Interesting what someone said about the liberal church (being a church-goer and all). There is a lot more, I'll say variety for the loss of a better word, in churches nowadays. You can go either to churches that are straight down the line, or to ones where pretty much anything goes! (Personally, I'd like to think that the church I go to strikes the right balance between the two but that's an irrelevance)
I would venture that the reason that the church has become more liberal is because in recent times people have become a lot more hostile towards 'conservative' church going. (Homer Simpson: "I'm a good man, I love my wife and kids, why should I spend two hours on a Sunday being told I'm going to hell?" ) I think a lot of people still hold this view on the church. Because of this, the majority of this country now ignore the church, resulting in the church having to ask itself why?
Net result, more liberality????
Of course, I would also argue that churches have always presented the same story; of a fallen world redeemed by a loving God, which I suppose in a way sums up this whole debate, ie People do wrong (to greater or lesser degrees) and separate themselves from God, but God's love is greater than we can imagine and so he calls us back to him. A lot of people can't accept that or understand it. Hell, I don't even understand it fully, but I do believe in it with all my heart, mind and soul.

I'm not looking to start a religion argument BTW, because that would detract from the topic of this thread which I've read through with interest.
Just my two pen'orth...

Edited by w.w.j.d? (12 Mar 2004 1:45pm)

Aah, I love you Sonja. In a way.

Wow ... well just read all these posts.

At the moment we, in this country, have got the Dutroux trial (remember, about 8 years ago he put Belgium 'on the map' by killing innocent girls etc.. a real shambles). This guy, at the moment, is treated like a King and when he asks he gets. Thank you society for this totally misplaced sense of political correctness !!

I don't know what to say, my ideas are definately 150% with Petealiator (and a few others) on this one. Evil is indeed amongst us and winning. How many perverts don't you know who think it's ok watch child porn etc...

I could go on for 7 pages about my believes and what should be done in these cases. people like Dutroux and your Mr. Huntley should NOT have any rights anymore, should not be listened to etc..

Everyone has had an upbringing, being hit when you're young by your parents doesn't mean you have to hit and kill people when you're an adult.
The same goes with sexual abuse etc.. we all still have a say in our actions and can decide how we act and react in life (and face the consequences when we overstep the line).

If you can't keep yourself from thinking bad stuff then the least you yourself can do is jerk off 15 times a day so you don't feel the need to MESS UP SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE !!

So Pete, you know where I stand on this .. I agree (as we've done so many times before).

finished

Thats half the problem. Where is the punishment? Ok, they had most of their freedom taken away but the Bulger killers had facilities in their institution that thousands of kids in this country can only dream about. Now they're out in our society with new identities, houses and other material things that many people would like to have. Not exactly the punishment many of us feel they should have got.

I read the book, The Jigsaw Man (fantastic book) by Paul Britton who was a criminal psychologist on many cases including the Bulger/West ones, and was sickened by what Thompson and Venables had done to James Bulger and what The West's did to their victims. The newspapers/news can only report so much, books like the Jigsaw Man tell you everything and after reading it, I felt that people who commit these crimes don't deserve to live, let alone walk down the same street as me.

It was my dream to play for Palace and to make my debut. I've always played for the club so if I'm playing here, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

- John Bostock (Nov 2007)

and from what i have read in the press (and they normally love to tell us what a cushy time prisoners are getting) huntley is having a pretty rough time. rightly so.

i know you're not having a dig, we're all a bit jumpy today! you keep talking about you, and everyone is not the same and everyone has varying degrees of mental problems, abuse, neglect, sensitivity to violent images. if only the world was full of you's! but it's not, and they were 10, i'm not sure you could lock them away for the rest of their lives at 10, that would be 3 families losing their children instead of 1, they were kids, not sure how responsible i was at 10, oh god, it's a hard one, it was such a sickening thing and made worse by the fact it was kids, made it harder to comprehend somehow.

Sorry Bexter, thats not right. You know whats right and whats wrong at 10 years old.

It was my dream to play for Palace and to make my debut. I've always played for the club so if I'm playing here, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

- John Bostock (Nov 2007)