Pope Visits The UK And Accusses Us Of Atheist Extremism

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Sep 172010
 

So the Pope on his visit to the UK is warning us of the dangers of “atheist extremism” and is comparing atheists to the Nazis.

I’m not sure what kind of thinking went on to associate Nazism with atheism. The Nazis repressed atheist groups in Germany with Hitler proclaiming in 1933 that he had “stamped [atheism] out”. It is just as ridiculous to claim that Catholicism lead to Nazism (as Hitler was brought up Catholic) as to associate atheism with the Nazis.

From his speech, it would seem that the pope is implying that atheists are less moral than those who believe that their imaginary friends will punish them severely if they behave badly. It is true that atheists do not have a single written code of morals to follow, but nothing stops us from following the sensible bits out of (for example) the bible. But what evidence is there that atheists behave less morally than those who believe in some religion ?

Of course we can all point out a list of historical atheists who haven’t exactly been good – Stalin, Lenin, and Hitler are usually top of the list, although it isn’t totally certain that Hitler was an atheist. The bigoted will point to that list as evidence that all atheists are evil, but of course you are not one of those fools.

The pope may have a point where he claims that morality in public life is in danger, but not when he claims that atheists are the root of the problem. A moral atheist is better than an immoral christian every single time, just as a moral christian is always preferred to an immoral atheist. We may not be able to agree on religious issues, but on most of the basics a moral atheist will be in full agreement with a moral christian – for example that all forms of murder and theft are wrong.

It is also a mistake to label everyone who doesn’t attend church or claim some sort of belief as an atheist. In a traditionally christian society, atheism is a choice to be made, and most people in Britain haven’t made that choice. Even those who put down “no religion” in the 2001 census (between 14% (England) and 19% (Wales) can’t be labelled as “atheist”, as “no religion” is a category that covers atheists, agnostics (the “don’t knows”), and the “don’t cares”.

And what examples of atheist extremism have we seen ? How many churches have been burnt to the ground ? How many bishops have been hung from lamp posts ? How many people attending churches or mosques have been spat at and reviled ? Well if all that has been going on, it mysteriously hasn’t shown up on the national news.

Perhaps us atheists aren’t that extreme at all.

Burning The Koran on 9/11

 Politics, Religion  1 Response »
Sep 082010
 

Will he; won’t he ? That dumb American pastor who has promised to burn the Koran. I’m guessing he probably will after all it’s not every day that a piece of white trash like Terry Jones attracts this much attention. He’s the pastor of a third-rate church with at most 50 in his congregation showing that he isn’t even a particularly good frothing extremist like others in the US. In other words, he needs the publicity to keep going – why else would he announce this foolish escapade this year and not in previous years after 2001?

Of course it is probably offensive to Muslims everywhere; hell it’s even offensive to me, and I don’t like any organised religion – to me this is the burning of one of the great works of literature. It is also offensive that a knuckle-dragging white trash pastor cannot distinguish between the overwhelming majority of peaceful Muslims and the fanatical fringe.  Perhaps he can’t count over 10 without taking his socks off – after all there are in excess of 1.7 billion Muslims in the world today and if they were all inclined to violence, we would have a lot more terrorist attacks than we do.

Perhaps people are fooled by the rhetoric; the wild protests and threats of violence that we sometimes see take place in the Islamic world. Well, there is a big difference between what you say you will do, and what you are actually prepared to carry out. Who hasn’t said “I’ll kill him” in a moment of stress and anger ? And yet the overwhelming majority of us will never conceive of actually carrying out a killing such as that – the outburst is a way of releasing stress. Perhaps not quite the same, but bear in mind that what we say is not the same as what we do.

According to this article on terrorist attacks in the US, no more than 6% of all terrorist incidents in the US since 1980. 6% ? Unbelievable isn’t it ? Well the figures came from a report by the FBI which is available here (although you will have to do your own number crunching). It seems that Jewish terrorists are (just) more likely to commit terrorist acts in the US as Islamic terrorists. To bring in another source, the Europol report on the terrorist situation in 2009 (published in 2010) shows that of 294 terrorist incidents (including foiled attacks), just 1 was committed by an Islamic terrorist – an even lower percentage of 0.3%

Strikes me that those 1.7 billion Muslims are either exceptionally lazy, or are just not that interested in being terrorists. Undoubtedly people will point to Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan as examples of just how active Islamic terrorists can be – fair point, but in all cases those are exceptional circumstances. And besides the overwhelming majority of the victims are Muslims themselves – if anything one might say that the “Islamic” terrorists are actually enemies of Islam as they seem to prefer killing their co-religionists to non-Muslims.

Back to our white trash pastor. Despite showing every intention of burning the Koran, it would have been nice if the world could have ignored him – that is what he deserves. Perhaps understandably, the Islamic world doesn’t feel this way and is undoubtedly working up to widespread protests on September 11th, and undoubtedly the tiny minority of Muslims who are actually terrorists will be planning their own form of reaction against this.

It is worth pointing out (no matter how little good it will do) that the reaction to our white trash pastor is almost universally negative in the western world.

France Bans The Niqab !!

 Media, Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Jul 132010
 

Actually that isn’t quite the case – it is still in the process of being banned as of today. And of course the law actually reads something along the lines “people are prohibited from concealing their faces in public”. But we all know that it’s to ban Muslim women from wearing the full face veil or niqab.

I have mentioned the niqab before, so I will not be saying too much in this post.

France’s law may be a little over the top, but I do not believe that it is any more anti-Islamic than a law against beating your wife is anti-Islamic. Muslims in France may believe that France’s new law is anti-Islamic, but it is more a reaction against the perceived misogynistic tendencies behind the wearing of the niqab.

Muslims are saying that we should be more accepting of cultural differences when it comes to considering the niqab; I don’t disagree, but the negative image of the full face veil in Western society should also be considered when considering wearing the niqab. As mentioned before, an Islamic woman is still capable of demonstrating her “modesty” by wearing a burka despite not wearing the face veil, and by doing so she is showing her acceptance of Western cultural sensitivities.

Corporate Stupidity – Sony and the Little Big Planet Game

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Oct 202008
 

It was announced today (on the news at least … Sony may have announced it earlier) that Sony have released a game called “Little Big Planet” that has a music track that may annoy some Muslims. The track in question (please send corrections if I’m wrong) is a Mali language track, and quotes from the Koran. Apparently the singer is himself a devout Muslim. Sony in their not-so-infinite wisdom have announced that they are delaying the launch of the game, recalling all issued game disks, and re-mastering a version without the track in question.

Glossing over whether this music track really is offensive, it is perfectly reasonable for Sony to do something about this. But to do a full recall of the game disks already in the distribution channels? That’s pretty costly, and I would be pretty miffed if I were a Sony shareholder.

Why not simply issue a groveling apology, point out that it was a genuine mistake, promise to remaster all future game disks without the track in question, and issue an online patch to remove the track from disks that have already been distributed ?

Incidentally the track in question (Tapha Niang) is available at the artist’s website :-

http://www.worldcircuit.co.uk/#Toumani_Diabate::Boulevard_de_lIndependance

To “excuse” this mistake, if Muslims cannot agree on what is and what is not appropriate and Islamic, how can the rest of us avoid making mistakes like this ?

Freedom From Religion

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Sep 302008
 

The phrase “Religious Freedom” or ‘Freedom of Religion” often comes up, but I would like to see the phrase “Freedom From Religion” used a little more. This is going to sound a bit like an attack on religion itself, but it is not intended as such. Everyone is free to practice the religion of their choice … or none at all.

The key is the end of that last sentence – no religion at all. We’re all too often besieged with symbols of religion and people assume we want to hear about their favourite fictitious god. Certainly the UK is nowhere as bad as the USA where atheists can be subject to treatment that amounts to persecution even including physical and verbal abuse merely for voicing their lack of belief.

But that does not mean the UK is properly secular in public life. Schools can be a little too religious; I do not mind my taxes being used to pay for the education of children, but I do mind that it is used to pay for the religious indoctrination of children. Too many schools are “faith schools” and are at least partially funded by the taxpayer.

In many cases … particularly for primary schools where the most impressionable children are taught, there is little choice other to send children to such schools. The Church of England still “owns” (we won’t worry too much about the fine details of this ownership) 25% of all primary schools. Rather creepily similar to the Jesuit saying “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man”.

Of course there is nothing deliberately sinister about the CoE schools these days. Long gone are the times when one could be beaten for expressing views even slightly atheistic, but there is still a distinct odour of the Christian religion about such places. One school even boasts of providing a “christian education”.

Moving onto Universities, and you will find the education considerably less influenced by religion as these places are supposed to be serious institutes of learning. But if you have a close look at who is employed at these places you will often find a chaplain or six. Now these chaplains probably are not going to ram their religion down your throat, and are to a certain extent simply a counselling service with a religious twist. The funny thing is that both of the Universities I checked also have independent counselling services.

So what we have here is a special religious counselling service that only certain people are qualified for employment with … just christians (or perhaps people who believe in other gods). Now religious students (and staff) could probably do with a little support from a University, but what is wrong with ordinary counsellors just pointing them at local churches, mosques and the like ? Again I’m not entirely sure why my taxes should go towards paying the salaries of people whose principal talent is talking to imaginary beings.

But far worse are the more in your face examples of religion. The church sign that says “The Wages of Sin is Death”, the kerbside evangelist who harranges you about being saved, the smug Christian who insists that all unbelievers will go straight to hell and suffer eternal damnation. At best this is merely irritating; at worst it consitutes a kind of verbal abuse.

Yet religion seems to have a privileged position in our society … it is considered wrong to criticise the beliefs of others. But why is not also considered wrong to criticise the unbelief of others ? I do not believe, do not want to be preached at, and certainly do not want to see my tax money spent on supporting religious belief in any way whatsoever.

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