Lost in (cyber)space

As someone who has to use the thing daily, I take particular interest in the ‘improved’ new Manx government website.

Needless to say, ‘improved’ is not an accurate statement of affairs. Most of the pages professionals need to work with government have been moved around, not linked handily enough together to allow you to carry out necessary tasks smoothly or just taken down completely in some cases. Combined with a few major crashes of the office computer system which wiped out all our useful links it has been an …..interesting (!) experience for a week or two now just trying to get the basics done, get out, and go home.

But one vanishing link is worthy of comment here, and might even be indicative of a governmental rethink (though I doubt it).

There used to be a front page link to a page listing contacts for local religious groups – church postal and website addresses, phone numbers for clergy and that sort of thing. It also, more usefully, gave contacts for the obscurer Christian sects and non-Christian faiths. I say useful, firstly because it proved they exist (contrary to the ‘expert’ advice given to government less than a decade ago by a high-ranking Anglican) and more generally if, say, somebody Muslim or Jewish had been taken ill or died and you needed immediate advice on what to do next.

As far as I can gather, the page first appeared courtesy of the Tourist Department as a way to help tourists find the more obscure churches involved in the annual Flower Festival, and for religiously minded visitors to find a place of Sunday worship. This was in an era when links between Manx church and state were so strong that some worshippers were effectively getting a government salary to practice their faith. In recent years, that generation have retired and it  was also noticeable that the traditional churches took up less and less of the listings and new cults or non-Christian religions were becoming the majority.

I (luckily) knew the old government website so well that I was able to restore the new equivalents of all the vital professional links I use within a day, but after searching extensively I am 100% sure there is no longer any list of religious contacts. As I know for a fact it was the only source used by certain government departments to find a suitable cross-section of religious leaders to advise on ethical issues, it will be worth challenging future government pronouncements that they have consulted faith communities on their policies and met with no objections.

But did the page vanish (a) because churches close to government cannot cope with evidence of their minority status, even when only measured against other faiths (b) completely by accident and rank civil service incompetence or (c) because some government bean-counter worked out that nobody goes to church any more?

Now THAT might be worth knowing. Unlike most of the endless, consistently pointless and fact free ‘media communications’ from government.

OK, OK, I'm back

I learnt recently that Positive Action Group have calculated that the Manx Government wastes (sorry ‘devotes’) between 60-90 minutes per year on formal prayers – and that’s not even including the bogus religious ceremony on Tynwald Day itself.
 Hmm!
It strikes me that according to your personal belief (or lack of it) this finding could lead to one of three conclusions.
Either….. Nobody’s there, so politicians should stop mucking about and get on with what we pay them to do.
 Or……… Somebody’s there, but doesn’t think it’s her/his job to sort out the mess Tynwald made, so politicians should stop mucking about and get on with what we pay them to do.
 Or….. Somebody’s there, takes pity on us poor Manx citizens and has been intervening to lessen the damage caused by government.
If that is the case, do you even dare imagine how bad things would be without divine intervention if we had to live with the full extent of political bungling?

Oh ye of little faith!

As I hope every sensible person will have realised by now, Age Concern is a notorious bogus charity that preys on the elderly while posing as a pressure group. In reality most of their real lobbying is on behalf of the pensions and insurance industry with which it is so closely linked, having (with the help of such powerful interest groups and the blindness or sheer lack of social concern of politicians and civil servants) simply put every small, local and genuine charity worried about older people out of business. This also explains why the policies it wants most involve the private health industry taking on 'vital services' which the government can 'no longer afford'.
Considering these links to private (i.e second rate and cost-cutting) health I have often wondered why it needs to beg so much money from the public .Or perhaps that is just a charade too, like other local bogus charities most of whose income, policies and even 'voluntary help' is actually provided by government.
Still according to this week's Courier, this 'charity' is looking for a member of the clergy to lead a sponsored abseil laughingly entitled 'A Leap Of Faith'.
So here is my question to the religulous.
If any of the clergy really had so much faith, why would they need a rope?
Mind you, I still would not pay to watch them jump without one. On principle, I never support bogus charities, or any other drain on the weak and vulnerable.

Heritage strategies from La La Land

Ah well, I’m not the only one then. The great Manx public also think Tynwald Day is rubbish, and in particular we think all that churchy twaddle sucks.
Last week’s IOM Newspapers online poll asked: “What do you enjoy best about Tynwald Day”.
Today the results are up on the site. For 74% it was “Having the day off to stay at home”, for 10% “The ceremony on the hill”, for 7% “Looking round the fair's stalls”, 6% “The music and entertainment” and a mere 3% like the church service.
The other local rabble-rousing atheist media whore called Stuart (Peters) even took a pop at it in his weekly Indie column today, ending by suggesting it might be time to: “make Tynwald a truly Manx occasion, celebrating all the good things about the Isle of Man, sidelining the preening politicians in their top hats and chains of office, and bringing it more up to date and much less a reminder of how grateful we should be to our ultimate landlady.”
Now you might imagine that public bodies – especially those ‘marketing’ the gaff – would have sussed the public mood, maybe done a survey or two of their own to ascertain how we like to spend our time and what would get the ‘bucket and spade brigade’ back on boats and planes to spend some loot.
Well….no! At least not if a government press release (see http://www.gov.im/lib/news/mnh/songsofpraiseatr2.xml ) for an event this Sunday is anything to go by.
We are invited to:
“join Manx National Heritage at Rushen Abbey and enjoy the sounds of choral music at the annual Songs of Praise service in the Abbey Gardens.
The service begins at 2.30pm and visitors will be invited to join in with the well-known hymns performed by the Meadowside Choir, with an accompanying dance display provided by Ballasalla Dance Group ‘Academy of Dance’. “
Oh yes, let’s….................not bother getting out of bed.
This is actually quite worrying.
What it tells us is that not only are our politicians way out of touch and stuck in a tiny, fast-dying myopic subculture that still thinks religion is a big deal, but that the ‘professionals’ they employ to advise on what constitutes Manx life and culture are equally clueless, equally trapped in some sepia-tinted time-warp.
Where they live on our money and make our lives ever duller, all the time covering their ears and singing ‘La, la, la’ tunelessly.

Hit or Amish?

Question: What goes clip-clop, clip-clop, BANG, clippetty-clop, clippetty-clop?
Answer: A drive-by Amish shooting.
Well, I liked it!

Should bible ownership be licenced?

I got carried away by other stuff yesterday and forgot to pose a question inspired by a Beeb Sunday morning live comedy show, i.e., ‘should bible ownership be licenced?’
I ask after viewing as much of The Big Questions as they could transmit before either a technical fault or (as I suspect) they stopped recording so that Campbell could gaffa tape the gob of a particularly stupid audience member.
Inevitably, the Cumbria shootings spawned an inevitable question about gun control, ‘Should all guns be illegal’,with the inevitable lunatic fringe views ranging from, on one side, a bloke who thought all pensioners should be issued with handguns to a madwoman whose son had been shot, thus giving her a permanent income screeching about it to the media.
And Wendy One Note (as we’ll dub her), really did screech. From the point Campbell began introducing the topic, and she interrupted him, to the point where, having allowed her to screech for 30 seconds, he tried to bring in another speaker, who she interrupted. At this point there was a technical breakdown, and when abnormal service was resumed Campbell tried to precis the argument thus far, only for Wendy One Note to interrupt, at which point there was a longer technical breakdown.
The signal came back, Campbell tried again to precis and Wendy again screeched before he had got two sentences out, at which point technical difficulties again stopped play, and the Beeb finally gave up and moved to a replacement programme.
Much as I love such knockabout stuff, there is a serious question to be asked, if only we can move away from kneejerk stuff about gun control.
And that question is ‘Should bible ownership be licenced?’
Think about it, compared to the miniscule number of nutters running amok with shotguns, the damage caused by widespread, often totally irresponsible, bible ownership in this country is immense. This isn’t just individual lives, but whole families - whole communities even – who get damaged.
Now historically, of course, bibles were chained to the lectern in churches and only licenced priests could read them. But were things any better in the good old days?
No, they may even have been worse. Because religious nutters totally ran the country and nobody else even had a bible to bash back with. Plus, being illiterate, they couldn't have quoted it out of context as an excuse.
So was the invention of the printing press, the rise of Protestantism and literacy – thus bringing the potential of bibles for all and the ability of most to read them - an improvement?
Um!
If anything, things are much worse. Bibles are everywhere – not just in churches or hotel bedrooms but readily available in bookshops without mental health or criminal record checks… and even compulsory in schools.
And that’s not all. In addition to officially condoned bibles, cheap replicas and a whole range of similar weapons are flooding the street for the impressionable to get hold of. The Book of Mormon, the Koran and the I-Ching (how on earth do you get ‘divine wisdom’ from a glorified gambling device, by the way) to name but a few… and not a training manual or certified course of instruction in sight to prevent any passing lunatic from picking one up, opening it at random and causing untold havoc.
Forget tightening up on the licencing of shotguns. There’s a far greater menace to society on our streeets, and we need to get a grip on it.
NOW!

The weak-minded are a long time in Manx politics

It must be lonely for Allan Bell in the Council of Ministers. In fact, he probably finds it difficult enough being a Manx politician who can count to ten and spell his own name.
Most Manx readers will immediately know what I mean, but for everyone else, this (http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=44001 ) is Allan Bell talking about the long overdue Civil Partnership Bill he pushed to a second reading last week.
And this (http://www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=44002 ) is some turnip-munching throwback who, after causing international embarrassment as Education Minister, then failed as the minister responsible for traffic jams and is now (for some reason nobody except another turnip-muncher squatting in the Chief Minister’s office can fathom) being allowed to run the Health Service.
Yes, world, we really do have it this tough. We really do have politicians in charge of an entire Ministry of Transport who, elsewhere, couldn’t even get a job filling in potholes. And you think Uganda has problems!
For the record, as for some reason an insightful piece on the second reading of the Civil Partnership Bill by Adrian Darbyshire in the local press hasn’t made it to the IOM Newspapers website (Update – there now at http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/Are-dark-days-of-intolerance.6205221.jp ) , the voting was 19/3 in favour of the Bill. The three dullards who voted against were the aforementioned turnip-muncher plus John Houghton and Geoff Corkish, none of whom have a sparkling record on such matters.
It will be no surprise to anyone that they claimed to be protecting ‘family values’ and traditional Christianity. I think it might be nearer the truth to regard them as simple bigots who, unfortunately, got voted in because they stood in constituencies where literacy is so basic that many voters only communicate with the world verbally and probably don’t even know which name they put their X next to.
In passing, I also think it safe to say that even on the Isle of Man only two types of nominal Christian still oppose civil partnerships. One are outright bigots who hide behind faith. The other are sheep-like dullards who prefer to have mystical leaders tell them what to do rather than use faith as a means to think for themselves and explore the world.
Once you realise that the tactics used by seriously homophobic Christians (i.e. random Biblical quotes wrenched out of context instead of serious textual analysis followed by discussion with other serious, and fair minded, believers) are exactly those used a century ago to oppose mixed race marriage and half a century ago to oppose equality for women the rest is clear enough.
We should not waste further time on these chumps. But we should make sure they are no longer in any position to harm humanity.

Amnesty, the Taliban and womens rights - getting the balance right

I’ve been an Amnesty member for over 30 years. It’s one allegiance I’ve never lost, despite losing faith in most NGOs and ‘human rights defenders’.
Externally, as long as governments quote Amnesty reports to slag off other governments and slag off Amnesty reports about their own country you know they’re hitting the spot. Internally, while I’ve had minor quibbles over the years, they usually get the balance between a rainbow coalition of interested parties about right, and that balance is reached at scrupulously fair and open national conferences where folk from tiny groups get the same chance as major supporters, like the unions and churches who send along national reps but get one vote like me.
Recently one issue is causing worry, and rather than give small detail I’ll quote verbatim the text of a petition to Amnesty, which I suggest secularist individuals and groups might want to at least read, and maybe sign up to.
The petition reads:
"As organisations and individuals who stand for and support the universality of human rights, we have noted with concern the suspension of Gita Sahgal, Head of the Gender Unit at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International in London, for questioning Amnesty International’s partnership with individuals whose politics towards the Taliban are ambiguous.
We come from communities that recognize and appreciate the work of Amnesty International in defending human rights and women’s rights around the world. Many of us work closely with Amnesty International in their campaigns at various levels.
We believe that Gita Sahgal has raised a fundamental point of principle which is “about the importance of the human rights movement maintaining an objective distance from groups and ideas that are committed to systematic discrimination”.
This issue of principle is critical at the present moment, with the United States led “War on Terror” leading to the suspension of human rights and increased surveillance over individuals and the body politic. Ironically, the language of human rights and human rights defenders is being taken over by the US/NATO alliance in its efforts to legitimise a re-born imperialism. Equally disturbingly, this language is also being hijacked by organizations that espouse extremist and violent forms of identity-based politics. The space for a position that challenges both these is shrinking, and human rights are becoming hostage to broader authoritarian political agendas, whether from states or communities.
In this context, it is crucial for human rights defenders and organisations to clearly define principles and core values that are non-negotiable. Our commitment to countering, among others, Islamophobia, racism, misogyny and xenophobia should at no time blur our recognition of the authoritarian, often fascist, social and political agendas of some of the groups that suffer human rights abuse at the hands of the big powers.
The broader issue of principle which we raise here, is one which concerns all of us as human rights defenders from different parts of the world. Many of us who work to defend human rights in the context of conflict and terrorism know the importance of maintaining a clear and visible distance from potential partners and allies when there is any doubt about their commitment to human rights. Given the circumstances in which questions regarding the partnership with Cageprisoners appear to have been raised, we feel that Amnesty International should have refrained from providing them with a platform. It should have been possible for Amnesty International to campaign against the fundamental human rights abuses that have occurred at Guantanamo and elsewhere without making alliances that compromise Amnesty International’s core values, just as other human rights organisations have done.
History has repeatedly shown us that anti-democratic organisations can and do manipulate information and their own self-representation for narrow political advantage. In any situation of ambiguity, we feel that the benefit of doubt should have been given to the expert staff members of Amnesty International. We feel that in this instance there has been a lack of respect for the opinions expressed by Gita Sahgal, who is a senior member of staff, and a critical failure of internal democratic functioning at Amnesty’s International Secretariat.
What is needed is democratic debate, internally as well as in the public sphere, on the human rights principles that should guide Amnesty International and all of us in determining our alliances. We have to ensure that the partnerships we form are true to the core human rights values of equality and universality. Our accountability in this area, internally as well as externally, to all our diverse constituencies, cannot be put at risk. We need a rigorous examination of potential partners. Given the complex situations we work in, what is needed is open debate, not a censoring and closure of discussion on these important issues. Shifting the debate and turning this into a discussion about ‘Othering’ and ‘demonisation of Guantanamo prisoners’ is merely obscuring the real issues at stake. It puts at risk the work that Amnesty International is attempting to do in Afghanistan and other areas. Unfortunately, it also fails to answer the very serious questions that have been posed to which we are also seeking answers.
In the present context of ‘constructive engagement’ with the Taliban, as proposed at the recent Conference on Afghanistan in London, it is our obligation to ensure that we do not barter away the human rights of minorities and of women for ‘peace’. There are enough recent examples of such attempts which show that these deals are a chimera and do not result in either peace or security. Whatever the nature of ‘engagement’ with authoritarian groups, and whatever partnerships and alliances we enter into with individuals or organisations involved in such ‘engagement’, the positive conditionalities and checks based on human rights, which are universal and indivisible, must remain central and non-negotiable for human rights organizations and defenders.
We call on Amnesty International to clearly and publicly affirm its commitment to the above in all areas of its work; and to demonstrate its obligation to make itself publicly accountable, as it has so often demanded of others.
We extend our solidarity and support to Gita Sahgal, who is well known and widely respected for her principled activism on human rights internationally, for her courageous stand in raising this issue within and outside Amnesty International.
Drafted and initiated by:
• Dr. Amrita Chhachhi, Women, Gender and Development Program, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, member Kartini Asia Network of Women/Gender Studies
• Sara Hossain, Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh
• Sunila Abeysekera, INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre, Sri Lanka"
You can sign up at http://www.human-rights-for-all.org/spip.php?article15 if you agree, and/or find an interview with Gita Sahgal at http://www.human-rights-for-all.org/spip.php?article30 if you want to know more.

Facebook fascism

There’s been a sad little story on the local radio station Energy FM today that I feel I should mention, just to demonstrate that there is a world of difference between opposing religious privilege and critiquing what passes as ‘religious morality’ (which is what I set out to do) and outright racism posing as religious discussion (which is what pondlife, often claiming to be sincere religious believers, do).
It seems the island’s small Muslim community has outgrown their temporary mosque and is making moves to acquire something more fitting. They’ve gone through all the right channels and not sought public subsidies. Generally been neighbourly, self-sufficient and acted pretty much as a respectable community organisation should do. That in itself is a refreshing change for a Manx religious group in the 21st century.
This seems to have annoyed local knuckledraggers so much that, in order to oppose it, they formed a Facebook group of 300 people, or around 150 wits with a combined IQ of, say, 3, if you prefer. You can find the report at http://www.energyfm.net/news/bulletinstory4.htm.
‘But you’re always knocking Muslim fundamentalism’, I hear some say.
Yes, but not Muslims (or Christians or Jews…) themselves.
Frankly, I don’t care what any consenting adult gets up to in private as long as they don’t abuse the vulnerable or expect me to subsidise it. That, in a nutshell, is the difference between me and a ’person of faith’.
I could also misquote Muhammad Ali to explain why I won’t be joining this sad little band of locally born bigots, white flighters and other losers.
No Manx Muslim has ever denied me employment, access to education, medical help in a crisis, or found their premises were too fully booked to rent out to groups I’m involved in because I was of the wrong or no faith. That’s more than I can say of ‘respectable’ Manx churchgoers.

The Right Virus - immunity is possible

I doubt I’m the only parent irritated by teachers infected by what William Burroughs termed ‘the right virus’. I have to believe susceptability to this virus is a freak of nature, as no-one gets this dumb even by Manx education and if it was just pure malice I’d have to seriously worry about it.
It doesn’t matter how many times you politely explain to them that you don’t want your child involved in religious activity and would prefer she decides for herself when she is older.
They first say, even in one of the island’s larger primary schools, that it isn’t ‘convenient’ for her to sit out sessions led by dangerous and deluded freaks with open access to local schools.
Then they promise not to preach, and to allow her to sit quietly, not to join in prayers and so on, only to try and brainwash her anyway if we’re not physically there to check on the basis that, being religious, they know better.
I really wonder how such self-delusion sticks, especially as even at six my daughter was sometimes correcting their sloppy spelling in class.
Thankfully, she's demonstrating that even guided by a ‘Religious Education Advisory Committee’ formed only of apologists from the four largest churchs and chaired by one chosen by a religious leader in another country (not Iran, but it might as well be), they’re wasting their time.
This week she cracked me up again by asking if it was wrong to just sleep until a teacher finishes praying in assembly. As she so logically argued, all the little godbotherers around her are sleeping so why does she have to be the only one awake?

Dunthinking

I was on Manx Radio doing a Thought For The Day last week.
At least I think I was – they buggered up the online replay and repeated someone else’s talk on two consecutive days, and as they never tell you which day of the week you're on there's no way I was listening to Radio Cowshed at 7 AM all week just to check how I sounded .
Actually I was hamstrung and bored this time anyway as the Freethinkers laid down a party line. We were all supposed to ‘celebrate’ Darwin and the theory of evolution.
What’s to celebrate? Evolution happens, just keep up or die.
Usually I just go in with the twin aims of bending the format and saying something funny. No sense in upsetting religionists or you don’t get asked back, so charm them and try to knock a stereotype off-balance instead.
A fellow regular and I used to have a bit of a private competition – who can slip in the most outrageous comment and make the engineer laugh. In the great days of Andy Arnold that was OK. Now he’s gone and we’re being recorded by a proper clergyman I’m supposed to take it seriously.
Take an excuse for a radio sermon seriously? Moi? Get real!!
So I’m thinking of giving it a miss in future. I was in on the groundbreaking first local ‘secular alternatives’, and I’ve pushed it far enough to get Amnesty International in there too. In theory membership and ‘interested others’ of the Freethinkers number 30-50, so if there’s genuine interest time someone else stepped up.
Unless………
maybe it should be a stipulation of Thought For The Day that you’re off your trolley when recording.
That would brighten things up in the morning. If they can come out with fairy stories when they’re stone cold sober, just imagine the topics when sozzled clergy start telling folk what they REALLY think.

Mark Damazer - Turd Of The Day

The excellent weekly 'Newsline' from the National Secular Society today revealed what happened when someone wrote to the BBC to complain about a Thought For The Day broadcast which was even more biased than usual.
To the complainant's suprise, Radio Four Controller Mark Damazer replied as follows:

'In response to your query about Thought for the Day on Radio Four, this reply is on behalf of everyone at the BBC you have contacted.
TfTD is commissioned as a theological reflection on current events. It is not an opinion piece. All contributors are told to ground their 'thought' in their own theological tradition, using the words of scripture or liturgy that have been worn smooth as a pebble by centuries of repetition and devotion. Their authority is drawn from faiths that have survived the centuries, including periods of persecution and intense scrutiny and still proved themselves valid. It is therefore a unique voice on the BBC. I would contend that the BBC should strive to maintain its 'uniqueness' in an increasingly overcrowded market place and serve the audience by giving them a chance to hear a perspective from the great faith traditions that have shaped our society and continue to wield enormous influence over current events. So if you change the commissioning brief to allow in secular voices it would no longer be Thought for the Day and I hear no appetite for such a change from Radio Four. I do not accept that the majority of the country are [sic] atheistic or agnostic. The last census showed 71% declaring themselves Christian and another 8% spiritual. Since then with immigration continuing apace from countries more religious than our own I see no reason to think the religious majority has declined. In a survey a few years ago Radio Four discovered that one in four of its audience go to a worship service every week so we know there is a lot of interest in the subject. Secularism has not swept religion aside as some would have hoped, indeed some academics are writing about the new visibility of religion, albeit more fractured and fragmented than before. With religion so high on the agenda it would be a strange time to change the one place where it is possible to hear the intelligent religious voice in a secular setting and understand something of why millions if not billions of people still put faith at the centre of their lives. '

Jaw-droppingly stupid, but about par for the course for Damazer.
A couple of years ago, at the request of an octagenarian friend who got tired of hurling himself across the kitchen to switch stations when the Sunday Service came on, I organised the following letter to Damazer, which was signed by 24 Manx regular Radio Four listeners, mostly of a similar vintage:

'We are a group of dedicated Radio 4 listeners from the Isle of Man. However, even your excellent station could be improved, and even our dedication could be tested if it is not.
We write with a simple request for change which would considerably improve our lot.
Would you consider giving non-religious listeners a long-wave opt-out at 8.20 AM on Sundays?
Many thousand loyal Radio 4 listeners are forced to choose either to turn to another channel or switch off when ‘Sunday Worship’ begins. For such unbelievers Radio 4 is essential morning listening.
The expense of filling this time would, we believe, be minimal. The return, in terms of new listeners attracted to your general programming but not inclined to hear sermons during breakfast, should be more than adequate compensation, '

He never replied, but then BBC service to the Isle of Man has always been rubbish. My friend was himself a Beeb reporter in the days when they wore dinner suits to read the news and saw it as yet more evidence of a once fine institution's slide into audiovisual excrement.
As it happens, I've had previous experience of poor BBC quality -but at least then they got round to replying to my complaint.
When I found out senior BBC management were meeting 'faith leaders' to beef up religious broadcasting as part of an exercise called “Taking Belief Seriously”, I wrote saying (amongst other things):

'At a time when religious belief amongst well informed people has never been lower it is ridiculous to regard the 'problem' of emptying churches as a social ill which licence payers should be asked to help solve. It seems to me the problem of emptying churches is one for churches to solve, not society, and certainly not the vast majority of the UK public (who have rejected religious belief as too ridiculous and organised religion as too easy a hidey hole for those who seek to destroy democracy). In short, perhaps religionists should recognise that people simply have higher moral standards these days.
Pandering to the superstitious is an unacceptable policy for a publically funded body, and it is interesting to compare your total lack of interest when the non-religious complain about religious bias. For example, I note your failure to address problems with a programme you still laughingly call 'Thought for the Day', even though thought is remarkably absent from the contributions of the religious minority exclusively featured on that programme.
There are probably more regular illegal drug takers or alcoholics than churchgoers in the UK. Given the 'problems' caused to those 'misunderstood minorities' by drug education programmes, should we expect that, in the interests of fairness, the BBC will be meeting drug dealers and addicts worried that their source of delusion and income is under threat? It seems no more ridiculous than your response to those whose livelihood depends upon the peddling of religious mythology.'

They replied:

'As a public service broadcaster the BBC has a responsibility to meet the needs of all audiences. Over 75% of the adult audience claim some religious allegiance (2001 census).Much of the BBC's output approaches the world from a secular, non-religious point of view. A minority of the BBC's output has specifically religious content - some of it celebratory and affirming, some of it journalistic and scrutinising - while other programmes, such as Jonathan Miller's Brief History of Disbelief, have addressed atheism directly. On Friday 13 May the BBC Governors held a seminar, attended by Mark Thompson, senior executives and a panel of invited experts, to discuss the BBC's religious and belief programming. The BBC has a public service responsibility to provide religious programming. The purpose of this seminar was not to find ways of increasing religious output, but to discuss how the BBC can best meet this commitment by providing programmes of the highest quality. The seminar also explored how different faiths and beliefs could be reflected across a range of genres. '

But it gets worse than that. Consider, for example, the role of an organisation called the Churches Media Council on BBC policy. Their strongest influence is the Evangelical Alliance. One CMC protegee of the EA's ridiculous Joel Edwards not only 'advises' both the EA and the BBC on religious broadcasting but with another hat on is actually the BBC producer responsible for this year's gobsmackingly dumb telefilm of the Easter myth.
How much worse can it get?
My BBC licence demand arrived today, as it happens, which gave me my own Thought For The Day.
If Damazer ever replies to our letter I'll pay the price of the stamp towards the licence fee. If they put non-religious commentators on Thought For The Day (as Manx Radio have for years) I'll pay a quid. If they sack Damazer and tell Edwards and his knuckle-dragging friends to take a running jump I might even pay the lot in one instalment, rather than, say, 10p weekly at the local Post Office.
Maybe a lot more of us should consider action like this, until the Beeb starts providing what they say we're paying for.

Is Joan Crawford God?

As with many other things, we may owe many of our misconceptions about religion to Hollywood.
Last night I realised where we have been going wrong.
Forget wise fathers, forget Charlton Heston and think 'Mommy Dearest'.
Still puzzled?
Think Joan Crawford, speeding her tits off on dodgy dexedrine and wielding an axe.
Suddenly all that cranky advice in Leviticus about diet and mixed fibres makes more sense.
Now, repeat after me...
NO (WHACK!) WIRE (WHACK!) COATHANGERS!!!