Letters to Newsline
Please send your letters for publication to letters@secularism.org.uk. We want to publish as many letters as possible, so please keep them brief. We reserve the right to edit. Opinions expressed in letters are those of the writers and not necessarily those of the NSS.
11 July 2008
From Lisa Burnham:
A colleague sent me this link and I felt I must pass it on as it's so hilarious:. I'm not sure if anyone would have seen it before, but the reviews at the bottom are priceless. I quote:
“Grand Theft Auto IV is a game designed to brain-wash players into the Atheist worldview. In it you play Nick, an immigrant recently arrived to Liberty City (a copy of New York City) who is tasked with stealing cars and murdering prostitutes. Nick came from a former Communist country where he was brought up in Godlessness and so he sees no problem stealing and murdering. The game touts its ability to let you ‘go anywhere and do anything you want’, the central philosophy of Atheism.”
I think the perpetrator is somewhat warped.
From Hookey Taylor:
The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans are to combat liberal approaches to sexuality, I read. Meet the FOCA’s…. brilliant…gets better by the day… almost as funny as the cartoon of the good Archbishop in The Sunday Telegraph on 6th July!
From Dean Reynolds:
Most people in the UK understand that Christianity, Islam and Judaism share deeply negative underlying themes; the subjugation of women; a grim obsession with sex and sexuality; contempt for those who fail to believe or conform. Yet bizarrely, religious dogma is allowed precedence in law over equals in our democracy. Religious organisations should be encouraged by Parliament to introduce equality and stop promoting hatred or face the loss of their charitable status and ultimate closure.
From Lawrence Woolf:
For once I actually find myself in agreement with the Vatican. It has been reported that they have condemned the decision of the Church of England to allow women to become bishops.
In a related matter I do not agree with either organisation. I would prefer not to see men ordained as bishops or to any other clerical position. It would probably solve a lot of problems.
From Alan Rogers:
To mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the NHS, I quote Aneurin Bevan, who wrote about his first impressions of the House of Commons in his book In Place of Fear (1952):
“The House of Commons is like a church. The vaulted roofs and stained glass windows, the rows of statues of great statesmen of the past, the echoing halls, the soft-footed attendants and the whispered conversations, contrast depressingly with the crowded meetings and the clang and clash of hot opinions he has just left behind in the election campaign. Here he is, a tribune of the people, coming to make his voice heard in the seats of power. Instead, it seems he is expected to worship; and the most conservative of all religions – ancestor worship.”
From Garry Marlowe:
I would like to draw members' attention to the website of American Atheist author, Judith Hayes, who has begun writing online again, after a break of nearly three years.
Mrs Hayes was the main inspiration for myself to become active in local atheist causes (such as Bradlaugh’s yearly commemoration). Mrs Hayes offered me sound advice in those early years and, thanks to her common sense approach in criticising religion, and her helpful and practical advice to lonely atheists, it is without hesitation I recommend her to NSS members. Take a look at her website Her books are: The Happy Heretic (to be found at the NSS online shop). In God We Trust: But Which One? (to be found at Amazon).
From Sue England:
In reply to the letter from Gill Lee (Newsline 4 July) – this is a very good title for a start. KidsESA?
Have a poll in the local street on a Saturday for a couple of hours. Ask a simple yes/no, people can answer immediately. Do you want our new school to be religious? You can then get the local press to have a piece to report on the poll, they like these community action stories. Then hand out leaflets with the results, ask people to join a campaign. The Green party is firmly against faith schools, they might help.
From Peter Arnold:
The letter from Steve Hill (Newsline 4 July) refers to the title Defender of the Faith. Can I suggest that he looks up the origin of this title? I think it might come as a pleasant surprise.
From Paul Stevenson:
I see in the latest Freethinker that that the psychology professor at Ulster University, Richard Lynn, is suggesting that people with higher IQs are much less likely to believe in God. Survey figures in The Royal Society show that only 3.3% believe in God. The American Academy of Sciences scored 7% in the 1990s. While I find this totally unremarkable and expected, let’s talk about a tendency to mental instability being correlated with religiosity.
Do the following characteristics remind you of any of the religious enthusiasts we seem increasingly to be surrounded by today? 1. Delusions (abnormal beliefs not based in reality); 2 Hallucinations (the sensation of an experience that isn't actually happening); 3. Disordered thought based on the delusions and hallucinations; and 4. Abnormal behaviour in response to the other three features.
All symptoms are taken verbatim and omitting nothing from the NHS Direct website describing Schizophrenia. Nuff said?
From G. Tingey:
Regarding Steve Hill’s letter on removing religion from schools. I’m afraid Mr. Hill has missed a vital point. We NEED religion to be taught in schools – it should be compulsory. The subject is: “Comparative Religion”, however, with special emphasis on how all these exclusive truths differ, and the history of intolerance and blood that follows religions. Communism should be included, of course.
From Peter Bolt:
"Beware those twin impostors" said to be displayed above the Players’ Entrance at Wimbledon.
We (I am a paid up member) are not winning. We can never win the argument, but we are also in danger of losing everything else. Faith Schools increase apace, eventually we shall have “Faith” Universities. Soon, very soon, Local Government will be ‘encouraged’ to make funds more available to “faith groups”. Religious authorities are demanding, yes demanding, more consultation, whatever that means.
Why? Because Faith Groups can deliver votes. Religion thrives when Democracy sleeps. Gordon Brown is not a fool and what is more, as the recent Parliamentary debates show, there is a strong, strident and Co-ordinated “faith” group within the various corridors of Westminster.
From Nick Harding:
During the recent abortion and stem cell debates in Parliament we heard a good number of MPs, especially those of a theistic leaning, telling us that this country was founded on Christian principles. I would like to argue that this isn’t true or is at least a woeful misinterpretation. Apart from the often nefarious behaviour of Christianity since King Alfred moved to unite this country 1200 years ago under one faith, it has hardly been a glorious yardstick for morality; there is in fact more Greco-Roman influence on society (above and beyond religion), as well as the involvement of numerous other cultures. It has been conveniently forgotten or more likely ignored that Christianity stole all its ideas from extant religions in the Middle East from Mithra worship, especially in the Roman Army, through to, amongst others, the Egyptian, Judaic, Persian and Greek forms of worship. It has also been argued that Buddhism also influenced Christianity.
Saviours and redeemers are nothing new, although Christianity seems to demand the monopoly on such things and that morality can only be found prostrating oneself before somebody who at best was an archetypal myth or, more often than not, a hijacked character from another culture. The life of Apollonius of Tyana for example mirrors the life of the faith’s Christ almost to the letter, as does a whole host of pre-Christian figures. Tammuz for instance, ancient god of the Sumerians – born of a virgin, died with a wound in his side and rose again after three days. Sound familiar? There are indeed far too many names to list here who predate Jesus and whose lives have a familiar ring to them.
So-called ‘Christian principles’ were already deep in the human social context way before the cult was created. In essence, Christian principles aren’t Christian principles at all. They’re older, much older. Morality has simply been hijacked from earlier societies who had worked it all out long before, even if it is not safe to say that these ‘moralities’ were entirely beneficial or right. Back then, it may have been ‘morally right’ to treat women as second class citizens, still true in great swathes of the world today of course, but we know how wrong this is because true morality lies beyond the destructive influence of religion.
We also now know morality has its roots at the genetic level not the ethereal and uber-mythic. Altruism for example, is a deep-seated universal in the human animal not a copyrighted and trademarked brand in sole ownership of a bigoted corporate faith. Morality comes from deep within, not from way above.
Christianity, with arrogant hubris, as all religions have done, simply stole morality and re-branded it for its own purposes – then of course promptly ignored its own tenets. In reality this country has been founded on natural biological principles, not the vacuous myths and cheap tinsel of Bronze Age sky and ghost worship. Even if those ideas were buried deep within a false construct from which we have had to strip away the nonsense to rediscover. If we are to refine and improve morality (especially in those who are faith-led e.g. the misanthropists, misogynists, homophobes and racists) we must rid it of its entire religious context and say that society is founded on humane principles and nothing more.
From Frances Versluys:
John Sutton is right (Newsline last week). We have elected MPs on their political manifestos but we have been tricked. Did any of us check that they were theists? Did they state that they were theists when they stood?
In the past, you could expect an MP to represent you even if they were of a different religion/political colour. Now they use their position to push religious agendas. My MP, Jim Knight, has no apparent religious bias, but every time I hear him he's defending faith schools (he's Education Minister). Could the NSS get a list of theists in parliament and publish their names, then we would know who not to vote for. Also, as the government is sucking up to the faith communities because they are scared of losing their votes, they should be more worried if the atheist majority started to threaten them. We need to get everyone together to get our voices heard by these people. Let’s see how long it takes for them to start sucking up to us. Come on guys, let’s make a noise.
Ed writes: Frances – as far as we know, Jim Knight is a non-believer.
From Leni Gillman:
The jihad recently launched by the Jordanian sharia courts against free speech in the Netherlands (Newsline 4 July) has been largely unreported in our national press. If Jordan’s campaign to extradite people deemed to have offended muslim sensibilities were to be extended to other non-muslim countries, and were to be similarly accommodated by the ruling bureaucracies — the government and business interests — then all our freedoms would be gravely at risk.
Our Government has a shameful history of capitulating to religious pressure, and recently, especially from muslim groups. It is reasonable therefore to expect this would be their future response to countries like Jordan. Last week we had reports of the Lord Chief Justice endorsing the views of the Archbishop of Canterbury on the acceptability of sharia law operating alongside our judicial system. We also had Peter Oborne in the Independent lamenting the increased prejudice against muslims since the atrocities committed in the name of Islam in the US, UK, Spain and elsewhere.
It would be surprising if the civilian populations of the these countries did not react with some suspicion towards the obviously devout muslims they see around them: after all pious muslims proclaim their faith by wearing distinctive clothes, and many muslim women deliberately distinguish themselves by their burkas, headscarves and heavy gowns. We now know that their religion teaches them to despise all non-muslims, and to regard us as a sub-species of humans. The mullahs have made clear that they want a sharia state in the UK, merely as a precursor to the caliphate extending to the rest of the world. Who is surprised at increased displays of overt hostility towards these religious zealots?
Jordan’s efforts to reach out and attack innocent people in other countries, is yet another example of muslim attempts to silence critics. In the forum of the UN, muslim countries are contesting the rights of the rest of humanity to challenge their religious beliefs. In the UNHRC a motion was recently passed which effectively agreed that religious sensibilities need protection from secular critics. Where human rights fit into this nonsense was not debated: the inconsistency with the fundamental guarantees written into the UN charter remains to be addressed.
It is not racism or blind prejudice which Muslims are now experiencing: they can hardly expect people who are the targets of unprovoked aggression to be tolerant of their own bigotry, especially when we see Jordan’s sharia law attempting to gag us here in Europe.
