Annoying church bells

NJA said:

This is not me, but someone in my town saying:

I live opposite a church and have to endure endless bell ringing. Sunday mornings are especially bad and Monday night bell practice is the worst. I honestly cannot stand the sound of bells anymore. If I blasted music out that loudly people would complain, so why is it acceptable for churches to do it? I know it is traditional and I know that they are used to call people to mass... I have nothing against religion, just find it an unnecessary practice.

My reply was:
Maybe they don't realise it is annoying the neighbours. Ask a few of them, if they agree see the minister about it. Jesus doesn't ask people to annoy their neighbours in his name so if they are trying to follow him they should desist. If it's just you, I reccommend yellow foam ear plugs from a builders merchant, or wireless headphones.

Others have basically said "tough, you chose to move there", others that campinology is great, they should learn to like it. What say ye?

Click to expand...

Was the church there when this idiot moved in?

I miss hearing church bells.

I lived in Newark, Delaware for a couple of years. Three times a day, the University of Delaware carillon bells would play the school's fight song and alma mater. And yet, churches weren't allowed to have bells.

LionL said:

Yes, but I'd prefer to live in a country where charity is not needed to feed people.

Click to expand...

I would rather live somewhere where the people did not have to be forced to feed others by their government but did it out of the kindness of their hearts.

MiniEmu said:

Move next to a church, expect to hear bells.

It's as silly as people who move to the countryside, knowing full well their neighbours keep and breed chickens, then complain about crowing cockerels.

Click to expand...

Don't get me started. When we lived in Maryland, as the Democrats continued to destroy New Jersey and Philadelphia, more and more city people moved out where we lived.

All they did was complain. "My neighbor's chickens wake me up". "I had to wait thirty seconds while the cow crossed the road." "Are people really allowed to dive wagons on the street?" "Why are people killing deer?" "Eww...you eat catfish"?

We had this thing called "nighttime", where there were no lights and you could see the stars. It wasn't any time at all before there were lights EVERYWHERE.

It was almost exactly like the Del McCoury song, "Forty Acres And a Fool".

Where does this dictatorship of the annoyed lead? Bells are noisy,so stop using them. Group praying and singing too loud, so stop doing that. Too much traffic in the area, close down the church altogether.

grasping the after wind said:

I would rather live somewhere where the people did not have to be forced to feed others by their government but did it out of the kindness of their hearts.

Click to expand...

The trouble with that is that people starve.

LionL said:

The trouble with that is that people starve.

Click to expand...

Would they? Or are you just assuming that everyone is so uncaring that they would never help others in need unless some government forced them to ? And if that is correct then why ever do they even allow governments to force them to help others? Aren't governments in any way accountable to the citizens they either rule or represent( depending upon what form the government takes)? If there is such unwillingness to help the very small numbers of people that would starve without help that they would end up starving without government's coercion, then how is it that such a government can possibly survive while forcing so many to help so few against the wishes of that many ? I would think that the miserly and self centered citizens of such a country would find a way to replace that government with one that was more representative of their own values.

Ear plugs.

Not really any different to living near a busy road, train tracks, airport etc.

grasping the after wind said:

Would they? Or are you just assuming that everyone is so uncaring that they would never help others in need unless some government forced them to ?

Click to expand...

If we lived in a world remotely capable of outwardly caring to fulfil the needs of all, we wouldn't have millions dying a year to hunger, lack of water and lack of basic medical provisions.

If we, globally speaking, cared enough, we'd have stopped it instead of spending hundreds of billions a year on the ability to take lives instead of saving lives.

Patrick Bateman said:

If we lived in a world remotely capable of outwardly caring to fulfil the needs of all, we wouldn't have millions dying a year to hunger, lack of water and lack of basic medical provisions.

Click to expand...

Worlds do not have the capacity to care only individuals have that capacity.

Why did you use the term outwardly caring? When I see that term I think of people like Al Gore who professes to care about something (in his case CO2 emission control) but then acts in a manner that contradicts his stated concerns. He express outward caring but displays an internal indifference to profligate CO2 emitting by being profligate in doing so himself. So even if a world could care, I doubt that outwardly caring would make much difference at all.

As for the context of my remarks to LionL, I was questioning the efficacy of governmental coercion as compared to individual initiative. Your remarks that we have millions dying a year to hunger etc. actually bolster my case vs LionL's as those millions are all now living under systems by which government coercion is supposed to have been the answer. Seems to be less than an effective method of alleviating those problems if millions are not helped especially if millions are the only one's needing help in a world of billions. Is anyone out there actually getting helped at all? Additionally since another way, i.e. asking for voluntary compliance with a program of benevolence toward those in need or something similar to that , has never actually been seriously attempted, I do not see how one could reach any valid conclusions about how well it might or might not work. I think it possible that the additional resources that would be freed up by not having so many highly paid bureaucratic positions( which is where the vast bulk of money that governments spend on "feeding the poor" ends up ) and so much graft and corruption along the trail of red tape would probably purchase an enormous amount of food.

NJA said:

This is not me, but someone in my town saying:
I live opposite a church and have to endure endless bell ringing.

Click to expand...

Have a timer on a radio in your room set for just such occasions.

Why not write the church a letter, explain to them the situation, and ask for their assistance in finding a suitable resolution that satisfies everybody?

I think this is an interesting dilemma... From a Christian point of view, do we need noisy bells in order to alert the entire city about the fact that we're having a religious meeting? Church bells are a relic from a time when 100% of the population were Christians. This isn't the case anymore.

Also, are noisy bells making the gospel more attractive, or the opposite? If people are annoyed because of loud church bells then perhaps we should reconsider this practice.

Yeah there is no biblical precedent for that, it's just longstanding traditions of men and I bet you anything if you asked them to stop ringing the bells they will say "You're oppressing our freedom! War on religion has begun!" Or some other self-righteous response.

And how many would be willing to raise a stink if they lived near a mosque that used loudspeakers to broadcast their daily calls to prayer, given that the current way of dealing with Muslims seems to be to bend over backward to avoid offending them? At least church bells tend to be musical. (the church I grew up in used a carillon with tapes of hymns).

Celticflower said:

And how many would be willing to raise a stink if they lived near a mosque that used loudspeakers to broadcast their daily calls to prayer.

Click to expand...

Even though less than a twentieth of English people go to Church regularly, every village in the country has a church or even more than one.
Only the largest towns and cities, noisy anyway, have a mosque.

Actually it's right that if someone moves right next to a church they should expect to hear church bells at odd hours of day (to the person it may be). But now it doesn't matter as he has moved there. He can talk to church authorities and I am sure he will be shocked to experience the tolerance and kindness they will show on this particular matter.

LionL said:

Many people have no choice where they live - they go where the housing association puts them or become homeless.

Click to expand...

Then they are blessed to have a home regardless of bells, whistles, construction noise, etc.

We live in societies with many different people. Most societies have already ruled certain things to be permitted and certain things to not be permitted. In order for a society to work (i.e. for everyone to get along as best as possible) they observe the agreed-upon rules (laws and ordinances) and honor everyone else's observation of said rules.

If a "poor bloke" is unhappy with a certain sound or noise in his neighborhood then he can go about changing the rules/laws in the same way anyone else would. Get a petition going, hire a lawyer, etc. But to expect other law-abiding citizens to surrender one of their practices because of his own selfish reasons and not giving an iota of consideration to those other citizens to do what is lawful is flat out selfish.

And then to try to lay a guilt trip on those other law-abiding citizens because they are Christians is especially foul - although it certainly does demonstrate the self-centered "morality" of the anti-Christians.

If someone doesn't like society's rules he or she can move to another society that may have rules more to his or her liking. And to say that people "don't have a choice" is a cop-out... Everyone has choices in life including he or she lives. Everyone has the choice to change or improve his or her condition.

LionL said:

Even though less than a twentieth of English people go to Church regularly, every village in the country has a church or even more than one.
Only the largest towns and cities, noisy anyway, have a mosque.

Click to expand...

England has gone down the toilet

ArmenianJohn said:

England has gone down the toilet

Click to expand...

Or improved, depending on one's point of view.
Others might say the same about your country. But let's not let this degenerate into a slanging match.

LionL said:

Or improved, depending on one's point of view.
Others might say the same about your country. But let's not let this degenerate into a slanging match.

Click to expand...

I've not encountered the term "slanging match" before.