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Pathetic.

Come on John, there's more to say than that. Be controversial, be humorous, be cynical, be flippant, be sarcastic, be ironic, be irreverent, be offended...



The Archbishop of Dublin is quoted as saying, "Have we really forgotten what Christmas is all about?"

Well, given his concern about the banning of an advertisement for the selling of goods, it would appear not.

Of course it's not just the Catholics, we're all at it. So maybe we should cooperate and run an ecumenical ad, "God, vacuum packed and shrink wrapped this christmas, buy one, get two free."

Happy Jack the Frosty Santamas

For God's sake, and ours, can we just keep him out of Christmas? (I don't mean the bishop!)

The law is the law. The Law bans religious advertising. This ad is religious. End of story.

PTL- It's only the end of the story if you don't care about forming good policy and have no values upon which you'd like it to be built. I value freedom. Freedom of speech, for one. On that value, the current law.... SUCKS.

The law is the law. The Law bans religious advertising. This ad is religious. End of story

I would imagine the situation will be somewhat different this time next year.

Over the coming months a new quasi-national religious station, Spirit Radio, (licensed by the BCI) will begin broadcasting. I have no doubt the ad will meet with their approval.

The station will use AM as well as FM (in major towns and cities). Both the Monaghan and old Athlone (formerly used by RTE) sites should put a good signal into NI:

i am in favour of the law banning religious advertising because i think it is right to protect people from some of the nutcase groups who might set up and try to exploit the public. think of the vulnerable people who are desperate for a cure or healing, and then they see an advert offering a cure for the return of money. it is better for everyone if we keep the ban on advertising religious groups. the republic also has a ban on advertising political groups. I agree with that too, for the same reason.

PTL, that is precisely the motivation for complete separation of church and state, and the foundation of a wholly secular society.

-H

Helipolitan not all believers are in favour of a religious state or giving the state a responsibility to enforce religion. True religion is always voluntary, never forced, and the primary citizenship of the true believer is not to any earthly province or kingdom. I am in favour of the separation of church and state if by this we mean that no single religion is given a role constitutionally. If you mean that schoolkids cant say the lord's prayer at assembly, shops can't play carols at Christmas, and local councils can't use a picture of of a crib in a Christmas card, then few people here will agree with you.

PTL, there is a problem, however. If you use the "Lord's Prayer" in assembly, you ARE conveying an endorsement of a peculiar religious proposition. Kids can say whatever prayers they want at school - by themselves. But then what of school nativity plays? There does come a point where we need to acknowledge that we have a culture that has been influenced by Christianity, but that doesn't mean we are pushing it.

I also think that shops can play whatever carols they want (I quite like carols, and I think that cr4p like "Santa Claus is coming to town" and "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer" are ghastly pap). Cribs on Christmas cards are cheesy anyway, but I can't say I have a particular problem with them, and the "Christ child" mythology strikes a chord across a wide range of cultures (which is after all why the Christians adopted it).

If we are going to have a properly free society, we need to limit the degree to which the state can be seen to be supporting particular sectarian views. But I accept that this can sometimes get ridiculous, and we shouldn't deny our heritage (Brian - any comments?).

-H

Helio PTL

From what I can see there are a whole range of problems with this Church/State thing, some big, some small, not least the fact that the christianity is so intertwined with the functions of the state that at times it's hard to tell where the divide is.

For my part I'm pretty much with the views expressed by PTL, and, I guess, you too Helio. I'm not a fan of the integration of Church and State, after a while it all gets too confusing.

Take for example the issues raised school assemblies, carol singing and so on. Are either of these worship? Hard to tell at times. Are they just traditions, if so why have God in them at all? Is it just about having an agreed, yet tame, myth to which most of society can assent, a kind of national story?

Seems to me that this leaves both the church confused as to what it is, and a secular society confused as to what to do with a state religion. So we get the banning of this and the banning of that and then anguish about the denial of free speech.

Of course here in NI we have the confusion not only of the state and christmas, but also of the church and politics and all that that has entailed.

Personally, as someone who does believe the 'Christ child myth', I'd go for full separation.

Maybe I could put it this way, those feet most certainly did not walk in England's green and pleasant land, and neither are we called to build our own version of Jerusalem.