Give hope to a hopeless generation.
Has it ever been more complex?
Do you have any ideas on how to give hope to a hopeless generation?

What the Government has done is changed the definition of a binge drinker. I am now a regular binge drinker even though I don't get drunk, and haven't increased my alcohol consumption.

Alcohol abuse has always existed and always will exist. Prohibition will not work as has already been seen in the USA during the depression and Saudi Arabia is a nation with a major alcohol problem (Despite the fact that a bottle of spirits costs about USD600 there). I don't think alcohol is the problem, is think it is a result of the problem. Binge drinking, (And I mean real binge drinking which is a lot more than 4 drinks)is usually the result of peer pressure.

Rather that having 18 as the standard drinking age, we should graduate the age as is done in some European countries. A younger drinking age (perhaps 16) can apply for beer and wine in restaurants when under parental supervision, however I believe an older age (21) should apply for purchasing bottles of spirits.

I doubt that the hopeless generation exists. I think the definition of hopeless could apply to any age group.

Remember the generation of kids in the 60's? Hopeless. all that drugs and stuff.

And in the 70's? Hopeless too. More drugs and stuff

And the 80's? Also hopeless. Bad clothes and music in particular

Not to mention those kids in the 90's. Hopeless the whoe lot of them, all doing ecstasy and heroin.

For crying out loud the current 'generation' (whoever the heck they are) are no different from all the ones that have gone before.

get a life. really.

How else do you justify spending millions employing thousands in the social welfare sectore, if you don't have social problems.

Of course, you can just invent them. Keeps lots of graduates, who could not have handled a "real" subject, living in comfort.

Just like the harm minimisation theory. Don't reduce the addicts, or there won't be jobs for the experts.

Countryboy, it's important for Gibo and some of the other religious types to believe that the world is falling to pieces. Thats what they believe will happen when society does not follow their god so anything which can be taken as a negative is eagerly seized upon (or invented) and the signs of things going well are ignored.

Gibo brags about ignoring evidence and only using his own experience and what he learns from christain teaching. He "collects" prophecies about bad things to come for australia and appears to ignore the ones that say good things (not real interested if god is not predicting doom apparently).

Did you ever see any of the Billy Jack movies (they were around in the 70's)? There was a scene where one of the students in the film made an impassioned speech about the failings of the youth of the day pointing out the problems. It appealed greatly to those who wanted to see problems. The student then quoted the source which was from Hitler. I've seen similar going back thousands of years.

Some set their minds on darkness and are unable to see the light.

R0bert

How easily we bounce over the issue.
Come on guys this is SUPPOSED to be the prime internet site in all of the country for intellectual discussion.
Hit the problem...i.e. a generation with no or very little hope.
No government has ever tackled the hopeless generation problem in my lifetime.
There are solutions. There are always solutions.
Put your brains into gear.

Gibo

This "Hit the problem...i.e. a generation with no or very little hope" is a BS statement

Explain why this is a generation with no or very little hope.

I've got three kids from the current generation who would be flabbergasted to find that they have no hope!

So it seems that what Gibo et al wants us to do is to take a group who are full of hope and expectation for the future, convince them that they in fact have no prospects or hope and then give them hope?

Took the words right out of my keyboard mhaze.

If anything, my kids and their dozens of friends think we're the hopeless generation - not because we don't have hope, but because we've stuffed up so badly. We have trouble thinking outside the old squares.

Sensationalist media stories about alcohol and drug soaked youngsters are only convincing as long as you don't come into actual contact with lots of young people.

Gibo, "this is SUPPOSED to be the prime internet site in all of the country for intellectual discussion"

If you want to be taken seriously perhaps you could start with justification for the claims that you are basing the thread on. Based on the comments so far it's clearly not accepted that todays late teens/early twentys are "a generation with no or very little hope".

You have a habit of starting threads on a false or unsubstantiated premise and expecting all other contributers to assume that your starting premise is correct.

When you are clearly shown to be wrong based on empirical and detailed studies of the issue you then generally duck for cover about not likeing studies and that "your life experience" is all you care about. If you want a serious discussion of what you see as a problem then first demonstrate that the problem is as you describe. In the mean time it looks like more of the same old poorly founded garbage.

R0bert

RObert,

I understand how you feel about Gibo and others like him. I know who Gibo is, and actually came across this forum website while doing a Google search concerning some authors Gibo had mentioned while writing letters to the editor of a newspaper under his real name. Actually, the Google search only gave a handful of results, and they were all Gibo's postings on this site and other sites. I never found any info on the author he mentioned. (I can't remember who it was). Gibo writes a lot of rubbish to newspapers and on other forums.

What is frightening about Gibo is that he is actually a person of intelligence, and he doesn't just write this stuff on forum web sites but I also believe he bombards Members of Parliament and other Government Departments with his absurd ideas. Gibo is a former Police Officer, however I believe he was discharged due to his mental state of health, which I have noticed by the tone of his letters to newspapers over the past 10 years is getting worse.

His views on Christian morality are extreme, almost Puritanical. While he attends a Pentecostal Church, less than 5% of Pentecostals in Australia would support his views. While most members of Pentecostal Churches are teetotallers, very few of these would campaign for alcohol prohibition. Most acknowledge that Jesus Christ himself drank wine, in fact the Bible tells us that not only did he turn water into wine, but it was also the best wine. (And it was alcoholic. Most Christians who claim it was non alcoholic know nothing about the wine making process). I wonder if the wedding in Cana which Jesus attended was full of members of a hopeless generation?

Dear Gibo,

Raising children into decent human beings
has never been an easy task. Each generation
encounters its own problems.

If you think about it, a good portion of
our efforts are as parents devoted to
external matters that may not really
matter at all.

What is important is the content of
our children's hearts and minds, or what
is often described as character.

I've said all this in another post some time
ago. We have growing agendas for raising our
children. We are feverish about
providing our children every opportunity
from music lessons, tennis lessons, to a
college or university degree.

Every parent I know lives with the uneasy sense that
their children are growing up too fast. We spin our wheels
worrying about, 'reading, writing, and arithmetic,'
our children may be missing the 'real basics'
like respect, loyalty, and a sense of fair play.

Survey after survey shows that children who will be
the best educated and most privileged in human
history, are too willing to do anything it takes
to 'get ahead.'

In answer to your question Gibo, I don't pretend
to know all the answers. However, what I do know
is that my children, growing up are facing tough choices
and complicated situations that can't be addressed with
simple lectures on the values of kindness or
isolated chats about standing up for one's beliefs.

I want to surround my children with a sturdy sensibility, a
world view, and I want it to be different from
the "Me" mentality of modern culture. How do I do that?
It's a 'work in progress.' There are no easy answers.
I'm involved in their lives - we talk about everything.
I am aware of what they are reading, who their friends are,
what music they listen to, where they go and who with.

Whether I will succeed or not - I guess only time
will tell.

I appreciate your words Foxy.
You always add interesting imput.
The other guys... well... they are the other guys.
They just like to challenge and whimper a bit...missing the obvious issue that there IS a generation out there untouched by successful hope efforts from governments.
No one has yet offered any thought about how to deal with a hopeless generation?
Are the regular intellectuals unable to lectual on this issue?

Gibo I noted the heading of your thread visited it but found your first post not related to the subject?
So watched as the thread stayed dormant.
Noticed it was alive again so here I am.
Not sure I am impressed with the post partly talking about who you are.
Was it needed?
And having been subject of insulting and dangerous lies in my workplace as a result of posting here maybe it was not.
You however play an important roll in OLO.
Believe it or not you do, you remind us that SOME from every religion have extreme views that do more harm than good.
To the very faith they try to sell us.
You overlook in your quest for evidence we are living in a lost and hopeless world that every single generation of humans has thought this.
Gibo your threads continue to bring big post numbers so you only have to say something and we come but maybe you should remember we too have opinions and just maybe sometimes we are right.

Noted Belly yet its hard not to say the truth about certain issues when you know the truth...i.e. that Jesus is the Saviour and that the Holy Bible is the Standard.
Its God's Genuine Revelation of how He Wants mankind to be and to act.
I dont worry about the probes of others.
Some people just like to hunt others and I accept this.
Christians expect it.
I dont see myself as radical.
I write a lot all, over the world, primarily on the endtimes, which are by-the-way unfolding right now today, as we watch the "signs of the times" (Luke chapter 21) at play on the earth.
The increase in wars, earthquakes, famines, diseases...all are happening just as Christ Spoke about them.
I write heaps on prophecies of an invader...Gods allowance because of our sins. Something to think about?
I wrote recently warning of K. Rudds dance with China and his desire to get us involved in an asian super state...that it could seed a future communism in Australia.
It is a danger.
One major christian prophecy already speaks of the southern half of the nation a communist state; and the northern half actually owned by an asian enemy ("What will become of Australia" by Pastor Jack Burrell 1975).
China has many spies here and they DO have plans to make us NEW SOUTH CHINA once they and Russia can displace the USA.
I suspect UFO's are being manufactured by the New World Order ("The Cosmic Conspiracy" by Stan Deyo) which would explain their existance in a tightly controlled spirit conflict between the two sides of Light and darkness. I know about the activities of the fallen dark world of evil spirits because Ive had contact with those powers more than a few times.
But I dont think I extreme.
Im just "up on Gods Word" and current world events in relation to them ...and full of christian experiences.

Well...heres my pitch to any government folks watching, who might want at least one solution, to a hopeless generation up to their necks in the many unsuitable-alternatives-to-hope.

Its a way that historically has been highly successful against hopelessness simply because The Holy Spirit Has been behind the events.
There will be websites all over the net you can tap into regarding the many historic descriptions of the events, which give innumerable testimonies to the success of this great mission against hopelessness.

Its called...

CHRISTIAN REVIVAL

...and it can be seeded by willing men and women IN government who genuinely wish to see people live in hope; and die in a hope of a better afterlife.

Every single time a christian revival gets triggered by The Lord the crime rate drops.
It may not be as dramatic as in some of the Welsh revivals, when whole police districts virtually closed down because mostly everyone was now "in-Christ" and born again (John 3:3), but the crime rate will drop in the lives of those who fully join in on the revival with sincere hearts and minds.

New christians dont speak about the tremendous joy of being saved for no reason.
Its a NEW life for the man and woman who once were bound to the fallen world... and it oppression.

CHRISTIAN REVIVAL displaces the drugs, the alcohol, the torment, the hoplessness...and lowers the crime rate.

It totally displaces the black dog of depression.

Well Gibo those 2 posts said a lot about you.
About your age I once thought your God was the answer, strangely it was a few like you who told me no such God ever existed.
I find not much harm in most Christians, most of my Friends tell me they are from that group.
But can you answer for me a few questions?
What fate the followers of every other God?
Over half humanity that has ever lived did not follow your God WHAT FATE FOR THEM?
What do you think of the Pentecostal church that kept a child, arm broken from medical aid for days while they prayed for God to fix it?
That church asked its street reach people not to bring dirty or drunk converts to its church, do you agree?
In my youth we all went to church, even if we would rather not.
We once a year ,never missed it, got on a bus and traveled to a country town to see missionary's from our near north show mud men masks and talk of your God, the masks interested us.
We would have done better to spend our money on Lolly's just as sweet but you can hold them in your hands.
I do my bit for some Christians, as you know some like to suffer in the name of God I send the gate rattlers away happy but empty handed.

"What fate all of the others" isnt hard.
If they havent been clearly preached Jesus to, and there must have been millions and millions, HE will Judge them according to their conscience and their words.
What they did for or against their conscience and their fellowman; and Creation.

The child with a broken arm?
Well, I would have taken the child to hospital straight away and prayed as I drove.
Hyperfaith is taught in many parts of Christianity and sometimes the miracles happen but not always.
A simple faith in Gods Healing and prayer in Jesus' Name is still raising people from the dead. In places like Africa and other parts of the third world, where the faith is simple, the miracles happen frequently.
The media dont print all of that. Not much.
My view as ex-emergency services is ..."lets be practical and engage common sense in such situations".
GOD Has Allowed and supported wonderful medical practices.
Why knock them. Get the child to hospital.

Real christians dont mind the dirty or the drunk.
I started off in the Salvation Army and they just love the street people.
A good christian church is where everyone is welcome...the pensioner, the unemployed, the dirty drunk, the ragged druggie... everybody. Amen.

Belly,

Pentecostals withholding medical treatment do exist unfortunately, but incidents like this are very rare. Pentecostals do not act like Christian Scientists and reject medical help. One of God's ways of providing healing is by giving man the intelligence to invent medicines.

While I attend a Pentecostal church, I do not fully support everything that they teach and no longer consider myself to be a Pentecostal, but rather a Progressive Neo-Charismatic Christian, but in my town there is no church fitting that description and one of the Pentecostal Churches is the nearest to what I like. Gibo talks a lot about miracles that happen overseas, and I also hear these reports in my church, while I don't totally reject these reports, I'm not necessarily going to believe them just because a Christian said it happened. I want to see some sort of documented proof. It's been reported that major evangelists like Benny Hinn put able-bodied people in wheelchairs and then pray for them to walk, which of course they do.

Gibo's claims not to be a radical I totally reject. Having spent 14 of the last 23 years attending various Pentecostal Churches, he is one of three most extreme Christians that I have known.

Where do you start Gibo asks. Data. Get the data. Forget all this nonsense about "standard drinks" take stock of what people are actually drinking in their own words - and ask why.

Some of the answers I will venture suggest are in the products and the marketing of the products. We saw this with cigarettes and Australia took increasingly strong action to reduce harm. Now, its uncool and uncommon. Try standing in a queue in a bank in Madrid and reflect on the harm reduction we have achieved here at home.

A complete advertising ban on all non- craft ( fizz + sugar + flavour + ethanol) made beverages would be draconian, but will start making an in road. Prohibition of product is useless.

The bigger picture? The Rudd government does NOT have the answer to binge drinking, but what it DOES have the answers to are several things which are progressivley destroying our society:

1. The rule of the corporations in just about every aspect of life from groceries and fuel to energy and resources. Governments no longer rule much of what we do.

2. The addiction we have to consuming stuff we do not need.

Hope comes from a feeling of community and that is disappearing fast where I live. Significant numbers FLY in FLY out. They are awash with money and they are unwittingly destroying the community where they work and the one where they sleep. Disconnection at both ends. And in between, using air transport. Just show up at Perth airport at 5.30 and you;ll get the picture. Resource companies are forced this way because no one can build homes fast enough.

Hope will emerge again from a stable life where younger people will see their future.

Bill

I must be missing something. I haven't seen it proven that we have a generation of hopeless people.

I suppose many spruiking this idea aren't generating much hope for the kiddies. I hope they're not in the majority, or it may well be a self fulfilling prophecy.

renew,

You must be watching a different Rudd governmnet to me.

How come you think they arent hopeless Usual Suspect?
We hardly have a generation on alcohol, drugs and wild behaviour for nothing.
The movement one job to another also speaks of the terrible lack of direction.

Data renew?
The data I would love to see collected is data on Christian revivals down through the ages.
Born again Christians testify joyously to the wonderful, marvellous experience of how Jesus gave them hope at the moment of receiving Him into their lives. Thats the real data...millions of born againers praisng God through becoming saved through a personal commitment to His Son Jesus Christ.

I think they had one of those at at Jonestown in the late '70s. As I recall, the crime rate went way down there after that.

Jonestown was a breakaway group that got deceived by their leader into unscriptural behaviour...i.e. believing he had all of the answers. Poor people. They sold their houses and put all of their hopes in bad leadership and got taken down to Sth America to their deaths.
Men who reckon they are the Christ always fall into darkness.