Light Engaging Darkness – A weekly look at understanding the times.
It’s been an interesting week at a personal level for me. A Cybernat threatened to sue me because he didn’t like my mentioning his review of Dunkirk. I was assaulted in a minor way by a man high on drugs and ended up in the Dundee Courier. It was interesting to receive complaints from people that I used the word ‘junkie’ – they didn’t seem to be too bothered that I had actually been attacked!
As for all of us, our personal lifes are set against the backdrop of what is happening in the wider world. To be honest there are two subjects that our society (or at least the chattering classes, the liberal elites) seem to be obsessed with. One is Brexit. Every day we get a new scare story – planes won’t fly, there will be famine and a plague of locusts. I am seriously concerned about the number of intelligent people who apparently treat the EU like a religion or a God. There are good and bad things about the UK leaving the EU – not that you would know it from the one-sidedness of so many comments.
Its All About Sexuality
But that is nothing compared with the endless talk and obsession with homosexuality. All week the BBC in particular have had programmes celebrating the fact that 50 years ago homosexuality in England and Wales was decriminalized. It took another 13 years for that to happen in Scotland. To the BBC and others this is clearly the most important event to have happening in the history of Britain, since the Romans first arrived. It has been ridiculous – not just a series of Gay Britannia programmes, but every arts programme, news, culture has focused on it. I half expect to tune in to ‘Gay Gardeners Questiontime’
Of course the politicians were falling over themselves to prove that they were the most gay friendly. Prime Minister May went through the whole repentance for the ‘nasty’ party thing again. Not to be outdone Corbyn gave an interview to Pink News which promised more action to tackle homophobia.
I am particularly concerned about the BBC. They are duty bound to provide balance. Instead they have an obsession with 1% of the population (although admittedly 12% of their staff). Despite all of this a poll this week showed that 40% of people in the UK still think homosexuality is unnatural. They may be wrong but who gets to speak for them? Will the BBC ever allow anyone to present a different view of sex and sexuality?
The Transgender Madness continues.
There has been some excellent writing on this, The best of all coming from our friend Brendan O’Neill –
Here is one quote from his superb article:
“But perhaps the worst thing is the green light the government is giving to memory-holing, to the erasure of publicly recorded facts. To okay the rewriting of birth certificates is to nurture a new Orwellian era in which past events can be altered upon the whim of contemporary prejudice or hysteria. Just as Big Brother sanctions the shoving of inconvenient historical documents into a memory hole and their replacement with ‘improved’ versions of history – so that ‘the lie passed into history and became truth’ – so the Tories are proposing a system in which key documents, the very registry of life in Britain, could be edited. Forever. A document that once told us a boy was born on 18 August 1985 would now tell us a girl was born on that day. It would lie to us, and to future generations. Shouldn’t this concern us, this official approval of misinformation?
The authoritarian implications of the government-backed trans agenda are chilling. People should be free to identify as anything they like – male, female, black, white, rabbit, handsome, clever, the Second Coming, Napoleon Bonaparte. Whatever. But the rest of us should be free to say: ‘You are not that thing you claim to be. But good luck to you.’ The problem with the gender-recognition tyranny is that it doesn’t only say ‘identify however you please’ – it also cajoles public institutions, and by extension the public at large, to accept an individual’s self-identification. And it cannot be long before we will face punishment for refusing to do so. In New York, employers who ‘intentionally’ misgender the man who identifies as a woman can be fined $250,000. Soon we might all find ourselves forced under pain of financial retribution to say something we consider to be a lie. Speaking the truth, or what a huge number of people consider to be the truth, could become a criminal act. As I say, we’re going full Orwell.”
This excellent article from the Catholic Herald
“Right now, and up to now, each and every one of us finds ourselves thrown into existence. We did not choose to be the people we are, or the sex we are, or to be born of the parents we were born of, or to be born in the country we were born in. Some of these things we can change. A British subject can apply for American citizenship, for example, and he or she can choose to become American. You can change your name, if you do not like it; you can change the way you speak, through speech therapy. But the truth is that there are certain things you cannot change – the year you were born, for example, or the sex you were born in. This latter is a scientific fact because every cell in your body is sexed, and sex does not rely on outward appearance, which can be changed. So, we find ourselves, in certain important aspects of existence, thrown into the world, and there is nothing we can do about it – except morally, which is an important freedom. We are male or female, and how we live as men and women is a matter of moral choice for us. Moral freedom is perhaps the greatest of all freedoms.
The government proposal about gender reassignment seems to indicate that gender is purely a matter of human choice. If I, born a man, declare myself to be a woman, then I become a woman. In other words, I am the sole arbiter of my fate, and my will is the absolute legislator. There is no need for my choice to have any reference to objective fact. In other words, biology and nature, and the structure of the world, must, in this important matter, be utterly malleable to my will.
This idea is troubling and dangerous, because it is simply not true. The world is not infinitely malleable. There are laws that we did not make but discover, and those laws cannot be abolished or set aside.What the gender proposals reveal is the way the government had made a Nietzschean turn in its thinking. From now on, the will is supreme. Nothing else matters. We all know where that idea led us in the past. “
And this from the Federalist Papers-
These harms constitute nothing less than institutionalized child abuse. Sound ethics demand an immediate end to the use of pubertal suppression, cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries in children and adolescents, as well as an end to promoting gender ideology via school curricula and legislative policies.
It is time for our nation’s leaders and the silent majority of health professionals to learn exactly what is happening to our children, and unite to take action. Dr Michelle Cretella – A paediatrician who focus’s on child behavioural health.
Here’s a gay Tory saying that it is mad
Thanks to all who have written re An Open Letter and Plea to Justine Greening, Minister of Education on her Gender Identity Proposals – I’m still waiting for a reply!
The death of Liu Xiaobo –
Chinese Political Prisoner Dies
He was a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who was locked up for advocating democracy in China. His ending was horrific. He died of liver cancer aged 61, after being refused 
permission to get treatment overseas. The regime were so scared of Lu’s ideas that it had his body cremated and the ashes scattered at sea, so that his supporters would not have a memorial site. he once stated “there is no force that can put an end to the human quest for freedom”. We can quest all we want but without Christ we won’t find it. Know the truth and the truth will see you free.
Only Guardian Readers Need Apply to the C of E?
This is an interesting comment from Archbishop Cranmer on the C of E advertising for a social and public affairs advisor only in the Guardian and the Economist! It says a great deal.
The Cult of Trudeau
Trudeau and Macron are the blue eyed boys of the Liberal Elites, just as Trump is the devil. It fascinates me that Trudeau has such a cult following – even to the extent of people salivating about his socks! Again Brendan O’Neill nails it.
“Then there are his socks. Even North Korea’s enforced fawning over Kim doesn’t stretch to gabbing hysterically about the Supreme Leader’s footwear. Trudeau drove people wild by wearing NATO socks to a NATO meeting. Gay-flag socks to a Pride flag-raising event in Ottawa. ‘Eid Mubarak’ socks to Pride itself in Toronto. I can’t be the only person who would love to see him wear gay-pride socks to a Ramadan event. In Saudi Arabia, perhaps. That really would be everything. I can’t even. Well, he couldn’t even, that’s for sure. A writer for the New York Times hailed his ‘sock diplomacy’. I wish I was making this up. His socks always contain ‘a message of solidarity’, she said, and ‘rarely have a man’s ankles said so much.’ Times like this I wish I was illiterate.”
Alice in Wonderland
Alice Cooper found an Andy Warhol canvas worth up to $10 million rolled up in a storage locker alongside a collection of his 1970s stage props. He had completely forgotten about the artwork, given to him by a girlfriend some 40 years ago. What many people do not realise is that Alice Cooper is now a Christian.
The End of the Car?
New diesel and petrol cars are to be banned in the UK from 2040. apart from the fact that this announcement is not new – given that the government had already signed up to the climate change agreement promising that, it will be interesting to see if cars are in use at all in 25 years time!
The Chalke Slide Continues
Steve Chalke is at it again – this time denying original sin. I have known for years that Steve Chalke is a heretic, denying the most basic Christian truths, whilst claiming to 
follow Christ. What depresses me more are those Christians organisations who say they disagree with him but he is just at worst an errant brother, or at best someone on the ‘spectrum’ of legitimate Christian views. I read Jeremiah 23 this morning. It seemed apposite. Here are some parts of it to finish with.
Jer. 23:1 “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!”declares the LORD…….
And among the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen something horrible: They commit adultery and live a lie. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that not one of them turns from their wickedness. They are all like Sodom to me; the people of Jerusalem are like Gomorrah…..
This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. 17 They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The LORD says: You will have peace.’ And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, ‘No harm will come to you.’ 18 But which of them has stood in the council of the LORD to see or to hear his word? Who has listened and heard his word? ……..
21 I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied. 22 But if they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds.d 23 “Am I only a God nearby,” declares the LORD, “and not a God far away? 24 Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the LORD. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” declares the LORD. Jer. 23:25 “I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’
26 How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds? 27 They think the dreams they tell one another will make my people forget my name, just as their ancestors forgot my name through Baal worship. 28 Let the prophet who has a dream recount the dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?” declares the LORD. 29 “Is not my word like fire,” declares the LORD, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? Jer. 23:30 ……….’ 34 If a prophet or a priest or anyone else claims, ‘This is a message from the LORD,’ I will punish them and their household. 35 This is what each of you keeps saying to your friends and other Israelites: ‘What is the LORD’S answer?’ or ‘What has the LORD spoken?’ 36 But you must not mention ‘a message from the LORD’ again, because each one’s word becomes their own message. So you distort the words of the living God, the LORD Almighty, our God.”
This IS the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
1. Steve Chalke isn’t a Christian.
2. Even Radio 3 have joined in the homosexual love-fest.
Groan.
Pray.
1 Sexuality Gender
Dr Peter Williams gave an excellent talk on this topic last week at Keswick. He said that there’d be stuff put up on the Tyndale House site, including the overheads. Can’t see it yet, but there were hand-outs and a fast paced talk.
2 Trudeau. Looks like he’s got colour dyslexia with his socks. They are aggressive, belying his self-aware, posed photgraphed charm.
3 Chalke. It’s the same old, same old.
Where is the Good News of Jesus?
He caused admitted “confusion” for a church member with his teaching on the cross of Christ. They have subsequently left the church. Chalke’s teaching on sexuality and gender drew them in initially. Confusion on the cross followed along with equating slavery and sexuality. Warnings over false teaching seem to go unheeded. Then again, that follows on from renunciation, even by implication, of the authority, inspiration and inerrancy of scripture. He’s not the only one to deny the “Fall”. Born free, born good, that’s how we are, it is said.
As a young but older new Christian, I once heard a man with an international ministry pronounce that in Psalm 51 King David was saying he was born illegitimate. I wanted to complain to the organisers that they should have been aware of what was going to be said, and put right the error from the platform, but I suspect that they would have agreed with what was said, or didn’t oppose it and I didn’t have the scriptural knowledge, theology to back it up.
The organisers were former Methodists and I’ve had conversations with some Methodists who do not accept the fall and the federal headship of Adam, that when Adam sinned, in him, I did too, as his rebellious seed, physically born alive, but spiritually born dead.
This theology is widespread when the surface is scratched, and a reason for those of the reformed theology to mix with and influence others.
Why did Jesus have to die?
Is Chalke seeking to deny Jesus the joy set before Him?
“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2
Augustine got it right describing the four stages of humanity.
1 Able not to sin, before the Fall
2 Not able not to sin, born with a sinful nature after the Fall
3 Able not to sin, after conversion
4 Not able to sin, when we are glorified, in heaven, heaven on earth
I had the displeasure of attending a baptism in a United Reformed Church some years ago. I say displeasure because after the baptism the minister made a speech in which she examined the nature of baptism. She went through various possibilities and rejected them. One of the possibilities she rejected was that it had anything to do with original sin. She completely rejected the doctrine but her reason revealed her total misunderstanding. Her reasoning was that an infant is not capable of committing any sins. I asked her afterwards if her congregation would accept what she said. She told me that some would and some wouldn’t. Which had me wondering: What should people do when they hear a minister preaching? Accept what the minister says – because s/he is a minister? Or think that what s/he says may be right or may be wrong and have to go home and study the matter for themselves in order to make up their own mind? If the latter, then what would be the point of listening to the sermon?
“For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.” -Philippians 3:18-19
My email to Justine Greening:
Dear Rt Hon Greening
Having read your statement in the press yesterday that the church should reflect “modern attitudes” and public opinion, that the church must “keep up” with the ‘modern world’ by allowing same sex couples to marry in church, I write with horror that you should have the audacity to tell the church what it should and should not do.
A ‘modern world’ and ‘modern attitudes’ that encourages murder of the unborn baby?;
that encourages adultery through easy come-and-go laws, adversely affecting both families;
that encourages sexual promiscuousness with the free access to the pill for ever-decreasing ages?;
that encourages theft by increasingly younger children because they know they are seldom chased, caught or punished?;
that encourages fluidity of gender, affecting both the individual and the majority, particularly young girls in toilets and showers and women’s sports? (and you’re supposed to be the Minister for Women and Equalities!);
that encourages homosexuality, with its adverse repercussions to the individual and those with whom they have sexual relations, whether in a ‘loving, stable relationship’ or not? –
Check out http://www.equip.org/articles/is-homosexuality-a-healthy-lifestyle/ ;
that encourages so many other actions too numerous to list here that are contrary to the well-being of the individual and/or those affected by their actions?;
A ‘modern world’ with ‘modern attitudes and ‘public opinion’ that encourages all this? – No thank-you!
It’s strange that you’re seeking to do the opposite of fairly recent government legislation to ‘discourage’ things like obesity through greed or unhealthy diets, smoking and many other anti-personal, anti-social actions contrary to the well-being of the perpetrator and/or recipient of their action!
It’s strange that when the government first considered same-sex marriage, it decided to go against ‘public opinion’ and ‘attitudes at that time’ (and for centuries before) by aligning itself with a very small minority group (in order to look good on the world stage?), whilst now you wish to use ‘public opinion’ and ‘modern attitudes, which (according to dubious opinion polls) now largely agree with your sexually permissive ideology, to drag the church into accepting that ideology with such little evidence, as opposed to the ever-increasing evidence against it in other countries.
Protecting a minority group is a noble objective and needs to be done on occasions, but only when it does not impinge on the lives and freedoms of the majority. The Disability law gave fuller lives to those with disabilities, but apart from such things as ramps and the occasional bobbles in the pavements for blind folk, etc. this hasn’t affected the majority. Have you not read of the many repercussions to the majority that have occurred in other countries since they introduced same-sex marriage, long before David Cameron? Have you not heard of the many reasons for not encouraging homosexuality itself?
Have you not heard of the many repercussions of introducing further transgender freedom?
The slippery slope is quicker than you might think—and it could land Bible-believing Christians into a cold, dark jail cell as in Canada. And it’s little use promising us otherwise, judging by the outcome of legislation for the majority of ordinary folk and families in Canada and elsewhere:
See http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/watchman-on-the-wall/57356-canada-hopes-to-jail-people-who-stand-against-transgenderism
Finally I’d like to quote a good friend of mine who has just written to me of her experiences as a schoolgirl:
“We had no sex education when I was at school. Today children need it even less, but we all got on all right. I remember being in love with an older girl. (I was 11 – the other girl never knew of my “crush”). I am so glad nobody in my day had ever heard of homosexuality! What if I had been told I was a lesbian? It could have ruined my life. I believe homosexuality is an adolescent stage. Some never emerge from it, possibly because of trauma of various kinds. And then therapy would be very helpful. But the fact is the lgbt want to gain a wider membership, recruit more children to their perverted lifestyle. They think if they get them very young it will be like the Proverb ‘Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is grown he will not depart from it.’”
I beg you to reconsider your intended legislation.
(copies to Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop Gavin Ashenden, Rev’d David Robertson, Daily Mail and excerpts to the Prime Minister,)
Must have been quite a good week for you, though, providing more opportunities to adimadvert on homosexuality.
While sympathising with you being a victim of assault, I too would object to your use of the word ‘junkie’. What an uncharitable way to describe someone who may be suffering from an undiagnosed or untreated mental illness. Shame on you.
How judgemental of you! What gives you the right to determine whether someone was suffering from untreated mental illness?! I was the person who was there – and I was the person who was attacked. The term junkie is shorthand for someone who is addicted to drugs. You may prefer a more technical term – I just use the term that the people concerned use themselves. But I guess for you – what’s more important is the PC language, rather than the physical violence and the desperate situation of the attacker. I suggest you take your faux pas outrage and your self-righteous condescension elsewhere. Some of us have to live in the real world.
I said ‘may’ suffer. No, PC language is not important for me, but treating people from all walks of life with respect is.
They may also have many other conditions. Not for one minute do you live your life thinking about all the things that people ‘may’ have. Be honest, you were just using mental illness as a stick to beat me with. You had no idea about the person who attacked me – and you have very little idea about me- but you chose to make that judgement.
You may call me judgemental if you wish, just as I find much of what you say on this blog judgemental. You have your views; I have mine. I prefer to see the person, not the label.
Yes – thats true- one’s person opinion is anothers judgement! But once again you engage in your judgementalism – and you are very generous to yourself. You are one who sees the person, not the label…whilst the rest of us? The implied judgementalism is not pleasant. For what its worth – I prefer to see the person as well. But then thats not how you label me!
What David said.
I worked in Mental Health and am not stupid enough to think that those of them who self-identified as junkies cared whether we called them that too. And frankly, most junkies aren’t people with mental health problems, they’re people with drug problems and self-control problems.
As someone who worked in mental health you will surely be aware of the concept of self-stigma or internalised stigma, the process where by internalising negative beliefs, individuals or groups may experience feelings of shame, anger, hopelessness, or despair that keep them from seeking social support, employment, or treatment for their mental health conditions. They may even adopt the abusive terms used against them and not object to them. That does not excuse those who seek to be supportive from treating them with respect.
Your anecdotal evidence about the incidence of mental health problems in people with addictions is not bourne out by research evidence. Maybe you should be as careful about calling someone ‘stupid’ as calling them a junkie.
You really are talking nonsense.
Mike,
Good points. The minister is in a position of authority. It would have been interesting to know how they would have responded if that authority had been challenged through contradiction of her teaching by a church member.
What is just as bad or worse is it would have been heard by none congregants
In her view what was the point of baptism? A waste of everyone’s time; a reason to dress up to show off, as is everyone were going to a night club. ?
I think I’m correct that the Presbyterian ministers have to subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith, so the preaching should fall in line. Anglican Ministers had to agree to the 39 Articles of Faith.
Sometimes it is hard know to what a minister believes as opposed to what they don’t. They sometimes have pet avoidance as much as pet themes and causes.
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
Politics overruling science. I still take the view “gender dysmorphic” people have a mental illness and need help, but not rewriting their birth certificate and extreme surgery. They remind me of the people who think their limbs don’t belong to them and want to amputate them. Clearly a mental illness, yet the other is not? That is because limb dysmorphia is not a sexual politics issue.
Dominic, I refer you to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28470503, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11673-017-9784-y, http://www.thomas-n-ruth.com/addiction_and_recovery/self_medication_hypothesis.html, http://alcoholrehab.com/drug-addiction/self-medication-substance-abuse/, http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/addiction/theory-self-medication-and-addiction, etc, etc. Your experience may suggest other explanations and I accept that this is a complex area, however, I would ask you to accept that I was not saying that this is the only explanation for addictions, but it is a valid explanation and one I have experienced through ,y close connections with those who have experienced addictions. Sadly, there is also evidence that people who experience stigma because of mental health often experience it from the mental health services. I refer you to See Me for more in that aspect.
Wee Flea, I accept that I do not know you apart from your online presence, which is a very limited view of anyone, including me! Also, the brief comments we tend to make on blogs are not a good forum for teasing out these issues, which we both obviously feel strongly about. I’m sorry that you feel I wish to use this issue as a stick to beat you with. That is far from my intention. Of course I know nothing more about your encounter with the person who assaulted you than what you briefly said in your blog. I’m happy to accept that you did treat the person with respect and saw the person, not the label, but that information was not in your mention of the incident on the blog, merely your reference to being criticised for calling him or her a ‘junkie’.
It’s easy to be dismissive of someone who challenges us and if you felt dismissed in that way by me, I am truly sorry. I also feel dismissed by you when you say I seem only to be concerned about politically correct language, when you know nothing of my life time’s experience of living and working with those who experience exclusion, stigma and discrimination and how my heart hurts when I find apparent lack of compassion for them – please note I saw ‘apparent’!
Yes – basically I agree and thanks. But please be aware of making judgements based on ‘apparent’. To you ‘junkie’ is a perjorative demeaning term. To me it just describes someone who is addicted to heroin. The fact that they are a junkie is not their ultimate defining status which is that they are a human being made n the image of God. The sadness is that that image is marred and perverted by drugs.
Thank you. I’ll reserve my right to consider ‘junkie’ a pejorative term. It as thoughtless as calling someone a idiot or mental. I would encourage you as a pastor to consider how this may affect those who are afflicted. There are so many more ways this could have been said, especially by someone with as much facility with language! You could have said someone who was affected by substance abuse, someone who is addicted to heroin, etc, etc. Their addiction does not define who they are, nor should we define them in that narrow manner. I know a number of people who were addicted for a time because they could not access the mental health services they required, or because they were responding to some trauma in their lives. Now fully recovered, they tell tales of how the stigma and name calling they experienced wounded them and set their recovery back because they began to belief that this was all they were.
I’d be grateful if you would also take care of making judgements on how things appear from your perspective. You may not be lacking in compassion and understanding, but sadly, it comes over that way all too often in your online presence. You have a wide audience, a lot of influence and not all of your readers are as thoughtful as you are. With that comes a lot of responsibility not to engender discrimination, fear and hatred.
But that’s the trouble. You determine what words mean to you without taking account of what the speaker of those words has told you was the intent. And yes of course I consider how it affects those “who are afflicted”. I have worked with junkies for many years and they are the ones who use the term. But of course you have already predetermined that is because they are oppressed and do not really know what they are saying. The difference between the term junkie and “a person addicted to heroin” is semantic. I never said that their addiction defines who they are – it’s a description of what they are just now and why they attacked me. I know plenty people who suffer from mental health problems who do not then go on to become addicted to heroin because of those problems. Indeed it is far more likely to be the other way around. I too would be grateful if you would take care of making judgements on how things appear from your perspective – your last paragraph is as judgemental as anything that I have ever written. I have no intention of engendering discrimination, fear and hatred – and I find your statement that I do quite judgemental and offensive. Equally I have no intention of being bullied into silence by those who use their judgementalism to condemn all who do not agree with them.
I would be grateful if you would comment on what I actually say!
I did not say that people who have mental health problems necessarily of on to be addicted, only that some do.
I did not say that the people who experience addictions are oppressed – that was your word.
I did not say that you have an intention of engendering discrimination, fear and hatred, only that you should take care that you may do so.
It is is easy to dismiss any discussion of how we use language as mere semantics, as you have above. You are wise enough to appreciate that language is very powerful and should be used with care. Of course drug addicts you have met may have described themselves as ‘junkies’, but to collude with them in that self stigma is neither compassionate nor helpful. I refer you to the links in my reply to Dominic above for more guidance on self-stigma and how it operates.
As for ‘bullying you into silence’, I am not sure whether to laugh or to cry! Surely you do not right these posts in order for everyone to agree with you? Surely you welcome constructive criticism from committed, caring and knowledgeable people – or perhaps you have already judged me as having none of those qualities?
There is nothing more than I can say – if you are prepared to judge that those drug addicts who use the word ‘junkie’ are just self-stigma and abusing themselves then there is really nothing that you cannot twist to mean what you want. Of course I don’t write posts for everyone to agree with me – and welcome disagreement – but I also reserve the right to disagree with those who disagree! In your instance – after I had been assaulted by a drug addict (is that somehow a more ‘acceptable’ term to you?) your only concern was that I had used the word ‘junkie’. Nuff said…
There’s no such thing as addiction. If there was no-one would be able to give up such substances – and most do.
Surely you are not serious, Dominic?
I share Peter Hitchen’s opinion on this. If you go to his blog you can find the arguments laid out in full.
Addiction is a “compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance”. So says the dictionary. However, people manage, without extreme difficulty, to stop their drug taking (for instance), thus they were not addicted. if they had a compulisve need for it then they couldn’t have stopped taking it. Simples.
Too simple. Hitchen’s is somewhat eccentric and illogical here. You can be addicted to something and be delivered from that addiction by something greater. That does not mean that the addiction does not exist.
Agreed, wee flea. The ‘something greater’ can be acceptance, connection, improved livi.
ng circumstances, proper medical care for underlying causes and many other changes in one’s life
Wee Flea, I note that my reply posted on 9 Aug is still awaiting moderation. I can quite understand that you may be very busy, but as you accused me of bullying and mere semantics in your comment, I would be grateful for the public right of reply.
Wee Flea, once again you are criticising me for something I did not say or do. You said I showed no concern for you being assaulted, but my original post ran, ‘While sympathising with you as a victim of assault…’.
However, it is good to see that you are now using the expression ‘drug addict’ rather than ‘junkie’. It’s still pejorative, but less so. My work here is not entirely in vain.
And no, I don’t ‘judge’ people as being self stigmatising, any more than a doctor is judging a patient when she say, ‘You are suffering from X.’
“drug addict” (presuming you accept the notion of addiction) is a fact, not a pejorative. If you live in a world where we can’t speak the truth because it might upset someone then it isn’t a world where I (or I imagine, David) would wish to live. AND, we will not bow down before the tyranny of the speech police or the thought police.