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Hellfire here I am again putting up another blog entry of a religious nature in Holy Week. Much more of this and I'll have to apply to Radio 4 for a ten minute session on their God Spot. Or even put in to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury given that belief in God and what Christ preached doesn't seem to be a necessary skill on the CV for that job any more.
OK then, time for me to put on on the dog collar and don't be sparing when ladling out on the brimstone ...
OK then, time for me to put on on the dog collar and don't be sparing when ladling out on the brimstone ...
Now I can't imagine why anyone lying ill in a hospital bed would ever want to wake to find one of the chaps I depict above lurking waiting to tick ther box and collect your soul for the cause. But equally I would be the last to deny anyone in the bed next to me in my ward any spiritual counsel they would wish to receive at a time of being confronted with their own mortality and physical fragility, or that of others around them. And I know a little of that for not only have I spent an anxious week myself lying in such a bed wondering if medication will work or whether it will fail - and how much will have to be chopped off if it does fail , but I have watched my father die in a bed in a stinking side ward with bins of surgical waste overflowing unemptied for over a week.
So as a non-believer you can see that I was less than impressed to find a pressure group that proclaims itself to stand up for the rights of non-believers in society has been able to calculate by extrapolation from evidence it acquired that a National Health Service "requirement" imposed by the government under one of its bloody silly league oriented targets which requires ....
I'm sorry but in my book if you, as a patient, feel the need of spiritual counsel at a time of need then you should be receiving it courtesy of the funds that you and your fellow believers stumped up to equip your religious organisation so that it can maintain those who spread the good word, those who fight the good fight and those who care for the spiritual needs of your flock.
That thirty two million would be better spent on people to clean the floors to ensure you do not end up more sickly than when you went into the place.
Once again, ladies and gents, here endeth the sermon of Preacher JoG
So as a non-believer you can see that I was less than impressed to find a pressure group that proclaims itself to stand up for the rights of non-believers in society has been able to calculate by extrapolation from evidence it acquired that a National Health Service "requirement" imposed by the government under one of its bloody silly league oriented targets which requires ....
"all patients have a right to religious observance and that trusts should provide both faith representatives and places to pray."... has been converted into a requirement that the NHS shell out THIRTY TWO MILLION QUID on the SALARIES of Hospital Chaplains.
I'm sorry but in my book if you, as a patient, feel the need of spiritual counsel at a time of need then you should be receiving it courtesy of the funds that you and your fellow believers stumped up to equip your religious organisation so that it can maintain those who spread the good word, those who fight the good fight and those who care for the spiritual needs of your flock.
That thirty two million would be better spent on people to clean the floors to ensure you do not end up more sickly than when you went into the place.
Once again, ladies and gents, here endeth the sermon of Preacher JoG