Decline of Respect/Morals in Society?

brummytom

Title changed - apologies

Call Me Jimmy

liah wrote: »

And.. the sentence is fairly self-explanitory, to be fair?

Well it makes the assumption of what a bad person is, that they cannot change and are not influenced by their environment of which religion played a major role.

liah

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

Well it makes the assumption of what a bad person is, that they cannot change and are not influenced by their environment of which religion played a major role.

Of course people are affected by their environment...


Actually.

I'll come back to this argument when I'm sober.

/ducks out

Call Me Jimmy

Well I'll leave this one here for when you return - something to look forward to...

If people are affected by their environment and religion is part of the environment does religion not influence them?

Dankoozy

I blame Atheism.

bronte

liah wrote: »

FFS, do you really need to drag more Christian propaganda into literally every single thread you come across?

Can't there just be one without all this BS?

I've never seen one that theres something he can use where he doesn't tbh.

bigeasyeah

woohoo! yes! RELIGIOUS DEBATE!

bigeasyeah

woohoo! yes! RELIGIOUS DEBATE!

MmmmmCheese

Travellers are our worst problem.

Me and some of my friends went camping in Castlegregory, Co. Kerry last Sunday night. I noticed some travellers had parked near the car park but decided to park there anyway (stupid decision.) Anyway next morning i found my car absolutley destroyed. Rear and two front windows completley smashed, radio stolen and half the fcukin DASHBOARD ripped out, rear view mirror torn out, random holes in the plastic surrounding the door and get this, they took the fcuking SEATBELTS out of the back! The seatbelts!! Why?!

An off duty guard had just seen two traveller children dragging our spare tent that had been in the car up to their halting site, so i have no doubt as to who wrecked my car. They also stole my friends ipod (costing 200 euro approx), all my cds, the car radio. and a bunch of clothes which had been in the car.

What really got my though was the extent to which they ****ed up my car. Stealing is somewhat understandable, but do that amount of damage to someones car, just for kicks??? How could someone do that?

Also once when i was about 7 i was in the car with my mam passing a halting site and they threw a bag of piss into our car. Now granted that is quite funny looking back on it, but still its something to think about. Do they have any morals??

Four-Too

It is because the demons are in charge, obviously. When the demons are in charge, NOBODY is happy. It is a NWO they want, and a NWO is want they are gonna get because people are too damn ignorant to see past the deception and lies. It is all in the Bible, the anti-christ will sit at the top of the church, and all those who loved Christ, their blood was (and is already) spilled. The Lord will punish all who deserve punishment, and he will be the supreme judge over all, and he is the only one to be really feared in these end times.

jape

Get off my lawn


*spits*

Nodin

brummytom wrote: »

Dad was saying 'back in the day' people sorted out their problems through a fight - just a normal fist fight, none of this knife shiit. A few punches, that was it. Now these morons make it a mission to 'slash' anyone who they don't like.

A bit of a myth, generally speaking EG -

The scuttlers were the `hoodies' of their day, and for thirty years they held the streets of Manchester and Salford in a grip of fear. Gangs of Manchester traces the history of the scuttlers from the Rochdale Road War of 1870-1, through the antics of such infamous fighters as the Bellis brothers of Salford and John Hillier, the King of the Scuttlers, until the demise of the gangs at the turn of the century

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gangs-Manchester-Andrew-Davies/dp/1903854857/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249457482&sr=8-1

Thats of course a british "youth" thing. As for violent mobs and gang fights in the 1800's we paddies were notorious for it. If you search for 'faction fighting' you'll find various incidents listed, with large amounts of deaths in various battles between clans/mobs.

brummytom wrote: »

Years ago so I'm told, a murder would be massive news - nowadays, at least one a day is almost expected.

That - taking from post 1900 on - is true. However, its actually due to our massive emmigration rate - the 1950's saw an all time low, for instance. As a state we're still well behind the average in violent crime.

brummytom wrote: »

What's changed?

Less emmigration.

Ikkypoo2 wrote:

Personally, I put it down to media. Pressure to conform and to earn and to concume is more important than having respect for other people.

So the introduction of the TV and the DVD player into 19th century ireland contributed to the high murder rate?

Jakass wrote:

I think this is going to be an issue with many societies where faith has been rejected by a lot of people. Countries which have formerly based their values on religious tenets, when those religious tenets are rejected are going to have a void in morality and ethics while they seek for a coherent replacement.

Rural USA in the late 19th Century, featuring drug use, incest, murder, murder of parents by children, children by parents, (children by children in at least one case that I remember), prostitution, fraud, robbery and various "modern" ailments, all in a religous and pro-temperance society.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wisconsin-Death-Trip-Michael-Lesy/dp/0826321933/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249458510&sr=1-1

Jakass wrote:

My take is that Britain itself has changed:
They are more violent because life isn't valued as much as it used to be in Britain, which is true.

Actually its far less violent and brutal than it used be.

Jumpy

bean na gaeilge wrote: »

its money - people got too greedy family life went out the window wit manners and self respect - not many hav any respect anymore!! its getting worse!! Im only 4 yrs out of school - started teaching again this year - couldnt beliv the changes in 4 yrs!! Its scary!!!!!

You are a teacher and you use text speak? No wonder kids are screwed.

thomond2006

MmmmmCheese wrote: »

Travellers are our worst problem.

hahahaha I was waiting for that post! :pac:

davyjose

orourkeda wrote: »

It's grammar

There should be a full stop at the end of that sentence.

Sam Vimes

orestes wrote: »

Your original posts put forward the position that cultures/countries become more violent as the culture/members of the population become less religious. To support this position you put forward the names of a few countries which are generally thought of to be athiest countries and stated they have violent crime rates, citing the study I quoted as an example. I don't debate the figures of the study (although I do find them dubious personally), what I don't understand is the jump from a rejection of a former system of morals necessarily being a rejection of religion, as religion is not the only source or inspiration of morality in a culture.

Arguing that the rejection of a former moral system and life isn't as valued as it formerly was is an interesting position, but I think it is jumping the gun a bit and putting the cart before the horse to say it all boils down to the decline of religion.

You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s. For your interest, I have included a graph of the approximate number of pirates versus the average global temperature over the last 200 years. As you can see, there is a statistically significant inverse relationship between pirates and global temperature.

davyjose

Last year a girl in Somalia was buried up to her neck and stoned to death. I'm not saying that's the way forward, or anything. but i doubt that little fùcker would have thrown bleach in someone's face if he'd grown up there.

There was a time in the last centuries when consequences = crime. Now, Consequences <<<< Crime.

Long Onion

I think that it's down to the fact that we are taught to question authority, in western society it is a quality we are encouraged to admire. There is also the related fact that we feel let down by our current societal structures, bad government, institutional abuse, corporate corruption etc.

The only reason one adheres to the "rules of the game" is that we believe that by doing so, we are giving ourselves a fair chance of winning in the future. If our fellow contestants continually break the rules and can be seen to be making some kind of gain, there is no incentive for us to play fair.

Think about it, if you could cheat openly in, say chess for example and win, would the game continue to be played? Societal rules are no different - this is why we get p*ssed off when we pay increased levies whilst criminals drive luxury cars and are granted legal aid.

Likewise, when kids see these people prospering from breaking the normal rules of society, they tend to do likewise. The caveat though is to look at radical states where the govenment rule with iron fists - this option is equally unattractive to me. As usual the ideal lies somewhere in the middle. The question is how do we get there?

Nodin

davyjose wrote: »

Last year a girl in Somalia was buried up to her neck and stoned to death. I'm not saying that's the way forward, or anything. but i doubt that little fùcker would have thrown bleach in someone's face if he'd grown up there.

There was a time in the last centuries when consequences = crime. Now, Consequences <<<< Crime.

Yet when consequences included the death penalty for theft, crime was far more brutal than it is now.....

AnonoBoy

Who brings bleach to the cinema?

me-skywalker

brummytom wrote: »

why has society been corrupted so much that death is nothing surprising to most people, and commonplace in cities?

Death is about the only sure thing in life... its not surprising at all.

Long Onion

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Who brings bleach to the cinema?

Cleaning staff

AnonoBoy

Long Onion wrote: »

Cleaning staff

I always knew those bastards were capable of anything. It's all those hours of scraping chewing gum off seats and sweeping up popcorn you see - it drives them mental. After postmen they're the next most likely profession to snap and go on a killing spree.

amacca

davyjose wrote: »

Last year a girl in Somalia was buried up to her neck and stoned to death. I'm not saying that's the way forward, or anything. but i doubt that little fùcker would have thrown bleach in someone's face if he'd grown up there.

There was a time in the last centuries when consequences = crime. Now, Consequences <<<< Crime.

Agree entirely, we seem to have lost our way when it comes to appropriate consequences for crimes.

Of course crime is a money making business and if we actually did tackle it and reduce it a lot of vested interests would have very little to do and significantly reduced wage packets.

To me at least situation seems to be out of control. I wish they would remove the word concurrent/suspended and from our legal systems dictionary and replace it with the word consecutive and with no chance of parole, do the crime then do the time + much more serious consequences for youth offenders. Perhaps you would have to build more jails but make the punishment undesirable enough and Ill bet much less potential criminals would want to fulfill that potential and we might end up with less prison space needed in the long run.

It cant be right that a certain criminal with 80 previous convictions for similar offenses received a 2 month suspended sentence in the last number of months for disrupting an A & E. It cant be right that this sort of stuff happens everyday. Hasn't this criminal proved that leniency does not work as a tactic. I could make a very long list of cases that were reported in the media over the past year that involved repeat offences, offences while on bail of truly heinous natures etc that I find inexplicable.

Also, punishment seems to have gone out the window entirely and been replaced by rehabilitation. Fair enough some offenders can be rehabilitated and the attempt should be made but there must be a breaking point where no more resources should be poured into those that simply will not be rehabilitated and instead they are punished if not for their own good then as an example to others, as a deterrent....I think there comes a point where someone has to be strong a point where you really do need to crack some eggs to make an omlette.

On the topic of concurrency, If I commit a heinous crime and Im going to get 20 years then whats really do stop me committing another one, the sentence for the next crime will probably be concurrent so I wont stay in jail much longer (if any longer) anyway. Might as well get two or three for the price of one.

I would argue that a lot of consequences for bad behaviour have been removed and therefore bad behaviour will only flourish in that environment.
Previous posters have shown that gangs/serious crime etc were just as prevalent in the past and I agree but I dont think the level or type of crime, youth offence, anti-social behaviour was anything like it is now even 15/20 years ago in ireland anyway. I also think that lack of consequences is not the only problem, I think that lack of provision of services/amenities, provision of social welfare with no strings attached have all contributed to this decline in standards but I do also think that the first thing to get right is clear, swift consequences which fit the crime being applied as evenly across the board as possible then with proper deterrants in place that make our society a safe place for the majority of decent people we can look at tackling some of the causes................of course given the levels of corruption etc this is probably dreaming.

Nodin

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Who brings bleach to the cinema?

She was actually attacked in a resturaunt some hours later.

Long Onion

Nodin wrote: »

She was actually attacked in a resturaunt some hours later.

Those feckin cleaners are everywhere - run for the hills!!!

davyjose

amacca wrote: »

What i said.

I think another big factor here is that, for you, or me, or any law-abiding citizen, prison would be an absolute deterrent. But for these little scumbags, it's free board, free food, and a chance to hang out with their mates. It's only an effective form of punishment for the folk who don't commit crimes.

liah

Right, I've put down the hash pipe and I'm re-entering the ring after a good night's sleep. Still not entirely sober, though, so excuse any glaring mistakes.

My point of view:
I seriously doubt there's any moral degredation or more crime or more.. anything negative than there has been in history, and if there is, it's pretty much due to population increase as opposed to any outlying factors (ie, religion, or lack thereof).

You can't seriously get behind the religion-makes-us-more-civilized-and-moral argument if you want any sort of credibility-- look at the most religious periods in history. That should take you straight through some absolutely heinous moral and criminal actions. You may say "oh, they were only doing it for political gain, it's not the real basis of Christianity, blah blah blah," but uh hey, what do you expect, exactly..? Human nature triumphs over anything, including whatever morals your religion may dicate to you. Religion is always going to be used for political gain. So how, precisely, would the removal or addition of Christianity make any difference? It's not the religion. It's the moral compass of the country in which you're a resident. Which is why you can get drastically different countries led by the same religion, or lack thereof.

Anyway, back to the original: population increase and everyone being squeezed in at closer and closer quarters probably has a heck of a lot more to do with it (it being crime moreso than morals) than people not believing in the sky daddy anymore. I mean, that's common sense though really, isn't it?

And the "decline of morals" thing.. I presume you're all yammering on about abortion and prostitution and drugs and gay rights or something, in which case, I'd say our morals are improving, not being degraded. A woman's right to choose and a gay's right to be with the human being they love are hardly bad, and imo a much needed step in the right direction-- the less there is under the table, the more people can be helped out and the less violence and hate crime there is (hate crimes generally performed due to religion, onoez! counterpoint?!). Sweep everything under the rug and continue to preach misunderstanding and hate and it gets seedy.

This "good old days" stuff is utter bull, to be honest. The world has always been messed up. It's always had messed up people in it. There's always been people with no morals and there's always been disgusting crimes being committed. We just hear more about it now because a) our population is massive compared to what it has been in history and b) the media and internet let us know about it a lot faster than any newspaper or stone etchings.

If anything.. I'd say we're at a high point in history over a low one. We've got it pretty damn good.

Latchy

I always believed that if you are thought right from wrong and respect of others and their property from an early age , then 'if ' and ' when ' you do step out of line with breaking the law or being anti-social ,at least you will know the difference and you may show genuine remorse for your actions and learn from them .At least in theory that's how it should be regardless of your background .But many people who have being jailed will just continue their life of crime on rtn to the outside

Unfortunetly in todays world, words such as Respect dont mean diddly squat to many young and not so young people , who would think nothing of slashing your face , stabbing you in the back or kicking you to death ,without giving a second thought about what they have done .

The concept of right / wrong is lost on them so they dont , many of them have any feelings of remorse because they dont know what it is .

Getting away with the crime is of more importance than any remorse .

Sub cultures were their are no rules or boundries give people the belief that they are above and byond the law which they laugh at .This makes it easier to behave as they do .

Some people from head to toe are just plain evil , byond any assistance and wont or cant be rehabilitated back into society .

orourkeda

davyjose wrote: »

There should be a full stop at the end of that sentence.

Absolutely. My humble apologies.