The Revenge of Winston Smith

I wandered over to see what the ignorant bigots at Christian Voice (the googlebomb stays!) were doing today. They seem to be revelling in their recent media interest, linking to a number of sources that have mentioned them, including those that were not supportive.

This - from the ever-entertaining Screen Burn column in The Guide (which I missed last Saturday as I forgot to pick up my copy of the Guardian) - says it all:

So, the BBC went ahead and broadcast Jerry Springer: The Opera in its entirety last week, enraging a hardcore band of extremist humourless oafs who decided before they'd even seen it that it was blasphemous and despicable and hideous and ghastly and wrong, and therefore Must Not Be Shown because They Didn't Like It.

Let he who is without brains cast the first stone. And cast they did. Prior to broadcast, they jostled, they shouted, they published contact details and made threatening phone calls - all in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who, unless I'm grossly mistaken, was actually rather keen on tolerance and forgiveness and turning the other cheek.

Before Jerry Springer was shown, the BBC received 47,000 complaints. Afterwards, it received just 900 - plus around 500 calls of support.

And later, refering to Christian Voice:

You'd have thought human beings had evolved beyond this kind of idiocy - but since Christian Voice probably don't believe in evolution, I guess they're exempt. And as for the many thousands who objected to the broadcast on the grounds that it represented a "misuse of their licence fee", I suspect that if you counted all the people who've ever turned on their TV of a Sunday evening and said, "Oh shit, Songs Of Praise is on," you'd be looking a majority of millions. [full article]

I always wonder if Christians, when reading this sort of this sort of thing, secretly think "well, the guy's got a point ..."

It always annoys me that the religious always seem to think that the gods they worship are somehow real. Ok, it's what they might believe, but when talking to atheists (and people of other faiths) they still use phrases like "but what about what God said in the bible about ..." without realising that such statements are automatically invalid as atheists don't believe that the god they are referring to actually exists. The problem with this is that they seem to think that people like me should also follow the rules their mythical deities - and most of these rules I am strongly opposed to.

BTW, the site I am working on is not a new one, just a re-working of my Religion is Bullshit! site. This will include a blog section, so my future militant atheist rants will go there and I can save this site for, well, other stuff.

This sort of thing really annoys me.

"Christian protesters have set fire to their television licences outside the BBC's London offices as outrage spread over the public broadcaster's plans to air a profanity-laden musical. In the award-winning London show "Jerry Springer -- The Opera", viewers can watch a diaper fetishist confess all to his true love, catch a tap dance routine by the Ku Klux Klan and see Jesus and the Devil locked in a swearing match." [Yahoo! news story]

If I think I'm going to find something on the T.V. offensive, I won't watch it. I wouldn't want to stop other people watching it! Who the hell do these people think they are? So it's offensive to Christians. Well, guess what guys - I'm not a Christian - and I'm looking forward to watching it. It looks quite entertaining!

I bet that most of the people complaining haven't actually seen the musical - and if people do wait to see it and then complain - well, that's even worse. Why would someone make a deliberate effort to watch a programme they know they are not going to like, just so that they can complain about it afterwards?

I do think they have a point however when they state that "... the BBC would not risk upsetting minority faiths like Islam or Buddhism". I personally would like to see much more in the media that upsets minority faiths like Islam or Buddhism.

Jehovah's Witnesses came to my house today while I was at work. I was rather disappointed - I've always enjoyed "discussing" things with these people, and watching their ever increasing difficulty in remaining polite and friendly as I point out that their beliefs are, in fact, complete bullshit.

My wife answered the door - still in her dressing gown - to find the smartly dressed couple smiling and waving a copy of the Watchtower at her (no kids today - they usually drag their poor children around with them, which I feel is a form of child abuse - although that's a topic for another rant). The first thing the woman said to my wife was "Oooh, you're having a baby!" - and then both of them made a very obvious point of looking down to see if she was wearing a wedding ring. Seeing that she wasn't (she had to take it off as her fingers have swollen up) their tone changed dramatically. The man actually shook his head and started walking back up the drive! How nice of them to drop by a strangers house to jump to conclusions and be judgemental. And it's not as if unmarried couples having children is uncommon anyway (we weren't married when we had our first).

Oh, and I don't want to worry anyone, but the world is going to come to an end again soon. Unfortunately they didn't give an exact date this time - presumably to avoid any embarrassment when such a date passes and the world stubbornly continues to exist.