Video in Good Shepherd Chapel - Niamh Horan

[Hardy]

Moral outrage from this particular quarter is hard to take. An idiotic crank perpetrates a display of bad manners in some form of sex mime and this hypocrite is parading his moral outrage. Meanwhile, he continues to condone and defend facilitation of the ACTUAL sexual abuse and REAL rape of REAL children by an organisation that is nevertheless affronted by a display of bad choreography.

[Bensars]

Moral outrage from this particular quarter is hard to take. An idiotic crank perpetrates a display of bad manners in some form of sex mime and this hypocrite is parading his moral outrage. Meanwhile, he continues to condone and defend facilitation of the ACTUAL sexual abuse and REAL rape of REAL children by an organisation that is nevertheless affronted by a display of bad choreography.

Hard to disagree with any of that.

[Billys Boots]

You're wasting your breath Hardy.

[Newbridge Exile]

100% agree with you Pangurban.The influence of churches and religion in days gone by in this country (particularly the Southern part thereof) is now bemoaned as being repressive etc but it did foster much stronger morality,honesty and in my opinion greater communal spirit and dare I say it general happiness.

Now,anything goes.The attitude of this journalist Horan was bizarre.She is convinced that her God would celebrate sex on altars! As the well known actress and parishioner of The Good Shepherd Church in Belfast said,"What is the world coming to?"

I thought that too, 

[Hardy]

All the bleating about decline in moral standards and predictions of the doom of the human race because people are, in large numbers, abandoning faith in favour of reason, is totally wide of the mark. Most statistical trends seem to illustrate the opposite - a correlation between, on the one hand, the decline of religion, the growth in humanist values and the acceptance of rationalist thinking and, on the other hand, a reduced incidence of violent crime in Western society in recent years, as well as a dramatic drop in the numbers killed in wars in this generation.

Between 2002/03 and 2012/13, for instance, the reported rate of violent crime in the UK has reduced dramatically:
Homicide by 47%
Attempted murder by 50%
Causing death by dangerous driving: 55%
Violence against the person by 15%
Kidnapping by 57%
Sexual offences by 5% (though reported rape is up by 33%)
Burglary by 48%
Theft by 44%
Possession of weapons by 45%
Fraud by 64% (!)
Total recorded crime by 38%

It seems that, the more society bases its morality on respect for the human being and for objective truth, the more honest and law-abiding and the less violent it becomes. Which, I think, is what you'd expect.

[armaghniac]

Moral outrage from this particular quarter is hard to take. An idiotic crank perpetrates a display of bad manners in some form of sex mime and this hypocrite is parading his moral outrage. Meanwhile, he continues to condone and defend facilitation of the ACTUAL sexual abuse and REAL rape of REAL children by an organisation that is nevertheless affronted by a display of bad choreography.

Two wrongs do not make a right. This episode was not right and it isn't connected in any way to the other issues in this thread. This reminds me of the whataboutery in the Belfast Telegraph forum where some article about Sinn Féin about road safety or smoking is derailed by comments about Enniskillen or La Mon.

[brokencrossbar1]

All the bleating about decline in moral standards and predictions of the doom of the human race because people are, in large numbers, abandoning faith in favour of reason, are totally wide of the mark. Most statistical trends seem to illustrate the opposite - a correlation between, on the one hand, the decline of religion, the growth in humanist values and the acceptance of rationalist thinking and, on the other hand, a reduced incidence of violent crime in Western society in recent years, as well as a dramatic drop in the numbers killed in wars in this generation.

Between 2002/03 and 2012/13, for instance, the reported rate of violent crime in the UK has reduced dramatically:
Homicide by 47%
Attempted murder by 50%
Causing death by dangerous driving: 55%
Violence against the person by 15%
Kidnapping by 57%
Sexual offences by 5% (though reported rape is up by 33%)
Burglary by 48%
Theft by 44%
Possession of weapons by 45%
Fraud by 64% (!)
Total recorded crime by 38%

It seems that, the more society bases its morality on respect for the human being and for objective truth, the more honest and law-abiding and the less violent it becomes. Which, I think, is what you'd expect.

Don't let facts get in the way of a good vent!!! 

[Hardy]

Moral outrage from this particular quarter is hard to take. An idiotic crank perpetrates a display of bad manners in some form of sex mime and this hypocrite is parading his moral outrage. Meanwhile, he continues to condone and defend facilitation of the ACTUAL sexual abuse and REAL rape of REAL children by an organisation that is nevertheless affronted by a display of bad choreography.

Two wrongs do not make a right. This episode was not right and it isn't connected in any way to the other issues in this thread. This reminds me of the whataboutery in the Belfast Telegraph forum where some article about Sinn Féin about road safety or smoking is derailed by comments about Enniskillen or La Mon.

Ah come on. The two wrongs are on completely different levels. One is bad manners, as I said. The other is rape of a child. Do you not see the complete absence of any moral equivalence?

It would be hypocritical to ignore the greater crime and highlight the lesser. I don't have a gross enough word to describe the mentality that actually defends the one while condemning the other.

[AZOffaly]

All the bleating about decline in moral standards and predictions of the doom of the human race because people are, in large numbers, abandoning faith in favour of reason, are totally wide of the mark. Most statistical trends seem to illustrate the opposite - a correlation between, on the one hand, the decline of religion, the growth in humanist values and the acceptance of rationalist thinking and, on the other hand, a reduced incidence of violent crime in Western society in recent years, as well as a dramatic drop in the numbers killed in wars in this generation.

Between 2002/03 and 2012/13, for instance, the reported rate of violent crime in the UK has reduced dramatically:
Homicide by 47%
Attempted murder by 50%
Causing death by dangerous driving: 55%
Violence against the person by 15%
Kidnapping by 57%
Sexual offences by 5% (though reported rape is up by 33%)
Burglary by 48%
Theft by 44%
Possession of weapons by 45%
Fraud by 64% (!)
Total recorded crime by 38%

It seems that, the more society bases its morality on respect for the human being and for objective truth, the more honest and law-abiding and the less violent it becomes. Which, I think, is what you'd expect.

What about low level anti-social behaviour, vandalism, assaults etc? It seems to me that there is far more of that going on than say 20 years ago, but maybe that's just optics.

[Hardy]

I don't have figures for that, AZ, but, to be honest, I'd be surprised if the trend is not the same.

I haven't researched the subject in any depth, and it's way too early to be making definitive claims about cause and effect, but I'm continuing to see more and more evidence for this correlation from reliable sources.

One of the most interesting aspects of it is that I'm sure 90%+ of people would have suggested the trend in society is in the opposite direction. That says a lot about how the media work, facts versus stories and how the editorial job of selecting of what we get to read, see and hear is one of the most powerful positions in society and is mostly abused, as far as I can see.

The Daily Mail for stories, legends and the manipulation of society's fears. The facts are elsewhere to be found.

[AZOffaly]

Good point. I suppose I'm just going on anecdotes and what I see myself. There appears to be far more, mostly young, people hanging around in groups and acting the ape than I can remember. But then again maybe I was an ape !

And sorry, I meant to say, I'm not surprised by the figures too much, as I do think there's a decline in violent crime. It seems to be mostly limited to internal drugs wars at the moment. I would be surprised if there's less anti social behaviour type incidents though.

[Billys Boots]

Good point. I suppose I'm just going on anecdotes and what I see myself. There appears to be far more, mostly young, people hanging around in groups and acting the ape than I can remember. But then again maybe I was an ape !

And sorry, I meant to say, I'm not surprised by the figures too much, as I do think there's a decline in violent crime. It seems to be mostly limited to internal drugs wars at the moment. I would be surprised if there's less anti social behaviour type incidents though.

You're only noticing it because you've grown up and are a (perhaps) fully functioning member of society, not a young pup. 

[AZOffaly]

Good point. I suppose I'm just going on anecdotes and what I see myself. There appears to be far more, mostly young, people hanging around in groups and acting the ape than I can remember. But then again maybe I was an ape !

And sorry, I meant to say, I'm not surprised by the figures too much, as I do think there's a decline in violent crime. It seems to be mostly limited to internal drugs wars at the moment. I would be surprised if there's less anti social behaviour type incidents though.

You're only noticing it because you've grown up and are a (perhaps) fully functioning member of society, not a young pup.

Maybe.

[armaghniac]

Ah come on. The two wrongs are on completely different levels. One is bad manners, as I said. The other is rape of a child. Do you not see the complete absence of any moral equivalence?

I see the complete absence of any equivalence and I think the serious issues are trivialised when they are merely used to score points in a thread that wasn't about this issue.

[Hardy]

I probably wouldn't have sat here and let that hypocrite whinge about upset feelings while I know his perverted morality condones the facilitation of child rape. But I should point out, in response to your charge of whataboutery, that my first post on this thread was after Fearon himself mounted yet another defence of the facilitation of child rape.