I’m not a religious person myself but accept that there are a lot of religious people around. People believe and, in general, that is a good thing as most religions support the kind of lifestyle that we believe in. They believe that you should be good to each other, don’t steal and don’t harm any others. Not all of them of course but most of the religious among us follow those rules.
Religion has taken a bit of a kicking lately mainly due to government interference forcing their views on the population and overriding, selected, religious mandates. The safe ones of course. The same happened in Russia and many other socialist countries and religion thrived underground. Ironic really considering that underground is the others guys domain. This actually helps religion though as the harsher the situation the more people have to believe that there is more than this and that there must be something beyond what is life and this encourages more religion in a self fueling process. It is human nature.
Whether you are religious or not we tend to follow Christian rules anyway; Thou shalt not kill, etc. Most of us, even though we are not religious actually perform as though we are, we follow the main commandments and are generally decent and trustworthy people. The others, who do not, may still be classed as religious. Look at Tony Blair for example.
However, the point of this article is there was a court case recently where a green activist was sacked because he had been a key participant in a hunt prosecution. He was entitled to take his employers to court as the judge’s landmark ruling said his views on fox hunting should be placed on the same legal footing as religious beliefs. This is interesting because green issues don’t have any afterlife beliefs which I thought were required for religions nor do they actually advocate good things for people. Many green actions have a negative impact on humans and trample on their rights and beliefs. So it appears that simply having strong beliefs that are shared by a large enough group is enough to have those beliefs classed as a religion in the UK.
I am wondering whether our views on survival can therefore fall into the same category. We have strong beliefs and we are a large group, worldwide anyway. If so our beliefs can be classed as a religion then we can be entitled to, for example, own firearms which can be disassembled and stored so that when we need them we can access them. We can include restricted drugs and medicines.
Our beliefs are not any different from the greens. They believe something that is by no means certain. In fact their beliefs are being discredited daily and only because it benefits our politicians by increasing tax revenue are they pushing the agenda. Our beliefs are not being disproved, they are based on facts and calculated risks. They are not wrong just having uncertain dates. A bit like death. Few of us have the dates but we plan and prepare.
Perhaps we should set up another web site. The Church of Survivalism. I can be a Reverend, or maybe a Bishop, whatever sounds best. It will give me some of the respectability that was lost when I was called a Survival nutter. Contributions can be made to our new church on the donations web page. We accept card via the web, cash or cheques via mail. Please make cheque payments payable to Charles Andrew Stephen Harper, to save you a lot of writing just write CASH instead.
I thought Pagans were the most green and environmentally aware faith they worship the elements and mother earth. so far and they believe in an afterlife and reincarnation..
How about the Church of Preparedness or we could all become Mormons 🙂
I miss Tony Blair, but my aim is improving.
More seriously I treasure all life when possible, I choose only to kill animals for the pot or to reduce pests from becoming harmful to others. I would never hunt for pleasure as regardless of faith I believe it is immoral.
We have a lady here who has consistantly refused to stop her cats from decimating the song birds that nest here each year, her three cats take a terrible toll on greenfinches, chaffinches, yellowhammers, rare tree sparrows etc, She would not even put bells on the cats collars. Yet this same woman went ballistic when a local vixen eat one of her cats demanding action be taken to kill the vixen , but refused to see the similarity with her moggies destroying song birds.
FYI let us not forget that domestic pet cats are NOT native to the UK and the NSPB reckon tiddles kills over 7 million song birds a year.
Hey Reverend Skean the cheque is in the post.
> Whether you are religious or not we tend to follow Christian rules anyway
Above a certain age that is true. It’s because we were taught ‘Christian’ ethics in school as the ‘right’ way to behave, irrespective of whether we believed it was mandated from God or whether it was just a ‘fair’ way to behave.
For some time now religious education has been knobbled to the point where most of the youth of today don’t even know ‘Christian’ ethics as they weren’t taught them at school (or at home).
> I am wondering whether our views on survival can therefore fall into the same category
Somehow I don’t see this happening.
I’m not suggesting that the judge in question thought through the wider implications of his or her judgement but can you imagine what would happen if any and all “strongly held beliefs” were classified as religions?
What would change?
When my beliefs and the law conflict; it’s the law that wins. You can believe you should have a gun but if the law says you can’t; then you still can’t.
NR,
Agree with you there. I’m the same about life. Only take it when you have to and not if you don’t.
The issue with cats is that it is in their nature. So not a lot you can do there unless you decide that the cats lives is worth less than the birds. Forget the lady. Most people are hypocritical and blind to their failings especially around pets.
Skvez,
Religious views have amended several laws. Look at Sikhs and their knives. Pistols are actually legal in the UK. It’s just you and I would not qualify for Cat 5 firearm. It could make a difference.
Theres plenty of edible birds for after TSHTF, cats taste aweful I’m told
I have not knowingly had cat but quite a few years ago one our our take aways was prosecuted for serving cat and dog out with the pork and beef. Nobody noticed anything and they were caught with an annual inspection of the premises by the council for some reason. If it tasted awful then it would have been detected by the consumer. I have been told it is just like chicken. (Only because the Matrix can’t get taste right)
Had squirrel, carp, grass snake, rat, pigeon, snails, hedgehog etc when I was more into Bushcraft and Soldiering than I am today 🙂
Rev Skean – do you take confessions on Sundays?
NR,
Sounds like the makings of a survival test there.
Fred,
Of course my son. Have the tea and chocolate ready.