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.

Breaking voice

After trying to crush free speech and losing, religious fundamentalist blowhard Stephen Green has announced that he doesn't have the money to put where his mouth is and is threatening to declare himself bankrupt to avoid paying the £90,000 costs awarded to Mark Thompson and Jonathan Thoday during the frivolous 'Jerry Springer - The Opera' legal action.

Graciously asking for the costs to be dropped, Green said:

"For these rich, powerful men to pursue me into the bankruptcy courts over money I don't have would be vindictive."

Bless his magnanimous humbleness.

Green and Christian Voice have also put their faith in an online petition to try and gain support for their cause. Apart from the hilarity of some of the petition comments, the carbon copy nature of a number of them suggests some petition padding.

So far he's collected 451 online signatures. By my reckoning if these deeply religious folk really back Green, they could chip in £200 each, save their souls and Green from martyrdom.

United in chauvinism

I hadn't planned to post today because I'm feeling shit (I'm currently drinking a Lemsip, and feeling that someone has taken blowtorches to the back of my eyes), but the loons are outdoing themselves so I couldn't avoid a couple of quick comments.

The political parties in Northern Ireland have finally agreed on something. That they are all cockweasels. The DUP, Sinn Féin, the UUP and the SDLP have united to declare that women are second class citizens who shouldn't have the right to decide what happens to their bodies.

A member of the Northern Ireland Assembly's 'pro-life' group (oh yes, the sweet irony that former murdering bastards in Sinn Féin are somehow pro-life) played the jurisdiction card:

"The issue of abortion is a matter that should be left to the assembly itself."

Perhaps it would be better to let any such amendment pass and leave "the issue of abortion" for women to decide for themselves.

Liberating Iraq

Is this really what we invaded Iraq for?

Chilling:

"I know God is blessing me for what I did"

I suppose that's what people of faith do: let an imaginary being take responsibility for their brutal behaviour.

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.

Suffer little children

So faith schools are not only religiously divisive and teach mumbo-jumbo as science, it also looks like they are doing their best to reinforce class barriers.

The Devil told him to say it

Looking over the net and the media over the past couple of days, some commentators have given Rowan Williams a hefty dose of the benefit of the doubt, variously crediting his comments as being 'naive', incorrectly interpreted, or overblown, and have criticised those comments in response as 'knee-jerk'.

In summary: A kind of slightly batty but benign intellectual cleric, who has been a victim of muddled PR judgement and has been unfairly criticised by detractors who aren't intelligent enough to understand what he was really saying.

It's attractive, but that kind of delusional and revisionist nonsense won't wash.

Williams may have made an idiotic misjudgement of the PR consequences of his words, which could see him out of a job by Easter - but he's an idiot with an agenda.

Williams is an intellectual who measures every single word he writes and says. He's been criticised for citing Sharia law in example, but it's really just a straw man. It's easy to be drawn into arguments over Sharia but it's just a sideshow; this issue isn't just about laws based on clerical interpretation. It's much more fundamental than that - it's about weakening British law to defer to religious sensitivities.

Don't believe me? Then take it from Rowan Williams himself. He said that the Muslim community shouldn't be "faced with the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty". Remember, he's using 'Muslims' as a code. Williams is really talking about the right, under law, for some to follow their own moral code (or whatever passes for one) and be judged by it.

He didn't say it just once though, he reiterated that:

"What we don't want either, is I think, a stand-off, where the law squares up to people's religious consciences."

...and then again:

"But I think it is a misunderstanding to suppose that means people don't have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society and that the law needs to take some account of that."

He referred to this concept THREE times. That's no misjudgement or coincidence. It's a clear and specific agenda.

It can't be a coincidence that Williams makes these remarks whilst the Catholic church is under pressure to recognise gay rights and the Anglican Church and various other Christian groups not just fight the loss of the blasphemy laws but call for new ones.

Williams' supporters claim in defence that we already have laws which respect religious culture. True. We have laws which permit the mutilation of children's genitals and laws that allow normal animal welfare rules to be bypassed - all for religion. It's a morally subjective and dangerous argument to follow. Just because British law has been already twisted to the tune of religion it doesn't make it right.

This isn't some call for equal rights or cohesion as some of Williams' apologists are claiming - it's a call for different rights, based upon a legally enshrined expectation of respect for religions as philosophical and moral equals (at least in general relativistic terms) to secular laws.

The so-called 'moderates' who have come out to defend Williams have revealed their secret fundamentalist desire to theocratise our legal system, turning justice into some medieval freak show.

Religious laws and courts, whether it be by Sharia, Beth Din or Inquisition are tainted by the religious-cultural bias and agenda of those who would judge others and make a mockery of equality, democracy, liberty and reason.

A truly equitable and cohesive society is best served by one secular legal system which is shared by all participants and which protects everyone. Equally.

Cloistered bubbleheaded fool

Go Pat go!

Rowan Williams - religious loon

Punkscience beat me to it. Rowan Williams is an idiot. Sharia law has no place in a rational society.

If people want to follow a set of philosophical rules that's fine, as long as they don't force those rules on anyone, or demand that those rules require respect, recognition and protection, and the application of those rules doesn't hurt anyone.

The problem with religion based systems like Sharia is that those living in religious communities will be pressured to adhere to the laws and accept 'legal' decisions, even when there is no rational reason to do so other than community peer pressure and diktat from religious authority.

Laws based on the interpretation of ancient myth and rely on the authority of religious zealots have no place in the 21st Century. Considering the influence of Wahabi Imams in British Islamic society - an extreme and fundamentalist view of Islam which has gone a significant way in the radicalisation of modern Muslim doctrine - putting laws into the hands of these medieval nutters is dangerous and divisive.

We should be reducing the influence of religion, not increasing it.

Junk fool

I'd hoped not to start the year with a pop at the guardians of high moral fibre and religious doctrine, but this beauty in Sunday's Observer couldn't be missed.

Not content with letting the religious fundies in the developing world hog all the kooky kudos that fanaticalism brings, it seems a few of our home-grown holy men are after the dubious honour of being known as fundamentalist nutters too.

In the past the Roman Catholic Bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O'Donoghue, has challenged both the Trident replacement project and the demonisation of immigrants. On those points I agree with him - they are fair and ethical points to raise.

But now he has authored a report called Fit For Mission which includes descriptions of the measures Catholic schools should introduce to indoctrinate their pupils.

Among his proposals is that crucifixes should be displayed. Pretty much a no-brainer for a Roman Catholic school. You wouldn't expect to go into the MacDonald's Hamburger University without seeing the Golden Arches.

But in a line which will have some African Anglican bishops drooling with medieval appreciation, O'Donoghue stepped into the contraception arena and railed against barrier protection, because of "the deluded theory that the condom can provide adequate protection against Aids".

I wonder if the Bishop could really care less about AIDS, other than as a good 'ole smiting tool for the Big Cahuna as punishment for sex outside marriage, or for chaps engaging in conjoined posterior action. His foremost concern seems to be in ensuring that the young Catholic faithful get it from an early age that they don't do contraception - just abstinence. Pure indoctrination.

As the guide to Fit for Mission says, "All our Primary and Secondary schools should be at the cutting edge of the ‘New Evangelisation’ at every level", and that the "priority of mission must be at the heart of the school ethos". Here's me thinking educashun is wot skools r 4.

If it was just a standard doctrinal issue then it wouldn't be important - in practice most Catholics ignore doctrine on contraception already. Perhaps the Bishop knows that Catholics are drifting from this Papal diktat, so he wants to push his hardline dogma on children to bring the next generations into line. If it's taught in class that condom use is based upon a 'deluded theory', it becomes pure evangelical propaganda - not education.

Hopefully the schools in the Lancaster diocese will ignore this particular direction.

Knowing that children are impressionable and particularly susceptible to repeated messages, the advertising of junk food to children during children's' TV shows has been banned. What about banning the Bishop's junk philosophy from young ears too?