"Thou shalt shoplift"

[TheAnimus]

A priest from North Yorkshire has advised his congregation to shoplift if they find themselves in hard times.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/n...re/8425420.stm

So someone who has dedicated their life to fairy tails, has decided to spout more. Now the obvious lacking in cognitive reasoning not withstanding, regrettably there are a small army of poius zealots who lap up every word without any real reasoning applied (this is obvious by the fact they believe in it).

Now isn't this incitement to commit a crime?

Also I really find the definition offensive, poor. Not starving, but poor. Whilst no one would ever encourage or even not condemn theft if someone is starving their actions are likely to be highly influenced by that, but to suggest that its ok if your poor!

This is what gets me about the entitlement people think they have....

[Barakka]

Saw this guy on the news this morning getting twisted all over the place by the presenters, along the lines of...

Presenter: "So you're saying it's OK to steal ?"
Priest: "No, I'm saying that we have a social support system in this country that is so inept at helping those in genuine need that I regularly meet people who have waited so long in desperation that they are considering suicide or turning to prostitution. In those situations I would rather they stole a 90p jar of Dolmio from Tesco than take their own life"
Presenter: "So only from the big shops"
Preist: "Well not from the small family run shops, but rather from the large corporate businesses that we all buy from then the cost will be passed on for all of us to pay"
Presenter: "So is it also OK for them to break into peoples homes to steal ?"
Priest: "No"
Presenter: "But stealing in general is OK ?"

It went on....

[jim]

"Father Jones made the news in May 2008 when he made a protest about Playboy branded stationery being aimed at children. He went into a local stationers and threw the Playboy merchandise on the floor."

Methinks it's a publicity stunt.

[JPreston]

Of course he is a moron, like all priests and religious believers in general whose pontifications on any and every subject should be dismissed out of hand on principle, but it's particularly nonsense to say that prostitution is morally worse than theft. Prostitution is an agreed trade between two adults who both see benefit in the transaction, whereas noone agrees to be robbed and in fact the robbed party probably objects quite strongly. Shoplifting is no better than robbery because it involves the 'sin' of deceit in addition to theft. That he is obsessed with sexuality and feels revolted about what adults get up to in private is completely irrelevant to the 'right' or 'wrong' of it.

There is no reason for his muddled views to be reported any wider than a tramp ranting drunkenly in a bus shelter, and the only reason they are is because he wears a funny collar to go to 'work' for his irrelevant organisation that contributes negatively to the society it has parasitically conned and cheated throughout history. That's robbery.

[Phage]

Your sig is ironic given the content of your post.

[JPreston]

Richard Feynman reminds us to "keep an open mind, but not so open that [our] brains fall out". Go with that one if you're religious

[finlay666]

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me

I think that sums up my view....

Religion is stupid

[JPreston]

I hope this develops into another religion flame war thread, we haven't had one in a while.

What better time to have one than this festive season, the feasts in question being Amaterasu, Beiwe, Brumalia, Chaomos, Deuorius Riuri, Deygān, Dōngzhì, Goru, Inti Raymi, Junkanoo, Karachun, Koleda, Lenæa, Lucia, Makara Sankranti, Maruaroa o Takurua, Meán Geimhridh, Midvinterblót, Modranicht, Perchta, Rozhanitsa, Shab-e Chelleh, Saturnalia, Şeva Zistanê, my personal favourite Sol Invictus, Soyal, Wayeb, We Tripantu, Xmas, the viking celebration Yule, Zagmuk, and of course Ziemassvētki

[Saracen]

Leaving the fact that he's a priest aside for a moment, I rather suspect I know what he meant, and I have some sympathy for it. How he put it, or at least how he's reported as having put it, is especially moronic though.

The point, though, is ..... do we have a society where we are prepared to accept at least minimal responsibility for the basic needs of others, or not?

If we do, and we at least all make a pretence that we do, then for there to be such a huge disparity between the haves and have-nots that people can reach the level of desperation he's referring to, where suicide seems like an attractive option, is a damning indictment of our "caring" society, and of the woeful inadequacies in the way it's run.

We can afford billions on replacing a nuclear deterrent, but we can't afford soup kitchens for the starving? We can afford billions of pounds for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we can't even afford basic dormitories for the homeless, so that they at least get a roof over their head, some warmth and one hot meal a day?

We are supposed to have a social services system that provides these minimal protections. I mean, the rest of us all pay enough taxes that are supposed to provide the protections that, facing the wrong combination of factors like illness, unemployment and so on, ANY of us could end up facing. Yet, we get people running government departments on huge salaries, and the people they're supposed to be protecting and providing services for living in cardboard boxes and stealing for food.

His point, I suspect, is not that we should go out and steal, but that it's an utter disgrace that there's a need to do that, just to eat. Government, and society, has let the "invisibles" down, and has done it with remarkable success for a very long time.

We can provide child credit and support to let a second parent go out to work, at huge cost to the taxpayer, but we can't feed the homeless? Disgraceful.

So, do we have a society where we are going to provide minimal care for the most needy, or are we saying "to hell with it, I've got mine, I'm okay Jack and devil take the hindmost"?

If we are, then what the hell are most of the taxes we're paying actually for? I want a refund. If it's a "look after yourself because nobody else gives a .... damn" society, then I'm beggared if I want to pay for child support for relatively wealthy people to get child care when the second parent goes out to earn. After all, if we're going to be so selfish that we can't feed those in desperate need and keep them from freezing, then why should the rest of us pay for those that want kids they can't support? If you can't afford a kid, or another one, don't have one and certainly don't expect the state to pay for it for you. After all, we're going to be selfish and devil take the hindmost, aren't we? You want kids, don't ask me to pay for it.


So ..... if we reject that approach and decide we do have enough of a soul to be prepared to support those in desperate need, and if the state via it's incompetence is letting them down, then stealing from a huge corporate like Tesco is probably a far more efficient form of social care than anything the government can provide. It's basically a form of tax. And he's right, Tesco won't, ultimately, foot the bill, we will. Prices will go up a bit to reflect it.

And, I wouldn't mind betting that it'd be a FAR more cost-efficient form of delivery of social care than paying taxes. Instead of paying for a vast army of civil servants to provide essential support, and to fill in forms and ask nosy questions, we'd simply be going pretty much direct from paying via a price hike, to food in needy mouths. I'd bet the percentage of that "tax" that went on actual service provision, rather than on the overhead implied by government provision, would be vastly higher, since Tesco would simply add a mall amount to the price of everything, via computerised price update mechanisms that already exist and price stuff every day (or rather, night, via downloads of price files to stores) anyway. The cost would be minimal, the overhead non-existent and some of the government departments currently costing a fortune for the privilege of failing to provide such basic support would close, saving a mint or two in overheads that our taxes pay for. We could probably fire a few ministers too. Maybe Tesco could appoint a "Social Services Director" instead of having ministers mis-running things?


Okay, I'm taking the mickey a bit, and I'm not advocating shoplifting. I'm suggesting that there shouldn't be a need for it, in the context he's talking about, if the state did the job it's supposed to be doing, and that we're all paying a fortune in taxes for it to do. And, of course, that we'd be far better off as a society if our tax money went on food for the desperate rather than fancy new Town Hall buildings for councillors and council staff, porn movies for the Home Secretary's husband, moat cleaning or duck houses. I mean, duck houses on the taxpayer, but not homeless shelters?

Do we, as a society, have a rather skewed perspective on our priorities, or what? Do we care about the really poor, or do we just like to pretend we do, as long as they stay out of our way and don't taint our actually rather pleasant lives?

I suspect that's close to the point he was making, and he's not wrong about the point. He did, however, if the reports are fair (and I reserve judgement on that), put it very badly.

[Bugbait]

You're right Saracen, assuming a world where everyone took responsibilities for their actions and tried their best. Unfortunately this isn't the case so the system inevitably breaks down. What do you do with those that happily sit on their behinds and expect to be given everything because they feel entitled to it? Far too many people fall into this category. People shouldn't be homeless or starving but are they doing everything they can to avoid it? And I mean everything, not just what they feel is enough.

[Saracen]

Agreed, Bugbait.

But .... I wonder how the cost of dealing with the scroungers compares to the administrative cost of hugely complexed systems.

And perhaps more to the point is the human cost of not properly dealing with those that, much of the time, are most severely in need.

I make the point again .... we can provide tax vouchers for childcare to encourage people to go back to work, and even those on pretty substantial salaries get that help from the taxpayer. Bit what care do those with mental problems get? Too often, it's "care in the community" that just doesn't work. Or, those released from prison are often more or less just left to get on with it, not supported or helped, and too often end up back in crime (and back inside) as a result.

My point, rather less flippantly put than my last post, is that we have a rather perverse sense of priorities for utilisation of public money, let alone what seems to me to be some extremely expensive and often inefficient and poorly targeted systems for doing it.

[JPreston]

What do you do with those that happily sit on their behinds and expect to be given everything because they feel entitled to it? Far too many people fall into this category. People shouldn't be homeless or starving but are they doing everything they can to avoid it? And I mean everything, not just what they feel is enough.

Ah, but noone is homeless because they expect everything to be given to them (those guys are actually housed and fed perfectly adequately at the state's expense), and of those that are homeless 'everything they can do to avoid it' may not be the same as everything you or I can do. People who are genuinely homeless are not homeless because there is not enough benefits available, but rather because the system has failed to improve their specific circumstance. Commonly they've have some form of family or mental breakdown, are alcoholic etc and are incapable of sorting their affairs to the point where they would be capable of receiving the free house and food that the state would otherwise provide them. It's not a simple question of lack of funding.

This is why it's repulsive and hypocritical that a representative of the country's second wealthiest landowner (the CofE) should advise these vulnerable people to commit crimes against the country's first wealthiest landowner (Tesco) under the guise of 'caring for the needy'. People who 'fail at life' have always vulnerable to priests, which is precisely how the church got all that land and wealth in the first place. Maybe they should steal from churches instead?

EDIT: PS religion is stoopid