Thought for the Day Wikipedia article

The Wikipedia is democratic, democracy essentially means majority rule, and since majorities are not always right, the Wikipedia is not always right. The Wikipedia is not always edited by experts, but by those with opinions, who just want to edit it. The peer review of other unqualified people, or people who are not reasoning properly, who share common ulterior motives or biases, is no real peer review at all. So the Wikipedia is open to error, as also noted by this article, which discusses political correctness in the Wikipedia regarding racial issues.

I first came up against the problems described above when I edited the Wikipedia’s article on prayer. You can view the discussion page.

When I looked at the Wikipedia’s article on Thought for the Day, I found not much had been written, so in an attempt to ensure that truth prevails, I have contributed several hundred words to the Criticism section. I have tried to report recent events fairly, and if the BBC look silly, that is their own fault. Take a look soon, because as soon as a religious person sees this entry it may be “edited” out of existence – especially if they are joined by like-minded (faith minded) people.

BBC Trust rejects calls for reform of Thought for the Day

The BBC Trust has published its findings on 12 separate appeals regarding Thought for the Day (a religious sermon which is foisted on listeners in the middle of the Today Programme). Its response is an intransigent whitewash.

I have written briefly to the National Secular Society as follows:

Dear Sir,

This week, of course, the BBC Trust rejected outright every single one of 12 separate appeals put to it regarding Thought for the Day. This was a very disappointing result for people of reason who are tired (putting it mildly) of having religious people pontificate to them in the middle of a news programme.

Are the BBC correct in their belief that this, really, is the way the public want it? There’s an easy way of telling. Take a look at this Have Your Say debate, which is one of the most popular on the BBC’s own site currently.

No. 1 most popular comment with readers (Recommended by 265 people):

“Religion is the main reason for almost all the world’s troubles; it does not bring people together – it drives them apart.”

No. 2 most popular (Recommended by 237 people):

“What does faith mean to you?”
“Mass-organized superstition as a political tool of social engineering and control.”

No. 3 is also pro-reason.

No. 4 kind of makes the case very clearly (Recommended by 170 people):

“Religion is to believe in an imaginary god. I don’t mind as long as the people who believe in it keep it to themselves and don’t try to force their imaginary god on the rest of us.”

So now everything is clear then. Even Christians agreed that TFTD needed reform. The BBC Trust haven’t listened. The religiousness of the individual trustees must be scrutinised, and the fight raised up a notch.

Best regards,

Gavin Orland

http://www.gavinorland.org

The NSS printed my letter, but strangely omitted the first line in which I mentioned that theirs was not the only appeal.

People embracing religion as they become older

This doesn’t always happen. It didn’t happen to Hume or Russell. In fact it doesn’t often seem to happen. A case in point is my father, who is 70 and just as rational as ever. Another is a lady called Deborah Ainger, who sent me one of the most interesting  e-mails I have received of late. She has given me permission to reproduce it here:

“Dear Gavin Orland

Congratulations on your TftD campaign – herewith, for your information, my two-pennyworth contribution to it (see below).

I believe the faith-heads regularly trot out Hitler, Pol Pot and Sadam Hussein as being examples of irreligious monsters – they may not have had a religion, but, as far as I am aware, none of them carried out out their atrocities in the name of their agnosticism/atheism.

As well as citing the opacity of the RCs towards the regimes of the Nazis and of Leopold II, I think I should also have cited RC opacity re the Rwandan genocide. I believe some RC priests were complicit in this in some ways, and that one or more priests sought refuge in Europe where they were protected by the RC church before being ferreted out by investigative journalists.

Just in case you are by any not chance not aware of the sickening activities of King Leopold II of the Belgians (see below) he was a splendid example of a good RC gentleman who, not unsupported by his church, for over thirty years [c. 1880 to c. 1910] vigorously enforced a rapacious régime of the most sickening brutality in the Congo River Basin in order massively to enrich himself with its ivory and rubber – as a distraction from wreaking havoc among his Congolese victims and constructing lavish palaces from the profits of his rapacity, he indulged a voracious appetite for very young girls. Adam Hochschild has superbyly documented this in his outstanding “King Leopold’s Ghost”, ISBN 13: 978-0-330-44198-8 and also 10: 0-330-44198-1 (I am never sure which is the hardback ISBN and which is the paperback, so I have given both).

Another example of sadism is, of course, the Magdalene laundries. And as well all that has been going on in the Catholic church, sadism and the sexual abuse of minors also seems to flourish in extremeist protestant/evangelical/fundamentalist religious communities, the USA providing several examples – nor is ultra-orthodox Judaism exempt (see Sally Feldman’s most interesting article in the Jan/Feb issue of the “New Humanist”, entitled “Days of Atonement” where, towards the end of the section entitled “Even popular . . “, she mentions “. . . . some horrifying incidents of child abuse among four different orthodox communities.”).

In my e-mail to TftD I should have mentioned cruelty to animals. You mention the stoning of animals: I did not know that was done (by Muslims and Jews?), but I am upset by their halal method of slaughter which prohibits advance stunning – from the little I know about this it means that, depsite to Muslim and Jewish protestations to the contrary, the animal definitely suffers.

And the superstitious try to make the non-superstitious feel we have no moral compass!! Where is THEIRS for goodness sake!?

I am thrilled at my advanced years (almost 67) to be able to participate in the great stuff that is currently going on, e.g. writing re TftD and contributing to Ariane Sherine’s wonderful “atheist” bus campaign (which I did as “Merry Militant Moral Pensioner” saying “God doesn’t bother me, but the bigoted bunch of her/his self-appointed phallocratic, misogynistic, homophobic, lying charlatans do! Bus the world!!”) and by subscribing to the “Freethinker” and being a member of the BHA, the National Secular Society and the International Humanist and Ethical Union. These are exciting times for the non-superstitious, who, in no small measure thanks to the wonders of electronic communication, can, perhaps for the first time in history, start to exert some serious pressure worldwide. Long may it last!!

Very best wishes for your TftD campaign.

Regards.

Deborah Ainger”

Regarding the stoning of animals, such instructions are to be found in Exodus and Hebrews and elsewhere in Old Testament. Animals are particularly to be stoned to death if they so much as  touch Mt. Sinai (as if an ox could be expected to know where the mountain begins and ends).

As for letters to the BBC, I’ve seen and read many of them and many really excellent ones – too many to repeat. Here is Deborah’s:

“Dear Today Programme

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

I am writing to complain about Thought for the Day (TftD). Please respond to me yourselves – I will not find a response from the Religion (or, to be accurate, the Superstition) & Ethics Department acceptable. (For the purposes of your Statistics Dept I am a 66-year-old female of pinko-”white” complexion.)

Today is a programme of news items, but TftD is not a news item: when one wishes to listen to moral points of view one listens to other programmes, so there is no logical reason for TftD to be incorporated into Today. Should it not be disposed of it is totally inequitable that listeners should continue to be denied the thoughts of the Non-Superstitious (NS).

What is your rationale for denying listeners the thoughts of the NS? I know from Gavin Orland that you routinely trot out at least six reasons for including TftD in Today and for denying the NS a voice. Your moth-eaten reasons cut no ice, but merely leave me to draw one conclusion: namely that you most likely include TftD and deny the NS because you and the BBC powers-that-be share what appears to be a common prejudice, viz that the NS are deemed to have no valid moral viewpoint on current affairs because they are devoid of morals. This is this deeply insulting. It is also untrue.

Not only are the revered books of the superstitious riddled with accounts of the most staggeringly immoral behaviour in ancient times (documented by, among others, the superb websites of sceptics’ annotated bible and quran), but also the modern and current behaviour of the major superstitious are equally sickening: the denigration and horrific abuse of women (which seems but reluctantly [and rarely] to be condemned by the violently misogynistic, self-appointed emissaries of some imaginary “supreme being”); homophobia; widespread pædophilia (and its cover-up); caste-ism; a barbaric legal code; the criminal denial of human rights (e.g. to reliable contraception); obscurantism (suppressing scientific research past and present); the denial of informed consent (e.g. the genital mutilation of baby boys; the brain-washing of children with non-evidence-based superstition); lying (e.g. creationism; holes in condoms); vicious intolerance (e.g. persecution of “apostates” and of those of other superstitions and none; inter-superstition slaughter [e.g. sunnis vs shias; hindus vs muslims]); decidedly opaque stands vis à vis vile regimes (e.g. of the Nazis; of Leopold II of the Belgians).

When have the NS ever advocated such grossly immoral behaviour, let alone behaved in such sickening ways? And the superstitious try to make out that the NS lack a “moral compass”!! This is remarkable: haven’t they given their past and current behaviour even the most cursory overview?

The NS try to make the most of their (one) life and to enjoy and marvel at the wonders with which evolution has graced this peculiar little planet. We govern our lives by tolerance, rational argument and evidence-based facts. We do not have to resort to the triumphalism of the superstitious who, knowing that they cannot do so by reason, are only able to get people to believe that their brand of superstition is the uniquely acceptable one by brain-washing childrernwith lies and by subsequently tightening the brand grip by obsessively ranting on about the evils of the other brands and by warfare, bombs (suicide and other) and murder.

It is good to know that the BBC has decided to invite Ariane Sherine (the wonderful instigator of the “atheist bus”) to make a presentation on Radio 4’s iPM programme tomorrow (10/01/09). Thank heavens for that – not a moment too soon to have a NS speaker. But what about TftD?

Is it planned to retain TftD in Today? I sincerely hope not, but if it is, will the thoughts of NS commentators be incorporated? If they are incorporated, will they be given the same percentage of air-time as is currently allocated to the major superstitions?

I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.

Yours sincerely

Deborah Ainger”

I wonder if Deborah will receive a reply to her e-mail. Many have not.

In case anyone thinks this was a “co-ordinated attack” of anything of that kind, it was not intended to be. As someone else said well recently, non-believers do not have a “pope” or “archbishop”. We don’t have anyone speaking for us, and we were obviously going to continue to be ignored if we kept on speaking out independently. We had to speak en masse to stand any chance of being heard. Well, we’ve spoken now. We’ve yet to see if we have really been heard.

Thought for the Day: update

Well, it seems like “Thought for the Day” is taking over my every waking hour now – like a living nightmare – but all in a good cause . I want to sincerely thank all the people who have cc’d me their e-mails of complaint (and who do so in the future). They present various different arguments against the slot – all valid and often very well articulated. It’s good for the BBC to get a mix like this. Keep them coming to me, though I may not have a chance to acknowledge all of them.

Responses

I love the PM programme at 5pm – largely due to presenter Eddie Mair, who I think has a great manner and sense of humour. I have heard they are on the border of mentioning the pledge, if people comment on iPM. I guess the BBC are in a tricky position on this: perhaps they don’t want to mention it because if intelligent listeners realise there is one going on, they are pretty sure to e-mail too. They’ll be “opening the floodgates” further.

Meanwhile, some people are receiving stock responses from the BBC. So far they are using the standard one which I went through in my own e-mail, and another one biding for time (understandable perhaps). They will have to make an announcement in due course however.

TFTD today

I heard TFTD today actually. It was very professionally introduced by James Naughtie but I think I could tell they’d been receiving the mails. Today it was by Sihk Indarjit Singh. A Sihk is one who believes in “One Immortal Being; ten Gurus, from Guru Nanak Sahib to Guru Gobind Singh Sahib; the Guru Granth Sahib; the utterances and teachings of the ten Gurus and the baptism bequeathed by the tenth Guru; and who does not owe allegiance to any other religion” [source]. That’s quite a mouthful isn’t it? And that’s only the start of it. Sihks have to carry various artifacts with them at all times, including specially designed underwear and a dagger. An exception is made for them under UK law to enable them to carry these small swords (no surprises there, then) but I wonder how they get on at airports. Does all this seem rational to you? I doubt it.

Anyway, the point really is that Sihks have no particular claim on morality over and above anybody else – certainly not over and above humanists. I lay there and thought about TFTD, further distilling my objection to it (because I actually do not like objecting to anything). I thought, in a nutshell, it’s like this: TFTD allows moral positions to be “hijacked” by religious people, when they are actually the source of many of the world’s most serious problems. That’s the main insult. As Pat Condell says:

“It does seem quite ironic to me that the very people who have clearly made no attempt to think for themselves are always the most vocal in demanding [in this case even worse - receiving] respect for their… ideas.”

And of course this occurs in the middle of what should be an objective news programme. Humanists are simply sidelined as if they couldn’t possibly comment on morality.

Well, TFTD finished – nothing profound was said – and it went back to the news, which of course is about the religious conflict in the Gaza Strip. This is not really about territory, by the way. Lets face it: if they were all of the same religion, they wouldn’t really mind coming together. It’s our old friend religion, again.

I also wondered, would I rather have TFTD abolished or reformed? I think it should probably be abolished, and there should be more free criticism of religion allowed on the radio as mainstream comment. But even having a few humanist voices on there would be step in the right direction.

Let’s hope the BBC hear our call for change anyway, otherwise we will, reluctantly, have to step it up.