Migrants in Germany cause more trouble

[Bat21]

.... Practicing Christianity is forbidden in Saudi, and Sharia law carries the death penalty for the crime.

It is without doubt religion is the root of all evil.

If I had my way practising ANY religion would carry the death penalty, there is no place for it in today's modern world.

All it seems to do is create disharmony, destruction and death.

 

[frank rabbets]

I'm with you Rob, we need young people in this country. Most of them are having a nightmare time and are obviously motivated, not just scrounging.

I was talking to someone the other day. He was blaming religion for all the bloodshed over the past century. I don't think so. Atheists killed a lot more people. Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Hitler killed hundreds of millions.

 

[frank rabbets]

BAT pull yourself together ...... for Gods sake.

 

[clivehorridge]

BAT pull yourself together ...... for Gods sake.

Which one Frank?

BAT's right, but conflict only stems from practicing extreme interpretation.

Christians have been as bad as ISIL historically, so none of us are squeaky clean. I don't take such a black and white view as BAT, but in principle we always drag our religions and beliefs into our human conflicts, "for God and country" and all that.

 

[Ben]

IMHO islam can't be compared to any other religion! I've done a lot of research on their beliefs and teachings and how they treat people in countries like Saudi and it's truly horrifying!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Shayne]

Religion is means of control - control means power - power means wealth , there are other methods other than religion Hitler , Mao , Stalin etc but its all just a means to an ends . Follow the money and you will find greed is the killer .

I fail to see why we "need young people" ? Is it because we have too many old people ? is that because we have an excellent health and social benefits system and laws preventing people from taking risks even for fun ensure people live longer . Increasing the pension age improves nothing it just means the benefits that should be paid to the old will instead be paid to the young because the opening created by retirement won't be available for a few more years to come .

 

[clivehorridge]

IMHO islam can't be compared to any other religion! I've done a lot of research on their beliefs and teachings and how they treat people in countries like Saudi and it's truly horrifying! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

True enough Ben, but it's ancient and as BAT said, it doesn't fit in the modern world.

But we shouldn't forget that hard-line Christianity when taken to its extremes isn't much fun either, especially as practiced in the middle ages...

 

[frank rabbets]

BAT's right in some areas, like using the correct torque on cylinder head bolts, but not by saying religion is the root of all evil. It may be the root of some evil but Atheism could be argued to be the root of some evil. Anyway what is evil ? If you have no conscience that might be hard to define. An atheists idea of evil could be different to a religious persons idea of evil.

Shayne we need young people because most of the aging people, and there are now more than ever in Europe, are approaching an age where they will not be able to look after themselves therefore by definition younger people are needed.

 

[Shayne]

So if we equalize the young old proportions where are we in 40 or 50 years time ?

 

[Bat21]

BAT's right in some areas, like using the correct torque on cylinder head bolts, but not by saying religion is the root of all evil.....

My humble apologies Frank.

What I should have said is religion is at the root cause of 99% of the worlds conflicts that cause so much pain and death. It is archaic and should be abolished/banned.

 

[frank rabbets]

Some people talk about religion like I would talk about a computer. I have no education in a computer so my comments would be based on very limited knowledge. If I had a religious education I would be talking more knowledgeably. In fact I went to a strictly religious school and found the teachings fascinating and make sense. What we have to understand is that a religious man is no more or less important than anyone else and on average does the same amount of harm and good. It's the human condition that is the problem. For the last 40 years I have been Agnostic having no idea about what happens when I die and not believing in any type of after life nor Atheism. I'll know when I get there if I arrive.

 

[frank rabbets]

Banning religion is a bit like banning gravity. It won't be very effective. Yes at present there is mostly religious conflict. Or is there? The name of religion is being used by extremists to force people to fight who probably do not want to. Can we relax the ban on religion and make Atheism illegal if that belief starts to cause a problem like it used to ?

 

[Dave_S]

My humble apologies Frank.

What I should have said is religion is at the root cause of 99% of the worlds conflicts that cause so much pain and death. It is archaic and should be abolished/banned.

Religion is the EXCUSE behind many conflicts. Personally I believe most of it is about money and power. Religion just gives this the sheen of high meaning. Its bollox of course...

Just my 2p...

 

[Rob Cowell]

So if we equalize the young old proportions where are we in 40 or 50 years time ?

You hope something extremely disruptive occurs, probably technological, to make living and therefore a reasonable pension cheaper, or you keep raising pensionable age to stop the cost of pensions rising. Importing young people means that without the disruption you can increase the pensionable age at a slower rate, or ideally not at all while you wait for that disruption to happen.

There must be a more recent infograpohic than this one, but this is quite current and illustrates what a burden pensions are on our spending.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8dY-3hzSftCMng5TFBkaFdSb3M/view

The ONS released new demographic statistics today.

http://visual.ons.gov.uk/most-affluent-man-now-outlives-the-average-woman-for-the-first-time/

In the last 15 years the average lifespan of men in the UK has gone from 72 to 79.1. Extrapolate that (assuming, linear regression) for your 40 or 50 years and most men will be living until they are 100. That may sound far fetched but start to look at the advances in medicine such as nanobots and it's much easier to be convinced. That is potentially a hugely disruptive medical technology, and it may be that a hugely disruptive economic technology doesn't appear until a few decades after that matures. We aren't dying quickly enough and that big pension circle in the welfare infographic will continue to grow. We need to raise more money through tax to pay for it. There is certainly an argument to make sure big business pays for more of that, but that seems to be a relatively unpalatable direction for any major political party.

So in the short to medium term we either we raise taxes on individuals or we get more people with the drive to create economic activity and grow revenue through taxation on that activity.

That's my simplistic view anyway.

 

[Chas]

what happens when I die

 

[chapel gate]

We certainly dont need an increase of population in this country, were over populated now.

One of the major flaws with how most of this planet is run is this ruthless pursuit of growth of all kinds, its not possible with finite resources and finite land mass. Were not the only species living on this planet and we would do well to remember that..

 

[Paddler Ed]

IMHO islam can't be compared to any other religion! I've done a lot of research on their beliefs and teachings and how they treat people in countries like Saudi and it's truly horrifying!

Have you ever stepped back and thought that perhaps the problem is not the religion, but in the case of Saudi, the rulers (the house of Saud)? And if that's the case, then that's no different to the British Monarchy when there was the Catholic/Protestant period...

I consider myself quite lucky that I know people from all over the world, and as said before talking to them increases the understanding. If you've been getting your information from the Q Society and Reclaim Australia etc, then I suspect it's going to be as skewed as that article you posted before. Go and visit a mosque, explain you want to understand the religion more and I'm sure you'd get a different picture.

True enough Ben, but it's ancient and as BAT said, it doesn't fit in the modern world.

But we shouldn't forget that hard-line Christianity when taken to its extremes isn't much fun either, especially as practiced in the middle ages...

Yep, look at some of the puritanical sects within Christianity such as Amish and Bruderhof; whilst some of those carry some aspects that are quite refreshing (some of the anti consumerisim), there are lots of bits that we as a society as a whole look upon with scorn and cynicism such as the treatment of women.

Shayne we need young people because most of the aging people, and there are now more than ever in Europe, are approaching an age where they will not be able to look after themselves therefore by definition younger people are needed.

You hope something extremely disruptive occurs, probably technological, to make living and therefore a reasonable pension cheaper, or you keep raising pensionable age to stop the cost of pensions rising. Importing young people means that without the disruption you can increase the pensionable age at a slower rate, or ideally not at all while you wait for that disruption to happen.

There must be a more recent infograpohic than this one, but this is quite current and illustrates what a burden pensions are on our spending.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8dY-3hzSftCMng5TFBkaFdSb3M/view

The ONS released new demographic statistics today.

http://visual.ons.gov.uk/most-affluent-man-now-outlives-the-average-woman-for-the-first-time/

In the last 15 years the average lifespan of men in the UK has gone from 72 to 79.1. Extrapolate that (assuming, linear regression) for your 40 or 50 years and most men will be living until they are 100. That may sound far fetched but start to look at the advances in medicine such as nanobots and it's much easier to be convinced. That is potentially a hugely disruptive medical technology, and it may be that a hugely disruptive economic technology doesn't appear until a few decades after that matures. We aren't dying quickly enough and that big pension circle in the welfare infographic will continue to grow. We need to raise more money through tax to pay for it. There is certainly an argument to make sure big business pays for more of that, but that seems to be a relatively unpalatable direction for any major political party.

So in the short to medium term we either we raise taxes on individuals or we get more people with the drive to create economic activity and grow revenue through taxation on that activity.

That's my simplistic view anyway.

We certainly dont need an increase of population in this country, were over populated now.

Some of this is going to be unsubstantiated, but I'm fairly certain it's accurate.

As Rob has said, the pension and aging demographic of much of the European and "Western" world (it also applies to China, Japan and Australian/NZ) has resulted in an ever increasing pension shortfall. In part this is due to the fact that children are inferior economic goods... as our incomes go up we consume less of them... hence why in many affluent countries the pattern is for 1, perhpas 2 children per family (so about the replacement rate if every one had 2 children) yet the population is aging to the extent that there are more retirees than those of a working age. Add in the fact that those who are now retired have often not saved enough for retirement, and there are all manner of shortfalls.

This, combined with longer lifespans and the associated increasing healthcare costs, means that we need more and more people working... however, with the global economy still in the dumps a bit, this is not going to help much to refreshing the bank accounts of the government and being able to pay for the services.

One of the major flaws with how most of this planet is run is this ruthless pursuit of growth of all kinds, its not possible with finite resources and finite land mass. Were not the only species living on this planet and we would do well to remember that..

And who said that 4x4ers can't be environmentalists?! Have a read of Herman E Daly, he's a bit of an extreme, but he is of the opinion that the only sustainable development is negative economic growth, negative population growth...

 

[Rob Cowell]

We certainly dont need an increase of population in this country, were over populated now.

One of the major flaws with how most of this planet is run is this ruthless pursuit of growth of all kinds, its not possible with finite resources and finite land mass. Were not the only species living on this planet and we would do well to remember that..

But we're not talking about growing a global population. We are talking about redistributing it. That could be physically or through some kind of shared welfare and taxation in one of those superstates we all fear. Economics likes equilibrium as much as physics.

 

[Shayne]

This thread has become a perfect example of why politics is a farce , what was the question again ?

 

[Paddler Ed]

This thread has become a perfect example of why politics is a farce , what was the question again ?

Or perhaps an example of why Politics is such a minefield; a political question cannot be considered in isolation, rather the whole scenario has to be considered...