I can take the despair, it's the hope I can't stand

So the Pope has come and gone and the ranting secular atheists who went to such lengths to disrupt his state visit have been left looking rather foolish, petty and bigoted - as, indeed, so many of them are.

The BBC spent most of their time trying to promote criticism of the Pope and the Catholic Church and only switched tactics when it became apparent that instead of being a damp squib as they predicted, the visit went rather well. Of course, it helps that the Pope, rather than swinging like a leaf in the breeze, is firm and certain in his convictions his faith - unlike the leaders of the branch of Christianity I follow; Anglicanism.

I've said this many times before, but it doesn't do any harm to keep repeating it even if nobody listens. People want certainty and strength in their faith. What use are beliefs if you don't believe in them? Our leaders tell us that our church has to change with the times, but why? There is no evidence to support this contentious claim - just the opposite in fact, as church attendance has shrunk considerably since the Anglican church became so ambiguous in its defence of certain moral standards.

The difference between the Catholic Church and the Church Of England has never been more apparent than in the way the Pope refuses to bow to "fashion" while our own Church prevaricates and procrastinates. The result of that is that the Pope comes across as a strong leader who answers his critics and shows them up to be the intolerant fools they are, while the leaders of the C of E look weak and abject in comparison.

As a committed Anglican I still see the Catholic Church as the natural enemy of England, but even I am starting to believe that the only future Christianity may have in this country is a Roman Catholic one. I hope I'm wrong - but I'm sure that this recent visit will have many Anglicans switching to the RC version of the faith. I still can't as long as there remains hope that the beautiful and solemn faith which Anglicanism once was may return.

I realise that it is probably a forlorn hope - but as long as it remains I'll remain an Anglican.

Consumerism is the new opium of the masses

Religion, as Karl Marx once claimed, was the opiate of the people.

What he was trying to say is that religion fills a void in people's lives when they become disaffected and disillusioned - unhappy - and creates an "illusion" of happiness.

Of course, Marx, being a revolutionary atheist, didn't understand that what religion - or, specifically, Christianity - actually did was provide the comfort and contentment through which people attain real happiness rather than an illusion of it.

However, in our modern world where Christianity has been all but abolished by secular atheist militancy, it is no surprise that people turned to other things to try and fill the voids in their lives and provide the contentment and comfort which leads to happiness. And, as is the way of the modern world, the people didn't turn to something which requires thought, discipline and time but turned instead for quick fixes.

For a lot of people that means real drugs - hard drugs - but for many millions more they use something else. They use the quick fix of consumerism. Go out and buy something and, for a brief, fleeting moment you will attain happiness. What else explains the reaction to the launch of Apple's iPad - with people queueing up overnight to buy one and describing themselves as "elated"?

It's a quick fix to a problem that won't go away. The "high" induced by buying something new will quickly wash away and the consumer junkie will be compelled to go out and find their next "fix" as they search for that elusive peace and contentment which so many people find is missing from their lives.

Consumerism has become the new opium for the masses - but unlike religion which really can provide comfort and contentment, consumerism creates a truly illusory delusion of happiness and one which requires ever higher dosages to fill the void. It is also certain, ultimately, to fail.

As a nation we've turned to consumerism as a quick fix to the problem of attaining happiness. We build our temples in the form of out of town shopping malls - ever larger, ever more grand - and worship at the altar of our new gods - Ikea, Next, Sony and so on - every Saturday and Sunday. We give generously of our wealth in return for a shiny, new possession which we will display and worship at home.

Welcome to the new secular atheist religion - the new opium for the people. Unlike Christianity, it won't help you achieve happiness and you'll end up deep in debt, but at least you'll be able to be miserable comfortably. For a while, anyway.

The path to faith

As someone who grew up in the seventies when just about every 16 year old was hammering around on a 50cc sports moped at the earliest opportunity and then progressed onto a "proper" 125cc, 200cc or even 250cc motorbike as soon as they were seventeen I belong to a generation of modern day car drivers who understand what it is like to ride a motorcycle.

It's only when you've been a biker that you can understand how a biker rides and why - and know where and when to look out for them. I'm firmly of the belief that the single biggest thing we could do to reduce motorcycle accidents is not force every biker to go through more and more training - we should compel every car driver to take the CBT test as a minimum.

Such an idea would mean that every car driver would see road use from the perspective of a biker - and the roads would be safer for bikers as a result.

It's a similar thing with science. The best and most successful scientists are those whose approach to a problem contains a healthy dose of scepticism and who are not controlled by dogma. In other words they see things from all perspectives - not just any single one - and are far more able to make sound scientific judgements as a result.

I think the same thing applies to faith - particularly my faith, Christianity.

I was brought up as a Christian - not a strict, regular church-going Christian - just your average C of E Christian. I believed in God, Jesus and the Christian message, but I didn't really think about it that much.

As I got older I started to question my belief and, eventually, became an atheist. I won't go into details of why that was - let's just put it down to impetuous youth - or what I got up to (hedonistic would hardly cover it) - but I abandoned God, Jesus and The Bible.

Just as my loss of faith was not a momentary decision. my rediscovery of faith was not a sudden Damascene conversion either. Rather it was the result of a series of events in my life that forced me to take stock, look for some consistency in my life and culminated in me finding that consistency through Christ. I can honestly say that I've never looked back since and never regretted my decision.

Perhaps the most revealing thing, though, was that I found I was able to read The Bible with an entirely new perspective - that given to me by my time as an atheist - and was able to make far greater sense of what I read than I could before.

I realise this would not be the same for everyone and I can see no reason why someone who has been a committed Christian all their life can not read and understand The Bible with just as much clarity as I can - or more.

But it does go to show how a new perspective on things can bring new light on an old subject. Like car drivers learning to ride a motorbike first or scientists who retain a sceptical approach, returning to Christianity from being an atheist can open new doors to understanding of the Christian message for anyone with an open mind.

In the gutter

I've been critical of UKIP in the past for the way - when asked a question - they turn every little issue into something about the EU. Whether it is about education, immigration, defence or crime, whatever they are asked to comment on, they mention our membership of the EU.

My criticism is based on the fact that by doing so they tend to alienate potential voters. It's not that UKIP are wrong - it's just that voters are rarely able to see or comprehend the big picture required to fully grasp the implications of how our membership of the affects how some policy areas.

From my point of view, I would rather that when UKIP are asked about something - crime, for example - they would just simply and clearly explain what their policy is on crime without mentioning the EU. If, and only if, someone then says "you can not do that, because the EU won't allow it" then you explain that they can and will do it because they will have taken Britain out of the EU.

There are many, many problems and challenges facing this country. Some of them are a direct result of our membership of the EU; some are an indirect consequence of our membership of the EU and some have nothing to do with our membership of the EU. However, our membership of the EU does prevent us doing what is necessary to start putting a lot of what is wrong right.

UKIP are right to insist that we can not even begin to start sorting out the mess we are in until we leave the EU, but they must be careful not to be seen as blaming the EU for all the ills we suffer. That is what turns voters off.

The fundamental cause of our decline was not our joining the EU, though. It was, instead, the result of Gramscian cultural Marxism and "the long march through the institutions" that began in the 1930's. This "long march" made some limited progress during the next thirty years, but it was slow and remained on the fringe of society. It wasn't until the 1960's when real progress started to be made and the main reason for this was the removal of the one thing that Gramsci foresaw as the biggest barrier to cultural Marxism - the presence of Christianity that underpinned societal morality.

It was only when this morality was torn down - principally, by the students of the 1960's who now sit in government of virtually every western nation - that cultural Marxism really took hold. The vast majority of Britain's problems today can be traced back to the 1960's and that cultural revolution - the explosion of crime, welfare dependency as a way of life, the assertion of rights over responsibilities, the rise of teenage pregnancies and abortion, increased violence - just about everything.

The reason was simple - Christianity was the crutch that upheld society. When you kick away the crutch, don't be surprised when it ends up in the gutter.

Criminal failure

Sometime back in the last century when NuLabour stormed to power, the then leader of the party promised that his government would be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" - a soundbite aimed at those suffering from Attention Span Deficit Disorder - or as they prefer to be known - journalists.

Well, Labour lived up to their promise and have, since coming to power, introduced 36 billion new offences* to criminal law including the offence of improperly weighing a herring. One wonders how we survived all this time with rogue herring weighing going on - thank Gord we've put a stop to this heinous crime.

Meanwhile, real crime - from petty low level stuff to violent assaults and life threatening attacks - has risen inexorably. Now I do not believe for one moment that this is what Labour wanted. I'm sure that - like most politicians - they really believed they had the ideas to tackle the crime and social disorder that blights the lives of more and more people in Britain today - but when it actually came to doing something about it they discovered it was a lot harder than they thought.

This is my problem with the position of "libertarians" who claim that they can somehow impose law and order on society by having fewer rules and laws. I've no doubt that there is plenty of scope for removing laws from our statute books, but the issue of dealing with real crime and disorder will still remain and I have never seen anyone provide an answer for dealing with that.

Labour introduced these myriad of new laws simply because they felt they had to be seen doing something. They genuinely want to reduce real crime and social disorder, but they have no plan for coping with the the thing which breeds crime and social disorder.

When Labour promised to be "tough on the causes of crime" they did so based on the belief that crime is caused by poverty but they ignored the fact that the bulk of their supporters in the first half of the last century were genuinely poor people - considerably poorer than the poor of today - who never ever felt the need to resort to criminal activity as a consequence of being poor.

Poverty does not cause crime. Moral collapse causes crime. Unless and until someone does something to address the issue of morality in society today then nothing they do will have a significant impact on crime and disorder - and this is as true for libertarians as it is for Labour.

Up until the 1950's, that morality was provided by Christianity but this was systematically dismantled by social revolutionaries in the years since leaving a moral vacuum which remains today. Something needed to fill that vacuum on society but never has and this has led to the explosion in crime and disorder.

The response of the government has been to do the only thing any government can do - invent new laws and put in place more measures to try and catch criminals. The result is that we are far less libertarian than we were in the 1950's and are now the most watched, monitored, tracked and scrutinised nation in western civilization.

The only way you are going to be able to change that is to instill some sort of morality back into society so that the government no longer feel compelled to watch and monitor us and to dream up new ways to catch criminals such as DNA databases or ID cards (neither of which will be effective).

The instilling of that morality has to be done from an early age and the state has the ideal way to do that through state education - but that risks accusations of "indoctrination" or, worse still for the progressives, being judgemental. Besides which, how can teachers teach things which they don't believe? Such as that sex is illegal if you are under 16 and confined to marriage.

I'm a Christian, so it is no surprise that I believe the teaching of the Christian faith is the best way of restoring our morality. I'm open to new ideas, but there are none forthcoming except from other faiths - particularly Islam. Let me make it quite clear that I am not arguing for religion in government - just for the restoration of morality in society.

My belief is that this is best achieved through Christianity, but I am certain that if we do not make a conscious effort to restore that to society then Islam will be the moralising force that will fill the vacuum left by Christianity and Britain will become an Islamic state. Then you really will see religion in government!

* A rough estimate

Will an outbreak of social conservatism be the next pandemic?

It looks like it's starting over at The Independent with Dominic Lawson weighing in with some insight into the Baby P story.

Seldom can so many inquests have been held over a single, tiny, corpse. Last night BBC1's Panorama carried out yet another, under the title, "Baby P – the whole truth?" The question mark conveniently allows for a further such investigation, whenever the public mood demands it.

This set in motion the other media ritual in such circumstances – an interview on Today with Lord Laming, author of two reports following the deaths of children on Haringey Social Services' at-risk register. Laming produced his now familiar litany of suggestions for social working "best practice", accompanied by the chilling observation that "the state should become a responsible and effective parent to more children".

Such "chilling observations" are now rather common place in so-called social democracies, but that isn't the point I wanted to emphasise. Lawson goes on to make a very good point regarding how we've come to rely on tackling symptoms rather than the underlying problems.

Last December the head of Ofsted, smarting from the criticism her organisation had received over its invigilation of Haringey Social Services, pointed out that over the previous 16 months 210 children had died in this country as a result of abuse, and of the 21 babies who had died, only two were known to the social services.

That on it's own tells us nothing. The idea behind the comment from the Ofsted head is to ram home the oft repeated leftist assertion that mums and dads are far more likely to kill their kids than anyone else, but Lawson pulls that myth apart

While it is true that there are cases in which a child is killed by his or her natural father, this is, in statistical terms, unusual. Baby P is a more typical case, in being murdered by someone in the home, but with whom there is no proper parental tie. It is simply a fact that the growth in "broken homes" has led to a vast increase in the number of children deemed to be "at risk" – no fewer than 1.5m now fall into this category.

Lawson goes on to wonder about a welfare system that rewards family break up and penalises real families - the traditional nuclear family - that stick together.

In this context, it is truly astounding that the Government sees nothing untoward in a benefits system which actively rewards what we might still be able to describe as "non-traditional families". I don't think that the answer to the breakdown of the nuclear family is to tilt the tax system sharply in favour of marriage – these are essentially moral rather than financial matters – but it is definitely perverse to do the opposite.

Perverse indeed - but if you aren't going to tip the tax system in favour of marriage then where is that "morality" going to come from?

Perhaps the clearest example of this perversity was the Government's decision to warn Catholic adoption agencies that they faced prosecution under discrimination laws unless they dropped their insistence that children in care should be assigned to married couples. An independent report two years ago noted that the Catholic agencies, while frequently taking on the most difficult cases, have a much more successful record than the average in avoiding "failed" placements.

So, Lawson seems to think the church has a role in this, but ......

I am not, as it happens, a Christian; but it is simply a fact that the great 19th-century campaigns against drunkenness and depravity on the streets of Britain would have been unimaginable without the involvement of the churches, notably those of an evangelical disposition. There is need of a similar re-moralisation today, although I doubt very much that it could come from our established church.

I really can't see how this can happen in a state where religion - or rather, the Christian form of religion - is quite frequently and openly pilloried by the state and where aggressive secular atheist influencers pour scorn on the concept of Christian morality, but fundamentally, I agree with Lawson.

To be honest, even though I've read the article several times now I'm still not entirely clear what it is that Lawson is suggesting we do about all this. On the one hand he seems to be saying that we need a more assertive religious influence from an established religion while admitting that it really isn't possible for the church to do this without some state recognition. It's a little confused and a little confusing.

What is refreshing is the tacit acknowledgement that social conservatism was right all along. Decades of socially liberal policy have resulted in broken and dysfunctional families and a fundamental decline in moral standards - as social conservatives such as myself always felt it would.

That this is coming from a secularist non-Christian writing in a very left wing newspaper is very encouraging.

When man killed God

I've seen a couple of posts on other blogs that have prompted me to trot out one of my favourite sayings. I've mentioned before that I am in part a liberal, hold certain libertarian views and would prefer a more liberal society (liberal in the traditional British sense - not progressive) where people are free to act, speak and think how they want without fear of upsetting some politically correct nerd who will report them for racism/sexism/xenophobia/homophobia etc. (delete as appropriate).

However, there are problems with this free, libertarian approach. The first question I always ask is how do you prevent libertarianism descending into libertinism?

The usual answer is by the application of the rule of law - but that raises my second question. How is the rule of law supposed to be effective when there isn't an expectation that anyone will be caught and appropriately punished for illegal or immoral behaviour?

And, in particular, if someone knows they can commit a crime for which they know they will never be caught and punished for - what is to stop them doing it?

Before progressivism took hold and while Britain still had an overwhelmingly law-abiding and moral society the rule of law worked fine. There was nothing like the amount of surveillance and state monitoring of every one's business - no CCTV, no local council snoopers, no bugs in your dustbin - and yet most people still chose to obey the law.

Why? Why then, but not now?

Because of God, of course. Most people still believed in God and still believed that even if the government could not catch or punish them - God would. But the progressive movement has set about killing God. He's not wanted in a progressive, secular society - which brings me to one of my favourite sayings.

In the absence of an omnipresent God, the only alternative to restrain immoral and illegal behaviour is an omnipresent state.

This is why we have to have more and more laws and restrictions on what we can and can not do and why the state requires more and more methods for monitoring and surveying what we get up to as we go about our everyday lawful business.

If you don't like God then don't complain about the surveillance society and state intrusion - or if you do complain, put forward a reasonable alternative. Don't give me that bullshit about "you don't have to believe in God to be moral" either. Whilst that is true, it is wrong to assume that just because you can be moral and not believe in God everyone else can as well.

And before everyone reminds me that most people don't commit crimes, let me remind you that 70% of the nation - according to the last census - still believe in God in some shape or form. And don't forget also that smoking a spliff is still a crime (for now, anyway) - as is speeding, being drunk and disorderly or urinating in shop doorways.

I'm not trying to force anyone who doesn't believe in God to change their ways - I'm just pointing out some basic facts about human behaviour. They aren't particularly nice facts, but they are true enough in my opinion. People are not fundamentally good or bad but they are fundamentally weak willed and easily tempted. Morality and restraint are not inherent characteristics of humans - they are behaviours learned from societal norms.

When progressives set about changing those norms they did so by taking God out of the equation - secularisation - wihtout any consideration for what would replace Him. Instead there was just a moral relativity based around the sixties ethic of "if it feels good, do it".

I'm always loathe to make these posts about religion for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because religion is, for me, an intensely personal and private thing and something which I have no desire to foist on others in any way shape or form (although, when confronted I will defend it) - and secondly because I really don't want to alienate what few readers I have who are often secular non-believers.

All I really want to do is get people thinking about it a bit more rather than just airily suggesting that the rule of law will somehow magically impose some sort of restraint on immoral and illegal behaviour. It won't - surely that is obvious from the state of society today? Believe me, I've tried to think of alternatives to an omnipresent God or an omnipresent state - but I really can't find one.

If you can, by all means let me know.

Blair wants to be Pope

At least, he seems to think that his "recent" conversion to Catholicism qualifies him to tell the Pope what to do.

He said: "Organised religions face the same dilemma as political parties when faced with changed circumstances.

OK - I'll go with that, go on, Tone.

"You can either A: Hold on to your core vote, basically, you know, say 'Look let's not break out because if we break out we might lose what we've got, and at least we've got what we've got so let's keep it'. Or B: You say 'let's accept that the world is changing, and let us work out how we can lead that change and actually reach out'."

Right. Let's see how that worked.

CofE - progressive views, dwindling membership. Catholic Church - entrenched views, soaring membership (including one ex-PM). Islam - entrenched views, soaring membership.

Labour Party - progressive views, dwindling membership. Tory Party - progressive views, dwindling membership. BNP - entrenched views, soaring membership.

Yeah - that really works, Tone.

Wrong target

Teachers leaders are calling (again) for faith schools to be closed because they are "divisive".

Leaders of the National Union of Teachers are expected to support a long-term drive to create a wholly secular school system when they convene for their annual Easter conference in Cardiff this week.

They want to get rid of them and Christian assemblies as they "undermine community cohesion".

Idiots.

There have been faith schools in this country for as long as there has been education - the first schools were set up by the church - and in the hundreds of years that they existed they have never undermined community cohesion before - so why now?

It's not the fact that there are faith based schools that causes the problem - it is the left wing doctrine, multiculturalism and drippy liberal progressive teaching that does. It's not faith we want to kick out of schools - it's left wing ideology.

Darwin's dangerous idea?

Over the last few weeks the BBC has been paying homage to Darwin as if he was the only person from the Victorian era who had an impact on the world. He wasn’t – indeed, his idea probably had less real impact than that of many others, but he is, quite probably, the only one whose idea progressives feel they can support.

They feel that way because it gives them a chance to rubbish the thing that they believe holds back their cause; religion - specifically, Christianity.

The trouble is, I don’t believe Darwin’s ideas do rubbish Christianity. If anything, his idea supports the Bible version of creation. It just depends on how you interpret it.

The first thing you have to consider is that The Bible version of creation was written some 3-5000 years before Darwin came along. As very few people even a hundred and fifty years ago had the slightest inkling of the concept of evolution it’s not surprising to find that those who wrote the Bible had even less – and yet they manage to describe it in surprising detail though within the context of the times.

It starts off with the basic idea that God created light. Well, we now think that the universe started with a “Big Bang” – but given the absence of anything for sound to travel through there would not have been a bang – just an awful lot of light. Am I the only one who thinks that for someone to have predicted that 5000 years ago was quite a remarkable achievement?

Perhaps they just got lucky. OK – well, next they say that God created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Impossible? Of course – if you think of “days” as earthly days. I don’t – instead I believe the “six days” were actually the six major eras which ended with mass extinctions. The seventh day is the modern era which will end with mans extinction – Armageddon. During this “day” God leaves us to our own devices until the time comes when we either blow ourselves to kingdom come or die out naturally.

Again, considering that there is no way that those who wrote the Bible could know about the six major eras and mass extinctions isn’t it natural that they would have put it into a context they understood? And it remains a remarkably accurate overview of the development of the universe and earth.

Still not convinced? Ok – how about the fact that the Bible claims that every living thing came out of the sea – including the birds and insects? We now believe that life did indeed first evolve in the sea and that even the birds and insects evolved from creatures that emerged from the oceans and took some first tentative steps on land for some reason. How did those who wrote the Bible know this?

What about the idea of Adam and Eve being the first man and woman? The Bible doesn’t say they were. Indeed, it clearly says they weren’t. What it does say is that Adam was the first man who God endowed with a “soul” – the first self-conscious, rational thinking human animal. Long before we get to the story of Adam and Eve we hear how God gave man “dominion” over the other creatures – and we know that humans were indeed exploiting animals for their own progression long before the Bible was written. The Bible also tells us that Cain – the surviving son of Adam and Eve – goes out and takes a wife. Where do you think this wife came from if there weren’t any other humans around?

Finally, there is the story of the apple and the “Tree of Knowledge”. You don’t have to be a scientist to work out that the “Tree Of Knowledge” is science. What the Bible is saying is that before we started to use science for advancement of the human race, God “provided” everything we needed – food, shelter and so on. As long as we didn’t use science we would be able to exist quite happily – but by no means as successfully.

As soon as Eve takes a “bite” out of the apple – she starts getting ideas. This is the point at which God says – OK, you don’t need me any more – you’re on your own son. The Bible suggests this was a reproach – but I believe that this was always what God intended. Much like a parent will care for a child, but always intends that that child will, eventually, make their own way in life without their parent.

The Bible gets it right on the “Big Bang”, the six “days” of the major eras ending with mass extinction and life originating in the sea. It also explains how the birth of science – starting with clothing – was the point at which God took a bow and left us to it – he rests on the seventh day and we are living in that day.

Sure, he makes a couple of other appearances to other people – basically to try and keep us on the right path just like any parent would – and when things get real bad he sends his son to remind us of what he is all about, but other than that God lets us pretty much get on with what we want.

Darwin’s dangerous idea? I don’t think he was the first to think of it.

We live in strange times

Liz Hunt on The Telegraph recounts an unsubstantiated anecdote to explain why she thinks nurses shouldn't offer to pray for sick people.

Caroline Petrie, the community nurse who offered to pray for an ailing pensioner, has failed in her duties, and the Royal College of Nursing is wrong to back her in the forthcoming disciplinary hearing.

Failed in her duties? Because she cared about someone? As far as I'm aware there was no question of Ms. Petrie providing an insufficient level of care - which, as a nurse, is her duty. Hunt uses her own experience as a "pre-registration student" at a teaching hospital to explain why she thinks this is so.

Each of us "pre-regs" was assigned a mentor. I was lucky: "Martin" was a dedicated pharmacist with a wide breadth of therapeutic knowledge, and a warm way with patients. I looked forward to shadowing him on the wards each week, as he blended anecdotes from his career with knowledge about drugs that is acquired only through long experience in a clinical setting and never from a textbook.

Of course, Martin had my respect, too – until one particular day. A theatre nurse arrived at the dispensary hatch with an emergency request for a drug used to terminate pregnancy. Martin, the most senior pharmacist present, went into a very public melt-down, refusing to dispense the drug because "I'm a Catholic and abortion is not something I can condone".

I'm not sure how old Liz Hunt, but it sounds as if this took place quite a long time ago. If it is true and had been a relatively recent thing then we'd surely have seen poor old Martin spread across the front pages of The Grauniad and Independent by now.

I understood Martin's conflicted feelings – I'd spent seven years at convent school. What I didn't understand was him putting his religious principles before the wellbeing of his patient, and insisting on such a grandstanding fuss about it all. The man I had thought of as the ultimate professional had failed in my eyes – just as Caroline Petrie has done.

Hmm - putting "religious principles before the wellbeing" of a patient, eh? Well, let's just consider the case of Ms Petrie in respect to this anecdote. Ms Petrie at no time failed to provide the level of nursing care required as far as I understand it. She showed exceptional levels of concern and care for her patient to such an extent that she offered to say a private prayer for the patient if they so desired. That person wasn't the least bit put out by that - but someone else, not the patient, was.

So, what we have is someone - not the patient, nor the nurse involved - having a "meltdown" and putting their "religious principles" ahead of the wellbeing of a patient just so they could score points for being more diversity sensitive.

And Liz Hunt thinks that is OK?

I'm sure I'm not the only person who has been in hospitals and care homes and seen patients left sitting in their own excrement for hours at a time - probably because the nurses and carers were all busy with diversity training - and I have many personal anecdotes I could share about the level of care my father received and the way his dignity was stripped away in the last days of his life, but those are private and are staying that way. Let's just say that my father's lifelong belief in the NHS failed him the one time he actually needed it.

But what really annoys people like Liz Hunt are people who pray. The world really has gone mad.

Quick! Shut the stable door ... the horse has gone!!!

Nice comment piece in The Telegraph by Simon Heffer about us "squandering" the Victorian legacy.

We imagine the Victorians as stuffy and orthodox; yet they were the most questioning, most radical and most open-minded generation in our history. Perhaps it is our own arrogance, rooted in a belief that we invented modernity, that prevents our seeing this.

There's no "perhaps" about it in my view. There is no doubt as far as I'm concerned that the arrogance of this political generation - motivated by their belief in progressive liberalism - has led to the decay and decline of this nation. The Victorian era began with Britain in a state not unlike it is today. Morally bankrupt, rife with crime, entrenched poverty and culturally drifting - but in a generation they had changed all that to create the most modern, powerful nation on earth.

By the end of Victoria's reign we were not only the most mighty nation on earth, but we were making gargantuan strides in social improvements too - particularly in education and health - which would continue to snowball for many years to come. Social mobility - all but eradicated now - blossomed with a massive expansion of the middle classes.

When Victoria died in 1901 the usual style of house building was still the Victorian terraced cottage to house the working man's family, but just twenty years later they were building more and more semi-detached homes complete with drives and garages to accommodate the burgeoning and increasingly affluent, car owning middle-classes. Suburbia was born.

The much-derided suburbia was born out of the rise in social mobility, but was never given the credit it deserved. Instead it was seen - particularly by the liberal left - as something to be mocked and pilloried.

And despite Heffer's repeated references to Darwin (a sop to the liberal left I suspect), there is no doubt that the underlying belief that allowed the Victorians to make such progress in such a short time was their reaffirmation of the Christian faith as the underpinning of society. That, as much as anything else, is what led to the great progress this nation saw in the second half of the nineteenth century.

With all that said, Heffer is a little bit late in suggesting that we should not squander the Victorian legacy - we already have. It's a bit late to shut the stable door - the horse has not only bolted, but it's been dead and buried for forty years.

Now he decides to say something?

I really have lost my faith in the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams. Despite his half-hearted "attack" on abortion earlier this week (like being savaged by a gummy bear) I've lost patience with his liberal left world view and his inability to speak out at the right time about the right issues for the church. And now - of all times - he decides to get into a spat with the PM over the credit crunch!

The Prime Minister delved into the New Testament to deliver a surprising riposte to Dr Rowan Williams, who had likened the Government's plans to boost spending to an “addict returning to the drug”.

[Williams] suggested that the credit crunch was a welcome “reality check” for a society that had become driven by unsustainable greed.

The thing is, why wasn't Williams saying more about this "unsustainable greed" before the crunch happened? Or if he was - why wasn't he saying it more loudly and insistently? It's all very well criticising the "addict returning to the drug", but why wasn't he criticising the addict for taking the bloody drug in the first place?

It's been apparent for years that we've been living on a credit bubble that was bound to burst eventually. Regardless of what those so-called financial experts tell us, you can not keep shifting your debt around credit suppliers indefinitely - sooner or later they are going to want their money back and that time has come.

The worst culprit in all of this has been our government which has been spending money recklessly for years without any significant impact to the much vaunted "public services". There certainly hasn't been any improvement round my way - schools are crappier, hospitals filthier, waste collection lousier and the high streets more run down than ever.

While decent folk lock themselves in their homes after dark, drunken yobs own the streets - shouting, fighting, puking and pissing - and the response of our authorities is to hand out goody bags with free flip flops to these disgusting individuals. And Williams says nothing.

He's been saying nothing for years about the issues that matter to ordinary people as he has been so busy supporting his favourite liberal left causes - single mothers, teenage killers, women vicars, junkies, gay clergy, special rights for Moslems, equal rights for Albanian lesbians - you name it, he'll support it as long as it isn't conventional Christian morality.

But now he decides to criticise government policy? Too late, you phony!

The Islamification of Europe

Over on the Telegraph's comment section, they raise the issue of something which I frequently bang on about.

The Dutch are going through an identity crisis. There is a growing view that liberty to choose has become a licence to do as you please, a free-for-all in which the baleful consequences include a rise in drug-related crime and the trafficking of prostitutes from eastern Europe.

This is the question which I have asked several times on here ..... how do you stop libertarianism descending into libertinism?

The question itself is not one of my own and it is certainly not new. It has occupied man's thoughts ever since man first learned to rationalise. The stories of Adam and Eve or Pandora's Box revolve around this simple issue.

The answer is religious based morality - the moral baseline as I like to call it - combined with the simple belief of the majority of people that even if they are never caught and punished for an immoral act while they are living they will be judged and punished eventually by God.

As I said, this is nothing new. There have been frequent periods throughout history when we've had similar moral decline. Britain in the late 18th and early 19th century was a moral cess pit with libertinism rife and, along with that, thriving criminality. The response was old fashioned Christian morality being brought back into fashion by the Victorians - particularly through Wesleyian Methodism.

As The Telegraph article points out, the moral decline of Holland has brought a huge increase in organised crime - particularly regarding drugs (completely destroying the liberal lefts myth that decriminalisation of drugs will mean less crime) and prostitution (another liberal left myth destroyed) - but this has coincided with a huge increase of Moslem immigrants to the country.

Those Moslems, with their religious morality, are understandably perturbed by what they perceive as immoral behaviour and, with growing numbers, are now starting to exert their influence. Unlike modern Protestantism, Islam is a strong, confident and assertive religion, but it is also a corrosive and perverse ideology with many beliefs and attitudes which are abhorrent to those of us brought up with western liberal democracy.

That liberal democracy only succeeded due to the presence of Christian morality which could act as a bulwark against libertinism, but after decades of sustained assault from progressivism and years of weak leadership from the Church, our moral baseline has been demolished and libertinism now holds sway.

As always, there will be a reaction to that and that reaction will be religion based. In the absence of Christianity in progressive, post-modern Europe and with Islam more tolerated by the progressive left - despite the fact that so many of its beliefs and ideals contrast starkly with progressivism - the religion most likely to take the lead is Islam.

The only thing that will stop it will be a Christian revival. That is unlikely to come without leadership and with Protestantism in the state it is - apologetic, uncertain, divided and at pains to be inoffensive - that is unlikely to happen.

The result will be the Islamification of Europe.

They still don't get it!

In response to my post about the role of religion in society, Anonymous made the following comment.

You don't need religion, you need to effectively enforce the laws that are in place. If criminals think there is a high chance they will be caught and be given a meaningful sentence crime will reduce.

I've responded in the comments, but obviously I'm not getting my point across. So here goes again.

First of all, Anonymous wrongly equates the rule of law with observance of law. They are NOT the same thing! Anonymous is correct to say that observance of the law diminishes with the possibility of being caught and held to account for breaking a law and it is true that that further weakens the rule of law, but, more importantly, it means more people believing that they can break the law and not be held to account.

Tougher punishment and longer sentencing will prevent existing criminals from committing crimes while they are behind bars, but will not deter others from breaking the law if they believe they can get away with it.

However, if that rule of law is backed by the belief in an all-seeing, all knowing God then that means more people will believe that if they do break the law and even if the state never catches or punishes them then they will still, ultimately, be judged for their crimes.

It is incredible how atheists overlook this essential point about Christianity. If you knew that you could steal a million pounds without effecting anyone else and not ever be caught or punished for it, what would stop you doing it? What if you knew it would effect someone else, but you would still get away with it? What if it meant the death of someone else, but that you would still never be caught and punished?

Furthermore, Christianity does not just influence observance of the law, it also influences moral behaviour. For example, if more people believe in Christ, God and the Ten Commandments then fewer people would commit adultery. That would mean fewer divorces and fewer problems that family breakdown brings.

Now I appreciate that not everyone believes in God, but when it comes to the rule of law there is a simple choice to be made. The choice between a society governed by an omnipresent God or a society governed by an omnipresent state.

Which would you prefer?

The omnipresent state

On a previous post, I posed a question regarding libertarianism. The question was directed at members of the UK Libertarian Party as, although I agree with many of their policies, they over look a crucial point in my opinion.

The question was this.

How do you stop libertarianism descending into libertinism?

As I understand it, the assumption is that the rule of law will prevent this happening, but as I have tried to point out the rule of law has not stopped the rise of libertinism in our current society so there is nothing to suggest that it would do in a libertarian society. On the contrary, everything points to the likelihood that it will get worse with more and more people indulging in destructive hedonistic behaviour.

I'll be honest - it was not an entirely off the cuff question. I know how you can prevent libertarianism descending into libertinism, but I also know that in this day and age most people won't like the answer.

Because the answer is Christianity.

Most people won't like it because far too many people on the conservative side have signed up to the ideology of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci - cultural Marxism - without even realising it.

Gramsci recognised that the biggest barrier to the advancement of Marxism in Europe was Europe's Christian heritage and culture. Marx knew this too, but it was Gramsci who refined the method by which this Christian dominance would be overturned - secular humanism. I won't go into the details of what secular humanism is but basically it is a religion which rejects spiritualism.

Of course, not everyone who rejects God is a secular humanist; many on the right still believe that there is a role for God in society and few conservatives are as aggressive in their assertion of secularism as, for instance, Richard Dawkins, but they still accept the basic principle without realising that it is a tool of the very thing they are supposedly opposed to - cultural Marxism.

I'm not trying to convert anybody. What you believe in respect to God is entirely up to you. The point I actually want to make is in respect to the rule of law.

The rule of law is often misinterpreted to just mean compliance to the law - but it is far more than that. It is a belief that we are all equal in the eyes of the law and that no one is above the law and that includes the state.

But - and this is a big but - who defines what is law? If the state is the ultimate judge of law then the state is no longer subject to the law - the law is subject to the state. This is critical to understanding the role Christianity plays in the rule of law, because the rule of law only works when people believe that they will be judged on their actions - even if they are never caught or convicted by any state authority.

I'm not suggesting that we have to be governed by the Church - God forbid with our current Church leadership!!! What I am suggesting is that it is important to recognise the vital role of religion in the function of society - particularly in the application of the rule of law. This is why I do believe it is important to teach children Christian principles within the context of a Christian God (as opposed to Christian principles in the context of secular humanism).

As adults we can all accept or reject God according to our own conscience, but most of us have done that only after having a sound grounding in Christianity from our parents or from school. A whole generation of children have grown up without that and we are seeing the way that lack of Christian upbringing is presenting challenges to society.

I know I don't explain this very well. It is clear in my own mind, but I do have trouble putting it into words. Essentially I am saying that the rule of law will not work in the absence of a belief in some all seeing omnipresent God. That is why, back in the days - not that long ago - when most people believed in God, they didn't need CCTV cameras.

So to anwer the question - how do you stop libertarianism descending into libertinism? - in the absence of an omnipresent God you need an omnipresent state - but of course the state can not be everywhere or see everything no matter how many CCTV cameras they erect or secret policemen they employ.

Nor can they see into your mind, your heart or your soul.

Back to the (moral) baseline

Over on the Civitas blog, there is a thoughtful post from David Conway regarding moral collapse. He makes some good points about the refusal of those charged with solving the problems to actually acknowledge what the problems are, but like so many he falls into the trap of identifying symptoms as causes.

It is often the wilful refusal of politicians and the social services to admit the crucial link between family and social behaviour of young children that prevents the requisite steps being taken to address the problem. Instead, money, or rather lack of it, is claimed to be the crucial variable. It simply isn’t. From the refusal to admit this link flow all manner of mistaken social policies many of which only make matters worse.

Absolutely spot on, but .....

The real problem concerns what might be done to achieve the social circumstances that reduce such risk where they are already missing. In other words, the problem is how to break the self-reinforcing vicious circle that repeats itself across the generations where the relevant stabilising factors are missing........ [t]his is simply the admission of what the relevant risk factors are: namely, that single-parenthood, especially among low-income groups, militates against boys growing up with the wherewithal to resist the pull of gang-culture.

.... is wide of the mark. It is not single motherhood per se that is the root cause, but why so many now choose single motherhood. The reason is something which I have written about before, but I make no apologies for returning to it once again.

Some people will insist that the cause is welfarism - i.e. many women choose single motherhood because it suits them financially to do so, but again this is missing the point. What motivates them to make that choice in the first place? Why make such a choice when the consequences are so well known and widely acknowledged? It is possible for the child of a single mother to grow up well balanced and a valuable member of society, but everyone knows that the chances for that child to do so are significantly reduced.

The real cause of all our problems is the lack of a single moral baseline - a minimum level of acceptable moral behaviour upon which we all (or nearly all as there will always be a few recalcitrants) agree.

The moral baseline was something that existed right up into the sixties. It was based on Christian beliefs, but was not limited to strict adherence to Christianity - just an acceptance that some things are immoral and always should be regardless of personal circumstances. Thus it was considered immoral to have children out of wedlock even if there were benefits - financial or otherwise - for doing so.

Then along came the progressives who introduced moral relativity into the mainstream - the belief that morality is dependent on personal circumstances and therefore a flexible thing. The first and most enduring of the myths they put forward is that morality is related to poverty - i.e. the poor are unable to maintain the level of morality society expects because they don't have the wealth.

This myth was first put forward back in Victorian times (by the progressives of the time), but was laid to rest by Charles Booth's survey into London's East End which found that, despite the crushing degree of poverty, the people were every bit as moral as anyone else. Unperturbed by this, the progressives just waited half a century then reintroduced the myth once Booth was forgotten and it is a myth that persists today.

Once moral relativity had been established the next stage was to introduce moral equivalence - the belief that one person's morality is every bit as good as anyone elses. The tool for this was non-judgementalism based on the now established moral relativity. This is the "who are you to judge?" mentality which held that just because you don't approve of someones behaviour doesn't mean their behaviour is wrong.

This required breaking down many social taboos and stigma - such as motherhood out of wedlock - and making them part of societal norm. The obvious consequence of that was that people, regardless of circumstance, started to base their behaviour not on what society deemed acceptable but on what they alone considered moral - the "if it feels good do it" mentality.

The first signs of the consequences were apparent soon enough, but because society had accepted this new "morality" rather than deal with it various governments made it easier for people to behave how they wanted.

To cope with the increase in adultery they made divorce easier. Because more and more people were divorced and there were more single mothers around they made more benefits available to them. Then they found that this was costing a fortune, so they widened access to "family planning" in the hope that easier access to contraception would mean fewer babies. That failed so along came abortion on demand and sex education for kids. Children saw sex education provided by the state as a tacit admission by the state that it was OK for kids to have sex, something which was previously taboo, so they started to experiment - and so the whole thing snowballed.

Even though there is no common moral baseline today the vast majority of people still adhere to the old standards. They disapprove of the way many people behave but, because they've been frightened by the progressives into not appearing judgemental or critical of the "poor" they hold their tongue.

What we need is a return to the old moral standards that used to apply. As a Christian I completely believe that the easiest way to do that is by the reinforcement of Christian beliefs - but with the Anglican church as riddled with progressivism as the rest of the establishment this is unlikely to happen under the current Church leadership (though I do see signs that the conservatives in the C of E are coming back).

The Church needs to rediscover its moral compass. It needs to stop pandering to the progressives and their self-perpetuating myths. Because progressives spent years telling us that immorality is linked to poverty, the underclass have become increasingly immoral (it's not my fault, it's 'cos I'm poor init).

The poor are as capable as anyone else of being moral but, just as anyone else would, if you give them an excuse not to be they won't. That is the nature of people.

Sunday, bloody Sunday

Despite the title, Sunday remains one of my favourite days, but sometimes I still find it frustrating. Or rather, the modern version of it. I suspect that, like a lot of people, my Sundays are fairly traditional. Sometimes I start by going to church, though not as often as I'd like.

The truth is, I find the modern service too happy-clappy and the guitar led modern hymns abysmal. Give me a fire breathing vicar, stirring church organ and a rousing chorus of "For those in peril on the sea" anytime.

Anyway, church aside, I usually take a morning stroll to the local paper shop, buy the Sunday papers and then it's back to chez Stan for a quiet read before we all sit down for a Sunday roast. The simple pleasures, eh?

Except nothing is that simple anymore.

Once upon a time, the morning stroll was a pleasure even in poor weather. Now, with so many cars about and so many shops open, the roads are as busy and as noisy as they are on a Monday morning. Where I could once walk to the shop and enjoy the relative peace and quiet - even listen to the birdsong - it is now an unending assault on the ear drums from cars rushing by. A constant stream - even on a Sunday.

And what about at the shop? Once upon a time you'd find a small queue of three or four people waiting to buy their paper and a packet of B&H. It's pretty much the same now except ...... where the queue used to dissipate quickly as people handed over their cash, picked up their change and went on their way, we now have to wait while they hand over their card, punch in the PIN number, get it wrong, start all over again, wait for the transaction to process in some remote computer somewhere in Asia, wait for the receipt to print out and then remove their card and find the spot in their purse or wallet to put it before picking up their paper and packet of fags and going on their way

Good grief!!! They're buying a paper and a packet of fags and it takes them longer than it does to read the news and smoke a pipe! There were three people ahead of me this morning and I was waiting for nearly 15 minutes to buy a paper. FIFTEEN MINUTES! I even had the right money!

Why do people use their debit cards to pay for a couple of items costing less than a fiver? What is wrong with good old fashioned cash? What is wrong with these people? Apart from the fact it makes a simple transaction take forever, every time they use their card they are opening themselves up to fraud. Virtually the only time I use my debit card is to withdraw cash (and I am incredibly careful about doing that) and occasionally, but not often, for buying petrol.

The only other time I would consider using a card to buy something is a major transaction - buying a new washing machine or something like that - but even then I much prefer to use cash if I can. I don't even buy much from the internet due to the possibility of fraud (trust me, no matter how safe they tell you the transaction is, the reality is that every time you enter your card details onto a website you are leaving yourself wide open to being ripped off).

Apart from all that, it is simply faster and more convenient to use cash - especially for such small purchases. And they call this progress. Well, you know what you can do with it.

Ah well, that's my Sunday rant over. Nearly time for an aperitif before lunch. Enjoy your Sunday and have a good week.

Ranting Stan's Slogan Contest

A new atheist promotion will see buses on London streets bearing the slogan "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Apart from the fact that claiming that there is "probably" no God as opposed to "possibly" is something which even Einstein and Darwin would not subscribe to - they preferred agnosticism rather than atheism as they believed, rightly, that there was just no way of knowing. And as the chances of the universe happening, this planet forming and going on to bear life all by accident are so indescribably remote as to be virtually none, the assertion that there was "probably" no Creator is a massive assumption.

The thing that bugs me about it far more than any of this is that the claim goes against every liberal progressive doctrine. Using this slogan as a guide you could come up with many equally or even more pertinent statements.

For example - "You're probably not going to crash your car today, so don't wear your seat belt and enjoy the freedom."

Or - "There probably isn't a paedophile waiting at the school gates, so stop worrying and let little Tommy walk home all by himself".

The point is that it in a sane world, it would be every one's right to make their own mind up about these things - but liberals insist on imposing their rules on us. So they make us wear seat belts in cars and crash helmets on motorbikes even though we probably won't crash.

Anyway - a prize* to the commenter with the best slogan along the lines of the British Humanist Association's anti-God slogan that demonstrates the hypocrisy of liberal progressives.

* There probably isn't a prize, but stop worrying and have a go anyway.

Why Christianity matters

As any builder will tell you, the strength and resilience of your edifice depends on the foundations upon which it is built. You can have different types of foundation, but once that edifice has been constructed it is vital that those foundations remain in place. Take them away and the whole thing will crumble around you.

This is as much the case with a conceptual edifice as it is with a cathedral or skyscraper and the edifice of British law and morality was constructed on the foundations of Christianity. That is undeniable. Equally undeniable is that since the 1960's there has been a consistent and sustained undermining of the Christian foundation of our law and morality - as a result, the whole thing is tumbling about us.

The problem is caused because those who sought to undermine the Christian heritage which underpinned our culture, law and morality did not consider what would replace it. Their only concern was to eradicate the Christian faith from our national consciousness. Once it became apparent that doing so would cause the collapse of law and order there have been attempts made to shore up the structures - through mechanisms such as the Human Rights Act - but these are shifting sands in comparison to the rock of Christianity.

Until we understand that we are not going to solve the problems that are engulfing Britain today. Family breakdown, the collapse of marriage as the central rock of family, moral breakdown and rising crime all have their roots in the loss of Christianity as the foundation of our moral and legal code.