Not a prayer?

I had a bit of a giggle recently at http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/68672/ramsey-company-answered-our-prayers-says-beach-buddies.

Why?

Well firstly, I doubt if anyone had to pray about it, given that the company directors and most of the Beach Buddies go to the same church.
Secondly, those most involved were present at a local course given a few years back by CARE - a nasty little gang of bigots posing as an educational foundation with rather more influence at Westminster than is healthy.
They owe this influence to their practice of providing interns to members of the Christian Conservative Fellowship free of charge. One such intern was the daughter of the Manx government minister who invited CARE over to run the course, and who used their dubious “research” himself a few times while trying to push his department's policy through Tynwald (thus contributing to the public's general impression of him as a flat-earther who needs to read a lot more).
The topic of the course was how to give your business a Christian ethos. In a nutshell, it sold ways to avoid tax and present your business as a religious charity, without either the cost or the inconvenience of registering as a charity and thus having to produce audited accounts.
Nice tax strategy if you can get away with it. And as long as such companies have a friend who works in the offices of the temporary Attorney General I suspect few checks will be made or awkward questions asked.

Cheap shots or sheep shops?

“Laughing at religious people and doctrines for being mad, bad and dangerous gives us the comfort of thinking that, unlike them, we are sane, good and peaceful. Good stand-up makes us question ourselves: but the contemporary ridicule of religion fails to do that. Instead, it just narcissistically affirms that we were right all along. It is not edgy, original or insightful. One might even be tempted to call it preaching to the converted.”
Says who?
Says a bloke called Patrick McKearney.
Who is he?
Well, apparently…..
“Patrick McKearney is studying for an MPhil in theology and religious studies at Cambridge University. A scholar of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme and Queens' College, he is researching the implications of the contemporary ridicule of religion.”
I am half-tempted to add “…or is he just taking the piss?”
No, but seriously folks, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/21/stand-up-comedy-religion and see if, like those he takes aim at, your jesting about the faithful amounts to more than
“tedious repetition of generic, flat-pack criticisms”.
I don’t for a second accept that of, say, Stewart Lee or a very few other comic talents. But I would admit acute boredom these days reading the kneejerk comments in reaction to stories on some of my old favourite secular sites, and wondering what closed minds came up with them.
On the other hand, I wonder how Mr McKearney got public subsidy to be at one of the world’s most elite colleges just wondering if the sky will fall in because the general public are less than reverent about a gaggle of gents in frocks who take themselves far more seriously than the rest of the world does?
Maybe his Imaginary Invisible Friend really does move in mysterious ways. Or maybe we live in an unequal society, still over-respectful of superstition, where purveyors of bible bunkum just have more sway with those who hand out grants and allot university places than they should. And it is also worth noting the close links between, say, the Cambridge Interfaith Foundation and the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which no sensible person has any faith in.
Funnily enough though, I read elsewhere of David F. Ford, one of the founders of the Cambridge Interfaith Foundation, that “He is highly regarded for his scholarship, wit and humour.’’
Shame his students and staff are not similarly blessed then.
No, but seriously, that is a cheap quip, and Mr M offers a valid challenge. The best humour does not enshrine prejudice and encourage lazy thinking, but strips away the pretensions and shortcomings of the powerful and, if really good, pulls out the rug from below our feet too. Where McKearney’s polemical argument collapses, as I hinted earlier, is that it fails to recognise the institutional power and privilege of religion, and settles instead for the whiney tone of other religious spoilt brats asked to share their toys.
But do we just mock comfortably from the distance, training our sights only on the less educated religious, or could we make better jokes that batter away at the privilege, reveal the links to power?
Interesting challenge. I may well take it up, and I hope others will too.

Nepotism, Jesus and Chips

When it finally became legal to register a Civil Partnership over here I posted (see Game Over for Manx Christian Homophobes) on the hypocritical behaviour of churches and faith-based pseudo-charities. Having blocked progress by every petty-minded, vindictive method open to them (and having so many government friends, they also had many chances to do so), one such outfit then tried to jump on the Bill as a handy method to advertise minimal toe-dipping into 21st century waters.
As I remarked at the time, these chancers are so dim they think just dropping the words ‘Church’ or ‘Christian’ from their working titles will fool the Manx public. Anyone who ever had dealings with such noddies knows better.
But they still peddle the myth that government outsourced social services are not under the thumb of spook-fancying ignoramuses, and that careers with the same do not depend on the approval of blokes who wear their collars backwards.
Oh, really?
Take a look at http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=35194 .
Maybe you can work out why a theologian is such an obvious choice to get the community handing over their spare change to one of the island’s worst obstacles to family life, and an absolute health hazard for all kids and responsible parents.
Maybe it was not straightforward nepotism, which would be a nice change for a governmental or quasi-governmental post. Perhaps she just had a helpful reference from a former employer, Frank Cranmer (see http://www.law.cf.ac.uk/contactsandpeople/CranmerF ), whose name may be familiar to anyone who browses religious right blogs for a good laugh.
Funnily enough, Central Lobby Consultants probably would not be flavour of the month with local nanny staters either - at least if they were vaguely acquainted with the real world and capable of some basic research. SpinWatch, the outfit that keeps a jaundiced eye on dodgy PR firms, has a basic item on CLC at http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Central_Lobby_Consultants , which is part of their Foodspin project (see http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/Foodspin ) on front organisations for the junk-food industry.
Religion, well placed family help and junk-food. That's quite a lethal combination.

No justice, just privilege for hate-filled religionists

The island’s Department of Home Affairs this week published something they’re passing off as a summary of public views on the new Criminal Justice Bill.
As with many ‘public consultations’, it’s a bad joke. Probably not as unintentionally funny ( or downright cretinous) as the time the Manx government had a public consultation on the way they did public consultations, but pretty close. They concluded then that they didn’t need to change anything in a model they’d downloaded in entirety from the UK parliament website (their only change to the download was to halve the proposed consultation periods).
This time, as ever, they’ve responded by ignoring all the points made from all the respondents apart from the religious nutters, who want to reserve the right to behave like the racist, sexist, homophobic and generally sub-human throwbacks that we know them to be without any of their sermons being regarded as hate speech. This was thought perfectly reasonable.
The section dealing with it reads in full:

“Clause 72
Amendments to the POA 98
Hatred against persons on certain grounds
This clause attracted 23 comments of which 21 expressed reservations in relation to the proposal. These reservations centred on the issues of freedom of speech and freedom to express religious beliefs and convictions without being prosecuted.
Department response
The Department noted and accepted observations that the clause did not have a satisfactory definition of “hate” or “hatred”.
The Department believes it is important to ensure that all in society are able to enjoy their lives without others harming them simply because of their religious beliefs (or lack of belief), sexual orientation, disability or their racial origin. However, whilst the Department is not persuaded there is adequate provision in current law to deal with emerging issues, the Department has reluctantly decided, at this time, to withdraw this provision from this Bill.
The Island is becoming an increasingly diverse society and the Department will nevertheless keep the matter under close scrutiny.”

This raises an interesting point, as there cannot be 21 literate evangelicals on the island.
Interestingly, while on the odd consultation report the views of respondents are attributed to the respondent, on this one they are not. I supect that would be because it would emphatically prove that most ‘views’ defending religious hate speech were from off-island wingnuts.
It has happened before. In fact, it always seems to happen whenever religious privilege is challenged by new legislation.
The report in full can be found at http://www.gov.im/fsc/ViewNews.gov?page=lib/news/dha/criminaljusticeb.xml&menuid=11570 .
If you can read or write you probably won’t like it.

Health Care, Not Paid Prayer

Last Sunday I blogged on some Manx woo woo therapists passing themselves off as health professionals and running a health fair.
Granted, this kind of thing will happen on an island over-run by gullible rich thickos. But maybe the Department of Fair Trading should put more effort into warning us about the real and present dangers of local ‘alternative therapists’ rather than the odd bogus roofer. The emphasis on the latter, I’m sure, has nothing to do with them being foreigners, while I’m told, confidentially, the worst snake-oil merchant married into the family of an (unelected) politician whose primitive superstitions are glaringly obvious, so will never go out of business.
But things could be worse, especially if you were living in the US.
For example, the L.A. Times reports:
“Backed by some of the most powerful members of the Senate, a little-noticed provision in the healthcare overhaul bill would require insurers to consider covering Christian Science prayer treatments as medical expenses.
The provision was inserted by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) with the support of Democratic Sens. John F. Kerry and the late Edward M. Kennedy, both of Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of the Church of Christ, Scientist.
The measure would put Christian Science prayer treatments - which substitute for or supplement medical treatments - on the same footing as clinical medicine. While not mentioning the church by name, it would prohibit discrimination against "religious and spiritual healthcare."
It would have a minor effect on the overall cost of the bill - Christian Science is a small church, and the prayer treatments can cost as little as $20 a day. But it has nevertheless stirred an intense controversy over the constitutional separation of church and state, and the possibility that other churches might seek reimbursements for so-called spiritual healing.”
(see http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-health-religion3-2009nov03,0,6879249,full.story for complete article)
The No God Blog at American Atheists (see
http://atheists.org/blog/2009/11/05/madeline-neumann-bill-fighting-back) moans:
“Here they go again. After losing the provision to force insurance companies to pay for Christians to kill their children by praying over them, Senators Orrin “Magic Underwear” Hatch and John “WTF” Kerry have re-started their efforts to have it included again.
Here is a prime example of policians who honestly don’t care. Children will die if this passes, and they don’t care. We will pay for the children who die, and they don’t care. This provision is clearly illegal, and they don’t care.
There is no mystery. There is no “other side” of this argument. Praying to deities is ridiculous, and forcing us to pay for witch-doctors is just another tax for the church.”
Exactly.

Godbotherers 1, Decency 1 at the UN

ARTICLE 19, the international free speech body, gives a cautious welcome to the Resolution on the Right to Freedom of Expression adopted by consensus today at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). But they also warn that: “Unfortunately, the resolution does contain two viruses. It will be incumbent upon member states of the HRC and civil society to ensure that these viruses are not allowed to flourish, multiply and gangrene the text and commitments. Instead, they shall be contained, by and through international human rights standards and principles, so that the resolution can best function and offer the maximum protection to freedom of expression.”
So, you ask, what’s the problem.
Well, the final draft version proposed by Egypt & the USA had a few, actually.
For a start, it entirely deleted a paragraph which stated that the Human Rights Council: “Encourages consultations among media professionals .... with the assistance of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, with a view to exchanging views on this subject and sharing best practices, taking into account the independence of the media and international human rights law”.
But in particular, Article 19 was particularly concerned about a passage which stated that the Human Rights Council: “expresses its concern that ... negative racial and religious stereotyping continue to rise around the world”.
The previous resolution referred to “negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups around the world”, so while the word “religions” was omitted the phrase “negative racial and religious stereotyping” was no better.
As Article 19 said yesterday, “stereotyping” was too ambiguous and is easily interpreted to encompass religions, religious ideas and religious symbols, none of which are not protected by international law. Their view was that the words “negative racial and religious stereotyping” should be replaced with “negative stereotyping of individuals and groups on the basis of their religion or race”, which at least conforms with international human rights law. They also regretted that their recommendation to strengthen the protection of freedom of expression were not incorporated in the final text.
As it happened, the final agreed text still referred to “religious stereotyping”, which Article 19 today deemed: “a vague and difficult concept which suggests that religions, religious ideas and religious symbols (rather than believers) may be protected by international human rights law.”
The new Resolution also still makes specific reference to another resolution against which human rights advocates around the world have advocated.
HRC Resolution 7/36, said Article 19: “unnecessarily diluted the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression.”
Secularists might remember that the UN Special Raporteur has been the last line of defence a few times before when the uglier, more powerful theocracies have tried to sway the UN.
Nevertheless, Dr Agnes Callamard, ARTICLE 19 Executive Director, concluded that: “The adoption of the Resolution by consensus is a breakthrough. Especially so given the tensions and conflicts that have accompanied recent discussions on freedom of expression within the Human Rights Council and its predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights.”
So, swings and roundabouts, but if the theofascists had got things all their own way it could have been much worse.

Diplomacy with a baseball bat

From something I've just seen posted by Article 19, it looks like religious knuckledraggers use exactly the same tactics against their critics at UN level as they do in small towns and backwaters throughout the world.
In an open letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council published today, thirty-five human rights organisations from every region of the world warned that recent “extraordinary attacks” by states on United Nations human rights experts at the Human Rights Council are “severely eroding the Council’s legitimacy and credibility.”
A global group of 35 NGOs, including Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, as well as regional and national NGOs like the Asian Forum for Human Rights (Forum Asia) and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, state delegations at the Council are carrying out “what appears to be a coordinated effort to intimidate” human rights experts, “individually and collectively.”
They say attacks at the ongoing 11th session of the Council “have focused in particular on the current Special Rapporteurs on freedom of expression and on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. These Rapporteurs were subjected to threats of disciplinary action because they offered their expert analysis and recommendations on important human rights issues that they brought to the attention of this Council.”
The group of NGOs contend that these “political attacks” are “fundamentally an attack on and threat to the Council itself,” and go on to “appeal, in the strongest terms” for states at the HRC to refrain from undermining the independence of UN human rights experts, and “ensure that the long term integrity and credibility of the Human Rights Council itself are not sacrificed to political expedience.”
Cut out the polite phrasing, and I think what they’re really saying is that countries with a record of strong, religiously based persecution of their own people want all the advantages of 21st century international co-operation, but not the responsibility.
In particular they are so upset at every responsible attempt to bring their thicko thuggishness to world attention that they want such attempts to stop.
Not having evolved to a level where they can discuss alleged grievances calmly with all parties and work out amicable solutions, they’re now trying to beat their UN critics over the head with baseball bats.
You can find a full version of the letter with a complete list of all NGO signatories at: http://www.article19.org/pdfs/letters/hrc-open-letter-on-mandate-holders.pdf%20

It is better to die (laughing) on your feet than to live on your knees

I blogged before about reactions to a proposed small Manx mosque, and in particular the lack of moral fibre from ‘people of faith’ and some possible reasons (see Lies, more lies and moral cowardice ).
As I said, I never expect Manx biblebashers to show solidarity with folk of another faith, so their silence confirmed all we already know about their bigotry, moral cowardice and grasping attitude to everything.
Risk taking a moral stand and ruin the chance of more public funds? Not likely!
But at least, finally, the letter representing local minority faith views about a proposed mosque got printed (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/your-letters/Isle-of-Man-Examiner-June.5343489.jp). Sadly, that was a disappointment too.
What does it tell you when a letter, supposedly representing the views of numerous faith groups, appears without a single named signatory? To be credible, it could and should have been signed by people representing all the traditions involved in the group.
If they can’t speak ‘officially’ for their groups, they could have signed as individuals, and any local would recognise the faiths of at least some. I know, from my own experience dealing with them, that some of the groups involved are as riddled with racist white flighters as any other section of the community, but this was pathetic.
It’s a bit like the reaction of mainstream political parties to the BNP. ‘Deny them the oxygen of publicity’ and ‘Don’t share a platform with racists’ are the official line. Just stay silent, don’t talk about the issues and it will all go away.
No it pigging won’t!
If we’re ever to drive racist rats out of their holes and work out the balance between ‘respect’ for others (however crazed their beliefs) and abolishing the religious privilege which diminishes the quality of all our lives we need a stand-up public row every time an issue like this arises.
We won’t find the answer to social issues in the Bible, the Koran, Das Kapital, Mein Kampf – or even The Selfish Gene. We have to be prepared for the fact that we don’t get any answers at all except those we work out between ourselves in proper, adult, public debate.
On the Isle of Man all the political or social debate I’ve experienced for years is sub-kindergarten foot-stamping and ‘I’m taking my ball home’ nonsense, so ending that could, on particular days, either cause us to despair of humanity or die laughing. But if anyone else is as bored as me of geriatric racist retirees and superstitious halfwits running this place they’re welcome to join in.