Negative - Lukewarm - Self Obsessed

Negative - Lukewarm – Self Obsessed

I don’t like to be negative but it is my imagination that in the UK there are lots of people who are living in a small bubble.

Isn't it great to be with passionate people? People who have vision, enthusiasm, Mission, concern for the big things?  Such people are attractive to be around, they draw like magnets they are not boring they are challenging, inspiring, and usually ‘life full’ and often fulfilled people. None of that is negative is it?

Yet around me I see lots of the alternative. Conversation, both in person and of FB is of the small talk kind. Latest dress, shoes, entertainment; usually fairly inconsequential, never going to change the world much less the small space where they dwell.  Often the pressure of life is the things that affect them personally, the things that they believe will bring them happiness.  Joy would not be something understood here.  Sadly the things they want are usually the ‘me’ kind I guess that is the spirit of the age ‘you are number one’!

The trouble is that this is not true; you are not number one, those things you aspire for you are really not important. The trouble also is that if you get them, hold them, usually they, like soap bubbles, will quickly leave you with just a wet palm. You will be left saying what is the point of it all? Why? Where? How? What is it for?  So sad!

It is quite interesting how much God does not like lukewarmness, listen to this from Revelation 3:16 So, because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of My mouth! In other words God does not want that stuff.  God likes passion!

The reality is that God comes to give ‘real life’ not boring, self-obsessed, lukewarm, negative life but real life. John 10:10 says this…  

What those who live just for the ‘me’ or are content with the lukewarm, the selfish life do not understand is that to really live, have life, we need to be followers, not only that but when we follow the Son we find that love, meaning, reason to live, purpose in life, lack of boredom, lack of he question ‘what is the point?’, is replaced by care and concern for others. We discover that love is expansive (as of course is Evil) in fact we tap in to it to receive,  for the very reason we are here, the love of God flamed out and it expanded to you and me. 

It’s very strange that parents often say I can love my child but how would I love another one if I had one, and that’s the funny thing love expands, where there is need of it there is more of it, especially for the followers.

Being loved is satisfying, purposeful, meaningful and joyful. I want life I guess, I want others to have it too, and when I observe those around me who opt for the ‘me’ life I am angry at the robbery I know they are about to experience. My observations are that they do experience it, it is such a cul-de-sac.  The only way is to turn around from dead ends; they are just that, a dead end! Turn around and follow the Son, he will allow you to participate in the Father’s purposes, and even empower you to see it happen. Why stay in such a self-obsessed, rut.

Adrian Hawkes

adrianhawkes.blogspot.com

w. 611

Edited by Gena Areola

19.07.13

Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist

I have thought about this a lot. It is one of those words that the English have borrowed from the German, but which in its usual dictionary explanation does not express all that the word implies. Some words are just like that, aren’t they?

The dictionary definition of the term is; “the spirit of the time and general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time”.  Well yes, but the thing is when you go into the background of the word from a German perspective, it has many layers to it.  This is perhaps why we don’t have a good feel of its translation or its common English usage. The word in German carries the idea of being in a fog, so the ‘spirit of the age’ is not recognised by you or me, because we are so influenced, affected, controlled by, engulfed by, our eyes covered by the fog of the spirit of the age that we do not know there is such a spirit nor can we see any alternative.  From a German perspective you can only assess zeitgeist in retrospect; looking back or, better translated, the ghost of the past age.  Then we can see what it was and know where they went wrong or how they could have done better.  Hind sight is a wonderful thing.

I often think it’s funny as politicians seek to correct history, and pardon this or that from the past, or say how the government was so wrong seventy or a hundred years ago and their party got it wrong then, let’s put it right.  As if we can put what we see now into history and make it different to what it was they saw and understood. I think that process is daft.

Why am I going on about this? Well one of the reasons is that I teach a class of senior students in our school and am talking them about entrepreneurs, and how to be one.  As I have talked with the class I am very aware of how often both in history and now, people cannot see certain things. Clever people like Albert Einstein, who said in 1932 there could never be atomic energy, or Thomas Watson the head of IBM said in 1943 that he could only see the need for about 5 computers in the world.

Even funnier to our mindset today was the president of the digital equipment corporation as late as 1977 said “there is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home!”  In 1927 H.M. Warner of Warner Brothers quipped “who the hell wants to hear an actor speak” as the possibility of ‘talking movies’ were coming on stream. David Sarnoff's associates, in response to his urging's for investment in the radio in the 1920 said of Radio “it has no commercial use and will not catch on”. Sir William Preece, Chief engineer of the British Post office said of the invention of the telephone: “Americans have need of it, but we do not we have plenty of messenger boys.”  Why did they say such things, is it zeitgeist?

I have often spoken to audiences about the problems Moses had with the children of Israel after they left Egypt. The thing is, if your next door neighbour is a slave, and your friend across the Road is a slave, and in fact everyone you know is a slave your vision of ‘freedom’ is a nonstarter. Zeitgeist has you; sadly you don’t want this ‘freedom’ thing what you want is more onions, leeks and cucumbers (The Bible, Numbers chapter 11 verses 4 to 6).  Can you blame them for the fog?

So are we suffering from zeitgeist now? I think we are, but how do we know? How do we break out? How do we change the future?

Cairine Reay Mackay Wilson was one of those people who broke zeitgeist, she wanted to become a senator in the Canadian parliament, the problem was that the zeitgeist of the time was that woman were counted as a non-person, therefore you could only have a person as a senator, so a woman could not do the job. From the point of view of the zeitgeist this was obvious.

Cairine did not accept the obvious and appealed to the UK Privy Council, Canada’s highest court. The ruling given changed the ‘nature’ of person-hood and Cairine became the first Canadian female senator.

So are we in the fog of our zeitgeist?  I think we probably are, and there are things we should see, things we could do, a better way to live, a better way to be, a different paradigm to be in.  What we need is to listen to the seers, and see what they see.

Maybe we need someone from the other side to come and tell us that there is a better way to live and be, and then we should listen to them.  Oh, He has already spoken.

W.844

Adrian Hawkes

www.adrianhawkes.blogspot.com

Edited by Robyn Heather

Sunday, 23 March 2014

Nutty Newspaper Nonsense

Nutty Newspaper Nonsense

I reached the ultimate in surprise this week when I was asked if I knew that black people are able to receive a free oyster (bus and tube pass) if they live in London.  Come on all my black friends if you did not know this – get one – problem is I do not know where from.

The young lady who was telling me this story went on to tell me that the person who had told her this great piece of news, when told, “No, that is not true”, looked at her with that knowing look that says “Oh, that’s what you think”.

It really is nutty nonsense from people who read certain types of newspapers that come out with this stuff, and then when you tell them no it’s not true, prefer to believe their fairy tale rubbish rather than any real facts.

Some of the other apocryphal stories I have been told are as follows, usually by wide eyed people who when, like my friend who told me the story of free travel, are told “no, it’s nonsense”, look at you as though you are the stupid one.  Here are just some of them.  ‘Did you know that they now give foreigner’s free cars’ ‘It’s terrible that you can only get a house on the council if you are not English’  ‘Did you know that immigrants get £120.00 per week unemployment allowances’ and so on, I have heard lots more, I must admit that I had not heard the one about black people getting free travel until this weekend.  Nutty stuff or what?

Here are some of the real facts, problem is I guess, is that if you read certain newspapers so called, then even though you tell me you don’t believe everything you read in the press you will nevertheless not take note of these facts because it does not fit with what you want to think for whatever strange reason or ‘because you read it in the press’! But anyway:

A single adult asylum seeker receives £36.62 a week – that’s just £5.23 per day

A single unemployed UK citizen of the same age would receive £67.50, plus other benefits they may be able to receive.

Asylum seekers cannot claim mainstream benefits.

Asylum seekers do not qualify for council housing tenancy or housing benefit.

When questioned about what percentage of immigrants that go to make up the UK; people had wildly wrong numbers, usually way, way too high. In fact out of the 15.4 million refugees in the world currently, due to war, bad government and the like in 2012 the UK only had 193,510 of these people in the countries that go to make up the union and that represents just 0.33% of our population, did you know that? 

In 2011 UK did not feature in even the top ten of receiving countries for refugees, in fact the country that had the most in 2011 was surprisingly Pakistan . Jordan with its own population of around 6 million hosted something like 550,000. How does that compare with UK population of 70 million or thereabouts and the figure above?

Now my big problem concerning these nutty things, wrong as they are is not so much the people who put them into my face as though this was the truth about life and the universes, which is bad enough that people think these things, and fail to check it out.  I guess it’s worse that papers produce stories with very little fact around them, that beguiles such gullible people, and stirs them up, but the most frustrating thing of all is when government responses to this nonsense popularise by trying to pass legislation that says such things as we won’t allow asylum seekers or refugees to get driving licences in this country, we won’t allow them to get any health care for free, and of course we won’t allow them to work. They already cannot.

 So then we put in that law of unforeseen consequences, what are desperate people to do, who have run away from danger in their own countries, have tried to feed their family’s or themselves.  What should they now do, steal?  Become criminals?  Come on let us be reasonable and look again at those facts and figures.

*Most up to date good facts and figures can be obtained from: http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk

Adrian Hawkes

For:www.adrianhawkes.blogspot.com

Edited by Gena Areola

W.740

28^th October 2013

Pick and Mix

Pick and Mix

Follower of Jesus

I am slightly puzzled by various people I meet up with of late, and some I hear speaking publically, who seem to want to stress to me that they are ‘people of faith’, that they ‘love God’, that they ‘are Christians’ or that they ‘are followers of Jesus’.  I suppose some of those statements could be understandable, but ‘follower of Jesus’, seems a bit harder for me to swallow.

Is it the Jesus who says ‘do whatever you like as I don’t mind’? I don’t know that one.  Is it the Jesus who says ‘whatever values you think fit you, that’s ok, as long as you say you are following me, that’s fine’?  I don’t know him either.  Is it the one who says ‘we are all going in the same direction and it does not matter what you believe’? I've never met him.

You see the Jesus I follow says ‘I am the way’. He says ‘take up your cross and follow me’. He says ‘if you love me then keep my commandments’. He is the one who says of some, especially those with power, and especially the religious; ‘Don’t expect that if they have hated me that they won't hate you because they will’.

We love the pick and mix that our culture wants to persuade us is the norm, a bit like the old Woolworths sweet model; ‘I would like to choose this but exclude that’.  It seems ok when we are choosing sweets, so why not when we say we are choosing to follow Jesus? ‘Oh I am happy to follow you down that path Jesus, but you want me to follow you down the next one too? Sorry I don’t like that direction so we will connect later’.  Is that how it works?

I don’t think so.  Becoming a follower of Jesus requires repentance first of all, and that word suggests a turnaround of direction.  In other words we go in a new direction, the Jesus direction if you will; and this new direction is very contrary to much of the world we live in.  It has a whole new set of values to start with, such as ‘love your enemies’ and ‘do good to those who use you badly’.  There are other things that give us problems too in this following, such as ‘deny yourself’.

 Oh dear, I thought my happiness and what I want, my emotions, my feelings, my particular leanings or desires, i.e. ME, was the most important thing in the world.  Well actually, following Jesus includes that difficult part of [dying to self and living to Him]. Oh dear, this pick and mix is such a problem, and this ‘I am a follower of Jesus’ is such a problem too.

 Let’s be honest, I like the idea of following Jesus, but not giving up on my wants, my personal desires, what I think is best for me, my choices; that’s a bit hard, maybe I will give it a miss and be a bit more honest in future and not say I am one of those people, maybe I will just say I like them but am not ‘following’.  A bit like some of those people right at the start 2,000 years ago; this is what happened then.

Acts 5:13 But even though people admired them a lot, outsiders were wary about joining them. On the other hand, those who put their trust in the Master were added right and left, men and women both.

Perhaps those admirers where just a bit more honest, what do you think?

Adrian Hawkes

For adrianhawkes.blogspot.com

12^th January 2014

Edited by:

w.606

Yes or No?

YES OR NO?

Our sound bite age is impatient with answers that take more than two minutes.  We want it simple and we want it quick and we want it to be correct and all encompassing.  Our culture may be in that ‘want’ position, but it’s unrealistic, unhelpful, untruthful, unfulfilling and just does not work.

I am reminded of the story of the old farmer, with a horse and cart riding through the country lanes with his dog by his side and a load of hay on the back.  A sports car came around a bed far too fast and crashed into the old farmer causing considerable damage an loss.  Eventually the farmer and the driver had their day in court and of course the farmer was trying to get compensation for his loss; on the other side the defence for the insurance company were trying to settle for as little as possible.

The lawyer defending the insurance company against the farmers claim had a last chance to cross examine the farmer in the witness box and he started by saying, now please sir please just answer my question with a yes or no answer, it very simple, did you or did you not when questions by the police officer at the scene of the crime answer the constables question, when he asked you are you all right, yes thank you I am fine. The farmer did not want to answer yes or know and began “well my Lord it was like this” he got no further as the lawyer interrupted with, now please just answer yes or no! Again the farmer tried,  ­­­I was lying in” again the lawyer stopped him, please sir I have already said a yes or no answer. The farmer tried a third time “when my horse” again the lawyer interrupted and said, please sir what is it that you don’t understand about yes or no?

Fortunately at this point the judge intervened and stopped the defence lawyer and said, I know you want a simple answer, but I am going to rule that we let the farmer answer the question in his own way. So please do not interrupt him again, we will hear what he has to say.

The Farmer thanked the judge and proceeded with his story “when the car came round the bend very fast it hit my horse and cart, the horse was knocked to the ground, my dog was flung over the hedge on one side of the road and the impact through me over the hedge on the other side of the Road.

I was lying in a ditch groaning with pain when the police quickly arrived.  Being in a farming community they looked at my poor horse lying on the ground and said this horse is in great pain and defiantly cannot be helped, as I say being in a country area the police are used to animal problems and one of them went back to the car and brought out a gun and then I heard them say this animal is really injured we need to put it out of it misery, and they shot my horse.

They then found my little dog who was whimpering in the ditch the other side of the Road from me and I heard them say again this dog is so badly hurt we need to put it out of it misery and they then shot my dog.

Finally the policeman carrying the gun found me in my ditch and looking at me with his gun in his hand he asked are you all right to witch I replied I am fine thank you”!!!

So what am I going on about, I have just watched on of those question type programmes on TV with all its discussions, trying to track the big issues of the day, but expecting people to give good summaries of complex issues in sound bite answers and reach helpful conclusions?

They never do because the sound bite, yes no answer does not really give us the depth and breadth of the understanding that often these questions need.  So what do you want, the easy yes or no, or something that is more meaty, accurate and really addresses the issue.

Adrian Hawkes

For adrianhawkes.blogspot.com

Edited By Gena Muoria

W. 721

24^th February 2013

Report from Assist News Service (1)

ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 609, Lake Forest, CA 92609-0609 USA  Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: assistnews@aol.com Wednesday, December 12, 2012 London Calling How the action of an Australian Prime Minister so angered us that my wife and I started  a ministry to Asylum Seekers By Adrian Hawkes Special to ASSIST News Service LONDON, UK (ANS) -- I had been pastoring a church in North London, when my wife Pauline and myself were shocked as we began to discover the plight of Asylum Seekers who were flooding into London from war zones like Sri Lanka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Iraqi, Congo, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, to name just a few. These were men, women and children who had escaped the violence of their homelands to make the long and dangerous journey to the British capital.                                                                                                                                                         Iraqi Asylum Seekers in London Pauline and I moved to North London in 1974, after ministering in a church in Middlesbrough, a  large town situated on the south bank of the River Tees in north east England. While there, we had also had taken up the responsibility of leading two local church communities in the area. Now settled in London, and through a long series of events, we had taken the local authorities training course and began to foster children on the council's behalf. After many years of doing this, and getting somewhat older, we decided bringing up teenagers should be for others. Refugees packed onboard the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa after being refused permission to enter Australia Then one night in  August 2001, while watching the news on BBC TV, we were horrified to see a story that a Norwegian freighter had picked up a group of would be refugees to Australia and they were caught in sweltering temperatures at Christmas Island and some were injured and I believe others  died in the incident. The John Howard Government of Australia had refused permission for the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa, carrying 438 rescued refugees, predominantly Hazaras of Afghanistan from a distressed fishing vessel in international waters, to enter Australian waters. This triggered an Australian political controversy in the lead up to a federal election, and a diplomatic dispute between Australia and Norway. When the Tampa entered Australian water, the Prime Minister John Howard, who refused to let the  Norwegian freighter into his country ordered the ship be boarded by Australian special forces. This brought censure from the government of Norway who said the Australian Government failed to meet obligations to distressed mariners under international law at the United Nations. Within a few days the government introduced the Border Protection Bill into the House of Representatives saying that it would confirm Australian sovereignty to "determine who will enter and reside in Australia". The government introduced the so-called "Pacific Solution", whereby the asylum seekers were taken to Nauru where their refugee status was considered, rather than in Australia. When the report ended, I had to protect the TV from being attacked by Pauline, who was by now boiling with anger, and I explained that the TV was "not guilty" and the reporter was just explaining the facts of the story. She then said, "I will go to Australia then and punch that man." After she calmed down, I told her that there were "loads of refugees coming to the UK because of wars in their countries; so why should we not try and help them?" Pauline agreed to ring the local authority and talk to them about this, especially as we were quite well known to Social Services having fostered for them and led their foster team for many years. Pauline makes a plea for help I was surprised, though, when listening in to Pauline's phone conversation, as I heard a man at the other end say, "Yes, I am the manager of the authorities' asylum service, is that Pauline I am talking to?" It turned out that Pauline had worked on training other foster parents for the department with this man who had now been promoted to manager of this service. I heard him also say, "If you want to help in this area, tell us how you will do it and we will fund you. We will have you on board tomorrow." Wow, what a response, and that started us our incredible journey. Following the telephone conversation, we put together a program to help Asylum Seekers. It involved housing, support and care, and just being there for especially the young people. So we set up a company called Phoenix Community Care. The name came about after a man I did not know came to me at a conference and said, "I am calling you Phoenix, because you are about to lose everything, but God will restore it many fold." Hence the name Phoenix. He was right. I did lose everything but God restored it back to us, but that's another story. My youngest daughter donated her house to the work and moved out.  We started off with our first client, a young Muslim girl from Congo, who had been Another group, Women for Refugee Women, supports Women Asylum Seekers Together London, a self-help group of women who have sought asylum in the UK raped and frightened and was looking for help. Pauline collected her from Social Services and placed her in the house, which we had given a "wow factor" by furnishing and decorating it as  we wanted it to be really special for our shell-shocked clients. This young girl went into the first room and climbed into bed without even taking off even her outdoor coat and dropped off to sleep and did not wake up for a couple of days. Pauline, having finished the "I'm a professional placement manager" part, drove around the corner and phoned me. She wept as she said, "Get more houses. There is a great need here." The work has continued to this day, and you can find out more by going to our website which is: http://www.phoenixcommunity.org. I will be telling more stories in the week's ahead and I ask you to pray for us as we bring the love of God to these many needy people who have seen so much hate and violence in their lives. Adrian Hawkes is married -- Dan Wooding was best man at his wedding -- with three children, 10 Grandchildren and two Great Grandchildren. He is still part of the Rainbow Church North London which he used to lead and he also works with Sri Lankan churches in France, Switzerland, Norway, Canada and Sri Lanka. as well as a church in Norway. He helped to form Phoenix Community Care Ltd, which looks after some 30+ unaccompanied minors, and  vulnerable adults in housing in North London; alongside his wife Pauline, he established PCC Foster Care agency and recently launched London Training Consortium Ltd., which trains refugees and asylum seekers with ESOL, IT, and Literacy. He has also written various books including: "Leadership and.," "Attracting Training: Releasing Youth," "The Jacob Generation," "HELLO is that you God?", "Culture Clash," and his latest, but first, fiction book, "ICEJACKED. "He can be contacted by e-mail at:adrianhawkes@phoenixcommunity.co.uk  ** You may republish this story with proper attribution. Send this story to a friend.   Share

If this story has been forwarded to you, click here for your own subscription to Assist News.
If you no longer wish to receive Assist News via e-mail, click here to unsubscribe.

---

ASSIST News Service is Sponsored By

                                                                           

Sex

Sex

Sex and the Robbery that takes place in our Culture

How to write this? It’s not an easy one; realising as I write that to say what I believe to be going on, in terms of robbery, will be both counter cultural and also put the backs up of those who think themselves to be ‘scientifically superior’ to other mortals.

Let  me start by saying that what is being taught educationally, and absorbed without too much question by the general population, perhaps even unknowingly absorbed, helps us to act in such a way that we are robbed.

What am I talking about? Well educationally, there is a strong push that would have us believe that we are ‘just an animal’ and when we take that on board, it becomes ‘normal’ to act like one and therefore robbery number one takes place.  We are robbed of what should really be human sexuality and its richness, and taught to settle for something a lot less valuable, and the robbery does not end there.

Another line that we are sold educationally is that we are all just part of ‘the great machine’ and therefore all sexual acts are really just the machine in process. It makes you wonder why we should take any responsibilities for any action doesn't it.  It is just the brain firing neurons that gives us the reactions; ‘ultimately no meaning’, ‘just part of the machine’, ‘luck’, ‘the accident of nature’, ’somewhat of a bad joke’, or, as they say, just an add-on of the ‘goldilocks  theory’. Again serious robbery takes place if your sexuality is only understood like this, even if you have not thought it through, but are subconsciously acting as if this were the case.

Within our current culture it is a trend to think that sex is fun, (which it is of course), and therefore does not need to be taken seriously. It encourages the belief that ‘if I have lots of one night stands and take precautions then that should be fine’.  Robbery is taking place at this point, and the whole of sexuality has been devalued, you’re robbed.

In saying that it does not take into account all the STDs that are on the increase, and for females, there are even some that do not seem to have very clear symptoms yet could cause infertility and heartache up the road.  Yes we do know that these STDs are there, and if we look we know that they are on the increase in our society, yet are we taking this seriously? The statistics suggest that we are not! Robbed again! This is probably, because we just do not take note.

So are we on the right track? Is sex just an animalistic or mechanical function... one that does not really matter? Or are we, by acting in accordance with our cultural leanings ‘everyone is doing it’, being seriously robbed?

My thesis is this.  Sex is for marriage, and it should be fun! When it takes place outside of marriage, and in terms of the mechanical or animalistic ‘fun’ approach for a night out then all sorts of other things are taking place. Never mind the risk of STDs (according to the statistics which I quote below).  What happens is quite strange.  First of all there is the creation of what I call ‘brain DVD’s’ which have the power to impinge on future sexual relationships; often detrimentally.

Then there is the real robbery, or what I call the terrible devaluation of sexual relationships.  Sex, you see, is much, much more than a physical act.  Interestingly, Biblical scripture likens the act to the relationship that is created between Christ and the Church, and pushes it up to this high level. In another part of scripture it talks about our physical bodies being linked into Christ. Why would we then like to link that to a prostitute, male or female?

1 Corinthians 6:15
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

 I hope that what you can see is that the level of sexual relationships is being ratcheted up.   It’s not simply a physical act, it’s not simply a mechanical act, and it’s not simply an animalistic act.  Within the act is a high level mystery, it has eternal symmetry, and it has clever typology built into it. There is spirituality here that, when sex is treated lightly robbery is taking place. Is it possible is that sex has a soul element to it?

My observation is that when used correctly, lovingly and of course with imagination and fun, sex in permanent, committed relationships has the ability to draw a couple together in stronger bonds of understanding and development. It goes beyond the physical act to a soul connection which can be much more satisfying and exciting. When used wrongly, I note that what frequently happens is that this act causes division, and often hatred in those who use it that way.  Robbed!

So I am probably not being very culturally correct or even politically correct, but what do you think, is robbery taking place? Are you being robbed?  If so, there is a better protection. There is a better way of believing, there is a better value system, and there is a better way.

 ..................................................................................................................................................................

*1. Goldilocks Theory of the Universe.

The Goldilocks principle states that something must fall within certain margins, as opposed to reaching extremes. When the effects of the principle are observed, it is known as the Goldilocks effect.

The thesis is this: the Universe as we know it shows a multitude of features that makes it ideal for life. As such is  mentioned the structure of atoms and molecules; the force of gravity, which is neither too great nor too small; the quantities of vital elements like oxygen and carbon, which are found in exactly the right amounts; the ready combination of oxygen and hydrogen to make water with its unique properties, and several others. It looks, almost as if the Universe had been especially designed for life. At this point there should be an interruption to ask if that was not then the logical assumption to make. Perhaps it had indeed been designed? The reply from the clever scientists though is: “Ah, no,” “You cannot allow the idea of a Designer into your thinking, because that is unscientific. Also, it merely moves the problem of the Universe back a stage. After all, who designed the Designer?”

*2 STD statistics from Avert

. Over the past decade there has been a substantial increase in diagnoses of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the UK, particularly among young people. Since 1999 the number of annual cases of chlamydia has more than doubled. In 2008 there were 123,018 new diagnoses of chlamydia in GUM (genitourinary medicine) clinics – a record number. Chlamydia can have serious side effects, one of which is Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID), which can lead to infertility in women. Chlamydia can have no symptoms and therefore many people do not come forward for testing, even though the infection can be easily diagnosed and effectively treated. Cases of gonorrhea rose steadily from 1999 the number of diagnoses of syphilis has risen substantially in the past decade in the UK. In 2008 there were 11 times the number of primary and secondary diagnoses in GUM clinics, than 1999. This rise has been attributed to a number of local outbreaks, the largest of which was in London between 2001 and 2004.¹⁰ During 2008, 7,220 people were diagnosed with HIV in the UK.¹¹ Although this represents a decline from the previous three years, the number of new diagnoses has more than doubled since 1999. Between 2005 and 2006 the largest increases in new diagnoses of genital herpes were among men aged 35-44 (15%) and 45-64 (18%) and among women aged 16-19 (16%) and 20-24 (11%).⁷ London had the highest rates of diagnoses per 100,000 population, followed by the North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber. In 2008 a record number of people (28,957) were diagnosed with genital herpes in GUM clinics in the UK.⁸ Just over 60 percent of these diagnoses were among women. Source: http://www.avert.org/std-statistics-uk.htm

Adrian Hawkes

www.adrianhawkes.blogspot.com

w. 1386

Edited by: Robyn 09/12/13