Again with the “no non-believers on Thought for the Day” already!

14 July 2009 · 2 Comments

Yes, it’s (again) that time of year when we who don’t-make-claims-to-know-that-there’s-an-invisible-man-in-the-sky-who-wants-to-hurt-us-forever-after-we-die because we don’t-make-claims-to-know-that-there’s-an-invisible-man-in-the-sky-who-wants-to-hurt-us-forever-after-we-die make noises about having our voices deliberately excluded from the Thought for the Day segment of the Today programme on Radio 4.

*sigh*

The Telegraph has an article describing how the BBC Trust, the governing body of the corporation that decides the rules and procedures to be followed by the BBC, is deliberating whether to include non-religious voices in the segment.

From the article at The Telegraph:

Mark Damazer, the channel’s controller, has said that the slot on the flagship programme could “take in a wider range of voices”.

Secularists claim the item discriminates against non-believers and have complained to the Trust, the governing arm of the corporation, which will deliver its response in the Autumn.

Mr Damazer said: “There may well be quite a strong argument for including secularists and humanists” but, he added, “it’s absolutely not a cut and dried issue”.

Responding to listener complaints on Radio 4’s Feedback programme, he said: “You should know that the BBC Trust â€¦ is currently considering this question and they will come to some kind of conclusion later on this year.”

The two minute slot should give a voice to a wide range of religions and a voices to those from around the UK rather than “metropolitan figures sitting in a studio in Broadcasting House or the news centre in west London”, he said.

“It is I think satisfyingly diverse [but] that does not mean that it should never change its remit or the criteria for selection and I think it is worth looking at,” he added.

Of course, it’s the usual suspects that want to exclude non-believers from voicing opinions on moral and ethical concerns.

However, faith leaders have criticised the move saying that in an increasingly secular climate, it was “vitally important” that religion retains its voice.

Steve Clifford, General Director of the Evangelical Alliance said: “The Today programme has no problem running slots for business and sport, so why shouldn’t it have a slot dedicated to religion? It strikes me that the secularists predominate in the other 2 hours and 55 [sic - TftD is 2'45"] minutes, so is it really asking too much for religion to just have a small chunk of dedicated time?”

What Clifford is doing here is conflating ’secular’ with “excluding religion” rather than “not biased in favour of religion”.

The “other” 2 hours and 55 57.25 minutes actually doesn’t exclude dealing with topics related to religion (it often does – e.g. ) but Clifford wants to play the persecution card to gain sympathy for those of his cadre, or at least calibre.

What this actually means is that, in context, the time available for purely secular voices is 2 hours and 57.25 minutes: the time available for religious voices is 3 hours.

While that 2′45″ per (week)day may seem like a small amount, it does add up. But it’s the primary function of TftD that is in question, and that function is to present opinion on whatever the moral or ethical dilemma de jour is.

However, this is only ever religious opinion. Because, as we are so often told, only the religious can hold valid opinions on morality and ethics.

If I were to be charitable, this could probably be considered a case of innocently ignorant anti-non-theist bigotry. But I can’t be, because time and time and time again, non-religious voices have been deliberately excluded from TftD.

And I believe we will again. Sorry, but I don’t have enough faith in the upper echelons of the BBC to be fair and equitable to all, and not just those who claim to know things that they do not know.

I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong though.

Meanwhile, if you want to find out what TftD bobbleheads are actually saying (without all the mumbo jumbo) you can find fairly accurate translations for us unsaved heathens at Platitude of the Day.

For an example of the “wisdom” of the religious when considering moral or ethical issues, see this TftD from yesterday’s Today programme when Alan Billings held court:

Christians are taught by St Paul to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Over these last few days, you would need a heart of flint not to have wept with the relatives of those waiting at RAF Lyneham to receive the bodies of their loved ones repatriated from Afghanistan.

I have been especially moved by the sadness of the parents. In the most intense way we see in them what the vocation of parenthood entails. You bring children into the world. You love and protect them. You are proud of their achievements and distressed at their setbacks. You learn about what we might call the burden of love: how vulnerable you are to what happens to them. Then your vocation changes gear. Your eighteen year lease is up, and you watch them grow up and grow away. They make their own way in the world, and you must watch now from a distance.

Down the centuries parents have often been drawn to Mary, the mother of Jesus, since her life exemplifies this pattern. She gives birth to her son. She raises him. But then, in his relatively short adult life, her vocation is one of watching – with growing anxiety. Finally she receives his body at the foot of the cross.

Some years ago I remember visiting an exhibition at the National Gallery called Seeing Salvation. The Director had brought together a wonderful collection of Christian art and artefacts from the earliest centuries to the present. I recall seeing a woman standing in front of a pieta – an image of Mary holding in her lap the dead body of her son, cradling him as she had once cradled his living body as a small child. The woman stood before the pieta, crying quietly. Was she religious? Or was she a mother who had also known in its sharpest form the burden of love?

But should the human cost of the Afghan conflict, made so visible in the raw emotions of the relatives, be made so public? During the Vietnam War, the American government sought to prevent photographs of the returning flag-draped coffins from appearing in newspapers and on television. One can understand why. All modern wars are fought in the head as much as on the battlefield and this, it was felt, would be bad for morale and so an aid to the enemy. The Taleban also understands the power of images, using them whenever they can to undermine our resolve.

Even so, we should not seek to hide the cost of this conflict. Preventing Taleban control of Afghanistan and ridding the country of the terrorist training camps that threatened us, may have made the war a sad necessity and the lesser of evils. But, the sorrow of the relatives serves to remind us that war remains an evil nonetheless.

For those of us who don’t wear JesusGogglesâ„¢, this is what he said filtered into the language of the non-theologically biased:

War is a messy business. No, honestly it is! People get killed. When we see the grieving families of dead service personnel, we immediately think of Mary, the mother of the visible bit of the Invisible Magic Friend. Even at a time when we should pause to salute the bravery of those who have given their lives, or deplore the waste of those who have died so young, or question the wisdom of a protracted campaign in a region that is notoriously difficult to control, the important thing is to be distracted by religion, the right religion, my religion. And there’s been some fantastic paintings of Mary.

As a Reverend Canon Doctor and an Anglican Priest, let me just assure you that it’s all in a good cause. That Taliban lot are a bunch of religious nutters. They think their Invisible Magic Friend has told them how to live their lives and because their Invisible Magic Friend is all good, all knowing and all powerful, everyone has to live their lives the way they tell them to. I mean, you can’t get much more loopy than that, can you? That’s what happens when people with dangerous delusions are given exclusive privileges and legitimised by the state. It’s not even the right religion. My Invisible Magic Friend assures me that their Invisible Magic Friend is just a figment of their imagination and they should stop paying any attention to him.

Actually, as an alternative, if they just recorded Platitude for the Day and broadcast that just after the existing TftD, I’d be content with that.

Tags: <BBC, bigotry, culture, media, special treatment/religious privilege, theocracy/anti-secularism, Thought For The Day>