How much would one of these compasses actually cost? Are we talking pennies here? My daughter has a better social life than I do, and at one friends party they all had one of those cheap plastic ones in their party bags. I doubt those would have been as expensive as some of the other rubbish that is given out, but a bit of perspective wouldn't go amiss, there would be a field day if we refused to hand over toilet roll, and besides prisoners can work and earn money in prison, just put them up for sale or get the relatives to bring them in. Media hype all of it.
Principals lolli, principals.:D Not everything comes down to money. And Daisees, I'm out of touch. Are there really still people wandering the world trying to convert heathens to Christians? if there are, they should be ashamed of themselves. I thought that kind of stuff died out in the 1800s. They dont come round here much:D
Surely you jest, Pete. There are thousands of them. And they do a lot of good in the community as well as witnessing. They set up schools and hospitals in poor areas like Africa and the Philippines, teach adults all sort of things like infant care, food hygiene, first aid, how to care for their precious animal stock, , all sorts of stuff. They build schools, hospitals and housing, dig fresh water wells and advise on farming techniques. A lot of these people are just ignored by their governments and left to fend for themselves and in their ignorance, make poor use of the limited resources they have at their disposal. Missions help change all of that. Then there are the Mercy Ships that travel all round the coast of Africa and India and wherever else they can get to. They provide state of the art surgery, good as we get in our hospitals (I seen round one, first hand), for poor people with every kind of disfigurement, ailment, sickness and disease. All the crew and staff are Christians and the ship is also a church. But they don't ram their faith down the patients' throats. Their only concern is for their health and treatment. That witnesses to them louder than any words. The word goes round like a bush fire when a Mercy Ship is due to dock. People walk for days and even weeks to get to get there for treatment. I think I'm right in saying that not a single person is turned away. You really want the crews and staff of the Mercy Ships to be ashamed of themselves for that?
I just don't see what all the fuss is about-give them a compass if that is what they need to express their religious beliefs, everyone has the right to pray to their chosen deity if they so choose-everyone. That's a personal principle of my own-perhaps naive, but I will stick fast to it for now, I think. And if it means giving them a compass that costs tuppence, or at the very least having them available for purchase by the prisoners then, well, frankly I personally wouldn't stand in their way. I said something similar earlier, that if a prisoner believes that God would be more concerned with the direction they are facing than with the transgressions for which they are being punished then the individual concerned may require a refresher lesson on their own particular doctrines, nevermind a compass.
There is a difference between helping other people and pushing your religion Daisees. And in no way do I want to belittle those people that do such work, I do wonder though if there is a Muslim equivalent out there doing the same kind of work.
Of course there is Pete, and quite a few. This is how dangerous the media actually is-the word muslim has become synonomous with such negative ideas and words that it is actually difficult for someone to think that a Muslim is capable of basic human concepts such as charity.
I know the media is biased especially the BBC, but they are biased against the west.(PC brigade rules.) So how come they dont show us all the good work done by the red crescent(is it?) and all the other Muslim organisations that are out there ready to jump in at any world disaster. We do have biased media, and I willing to bet there's is just a tad one sided as well. I may not be perfect, but if someone is trying to blow me up in the name of Islam, I tend to get nervous, to have those people living here and we do nothing about them is criminal in itself, and would not be tollerated if the boot was on the other foot.
I ain't too keen on the idea of getting blown up either Pete, nervous doesn't begin to express it. I am suspicious of the media. It started to become ridiculous just after the twin towers tragedy. From then till now I have noticed that just after a report on a certain atrocity, or one of our guys getting killed in Iraq or something along the same lines, the next story would be about yet another "Muslim issue" or "immigration issue"-I found it insulting to my intelligence-which is pretty low anyway so it must be a blatant manipulation of the facts for me to spot it. And yes, absolutely all media is geared toward the viewer.
Have you also noticed that if the story is just vaguely racial, we get a reporter with a sun tan or a strange sounding name. It happens every time, I've yet to see a joe bloggs do a report on a racially sensitive issue in the UK.
I want unbiased news, but that is wishing for the moon. I can't say that I have ever noticed the ethnicity of any particular reporter as regards any particular newspiece. I have noticed the American, Saudi Arabian, French etc "news correspondent" tends, generally to be someone who at least lives there, if not comes from that particular area ( although not always of course). But other than that, I haven't taken any particular notice. It was more the sequence of each news item that I had noticed. I could sense the different news programmes trying to lead me by the nose-"think this way", "feel this" etc that I found distasteful. I remember once the entire news at ten was laid out in this way-we had just been shown the photos of some young soldier who had been involved in a shooting in Iraq ( I think can't remember for absolute sure) and then the next item was about the illegal ( soon to be) immigrants massing at Calais and the one after that was a teenage girl who wanted to wear her headscarf in school and had been expelled or suspended and was taking it to court,-the whole programme was a set up and a far too transparent one.
Very often the works of Muslims get blown up out of all proportion........... ...oh no sorry that's Martyrs :hehe:
