BS: Christian Persecution

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 02:20 AM

Read your own words. You insult others by insisting debate on war is disrespectful.

I for one am replying in kind.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 05:01 AM

You insult others by insisting debate on war is disrespectful.

Made up shit again!
Of course I do not think or believe that.

"Remembrance is an obscenity"
I think that is disrespectful.

Claiming that the dead were jingoistic fools incapable of understanding why they fought, in direct contradiction of all the historians of the period, is a slander.

Why is your need to believe that lie so strong that you can ignore the findings of all the historians?
"Those historians should know better"
They should take lessons from you musket?
Right?

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: bobad
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 08:27 AM

WASHINGTON (RNS) The highest-ranking Muslim in the British government on Friday (Nov. 15) called on Western governments to do more to protect besieged Christian minorities across the world, particularly in the Holy Land where they are now seen as "outsiders."

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the government's minister for faith and the first Muslim member of a British cabinet, said religious freedom is a proxy for human rights and must not be an "add-on" to foreign policy.

"A mass exodus is taking place, on a biblical scale," she said in a speech at Georgetown University. "In some places, there is a real danger that Christianity will become extinct."

HuffPo Canada

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 17 Nov 13 - 11:04 AM

Do keep up bobad. Ms Warsi's observations were discussed a few posts up. If you read her full contribution, including the bit you noted where she says religious freedom is a proxy for human rights, you see the agenda behind the observation.

She isn't a full cabinet member out of interest. She used to be but Cameron sacked her for being a loose cannon.....

I love how pointing out that being specifically Christian is not the main factor is portrayed by Keith as meaning you deny there is persecution or that disagreeing with him is disrespectful etc.

At the end of the day, Keith and others, Warsi rather openly, want western society to take religion in the western world more seriously. Hence tying it into persecution that was always there, always has been and always will be in backward countries. Despite Keith's smears to the contrary, nobody is denying the reports, nobody is denying the horror, nobody is denying that something needs doing about it. But to say it is because of the bible or Jesus is sheer stupidity.

By wanting religion to have a higher ranking in society, they would wish us to go backwards too.

Oh, by the way, she isn't the highest ranking Muslim in government. We have no Muslims, no Christians and no members of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in the UK government. Government is for all. Certain sectarian Bishops sit in the upper house on the basis of their religion, an old tradition that us overdue for reform, but she would never be allowed in on that basis. No Muslims and no women!

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: bobad
Date: 18 Nov 13 - 08:08 AM

Boko Haram seizing slave 'brides' in Nigeria

"In a new development, Boko Haram is abducting Christian women whom it converts to Islam on pain of death and then forces into "marriage" with fighters"

CBC News

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Musket
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 08:18 AM

Here you go Keith, just for you!

1. It comes from your favourite rag but one, The Daily Telegraph.

2. It was written by your old boss, Beardy.

3. It tells UK based christians to stop bleating on about persecution as it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the real persecution that people, christians included, suffer. Attempts to confuse the word Christian into stories of real persecution in order to highlight UK and USA "persecution" is something that seems to worry him as much as it does me.

I agree with him on many points, Especially putting the senile old fool Carey in his place.

Never thought I'd say that about someone who failed to bring his discredited organisation into the real world. His successor is having a stab this week though regarding women. His "stop attacking gays" stance though is shallow whilst ever he opposes the rights of gay people. Full stop.

Beardy cuts the crap

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 08:51 AM

It tells UK based christians to stop bleating on about persecution as it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the real persecution that people, christians included, suffer.

So what?
This thread has never been about "persecution" in Western countries.
It is about the "real persecution" he refers to as well.

BTW your link does not work.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Elmore
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 12:31 PM

My wife was in the hospital in the middle of Nowhere, Ga. where we now reside. A sweet little hospital employee asked her what preacher she wanted to visit her. "None", my wife responded. The girl wasn't sweet after that. In fact, she was downright nasty. Another example of Christian persecution.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Elmore
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 01:48 PM

Dayna Morales, a server in a NJ restaurant waited on a party who ridiculed her, saying that they thought her name should be Don. After running up a $93 bill they left her a note saying they wouldn't tip her because of her lifestyle. Christian persecution.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,pete from seven stars link
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 01:54 PM

as bad as this account of a , presumably, Christian girls unspecified nastiness is, it hardly compares to having a knife to your throat as bobads link describes.
just as a matter of interest, what did this girl do or say to your wife elmore ?.
I certainly don't endorse any nastiness,-even if it is of the same minor sort that some Christians are accused of complaining about.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Musket being patriotic
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 02:25 PM

Tell you what Pete. How about the Christian vicars attending executions?

If they said they were opposed to capital punishment they weren't allowed to be on the chaplaincy team for the prison.

Trying to compare murder with obnoxious people isn't very clever. The example above of disdain of a lifestyle is interesting. To object as a Christian doesn't add up to the Christian ethic.

Does it not worry you that Christian ethics are a convenient excuse for snobbery?

I love hypocrisy. Mainly because it gives me a chance to validate my deep held views. Unlike those who are wedded to what they are told to believe, I constantly question my own stance.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Elmore
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 02:45 PM

Pete: I agree with you to an extent,but these minor incidents like the Crusades, the slaughter of the American Indians, Bosnia, etc, etc. tend to mount up after a couple of thousand years. I wonder if The College of The Holy Cross sill nicknames itself The Crusaders.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 19 Nov 13 - 07:28 PM

"Others echoed the bishop's warning, saying that Christians would only be safe if they left Pakistan."

More or less exactly what K A of H said Irish Catholicwomen who wanted not to die when an abortion could save them, should do.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,musket triumphant
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 03:53 AM

Regular readers may recall a certain Keith A of Hertford saying he has no links to the far right UK Independence Party. I mentioned his support for them as part of examining his real agenda in this thread. Keith had waffled on about Muslims coming over here.

He denied he had used the term "we" in respect of them and was supported by Mcgraw of Harlow and MtheGM.   Musket must apologise.

After careful consideration. No. I have decided to repeat it instead.

Although, people will be fed up with reading my words so I shall let Keith A of Hertford say it instead.

Ready?


Subject: RE: BS: 'Gay marriage' question
From: Keith A of Hertford Date: 21 Dec 12 - 06:28 AM 

The UK Independence Party has many in its ranks who are gay men or women who have, without fuss or ostentation, taken advantage of the new arrangements. As a libertarian party, we are entirely at ease with their choice and wish all of them well.



In case you think I have taken it out of context or removed some quote parentheses, no. I have cut and pasted the full post. Just above this, Keith challenged Don for saying bad things about them, causing Don to reply, causing this defence.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 04:31 AM

The discussion was about the position of UKIP on that issue.

I provided a quote from the UKIP site.
It is still there.
http://www.ukip.org/issues-2/policy-pages/same-sex-marriage

I WAS QUOTING FROM A UKIP SITE!

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Musket curious
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 05:34 AM

You always cite your quotes.

Except this one?

Nice try.

Cutting and pasting your diatribe is par for the course anyway.

An apology isn't needed as I wouldn't normally acknowledge one from a xenophobic liar.

You could apologise to everyone who defended you though....

Just a thought.





If anyone is interested, a read of the posts above and below the one I just gave will put it in full context. I'll warn you though if you didn't read it first time around, it isn't pretty.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 05:40 AM

No need to cite the quote.
It was obvious to any passing moron that it was made by a UKIP spokesman.
It was, and still sits on their site.

It never occurred that some idiot might assume I was the UKIP spokesperson!

Again, I really do not try to make you look an idiot Musket.
It just happens.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 05:53 AM

Keith challenged Don for saying bad things about them, causing Don to reply, causing this defence.

No.
Don described them as far right.
I asked if they were.
I googled and posted their position on gay marriage, the subject of the thread.

Don cross posted in between. We were not aware of each others post.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Musket
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 07:37 AM

So you reckon everybody reads UKIP website material? Just you, I reckon....

I guessed it may have been cut and pasted from elsewhere all the same, as it was rather eloquent by your standards.

Still no apology?

Not even a little one to your ardent followers and apologists?

Come on... A mumbled "sshorr.....y" is all it takes.

Getting apologies off your chest helps with your ratings you know. Your glorious leader apologised for Godfrey Bloom and came out it better than he should have done....

If I were a right wing fruitcake, I wouldn't wriggle like you do. I'd have courage of my unfortunate conviction. (Most of the real ones, as opposed to armchair ones do have convictions, but that's another matter.)

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 08:02 AM

I don't read it either.
I would have googled "ukip gay marriage"

Anyone, even you, could have googled the quote to find its source.

I have no affiliation or connection to or with UKIP and have never claimed to.

Only a spokesperson would make a pronouncement like that.
Only an idiot would make such a silly mistake.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: bobad
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 08:16 AM

Don't sweat it Keith, this is the usual tactic employed by Musket and his ilk. When they can't counter facts and evidence in a discussion they resort to smearing their adversary. Most of us here see right through this ruse as it is glaringly obvious to any fair minded observer. It has become rather old and predictable to everyone but them it would seem.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Musket
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 08:28 AM

I don't have an ilk. I have a greyhound and up till last week some tropical fish, but no ilk.

Countering facts and evidence is something both you and I could learn a lot from by reading Keith's diatribe, Bobad.



Are you saying you are a spokesperson then Keith? You see, you were quite happy for that to go out as you at the time. Nowhere on that thread do you clarify your forgetting to call it a quote. Even though the very next post picks you up on it...

I don't think you are a member. Even they have standards. But you were happy to be associated with them, and your posts on many subjects, this included, show you to be a rather right wing distasteful character. I have tried reasoning, I have tried joking and I have tried outright confrontation, but your character has remained constant.

Good.

I have your measure. I will carry on weighing your contributions to threads against your prejudice, preconceptions and ideology. If others are taken in by your citing big books, or selective paragraphs from them, that's for them to concern themselves with.

Me? I just think it sad that an intelligent person cannot be objective.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 08:34 AM

you were quite happy for that to go out as you at the time. Nowhere on that thread do you clarify your forgetting to call it a quote. Even though the very next post picks you up on it...


No. It was so obviously a UKIP quote, not me.

The next post was yours.
If you were picking up on it, it was too obscure for me.

No-one else made your stupid assumption.
Funny that.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 09:00 AM

"a rather right·wing distasteful character."
.,,.

Are these two adjectives entirely synonymous in your view, then Musket?
Merely curious. I think we should be told, dontcha know...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Musket
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 09:43 AM

True Keith. nobody made a stupid assumption. Enough had you weighed up though...

Michael. I have no problem with "right wing distasteful" any more than "left wing distasteful." Both extremes are not to my tastes. In fact, if you get philosophical about it, (as you for one tend to) there is little difference.

Into the semantics of English, "rather" would infer a good distance along the pendulum arc, and the further you go, the more distasteful you get. I sit back and smile as depending on who is disagreeing with me, I am either right wing (Bridge) or left wing (Akenhateon.) It helps I suppose by being an ex miner who became CEO of a manufacturing concern and these days lives on a combination of investments and work in the public sector. Part of me would have shallow people stereotype me as left wing, other parts of me could be stereotyped as right wing.

As I don't see myself as either, (capitalism to fund a social programme works in principle for me..) I have no problem whatsoever in putting, as you say, the two adjectives together.

Truth is, I'm Musket when posting on here.

Anything else you are curious about? Always happy to oblige, always delighted to see people get judgemental based on their preconceptions. Always glad to see the likes of Keith for what they are...

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Nov 13 - 09:53 AM

True Keith. nobody made a stupid assumption. Enough had you weighed up though...

Nobody except you.
Ake got some banter for talking of voting UKIP, but no-one thought I was.
Except you.
If you had said at the time, I could have exposed your idiot assumption then.

You acknowledge it was a quote.
You accept I am not a member.
What exactly are you accusing me of?

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 05:46 AM

I didn't say I accept you are not a member. I said they wouldn't be that desperate. Different thing entirely....

Anyway, here's something hot off The BBC news website of Christians persecuting Muslims here in a The UK.

Muslims persecuted by Christians in UK

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 11:05 AM

That is unacceptable, but a quantum leap from the kind of persecution that leads to the extinction of communities.

Our Muslim communities are thriving and growing.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Elmore
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 12:58 PM

I went to the doctor. I said, "Doctor, I get up every morning, look in the mirror, and want to throw up." Doctor says, "Well, at least your eyesight's perfect."

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 01:26 PM

Musket: You provided a link just above which you called

"Muslims persecuted by Christians in UK";

but on linking all one found was a news item about a Muslim organisation complaining, with perfect justice it appears, of some negative posting about Muslims & about Islam on the Internet. I failed to find any claim, or a single piece of evidence, that this was in any way specifically a Christian campaign. Quite likely some of those posting these ill-natured messages had been subjected to childhood Baptism into the CofE or some other notionally Christian denomination, as many people have been [tho far fewer than at one time!]; but there was no evidence that any significant number of them were in any way practising Christians within any meaningful sense or definition. So the title you chose for your link was tendentious and dishonest, and in no significant way related to the title or topic of this thread.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 13 - 01:27 PM

Musket: You provided a link just above which you called

"Muslims persecuted by Christians in UK";

but on linking all one found was a news item about a Muslim organisation complaining, with perfect justice it appears, of some negative posting about Muslims & about Islam on the Internet. I failed to find any claim, or a single piece of evidence, that this was in any way specifically a Christian campaign. Quite likely some of those posting these ill-natured messages had been subjected to childhood Baptism into the CofE or some other notionally Christian denomination, as many people have been [tho far fewer than at one time!]; but there was no evidence that any significant number of them were in any way practising Christians within any meaningful sense or definition. So the title you chose for your link was tendentious and dishonest, and in no significant way related to the title or topic of this thread.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 12:44 PM

Sorry about repetition -- not sure how that happened. Expect clones will delete one of them...

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 01:01 PM

But in the light of the irony in my post, you might wants them both deleted?

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 02:30 PM

Another case of the term "irony" being misapplied.

Funny the way some threads just won't die. The undead...

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Musket getting bored now
Date: 25 Nov 13 - 04:40 PM

Of course it is. Here, you haven't got some American blood in you perchance? Just a thought.

The thread won't die whilst you insist on sweeping generalisations and putting your particular delusion on a pedestal.

Sorry that the facts you have been presented with by many people don't fit with your view, formed well before you started your thread.

If you want lots of posts agreeing with you and marvelling how clever and perceptive you are, post it on a God botherer website. They'll pander to your silly claims. You might want to take one or two of the rocket scientists from this thread with you for moral support.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 03:24 AM

BBC.
It almost seems like the whole town has moved in, turning the Catholic Mission into a huge market and camp for displaced people.

People are too afraid to leave the Catholic Mission, even when their homes are just down the street"

Tailors, hair-dressers and food- and cigarette-sellers are going about their business, next to thousands of blue tents covered with plastic sheeting with the logo of the UN children's fund, Unicef.

More than 35,000 Christians have sought refuge here, after their homes were attacked by a loose alliance of former rebels known as Seleka, who ousted Mr Bozize.

The figures are still rising and an estimated 1,000 people, mainly women and children, arrived last week, non-governmental organisations say.

But even as people try to get on with their lives, this is a community under siege.

People are too afraid to leave the Catholic Mission, even when their homes are just down the street.

Nina Saragba was leaning against her shack and sobbing, when she spoke to the BBC.

She said she had just heard that her brother had been shot dead as he tried to go to town.

Fortunately, he was eventually found, badly beaten but alive.

Residents say such attacks are common - as soon as they leave the Catholic Mission, they can be detained, beaten or shot and killed by Seleka fighters, if they are identified as members of a Christian self-defence militia called anti-balaka (anti-machete).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24802898

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,musket asking the point
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 04:18 AM

I think we all know there is persecution going on.

Is there a point to that post?

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 04:24 AM

Yes.
It is a current example of serious religious persecution that is the subject of this thread.
Is there a point to your post?
Is there a point to you?

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Stringsinger
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 02:12 PM

Fortunately there are Jewish people over the world who do not accept the prattle of
Christian Zionazism and have become, themselves, the true victims of persecution by Christians.

When I visited a synagogue in Hungary, it was buried into the ground by a Catholic
Church which was erected on top of it. This event has repeated itself many times
historically.

The measure of Christians being persecuted was resolved in the era of Constantine
and the only effect of this persecution that I see is the Zionist persecution of
Palestinian Christians.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 26 Nov 13 - 03:41 PM

Ah. Abuse. Welcome to the pigsty. Can you wrestle?

Society had been trying to eradicate the xenophobic serf righteous attitude of repugnant reactionary fools for a long time. Johnny Speight lampooned the odious character in Till Death do us Part and efforts to marginalise bigots had been going on ever since.

Today, we laugh when a comic refers to such bufoons with "I'm not racist but..." Or "all I want is a sensible grown up discussion..."   Far better than our shameful past when society thought disgraceful criminals like Bernard Manning were mainstream. I know people say you shouldn't judge the past by today, but I walked out of a charity concert he was appearing in many years ago.

You see Keith, you represent everything that was wrong with the self righteous holier than thou little bloody Englander. You chisel away at reality when it doesn't look like your 1950s perspective. That's why revisionist historians who are too kind to failures we used to cheer are right up your street. That's why your political views reflect those who openly harker for a past that never happened.

That's why you see stories of Christian persecution and shout it from the rooftops. Not because of the awful persecution but of the affront to your precious warped perception of Christianity.

You just don't get it. The other posters disagreeing with you have to be wrong. If they try again they are liars. Another attempt and they are disrespectful to whatever your concern of the day is.

Surely you aren't really beyond hope? Is there a nice Keith under that odious mask?

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: bobad
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 08:39 AM

Meet SELEKA: The Muslim militia hunting down Christians in the Central African Republic. Over 300 butchered so far. No outrage? No thousand posts condemning this atrocity? No protests against anyone? Oh yes, there are no Jews involved.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,musket again
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 05:05 PM

Thanks for pointing it out.

Bloody awful.

Tell you what, I shall take a liberty and say on behalf of every mudcat member, it is disgraceful, tragic, awful and somebody should remind UN of their obligations to assist in stopping it.



Now. That didn't hurt did it bobad?

Mind you, get your condemnation in before Sir Max Hastings rewrites it from the perspective of Seleka. You know how fickle "historians" and those who buy their books can be.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 04:24 AM

One of the disturbing aspects of Irish history is underlined by the "killeens" – old, graveyards containing unmarked graves on unconsecrated ground specifically created for children who were not baptised and were forbidden burial in officially blessed ones – even those children who died at birth.
Happily a thing of the past – or is it?
Wonder if this comes under the "Christian Persecution" heading – probably not if the persecutors are Christians.
Jim Carroll   

IRISH TIMES Thu, Dec 12, 2013, 00:01
FOR CHILDREN WITH NO BAPTISMAL CERTIFICATE THE SCHOOL GATES SEEM TO BE CLOSED
Kitty Holland
Opinion: The State surely has a duty to offer parents access to secular education for their children
Call for end to religious discrimination by schools
For children with no baptismal certificate the school gates seem to be closed
Religious control of schools is neither tolerant nor inclusive

My son, who will be four years old in March, is not baptised. He has been rejected from all four national schools in our area – Dublin 6.
I put his name down for all of them, two of them religious schools, when he was a baby.
The little Church of Ireland school, which is the nearest one to our home, has had his name on its application list since he was six weeks old. In its letter last month the board of management "regrets to inform" me that my application has been "unsuccessful".
"Your child is currently number 177 on our waiting list . . . All offers of places were made in accordance with the school enrolment policy."
The criteria according to which children can get in the queue are then set out. There are 11 categories, the first being "Church of Ireland children of the [local] parishes," followed by "COI siblings/Protestant siblings" followed by COI children from outside the parishes. Next in are COI children from inter-church marriages, then other Protestant children, then other siblings, then children of inter-church marriages where the child is not COI, children of staff, Roman Catholic Children, Orthodox children and last, the category into which my son falls,
"other children".
This school will take any child of almost any faith from anywhere in the country before they will take an unbaptised child living around the corner.
The Roman Catholic school is a little further away. My son is 117th on the waiting list. His name has been down since he was a baby, but date of application is not relevant there, the principal told me. The letter turning him away from there said siblings of current pupils were prioritised. This is understandable and "all 17 such applicants are being offered places".
"The remaining 17 places are being offered to Catholic children resident within the Catholic parish . . . We regret that we are unable to offer your child a place in our junior infant class for 2014."

THE WAITING GAME
The other two other schools, one a non-denominational Gaelscoil and the other multi-denominational, should surely be more welcoming and as I had his name down with the multi-d since he was three weeks old I was hopeful. However when I called I was told he was "about 220th on the list". The enrolment secretary told me parents travelled from across Dublin to enrol their children there, such is the demand. Again at at the Gaelscoil, with parents travelling from across the city to get their kids in, he's 239th on the waiting list.
There is clearly huge demand for school places in Dublin 6, not helped by parents – including myself – applying to several schools, and this affects all families. What is also clear however is that denominational or faith schools' enrolment criteria impact in a gross and disproportionate way on children such as my son, by excluding them simply because they have not been baptised. To be clear, these State-funded faith-schools – which account for 96 per cent of primary schools – are allowed to direct a religiously based exclusion at children as young as four. This is unacceptable. It is particularly heinous in a democracy which describes itself as a Republic.
Is it any wonder that every single one of my friends who has children has had them baptised – and not one of them to my knowledge attends church outside such events as weddings, funerals or first Holy Communions?
The Irish State has been repeatedly castigated for allowing this discrimination against children to continue, by the United Nations in 2006, 2008 and again in 2011, when its Human Rights Committee noted with concern that the dominance of denominational education was "depriving many parents and children who so wish to have access to secular primary education".
In 2011 the Irish Human Rights Commission called on the Department of Education to end schools' religious discrimination against children in admission policies.
In no other area of society, where a public service is funded by taxpayers is such discrimination permitted. One can only imagine the outcry if a public hospital announced it would only treat ill Catholics; or if the local Garda station announced it was only going to investigate crimes committed against people of faith.
The churches controlling our schools argue that their ethos requires special protection. The Equal Status Act 2000 protects their right to protect their ethos of exclusion. Although religion is named as one of the nine grounds of discrimination illegal in public life, section 7 allows schools to exclude children if "it is proved that the refusal is essential to maintain the ethos of the school".

NO, MINISTER
In September the Minister for Education, Ruairí Quinn, launched a public consultation on inclusiveness in primary schools. He said: "Schools should be welcoming places for all children from the local community. We all know that Irish society has changed a lot in recent years.
Our education system needs to adapt, to make sure that, as well as continuing to cater for children with more traditional religious beliefs, there is also respect for children of different traditions and beliefs."
However, his department is also consulting on a new Education (Admissions to Schools) Bill, the draft of which maintains schools' right to keep out children with the 'wrong' religion, or none.
Yesterday the Ombudsman for Children published her advice on the Bill.
She says: "... no child in general should be given preferential access to publicly-funded education on the basis of their religion", subject to limited exceptions and with the Minister's permission.
Mr Quinn is legally obliged to vindicate the right, possessed by every child, to their education. Schools are places for numbers and letters, not for icons.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 09:25 AM

Anyone tried telling them their obligations under EU human rights that they are party to? Freedom of expression of religion isn't religious privilege. Try telling that to the myriad God botherers.

As I said at the beginning of this or possibly some other Christian nonsense thread. In The UK you sometimes have to say you are a Christian to get your kids into the nearest school thanks to the disgraceful faith schools taking over state ones.

Nothing wrong in fobbing off some old fool by telling them you believe in fairies, but you shouldn't have to all the same. Your kids shouldn't have to be exposed to medieval drivel that could scar them for life either.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 11:39 AM

That's how all religion works Muskie
The same bunch had dedicated themselves to fighting same-sex marriage and will probably back their campaign with threats of excommunication, just as they did with pregnancy termination
It seems that the persecution of children by depriving them of an education on religious grounds doesn't count as persecution n some quarters.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Elmore
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 11:56 AM

Sometimes the whole Christmas deal feels like Christian persecution to me, with O'Reilly and Palin as the chief persecutors. Still, I'm not such an old fart that I won't wish people a Merry Christmas, guaranteed not to offend anybody here in the most conservative congressional district east of the Mississippi. (9th Ga.)

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: bobad
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 01:38 PM

"60 Minutes" reports on the Copts, Egypt's Christians who have suffered one of their worst periods in nearly 2,000 years.

The persecution of Egypt's Coptic Christians

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 03:43 PM

""60 Minutes" reports on the Copts, Egypt's Christians who have suffered one of their worst periods in nearly 2,000 years"
As I said - that's religion for you when it is allowed to get out of hand!
Care to comment on Christians persecuting children Boo-boo - better, worse, not important?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 02:40 AM

Faith schools in Britain are oversubscribed and so good that Musket advocated atheist parents to lie, and instruct their children in the lying, to get them in.
Strange persecution.
Insulting to the victims of real persecution to make the comparison.

Subject: RE: BS: Christian Persecution
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 02:59 AM

Getting children to believe superstition as fact isn't lying? Saying you believe in all that in order to get your children into a school is?

No wonder rational people dismiss superstition and shake their heads at the hypocritical idiots.