians or went to Church but we all did good deeds for each other.


Although many wouldn't have described themselves as committed Christians, many children I believe attended Sunday School or were exposed to some basic religion at school, perhaps just something along the lines of the Ten Commandments. Where are those basic social rules learnt today? Of course some parents still instil those values but many don't, we have largely moved from a situation where society came first to one where the individual rules.

I don't believe anyone owes anyone else a living, that would be a good starting point. You either provide for yourself or make an alliance and work together, apart of course from the genuinely disabled. Can you imagine a primitive village where one family decided not to build a hut, not gather wood for the fire or hunt food to eat but expected the other villagers to do those tasks for them ! Too many don't understand this basic lesson, they are content to scrounge and rob and little is done to discourage it.

We hear far too much about rights and entitlements but little about responsibilities and duties and without doubt the church provided those fundamental rules even if they didn't always adhere to them ! Unfortunately no one in the secular world seems willing to grasp that particular nettle, mainly for fear of becoming unpopular.


Some fair points there and most children were exposed to some religious teaching decades ago that was true but for me but it all went in one ear and out of the other even the ten commandments with their thou shalt not do this or that and were just ancient text that weren't that wise actually as most societies had rules for living. It didn't stop me pinching apples or going with my mate to steal chocolate bars from Woolies...;) It was a bit ridiculous when we really ask what rules did they have BEFORE Moses came down from Mount Sinai that apparently nobody has ever found trace of? What rules did the Egyptians have or the Chinese or the Greeks and any other society? We give the bible far too much credit and then add in all the really bad stuff and its why actually I ripped my bible up when I became an Ex Christian and threw it in the dustbin. i was quite angry that I allowed my mind to be contaminated with untruths and myths and yet there are billions of people believe it as God's word? Better late than never though.

I tend to agree that when you get free handouts from the State then almost everyone wants some whether they deserve it or not..How many hand back their child allowances or free TV licences and Bus passes? I think that all claimants to unemployment benefits should do some work for them even doing something local to help older people with their gardens or their shopping and keeping then streets clean. I would do that myself. I'm not convinced we have millions of disabled people who all claim benefits and just look at disability parking anywhere and watch the people getting out their cars and ask yourself do they appear to be 'severely' disabled and cannot walk a few yards without pain which is the rule for getting one. I would restrict them for wheelchair users only. I mean you need to park free near the entrance and then you spend an hour walking around the place? Something doesn't quite gel and why are they free anyway? Amazing how many disabled people manage to drive those huge 4X4's..

We could go on and on about injustices but every system has its drawbacks..


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