The slot between 8am and 8.30am is the prime-time for listenership on Radio 4 so I was surprised that the BBC decided to allocate valuable time here to the Magic Act Penn and Teller. Even more remarkable the primary angle of the story was to explore the Pair’s Atheism! I’m not saying there was bias here but I found the placing of this story and the angle of it odd. I wonder if Penn and Teller had been devout Christians would the BBC have been so keen to run the non-story?
NOW THAT’S MAGIC!
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Of course, the very least interesting thing about Penn & Teller is Teller. The guy who never says anything.
The most interesting thing in Penn Jillett, a dedicated advocate of free speech, in particular free speech for those with whom you disagree most vehemently.
A concept that is totally foreign to the crypto-Marxists that run the BBC.
Check this out…
you don’t have to agree with all Penn says, but I guarantee you’ll find it way more relevant than Teller’s “atheism”.
MISTRUST OF GOVERNMENT IS A BEAUTIFUL THING
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2010/07/09/penn-jillette-mistrust-of-government-is-a-beautiful-thing/
It amuses me greatly when people label themselves as atheists, talk about an arrogant insistence that something doesn’t exist. Nothing wrong with agnosticism of course.
Of course the BBC would never suggest to a Muslim that their god doesn’t exist, too scared to even republish a cartoon. The BBC leave the aggressive atheism for the white Christians.
No evidence that leprecauns or unicorns don’t exist !
I’ve yet to hear a BBC interview asking Paul Daniels on his thoughts about the non existence of unicorns and pixies.
The greatest minds in history and today believe in some form of intelligent design and spiritualism, the BBC like to conflate any such thoughts with rabid creationists in America. Any theologist can tell you the book of Genesis is an allegory for the creation of the universe rather than the literal interpretation of seven days, which happens to be the BBC’s interpretation.
The only form of christianity acceptable to the BBC is the Anglican church being run by a homosexuals and adapting itself so as not to offend Islam,
Islam will always be offended and so they will apologise themselves out of existence.
“intelligent design” ? Yeah , right ! That is a recent “concept”, so how could the “greatest minds in history” “believe in it ” ?
Call it what you want, you are just nit picking it’s the same ball park as a belief in a deity or creator and now you are struggling to say anything of worth.
Only God can judge “anything of worth ” !
Seems to me that militant atheists are as bigoted and intolerant as any fundamentalist Christian or Moslem. If we’re talking about belief in a numinous reality then I understand why someone might be agnostic about a supreme being or organised (or unorganised) religion. However, a belief in atheism – similarly to a belief in Christianity – is not a scientific construct: it is (by definition) outside science – science has nothing to say. If the BBC wants to promote atheism or, rather, the BBC’s favourite atheist sect (the one led by Dawkins) then the BBC – in its pursuit of its statutory duty of impartiality – must promote not only others of its favourites (eg extreme Islam, adherents of which can’t get a bad press on the BBC) but also fundamentalist Christianity (which the BBC abhors amd mocks at every turn).
Atheism , by definition, is not a “belief” , it is non-belief.
Umbongo,
Tell me about the atheist sects. I wasn’t aware there are any !
Grant
“Atheism” is a fundamental belief that there is no god/supreme being/world spirit whatever. More to the point – and if any atheists disagree please let me know – atheists assert that nothing exists outside the world of our experience ie there is nothing beyond that which we “know” through the media of our five senses. I’m an agnostic because I do not believe (there’s that word again) but do not know for certain that the universe which we can only “know” through our five senses (which evolved, after all, simply to allow us to live and survive on earth) can be coterminous with the whole universe: at the lowest point of understanding the odds against that are stunningly large. Imagine how you would explain to a man blind from birth what “sight” is and what the experience of “seeing” is. You might be able to explain it to him but he could have no idea what it is tio “see”. Analogously, why shouldn’t there be things present in “reality” of which we cannot conceive let alone “sense”? Anyway, rather than deliver a lecture on Kant or Schopenhauer I would say that anyone asserting – as a matter of belief – that “there’s nothing out there” is entitled to his belief but the basis for that belief (or unbelief as you call it) is as shaky (actually I would assert, more shaky) than a belief that Jesus walked on the earth and revealed manifest truths about existence and how we should treat each other.
Actually I don’t think I’ve answered your question but, I hope, the answer I’ve given is more enlightening!
Umbongo,
Actually, I am more confused than ever , rather than enlightened !
Need to re-read your post at leisure.
“…atheists assert that nothing exists outside the world of our experience ie there is nothing beyond that which we “know” through the media of our five senses”
That is not true. I have never seen such an idea in atheist philosophy, and in fact most atheists believe in many things unknowable to the five senses, including much scientific theory.
The idea that there is a part of exisence fundamentally unknown and unknowable (sometimes talked about as “many worlds” theory, “multiverse”, ideas of multiple universes) either separated from this one in an unknown dimension or by the singularity before the big bang is very common among atheists. Of course most of our own universe will never be known to the senses.
Well said !
With that creed you could convert me to Christianity! .. Oh, wait a minute – I already am!
“Of course most of our own universe will never be known to the senses.”
Then atheists don’t disbelieve in a god since – per the above phrase – the existence or otherwise of a supreme being is unknown and unknowable. I disagree with atheism since I don’t know – and will never know – whether or not God exists. As it happens, I don’t believe in God or a supreme being or whatever but I cannot prove my disbelief scientifically one way or the other (and neither can atheists). Hence I am agnostic which, IMHO, is the only rational position for non-believers.
Penn’s most recent pronouncement was fear of Islamic reprisals against him if he critiqued it:
http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/06/26/penn-jillette-not-having-the-courage-to-confront-islam-is-bullsht/
‘Tough journalist’ Davies was not keen to pursue that aspect of Penn’s atheism, preferring the most insipid line of questioning I’ve heard in a long time. “Is magic and atheism compatible?”
Another credit to license payers.
P&T would be the first to admit they do conjuring not magic.
Deegee,
Well said ! Conjurors are honest about the deception. They don’t produce a “burning bush” and claim they have the power of God.
http://dai.ly/aqcQub
See here P&T’s message to the “psycho-fanatic religious a**holes” who brought down the WTC.
I think it says a lot for their patriotism and love of America, and it’s one of the reasons I bought tickets to see them this weekend as soon as they were announnced. “F*** you to crazy evil religious a**holes” is a message I endorse and wish to support.
Glorious !
I’m a big fan of Penn and Teller, and their TV series Bullshit is great.
None of the BBC interviews I’ve seen/heard with Penn Jillette over the past few days has touched on his libertarian politics or asked his opinion of Obama (somewhat negative). BBC interviewers aren’t usually so reluctant to talk about Obama with visiting US celebs.
If Penn & Teller were devout Christians, they wouldn’t be on Today. However, I’m not surprised one other angle of their atheism was left unmentioned: they’re atheists about Warmism as well (warning: naughty language, because Penn is, you know, hip like that).
Evan Davis’s enthusiasm was evident in his voice when he asked Penn to confirm his atheism. I bet he wasn’t even allowed by his producers to ask if they believed in Warmism. Religion isn’t the only kind of scam skeptical magicians can see through.
BBC World Service had a leading story last night about some policemen being charged with murder and cover-up of murder in New Orleans during the Katrina chaos. The BBC reporter said “Of course this was when everyone felt abandoned by the Bush Administration”.
That is – perpetuating the lie that Bush was “first responder”, ignoring the fact that most of the chaos was caused by Mayor Ray Nagin and the Louisiana Governor. And the people who really did abandon New Orleans were a sizeable fraction of its police department – a corrupt body for generations.
So, the BBC deliberately gets Katrina back to front again. There was no need in the context of the story to mention the Bush Administration at all, with the implication that the murders were somehow blameable partly on Bush – it was entirely irrelevant to the current story. But the BBC never misses a chance to bash Bush.
But now the BBC tries to kid us that everything is hunky-dorey under Obama. Reminds me of the Stubby Kaye number in Li’l Abner :
Agreed. And in a few years, everyone in New Orleans and the Gulf will remember the time when they felt abandoned by The Obamessiah. But not if you trust the BBC for your news on US issues, in which case you never would have learned things like this:
In New Orleans, Gulf oil spill anger turns to Obama
What? No, never! He’s never as bad as Booooosh!
Although only a single sign in the crowd referred to the Obama administration – a man wearing an Uncle Sam costume held one that read “Mr. President, Take Control of BP Now” – New Orleanians are growing increasingly frustrated with the administration’s handling of the crisis, oil spill activists say.
An electoral island of blue in a predominately red state, New Orleans was carried by Obama with 59 percent of the vote in 2008, while winning less than 40 percent statewide. But 11 weeks into the BP oil well disaster, criticism of Obama in the city, though still muted, sounds much like that of President George W. Bush after Katrina.
“Too little, too late—it’s the same thing again,” said Ms. Goldfinch, a member of the grass-roots Krewe of Dead Pelicans. “People are pretty upset and enraged, but don’t want to criticize Obama, because policy-wise he’s probably the best president we’ve had on the environment. But from letting BP use [the dispersant] Corexit to blocking the media and making it easier for [BP] to get away with murder, this has been a corporate controlled disaster. His response has been pretty bad.”
Before anyone starts thinking the woman is a racist, here’s more info on the Krewe of Dead Pelicans. They started out as hippie environmentals protesting against BP and Big Oil, not because they don’t like The Obamessiah.
That BBC reporter obviously knows how to grease his career path. I’m sure Martin can read something into that statement!
Before I comment – I’m atheist.
The BBC should not be promoting *any* religious views above and beyond any other, and even then within a remit of education and information.
Promotion of atheism is just as wrong as promotion of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc etc
Ray,
Quite agree.
Let me see if I get this.
A thread is started rightly questioning why the religious (or non religious) beliefs of two relatively unknown celebrities occupies news prime time on the BBC most popular news radio programme in the morning.
It questions the BBC’s impartiality and relevance and hence bias, wondering if first those (non) religious views do not constitute news, second because whether their views are justified or not they have no place on such a news programme and third because the same treatment would not be meted out to those with religious ornon religious views that do not fit in with the BBC ethos.
Instead of exploring that issue most posters decide to take over the thread ‘doing a BBC’ – advocating their particular religious or more specifically non religious views rather than addressing the issue.
What’s more its a hijacking by the same old tired endlessly repeated cliches I read every time I look on a media story (not just the BBC) with space to comment on anything that vaguely mentions anything religious or philosophical whatsoever.
If you can only add to the thread with this same old same old twisted hijacking please don’t bother at all and please don’t rise to replying to what is in reality just another form of trolling. It serves no useful purpose in the exposition or indeed defence of the bias of the BBC and just makes the threads unreadably awful. Please desist.
Kitty,
Fair point ! I shall desist, but hope you post here more often !