Silvio Berlusconi is an evil bastard

The Sunday papers sometimes prove to be excellent source material for illustrating the insanity and immorality of organised religion. In this story of Eluano Englaro I wish it wasn't the case.

Silvio Berlusconi's rationale to keep Englaro alive is terrifying, claiming that she is "in the condition to have babies".

After 17 years in PVS, it's unlikely that Ms Englaro would be in a physical state to carry a child, and will never regain consciousness to give consent anyway. Berlusconi is favouring rape, and possibly borderline necrophilia.

His position is based on advice from the Vatican, although I wouldn't be surprised if Berlusconi's real objective was to leverage other legislative changes to his benefit as part of a package. Yet Italians keep voting for the evil corrupt twat, and he remains a hero of the right.

Many ignore religion on the assumption that it's harmless and doesn't really effect our lives. The influence of the Vatican on this case, which could see a hurried change in Italian law, shows that the Medieval ethics of the stupid and the ignorant is turning Italy into a theocracy, forcing the dogma of faith on those who don't want it.

The UK is different, yet here religion also constantly vies for influence. Constitutionally religion has power. Bishops sit in the House of Lords and our head of state is ordained by God. Our national anthem is God Save the Queen.

Religionists regularly claim that their religion gives them a moral code. The evil bastards that favour such suffering as inflicted on Eluano Englaro and her family can keep it.

Give me humanity and compassion any day.

The 7th day...

Seems an apt day for some holy advice for god-fearin' bloggers, the Ten Virtual Blogging Commandments:

1 You shall not put your blog before your integrity

2 You shall not make an idol of your blog

3 You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin

4 Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog

5 Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes

6 You shall not murder someone else's honour, reputation or feelings

7 You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind

8 You shall not steal another person's content

9 You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger

10 You shall not covet your neighbour's blog ranking; Be content with your own content


Hat-tip to jailhouselawyer.

Meet the FOCAs

You couldn't make it up. A group of religious fanatics came up with a name for themselves. No-one in said group thought it would be a good idea to check with the Ministry for Silly Acronyms just in case the name came up a bit, well, asshatish. Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. FOCA.

It just invites crude and childish mockery from the likes of me. Excellent.

I'm mystified about this "militant secularism" thing. It seems to be one of these buzz phrases used by religious at the moment, along with "militant atheist". There must be some naming convention: Bad Things must be prefixed with the title 'militant'. It's not as if we have legions of suicide atheists or a secular paramilitary wing of the Richard Dawkins Foundation stirring up all kinds of trouble. The phrase is slightly ridiculous, and utterly dishonest. Propaganda.

If there is a whiff of militancy, it's from these very separatist fundamentalist nut jobs, who are miffed at not being as authoritarian as Muslims, even emulating the Muslim propagation structure by planning to set up their own Madrasa style theological schools, thrashing out their own extremist views of Christianity.

Normally, as a non believer, I wouldn't care less about an ideological schism in the Anglican church. Get on with it. But this new cult of intolerance and bigotry with its missionary zeal will try to take its (largely homophobic) message far and wide, and will, like the Catholic Church, try to trespass into secular life and the business of the state, championing Iron Age supernatural myths as a basis for a moral philosophy.

Hopefully it won't get that bad. Perhaps they'll implode under the critical mass of their own hate.

Silly FOCAs.

The missionary murder position

In a preface to a typical "atheists are evil heartless bastards etc" rant, Roman Catholic fundamentalist Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor gave us this little gem:

Many of those living with HIV/Aids are now too malnourished to take the drugs they need, though they have them. I asked Sister Margaret McAllen, director of an Aids programme in Harare, what she could do. She replied: "How can we give hope to people in such a desperate situation? Through love. Change comes through love."

What utter wank.

Here's an idea. One thing you could do Cormac, is ask your boss to abandon the Catholic Church's opposition to condoms and sex education. No, let's go further, lets see the Catholic Church make up for it's dogma which has been sentencing people to death through it's ignorance and start funding real world rational programmes to stop the growth of AIDS, instead of this love and beetroot juice bollocks.

Parents would have a hope that their kids would grow up in a world where AIDS has been defeated by science and reason, not by mumbo jumbo and good intentions.

That would be a start.

Until then Cormac, you and your religion, including the good missionary sister, will be complicit in wholesale murder through misinformation.

Evolution of an agenda

Well, Archbish Williams is at it again. He's decided to pit his huge Mekon-sized intellect against evolution. And came out of it looking like a complete fuckster. His learned opinion on evolution is:

"It's a limited theory about certain limited phenomena which is very plausible as far as it goes but it's not a complete philosophy."

Wow. He's managed to stuff so much bollocks in one sentence. I mean, how the very fabric of reality doesn't fall in on itself with such a high bollocky mass is remarkable.

Evolution: "It's a limited theory...." Backed by mountains of scientific evidence, so presumably not as limited as the "god did it" theory.

"...which is very plausible as far as it goes..." What kind of woolly nonsense is this for an intellectual, if only to play the doubt card? This argument is along the lines that global warming deniers or flat-earthers would use: "It sounds plausible, but..."

"...but it's not a complete philosophy". No shit sherlock - it's science.

You know, it's so obvious it's pathetically easy to knock his argument. So what's he really saying?

Hidden in the measured language lies zealotry with an agenda.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think science should only be the preserve of the high priests of science (ouch, I'm going to get it for that one). Too many people are becoming too disassociated from science as it is. Similarly, examination of religious belief isn't the preserve of the high priests of faith. The difference between the two is that science is built upon evidence and reason, and faith is supported by, well, faith.

Okay, Williams isn't a stupid bloke, so this has got to be a little more than a Southern baptist style attack on natural selection. The whole evolution whinge is is more likely another Williams-brand straw man. It's not really about evolution, as much as his Sharia law nonsense wasn't really about Sharia law. This issue is about science as whole, and the high priests of faith want to take science down a couple of pegs, by casting doubt of a key scientific theory not on it's evidence base, but on it's 'philosophy'. What folks like Williams really mean by 'philosophy' is a religious moral code.

The thing is, science doesn't have a religious moral code, and that's what zealots like Williams can't accept.

Williams' comments were prompted in part by the debate over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which is going through Parliament (and partly to do some Dawkins-bashing). Similar to his last agenda piece on law, he wants the religious elite to be given the power to judge and influence scientific advancements through moral guidelines, based upon his giant religious brain. Here's what he says:

"The problem is with our own inability as a society to know what to do with discoveries of science."

"Man playing God is not a problem about science. It's a problem about our decisions about the results of science and we shouldn't be so much afraid of science as we should about our own inability to have a clear moral perspective on these matters."

"We haven't as a society got a sufficiently clear notion of what constitutes a human organism. My own view is that an embryo is a human organism but that requires some argument, which isn't something that can be settled simply by science alone."

We can ignore his casual bandying of terms like 'human organism' - they're just distractions. He's saying we should be afraid of 'our' (by which he means normal plebs) inability to make the right moral choice, presumably at least according to his moral code. In a nutshell - too much science and not enough god. Also note Williams doesn't use the term 'ethics'.

He's clear - 'moral perspective' is what he wants - and his particular religious moral perspective.

Fortunately though, science is done in a laboratory, not in a pulpit.

There are ethical issues raised in the Bill, and in the application of science. But they shouldn't be dominated by a subjective moral code which relies on belief in a deity.

Free speech 2 : Jeebus 0

March 5th proved a fruitful day for human rights and freedom of speech. First, the House of Lords threw out a petition to appeal brought by religious zealots Christian Voice, who had tried to prosecute the BBC for screening Jerry Springer - The Opera. The appeal was rejected on the grounds that the case did "not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance". Simply put, the law in this case was an ass and irrelevant in a modern liberal society.

Then, in another small victory for reason and common sense, the House of Lords voted 148 to 87 to accept an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill that will abolish the common law of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

However, in a society where religious fundamentalists are never far away, there remains the risk of scary new laws to allow the faith lobby to try and stifle free speech.

Believe what you are told

The state-appointed guardian of happy thoughts, Trevor Phillips, has issued a diktat from inside the walls of his Ministry of Harmony, which says that the Nativity should performed in schools.

Phillips accused schools not putting on nativity plays of "robbing their children of really being part of what it is to be British". Utter codswallop, and an arrogant presumption that he can dictate what he thinks are British values. Normally, as a Nu-Lab creature, Phillips is nailed to the right-wing cross of politically correctness for his views, but since this is traditional Telegraph reader territory he will be praised by the the Tory religious fundies (and probably the BNP too, 'cos he used the word 'British').

For most people, Christmas has become divorced from religion and has become a cultural rather than religious event. There's no harm in society or in education in recognising the origin of Christmas, and believe it or not, we can all enjoy Christmas without being forced to prostrate ourselves before the Christmas Taliban.

Nativity plays themselves have little moral meaning other than 'believe in this fairy tale' and most parents only enjoy them just because their own little cherub is playing a shepherd or an angel. Personally, I don't think the Nativity is very entertaining either (unless they make a version with Samuel L Jackson and a cool soundtrack).

Religion shouldn't be shoved down children's throats, particularly by state decree, and especially not at the expense of the taxpayer. If parents specifically want their children to participate in the Nativity, then church, not school, should be the place to do it.

God knows the church could do with the bums on seats.

Jesus saves... on bus fares

What do you get when you cross bureaucracy and religion? Idiocy.

The news that 11-year-old Elliott Stewart from Brasside in Durham has been refused a free bus pass to get to school, just because he hasn't been baptised, would be worthy of the sitcom Father Ted, if it wasn't true.

Durham Councillor Clive Robson said (presumably not realising how stupid it sounds):

"Although a child does not have to be a Roman catholic to attend a Roman Catholic school, he or she and at least one parent has to be baptised Roman Catholic to be considered for free travel to it."

So, it seems a ritual splash of water is all that is stopping Elliott from enjoying free bus travel to school.

In an attempt to make it appear that faith schools have become more open in their admissions rules, policies have been changed to allow children not baptised in the Roman Catholic religion to enrol in a Roman Catholic school. But the mechanism that would allow Elliott to have the same opportunity of access to school as his schoolmates doesn't exist.

But rather than put their hands up and admit it's a silly rule, and that special dispensation will be given for Elliott until the policy is changed, the jobs worth drones at Durham County Council have stuck to the tried and tested 'rules is rules' excuse, with a the 'Ombudsman sez so, so there' for good measure.

How long before Durham becomes known as "The Deep South of the North East"?