Free Speech

'Free speech' has always been a limited offering.  To many the words mean we can say anything we like anywhere no matter who is listening.  Yet there has always been limits, usually caused by thoughts uttered in an offensive manner towards people who the speaker wishes to upset.  Indeed free speech does not mean, and never has meant, feel free to insult and offend for the sake of it.  
However today we are in a time when little speech is free in any way.  Political Correctness, the new absolutes of western society, decides what we are allowed to say and where we can say it.  This has run so deep within society that I read recently only three universities are without limits on speech of any kind, all the others, including the so called 'Best ones' limit what can be said and by whom.
One such incident saw Germaine Greer, that mentally unbalanced writer, self proclaimed 'academic' and media favourite banned from speaking at one university because she upset some of the students.  Had she been banned because she is a mental case I could accept this but a banning just because she disagreed with them is unacceptable in any university.  Many would say that all universities exist so ideas can be debated, not banned.  Race, sex, religion and just existing appear reasons for rejecting a free thought, and secularists are very bad at this where religion is concerned, the left bad where politics is concerned and the right make use of their media to ensure other opinions are drowned out and kept from the readers too lazy to think for themselves. 

Should anything be banned?  Any idea of any sort?
It would be easy to ban any who suggest violence ought to be banned.  I could agree with this.  On the other hand should there not be a place where the ones making such a suggestion can be questioned about their beliefs, where they originate and what lies behind them?  Universities would be an ideal place for such debate.  Rabblerousers who refuse to debate cold them be banned after refusing to discuss and listen to other open ideas.  
Why are people so afraid to debate their thoughts?  
One fear is what they hear could be right and destroy their preconceptions and long held beliefs.  Ideals long treasured and found to be wanting can destroy an individual and he does not wish to hear any more.  Laziness allows many to accept what their media tells them because it  is easy and saves them from deep thought about their world and their lives.
Why are students so afraid of opposition?  Can it be many are radicalised and unwilling to be open to other ideas, then get out of universities, can it be they are pushing their own beliefs and will never accept another? 
This is not new, this has gone on before within such hallowed halls.  Politics, religion, monarchy and ideas have always caused conflicts in places of learning, possibly it is worse now possibly not.  
I mention this as two men have been found guilty of 'Public order offences' by preaching scripture to people at a Bristol Shopping Centre.  It appears they got into discussion with many who disagreed with the biblical saying by Jesus "I am the way the truth and the life, no man comes to the father but by me."  Those opposing took a Muslim line it appears.  Eventually police arrived and the 'PC' PC brought charges against them.  
Now it seems to me these two men, one was an American, handled the situation rather badly.  This was a tough approach but nonetheless the opposition closed them down not because of their manner but because they did not agree with what they said.  Does this mean Muslims, as well as Gays who have tried this before, can stop preaching because they are 'offended?'  What an open door to censorship that is. 
Keep in mind what is occurring in the UK today, the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) has desired to charge people who state that 'marriage is between one man and one woman only' with a 'Hate Crime' against gays, and transgenders!  During this trial the prosecutor states  "To say to someone that Jesus is the only God is not a matter of truth. To the extent that they are saying that the only way to God is through Jesus, that cannot be a truth." How can he say this?  He can say he disagrees and oppose it, he cannot state it is not truth.
What we are seeing here is an outworking of a process that has been ongoing for forty years.  The state now decides what is truth, what is allowable to state, and bans those who state truth.  The church has seen the persecution coming and each week we see similar stories, not always reaching the courts, yet appearing in business, the NHS, and all parts of society.  
Not long before the Christian church is outlawed in the west once again.

Another Debate

PM

A good insight into the UK today is seen in the outrage caused by Dan Walker.  This man has the temerity to believe in God and work for the BBC!  Not only but also he has got a plum job with the 'BBC Breakfast' show!  How dare he after all this man is something horrible, he is a Christian!  The 'Daily Mail,' 'Independent' and 'Daily Telegraph' all ran articles from those questioning his right to the work.  Rupert Myers in the 'Telegraph' wrote 'The BBC has done nothing to explain how someone who believes that God literally created the Earth in seven days can present the news accurately.'  He could have asked how many atheists, liars and perverts already read the news on the BBC slanting the stories to follow the establishments will but he failed to ask this.  Reading a prompt with a prepared story must be harder than I thought.  The 'Telegraph' failed to allow anyone to comment on his piece as I suspect they would have opposed his approach strongly.  Why should such a question be asked?  Why should his faith cause such outrage?  Thirty years ago no-one would notice so why shout out now?

Daily Mail

Another of this ilk is found with Richard Dawkins the anti God botherer.  He had a stroke poor man and the Church of England Twitter account tweeted 'Prayers for Prof Dawkins and Family.'  This of course caused outrage!  The militant atheists and the rest of the usual suspects jumped at the chance to take offence and claimed the church had 'trolled' the poor man.  Quite why an official Tweet should do this I know not but loudly they proclaimed their empty beliefs  (which few can put into words) and criticised the church for doing the decent thing.  Asking folks to pray for another is now wrong it would seem?  Where is the 'tolerance' these folks desire for their opinions, where is the respect for others opinions in this 'democratic' age?

(Interestingly the Daily mail put up a picture of Richard Hawking first! Journalism at its best in the DM!)

What we have is nothing other than an attack on Christianity from those in the media, the gay lobby and the militant atheist, all the usual suspects.  Why so?  They of course have no idea why they hate so much.  For some Christianity is bad because it tells them where they are wrong and as we all know right from wrong their conscience is tickled and therefore they reject it and hate so easily. Others have their own many and varied reasons but none understand how the spirit of the air is using them to break up this society.  The feminist lie destroyed many woman by separating them from men and encouraging them to stand alone, it hurt many confused young men also.  Easy divorce and free sex left many single mums struggling for a man to join them, a long time partner.  Liberal philosophy was supposed to free the individual and instead encouraged selfishness and greed, something Thatcher also encouraged rather notably.  Lack of discipline in schools and lack of a 'norm' among teachers led to indiscipline among the young with the fad of the 'celeb' and dumbed down TV offering bread and circuses for the people to keep them from thinking people lost their way.  Today gay marriage and the cult of the 'transgender' shows how society had lost all sense of right and wrong.  People come in many shapes and sizes, life offers many difficulties and we ought to be helping one another through these with no condemnation and lots of acceptance.  What a shame it is not returned as the CoE Twitter account shows. 

One by one the basics of life have been eroded.  Each time a justification was offered, simple to understand and sounding so acceptable at the time, each time a society was being turned by the bad guy into one that does his bidding and they have not seen it yet.

Today we can hate only three kinds of people, paedophiles, Muslims and Christians!  One is dangerous to children, one is going to kill us all and the other, yes the other is dangerous but I wonder why? Why are Christians so hated by their enemies?

Ask yourself that.

  

Tabloid Lies and Distortion

Is there anything more vile than a tabloid paper?  Is there anything more amoral, self seeking, and careless of the harm caused by their sensational exposures and claims than a tabloid paper?   Daily we are faced with several willing to sell their grannies if it made money.  Harassment of the rich and the poor, slanting any story to appeal to a reader whether the story is true or not, voyeurism, lies and half truths and pressuring any who oppose them.  Rupert Murdoch's 'Sun,' outsells them all, yet in my view the worst, because it is most seditious can only be the 'Daily Mail!  

The 'Mail,' in print and online, purports to speak for 'Middle England,' slanting the stories to suit their taste.  The main concerns of such are money, taxes, immigrants and money!  Appealing to women it fills reams with tales of suffering women, almost always based on slanted surveys, and tales of men gaining while women are pushed aside, also almost all false.  Facts do not sit well with the 'Mail' reader.  Half truths sell.

Today the 'Online Mail' outdid itself.  The story concerned a mosque in Spitalfields and two nearby Anglican churches.  While only handful attended the churches the mosque, being small, had hundreds of Muslims bowing in prayer outside.  Half truths in the article spoke of dwindling church attendance while the numbers of Muslims continued to grow.  4.8% of the people are Muslim screamed the article, less than 59.3 claim to be 'Christian!  Muslims, the story is telling us, are taking over!  Hold on I ask, if the population is around 66 million or so how many are 59.3%?  Also while many Anglican churches are indeed failing dozens of others are doing well.  Non Anglican churches are bursting at the seems in some places and dwarf the number of Muslims in their towns and cities. 

Once again a slanted story aimed at those afraid of immigration and a Muslim take over.  The 'Mail' is well aware that many readers vote for UKIP, and a large number belong to the BNP.  That is reflected in the comments on the daily 'Hitler' stories much loved by this rag.  The far right are as dangerous as any other extremist.  The only word missing here was 'evil,' a word usually inserted into every story whether suitable or not.  

Of course Muslims attend the mosque, they have to!  Christians, and most in the established churches are NOT Christians, attend willingly, usually in churches in which they feel they belong.  No compulsion is required.  

The fanciful idea of the 'Mail' discussing Christian faith makes me laugh.  This immoral rag here attempted to feed the fear of Islam and stir race hatred against the immigrant, especially a black Muslim one!  What a disgraceful attitude.

The good thing is that it did not succeed.

With every comment in the online paper a choice can be made between red and green arrows to express the readers opinion.  Red for against, green representing support and agreement.  At the present moment in time the 'most popular' comment ask why the 'Mail' is trying to stir up race hatred, he has 9613 green arrows!  I have never seen so many!  The second in line questions the whole set up of the story, he has 7968 in agreement! 

Even the 'Daily Mail' reader has not fallen for this racially motivated lie!

The author claims to be concerned to ensure 'Historical accuracy' and like so many 'Mail' employees he is fascinated by the Nazi's.

Now let me make it clear that I see Islam as a 'pushy' religion.  Wherever it is to be found it will push and push until it gets its own way.  Experience shows this in all nations, the only answer is to draw a line and hold it there.  The majority of Muslims will always be of benefit to this nation.  It is certainly true that young men find a question in their minds as to whether they are 'British' or 'Muslim.'  Such are open to extremist preachers, and it appears around 2000 may well be under their influence today.  The obvious approach is to remove such men, even though the internet makes it hard to end their influence.  That must come from other Muslims.

Christians need not worry about the rise of Islam, at this

The 'Daily Mail' should be closed down, let moment in time the 'Liberal' nature of society is much worse.  This permeates the churches to such an extent that the ludicrous decisions of the Anglican Church, as well as the Kirk, have found themselves falling into.  By forgetting their Lord they have followed the fashion of the day, and that brings disaster.    

 Lord Leveson investigate this publication today.

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Friday Post

Friday is the sixth day of the week, unless you are Jewish, Muslim or unable to count. The name in northern Europe derives from 'Frigg'  being the name given to the wife of Odin in Norse mythology, and therefore implies Friday is the day you, er... 'cough'... 'attend' to the wife I suppose.  Various European Fridays also have a female base for Friday, so not much work would be done in the northern hemisphere in times past on that day then.  Some think Friday is an unlucky day, but probably not many women, and allied with the thirteenth day can cause much alarm in the UK. How often have you come across those, mostly female, people informing the wide world that as it is the thirteenth things will go wrong.  When you inform the congregation that earthquakes, fires, accidents, tornadoes and toothache happen on other days you are regarded as an unbeliever!  Any investigation into actual hardships on that day reveal nothing untowards and even less knowledge as to why thirteen or Friday the is unlucky!  


Islam of course regards Friday as the Holy day.  Mosques fill up with the faithful to pray and listen to sermons from the Imam.  Troubled Islamic nations often find rioting occurring after such sermons and avoiding such places in troubled lands is advisable.  Christians only regard 'Good Friday' as relevant although Roman Catholics used to avoid meat on Fridays as a form of 'penance,' although the bible does not contain such a word. Only 'repentance' is found, which refers to turning from wrong and following Christ himself. Today the RC's tend to eat more than fish on Fridays. Sundown on Friday is the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, this lasts until sundown on Saturday.  Disasters on a Friday are often referred to as 'Black Fridays,' while 'Casual Friday,' or 'Dress down Friday,' has become popular in some business premises as an easing of the normal office dress code. It rarely made much difference to me,whether in office or otherwise. A 'Girl Friday,' was a term coined by those looking for a secretary to do the odd jobs around the office.  Today however feminist clowns object to this and 'Person Fridays' must be asked for. Only the female ones get jobs however.  The term is based on the 'Robinson Crusoe' stories where the hero discovers a black man to do all his work for him, very English that.  The author stole the idea for the story while touring Scotland selling the nation to the English parliament.  The original was Alexander Selkirk, a young man from Lower Largo, Fife, who ran away to sea and ended up on a Pacific island for several years.  He did not meet any 'Man Friday.'  


For most people Friday is the last day of the working week.  This means leisure time tonight, fun and enjoyment on Saturday and Sunday, then back to work on Monday, unless you are on the dole of course.  Whatever you do, enjoy your Friday, with or without a 'Person Friday' to help you.

A Merry Christmas!

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St Andrews Day

          



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Songs of Praise

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TV ARK

"Lancaster Pam Rhodes learns about the historical importance of the city of Lancaster, and visits a school that makes its own sausages. The programme also features hymns from St Thomas's Church, as well as performances by Lexie Stobie and Tessera"


I was searching the TV for tonight and came across the blurb above for 'Songs of Praise.' I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this. "Pam Rhodes learns about the historical importance of the city of Lancaster, and visits a school that makes its own sausages." '..visits a school that makes it's own sausages?' This programme is what remains of Christian broadcasting in the UK TV networks and the presenter is not bringing us news about Jesus and his suffering on our behalf, instead she is visiting a school to look at the sausage making! Are the BBC for real?

While this generation now flaunts their agnosticism and the professional atheists ram their unbelief down our throats there remains a right of believers to have some sort of representation on Sunday TV, but this sad caricature of worship fails them miserably! Few would return to the Reithian days but the one programme with specifically Christian content could at least be Christian. Maybe that is a concept a step too far for the controller of such programmes today. The controller at the moment I think may be an unbelieving Muslim, or was it a Sikh? Whatever he is his brief is to widen the religious programming to cover all faiths and none, although how you cover no faith is beyond me. In itself this is fair enough but what actually happens is , well nothing! A meaningless (cheap) discussion programme at ten on a Sunday morning that few watch, and a watered down 'Songs of Praise.'  Well worth the money that! Shambles is not the word.


'Songs of Praise' I think was once intended for those who could not attend their church on a Sunday, today it is a glorified choir practice. This programme uses its own hymn book, they gather choirs from all the churches in a specific area and practice them for a week. Whether these are Christian or nominal does not appear to matter, what matters is lots of faces singing properly and any genuine member of that church is shoved to the back, unless they are featured in the programme. While the singing may succeed,the praise fails. All too often we are left with lots of ageing women, possibly a children's choir, each individual focused, not on God, but on a choirmaster. That is not praise! Now I grant you many believers are to be found among those choirs, and many others seek their God, however this does not reflect the reality of Christian worship in the UK today. I wonder also if this brings the truth of the good news to an individual as well as it might?


Much better to drop this programme and spend several weeks interviewing Christians throughout the land. Not just those famous names but the everyday man in the pew, well seat actually today, and discover how Jesus himself has changed their lives, and not actually made it easier for them while doing so. Much better to watch real people in action that sing a few songs, often good ones, and glimpse individuals lives for a short moment, even if those stories are often touching indeed. The whole programme as it is gives the impression the church is for old women! This is not the case! Far too often those who appear are middle class men in fancy robes or purple vestments relating to few indeed! Jesus Christ is alive and well and changing lives of those who accept him. Throughout the country people are discovering that he is alive yet when they look at the TV screen they see the blue rinse set all too often and little to grab their hearts. 


Jesus Christ himself has come to bring life, real life, abundant life, yet I do not believe this programme shows this. While there are those who tell of what God has done for them all too often we find such items as schools making sausages! This I can tell you is fun but not abundant life! I do not disparage the programme as such, I am happy that there are many who enjoy this programme, however if we are to have a Christian show in the evening let's have a real one, let's reflect the church,in whatever denomination, really has going for it! Let us show the power of Jesus to change lives!


It must be said that in these days Christianity is being pushed aside in an aggressive manner. Christians know the reason for this, and amongst other things showing Christianity in a poor light serves that purpose. However  God has as much right to be heard as anyone else, and while programmes cover all aspects of life the BBC must also provide a fairer representation of God in this world. No-one would object to such fairness being offered to Jews, Hindus or Muslims. Indeed religion is only mentioned during the news or laughed at in most other programmes so it is time for a fairer investigation of the actual effects of belief. That is not being given at this moment in time.




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