Religion can be good for your mental health

It's ESA for the the sick unemployed. They have to go onto jobseekers allowance then supplementary benefit after a certain time. If they don't attend etc I think all benefit is stopped.
DLA is for chronically disabled people and is given for mobility problems or help with personal bodily functions.
You can still work if you get DLA

Supplementary Benefit? Income Support, jeni - since 1988! You'll be talking about National Assistance next...

I came across a very distressing case yesterday - obviously for reasons of confidentiality I can't go into it, but it illustrated for me the problems people who look perfectly healthy but have brain damage or mental illness have getting the assessors (Atos) to believe they should be on the ESA support group.

I'm starting to suspect that ATOS don't address the schedule three descriptors. We are having a lot of cases.
They seem to be putting people over from the old incap into WRG but not giving points. We don't then know whether they're eligible for the support group or not.
Do you understand the criteria for schedule 3? It is quite complicated!

I only understand these things, jeni, when they actually come up during interviews when I can look them up on the CAB info system or the CPAG handbook! Glad someone understands them enough to explain them in words I can comprehend.

Oh, and judging by a conversation I had yesterday with a so-called advisor at Job Centre Plus, I don't think they all understand the criteria either.

They don't
If you really really really want to know, you can phone me and I'll try and explain!

Jeni thanks for reminding me, it is a long time since I did the reading and I wonder if I am going the same way as the author? Perhaps you could diagnose me?

How could you forget A'Tuin!

Have to say having watched "Who Do You Think You Are" (Greg Wallace) and the programme about Prince Philip's mother this week, I am not at all convinced about the impact of religion on mental health!

Humble apologies Jeni are you going to send Vimes or Carrot to get me?

Worse A Troll! (well it is the net),

The point about religion which makes it different from other forms of human activity is that as well as valuing and depending on your dear friends, virtual or otherwise, you also believe in the transcendent, the other which is not of the world - although, hang about, virtual friends?

Lily, we know our GN friends actually exist in the real world. They are only virtual in the sense that we have not met most of them in the flesh.

You don't know until you actually meet them, Greatnan. You take them on faith, don't you?

No, she takes them on the evidence of their writin on GN, their photographs if they put some on their profiles, and, in a few cases, because they have contacted her by other means. Knowing, from experience (sometimes other people's) how telecommunications work, and trusting that they are working in this instance, is not faith but reason, science, and technology-based extrapolation.

Lily, I love the idea that some supernatural figure is bothering to sign on for GN!

I've got no problem with people holding religious views. As long as that is all they do. It is when they start trying to impose them on other people, demand that laws of land are amended to fit their belief system, or at worst, start killing people their believe to have transgressed that I have the problem. Then surely it is the time to challenge or even attack their beliefs.
I felt like weeping this morning when they were talking on the radio about the assassination of a regional governor in Pakistan, for defending a poor christian girl who was been targeted for "blasphemy".
If they want to waste time and money researching the un-researchable that is fine too, as long as they don't want taxpayers money to do it!

I don't think I 'attack' beliefs - I just say that I don't share them. I am never personally offensive about any individual's religious beliefs until, as you say, they impinge on the rights of others. I feel extremely hostile towards the idiot Americans who are trying to ban abortion and think there is such a thing as 'legitimate' rape. I find the right wing Christians in the States even more frightening than extreme Islamists as they have more opportunity to affect law makers.

Bags I agree with Lilygran that a certain amount of faith is required when communicating on the internet.
It is not uncommon for people to assume fraudulent identities, and I doubt very much that GN make any sort of checks before they allow people to register.
Just for the record, I am real and not a troll

On the whole, a certain type of believer is more likely to attack my unbelief than I am to attack their belief. However, what I will attack is perverted ways of showing their beliefs - assassinating medics who perform abortions, for example. But then, I assume that the vast majority of right-minded believers would also shudder at this manifestation of belief.

Jess I understand exactly how you feel about extremists in some regimes in the world. I'm not sure what we can do about it though. I suppose they are the reason the politicians felt we had to go to war against some countries. And why we have to be thankful to the security people in this country.

There are good and bad in all religions.

At least Christianity, by the nature of it's Founder, is less likely to be responsible for atrocities. (Although I'm not suggesting it doesn't happen)

Never let it be said that I am unfair to Christianity, jingl. It's not the religion itself that is responsible for atrocities - it's certain adherents and their perverted interpretations of the Bible that cause the trouble. The same could, I assume, be said of Islam and the Qran.

No, that was a reply to jess re an assassination in Pakistan. I'm wasn't remarking whether anyone on here is unfair to Christianity or not!

jingle, I suspect that most atheists are not interested in ranking religions in order of their nastiness or potential for harm - we simply don't believe in any supernatural being. I don't care if people want to believe in fairies, angels, Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny - I just think they are kidding themselves, but if it gives them any comfort, so be it.
If any religion does no harm at all (and I can think of some) and in fact is wholly beneficial, I am pleased for its adherents but I still don't believe in its basic premise - that there is some entity somewhere that is outside the normal laws of physics and even gets involved in such petty things as finding lost keys.
I think that people who do good deeds in the name of religion are just good people, who would continue to do such deeds if they had no faith at all.
There are too many examples of evil perpetrated by believers to convince me that having a belief in the supernatural somehow makes people better.
Similarly, much good is done in the world by atheists. The belief or unbelief is really irrelevant.