Thought for the Day

The announcement today that the BBC Trust will continue to support the Radio 4 policy of discrimination against humanists and atheists is outrageous.

The BBC has an obligation to fairness and impartiality as laid down in its charter. The remit of Thought for the Day (TftD) is to reflect on the moral/ethical implications of current events. The assumption that religion has an exclusive insight in this area is astonishing. I have yet to hear an apology from any of the Catholic speakers regarding their church’s disgusting abuse of children in their care. I have yet to hear a Jewish speaker denounce the Israeli government for their war crimes in Gaza, I have yet to hear a Moslem speak out against their faith’s obscene treatment of apostates and homosexuals.

What I do hear banal platitudes about god’s love and how religion is the sole bulwark against a tide of immorality. The truth is that religion in many of its nasty, prejudiced guises is the problem, not the solution.

It is no surprise that politicians are afraid to confront religious privilege. Their grovelling pursuit of votes is to be expected, but that the BBC, an organisation revered the world over, should also demonstrate such a supine response is evidence of the moral cowardice and intellectual bankruptcy of its controllers and its management.

The BBC Trust may think it has drawn a line under this issue, it hasn’t. In restricting contributors to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day (TftD) to those who subscribe to a particular set of religious beliefs, the BBC clearly breaches the Equality and Human Rights Act.

The Act defines Humanism and Atheism as systems of belief and yet persons holding these beliefs are explicitly excluded from contributing to the programme. The BBC seeks to justify the status quo by saying that TftD is produced by the BBC Religious Affairs department. It is thereby promoting religious belief at the expense of any other system of belief like humanism.

The fight continues, watch this space.

It is time to stand up to the Islamic tide

Am I exaggerating by comparing Islam to the rise in Fascism in the 30’s? The similarities are remarkable, a supremacist ideology, a ruthless opposition to libertarian values and an aggressive policy of expansion along with a political class largely indifferent to the threat, Add to that the spineless capitulation by the likes of Faulks.

All religions would like to muddy distinction between church and state but only one, Islam, seeks to remove it altogether. Sharia is not a folksy neighbourhood arbitration service, it is a parasite that seeks to destroy our secular legal system and replace it with its own, misogynistic, homophobic and barbaric practices.

Take a look at Saudi Arabia if you want to see what Sharia is like for all but the privileged few. For many Moslems the goal is a global caliphate where no authority is tolerated other than their own. As the film Fitna aptly demonstrates the Quran provides ample justification to pursue any amount of barbarism so long as it is sanctioned by the word of “God”.

And what are we doing about it? Nothing and the reason is that we are not willing to assert the superiority of our own values. The fear of offending minority interests and the assumption that multiculturalism, so favoured by the left, is the only policy, has allowed the wooden horse of Islam to take root in many of our cities.

So what about moderate Moslems who simply want to get on with their lives? Of course they are not all fellow travellers of the 9/11 or 7/7 terrorists, but polls have shown that when push comes to shove many tacitly sanction the use of terrorist tactics when Islam is threatened, wherever that may be. The problem is that most Moslems identify primarily with other Moslems, rather than their fellow countryman, regardless of the country in which they live, their ethnicity or even the language they speak. Wherever they settle be it Bradford or Brisbane their allegiance is first to God. This is why creeping “islamification” needs to be confronted.

We Brits are famed for our tolerance and moderation but if they blind us to a threat to our way of life that is moving inexorably towards us, they will have served us poorly and we will live to regret it.

Religion still pervades the BBC

Religion still pervades the BBC more than 80 years after Lord Reith imposed his strict Presbyterian convictions on the new enterprise. That it should still have a Religion & Ethics department is an anachronism. As far as I know the BBC doesn’t have a Food department but still manages to make a huge number of programmes on the subject. 

Religion & Ethics is part of the BBC's Factual & Learning Division; Religion FACTUAL!!!! If the BBC insists on having a department that includes religion it should be honest and call it the Department of Myth and Magic and leave the important issue of Ethics to fend for itself.

The Humanist Voice

I have long campaigned for the inclusion of a non religious voice to be heard on Thought for the Day (see below) and it seems that the BBC has finally bowed to the inevitable, perhaps as a result of my pointing out to the BBC Trust that their previous policy was in defiance of UK Equality and Human Rights legislation. 

The BBC has created a new body, The Standing Conference on Religion and Belief on which Humanists will now have a voice. So why is this important? 

The proponents of religion have always sought to portray the godless as having no morals or at the very least no moral blueprint by which actions can be judged. In the public sphere the advice of religious leaders but never the Humanists is invariably sought when questions of morality are raised and this has enhanced their standing in society. 

The association of morality and religion is no accident. Those rules that many religions promote, although largely self serving, are invariably portrayed as the moral code by which the individual’s behaviour should be judged both here on Earth and later by the creator. Their authenticity is never questioned because it is claimed that they are the word of God himself and delivered to us, often in strikingly similar ways; the Quran dictated to Mohamed, an illiterate peasant and the 10 Commandments written in tablets of stone and given to Moses. 

However there has always been an alternative to God given morality and that is Humanism. Humanist values are an inevitable consequence of being human; they are in part hard wired into our biology and part learnt within the human family. They are necessary for our continued existence and not simply a code of conduct handed down to us by a superior being. Parental altruism is essential for the survival of our offspring and during their long development into adulthood; human beings simply learn their morality in the same way that they learn language and Humanism is not a new idea; it had been a part of Confucianism some 500 years before Christ. 

So let’s hear much more of the Humanist voice not just on the BBC but in public life in general.

Contraception Denial: The pope and crimes against humanity

During his current visit the pope has once again told millions of African catholics that if they use condoms they will go to hell. As most are poor and ignorant they believe this fallacy and so continue to have unprotected sex. But this time the catholic church has gone even further claiming the condom use does not protect against HIV/Aids.

Denial of the Holocaust is illegal in some countries. Perhaps claiming condom use does not protect against HIV/Aids should be regarded as Contraception Denial. 

The pope is responsible for this doctrine and he can change it; that he refuses to do so should be regarded as a crime against humanity. He knows that in the developed world most catholics ignore this doctrine and so is guilty of exploiting ignorance and poverty in order to enforce his will in the only region where he knows he will be obeyed. 

In any other sphere such behaviour would be regarded as deeply immoral and yet to a large extent it goes unchallenged. Add to this its attitude towards homosexuality and one must conclude that the catholic church is bankrupt of any moral authority.

Thought for the Day

The BBC policy of restricting contributors to Radio 4’s Thought for the Day to those who subscribe to a particular set of religious beliefs clearly breaches the Equality and Human Rights Act. Although the relevant legislation is set out at various government websites, it is most clearly presented at the Citizens advice site.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_rights/discrimination/discrimination_because_of_religion_or_belief.htm

To summarise (quoted verbatim from adviceguide)

1 What does religion or belief mean

You are protected by law from discrimination because of your religion or belief if you:

# Belong to an organised religion such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam
# Have a profound belief which affects your way of life or view of the world, such as humanism
# Take part in collective worship
# Belong to a smaller religion or sect, such as Scientology or Rastafarianism
# Have no religion, for example, if you are an atheist.


2 Religious discrimination by organisations providing goods or services

It's against the law for anyone providing goods or services directly to the public to discriminate because of religion or belief. The law applies to businesses, charities and public bodies such as government agencies, local authorities, education and health facilities.

Discrimination includes:

# Refusing to provide goods or services
# Discriminating in the way goods or services are provided.

The BBC is a public body and is clearly discriminating in the way goods or services are provided. The Act defines Humanism and Atheism as systems of belief. The BBC seeks to justify the status quo by saying that TftD is produced by the BBC Religious Affairs department. It is thereby promoting religious belief at the expense of any other system of belief like humanism. This is not an adequate defence any more than denying women access to hitherto men only club would have been.
The BBC should think again and reverse this indefensible policy or they will find themselves having to defend it before the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

BBC bias against atheists

The BBC has received an official complaint from the British Humanist Association regarding the biased reporting of a poll commissioned by the BBC Religious Affairs Dept by the BBC Religious Correspondent, Robert Piggot.

Report
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7906595.stm

BHA Complaint
http://www.humanism.org.uk/_uploads/documents/1BHA-complaint-about-reporting-on-bbc-site.pdf

That an organisation like the BBC should have a Religious Affairs Dept gives pause for thought. As a news organisation it is reasonable that they should have a religious correspondent who objectively reports news. Rather it is a propaganda department used to promote a religious message at the expense of a secular one. Just imagine if the BBC had a LibDem Dept or a Hamas Dept rather than politically neutral correspondents!

The Director General and the Controller of Radio 4 both wear their religion on their sleeve and have demonstrated contempt for the non religious voice as the recent complaints over Radio 4’s Thought for the Day exemplify. More than 500 complaints and not a word of apology or justification as to why the Humanist voice is denied access to this programme.

The BBC has a public service remit at the heart of all its operations and that demands scrupulous objectivity. And yet the BBC reports secularism and atheism as if it were a fringe cult, using terms like militant atheist for anyone who challenges the privileges enjoyed by religion in the UK.

The BBC is charged with blatant discrimination that would not be tolerated if on any other area of public debate. The top management of the BBC foster this inequity because some of them are active members of faith groups. This is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue and will be constantly challenged until the BBC ends this discrimination.

Geert Wilders and islam

If a film of Mein Kampf is made with images of the Holocaust would we ban its creator on the grounds that it insults all Germans? The quran is littered with obscene passages as is the old testament, the difference is that in Islam no one questions that they are the word of god whilst the old testament has been quietly ignored by most christians. In a conflict between the laws of Great Britain and those of islam most moslems, even the so called moderates, will choose islam. This is a state of affairs that cannot be allowed to continue.

Our government rather than stand up for secular values and the rule of law appeases and capitulates to moslems. As Wilders says (and I am no supporter of right wing views) a tide of islamofascism is gathering momentum across Europe and just like its precursor in the 1930’s we must stand up to it and if our government won’t do it then we as individuals must.

Censored on iPM Blog!

The following post has just been removed from the iPM blog. The subject is the long debate on Thought for the Day. So now we atheists are suffering not only discrimination but censorship too. Shame on you BBC.

478. At 5:06pm on 18 Jan 2009, GarethTh wrote:

“I refuse to engage with you on this simply because you have an endless capacity to denigrate the work of the Church and it is getting ridiculous. I have been disappointed to see that the real thrust of the atheist input here is still primarily about attacking those who hold religious views rather than simply seeking an equal voice on TftD, which I have already said was reasonable in itself. What more do you want, sir”?

I replied:

In case you make a surprise return your defence of the denial of condoms in Africa by the catholic church and the affect that this has had on HIV/Aids is well attested to. I have yet to hear any reputable health agency say that using condoms does anything but help in its prevention. I imagine the Terrence Higgins Trust does recommend the use of condoms, so which policy demonstrates greater humanity? Denigrate the church I don’t think so, it’s actions speak louder than my words.

I attack those policies that the religious accept but are demonstrably immoral. If I were to make a list islam would be at the top of it with catholicism not far behind. The reason I attack those policies is that I am continually being told that religion has moral authority; my purpose is to show that it doesn’t and pleasant though you appear to be you have said nothing that would change the mind of a reasonable person.

All the Best

Radio 4 Thought for the Day (TftD)

We can debate the existence of god for ever and it is usually a fruitless task for the atheist as it is all but impossible to reason a person out of an opinion that they didn’t reason themselves into in the first place. Belief in god is a statement of faith not reason.

As regards Radio 4 Thought for the Day (TftD) I sense we may be on the edge of a breakthrough. If there are to be non-religious contributors I think they should come from all walks of life and have expressed their humanity either in their work or their public statements. You may be surprised that I have not included Richard Dawkins, whilst I have the highest regard for him I think this might further antagonise those that we have to convince.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Woody Allen

Martin Amis

Lord Avebury

Baroness Blackstone

Professor Colin Blakemore 

Dr Susan Blackmore

Warren Buffett

Billy Connolly

Daniel Dennett

Jonathan Edwards

Stephen Fry

Richard E. Grant

Professor A C Grayling

Susan Greenfield

Germaine Greer

Rt Hon The Lord Hattersley

Sam Harris  

Professor Steve Jones

Sir Ludovic Kennedy

Professor Sir Harold Kroto 

Brian Eno

Ian McEwan

Richard Feynman

Bob Geldof 

Ricky Gervais 

Eddie Izzard 

Neil Kinnock

John McCarthy

Sir Ian McKellen

Jonathan Meades

Sir Jonathan Miller 

Desmond Morris

Baron O'Neill of Clackmannan (Martin O'Neill, former MP)

Professor Sir Roger Penrose

Steven Pinker

Terry Pratchett 

Philip Pullman 

James Randi 

Claire Rayner 

Salman Rushdie

George Soros

Lord Dick Taverne 

Laurie Taylor

Polly Toynbee

Professor Lewis Wolpert 

The TftD brief should remain the same; to comment on current events within a moral and ethical context. And before anyone says “do you seriously expect George Soros to turn up at Broadcasting House and do a 3 minute Thought?” No I don’t but maybe the producers could pre-record an occasionally more generic Thought from those outside the UK.

At last an atheist browser

Whilst testing out a new browser recently (Google Chrome), I was surprised when it threw up the following error message. 

You attempted to reach gsearch.vatican.va, but the server presented a certificate issued by an entity that is not trusted by your computer's operating system.

I imagine that the Holy See is on to this problem and is sending a team of digital exorcists to deal with it.