Search Results for: head of religion

Israelis to behead and crucify Palestinian clockboy

 

The BBC clears the ariwaves to report that a Palestinian schoolboy in Israel who, with creative genius, built an electronic clock and took it into school one day where teachers mistook  it for a bomb and called the police. The boy was arrested, charged, found guilty and sentenced to be beheaded and crucified by the Israeli authorities for intention to commit terrorist acts.  The BBC are all over this story.

Or did that really happen?….Was the clock really a bomb or just a clock and did the Israelis merely jail the boy for a couple of hours?… the BBC wouldn’t let the facts spoil a good anti-Israeli story.

In fact, of course, none of that is true.  But you can imagine all too easily the furore that would erupt were the Israelis to execute a boy on trumped up charges never mind merely arrest and jail him.

But there’s no such furore, oddly, from the BBC for a Shia Muslim being executed by the Saudis…this week his sentence of beheading and crucifixion was confirmed and may be carried out within days.

As far as I can see the BBC last reported on this story over a year ago and nothing since.  Which is amazing really, a Shia Muslim boy being beheaded and crucified by Sunni Muslims, after probably being tortured into signing a false confession…and it’s all based on his religion.

‘Amazing’ because a Muslim boy in America who was arrested on suspicion of making a bomb and quickly released has really caught the BBC’s imagination and resulted in endless stories from the BBC about him…..none of which actually get anywhere near the truth as to what really happened…funnily enough.  Why so much attention on what is essentially a non-story and why, in complete contrast, the lack of interest in a Shia Muslim actually being tortured then executed by Sunnis on trumped up charges?

Does the BBC have an agenda?  Is the BBC only interested in stories that show Muslims as ‘victims’ of white oppression and Islamophobia?  Looks that way doesn’t it?

The BBC’s interest in a boy about to be beheaded is minimal to nil, the BBC’s interest in Muslim Clockboy is phenomenal in comparison….

Texas teenager arrested after a homemade clock was mistaken for a bomb

Ahmed Mohamed: No charges for boy, 14, arrested over clock

‘Clock boy’ Ahmed Mohamed’s huge invite list – Facebook, White House, Twitter

Ahmed Mohamed: Homemade clock boy quits Texas school

 

Oh yes, and then there’s this story….

Who’s behind the campaign for Ahmed, the young Muslim clockmaker?

Who indeed is behind the campaign for Ahmed?  Is it really just a concerned Muslim girl shocked by America’s Islamophobia or a hard-core campaigner on Islamic issues?

The BBC merely tells us that ‘A Texas college student wanted to show her support for Ahmed Mohamed. Twenty-four hours later, her hashtag has started a movement. …Those on social media who feel that the event was unjust and racially motivated have used #IStandWithAhmed to show their support.  The hashtag was created by Amneh Jafari, who wrote, “If his name was John he would be labelled as a genius. Since its Ahmed he’s labelled as a “suspect”. #doublestandards #IStandWithAhmed.”  Jafari, a 23-year-old psychology student at the University of Texas Arlington (UTA).’

Who is she really?  She is a Palestinian who champions the ‘one Ummah’ (you do remember the Islamic State’s single finger salute…one god, one religion, one mosque, one Ummah?) and her other hashtag is

 

Oh yes…she’s also a good friend of the extremist Islamist group CAIR’s Texas representative…...’Alia Salem, a friend of mine, and the executive director of CAIR-Texas Dallas Fort Worth’.  That’ll be CAIR who are coordinating a campaign in Ahmed’s name…

 

 

Remarkably the BBC seem entirely unconcerned about investigating the actual events that led up to the boy’s arrest and rely purely upon the boy’s own narrative…and that of his new friends.  But how true is that?  In this video you can see the BBC absolutely lapping up CAIR’s narrative and even adding the BBC’s own twist to it….suggesting that unless America sorts itself out it runs the risk of alienating young Muslims…which, completely without irony, we are told could ‘be problematic in the future’...does he mean radical Muslims with bombs?

 

First, the narrative that this is Islamophobia based upon the fact that the boy was a Muslim….well yeah, it was precisely because he was a Muslim…why?  Because Muslims are around the world planting bombs that get people killed.  The ‘clock’ looked nothing like a clock and looked like what everyone would suspect a bomb to look like.

A homemade clock made by Ahmed Mohamed, 14, is seen in an undated picture released by the Irving Texas Police Department September 16, 2015.

Consider this was just after the 9/11 anniversary as well and the boy refused to explain why he had made the clock, why he had brought it into school and what it was for….the police, on that basis, arrested him for making a hoax bomb.  The school is also apparently just 25 miles away from where two Muslims attacked the Mohammed cartoon exhibition recently….why would people not be on the alert?

The boy was told not to show it to other teachers and yet he did, and in one class set the alarm to go off….which concerned the teacher enough to make her report him to the headteacher…..what would anyone make of a container full of electronics like that?

Did he actually ‘invent’ or otherwise create the clock himself?  Seems that he actually just took the guts out of a digital clock and put them into the case……hardly genius at work here…

 

Also thanks to David Brims for this video which gives a perspective the BBC doesn’t bother with:

 

And there’s this video which also takes a critical look at the issue and tells us of other, non-Muslim school children who have been treated in a similar, if not worse way…

 

 

The BBC has just taken this story and run with the Islamophobia narrative put out by the Islamist activists.  It hasn’t made the slightest effort to examine either the story or the supposed issues surrounding it as to whether this was ‘Islamophobia’ or a natural and cautious, sensible reaction in light of the serious terrorist threat in America right now…as we know there have been scores of arrests recently in the US related to the Islamic State.

The video in which the BBC hands over the airwaves to CAIR and actually sides with them, adding to CAIR’s own narrative of Islamophobia and Muslim victims, demonstrates perfectly how the BBC cannot be trusted to report on issues surrounding Islam and Muslims with the slightest degree of honesty and openness….another example of which was Jon Sopel’s astonishingly bigoted, biased pro-Muslim rant against Ben Carson which we looked at yesterday…..a story to which we can add to with this comment by Carson himself…..(H/T gb123 in the comments)

The first issue I want to deal with tonight is the stories today about my comments yesterday when I was asked if I would support a hypothetical Muslim candidate for President. I responded “I would not advocate for that” and I went on to say that many parts of Sharia Law are not compatible with the Constitution. I was immediately attacked by some of my Republican peers and nearly every Democrat alive. Know this, I meant exactly what I said. I could never support a candidate for President of the United States that was Muslim and had not renounced the central tenant of Islam: Sharia Law.

Those Republicans that take issue with my position are amazing. Under Islamic Law, homosexuals – men and women alike – must be killed. Women must be subservient. And people following other religions must be killed.

I know that there are many peaceful Muslims who do not adhere to these beliefs. But until these tenants are fully renounced…I cannot advocate any Muslim candidate for President.

…I also can’t advocate supporting Hillary Clinton either by the way.

But here’s a thing…one of CAIR’s declared enemies, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), run by Muslims, according to its 2011 IRS filings states, “AIFD’s mission is to advocate for the preservation of our U.S. Constitution’s liberties and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state.” ‘….therefore if a Muslim refuses to compromise on his beliefs he cannot be President and still defend the US Constitution….just as Carson said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RELIGION; THE HISTORY MAKERS

PROGRAMME PITCH TO THE BBC

A guest Contribution by Graeme Thompson who posts as hippiepooter

Via the good offices of B-BBC, I’d like to make an open programme pitch to the BBC Documentary Commissioning Editors for a series on what those who have forged history have made of the world’s great religions. Let’s give it a working title, ‘RELIGION: THE HISTORYMAKERS’.

A mini-treatment below for a pilot to kick off the series starting with one of the world religions that on the BBC’s terms there never seems such a thing as ‘over-exposure’:-

WINSTON CHURCHILL ON ISLAM

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“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries ! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.  Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die; but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”

Winston S. Churchill, The River War, pp 248-250 (First Edition, Vol II, Longmans, Green & Co, 1899)

ADOLF HITLER ON ISLAM

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Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs. When the Mohammedans had attempted to penetrate beyond France into Central Europe during the eighth century, his visitors had told him, they had been driven back at the Battle of Tours. Had the Arabs won this battle, the world would be Mohammedan today. For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. The Germanic peoples would have become heirs to that religion. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament. Hitler said that the conquering Arabs, because of their racial inferiority, would in the long run have been unable to contend with the harsher climate and conditions of the country. They could not have kept down the more vigorous natives, so that ultimately not Arabs but Islamized Germans could have stood at the head of this Mohammedan Empire.

Hitler usually concluded this historical speculation by remarking “You see, it’s been our misfortune to have the wrong religion. Why didn’t we have the religion of the Japanese, who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?”

‘Inside the Third Reich’, Albert Speer, p96

What the makers of history have to say might of course lead viewers to think that the problems we’re having with Islam today are part of a 1400 year continuum, but for a BBC that abides by its Charter to present facts fairly and objectively to the greater good of our democracy, this should not be a problem.

If any B-BBC readers would like to help flesh out this programme idea by sharing whatever other insights of great historic figures they may be aware of, I’m sure it can only enhance this programme’s chances of being made (!).

This person would make a great presenter.

When Hitler was on the rise Churchill warned us time and time again in the Commons that the facts and what Hitler himself had laid out in Mein Kampf made it perfectly clear what the intentions of Nazism were. We chose instead to bury our heads in the sand until faced with war or surrender. 50 million people died.

No-one in the Commons today is warning us of the consequences of appeasement and ready to take the helm when we take our heads out of the sand. Hopefully that might change this election. If not, we are heading incrementally and unobtrusively to a reckoning that will eclipse the evil of Hitler.

The islamo-correctnick BBC is a full and active player in the propaganda axis of this evil.

ButtHeads

 

 

 

Christopher Hitchens in 2007  said in relation to the Danish cartoons that the ‘Barbarians’ are not at the gates they are inside them…gates held open by the other religions who condemned not the murderous violence but the cartoons. ..get used to this he said…you may be living in the last few years where you can complain about religion….we’re heading back to the stone age he forecast.

A thought Charlie Hebdo also recognised…all three religions demanding Charlie Hebdo be ‘veiled’…

Charlie-Hebdo-Covers-07

 

See how the cartoons relate to real life and are not mere ‘insults’…they have a point to make.

 

Nothing has changed.

Delighted to see the Pope upholding Christian virtues…he is after all the supreme head of the Catholic cult that supposedly says ‘Turn the other cheek…love thy neighbour…thou shalt not kill’…or as one commenter said...’Considering the history of Catholicism, what a hypocrite.’

 

Paris attacks: Pope Francis says freedom of speech has limits

Pope Francis has defended freedom of expression following last week’s attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo – but also stressed its limits.

The pontiff said religions had to be treated with respect, so that people’s faiths were not insulted or ridiculed.

To illustrate his point, he told journalists that his assistant could expect a punch if he cursed his mother.

[He said] such horrific violence in God’s name could not be justified.

He staunchly defended freedom of expression, but then he said there were limits, especially when people mocked religion.

“If my good friend Doctor Gasparri [who organises the Pope’s trips] speaks badly of my mother, he can expect to get punched,” he said, throwing a pretend punch at the doctor, who was standing beside him.

“You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. There is a limit.”

 

Kinda sounds like he is saying ‘I don’t really give a s**t about those dead cartoonists’…or as Muhammed said about the poet Asma Bint Marwan, whom some say he had murdered for her criticism of him,“Two goats won’t butt their heads about her”.

 

The Pope has rushed out an explanation…he didn’t mean that at all…..

Vatican: Pope’s Charlie Hebdo Comments Didn’t Condone Violence

Pope Francis’ press office on Thursday issued a clarification following his comment that there is a limit on the freedom of expression when it insults someone’s faith, saying the pope’s words did not advocate the violence seen in the Paris terror attacks.

“The pope’s expression is in no way intended to be interpreted as a justification for the violence and terror that took place in Paris last week,” Rev. Thomas Rosica, an English language assistant to the Holy See Press Office, said in a statement sent to reporters. “His words mean that there are limits to humor and satire particularly in the ways that we speak about matters of faith and belief.”

 

Sure…but then what?

 

 

Back to Asma Bint Marwan and the BBC.

Douglas Murray in the Spectator reports that the BBC has issued its own little fatwa and banned him from saying anything that Muslims don’t like:

There may be some positive things to be said about Mohammed, but I thought this was pushing things too far and mentioned just one occasion when Mohammed didn’t welcome a critic. Asma bint Marwan was a female poetess who mocked the ‘Prophet’ and who, as a result, Mohammed had killed. It is in the texts. It is not a problem for me. But I can understand why it is a problem for decent Muslims. The moment I said this, my Muslim colleague went berserk. How dare I say this? I replied that it was in the Hadith and had a respectable chain of transmission (an important debate). He said it was a fabrication which he would not allow to stand. The upshot was that he refused to continue unless all mention of this was wiped from the recording. The BBC team agreed and I was left trying to find another way to express the same point. The broadcast had this ‘offensive’ fact left out.

 

So much for reporting without fear or favour…what about journalistic integrity…what about the duty to investigate all sides to an argument rather than present the one favourable to the most violent?  Reminds me of this….Humane Bullfighting in Costa Rica – No one Can Hurt the Bull but the Bull Can Kill Anyone

 

Many Muslims do object to the story…but many use it to justify killing….the story is ‘politicised’…or ‘weaponised’ if you like….as it reflects badly upon the prophet….

It is alleged that Prophet Muhammad reportedly had a number of non-Muslims killed in Medina. Many non-Muslims use these alleged incidents to argue that the Prophet promoted violence against his critics while many Muslims view these incidents a justification to demand death for those who insult the Prophet and blaspheme Allah.

 

 

….having said that they admit Muhammed did have critics killed ….here it just happens to be two Jews who also published poems criticising him…any policeman might look at the coincidences there, poets who criticise Muhammed being killed, and conclude maybe the Asma Bint Marwan story has some legs:

The scholars are unanimously agreed that a Muslim who insults the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) becomes a Kaafir and an apostate who is to be executed. This consensus was narrated by more than one of the scholars, such as Imaam Ishaaq ibn Raahawayh, Ibn al-Mundhir, al-Qaadi ?Iyaad, al-Khattaabi and others. (Al-Saarim al-Maslool, 2/13-16)

However, the stories of Ka’b ibn al-Ashraf and Abu Rafi’, due to speaking ill against and insulting the Prophet (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) are found authentic in Bukhari.

 

In this Muslim source it is accepted Marwan was killed on the orders of Muhammed…well, it was Allah what done it really…..

The killing of Asma bint Marwan, who ridiculed the prophet.

Asma bint Marwan used to ridicule the prophet, alaihisslaam, in her poetry. Although the prophet always forgave all people who attempted to cause harm to him through their words or deeds, don’t forget that he was not an ordinary person but Rasulullah (the messenger of God).

The Quran is unmistakably clear about this law, which the Almighty declares as Sunnatallahi (the way Allah deals). See 17:77, for instance. Asma bint Marwan was therefore killed not by the prophet but by Allah. As a general principle, the prophet, alaihissalaam, always forgave people who caused harm to him. However, when he was asked by the Almighty to get certain people killed through His own law, which He has clearly mentioned in Quran, then he implemented what his God desired of him.

 

 

There is definitely an argument to be had…and as many Muslims use it to justify their violence perhaps the BBC should have run with it, if only to expose any errors in the tale….but regardless of the truth of the Asma Bint Marwan story Muslims have to admit other similar tales as mentioned above.

The BBC is censoring anything they deem uncomfortable for Muslims to hear…in essence it is little different to  Salman Rushdie and the ‘Satanic Verses’ when verses inconvenient to the Muslm narrative being published resulted in a death warrant for Rushdie…Murray is probably lucky the BBC decided to shut him up….he’d probably need police protection now…judging by the reaction of his fellow interviewee.

Peace man!

 

 

 

Aqil Airhead

 

 

Must be something in the air…Is The BBC Biased notes that Muslim Aaqil Ahmed, in charge of the BBC’s religious programming, has decided to broaden the appeal of Songs of Praise and spread the joy around, broadcasting from many places of worship and denomination…but definitely will not be heading Mosqueward…until of course we hear of a lovely, joyous coming together of Christians and Muslims, evidence of the tolerance, mutual respect and friendship that exists between the two religions…and proof of that is that Christians are graciously allowed to visit a mosque…from which the BBC will broadcast the propaganda.

 

Noggin in the comments has coincidentally linked to the same fellow in a story from last year that will confirm much of what we have heard about the good Aaqil, his professional qualifications and his leanings.

Questions raised about the running of the BBC’s religious affairs department

These are trying times for Aaqil Ahmed, head of religion and ethics at the BBC.

As we revealed in the last Eye, some of his department’s commissions for Songs of Praise are now being scrutinised by the Beeb’s investigation unit, which has been told by Lord Patten that “if on investigation there is any suggestion that a criminal offence has been committed, the matter should be referred to the police.” Ahmed’s reaction to the story was to announce that he is launching a “witch hunt” (sic) to find our source.

Meanwhile, he has another hefty headache. The Ottomans, a three-part series in which Rageh Omar wanders through the lands of the former Ottoman Empire, is beset by problems and falling even further behind schedule. Although 18 weeks had been allotted for editing all three one-hour programmes, the first two have already taken 30 weeks, including delays for an expensive re-shoot in the Middle East. The main problem is Ahmed’s ignorance arrogance, which have resulted in hours wasted trying to persuade the contributors to give interviews backing his eccentric interpretations of religious history. At the last count he even omitted reference to the Crimean War.

As is his custom, Ahmed assigned the production not to experts in his department but to an old freelance chum, Faris Kermani, who made many programmes about Islam for C4 when Ahmed was head of religion at the channel and later followed him to the BBC to make The Life of Muhammad. The justification for engaging Kermani was that he could gain exclusive access to middle-eastern locations and contacts that were somehow out of the reach of the BBC. In the end, however, this was handled by department staff using a local fixer in the usual way.

As costs spiral out of control, the job of rescuing the production has gone back in-house, too, with the department’s main development executive – helped by a producer on attachment from BBC Bristol – striving to bring some order and intellectual rigour to the chaos.

 

Also good to hear a Labour MP this morning remind us, on the savage murder of Peter Kassig by ISIS, that Islam is a fine and peaceful religion.

 

I  note with interest the BBC insists on calling Peter Kassig by the Muslim name he chose to use under duress in an attempt to save his own life under threat from his Muslim captors….

US hostage Abdul-Rahman Kassig ‘killed by IS’

A video posted online claims to show that Islamic State militants have killed the captured US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig.

 

Apparently this is ‘A photograph of Abdul-Rahman with his father, Ed, fishing on the Ohio River in Indiana in 2011’…no, no it’s not.  It’s a photo of Peter Kassig.

Peter Kassig fishing with his father, Ed Kassig, near the Cannelton Dam on the Ohio River in Indiana - 2011

 

 

 

And that’s despite his captors giving him his real name in the video of his death…..

“This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen, of your country”

 

 

The Telegraph has the right idea…

Peter Kassig’s family call for restraint after beheading video

 

 

 

Religion Lite

 

 

The Daily Mail reports that the BBC’s favourite turbulent priest, Giles Fraser, is unhappy with politicians who merely pay lip service to the real meaning and demands of Christianity :

Here’s the problem: no-one was ever crucified for kindness. Jesus was not strung up on a hideous Roman instrument of torture because of his good deeds. If Jesus is just a remarkably good person whose example we ought to follow, why the need for the dark and difficult story of betrayal, death and resurrection that Christians will commemorate this week?

The English, of course, have always been a little bit awkward when it comes to full-throttle Christianity. Traditionally, we like the gentle and undemanding pace of Cathedral evensong and prefer the parish priest who visits the sick rather than the one who corners you and asks you if you have been saved.

These gentle people with wet handshakes are approachable community figures, helping knit together the fabric of society with bingo and Sunday school. And we also want them to be figures of fun because that is how we keep religion safe.

It wasn’t always this way. Thousands were butchered during the Civil War in the name of their different understandings of God – probably the last flowering of popular religious fundamentalism in England. I suspect it was in reaction against the deep political traumas of the 17th Century that the English re-invented Christianity as something to do with kindness and good deeds.

When religious ideology got as toxic as it did, it was an act of genius to redefine religion as being primarily about pastoral care. From the 18th Century onwards, Christianity ceased to be about pike-toting revolutionaries hoping to rebuild Jerusalem in here in England.

Instead, through the Church of England, it increasingly became a David Cameron-type faith: the religion of good deeds.

It served the English well. It was dignified, socially useful and largely undemanding. The big society in action.

But will any politician really have the gall to preach the full story of Christ’s crucifixion? As St Paul himself noted, it is offensive and scandalous stuff. It means being brave, taking risks, standing up to wrong, even when – and this is bound to happen – it is personally distressing for us to do that.

It means real belief and absolute commitment. It is so much more than a brief nod to Sunday school truisms. 

It is sad – even if it is understandable – that so much of what we hear from leading figures in politics and elsewhere is a pallid imitation of Christianity, the equivalent of empty-gesture politics. Real faith, like real leadership, means taking hard decisions and standing by them.

 

Wonder then what Fraser thinks of the Muslim fundamentalists…..they are committed to following the strictures of their religion as close to the letter as possible……and yet we are told these are ‘extremsists’ or they are perverting the real meaning of Islam.

So…is Giles an ‘extremist’ for wanting ‘Real faith, real belief and absolute commitment’?

 

Ironically a few days earlier he was lambasting Eric Pickles, a politician, for being too emphatically, provocatively Christian…too much religious triumphalism no less….Giles wants less Christian commitment (er doesn’t he?) in case it upsets…well……

When Eric Pickles calls Britain a Christian nation I side with the atheists

For Pickles to talk provocatively of us being a Christian nation at the same time as sending the coppers into a Muslim-dominated council is a whopping misjudgment.

 

 

Religious commitment or is it extremism?…….An interesting topic for Nicky Campbell to explore?

You an see why the BBC just loves Giles.

 

 

Interested though in Frasers assertion that  ‘the English re-invented Christianity as something to do with kindness and good deeds.’

Hmmm…surely that is the basis of Christianity rather than Giles’ preferred ‘pike-toting revolutionaries’ enforcing their Puritan ethics upon the world….

“I Desire Mercy, Not Sacrifice”

 

Maybe this sort of thing seems familiar and attractive to Fraser, so modern and yet centuries old……Cromwell’s Puritans….a Reformation ‘Trojan Horse’?…..

Puritans were dissatisfied and bent on the destroying of the dregs of popery.   They were a group of literate and often highly articulate people acting like a fifth column to undermine and radically change the Church of England through sympathisers and activists in parliament.  some aimed to reform by peaceful means others wanted to turn England to their religion completely and join their co-religionists in europe. Up and down the country they took over parishes and imposed a new belief…that they were the chosen ones and everyone else was excluded and was damned.  Where the godly would get a foothold in a parish they would often tear it apart.  They disrupted peaceful communities with their preaching and efforts to discipline those they regarded as godless resulting in bitter divisions and denouncements  of  sinners. 

 

….of course the puritans eventually had to leave England and sail off to a place where they could live by their own beliefs.

Carry On Don’t Lose Your Head

 

Is the BBC biased? draws this to our attention:

From the Independent:

The British public has such “poor religious literacy” that a modern audience would be baffled by the Monty Python film The Life of Brian – because it would not understand the Biblical references, a senior BBC figure has claimed.  

Aaqil Ahmed, the BBC’s head of religion and ethics, told The Independent that failings in religious education over two generations were undermining public understanding of contemporary national and international issues.

 

This is probably his scariest comment:

“You had generations that missed out. We have poor religious literacy in this country and we have to do something about it,” he said.

Scary because you just know exactly what he intends….though we are told:

“I’m not saying for one second that everybody has to understand religion and therefore become religious,”

Yeah…right.

 

This is probably his most laugh out loud absolute hogwash of a statement…because we all know the real reason few people make jokes about Muhammed:

Ahmed also claimed that a key reason that Islam is not the subject of more humorous discussion is that the life of the Prophet Muhammad is poorly understood by large sections of the British public. “How can anybody tell a joke about Muhammad when they don’t even know how to spell his name, let alone anything about his life? The day we have people standing up and telling detailed jokes about Muhammad and have the audience understanding that humour, then we will have come a long way in society and we will have a lot more religious literacy about a major world figure.

 

 

Let’s give that a go…..here’s a satirical cartoon based upon most people’s understanding of Muhammed and his legacy….most people know what the Koran says about killing the infidel, the House of Islam and the House of war, and they know what is done in the name of Islam by some, many, Muslims, hence they think this cartoon represents a true picture of what Islam means to them:

 

 

That is their understanding of Islam and Muhammed…..I imagine that is not what Ahmed requires them to think….and he’d want to censor that….for the likes of Ahmed there is only one way to ‘understand’ Islam…..and it’s not the medieval warlord using religion to excuse the  plundering and killing of the non-believer….as historian Tom Holland tells us happened.

 

Ahmed is right in way of course….not as he intends….because it is the fact that some people, the BBC for instance,  refuse to accept that image of Islam, that definition of Islam,  because they refuse to accept such an ‘understanding,’ they see no problem with the Islamic ideology and therefore cannot see the need for a ‘cure’, for reform, as Tommy Robinson and Tariq Ramadan both urge, no need to think hard about the effects a growing Islamic influence is having on society and politics….but they are all too ready to blame the ‘West’ instead…its foreign policy or alleged discrimination at home ‘alienating’ and radicalising Muslims.

 

Melanie Phillips says:

Until our leaders admit the true nature of Islamic extremism, we will never defeat it

If politicians refuse to acknowledge the true nature of this extremism, they will never counter it effectively.

 

They see only good in the Koran and refuse to accept that it can lead to a great deal of harm….because to accept that would mean they would have to do something about it…and that is the last thing they want to do.

 

On Christianity the BBC are a lot harsher….on Thursday Melvyn Bragg had a reverential look at the Book of Common Prayer….but reverential though he was he still managed to openly admit that it was a book that ‘split the nation’, that it was ‘poisonous’ in its effect….and that was a book that didn’t insist you kill anyone if they didn’t believe the same as you. (and Bragg tells us that the English Civil War cost more lives per capita than the First World War…something to chew on)

Ex-nun, Karen Armstrong, has called the Bible a ‘toxic arsenal that fuels hatred and sterile polemic’…..about time we had some honest debate about what’s in the Koran as well.

 

When the likes of the BBC admit that the Koran is not a ‘good’ read then we will have come a long way in society and we will have a lot more religious literacy about a major world figure.

 

Boris Johnson of course already understands:

To any non-Muslim reader of the Koran, Islamophobia – fear of Islam – seems a natural reaction, and, indeed, exactly what that text is intended to provoke. Judged purely on its scripture – to say nothing of what is preached in the mosques – it is the most viciously sectarian of all religions in its heartlessness towards unbelievers. As the killer of Theo Van Gogh told his victim’s mother this week in a Dutch courtroom, he could not care for her, could not sympathise, because she was not a Muslim.

The trouble with this disgusting arrogance and condescension is that it is widely supported in Koranic texts, and we look in vain for the enlightened Islamic teachers and preachers who will begin the process of reform. What is going on in these mosques and madrasas? When is someone going to get 18th century on Islam’s medieval ass?

The BBC Have A Muslim As Head Of Religious Programming…Can You Tell?

 

The BBC uses Lent to talk about ‘abandonment’…..

In the third of this year’s Lent Talks, journalist and broadcaster Benjamin Cohen reflects on the fear of being abandoned by his own Jewish community, for being gay.

But Lent is about sacrifice…the complete opposite of abandonment.

The BBC are using the story of Jesus and twisting it for their own anti-Christian…and a bonus for them….anti-Semitic/Israeli…reasons.

So now you know that Jews hate gays also, it’s not just the horrible Christians.  Another strike against the Israelis for the BBC.

But listen to the broadcast and you find out Cohen was rejected by neither his family nor his community….his examples of rejection seem to come more from society in general than Judaism in particular though he does go on to tell of his anger at ‘religions’.

It seemed that a rather thin excuse to bring up this subject of ‘abandonment’ was invented by someone at the BBC as it is unrelated to Lent….promoting gay rights whilst attacking Christianity and Judaism….but not, it might be added, Islam…nowhere was Islam mentioned.

Can you imagine someone at the BBC suggesting using Muhammed as a  comparison for a gay person?

The BBC are always keen to have a Muslim on the screen promoting Islam….but it seems that when the religion could be taken to task over a questionable belief the BBC brings on the fall guys…Christianity and Judaism.

Cohen states that an orthodox Jew believes the Torah is the literal word of God, a devout Catholic believes the Pope is infallible……but no mention of the Muslim belief that the Koran is the unalterable and literal word of God….that might be awkward considering the BBC’s insistence that Muslim terrorists who say they are carrying out God’s work are perverting Islam and therefore shouldn’t be considered Muslims.

Odd…follow the literal, fundamental teachings and you are ‘perverting’….demand change to the beliefs and you are ‘modernising’ and somehow you are still following the ‘real’ religion.

 

What is ‘Lent’ then?   Seems the BBC has its own ideas….

The BBC originally said this:

Lent is a time of giving things up. For Christians, it is one way of remembering the time Jesus’ fasted in the desert and is a test of self-discipline.’

The Church of England tells us:

‘The concept of fasting for 40 days is to reflect the 40 days Jesus’ fasted in the desert. Christians treat this time as a way of preparation to Easter and fasting is a recognised way of helping people to focus on their spiritual life and prayer.’

 

That seems to be the approved description, pretty clear.

 

The BBC’s latest version however is an inversion of the meaning  of Lent…Lent is no longer a time of sacrifice and self discipline but one of demands to others not to ‘abandon’ you…

‘The Christian season of Lent is traditionally a time for self-examination and reflection on universal human conditions such as temptation, betrayal, greed, forgiveness and love, as well as abandonment.’

That ‘abandonment’ seem to be just tacked on the end there in order to justify the line taken in the Lent Talk….it has a place in Christianity but it is in relation to the crucifixion not Lent.

 

The Mail reported the story a couple of days ago:

BBC Easter message compares treatment of gay people with the crucifixion of Christ

 

 

It’s not like the BBC to be coy about the glories of Islam…..usually they trumpet it from the rooftops….but not so keen to say that Islam is a  cesspit of homophobia…..one that not only denounces gays but kills them.

 

 

And of course it’s not just Iran….it’s widespread over the Islamic world.

 

 

Ah but hang on…Islam does get a mention…or rather a say in the Lent Talks.

Imam Asim Hafiz, Muslim Chaplain and Religious Adviser to HM Forces, who has just returned from Afghanistan, explores the total abandonment experienced by both sides as a result of war

 

Can’t imagine what he will say.

Maybe he will add to what the Muslim extremist Tariq Ramadan said last year when he was given a chance to deliver a Lent Talk.

Funny how any criticism of Islam is ‘Islamophobic’ but it is perfectly acceptable to relentlessly disparage and condemn Christians and Jews for their beliefs on the BBC.

How many times have you heard a BBC presenter shout down a caller or contributor when they mention Islam?  It’s a regular occurrence…Islam  should not be mentioned on the BBC if at all possible…not with any negative connotations anyway.

 

It can only be wondered at what is the effect of having a Muslim in charge of religious broadcasting at the BBC.

 

 

 

ROUNDHEAD OR CAVALIER?

A BBC Four programme that asks ‘Roundhead or Cavalier….Which one are you?’.  B-BBC alan wonders…

“I didn’t know what to make of it at first but a metaphor soon sprung to mind that suitably encapsulates everything that this programme is about….imagine driving down the road and you look up to see a small boy mooning you from the back of a bus….amusing huh?….only on a closer look do you see that the works of Karl Marx are printed on his backside….not only is he mocking you but the mocking comes with a message attached!

Of course the young schoolboy is not to blame…it is his mate giggling alongside him who incited him to carry on in such a bawdy, rude manner….the schoolboy who grew up to be a BBC editor no doubt.

And that in essence is how this programme engineers its hidden message into our lives…..it employs one of the BBC’s favourite tricks of using ‘useful idiots’, and some knowing knaves, to say things that the BBC couldn’t say themselves…and then have them edited into a narrative that suits the BBC’s message…in this case what might that be?

Bet you can’t guess.

Cavaliers and Roundheads, the English Civil War where the fight for equality and democracy was won by the forces of Godliness and discipline against those of decadence and thoughtless self interest.

That’s right – it’s Tories against the Caped Crusaders of the Left.

It’s still playing out today and throughout the last 400 years…Whigs against the Tories, Liberals against the Tories,  Socialists against the Tories.

Everyone hates the Tories you see.

The Tories, sorry Cavaliers….they don’t care about anything too much, they don’t care about details, not interested in the nitty gritty of organising life and politics, they have no overall plan, they have style but no substance.

But it’s OK….the Socialists, sorry, Roundheads, will save the day….being careful, organised, Godly(?), dutiful, professional, thoughtful, sincere, principled, purposeful and rebellious.

Who might be good examples of such virtues? George Osborn, Ken Livingstone, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Arthur Scargill and Boris Johnson, The Sun newspaper and the Guardian.

You do the maths on which is which.

The BBC don’t actually have much faith in your ability to spot their subtle anti Tory black propaganda so they slip in some pretty jarring shots and comments just to ram home the message….Tory bad and decadent, Socialist good and caring.

Human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson blurted out that he laughed at Tories who dismiss the European Court of Human Rights…..so undemocratic of them…do they not realise that the English Civil War was fought for these European laws? Wasn’t it?

A Times columnist, Ben Macintyre, claimed that Cameron was a Cavalier by instinct, weaned in the Bullingdon Club with a belief that he is born to rule….a very dangerous aspect of his character he proposes.

However…Miliband is a natural Roundhead with clear and crisp ideas of where he wants to go….can’t understand why everyone hates him.

The finale was a comment overlaid with a film of Cameron…..the interviewee stating that Britain is now a society that is a pyramid of snobbery and wealth.’ and then the last dig….the narrator saying ‘It now seems there’s a little bit of Roundhead and Cavalier in all of us.’…..juxtaposed against a lingering shot of Gordon Brown, Roundhead, and then George Osborn, reckless, irresponsible Cavalier.

Hang on, rewind,  wasn’t it a certain ‘Gordon Brown’ who was so cavalier with our cash, destroyed our economy, and broke the Banks of England, Scotland too?

As the narrator said at the beginning of the programme….‘To understand the origins of this great divide (between Cavaliers and Roundheads) is to understand what it means to be British today.’

That’ll be right, Anne Widdicombe, David Davies, Norman Tebbit, John Redwood and Margaret Thatcher all natural Cavaliers!

The programme was a bright idea thought up by a BBC Labour lovey as a device to paint the Tories in the worst possible light by implication and association……pure propaganda from the impartial BBC.   Propaganda that is supposed to seep gradually into our subconscious only fully maturing and coming into effect on polling day like the parasitic being that is the BBC leeching off our license fee money and using it to offend and attack everything most people outsie of the ‘metropolitan elite’ value.

Finally let’s have a look at what the Roundhead Puritan’s really brought us….and why they were shoved off to America to be those Bible Belt fundamentalists that otherwise the BBC hates……

‘Puritans were dissatisfied and bent on the destroying of the dregs of Popery. They were a group of literate and often highly articulate people acting like a fifth column to undermine and radically change Britain through sympathisers in and activists. Some aimed to reform by peaceful means others wanted to turn England to their religion completely and join their co-religionists in Europe. up and down the country they took over parishes and imposed a new belief…that they were the chosen ones and everyone else was excluded and was damned. Where the Godly would get a foothold in a parish they would often tear it apart. They disrupted peaceful communities with their preaching and efforts to discipline those they regarded as godless resulting in bitter divisions and denouncements of sinners.’

LOVING THE RELIGION OF PEACE, LOATHING THE PRINCE OF PEACE

The BBC and how it treats Islam and Christianity. A B-BBC reader informs;

“The BBC continues its assault on Christianity and the Bible ( ‘a monstrous book that does more evil than good’ Melvyn Bragg suggests many people think).

Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou has been given a primetime BBC Two series, ‘The Bible’s Buried Secrets’, in which she makes a number of startling suggestions. The good doctor works at Exeter University which is heavily funded by Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood.

She states that: “I’m an atheist ….as an academic, I think you leave faith at the door.” “Don’t forget that the biblical writers are male and it’s a very male-dominated world. Women were second-class citizens, seen as property.”

When have we ever heard such criticisms being made of the Koran which even now propagates the very same attitudes towards women…..but the BBC tells us: ‘Islam also teaches that men and women are equal in the sight of Allah. They are individually accountable for their actions, and will be judged equally by Allah. However, although men and women are equal, they are not the same. They have different purposes. It is part of Allah’s design and purpose for men and women to have different physical characteristics; likewise it is the duty of a man to provide for the financial needs of his family, and for a woman to look after the home and family.’

Whereas Christianity gets a rougher treatment: ‘No one can follow these teachings perfectly, and there will be occasions when Christians are guilty of prejudice and discrimination.Many people think that the Christian Church is sexist. It does not treat men and women equally.The teaching of St Paul is often quoted to support the way some churches today treat women.

From the extracts below, it would seem that he believed that the role of women was different to that of men, and secondary to it….although Christianity teaches that everyone should be equal and should be treated the same, this doesn’t always happen….Archbishop Sentamu has done a lot to raise awareness of racism in British society and in the Anglican church.’The same BBC that tells us that under Catholicism Europe was descending into madness and devotion to God was becoming an obsession that ended in a bloodbath….their fervour for contact with God led to darkness, even savagery, religion and violence intertwined.but Islam is a religion of Peace….’Islam is a religion of peace in which fighting and war are seen only as a last resorts….One aim of Holy War may be to create a democracy where people are free to live their lives without beliefs and politics being imposed on them. There must be no hatred or vengeance in the fighting.’whereas the Christians and Jews are happier to go to war:The Sixth Commandment (from the Ten Commandments, given to Moses) says, ‘You shall not murder,’ but there are occasions when the Jewish people are told by God to attack people who oppose them.Christian involvement in war…In the past there have been many occasions when Christians have fought wars and when Christian countries have fought each other including:the Crusadesthe First and Second World Warswars in Vietnam, Korea, the Falklands/Malvinos, South Africa, and Northern IrelandJesus’ anger

There are two occasions in the gospels when Jesus is obviously angry. One of these is in the Temple in Jerusalem: ‘It is written,’ he said to them. ‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers.’Matthew 21:12-13Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, ‘May you never bear fruit again!’ Immediately the tree withered.’Matthew 21:18-19Such an angry man…no wonder Christians are so violent.

 The BBC’s religious output is overseen by Muslim Aaqil Ahmed, head of religion and ethics.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS..

How brave of the BBC to broadcast this story concerning a request from a most senior judge to kill the owners of TV channels which broadcast immoral programmes. Relax though, it’s only Saudi Arabia’s most senior judge calling for the beheading of those at the top of broadcasting corporations producing filth. As the BBC correspondent notes “fighting militant Islam can be difficult.” I’d say. Then again the BBC is keen to portray Islam as the religion of peace so I guess the beheading of offensive broadcasters is just tough love?