Red Cliffs Of Dawlish

Red Cliffs Of Dawlish
Red Cliffs Of Dawlish

Wednesday 27 April 2016

Sermonizing on Security



I had to attend Church or Sermons of that kind, at school and sometimes in the school holidays. Perhaps what I did not realize at the time was that attending meant I was effectively a "captive audience". Given an alternative I'd decide that if I'd attended once or twice I'd attend all the times.

Sometimes you'd get a speaker with something interesting to say. Mostly, there would be various "sermons" from the bible about all sorts of things that I honestly had no clue as to their actual relevance but just seemed like oft-repeated phrases for their familiarity effect than anything very insightful. I did well in school at Religious Education, usually coming top in the class or year group, so it was not a question of not understanding it. But I found it so boring. I suppose looking back now, the essence of the practice was that "Whatever was the core idea" was there to "keep us safe" or "look after us" if we "behaved in the right way" eg prayers, good thoughts and actions and so on. This seems to be a role the present govern sermonizes to us about today, I would make the tentative comparision?

I always felt so sleepy in these sessions too. The essence of what was said, I never had a problem with. I think what made it boring was that it was beyond denial or beyond demonstration or example; it was like talking about something so very long ago and not very relevant to today. I actually really like churches and love seeing these old buildings all over the UK, and some of the materials in the Christian tradition as well as some works overall have a good balance of aiming for positive ethos and value system which I think are central to education, too. But that's when and after you strip out a helluva lot of "fluff" or "filler" or "packaging" that's complete garbage.

So this is all meandering preamble to the topic at hand in this blog: Security. I noticed in the previous blog that the Government was targeting families for the "Risk" factor that will hit hardest with them. Then we looked at the narrative shaping, "Good vs Bad (Obama vs Putin) and this leads to the other side: "Security" to go with "Risk". I just watched the complete garbage on offer on BBC Newsnight:-
  
Would the UK Be Safer In Or Out of the EU?

This is all sounds and seems so familiar... roll on Referendum and then roll on Eurozone Treaty...