a good friday to get your teeth into a couple of news stories

The National Secular Society has been in the news today regarding a report it has written on the cost of hospital chaplains. The NSS has worked out, using data obtained under the freedom of information act, that hospital chaplains are costing the NHS about £40million every single year. The NSS are not arguing that hospital chaplains should be banned, merely that rather than being paid for by the NHS, out of public money they ought to be paid for by the religious organisations that they represent.
I agree. After all, the NHS is struggling for cash whereas the major religions are some of the richest organisations in the world. £40million could be better spent on nurses, cleaners, allied health professionals or even on providing counsellors who had a broader remit that simply trying to convert new followers or convince the dying to believe they would live forever in "the afterlife".
Read the article here.


Followers of the sikh faith have also been in the news today following a debate over their rights to carry weapons.
According to the sikh faith, followers are meant to carry a knife or dagger with them at all times, supposedly to represent the struggle over evil. However some sikhs have been complaining because the knife crime laws mean they are being challenged over their persistent carrying of weaponry. Sikh campaigners are claiming that they should be allowed to carry their weapon at all times despite the laws that the rest of us are ruled by, because they claim a sikh would never use his weapon offensively.
I have several issues with this.
Firstly I thought that one of the principles of our legal system was that all are meant to be treated equally, regardless of religious affiliation. Therefore it is not right that one religious group should be excepted from a law against weapons. Or are we to allow muslims to be polygamists, or christians to pelt homosexuals with rocks?
Secondly, the claim that a sikh would never use the weapon offensively are ridiculous. Are they honestly trying to claim that there is not a single sikh who has ever got into a fight? I don't believe that for one second.
Thirdly, who is to say that a "sikh" carrying his knife into a packed venue, or onto a train or aeroplane really is a sikh? If it becomes stated legally that a sikh can carry his weapon wherever he goes then what is to stop people of other or no faiths, who have an violent agenda of their own simply dressing as a sikh in order to legitimately carry their weapon?
As far as I am concerned if the rest of us cannot carry a knife because this encourages violent crime then the sikhs shouldn't be allowed either.
article is here.



Dentists have come into the firing line again after new figures have shown that 30,000 children every year are being admitted to hospital due to tooth decay. I'm afraid I cannot see how this is the fault of the dentists. I can see how you could blame lazy parents who fail to teach their children how to brush their teeth properly, who fail to take them for twice yearly dental checks and who fail to provide them with a healthy balanced diet opting instead for sweets and fizzy drinks. I can see how you could even extend some for the blame to the government for messing up NHS dental provision so that many dentists have reduced their opening hours or gone private. But I don't see how you can lay the blame for this one with the dentists themselves.
People have such a rubbish attitude to their oral health. Even in areas where dentists have all gone private, the cost of a twice yearly check up and adequate oral care in the meantime is only a minimal cost. Yet people balk at paying it for themselves or their children, despite spending thousands of pounds on nice cars, fancy clothes, the latest trainers or a cable TV package. Sometimes people are really stupid. But that is not the fault of the dental profession.
article here