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For god's sake - offensive?

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For god's sake - offensive?

Postby RedCelt69 on Fri Mar 04, 2011 3:39 pm

The Committee of Advertising Practice has decided that the phrase for god's sake is too offensive to appear on advertising bill boards. This is the same group of people that decided "'the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God" was just fine and dandy. Meh.

On the same subject, it might be an idea to consider the particular question (and its relevance) when it comes time to fill out your census return. According to News Thump; the 2011 census organisers brace themselves for millions pretending to be Christians. And that's an awful lot of fake Christianity... in anyone's book.

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Re: For god's sake - offensive?

Postby Hennessy on Fri Mar 11, 2011 2:16 pm

I agree that faith schools are an issue but their growth (especially in the last decade) is indicative of what parents see as the failure of the secular comprehensive to bring out anything other than mediocrity in a large share of their students. What really concerns me is the stellar growth of unregulated Madrassas responsible for educating young Muslim children (the subject of a recent Panorama investigation into extremism in Britain). While I can see how this may be of concern I fail to see the same arguments against faith schools applying to Catholic or Anglican or Jewish schools inside the existing faith school system. Fact is, at least those faith schools are inside the state education system and as such receive the same level of scrutiny as bog standard comps, if not more. Faith schools ability to tap religious communities enables them to pick from a (by and large) more dedicated and spiritually driven workforce, who will take the extra time and put in the extra effort because they see it as part of teaching the next generation of their communities.

The opposing argument to this is that all children deserve equal treatment, even when it is probable that this waters down teaching standards overall and does not take into account population patterns which suggest people are more likely to settle down in areas with people of the same background who share the same values (evidence of 'white flight' from certain areas to other areas is a good indicator of this). We've got to face facts and allow people to educate their children as they see fit, according to their own values, in a system that is flexible enough to . I can see the argument which says this will lead to disunity, and it's not a bad one either, but it is also predicated on the belief that "one system for all children" does not produce deep societal divisions. In my opinion that's not an argument that reflects reality - societal divisions aren't simply a symptom of selective schools, they reflect the histories of various communities, existing prejudices and outside pressures on certain communities like discrimination, crime rates and housing. That's why the example that's always trotted out - schools in Northern Ireland, sidelines those other factors and ignores the virtual civil war that existed for a good proportion of the 20th century between those communities. Attempts to integrate failed, for the bloody good reason that parents from one side didn't want their kids being victimised by schools from the other side. If you ignore the loaded term "apartheid" separation of schools on faith lines is just as important a human right as the right to religious belief itself.
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Re: For god's sake - offensive?

Postby Anon. on Sat Mar 12, 2011 2:23 am

RedCelt69 wrote:The Committee of Advertising Practice has decided that the phrase for god's sake is too offensive to appear on advertising bill boards. This is the same group of people that decided "'the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God" was just fine and dandy. Meh.


That does seem rather inconsistent. But I suppose the argument would be that for a religious person, to insult their religion/god (e.g. by "taking the Lord's name in vain", in the census advert) is much more offensive than to insult an individual. As an atheist doesn't believe in anything outside himself, he's nothing other than himself to offend. A religious type gets offended on behalf of a (perceived?) third party as well as himself, and, at that, a third party he regards as deserving of all honour and adoration. The Committee of Advertising Practice seems to recognise that religious people generally get more offended than non-religious people.
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