Hello, eager young minds!

Hello, eager young minds!
This blog contains various articles and stuff to help you achieve a decent grade in your RS GCSE.

There is a box over there on the side with all the labels for various posts, key terms such as 'Just War'. So when you want to look at a specific key term you can click on those to find all the relevant posts. You then read these posts to enhance your knowledge and understanding of that topic. It really is that simple!

I very much look forward to checking the stats for this blog to discover that literally none of you have bothered to read any of it.

Thursday 15 December 2016

Marieke Vervoort: Paralympian who has signed euthanasia papers



Doors open for you in Diest when you're with Marieke Vervoort.

Go to a restaurant in this pretty Belgian town, and all the diners know her. They come over to congratulate her on winning two medals at the 2016 Rio Paralympics; she raises a glass to a family celebrating a birthday.

For a few hours, she's the life and soul of the party.

But, at 37, the Belgian wheelchair racer suffers such pain she wakes her neighbours by screaming in the night. As she watches her precious, fiercely defended independence dwindling, she has planned her own death.


Euthanasia is legal in Belgium, and eight years ago Vervoort signed the papers which will, eventually, allow a doctor to end her life. It's not that she wants to die. She wants to live. But she wants to live on her terms.

Monday 12 December 2016

Man urges MPs to back assisted dying before ending his life at Dignitas





A grandfather has called on parliament to legislate in favour of assisted dying before ending his own life at Dignitas.

Andrew Barclay, 65, died on Thursday after taking a lethal dose of drugs in an apartment near Zurich, having travelled to Switzerland with his wife. He had advanced multiple sclerosis.

Speaking to the Daily Mirror, the former civil servant, from Folkestone, Kent, said he was concerned that his partner, Sandra, 67, may face a police investigation on her return to Britain for helping him fulfil his wish.


 “We need a law that makes it a feasible option in Britain,” he said. “It needs to be tightly regulated but why not draw the line where Dignitas has?

READ HERE

Wednesday 7 December 2016

Rillington Place - Capital Punishment and Abortion





BBC series 'Rillington Place' has details you can use for Capital Punishment (miscarriage of justice leading to execution of Timothy Evans) and episode 2 also includes reference to a 'backstreet' abortion (the type you can use in your evaluation of the issue of abortion. i.e. if abortion had been legal, then women would not have needed to resort to the services of illegal abortionists). 



When was Timothy Evans’ name finally cleared?


In 2003 the Home Office’s independent assessor, Lorn Brennan QC declared that “the conviction of Timothy Evans is now recognised to have been one of the most notorious, if not the most notorious, miscarriages of justice.”


“There is no evidence to implicate Timothy Evans in the murder of his wife”, he continued. “She was most probably murdered by Christie.”




Tuesday 6 December 2016

Angela Merkel endorses party's call for partial ban on burqa and niqab

Angela Merkel has for the first time endorsed her party’s call for a partial ban on the burqa and the niqab in Germany, telling delegates at the Christian Democratic Union’s conference in Essen “the full facial veil is inappropriate and should be banned wherever it is legally possible”.


The German chancellor’s CDU party is expected this week to pass a motion proposing a ban on the full-face veil in some areas of public life such as courts, schools and universities, as well as in road traffic and during police checks. A full ban, as introduced in France in 2011, is seen as incompatible with Germany’s basic laws.








Monday 5 December 2016

French town told park's Virgin Mary statue must go



A French town has been told it must take down its statue of the Virgin Mary to comply with a national ban on religious symbols in public spaces, the town's mayor said on Saturday.
A court has given the town of Publier, in eastern France, three months to remove the work.
If it fails to do so, it will be fined €100 (£80; $105) a day.
Mayor Gaston Lacroix said he will try to relocate the marble statue on private land.

Religion in the media articles

















Production company One4Kids, which makes children's shows with Islamic themes, wants to raise A$20,000 (£12,000; $15,000) to begin production on Barakah Hills.

"The show's main objective is to show children what it is like to be a practicing Muslim as well as a good citizen in their community," the company said in a statement.











Wednesday 30 November 2016

Sturgeon confirms Scottish talks on free abortions for Northern Irish women




Nicola Sturgeon has confirmed that the Scottish government is to explore how to allow Northern Irish women to obtain free access to abortions in Scotland’s NHS hospitals.

Scotland’s first minister, during a visit to Dublin on Tuesday, said that the Edinburgh devolved government would hold talks with the Scottish NHS that may enable women from Northern Ireland to have terminations for free on the health service.

Across the UK, the NHS has so far refused to pay for abortions for women from Northern Ireland who travel to Britain. The procedure is only available in Northern Ireland’s hospitals when the pregnancy poses a direct threat to the mother’s life. It is illegal in all other cases.


Last week. Patrick Harvie MSP, the leader of the Green party in the Scottish parliament, said it can cost between £400 and £2,000 for a woman from Northern Ireland to obtain an abortion at a private clinic in Britain.


READ HERE

Thousands of Nigerian fisherman sue Shell for destroying their communities




READ HERE

Monday 21 November 2016

How Gypsies have moved from fortune-telling to fervent Christianity




'At a time when large numbers of people are drifting away from formal religion, one church is bucking the trend. Huge numbers of Gypsies and travellers in England now say they've joined a new movement called Light and Life. Those who join have given up drinking alcohol and fortune-telling, and many have even abandoned their traditional Catholic faith.

It's centred on charismatic preaching, praying in tongues and miracle healing.'




Tuesday 15 November 2016

The Lord's Prayer!

'If somebody said, give me a summary of Christian faith on the back of an envelope, the best thing to do would be to write Our Lord's Prayer.'


NEW GCSE requires greater knowledge of thrilling stuff like prayer, here we have a previous Archbishop of Canterbury explaining, in some depth, the Lord's prayer and how it influences individuals, communities and societies.  If you learn some or all of this prayer you can drop bits of it into answers all over the place, so it's a useful way of learning quite a few teachings at once.



READ HERE

Monday 14 November 2016

'Desperate' Afghan children go on hunger strike in France in bid to rejoin families in UK


Hunger strike is a form of non-violent protest, used by Aung San Suu Kyi, links to Martin Luther King's non-violent protests and whatnot.


READ HERE

Wednesday 2 November 2016

Britain is now the second biggest arms dealer in the world

If you need to add a positive evaluation of war to an answer, use the fact that we make so much money out of it.





HERE

Gay Cake




HERE 

Are cups and burger wrappers at In-N-Out Burger inscribed with Bible verses?



HERE

I spent 28 years on death row





HERE

Woman who imported 'euthanasia kit' took her own life, rules inquest




HERE

The label ‘incurable’ is not a justification for ending a life


The rising number of people with severe mental health problems in the Netherlands who are ending their lives under Dutch euthanasia laws is deeply disturbing



New mother, 62, sends 'message of hope'





READ HERE

Is testing on primates still needed?





READ HERE

Textbooks for NEW GCSE



It would be good if you had your own copy of the textbook for the GCSE course, you can purchase it via Amazon by clicking the link below:


THIS IS THE OFFICIAL TEXTBOOK PRODUCED BY THE EXAM BOARD



THIS IS ANOTHER TEXTBOOK THAT IS ALSO VERY GOOD




REMEMBER, YOU ARE ONLY STUDYING CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM, YOU DO NOT NEED TO LEARN ABOUT THE OTHER RELIGIONS COVERED IN THESE BOOKS. 

Tuesday 11 October 2016

Green Christian and GM Freeze





As a real-life example of Christians against genetic engineering in crops, you  could use Green Christian and their support for the GM Freeze campaign.



Monday 3 October 2016

Sunni and Shia - Islam


New GCSE:  Islam


The BBC says: 

Many of the conflicts raging in the Middle East today see Sunni and Shia armed groups pitted against one another and communities, that were once a mix of both sects, torn apart.


To understand the origins of the dispute we must go back to the final hours of the Prophet Mohammed and the question of who was going to succeed him as leader of Islam after his death.

Tuesday 13 September 2016

Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi

Read more about Aung San Suu Kyi, a useful example of non-violent protest, used in units Religion and Conflict, Authority: Religion and State

The 70-year-old spent much of her time between 1989 and 2010 in some form of detention because of her efforts to bring democracy to military-ruled Myanmar (Burma) - a fact that made her an international symbol of peaceful resistance in the face of oppression.



The Chronicles of Nadiya - Episode 1


This amazing episode includes discussions on arranged marriage and various other religious issues from an Islamic perspective.  It's got some baking in it so it is suitable for those of us who seem to struggle with anything that is not cake related in some way.  

Watch from 15:30 to 20:00,  30:53 to 36:00 and 54:40 to end.




Inequality in the UK


The richest one per cent of the UK population now owns more than 20 times the total wealth of the poorest fifth, making the country one of the most unequal in the developed world, according to analysis by Oxfam.






Animal Rights.


BBC Revision summary for Animal Rights, some useful info:


Hajj 2016



Monday 12 September 2016

A saint or “a medieval creature of darkness”?


Mother Teresa, an article:


Arranged Marriage


Interesting article on arranged marriages,


Postcards from the X.


Malcolm X wrote some postcards (usually with a pen but he was prepared to use any means necessary!  Ha ha!  Oh, I am so funny.) He even wrote a postcard from Hajj!  

You can't wear that!


The French government and their continued campaign against religious clothing.  Lots of articles about this on the world wide web, we will also be looking at the ban on Islamic head dresses.