Stewart
not being religious myself, I can understand why the HSE took a provisional view on using holy water to prevent against swine flu. As I am not religious I think that it is as much use as looking into the stars to tell the future, but it is not my intention to annoy or insult you or your beliefs. The difficulty comes when those who choose to believe that one route may be more effective than another, such as taking eg Tamiflu, ignore the medicine and trust wholly in faith. I remember a while back when the then(still there?) South African leader said something like you could be cured from AIDS by taking a shower, or some other such guff - the point is that some people believed it and the spread was worse than it otherwise would have been.
I do not mix religion and health and safety. Totally different and incompatible in my opinion.
Martin

"When our parish priest announced that HSE have forced the church to stop this action..."

Hmm, well, for a start, the HSE wouldn't have anything to do with it, seeing as the Local Authority would be the enforcing authority for a place of worship, therefore I'd question where the instruction to stop using "holy water" came from. It's very easy for members of the public and laypersons to jump to conclusions when it comes to health and safety and assume that the HSE have a hand in everything.

I personally wouldn't dip my hand into that water, which has had numerous other, possibly unwashed, hands dipped into it at any time, never mind when there's swine flu doing the rounds.

Bob,

Sorry to dispute, but there is very good evidence that morality is basic human behaviour and may even have been selected for by evolution; religion is no more the cause of morality than Xmas is of trees.

I would like to hear chapter and verse (religious metaphor there) on this decision, as it is yet another one that seems, on the face of it, very unlikely. HSE would almost certainly not be concerning itself too much with the spread of swine flu, and in any event, is flu water borne? I thought it was spread in air, rather than liquids (OK, so mucous is the source, but that's not the point). I would like a reputable source and accurate comment on this item of 'News' before judging HSE,

John

JWK

Sorry to dispute also but the morality via evolution argument is a late addition to Darwinism to escape the real imapcts of survival of the fitest and the inability to account for philanthropic behaviour. Even our friend Richard Dawkins is a little uneasy with this argument. Behaviours are learned and essentially the learning is with regard to the family/pack/shoal/flock etc etc. Such behaviours are essentially selfish and not philanthropic which is where morality lies - the ability to do good for no ultimate return.

On the HSE issue this was stated by the esteemed chair of the HSC/E and was clearly a political manouevre with short term objectives in mind. No these things cannot be enforced and are pure headline grabbing by whoever proclaims them. I do see the worrying politicisation of the HSE here, along with EHOs, and the problem then becomes one of what is enforceable and what is not. The Trading Standards officer mentioned on another thread "Would you believe it" is is a further example of this creep.


Bob

Bob,

I too am uneasy about the evolution of morality argument (and indeed the whole of evolutionary psychology), note my use of the word 'may'; we probably learn our morality from our peers and parents; the main point I was making is that this is nowt to do with religion. We had morality millenia before we had theology.

If this is a comment about action taken by a Parish priest following a statement by the head of HSE, then the media is still wrong to take it as an edict, and the priest was wrong to take this statement as a statement of operational policy. The priest may not know any better, the media should.

I'm not sure that winning celebrities over will help us. Put all this in context. As Bob says, on another thread on this board I related an incident that happened to my employer involving an over-zealous enforcer. I am intending to deal with this in private; I could instead have gone to the press. They would no doubt respond with their customary and ever so dull outrage. But would that be propotionate? No, what happened to us was small incident causing minor inconvenience. The behaviour of the enforcer in question has to be questioned, yes, but it's not a national scandal or the end of the world.

So the media know that they can whip a shock horror story up out of a single misplaced quote or misapplied risk assessment, and they don't care that almost all H&S and enforcement action is proportionate and well placed.

I think that's the message, somebody somewhere needs to make these newspapers look like the hysterical fools they are,

John

PS - John & Bob, we can have the whole Secular Humanist vs Religion argument if you want, (& I'd probably side with Bob) but it would probably get moderated and doesn't address the root cause which has been identified as:



and;

I could not trace the RC church response to the swine-flu outbreak and sensible precautions, but there is Guidance on communion during swine flu pandemic issued by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.

http://www.archbishopofyork.org/2498

Even this has nothing to do with the Health and Safety Executive, LA Environmental Health Dept, but to do with Department of Health on a matter of Public Health.

My view is that just because the swine flu virus has so far has not mutated into more severe strains and the cases were decreasing until last couple of week, we do not seem to comprehend the continuation of all the advice for personal hygiene and preventing the spread.

As professionals, we should perhaps dig deeper and investigate who originated the advice--it appears that the common person, including clergy cannot distinguish between guidelines from their own organisations and the regulators!

Regarding IOSH developing the same approach as anti-poverty campaigners with a global perspective - Sth American Banana croppers, Child labour in SE Asia, African Farmworkers, Asbestos miners, Asbestos workers in SE Asia, Major Industrial Accidents etc, doing that is the role of ILO-Safework and IOSH is already an NGO recognised by ILO-SafeWork.

However, we have to note that as a professional organisation, IOSH probably cannot be seen to "interfere" with the internal affairs of sovereign states and would have to work in partnership with similar organisations in the developing and emerging economies.

For example, I can comment with in-depth knowledge about India and the overall state of Occupational Health and Safety. Even if IOSH wants to do anything significant, I very much doubt that the existing government (or even professional/NGO) organisations dealing with such matters would reciprocate. They perhaps consider such approaches as interference and meddling in their affairs.

Bob
returning to your point, religion may be at the centre of your society, but not mine - I never give it a thought. I do not commit bad acts because I am a good person, not because of the fear of everlasting flames. This is the reason why I never discuss politics or religion in the pub(lic) arena, as someone will always be offended.
I have always been offended that I was brainwashed as a child - school assembly with hundreds of children chanting the lord's prayer in unison - even now I know every word and I haven't said it in nearly forty years. Glad I took the decision to base my thoughts and actions on what was in front of me, not on what some concept might think of me as a result, and I really am too old now to have an imaginary friend.
I do not mean to offend, but I really do think that once you being religion to the table it at times polarises those who otherwise may be working together cordially.
Martin

Martin and JWK

The real issue is that it is not possible to discern philanthropic behaviour in the context of evolution. The colony breeding pattern is essentially the selfish gene maximising the reproductive outcome. Without thinking we have come to certain standards such as murder being an immoral act without recognising that there is a buried religious basis for this position. But as some have said this is not truly the point of this thread. It is to address how we deal with over zealous enforcement/actions that have a questionable political basis.


Bob

I think it is a shame that a potentially good thread has been distracted by a casual mention of a religous intervention, not divine I might add.

Have a good weekend.

Yikes - I was at an electricity at work training course recently, and crossed wires are really dangerous! *lol*

Using my deus ex-machina powers, I have moved the offending posts to the correct topic and hidden some very amusing but sadly now no longer relevant posts by Safety Smurf and Twinklemel (sorry guys 'n' gals).

Please now keep to the topic, which was was about:



Please also note that the religious nature of the examples was incidental to the question and any further deviations down this route will result in the thread being locked under Forum Rule 1.

Jon

Understood Mod
final point from me is that the religion thang was the impetus for the original poster to pen their piece. I was making the point that H&S is ridiculed at the best of times. To use a religious justification or underpinning for our work would not benefit our standing in the press, to say the least, which is why I was negative towards it.
Again sorry if I offended, or crossed a Mod line.