Sod the meek.
- The Pope
This month (July 2008), a quarter of Anglicans boycotted a religious conference because of unrest over Gene Robinson, an openly gay bishop.
Now, if I boycotted work because it employed someone who was openly gay, I’d probably get the sack. If I boycotted my gym because a member was openly gay, then other members would think less of me. If they didn’t, it would probably be a pretty crass, thuggish, chav-type gym that you wouldn’t really want to go to. If I boycotted a conference on the grounds that one of the speakers was openly gay, people would probably be baffled. The thoughts of those that worship rational thought might even posit,
“Why the big hoohar? He’s giving a lecture about botany. He’s hardly likely to go onto the stage in drag, make a series of homosexual double-entendres, pull members of the audience onto the stage and embarrass them with fake sex acts involving flowers. How dare you stereotype him so severely and unfoundedly on the grounds of his benign, personal and private preferences?”
Well, Rational People, you'd be right.
But the Church? Oh, that’s different. It doesn’t have to abide by moral and legal rules – instead, it has its own set of rules, enshrouding a meaningless notion backed up by circular and dead-ended arguments that it likes to call “faith.” The following brainless pattern of justification is typical and - worse - widely accepted as valid by the 'outside world':
“Why do you believe that bishops should not openly be gay?”
“Because it’s wrong.”
“Why is it wrong?”
“Because it’s against the principles of my faith.”
And so into the black hole the argument goes, the faith-defender hiding behind the ridiculous notion that he believes (in) something, and that that's a justification in itself. They believe it “just because.” Not only that – only to those who are members of various exclusive posses that call themselves religions or denominations does the law give an exemption to sense. Even The Public has been taken in, although we know what The Public's like.
Believe in something because it makes sense, by all means. Believing in something as long as it doesn’t unfairly discriminate against someone else is no problem. But believing in something not only immoral, arbitrary and unfounded but hateful is just one step too far. In fact, it's evil.
There is a further point to be made about the word “belief”. Faith is belief, but without rationale. It is unquestioning belief. “I don’t have to have a rational explanation for what I believe, because I have faith.” The sentence sounds convincing, except that the “because I have faith” bit doesn’t really mean anything. It’s also yet another circular argument: it’s the same as saying “I believe, because I believe.”
Faith is pathetic and cowardly. It’s a cop-out that requires no thought (and indeed, hides from it) as to a purpose; it gives the ignorant a delusional sanctuary, and provides a convenient way of ‘explaining’ something without really giving an explanation. You might as well replace the word “faith” with “bananas”:
“I don’t have to have a rational explanation for what I believe, because I have bananas.”
It makes just as much sense, and it's just as valid a point.
To return to the gay bishop story, such behaviour is childish. If children can’t play with their toys without abusing them, then their toys are taken away. Why does the same not go for religious bigots? I was under the impression that hateful organisations and practices were illegal. They certainly shouldn't be tolerated, regardless. So ban them from practising their faith, if it breaches or erodes the peace between innocent people. The rest of us have to live by these rules, and I see no reason why these haters can get away with such things on grounds that it is “their faith” and that it is “part of the religion.”
By the way, according to Wikipedia, the word “bigot” originally meant “religious hypocrite.”[2]How apt for an organisation that claims to be founded on a doctrine of tolerance and morality.
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[1] Reuters. (16.07.08) “Quarter of world’s Anglicans boycott conference”,http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL1572153620080716
[2] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigot
4 comments:
Yesterday I thought of something related: there was recently introduced a bill to protect people from hate crimes. Out of all the pointless things this could be, one of the useful functions it would have is to get that awful sickening shite, rap, banned totally from all media forms and from being on sale, since it shouldnt be taken on a case by case basis, but assumed across the board that the association between hate of gays and women, promotion of rape and sexual violence is enough (and should have been already) to have all this culture banned from all of the Western civilisations, not just UK but if they believe themselves to be "civilized" then America too. All rap music is illegal both under trade desription: it is not music, and it breaks the law on hate crimes; who in their right mind doesnt fucking hate it? It promotes evil and should be treated along with promotion of war criminals and dictators of heros, in fact many dictators clearly did a lot of good compared to the rappers who only do bad, so should we not have a statue of evil dictators before there are rap CDs on sale? Or since the idea of a genocidal dictator being celebrated by erecting a statue is normally decided on the grounds of the evil they did, then shouldnt we have to go further the other way and monitor and prosecute people found buying the final stock of rap CDs from the date the law was changed?
If you listen to rap music, you are as good as admitting you are a derranged criminal. If only there were emough police ment to do any work and prosectute them. As for the rappers; they should be punished and die by their satanic code of the streets. William Wallace a "freedom fighter" was however you look at it, a brave an hounourable man, who risked death to free his peoples. His reward was to be quartered and beheaded. Now weighing up the honour and achievements of rappers, what punishment is valid in that context? Certainly one beneath anything acceptable in civilized society, so hand them over to be torn apart by gibbons. How clever are you without that gun? They probably have faith, in something, so good, see how good it does you.
Interesting thoughts. Although I agree that "rap music" would be an oxymoron at best, to my knowledge rap is referred to simply as "rap" rather than "rap music," so it seems that even the writers of rap understand its failings as a musical art form.
I randomly came across this site, which attempts to give advice on how to write wrap. It has a few insights of note here, in light of what you mention:
Step 1 gives a delightful example rap line: "If ur gonna mess, realize it's not free, because i can eazily rob you off ur glee, messing with me, has a fee." Awww, how sweet. Nothing says "annoy me and I might rob and/or kill you" like a good rapper. Also incorporates text-speak, but that doesn't matter - it isn't as if a rapper needs to be adept at the use of language, is it?
Step 2 invites the rap writer to "...strong palm down,punch'em get em strong", and drivels on in pseudo-language about something to do with killing.
Step 4 Suggests rhymes such as, "Kill For, Still Roll". Yes, I'm definitely noting a theme here.
The "tips" section then encourages the writer to write about "real" things about their "own life" - a bit of a joke, given the examples. Either that, or the writer is effectively agreeing that the purpose of rap is to incite irrational and genuinely-felt hatred.
Finally - and this is my favourite - the "warnings" section has this gem to offer: "[Your rap effort] had better possess some sort of meaning or otherwise you will just be spitting out mindless hatred."
Brilliant.
The site mentions two rappers - 50 Cent and Jay-Z - so I looked up the lyrics to some of their songs. In fact, I only had to scan some of the titles of the albums and songs to get the idea. They're too numerous to reproduce here - see here for 50 Cent and here for Jay-Z.
I decided to give them benefit of the doubt, and picked the seemingly inoffensively-entitled one, "My Toy." The lyrics are here, but I should warn you that they're not the nicest of lyrics.
Suffice it to say, all the evidence has conveniently been written down. All we need now is a decent lawyer who has the morality to do the right thing for reasons of morality rather than financial reward.
Before I got to the end, I was going to add the same thought: can't we get a lawyer, or an MP to put some influence into a campaign to get this stuff banned...along with music that can be heard outside of a car and racism against white people, which is both acceptable and encouraged by the most extreme politically correct, the political correctness fascists, known as local government authorities and councils. They need to be prosecuted for hate crimes against men and white people. But why do only rich people have lawyers to get them off criminal charges? First we need to set up that charity then pay for a lawyer. That said there might be a Conservative MP who would run on the "protect white men" ticket.
A women MP asked yesterday in PMQs a genuinely disturbing and personally offensive question:
she asked specifically about female jobs being protected: now correct me if I am wrong, but isn't that illegal gender discrimination? Oh it's ok, it only promotes male hatred.
Two points come to mind. First a side point to get out the way, and a sign of the nature of reality:
an opposition MP directly stated that the PM "covered up" the situation about donations to the party (check on the iPlayer) he stated this in such a way that it was fact and he knew it was a fact...the speaker interupted (also maybe he knew it was true to) but first it seemed it was because of noise from the opposite benches and he was asking for order...no, he forced the MP to retract the statement and said something to the effect that "you can not say that". Perfect! So when there is a real cover up...we know know it is not allowed for it to be mentioned. He the MP was right...the speaker was knowingly being an accomplice to cover up.
Secondly, the point that set me off on this...was the fact...yes a fact, that this country is in a right mess (Alf Garnet) because of the over-employment of women...we all know it, and we all know how bad it is. Women are employed everywhere and most of the time, in jobs they cant do, dont understand and too often because the wanker manager had a misplaced sexual interest...the whole economy is based on this. Sick Britain. You cant get a job, because a slut who objectifies herself, without talent, skill, experience, qualifications or knowledge will get the job every time...even now in some positions for lecturer and professorships, that's how bad it is...yes, you know what is coming...we need to set up an experiment to prove how bad this is...better still, if you are feeling lazy...write to various psychology departments in Universities telling male researchers that you have already done the research, made this conclusion, but are not based in a Pyschology department of a university and therefore can not publish the result, so can their group please repeat the experiments and confirm the results and publish them in the appropriate well read journal.
Women take jobs of men. Jobs they arent capable of, jobs they arent good at and just dont get. Service jobs. Jobs that one gets by writing on a CV that you "love working with people" and "meeting new people" when every single persons experience of British women is summed up perfectly in the Little Britain sketch: "Computer says 'no' "; yes every British women is like this: full of total hate and contempt for the fellow human. Utterly bitter and frustrated: in love and sex and life and ambition.
Why do they get the job? Because the boss was at some point down the line hoping for an other job in return. End of
Hmmm, I would say that your "promoting male hatred" idea pre-empts my next post, but I just noticed you mosted it last month.
The cover-up regarding party donations sounds disturbing. The fact that the MP brought it up in the Commons might either be a good thing (some MPs are trying to do the right thing by exposing things that are public interest) or a bad thing (the government has such power in enforcing cover-ups that it's become complacent about it and they do it openly, as exemplified by the Speaker).
Regarding your idea about the over-employment of women: I wouldn't go as far as you do, but is it purely coincidental that of all the departments, the one always both dominated by women and badly run seems to be HR? HR departments aren't exactly the shining light in the achievements of female endeavour. If charity begins at home, why do they not first have a go at managing themselves?
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