Category Archives: Extremism

We Want You As A New Recruit

Posted on by
2

But what if I don’t want to be one? What if I don’t want to join you in your fantasy bubble? What if I’ve tried Christianity and found it incredibly disappointing? You’ll tell me no doubt that was my fault because I wasn’t part of the right church or didn’t have the indwelling Holy Spirit or didn’t have a proper relationship with Jesus. And you’d probably be right, given the Holy Sprite and Bejabus are figments of the imagination. Which is why I’m no longer a Christian, and why I will not be recruited to your cause ever again.

Why do Christians think they have to recruit anyway? They’ll give you all sorts of reasons from ‘the great commission’ of Matthew 28:18-20, to wanting to save your soul from an eternity of hell. I’m not convinced these are the real reasons. i think they want to convert you because they’re insecure. ‘Look’, they’re saying, ‘I’m part of this ridiculous movement and I feel quite insecure about it. I’m not sure it’s for real and I need you to join me to make me feel I’ve made the right choice.’

It’s the same with all the fringe groups that exist in Western society today. From Veganism to Just Stop Oil, Trans-activism to groups that want to rehabilitate the urban rat (I kid you not), I’m really quite happy for those who want to give up meat, stop using oil, identify as whatever they like and embrace rodents they think have had a bad press. But such people cannot and should not expect me, and society at large, to do the same.

I’m not convinced. Having reviewed the available evidence (in the shower) I find that I don’t want to give up what little meat I eat. The human body has evolved to eat, and indeed to need, meat. Plus, the vegans I know are among the unhealthiest people on the planet.

Immature Just Stop Oilers haven’t given up oil themselves of course. They publish their hysterical nonsense on devices made of plastic made of oil. They still travel to art galleries to vandalise beautiful works of art in modes of transport that require oil in some form. They promote electric cars and wind turbines, both of which require oil in their construction and operation. Just Stop Oilers have yet to show how ceasing to use oil with immediate effect is going to save us and the environment, rather than just taking us back to the living standards of the 17th century. So, no, I won’t be joining or supporting their cause and will not, because as things stand is impossible to do so, give up using what little oil I do use.

Nor will I be joining the Trans-movement or campaigning on behalf of it. Nor will I be cancelling those who raise objections. I’ve no problem with those who genuinely feel they are the opposite sex and quietly get on with doing something about it. But I cannot and will not accommodate aggressive testosterone-driven men in women’s clothing who are hell bent on usurping women’s rights. That is not what Trans is about.

As for the urban rat… are these people serious? They insist rats are not vermin even though they’re known to carry 35 diseases that are dangerous to humans, many fatal. Try asking those who think they’re lovely and cuddly whether they’d be happy eating in a restaurant with a rat infestation in its kitchens. Ask them if they’d like a colony hunkering down in their spare room. I wouldn’t, so I won’t be signing up to welcome the urban rat into my life any time soon.

And so it is with God. Please don’t waste your time telling me how lovely and cuddly he is. Don’t tell me how much he loves me and wants me to identify as one of his own. Don’t tell me I should give up living the life I live and love, so that I can be with him forever. As with all the causes that humans are prone to inventing, the evidence simply isn’t there. Leave me be and keep your insecurities to yourself.

Ed Bangers

Posted on by
1

I see wandering minstrel Ed Sheehan has run into a spot of bother. I’m not a fan of the Ginger One – I can only name about three of his songs – but I do have some sympathy for him as he finds himself embroiled in a decidedly no-win situation.  

Apparently one of his support acts on his current world tour, a rapper with only a passing acquaintance with talent, an individual by the name of Macklemore, decided to use the platform Sheeran had provided him with to make pro-Palestine and borderline anti-Semitic pronouncements. The promoters of the tour decided this was potentially damaging especially during its American leg, and Macklemore was subsequently dropped from the roster.  

Other of Ed’s support acts decided then that they too would jump ship in support of Macklemore and abandon the musician who was paying them for their (musical) support. Ed then issued a statement to say he didn’t have a view about Gaza and that all he wanted to do was perform his songs for the people who’d paid to hear them, while making lots of money for himself. Which seems reasonable enough. It’s what pop stars do. His fans hadn’t, presumably, handed over their hard-earned cash to hear him pontificate on matters he knows, like his detractors, little about.

This proved to be not good enough for those who demanded he must have a view and that that view should be the same as theirs – ie: that he too should firmly come down on the pro-Palestine side of the argument. Naturally, Ed immediately capitulated and did just this, issuing a tearful apology to fans and the rest of the world during one of his concerts in Philadelphia.

This pantomime was not enough for those who claim to promote hope against ‘hate’. Too much, too little, too late seemed to be their verdict. The situation in Gaza that Ed had described as complicated (he’s right, it is) was, they declared, nothing of the sort. They insisted and continue to insist that morally one can only come down on the Free Palestine side of ‘history’; no other option is possible.

None of these people, it seems to me, are possessed of any self-awareness. None of them ask themselves –

Why does it matter what a pop singer thinks about an issue as complex as Gaza?

Is Sheeran not entitled to maintain a silence over an issue he knows, by his own admission, little about? Sheeran is neither a philosopher nor a diplomat; why must he use his celebrity status to pontificate on the state of the world?

How much do declarations by public figures change situations on the ground? Not at all, I wouldn’t have thought.

If it wasn’t okay for Sheeran to remain silent about Palestine – there are no neutral positions, remember – why is it okay that those who badger him remain silent about the Islamist massacre of Christians in Nigeria (25,250 men, women and children) and the displacement of 2 million others? Why aren’t those who’ve got it in for Sheeran protesting and making public declarations about this particular appalling situation?

What if Ed had arrived at a different position from the one his detractors expected of him? His fellow pop star, the songstress P!NK did precisely this and is now being faced with attempts to hound her out of her position as a Unicef ambassador.

What does Free Palestine actually mean? Hamas has said frequently that the only way Palestine can be free is if the Jews either leave the area (not going to happen) or are exterminated. Is this the solution the Free Palestiners are demanding? Or have they something else in mind? If so what?

Does sloganeering and virtue signalling ever achieve anything? Has bullying a lightweight pop star into submission changed the situation in Palestine one little bit? Did Netanyahu take notice of Macklemore’s and Ed’s eventual declaration and decide because two pop stars he’s never heard of have called him out on the severity of his retaliation for the 7th October 2023 massacre of Israelis, he should maybe ease up a bit?

Was Christopher Hitchens right when he said religion poisons everything? If Judaism, Christianity and Islam were to disappear overnight, would the world not be a whole lot better off?

Answers on a postcard, please. Not that anyone’s listening to anything we say either, but…

 

 

 

Dolly Parton: that rare and gentle thing

Posted on by
4

(A brief interlude before we get to the greatest of Christianity’s Greatest Failures.)

I loved Dolly Parton. Since first hearing Jolene back in the early 1970s, and despite my aversion to country music (my dad’s kind of music), I felt sure this was a songwriter of some considerable talent. The ‘maxi-single’ of ‘Jolene’ released here in the UK had ‘Coat Of Many Colors’ and ‘Love Is Like a Butterfly’ on the B side: two other absolute gems. I went on to buy many of her albums and compilations, right up to the most recent.

When I first saw her on TV, I was very taken with Dolly’s appearance – that amazing flamboyance – as well as her wit and warmth. As a latent young, closeted gay man, her ample bosoms didn’t impress me much but it was impossible to ignore how beautiful she was. I watched her being interviewed whenever I could and was always impressed by her wisdom, energy and compassion. Occasionally she would talk about her faith and what it meant to her. Never did she seek to impose it on others, not even in the songs that referred to it. I was eventually fortunate enough to see her live, during her Blue Grass era, and experienced her dazzling stage presence and her performance of so many of iconic songs.

I mention all this because after her death last week the ghouls were out: evangelical Christians who declared she wasn’t a real Christian because something she said didn’t line up with their doctrine or because her support for LGBT+ people demonstrated how unsaved she really was. Didn’t she know that the Bible condemns such people and their flaunting of sinful lifestyles? How could she not know that she couldn’t be saved by good works or by mouthing platitudes that sounded Christian but really weren’t? Why did she support those mired in all manner of sin instead of pointing out how their sin would take them to the bowels of hell if they didn’t turn to Jesus? How could she not recognise biblical truth and preach an uncompromised gospel? And on and on.

Because, dear brood of vipers, she lived her faith. She was compassionate, non-judgemental, caring and giving. She redistributed much of her wealth, just as Jesus commanded. She was very much what he and the early cultists decreed a Christian should be. She didn’t get tangled up with doctrinal disputes but had a sense of what really mattered. Nor did she mention Jesus merely to promote her brand as some suggest, but because her faith was real to her. She was as genuine within as her outward appearance was artificial (‘it costs a lot of money to look this cheap’.) She was the opposite of the Christians who are now condemning her for what they claim was her ‘false faith’; they are whited sepulchres, heartless and pitiless within.

We need more Dolly Partons in the world, though I doubt we’ll see her like ever again. We would be far better off with fewer self-righteous bigots, of the kind who are now condemning her to hell.

PS. What was it you were saying, Don, about Christians being one big happy family, all saved by Jesus regardless of superficial differences? It sure doesn’t look that way to anyone with eyes to see.

Christianity’s Greatest Failures: 2. Morality

Posted on by
4

And straight in at number 2, it’s Christianity’s Failed Morality!

  • Premier Christian News presents what Christianity is all about! Super-hero Jesus! He’s part of the X-Men (you know, the cross and all that)! Maybe The Tragic Trinity. Perhaps just a cheap Superman knockoff.

    ← Back

    Thank you for your response. ✨

What has this to do with Christian morality? Well, nothing, which is the point.

We need, so the Right tells us, to return to Christian morality in the West. It seems to me they know as little about Christian morality as Christian News does. All they seem to have in mind is something to do with family, being nice and kind and going to church.

I’ve really no objection to any of these ideals. If people want to waste their time going to church, that’s their right. But what is the ‘Christian morality’ they want us to ‘return to’? The Christian morality espoused by Jesus?

Not really.

Jesus is often credited, by those who’ve never actually read the gospels, with being an advocate of some sort of Universal Love. He wasn’t, of course; his cultish creators portray him as frequently abrasive, dismissive and exclusionary. His, or rather their, morality is far more radical, far more impractical and, let’s face it, far more antithetical to the family, marriage and society in general. He’s not all that enthusiastic about being nice and kind either.

  • He places adulation of himself above – stratospherically above – ordinary family allegiances. He sees commitment to the cult as far more important than any family ties (Luke 14:26).
  • He regards marriage as a distraction from working towards the Kingdom (Matthew 19:12).
  • He tells his disciples to shake the dust from their feet when people are not receptive to the cult’s message (Matthew 10:14). He seems to think this would show the world what undesirables they were.
  • He would really like to kill his ‘enemies’ (Luke 19:27).

In his latest book, Loving Thy Stranger, which I’ve just started reading, Bart D. Ehrman makes the case that what is startling and novel about Jesus’ morality is its expansion beyond family and community. He is the first, according to Ehrman, to promote a morality that encompasses the stranger and the alien. While of course Ehrman is attempting to show how right on and relevant he is in addressing a hot contemporary issue – immigration – he credits Jesus with too much.

The ancient world prior to the advent of Christianity had rules about the generous treatment of strangers, even if it didn’t always apply them.

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself (Leviticus 19:34).

There are numerous other verses just like this in the Old Testament, while the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis is about the maltreatment of strangers and the divine wrath that followed. There are also many verses about taking care of the poor. The theme is not unique to Jesus, nor indeed the scriptures. What is, is the extremes to which Jesus took the morality of the Jewish scriptures.

  • So it’s not enough just to help the poor: you must sell all you have and give the proceeds to them (Matthew 19:21). Jesus would sneer, I’m sure, at soup kitchens and charity drives.
  • It’s not enough, then, to give to charity or volunteer: you should regularly visit the sick and the imprisoned, clothe those without clothes (how you’ll manage this when you’ve sold everything is not explained), and welcome every stranger and outcast into your home. Not the state, not the church but you: you must do this to ensure your eternal life (Matthew 34-40).
  • It’s not enough to be kind; you must give to anyone who begs and lend to everyone who wants to borrow from you (Matthew 5:42).
  • It’s not enough to give to all who ask of you: you must go well beyond what they demand, to the point of giving them the shirt off your back (Matthew 5:40).
  • It’s not enough to be nice: you should put others before yourself and become a slave to all (Mark 9.35).
  • It’s not enough to tolerate being put upon: you should ask for more of the same abuse (Matthew 5: 38-42).
  • It’s not enough to welcome more maltreatment: you must love those dishing it out. Not just forgive them, not just pray for them (though that too) but love them (Matthew 5: 43-45).
  • It’s not enough to honour your parents and take care of your children: your allegiances is not to them but rather to unrelated people who happen to believe the same as you (Matthew 12: 46-50).
  • It’s not enough to be sexually responsible: if you can’t stop having lustful thoughts or playing with yourself you must gouge out your eye and cut off your right hand. Hyperbole perhaps (or perhaps not), but nonetheless Jesus demands you take drastic measures (Matthew 5: 27-30).
  • It’s not enough to marry, stay faithful and only have sex in the missionary position: Jesus prefers you don’t marry at all (Matthew 19: 10-12). Nobody’s going to want you anyway when you’ve poked out your eye and amputated your own hand.
  • It’s not enough to live by this morality: you must show the world that you do (Matthew 5: 14-16). Producing silly memes and making a nuisance of yourself on street corners (and calling that love) doesn’t cut it.
  • It’s not enough to be nice: you must be as perfect as God himself (Matthew 5: 48)

There’s more, of course, of this same extreme, unreasonable morality espoused by Jesus. He and his creators had what they felt were good reasons for promoting it, as we’ll see next time. My point here is that it’s so radical, so extreme as to be impractical and unworkable, which is why no-one has ever managed to live by it. Not even those people Don will tell us about, yet again, who build hospitals in Africa. Jesus’ moral demands go far, far beyond this, which is why Christians are compelled to explain them away, along with their own failure to comply with them. (Cue: ‘they’re hyperbole and/or metaphor’ and ‘we Christians are a work in progress.’)

But it’s not so much that believers fail; it’s that the morality they’re supposed to live by is impossible. It is that which fails, and always has.

Return To Sedra

Posted on by
2

Here they are, the new Wunderkinds of the Christian circuit: Martin and Millicent Sedra (and a while lot of other Sedras too though I don’t know where they fit in the Great Scheme of Things. The Sedras are the new Wizards of Aus, running a megachurch in Sydney. According to their own press they’re having an impact for Christ around the globe (a pub down the East end.)

34 year old Pastor Martin is from Egypt where he was persecuted for his Christian faith and was forced into growing a beard and wearing expensive designer shades to conceal his identity. Millicent, his wife of almost 8 years, is much younger as you can see in the links but her age is kept secret to avoid any scandal criticism of her being too young to know what she is talking about. Or something. Her videos reveal her to be a young woman who has succeeded in exalting herself to a position of authority and influence while lacking any real experience of life and, indeed, wisdom.

Naturally both Millicent and her husband spout the usual stuff and nonsense about Jesus but also feel qualified to speak about the issues of the day: mental health (demonic); homosexuality (sin); pronouns (‘hell’s language’); women in power (‘Jezebel Spirit’); sex (for hetero-marriage only); Islam (fake. They’re really big on Islam.) Naturally and contrarily given their stance on women in power, Marty and Millie dispute the Bible’s position that a woman should neither hold authority over a man nor preach. After all, taking 1 Timothy 2:12 literally (as they claim they do the rest of the Bible) would prevent Millicent from doing her thing for the Lord and would surely cut off a lucrative revenue stream. The couple announced recently that Millie is pregnant with the couple’s first child. The news was greeted by some acolytes as a tumultuous and spiritually significant event.

The Sedras speak to millions, in stadia and across the Internet and have a massive influence over gullible people’s lives and beliefs. Yet what they are offering is dangerous clap-trap. Their followers worship them as great prophets and God’s agents in what are surely the end times. Jesus is returning soon! Hallelujah!

What is more likely to manifest soon is some controversy or other that even now is lying in wait. How many of the Sedras’ worshippers will then say they knew they were deceivers all along?

Jesus, Jesus and more Jesus

Posted on by
6

You find me in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Not, fortunately, in the water but on the world’s only ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2. Dennis and I have been in U.S., both in New York and Washington DC, on a diplomatic mission to the White House. Well, a tourist visit anyway. As I dislike flying (a slight understatement) we are sailing home on the ship. It is a much more dignified and pleasurable way to travel.

Our visit left me wondering how you guys over the pond that I currently find myself on, cope. Not with your president (though heaven knows that too) but with the proliferation of evangelical Christians.

While visiting the Washington Monument in DC we had a small book pressed on us by a young boy whose father(?) stood a little way off. The cover suggested it was about America’s 250th. Inside it was the fourth gospel and the letter to the Romans. It ended up in the trash alongside dozens of others.

On the Metro we were treated to songs about Jesus by a small group of musicians who knew a captive audience when they saw one.

Outside the Capitol we were accosted by a young man on an electric scooter who asked as he glided by, ‘Hey guys, do you know God loves you?’ (He didn’t hear our reply. Perhaps just as well.)

I mean, how do you put up with this?

Worse though was my Facebook feed. I know I’ve grumbled about this before, back home in England, when every other post is about Jesus. But in the U.S. it was worse. I would say 9 of every 10 items items were about him. (Fortunately there are fewer now that we’ve put a few nautical miles between us and the Land of the Free.) You can see a small sample of the hundreds of inanities I received up top.

I did venture to put comments on some of them (Dennis says I was just winding up the witless. Someone’s got to). Responses varied, telling me that,

as I didn’t know Jesus I had no right to comment;

I would one day soon be on my knees at His feet (I did tell them this was more than unlikely given the state of my knees);

the Bible doesn’t suggest women shouldn’t be preachers and Jesus doesn’t say Christians shouldn’t pray ostentatiously in public (both, of course, are the case);

homosexuality is a grievous sin (I assured them it was a lot of fun too). Christians shouldn’t attend same-sex weddings (this one was particularly sad as one Christian couple who commented said they wouldn’t be attending their daughter’s wedding to another woman. As result their daughter now wouldn’t take their calls. I advised them to go ahead and attend and that it’d be okay. Loving Christians™ then swarmed in and told me how evil I was for encouraging the couple to endorse sin.) 

I didn’t comment on the numerous posts I was unfortunate enough to receive about Creation, which happened exactly as recorded in Genesis; Noah building his ark and collecting animals to survive a worldwide flood and ‘Evilution’ being Satanic. I was informed too that the resurrection, the Bible as the infallible Word of God and Jesus coming back soon are not ‘up for debate’. I mean what would be the point? Sometimes though the level of ignorance was so staggering and I took it upon myself to mention it maybe once or twice. Can I get an Amen, brothers and sisters?

Amidst all this, I encountered a couple of new stars in the Christian fundament: Martin and Millicent Sedra, and I’ll share my thoughts on this pair next time.

Lies, Damn Lies and More Lies (Part four of a three part rant)

Posted on by
4

I turned 71 last month. I know, I know, I don’t look it. I certainly don’t feel it. I feel no older than I did in my 40s, mentally at least. The body’s a little creakier than in was then. Another change I’ve noticed is how less tolerant I’ve become. I’m intolerant these days of other people’s crap including but not limited to Christians attempts to convince others that their superstition is the real deal, and Jesus will return any time soon. Here are a few more examples of the crap* we’re presented with everyday here in the UK:

  • Mass uncontrolled immigration is good for the country;
  • Digital ID cards for everyone will help control immigration;
  • Science is ‘settled’ about whatever agenda our leaders are promoting;
  • Climate change can be reversed;
  • Net zero is achievable and worth the vast expense it entails;
  • Outlawing the use of air conditioning, underfloor heating, bathroom radiators and tumble dryers will help achieve net zero;
  • We need to return to Christian values;
  • Jesus will never let you down;
  • Islam is a peace-loving religion;
  • Muslims deserve special protections. Jews, Christians, atheists and any number of others don’t;
  • Racism is exhibited only by white people. Other groups are not really capable of it;
  • Social media is the root of all evil;
  • Free speech causes most of society’s problems and must be controlled;
  • Wealth needs to be redistributed to achieve an equal socialist state;
  • When ordinary people object to being told lies they’re ‘far right’ and ‘divisive’. When the Left respond violently in support of the same lies we need to understand their frustrations.
  • The best way to secure peace is to go to war;
  • The NHS provides the best heath care in the world, and it’s free!
  • All cultures are equally valid;
  • Ordinary people know nothing. Elite leaders know best.

Since I reached teenage, I’ve endured six decades of this kind of propaganda. In the last couple of decades I’ve become so much more wary of it. It is all so much spin, manipulation, untruths. My bullshit detector is alerted whenever I hear a politician speak, a Christian apologist spout or the main stream media promote the same old agenda.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I don’t know what’s ‘really’ going on, but I do understand why some people resort to their own explanations. They feel that whatever they’re told almost always feels a little ‘off’, doesn’t quite ring true. Invariably and at best it’s half-truths, the available evidence – if you can be bothered to hunt it down – failing to support the narrative.

I’m not interested any more. I – we – have been lied to too many times to accept anything at face value any more. It isn’t unreasonable to call it all out as crap. The onus is on those making the pronouncements to demonstrate they’re right, telling the truth, and not just blind-siding us with more spin and propaganda. We need only call it out for the crap it is. Let them do the work. They won’t of course and there’s not much we can do about that. But we don’t have to go along with it any more.

*I can supply links to all of these or you can Google them for yourselves. The point is they’re all real. 

Newspeak (part two of a rant)

Posted on by
1

I’ve been considering the changing meaning of words. I acknowledge that this happens over time: language evolves like everything else. My concern here is the deliberate redefining of words to suit a given (political) agenda. This often underhanded stretching of words to give them new meanings, actually diminishes them and renders them dangerous. 

As part of its definition, Merrian-Webster describes racism as ‘behavior or attitudes that reflect and foster ‘the belief in racial superiority): discrimination, prejudice, or violence against people because of their race.’

Violence, it seems to me, is hardly ever justified. I have detested it since I was a child. There can be no doubt that violence is sometimes motivated by racial hatred, but like all the words I’m dealing with here, racism as an accusation is overused to the point of meaninglessness. While other nations – the Scandinavian countries, the US, Scotland and Wales – proudly fly their national flags practically everywhere, here in the UK it has been deemed to be racist by some on the Left. It’s common for the Ukranian, Palestinian, Scottish, Welsh and LGBT flags to be flown here, why are the English and Union flags now considered to be racist? It might, at a stretch be that they are divisive, but then aren’t all flags? Isn’t that what they’re for, to declare a national identity that is distinct from that of other states? The British flag is no more ‘racist’ than any other. Neither is expressing genuine concern for immigration, which is dismissed by those who’ve failed to control it, as racist. How can it be when those coming into Britain are from a variety of ‘races’, many white and European?

It’s racist, and hateful too, say ‘community leaders’ and white liberals, to object to the treatment of women within Islam, or first-cousin marriage or frequently expressed anti-Semitism. ‘Racism’ in these instances is an attempt to shut down discussion and censure those with legitimate concerns. Similarly, for fear of being considered racist, authorities have failed to investigate (hateful) criminal activities by ethnic minorities. And while it’s become clichéd to say it, criticism of Islam and its practices is not racist: Islam is a religion, not a race, its practitioners drawn from a range of ethnicities. The true meaning of racism has been lost. Those who suffer from it abandoned in the transition of the word into meaninglessness.

My 95 year old mother was in hospital recently. She struggled to understand what some of the nurses were saying to her, either about her condition or treatment or something else. She didn’t know which because, between her deteriorating hearing, the mouth coverings some nurses wore and the accents of those from other ethnicities, she couldn’t understand them. What she couldn’t do, she felt, was say this to them. In Britain today it is regarded as racist to tell someone from another culture you can’t understand them. So she didn’t, nor did she mention the problem to any other of the medical team for fear of being thought racist. This is where we are in today’s Britain.

A Phobia of Hate (part one of a rant)

Posted on by
1

It used to be the case that when writing an essay or presenting an argument, the writer needed to define one’s terms. This way, parameters were set with clarity and, as we say these days, transparency about what was to be discussed. Sadly, this seems not to be the case any more. I don’t blame social media for this; it seems to me politicians have largely led the charge, using terms with usually clear definitions in ways that suit their own purpose, without any regard for that common understanding. Rarely do they make clear that this is what they are doing. The mainstream media are inclined to do the same. What we may think they’re talking about, they may not be. Perhaps both politicians and the media learned the trick from Christian commenters who are happy to change the meaning of words as they see fit (‘Atheists’, ‘myth’, ‘metaphor’ for example.)

I dealt with autism here. The term, and diagnosis, is now stretched so thinly that, according to the social scientist who first proposed the autistic ‘spectrum’, it has become ‘meaningless’. What other terms have been misapplied until they too have been rendered ‘meaningless’?

How about phobia? Strictly speaking a phobia is an irrational fear, one for which there is no real basis: arachnophobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, for example. Of course there may be real grounds for being fearful of spiders (some are poisonous) heights (if perched precariously on the top of a mountain) and enclosed spaces (if it is suffocating), but the terms arachnophobia, acrophobia, claustrophobia are reserved, or at least they used to be, for those whose fear is extreme and above and beyond the rational. The term phobia is now applied to anyone who expresses concern about or criticism of any movement or cause: homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia come to mind. The first of these started life as an irrational fear that one might oneself be homosexual. Now it’s considered to be, by those who attribute their not ‘getting on’ in life or being subjected to personal criticism, to be the result of their being gay. Certainly ill-considered remarks may be unkind, a word that more than adequately describes much of what is described as phobic in modern society. But being unkind does not equate with a phobia, nor is it against the law. Not yet anyway.

Similarly offensive, a word originally that originally signified a physical attack, the meaning it still carries in law. As Paul Simon once expressed it in a rather pleasant little song, ‘One Man’s Ceiling is Another Man’s Floor’: what I might find offensive, in the sense of hurt feelings, is not necessarily what you find offensive, unless you choose to allow it to be. That’s because ‘offence’ in the slack modern sense is ridiculously subjective: it is, it seems, not a problem to call for the death of Jews but it is offensive to show images of an ancient ‘prophet’. Touchy religious sensibilities, sometimes prone to take offence at the slightest provocation, do not signal a criminal or even a criminal offence. And yet that is where we’ve got to, certainly in the UK. Remember your mother teaching you that sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you? Of course this is not entirely true; words can cause emotional hurt. But this doesn’t mean those who use words critically merit investigation by the officers of the law.

Hate is a verb. Unlike its antonym love, it cannot also be a noun. I know, this is pedantic of me, but we’re talking about words and the damage they can cause when misapplied. To alter and stretch their meaning out of all recognition results in the problems we now have in (British) society. All of the accusations of ‘hate’ that fly around these days are, grammatically, ‘hatred’ though in fact, they rarely qualify as this either. According to Merriam Webster, hatred is ‘an extreme dislike or disgust or ill will or resentment that is usually mutual: prejudiced hostility or animosity.’ Hatred is a powerful, destructive emotion. Reasoned opposition to the political manoeuvring of minority groups is not really it.

Of course it is possible to take such opposition to extreme lengths that it may look a lot like hatred, but by and large it is not. I do not ‘hate’ religious group that try to impose their beliefs and practices on me or my society, but I do oppose them and their efforts. I also oppose those who claim that any opposition to their efforts constitutes ‘hate’. It rarely does so, but how convenient it is for those who don’t get their own way to have the accusation in their armoury. Which is not to say real hatred isn’t expressed, often in violent action, but strangely, as a society, we seem less concerned with such action. We are, apparently, required to understand the frustrations of those carrying them out; their grievance is genuine and heartfelt. Hurty words though are of much more concern.

 

Advice

Posted on by
3

Image sourced here

Good news, everybody. The UK Government has released its ‘advice’ to help us all avoid ‘anti-Muslim hostility’. Thank God we have such intellectual giants as Keir Starmer to advise us on such matters. We must not, it turns out, treat Muslims ‘as a collective group’ with ‘fixed negative characteristics’.

This, it also turns out, is what human beings do with every group that exists, and every group that has ever existed, since the beginning of time. We lump people of comparable beliefs and behaviours together no matter how much each category protests they represent a multitude of nuanced perspectives: Jews, Christians, LGB, Trans, environmentalists, Mormons, atheists, feminists, Rastafarians, teachers, sinners, billionaires, politicians, Americans, journalists, the Right, the Left… They’re all subject to criticism as ‘collective groups’. This is often on the basis of the bad behaviour of a few of their ‘community’, or of a caricature of what a member of these groups is perceived to be (as a gay person, I speak from being on the receiving end of this kind of condemnation). It’s neither fair nor reasonable to do this, I agree, but it is what happens. But now we are ‘advised’ we must not do it of Muslims. Don’t criticise Muslims as a whole just because some of them are inclined to blow people up. Don’t criticise them collectively for the pronouncements of extremist preachers. Don’t even criticise them for the practices of the majority.

Okay. But shouldn’t that also extend to all the other ‘communities’ I’ve mentioned? Yes, and it would in an ideal world. Unfortunately, this is not an ideal world. While we continue to judge Christians as a whole, on the basis of the hypocrisy of some, LGB people because of the excesses of a few and Jews because of the actions of their state (Muslims and their trendy left-wing supporters do exactly this in the case of Jews), then why can we not judge Muslims similarly? You’d have to ask Starmer that. But don’t expect him to give you a straight answer.

Oh, and how long before this ‘advice’ becomes law?