Category Archives: Religion

Is Religion Exempt From Satire According To The BBC? Clarification and Your Action Required

38 comments

BBC_Gates

Red Nose Day (Comic Relief) is a biennial UK telethon event, which aims to raise money for charity.  The hook is on the promise of entertainment in the form of famous faces ‘doing something funny for money’. It is hoped that this will attract viewers, and hopefully donations along with it.  (Our team raised over 10k! Just saying)

Over the years, some incredibly talented, hilarious performers and Lenny Henry have appeared during the TV event to participate in various skits, some live, some pre-recorded, some funny, some cringe-worthy. It doesn’t matter, it’s all for a good cause.

This year, Rowan Atkinson of Blackadder and Mr. Bean notoriety gave his time to appear via a pre-recorded sketch.  In the sketch, he appears in character (tongue firmly in cheek) as the ‘New Archbishop of Canterbury’.  Rather than provide an exhaustive description of the, in my view, rather tame contents, you can watch it in full below (until the inevitable swooping of BBC Ninjas):

After the initial live broadcast over 2,000 complaints were received, only a quarter of which, were related to the religious content. This prompted the BBC to issue an apology in conjunction with complete removal of the ‘offending’ skit from their online, on demand service, iPlayer.

I pressed the official iPlayer Twitter account for more details regarding their conclusion that the content was so inappropriate as to merit complete removal from its services.  They were kind enough to direct me to a pre-existing statement, an excerpt of which, is below:

It was clear from this feedback that the Rowan Atkinson sketch was problematic for a number of different reasons, with many viewers noting the subject matter, the language used and its placing early in the evening. It is clear to us that this sketch did not translate as we had hoped and as a direct result of viewer feedback we took a swift decision to remove this from BBC iPlayer.

I requested further clarification from the BBC on some key points, but as of yet, I have not received a response.

 Tweet_to_iplayerfollow_up_q1
follow_up_q2

Read more

“Fear and Faith” and misplaced criticism

9 comments

Popular UK illusionist Derren Brown recently ran a two-part TV programme entitled “Fear and Faith”.  The second part of the programme, “Faith” looked at explaining belief in God from the perspective of hard-wired emotional need. It can be viewed here (for UK residents at least).

During the broadcast of this TV show, many of my Twitter comrades tweeted me to ask if I had tuned in.

Whilst watching the show I made a quick search of the related #FearAndFaith hash tag to take in a brief sample of the reaction and commentary.  This is where I found the following statement (my comments are preceded by a “+”):

Read more

Leigh Patrick Sullivan, The Truth About “Atheist Tolerance” and Other Self-Delusion

40 comments

I spend a significant portion of my time debating and exchanging views with fellow primates on Twitter.  I make a rule of never being abusive, hostile or assuming to know what someone else believes.  I frequently pose my responses as questions, in order to avoid being presumptuous.

I also never tell anyone they haven’t the right to believe what they want to believe, as this would clearly be wrong.  I think the most I am guilty of is sarcasm, mockery and ridicule.  I’m perfectly comfortable with this.

I make sure I deal with the actual statements put forward, whether they are made to me specifically or to the “Twitterverse” in general. I aim to do this as calmly as possible and in a civil manner, often pointing out logical fallacies, or citing sources to address failures to understand established scientific concepts or terminology.

I’ve sent more than 11,000 tweets, and when I receive responses they often take the form of glaring ignorance, foul language/abuse/hostility/threats. I have never responded in kind.  I simply don’t need to.  Once someone decides to engage in that way, they lose any and all credibility, and I chalk it off as a victory. #AnotherSatisfiedCustomer.

It is confusing to me that religion appears to be the only domain of discourse where the mildest form of criticism at its expense is labelled as “intolerant” or “aggressive”.

This is especially concerning given the influence religion exudes on society as a whole.  There seems to be a growing trend, born out of desperation, to label any criticism of religion, however mild as “aggressive atheism”, or “militant atheism”, often atheism is interchanged with secularism to the same extent, but the same fallacy remains. Read more

1 2 3