I have written to you before about faith schools and their very existence which cause many obvious divisions in society.
Parliament still actively encourages this rapidly developing calamity by funding and encouraging ever more faith schools – butwhy?
Society has changed fundamentally in the last 60 years and I want my representative in parliament to come out in support of radical change. A secular education system is not only logical but now vital to ensure peace on our streets in the future.
Jerusalem? Berlin before 1987? Nope, Belfast today! Separating the Papists from the Provos.
If you don’t want to support the situation where children of ‘provos’ and ‘Catolics’ are told to avoid each other and where children of Muslim parents are told to shun the children of the kuffar (that’s you and me) then please take note of the following.
According to a major new study, 52% of people in Britain say they have ‘no religion’. The figure, which comes from the highly-respected British Social Attitudes survey, has risen from 48% since 2015 and 31% since 1983. The survey reveals that the British population is becoming increasingly irreligious and religiously diverse. These dramatic changes in Britain’s religion and belief landscape demand a policy response.
I am urging you to ensure that Britain’s constitutional settlement and public policies catch up with the opinions of its population. One of the most striking findings of the BSA survey is that just 1% of 18-24 year olds identify as Anglican.
This means church schools are unlikely to be an attractive, or even acceptable, option to tomorrow’s parents. This calls into question the appropriateness and sustainability of organised religion’s role in running our publicly funded schools.
Christianity is one major influence among many that has shaped our country. But the UK is now one of the most religiously diverse, and also non-religious, nations in the world.
Our political structures do not recognise this huge change. They need to evolve to make Britain a secular democracy where religion and the state are separate.
Pope Francis greeting Mugabe in Rome 7 years ago. Such a good Christian message don’t you think? What on earth is the Vatican all about?
To set out its vision for a secular Britain, the National Secular Society has published a comprehensive report, ‘Rethinking religion and belief in public life: a manifesto for change’: https://tinyurl.com/natsecsoc
This outlines constructive and specific proposals to reform the role of religion in public life.
I hope you can consider adopting these sensible and forward-thinking proposals.
The National Secular Society works towards a society in which all citizens, regardless of religious belief or lack of it, can live together fairly and cohesively. In its manifesto it considers how the state should respond to these fundamental demographic changes, particularly in our institutions and policy responses.
It sets out proposals for reforms in education, public services, institutions and public ceremonies needed to ensure fairness for all regardless of their religion or belief. It also evaluates the state of the law on human rights and freedom of expression where it concerns religion.
Please take the time to look at this report, consider its arguments, and work towards implementing these proposals for a fairer and safer society for the 21st century.
Yours sincerely
Derek Ruskin (derek@ruskinweb.co.uk)
PS: What do you get if you cross an atheist with a Jehova’s witness?
A – Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason.
Such an important issue this, as is evidenced on front pages everywhere last week and Questiontime on BBC 1 last Thursday.
Opinions ranged from Rory Stewart(*1) saying “Kill them, there is no alternative” to the leftist intellectuals saying “understand them, hug them but then imprison them” to the Questiontime audience saying “don’t let them back in, they have lost any rights, they might have had as British citizens”, by going out there to fight for ISIS etc.
The earth is flat and I’m in charge! Source NY Times
What I think what Rory Stewart might have been trying to say, follows on from an insight by Jonathan Swift (author of Gulliver’s Travels)
“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into“.
This wisdom applies equally to all those ‘of faith’ but more particularly, these jihadis really do believe that Allah has told them to kill anyone who is not a true Muslim. You have to be the Sunni variety of Muslim to avoid death which explains why so many of Muslims of the Shia variety, are being killed by ISIS; the Sunnis think they are worse than Jews or Christians. As I said earlier, atheists don’t get a look in because they just cannot conceive that anyone should think for themselves!
If you want to know why we have this relatively recent emergence of Sunni Islamism (ISIS and Al Qaeda etc.), just read a brief biography of the Egyptian poet, writer & political theorist who started it all in the 1980s, Sayyid Qutb.
If a person accepts a primary falsehood as truth, then seemingly rational and possibly violent actions may well follow.
So then, having quietly accepted from childhood, that the Qur’an is the unalterable word of god, it is the Muslim’s duty to fight for a universal caliphate under sharia law, however long it takes. (*2)
Our home grown jihadis are therefore following, quite logically (to them at least), the endlessly repeated calls for jihad in the Qur’an. *7
Some of these returning jihadis may well have been disillusioned by the reality and cruelty of ISIS, but most will be still motivated to return and kill the Kuffar, that’s you if you didn’t already know.
Atheists, like me, are the worst ;-( of course. We don’t even get a mention in the Qur’an whereas the Christians and Jews get quite a pasting!
Most so-called ‘moderate Muslims’ don’t want to establish a caliphate, they just want to educate their kids and put food on the table and live in peace. Most of those Muslim families now living in the West came here originally to escape the misery of corrupt, socially primitive Islamic states such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and many more.
Our own monarchy invented a new religion some 500 years ago, with the help of Martin Luther. This was because of a need to extend male succession to the throne and the need to divorce a few wives because they could not provide male heirs. The priests of which religion, appointed by Henry VIII still sit at the centre of our, gentle but imperfect ‘representative democracy’ and cannot be removed.
Our current queen is head of that religion and still retains the title of Defender of (the) Faith assumed by Henry.
Our god is better than yours – because I say so! Oh dear me, this sort of makes my case?
Our next monarch, god forbid (ahem), wants to become Defender of All Faiths, completely ignoring the advances in human philosophical thought developed into maturity during the European Enlightenment because he thinks its all a bit old fashioned (my source is an article in the Spectator) and comes from a speech he made a few years ago in St. James palace.
Words fail one!
Here is what we need to do, but won’t, and why we will not
I do appreciate that short term measures are needed and must be taken, but I am content to pass that responsibility to our government and the rule of law.
But nowhere, last week, did I read or hear of any proposed long term solution to the misguided and corrupt ideology of ISIS.
Here then, is my much repeated long term solution and the only one that I think will or can ever work.
Sadly it cannot be implemented or accepted by those currently in power, particularly here.
Why not?
Unbelievably, Great Britain is one of the last two remaining theocracies (*3) in the world; the other one being Iran!
The rest of the world are republics *4, monarchies, usually without an established religion *5, tyrannies *6 or failed states.
The real underlying problem to all of this, is that faith is an irrational state of mind, absorbed from childhood, and, like all forms of brain washing, is very difficult to remove.
My solution therefore cannot currently be accepted because we would have to challenge and defeat the idea that Anglican Christianity is a valid part of the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
We would have to:-
remove the monarchy, in order to
disestablish the Anglican Church of England, so that we could then
remove the teaching of religion as if it were a truth, from all schools, so that we can then
challenge the idea that faith is a desirable human attribute, so that we can
merge existing faith schools into a mainstream secular education system (as in France) , so that we can then
remove the existing and future divisions in society caused by faith schools, so that we can then
allow our children’s minds to be formed by access to philosophy, by asking questions and not to be given dogmatic answers, so that they may
grow into adults who no longer are socially divided by having to believe in something barkingly irrational in order to belong.
I do not propose the abolition of religion, just yet, because so many people draw comfort from their faith.
BUT I do insist that ONLY by removing it from public life and the education of our children do we any chance of a harmonious society and a peaceful future.
*1 Rory Stewart is Minister of State at the Department for International Development (Now Prisons Minister) and Minister of State for Africa at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. He has extensive knowledge of the middle and far east. Wrote a book on his notorious 32 day walk around Afghanistan in 2002. Eton and Oxford and ever so posh.
*2 I have read the Qur’an twice in different versions over the last few years and from my western eyes and ears it has a belligerent tone, a monotonous repetitive style and is even more scary than the Old Testament. If you want a real Halloween scare story just read Deuteronomy & Numbers, yikes!
*3 Theocracy:- A form a government where priests from a country’s established religion form part of the legislative process of government by right!
*4 Republics:- First formed by the ancient Romans two thousand years ago following on from the Greeks who developed the first forms of democracy although not quite as we know it today. The Greeks, even then, realised that monarchies were a bit old fashioned, inefficient, led to corruption and had seen their day!
*5 Monarchies:- The United Kingdom of Great Britain, Belgium, Bahrain, Brunei, Japan etc. In all about 43 remain.
*6 Tyrannies:- North Korea, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Scotland (OK, just joking, I have a thing about Nicola Sturgeon, and no, not in that way), Zimbabwe and quite a few more.
*7 Jihad originally refers to an inner struggle that all Muslims must endure in order to submit to the word of Allah in the Qur’an, but has latterly become associated with an external violent fight for the universal Caliphate that Allah requires.
A few words of light relief and escape from the nauseating, banal utterances from both sides of the public EU debate.
This piece was written sometime ago by an American contributor to this blog, and for some reason I have not published it before. It is well worth a read.
Thank you perspective.
Belief in some kind of “higher power,” or not, has a relationship to one’s preference in governance.
The Left has the most straightforward belief in a higher power: they ARE the higher power. The Right, who generally believe in some power higher than they, splinter as to what exactly it is.
Belief is a such a stupid concept, but somehow it has become a virtue to many – why in god’s name is that? 😉
The Left considers reality as evidence that there is no higher power – surely a Supreme Being would not have created an inequitable world. We, and the universe, are lucky accidents that occurred by chance. All outcomes would be random, not fair, if it were not for the intervention of Leftist intelligentsia. Lacking a higher power, Man needs the Left to right the wrongs visited upon the unlucky victims of chance.
The Left embraces totalitarian government, where their elites have God-like, absolute, power to enforce what is right on behalf of the benighted masses who look to a non-existent God for salvation. My will be done (for I am just, you ignorant fool).
The Right views reality as evidence that there is a higher power; surely Man who runs his own affairs so poorly could not have created a universe which Man dimly understands. Intelligence beyond their comprehension rules Man and universe, not chance. They pray for God’s guidance to use the limited abilities they have been gifted to conform the world more closely to their limited understanding of the Master’s plan. Man is a servant, an employee, who, although he does possess full knowledge of the corporate entity, can nevertheless receive sustenance in return for performing tasks within his capabilities. There are reasons for inequity among men, just as there reasons why a more productive employee is paid more than a less capable employee. This does not mean that the lesser paid employee is valueless. If his work was of no value, he would not be on the payroll at all.
The Right prefers freedom, because God might have made his will clearer to the other guy – they need to listen to him, just in case or for perspective. Whether he is right or wrong the other guy is still a child of God, and to disrespect one’s fellow is to disrespect one’s creator. Every life is of value, or God would not have enabled it. Thy will be done (God bless you, fellow seeker).
Of course, there are members of the Left who profess belief in God. Theirs is a supportive God, not a higher power. He is a kindly uncle, generous in hopes of receiving love, but not a father who must be obeyed. He is a resource, not a master. A cosmic concierge who finds the difficult-to-obtain on behalf of his clientèle. Whether or not He is supreme is irrelevant because His only desire is to serve believers. They believe in Him because He believes what they believe. It would not be believable that God would not want what the Left wants. He has lent His support to the Left to rule by proxy.
Their counterparts on the Right also profess belief in God, but what they actually believe in is a religion. Their adherence to the religion’s political posture (governance of relationships between people and nature) has bestowed God’s power on the Right to rule by proxy.
Neither group believes in an all-powerful God, because they both believe He needs their help to get rid of gays or the HIV virus or Jews or poverty or whatever. He just can’t get it right without their intervention. It is unacceptable to either pole of zealotry that gays, HIV, Jews and poverty are all part of God’s plan. God can’t do it alone.
Let’s get real. The difference between the Left and the Right is not at all determined by whether God exists. Rather, the belief (or lack thereof) in a higher power is a consequence of other predispositions which have the additional consequence of determining a person’s political predilection. The beliefs are correlated, not causal. The underlying traits for both opinion sets have to do with humility versus arrogance, and acceptance versus denial.
People who are essentially humble can both accept the existence of an intelligence greater than their own exercising control over their lives, and accept that others’ freedom to express contrary opinions can benefit their understanding. “It is what it is” (with or without my judgement).
People who are arrogant believe their failures are caused by bad luck, or being treated unfairly, but are never due to their own inadequacy, as judged by their peers or God. The arrogant, confronted with abundant evidence of their fallibility, are in denial, and feel threatened by both existence of a supreme arbiter and the expression of contrary opinions. Intelligent and rational, both are threats to the arrogant.
The humble are eager to be shown where they are mistaken, so as not to repeat the mistake. The arrogant are intolerant of being shown their mistake, because they are never mistaken.
The “old saws” on this point are abundant. Some of my favourites are:
There is always a mug at the table. If you don’t know who it is, you are the mug.
God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason.
Just because you have silenced a man does not mean you have converted him.
Pride is a man who goes forth on horseback and comes back on foot.
It is laughable that the Left prides itself on its intelligence (but not because they’re wrong). Conservatives are portrayed as stupid. Intelligence is the capacity to learn. Knowledge is the sum total of what has been learned. I have not seen much of a correlation between the two.
High intelligence is conducive to arrogance. Arrogance is not conducive to learning.
The humble generally seem to know more than the arrogant. They work harder at learning because they have to. The intelligent can fake it. It took Einstein some time before he could wipe himself.
It takes extreme arrogance for any one individual to feel that he has come up
Buddhism is not a religion, it is a method for learning how to think for yourself
with a correct answer which has been missed throughout the course of human history. It does not take much humility to realize that the best answers are the ones that people keep coming back to after being challenged by generations.
What separates the philosophies is the humility to accept responsibility for one’s lack of success rather than faulting the successful person. It is the humility to accept that if the “right” thing to do has never worked it will not work this time around because that idea is probably wrong. It is the humility to accept that if helping another person makes one feel peaceful, and forcing someone else to help the person in need makes one feel resentful, that service is preferable to control. It is the humility to accept that if I can’t get a job for myself, even from the government, I am a poor choice to lead a government that will supply jobs for everyone.
The Left, at its core, is composed of arrogant disbelievers. Their arrogance permits them to seek control of their fellows by force, including violence to people and property, because their narcissism permits is no possibility they are wrong. Even though every Leftist government has failed to deliver the basic necessities of life to most of its populace they have the arrogance to believe that this time, under the new guy, who is very smart, they will get it to work.
The Right is humble enough to insist the Left must have a voice.
America is still the richest country in the world. And soon, Americans will be celebrating their holiday of Thanksgiving. The purpose of the holiday is to pay homage to the aboriginal “Indian” wogs who saved colonists from the then richest country in the world from starvation. The plight of the Brits was that they were on the beach sandwiched in between cornfields and the virgin Western Atlantic, not yet commercially fished. Couldn’t find a bite to eat to save their lives. Thank God for Chief Squanto.
This Thanksgiving, President Obama, arguably the most intelligent American President (not a high hill to climb), certainly the most Leftist, atheist and author of the biggest entitlement program in human history, will feast on the goose-that-laid-the-golden-egg.
Our Dave wants to defeat the poison of radical Islam, jolly good eh? Well, no, he still defends state funded faith schools. His use of the word poison, copies Blair, his hero, who has used the word poison in the same context many times since 2010. Yet, despite agreeing on the word, neither Blair nor Cameraman have the slightest clue about the nature of so-called radical Islam.
Cameraman’s Birmingham speech on the 21st July was welcome, but several years too late. He announced some short-term measures, but he dared not face, what needs to be done to address the problem.
He missed the reason that so many British educated, intelligent, Muslim young men and women have become radicalised.
I argue that the word radicalised misses the point entirely, and has led Dave, and many others, down the wrong path in search of a solution. He has not yet understood why so many young Muslims are ready to fight in Syria for Islamic State. He has not yet understood how their mind-set was so warped away from that of their parents, most of whom are as clueless as is our Dave.
He said, in his speech, “They start with intolerant views towards democracy, freedom of expression and sexual equality. If this is not challenged they often gravitate to even more extreme views.”
Radical preacher Anjem Choudary has claimed that all Muslim MPs and voters are ‘apostates’. This evil deluded monster walks the streets of Britain subsidised by our welfare system.
But, he did not, or dare not, explain that the source of that very intolerance is the Qur’an itself. The Qur’an is aided and abetted by Hadith(s) (supplementary instructions issued long after the original manual). Democracy is an alien concept to Islam. Muslims must instead submit to the will of Allah, as directed by the Qur’an and follow Sharia, Islamic law. Sharia only applies to Muslims, so it should follow that it can only be implemented in an Islamic state.
Indeed, it is arguable that Sharia is not actually Islamic in the first place. The word is mentioned in the Qur’an, three times, but in a completely different context. Sharia, or Islamic law, is based on older Jewish law and was written some 200 years later than the Qur’an itself. Anyway, I could be paddling up an intellectual creek here because so many Islamic scholars disagree with each other on this point, and who am I to offer help? 😉
(Ed: Ooh stop, it hurts!)
Britain however, is subject to the Rule of Law. One legal system to which all citizens, of whatever religion (or none), are accountable. Aristotle said this more than two thousand years ago, “The rule of law is better than that of any individual.”
Our politicians have pandered to Muslim sensitivities. They have mistakenly allowed Sharia courts to rule on “family matters” for example. This thin end of the wedge stupidity, has all but destroyed the last 1,000 years of western philosophical and legal development. Cultural differences have been allowed to fester into the divisions we see today. For example, the political corruption exposed in Tower Hamlets last month and postal voting corruption in Birmingham, Bradford etc.
ISIS (AKA ISIL or Da’ish) are just implementing the bits of the Qur’an that moderate Muslims had started to ignore. Just read a little of the Qur’an and you will soon see what I mean.
So then, you may ask, just how do we stop young minds becoming so warped?
All religions rely on child minds being in awe of something that is apparently bigger and more powerful than them. Better still if this power is invisible, how can you challenge that eh? Once this awe is instilled in a child’s mind, it becomes very difficult to remove in later life. This innate awe is enthusiastically used by those who radicalise disaffected young minds and by all religions, eager for new followers.
Dickens was quite correct then, but times have changed, even he could not see the rise of Mohammedanism (as it was then called)
Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland have found it almost impossible to accept that their Popes have silently covered up the sexual deviance of their priesthood for centuries. Only now when the evidence is overwhelming, have many Catholics found the strength to see the inherent evils in Roman Catholicism. Many still cannot accept the truth, and remain in awe of the Vatican’s clever use of art, music and pomp to hide its innate delusions. Charles Dickens clearly saw what Catholicism was, even if he was somewhat open to criticism in his own personal life.
Faith schools are therefore the source of the problem. The very idea of faith being taught as a valid and laudable path for young human minds to follow is warped. This thinking was exposed, by European Enlightenment philosophers, in the 17th & 18th centuries. They called for reason to replace faith. Notable amongst those thinkers was John Locke who advocated that religion must occupy the private sphere of life in order for the many different faiths to co-exist peacefully.
There are many contributing factors to radicalisation of course;
US / UK foreign policy in Iraq;
the Qur’an, seen by Muslims as the unalterable word of god;
Muslims must live under Sharia, Islamic law
Saudi funding for Madrassas in the UK;
misguided support for primitive cultural practices by politicians hungry for votes, in the name multiculturalism;
government’s fear of violent reprisals from minority communities;
Those are the starting points for the radicalisation process of those already affected by the awe of the faith virus. The rest follows on quite logically from that!
Yes, our democracy is flawed, but all other methods of political control are considerably worse (echoing the words of Winston Churchill). Humans will probably get there eventually, but not while religious groups all compete for separate privileges in the public sphere. One law, applicable to all please!
Free bus passes for Faith schools? Primitive halal and kosher practices being allowed to bypass the law because of religious exemption? Time off to pray? Bah, Poo & Piffle says I.
Come on Dave, get moving!
Meanwhile, more and more faith schools are created each year (200 more planned currently) to preach their message of otherness, difference and division thereby sowing the seeds of societal destruction that today’s young disaffected Muslims’ parents came here to escape. The irony is that the Birmingham schools at the centre of the Trojan horse scandal were not faith schools, but the exposure of their failings raised major questions marks about how faith schools operate. What is alarming is that if the Birmingham schools had been designated faith schools, then many of the practices condemned, such as limiting the curriculum to exclude lessons about sex education and reinforcing a cultural identity to the exclusion of others, would have been permitted!
I would have this next paragraph used in schools to promote discussion:
There is a reason that some 93% of the planet’s top scientist reject the notion of a personal god. The real mystery is why the other 7% don’t. After all, science is based on evidence and there is no evidence that god exists. None. What we may feel in our hearts is not evidence and neither is the bible since the argument is circular. (The bible is true because it says it is. The Qur’an is true because that is what Qur’an says.)
Simply asking faith schools nicely to be more inclusive will not work. A secular (free from religious dogma) education, for all children, is the only way to heal the divisions caused by faith schools.
Whilst even that will take several generations to work, I submit that there is no other way for human societies to develop in peace.
Vote hungry, party politicians are going to remove religion from schools? Let us hope so!
That ring will really hurt, so you’d better be nice or I’ll whoop yo ass
As the old joke goes “Is the Pope a Catholic?” in other words, the answer to the question just asked is Yes, obviously!
Catholic he may be, but Christian? No.
The new PR man at the Vatican, Pope Francis, has made the most ridiculous statement supporting a violent response to those who poke fun at religion.
He would “punch” anyone who mocks the irrational belief in the invisible, whatever variety of religious silliness is being mocked.
This is in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus, his supposed boss (for heaven’s sake ;-0 ) who would,of course, have turned the other cheek.
Pope Francis was talking about the Charlie Hebdo attacks and said that he quite understood the action taken. Unbelievable! (Later, the Vatican tried to soft pedal the idiotic statement, but to no avail.)
The latest Pope has shown us how far from Jesus’ teaching the Roman Catholic church has strayed.
What a silly billy, but thanks for showing yourself up and making the case for atheism and secularism for us!
Paris January 7th was a wake up call to all politicians in the west, and to the vast majority of people who do and say nothing about the slow rise of radical Islam in Europe and Great Britain. Appeasement to the religious vote is no longer acceptable. Radical Islam is being silently and ignorantly supported by moderate Muslims, and by our government’s inaction.
I am Charlie – the message of support and solidarity being repeated all over the world.
Dave, by all means step up security, but please finally recognise the long term issue that really need to be solved, viz.
ALL religion must be removed from ALL schools.Why? We have seen that many of the atrocities, committed in the name of Islam, have been perpetrated by engineers, doctors and mathematicians educated in the west. How did they become so warped? Religious faith was instilled into young, unformed minds used later by political Islam.
So, the removal of all region from all schools is the only long term solution. Otherwise Islam will triumph on its inevitable slow, but demographically fuelled growth. That is a small price to pay for removing religious funding for Anglicanism, Catholicism etc.
First generation British Muslims came to Britain for safety, jobs and stability. Many of their children have forgotten that, and their parents and grand parents need to stand up for the very British values that are being challenged by their children.
Supreme Court of Wisconsin(Weiss v. District Board, March 18, 1890. )
“There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights, malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter into our civil affairs, our government soon would be destroyed. Let it once enter our common schools, they would be destroyed. Those who made our Constitution saw this, and used the most apt and comprehensive language in it to prevent such a catastrophe.”
In the UK we have private schools treated as charities for tax purposes for no good reason that most of us can see. Other than, perhaps, the establishment who made those tax rules to save themselves money on their children’s education. After all, they need to separate their offspring from the great unwashed (that’s you and me if you were wondering) and therefore invented charitable status to protect their socially divisive academies.
We also have a divisive education system that protects religious privilege as if it were something reasonable. Politicians promote these backward ideas as choices, when in fact all they are simply vote grabbing policies used by short sighted party politicians.
Tory, Liberal & Labour party education policy today
Politicians and the social worker intellectual elite dare not stop these retrograde practices because of a) votes and b) misplaced human rights sensitivities (plus that’s where many of them send their kids to schools anyway). As a result, we have Saudi Arabian Wahabbist(1) funded schools promoting primitive cultural differences, with impunity, because our liberal ideologies dare not offend our oil suppliers or provoke a religion so protective of its medieval cultural practices that violent reprisal is quite likely.
The obvious consequence of all this is the increase in Islamic self importance and the attendant religious schisms that are tearing the world apart.
We have politicians trying to make themselves heard by making short term and usually idiotic policy statement because an election is coming up next May.
The latest today is Ed Millibean calling for tax penalties if private schools don’t “do more” for the great unwashed (remember, that’s you and me), when a rational policy would remove tax breaks entirely for private schools and cease any public funding for faith schools immediately.
Ed Miliband promoting Labour’s One Nation gibberish – and he is an atheist!
The lack of firm philosophical backbone in today’s party politicians has rendered the party system completely irrelevant for the issues our society faces today.
The rise of UKIP is a consequence. The UKIP success relies on the ‘none of the above’ vote that we don’t have in our, not-so representative, democracy.
The only way to solve the Islamist agenda is to remove ALL religion from ALL schools. Government should promote and teach secularism and reason based philosophy, encouraging rational debating techniques, in all schools. Childish minds are most susceptible to dogma and therefore should be protected from faith based education at all costs. Religious leaders know that all too well of course…
That will take 50 years to achieve, but only once the changes are made.Since there is no prospect of that happening soon, god help us all ;-(
Happy Winterval!
Peter O’Toole (1932-2013) actor, famous for his role in Lawrence of Arabia
“Question: How do you know you’re God? Answer: Simple. When I pray to him, I find I’m talking to myself.”
(1) Wahabbism is a narrow misogynist, austere form of Islam that insists on a literal interpretation of the Koran. Strict Wahhabis believe that all those who don’t practice their form of Islam are heathens and enemies.
Or, if you do then you are wilfully misleading the people you lead and represent.
Obama has just said in his speech last Tuesday night, “Now let’s make two things clear: ISIL is not Islamic.” (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant)
Obama’s policy message in full
On the face of it, that shows his profound ignorance of the Qur’an and Hadith (supplementary Muslim instructions written after their manual was last updated in 1910). However, he is probably doing what all western politicians are doing, and that is, appeasing Muslim voters.
I am pretty sure that the majority of Muslims are just as peaceful as the majority of other faiths together with we poor old rabid atheists, but until the evil message of 143 suras (verses) of the Qur’an is denied by those moderate Muslims we keep hearing about, but not from, the myth of Islam being a religion of peace will persist. The simple truth is repeated endlessly in Qur’an; the duty of all Muslims is to make the whole world into an Islamic Caliphate, however long it takes.
That is why the popular Saudi cleric Mohammad Al-Areefi sounds like the ISIS army chaplain. The man has 9.5 million followers on Twitter (twice as many as Pope Francis has).
More British Muslims have joined the ranks of ISIS than have volunteered to serve in the British armed forces. In fact, this group has managed to attract thousands of recruits from free societies throughout the world to help build a paradise of repression and sectarian slaughter in Syria and Iraq. This is an astonishing phenomenon, and it reveals some very uncomfortable truths about the failures of multiculturalism, the inherent vulnerability of open societies, and the terrifying power of bad ideas.
Are apostates “innocent”? Blasphemers? Polytheists? Atheists? Islam has the answer, and the answer is “no.”
So then “How to fight ISIL”? I can give you the long term answer but a short term response is all that we can expect from the politicians (god help us all! 😉 .
With the rational philosophy of peace based on the European Enlightenment, that’s how! That involves the creation of a secular message being preached from political pulpits and all our school assemblies, in Europe and the USA. It will take 50 years but it is the only answer.
That is what built the American constitution back in 1788 where it separated religion from the politics of government.
I’ll leave you with the words of Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution back in 1979:-
“When anyone studies a little or pays a little attention to the rules of Islamic government, Islamic politics, Islamic society and Islamic economy he will realize that Islam is a very political religion. Anyone who will say that religion is separate from politics is a fool; he does not know Islam or politics.”
Well, he did warn us! A pity our damn stupid politicians dare not listen.
“We’re not afraid of sanctions. We’re not afraid of military invasion. What frightens us is the invasion of western immorality.”
By which he meant, he was fearful of democracy, short skirts, equality for women and therefore the end of male domination over women ratified by the, not so, Holy Qur’an.
There is currently a daft & pointless row between Michael Gove (Education Secretary) and Theresa May (Home Secretary) about who’s ideas are best to fight ‘religious extremism’ in schools.
They have not, and cannot, define extremism, yet the ill-defined argument nevertheless rages in the “poli-news”*1
Both want to gain credit for “fighting extremism” in the wake of the UKIP earthquake, which has woken up the Tories, if not Cleggy and Millibean!
Gove may but Theresa wont; If looks could kill eh? 😉
This is a further example of how our party political leaders suffer from a lack of philosophical clarity & backbone. In meBook I explain that a better way forward for British society can only be met by the removal of the useless party political system, but anyway, back to the issue.
The real question for debate is “Why have primitive cultural practices have been allowed to multiply in our schools?” These practices*3 separate the children of Muslim parents from mainstream British society, are socially divisive and create the breeding ground for a future home grown Islamic jihad of terrifying scale.
A deeply mistaken, and socially divisive pandering to Muslim religious sensitivities is shared by all three main political parties and it all started with Blair’s damned academies.
The unpleasant truth is that many British parents are hypocrites and indirectly and unwittingly provide support for an Islamic extremist future. They send their children to Christian / Jewish faith schools simply because they promote better discipline and, as a result, have quieter classrooms and as a result, better exam results. This is all done under the pretence that they are practising Christians or Jews. Once upon a time we had little to worry about the gentle C of E schools and the slightly more rabid Roman Catholic Schools.
But now, this new tranche of Muslim faith schools are effectively destroying a traditional British identity that took a thousand years to form. I know it’s not perfect, but it is the best set of cultural practices to be found anywhere in the world, and it is being destroyed in a matter of decades by our idiotic party political leaders.
Why? Because party politicians:-
a) dare not risk losing any faith vote
b) are completely at a loss how to deal with this “sensitive” issue
c) dare not appear to be “racist*2”
d) dare not face up to primitive cultural practices because of their fear of violence from our ever increasing Muslim population.
But, now we are faced with a serious and growing threat to traditional British values from 7th century Islam which has to be addressed by an enlightened government.
Hypatia of Alexandia(370 – 415 A.D.) understood the threat of violent extremism caused by teaching the young mind religious dogma as truth:-
“Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fancies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain, and perhaps tragedy, can he be later relieved of them. Men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth, often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.”
“Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.”
The solution is simple, painful but entirely necessary.
Cease public funding for ALL faith schools and slowly change them all to a secular4 ethos but including the missing discipline regimes.
Religion should play no part in a child’s education and Britain should adopt the French Secularism charter which is now established in all French, publicly funded, schools.
The only way forward is a secular and philosophical based government who have the best interests of the whole population of Britain at heart. Those people who have a faith based lifestyle can continue with it, but not in national state funded schools.
*1 poli-news is my term for the discussion in the media of the politics of the problem rather than the issue itself.
*2 There is no definition of the term ‘racist’ in the Oxford English dictionary, yet the word is used everywhere to mean almost anything.
*3 practices include separating boys from girls; divisive cultural clothing practices (hijab, Burkha etc.); separation of children, whose parents are Muslim, from the rest of British society; refusal to teach aspects of science because they challenge religious texts! )
*4 secular; the separation of religious belief from any national, publicly funded institution; i.e. government, the legal system and education.
strong>Robert M Hutchins (1899-1977)An American educational philosopher
"My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects."
