Archive for the ‘Religion & Politics’ Category

The first referendum of last academic year resolved to give us freedom of speech on campus.

The second referendum banned it.

That amused me. Basically we had one motion protecting freedom of speech after the trouble betwen J-Soc and the PSG. Then we had another motion in the referedum after about descrimination but it also covered religion and suggested that if anyone felt offended, there was a problem.

Now in the first referendum of this year there is a proposed motion “Do you want greater Freedom of Speech on campus?” Anyone else ever feel like we’re going round in circles?

Despite how jaded I have become by the democratic processes of the union I have actually ended up engaging with one of them.

With the referendum coming up today was the deadline for submitting motions and so I have proposed one, seconded by Kieran in an attempt to solve the problems with The Old Bar.

We have another week to submit amendments before things start moving forward. After that it goes to Union Council, who will probably reject it, then we can attempt to force it through with a petition if we wish.

Revive The Old Bar

This Union notes…

• LUU has over 30,000 members
• LUU’s membership is wide and diverse
• LUU provides a number of bars in order to cater for the social needs of it’s members

This Union believes…

• LUU should provide for the social needs of all it’s members
• Many of LUU’s members enjoy a quiet drink in a relaxed atmosphere
• The Old Bar has now become synonymous with The Terrace in providing a noisier atmosphere

This Union resolves…

• To reduce noise levels from music and plasma screens in The Old Bar
• To encourage sound from the plasma screens in The Old Bar to be turned off whenever possible

Now I just need to figure out how this works into my overall plan for world domination.

Ok, don’t get me wrong, I don’t support the introduction of ID cards. I know the reasons against ID cards, I agree with them and I don’t need you to list them for me. But all this overkill paranoia about them is forcing me to play devil’s advocate. Consider this…

• We already have an identity document system, it’s called a passport. Like an ID card it costs you to get one, like an ID card you need one to open a bank account and like an ID card you are in trouble if it falls into the hands of a criminal.
• ID cards aren’t some crazy system the government has dreamed up to invade our privacy, lots of countries including many European nations already have them – Spain, Belgium, France and Italy.
• It’s not even the first time they have been introduced in the UK, we have had them twice before.
• The act of parliament to introduce ID cards has already been passed so it’s too late to stop them there.
• Who cares if someone gets their hands on your personal details – they’ve already got them off that missing CD anyway 😛

Is holding “ladies’ nights” at nightclubs descrimation? Apparently so. There is a lawsuit going on in the United States (ha, like I even needed to specify that) where someone has suited several New York nightclubs because he feels descriminated against by the discount entry and drinks offered to women.

It’s an interesting situation as when you look at it, it is descrimination. It’s hard to defend against that. But are their practical real-world limits to removing descrimination?

Earlier today A-Soc held a support rally for the British teacher Gillian Gibbons. We had quite a decent turn out in that people actually turned up which is always a victory :D. While we were only around for an hour we got quite a bit of interest and got someone new interested in the society so all in all it was a rather successful event. Go A-Soc!

An important aspect of democracy and voting is that my vote is private. Anyway, here is how I voted…

• Motion 1 – plastic bags. I voted no. Paper bags are rubbish. We already pay for our plastic bags so people use them responsibly anyway. Plastic bags can be made bio-degradable. From what I have heard from union insiders, the union simply don’t want to foot that bill.
• Motion 2 – Jack Straw. I voted yes. His honorary life membership was removed because of a personal disagreement with his politics. Personal disagreement? We’re a union of 30,000 students, how can we have a personal disagreement? Stop being so petite and give him is life membership back.
• Motion 3 – 99p sandwiches. I voted no. Face facts, a 99p sandwich isn’t going to be a very good sandwich.
• Motion 4 – Nestle boycott. I voted no. For many, many reasons. Read them on Facebook. As a quick summary, we’re old enough to make our own decisions we don’t need the union dictating to us. It’s hypocritical as we sell Coca-Cola products and we’re not even preventing Nestle products from being sold on campus so it’s pointless as well.

As I previously mentioned, I went down to the Christian Union’s House Party this weekend. It was at Quinta Hall in Shropshire by the Welsh border. Having been out for my birthday on Friday I got up at the far too early time of 6am so that we could head down Saturday morning. We made it about 11:30 just in time to miss the morning meeting and get straight on with lunch.

We got there and walked into the hall to try and find someone. Wandering through a few corridors it really reminded me of the mansion in Resident Evil. Nobody around, classic old stylings and so quiet your footsteps were the only sound you could hear. Spooky. Luckily we eventually found someone who informed us C.U. were in a different building.

That afternoon was seminars, I choose to go to “Science vs. The Bible (Or not…)” which was delivered by Anna and Luke. I’ll talk more about that later but it was pretty interesting. Afterwards me and Michelle walked into the village of Quinta which contains a shop and a pub (and not much else!). So we bought some stuff and had a few drinks in the pub. Finally that evening there was a Christianity Explorered talk on the holy spirit by Carl Gibson.

The previously mentioned seminar brought up some interesting opinions. Naturally it turned to evolution where Anna tried to encompass all views so not to exclude anybody but the problem is, that some people just have really stupid views. How can you believe in microevolution and not macroevolution? They are the same thing! Perhaps we just need better education, maybe they think they are actually different.

Sunday consisted of a main meeting in the morning which was the concluding series of talks on the book of Jonah by Morris who was the weekend’s guest speaker as it were. There was prayer and worship also. It was interesting as with all the evangelism and debating I see through my official capacity, it’s easy to forget that sometimes the C.U. just spend some quality time worshipping King Jesus (heh, some of the lyrics were so cheesy I had to stop myself from laughing).

All in all it was a decent weekend. It was a bit of a drive but through some beautiful countryside, there were some interesting talks, I got to spend some time with Michelle and meet some new people. Cool stuff.

It’s referendum time again. Last year was great. The first round of referendum’s gave us freedom of speech. The second round banned it. So what’s on the plate this year…

• Should the union stock more 99p sandwiches? Exciting!
• Increasing representation – basically, they want more people to vote. What happens if this gets rejected? Will only certain people be allowed to cast their ballot?
• Should Jack Straw’s life membership be reinstated? Who cares? How is it life membership if it only lasted so long?
• Plastic bags, not paper bags – I’ll give them this one, this is actually a useful motion.

Exciting so far huh? But this time we actually have one interesting motion. Hard to believe I know, but true (depending on your outlook).

The item of interest is motion 4 “Nestle Boycott.” Basically, the Nestle Boycott needs to be renewed or the union will once again begin stocking Nestle products. Huzzah! It’s important we stop boycotting Nestle. Why? Because we’re not children. I’m a third year undergraduate at a Russell group university. I am quite capable of making up my own mind as to whether I would like to boycott Nestle or whether I would in fact like to buy their products.

We don’t even stock Nestle baby milk! It’s not even like we are boycotting the product that is (claimed to be) causing problems in the third world, they are completely different arms of the company we are dealing with here. At the moment it’s not even explained why we are boycotting Nestle. Granted the motion resolves to put up posters telling students why there is a boycott but I’m sure the last motion to boycott Nestle did too and where are those posters? Why not put the posters up and still stock Nestle products? We’re all educated adults, we can make up our own minds.

Having failed to find ABC1 when flicking through the cable channels last night I stumbled across God TV (aka The God Channel). It’s a Christian channel which as far as I can tell consists mainly of televangelist style preaching. What kind of generic sterotypical event would you then expect to be on such a channel? Pledge drive of course. What did I find? Pledge drive of course :p.

I watched it last night for about half an hour which had two different people giving speaches, mostly talking about how you need to “sow a seed” because everything you need is right here on Earth already for the taking. So you shouldn’t pray to God for a need – you should pray for a seed. Thus explaining why you need to donate to God TV.

Apparently this isn’t the normal schedule though. It’s because they are currently doing Missions Week in which they raise the $12 million they need to keep running over the next year. However they seem to be a little confused as their Missions “Week” lasts 12 days. Also these 12 days ended several days ago. What they are currently broadcasting is the hightlights of Missions Week. It will be interesting to see what they are broadcasting at 3am next weekend.

The Scottish National Party have recently outlined plans or a referendum on independence. You can read the news report on BBC News.

Alex Salmond talked about the Scottish people needing to work out what kind of a country they want to be. But of course – they aren’t a country! You’re not. You’re a region of the UK. Just like England.

To be honest, I don’t see what the case is for breaking up the UK, which is what we are talking about here. Maybe there is a good case, if so please outline it to me. But at the moment it just seems we have nothing to gain and a lot to lose.

It’s not like the UK is the biggest country in the world. Making it a little bit smaller isn’t going to help that. How about things like the United Nations? Presumably we would have seperate representation then and presumably the U.K. would remain on the U.N. Security Council whereas Scotland would not. How would things like advertising work if Scotland changed their VAT rate? How will border control work? Policing? These are mostly small problems. But there would be millions of them to solve.

I’d be interested to see what everyone else thinks of such plans.