That's 4 lives ruined

I am referring to the horrendous event in the news recently of 2 children basically torturing another 2, nearly killing one of them. I emphasis 'children' because they were, at the time, 10 and 11! Obviously there has been a wave of shocked responses to this. I read one columnist today who called them 'savages'. However, when I read stories like this, whilst the things they did were very repulsive, I am not repulsed by the children themselves. In fact, cases like this make me feel deeply sad for the perpetrators. These are not adults, or indeed children who knew right from wrong, they were children who had grown up in an environment in which they had never learnt that things like this are not acceptable. I won't go into the details, but one thing that I will mention, something that bothers me a lot, is that they were allowed to watch violent films (Chucky was the example given). Now, if you or I were to watch films like this, we would know (I hope) that this is pure fiction and should never be carried out in real life, to real people. However, these children were 10 and 11 and their upbringing means they have never learnt this. A child of that age, especially when brought up in that kind of environment, has no capacity for empathy, in particular in reference to being able to understand that violence has consequences. They are probably incapable of knowing that the victim of their violence feels pain and fear, and that they are really feeling these things, rather than simply being characters in a film or video game.
My point, therefore, is that the actions of the boys' parents has, in effect, ruined 4 young childrens' lives; the 2 victims who will obviously be severely traumatised, but also the 2 perpetrators who will forever be branded as 'monsters' and 'savages'.
My prayers for the victims and their family and also for the state of our society; may God use this atrocious event as a catalyst for change in our hearts, and in society as a whole.
You may not agree with Christianity, but you have to agree that its values are worth teaching to the generations to come. Love, patience, empathy...without these all future children will be as 'monstrous' as those above.

Holding on

So tomorrow is Saturday and it's been a week. A week to add to my waiting time. Waiting at the best of times is bad; the word itself is reminiscent of airport queues, late transport, impatience. However, waiting for something for so long that you're not sure you want it anymore seems to me to be the height of irony. What do you do if what you're waiting for could, despite your best efforts, never happen. After a certain amount of time should you just give up and accept that it's probably never going to happen? Or will giving up just make you realise how much time you wasted waiting...

I hate to give up.

On being a Christian

It interests me to note that atheists get away with a, frankly, disturbing level of double-standards. For example, whilst researching for my EPQ (on Christianity) I noticed that a lot of comment threads were full of atheists abusing Christians, calling them (or shall I say, us) a myriad of unpleasant things, such as brainless, incapable of logical thought, blind. Now, as I understand it, many atheists think that Christians are hypocrites and whilst I agree that some are, and all will at one time or another slip up, I don't understand how someone can sit and generically accuse Christians of hypocrisy, then write things like that whilst maintaining their view that it's only right that Christians respect their right to believe whatever they want. See the problem?
As a Christian myself I have noticed that it involves putting up with a lot of hurtful comments and reactions; you invite someone to a Christian event and they scoff, your friends say things like 'Jesus!' when something bad happens and you know that if you ask them not to they probably won't appreciate just how much it bothers you. However, I would like to add that part of the 'Christian thing' is persecution and people not understanding you. Jesus said so himself. I think that being a Christian in this country has been very easy up to now; after all Christianity was the automatic religion of everyone who didn't believe otherwise. Up until fairly recently, and still now I notice, people were Christians because they'd been baptised, or their parents said they were or they went to Church occasionally. So maybe it's a good thing that it's getting harder to be a Christian; it means people are thinking about what they believe, so increasingly only those who have embraced true Christianity are calling themselves followers of Christ, which can only be a good thing.
On that note, I have one more point. A friend recently referred to me as 'passionate' about my Christianity, I don't think you can have 'impassionate' Christians. What's the point if it doesn't fill your heart and overflow into your life?
Food for thought :)

Intro

Hello.
I made a blog because I have thoughts on a near daily basis that are a little random, so rather than force them upon someone who couldn't care less, I am giving you the choice to read them.
Enjoy the insight :)