Not such an easy desicion

“he proudly introduced the bishop to a young Afghan who had recently converted to Christianity. “I sometimes feel like I am on two boats,” the Afghan said. “Always keep your eye on Jesus,” replied the bishop*”

This is a direct quote from The Independent newspaper today.  The full text regarding  ‘Glastonbury for God’ can be read here. It concerns a Birmingham Pastor who happily paraded an Afghan boy onto the stage during the New Wine religious festival at the Royal Bath and West showground.  He told people how the lad had been converted to Christianity and urged people to do the same in their local areas.

Quite how he can claim that the boy himself (the article makes no mention of his age, which is a pity) is well placed to make such a decision is beyond me.  I remember being a teenager and being easily convinced by all sorts of messages thrown at me.  I’ll use an example.  Back in my teenage years I was so desperate to lose my virginity that at one point I was very close to making a big mistake with a fat, ugly American.  Luckily common sense prevailed (I’m ashamed to say hers) – but if I was unable to make a relatively simple decision about sex during my teenage years could I really have been trusted to make one about my religious beliefs?  But this is what this boy has done and he is being applauded for it.

His local community is predominantly Muslim but he is now a convert to Christianity.  I really do feel for him.  Teenage angst is a horrible thing to fight through alone, but when you have trusted religious leaders giving you mixed signals it must turn into a mental battleground.  I wonder how his family feel about his conversion?  Do they view it as a decision by a responsible adult who  has been given all the facts by an independant and unbiased role model?  Or perhaps a teenage rebellion that he will grow out of?

This story for me highlights a serious problem.  Not only has everyone at this festival assumed that the Afghan lad has been ’saved’ and is now following the right (and that word opens another can of worms) religion – but they have also condoned the fact that he is capable of making a rational and well informed judgement in his teenage years.  Ask the parents amongst them to afford their children of the same age simular freedom of choice and I’ll guarantee you’ll get a hypocritical answer.

My main beef is the way that the Evangelical Church (and religious organisations in general) is pushing people like this boy into making his decision.  The Pastor should be the rock in the community to help people whatever their beliefs, not pressuring children who are bereft of all the facts into life changing decisions.  If the boy was ready to convert to Christianity then he would do it of his own accord and the Pastor’s message to the assembled mass to convert people would be unnecessary.  Yet because of the constant battle between religious leaders to obtain the maximum amount of followers he has undoubtably compounded the turmoil of this teenage lad and told his followers to do simular.  Why can’t people be allowed to make their own decisions?

I’m aware I’m making some assumptions here, and if they turn out to be false then I apologise.  But I doubt that they will.

I hope this boy has made the right desicion, I really do.   And I’m not going to say he shouldn’t be allowed to choose the way he lives his life.  I just wish he’d waited a few years before he did.

(By the way I'm plopping this in the 'Politics' catagory for now as I think a clash is coming between the two.  I'll try and explain the reasons for this later but I'm not entirely sure how to vocalise it at the moment!)

Phil

* Evangelical Christianity: Its Glastonbury for God, Jerome Taylor, 06/08/2009

Who needs James Bond?

 It really takes the fun out of espionage when you sell military secrets on eBay

 The University of Glamorgan has been dabbling in international spying recently.  With the help of two other universities across the globe they decided to buy some hard drives.

 Stating eBay, computer auctions and computer fairs as their sources the University revealed that they had managed to obtain both military and commercial secrets.  It appears that important people do not seem to realise that that delete button may not do that.

 It’s the stable of a good crime drama to have computer whizzes/nerds (I prefer the former but I know how small minded some people can be) searching the hard drives of suspects for that hidden stash of incriminating evidence, so why do big companies find it so hard to realise?

 Putting ‘Destroy hard drive’ into Google gives you 1,880,000 results with pages ranging from Wikihow’s informative 7 steps to more tongue in cheek methods (boydcreative.net creatively suggests military thermite would do the job – unfortunately neglecting to mention where you might obtain some).  The BBC and which? Magazine have got in on the act as well, in an article you can see here.

 However it seems that even with all this information around companies still want to make a quick buck by selling their computers to the public.  Some other companies make a quick buck with a $50 billion currency exchange – thanks to their carelessness you could pinpoint the US consultant who put it through.

 It’s not only businesses that are careless with their data though.  The stereotypically efficient German’s decided to sell a hard drive in France – neglecting to properly delete security records and network data.

 With this information it seems that James Bond and his contemporaries might soon find themselves out of a job.  Idiocy and carelessness may yet cause more job redundancies…

Originally publised at http://www.pulsepulse.co.uk/?p=686

How the MP’s Expenses row actually helps British Politics

With the recent furore concerning MP’s expenses dominating people’s conversations the credibility of the entire political system has taken a knocking.  This cannot be disputed.  However it is more favourable to look upon the events of recent months as a catalyst for a long overdue resurgence in political identity in Britain.

 

This may seem like a ridiculous statement given the current poisonous climate that MP’s are living in.  Every pound they spend is being scrutinised and sensationalised by an ever more bloodthirsty media which is in turn being commented on by people around the country in pubs and coffee shops.  This is one of those topics that everyone has an opinion on regardless of personal political orientation.

 

An often suggested solution to the problem is too call a general election as soon as possible.  This does seem like a good idea.  There are numerous disgraced MP’s from all of the parties who have promised to resign – at the next election.   This gives them another year’s wages to take and ensures they can start making plans for their upcoming redundancy.  If Gordon Brown calls a general election now we can expect to see an unprecedented amount of campaigning by politicians of all sides, eager to attack the weaknesses that all political parties have had revealed.

 

We will see an election run much closer to its original ideals.  That is people will vote for their local MP’s as opposed to the party that they belong to.  Bromsgrove may have been a Conservative seat for a long time, but whoever takes over from the beleaguered Julie Kirkbride will no longer be able to assume that the Bromsgrove seat is safe.  They will have to campaign locally to convince the locals of their integrity as a person as much as the affiliation to the party.  If they fail to do this they can safely assume that a member of another party, whether it be one of the main three or one of the ever increasing number of independents that rearing their heads, will be.

 

Surely this is how the system was designed to work?  Local MP’s forming one giant picture, which results in the overall most popular party not leader taking the fore.  If we stick to this principle, and get people interested in their local politicians (although that perhaps is a blog for another day) then we will eventually get an increase in political awareness in Britain.  And that can’t be bad.