Is it possible that the BBC is actively trying to neutralise the presence of Christianity in the UK ahead of the Census? A B-BBC reader notes the following disturbing facts;
“Has anyone elsenoticed that the BBC appears to be subtly attempting to maximize the ‘noreligion’ response in the 2011 census? There have been two prominent items ontheir website in the last 24 hours in which the apparent aim is to undermineand marginalise religion, in particular Christianity. See here from today:
And then this from yesterday: ( a poll commissioned by the ever so impartial British Humanist Association!).The Humanists were given a further boost in this article published on the BBCwebsite on 4th March: In case anyone missed them, all three items are ‘helpfully’ linked to ontoday’s article, in addition to ‘helpful’ links to two British humanistorganizations.
This is in addition to atheist maverick archiologist Dr FrancescaStavrakopoulou’s prime-time series on ‘Bible secrets’, which seeks to underminethe Bible by presenting highly controversial theories as fact; and atheistastrophysicist Professor Brian Cox, whose own prime-time series again presentstheories on which there is often no scientific consensus as fact, with supremeconfidence and naturally without the need for God.
All this at the very time when people are busily filling in their census forms.I seriously doubt whether it is coincidence.”
I was going to ask if this couldn’t in fact be considered to be equally dismissive of Islam, but then I saw that one of the nine countries where “religion” was going to become extinct was the Netherlands, and that pretty much killed my question. Geert Wilders, call your office.
From the article in question….
“Obviously we don’t really believe this is the network structure of a modern society, where each person is influenced equally by all the other people in society,” he said.
However, he told BBC News that he thought it was “a suggestive result”.
ie it is a ‘statistical’ exercise not ‘scientific’. I make that distinction as ‘science’ has a authoritative connotation despite its massive devaluation in recent decades.
The ‘findings’ are the result of a ‘model’ and therefore produce the result which depends on the inputs and weightings. Often these are ‘value laden’ ie inclusion (or exclusion) is based on judgement.
If someone paid for this ‘exercise’, fine. A fool and his money are soon parted.
The findings have also been out for two months. Has the BBC just discovered it?
I detect a certain surprise by the statistician’ that the exercise has hit the BBC publicity machine.
So the question which should be asked is ‘why at all’!
My answer would support the theory that the BBC finds religion uncomfortable (unless it is Muslim, of course).
Weird bunch the Beeboids.
And on BBC Radio 2 this lunchtime with Jeremy Vine a debate about ‘should we really mark ourselves as Christian on the Census if we don’t regularly go to Church’.
Enough said.
Oh – and special guest a nice lady from the Humanist Society…
I kid you not.
“Should we really mark ourselves as Christian on the Census if we don’t regularly go to Church” Shows how much the BBC know about being Christian. Not that I am myself, but I’ve known plenty of people who have differing ideas about how they follow their religion and it doesn’t always mean going to church. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Can be seen as against idolatry…
I too happened to hear the abominable Mr Vine’s “discussion” on this. He didn’t disappoint on the banality of the points he was trying to spoon-feed is unfortunate listeners, in particular his question: “Is it OK for people to decide for themselves (whether they are a Christian or not)?”. Perhaps he should be the one to decide!
http://lunchtimeloather.blogspot.com/
That… is one seriously useful blog there.
I find the Jeremy Vine show to be one of the most risible examples of all that is wrong with todays’ MSM, and the BBC in particular.
The premise is ratings above all, with an unhealthy dose of rampant agenda on top, carefully controlled by choice of ‘guests’ and ‘selection’ of emails/vox pops.
All designed to work up a predominantly ovine audience whilst reassuring them, poor fools, that their voices are being heard.
With Jezza as ringmaster earn… getting paid millions ‘discussing’ the plight of those in poverty as the cuts bite or bankers are the only ones to not be worth their bonuses.
Latte, Panini and Hypocrisy Time, more like.
‘Humanist Society’ yee gods I have never met such a bunch of religious nutters who so believe in their faith as this lot !!well excluding the I.e.d religion of course !!
much like the tv tax,I won’t be co-operating with the census 😎
The last two articles linked to by the B-BBC reader in the post are both by the same BBC reporter John McManus. So that’s two reports from him presenting the humanist case within the space of a month. Those are his only contributions to the BBC website this year. Worse, the last report he did (back in December) was called Humanists call for new year resolutions to help others. This smells of an agenda – at least on his part. Could he possibly be a humanist himself?
Oh yes, his tweeting strongly suggests he is a humanist. He regularly re-tweets NewHumanist comments (& those by the National Secular Society). He describes himself as a “BBC journalist specialising in religion and world news”. His views expressed on Twitter are his, not the BBC’s. Or so he says.
Until he starts writing nothing but pro-humanist articles for the BBC.
He also seems not to like Melanie Phillips, Glenn Beck and right-wing tabloids. He also seems to prefer the Muslim Council to the State of Israel. He is, however, very keen on gay rights.
Yes his Twitter views in no way reflect those of the BBC!!!
If one wanted to create a parody of a metroplitan luvvie BBC tweeter then gay humanist supporter of Islam would just about do it. Can we be sure JohnMcM1 isn’t really Martin taking the piss?
We’ve seen this many times with the BBC (and other media organizations, if I’m honest). They want a certain viewpoint put forth, so they go get one to do an opinion piece according to the agenda. Their use of Michael Goldfarb is one example, and Daryl Lang is another classic. In each case, the opinion matches the BBC agenda, and isn’t an opposing viewpoint.
I’m too stupid to be trusted filling in a form on my own without the help of the BBC, so I hope they will send someone round to guide me to tick the right boxes. Have they had anyone on the BBC putting forth the position that if you don’t see yourself as a Christian you might be a Deist? You may want to embrace the future and call yourself a Muslim, it may well save a lot of hardship.
The LINK has been changed by the BBC.
Before it read, “Physics Predicts end of Religion”, now it reads “Extinction threat to religion”.. read into that what you may.
I don’t know why I’m so appalled anymore. This is standard practice for these ideologues, these bigots.
They will do literally anything to portray Christianity as the bad guy and something that must be snuffed out (although I’ve never seen a Christian in a bomb belt).
What do they intend to do with those of us who do follow the Judeo/Christian belief system? Drive us underground? Hand us over to the Muslim Authorities for “cleansing”?
Next stop: The United Kingdom of Islam, and it’s capital Londonistan. Melanie Phillips has it 100% right.
Will the last person out of Britain please turn out the lights.
And did anyone else notice Stavrakopoulou’s use of her first programme to throw doubt on the Jews’ historical association with the land of Israel?
Does anyone else know that the ‘humanist’ foundation is misnamed? They are a copy of the American ‘secular humanists’ whose godfather John Dewey stole the word humanist from the neo-humanists in order to neutralise them.
Now the neo-humanists, led by such figures as Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More, were not exactly traditional religious types but they were reasonably conservative, saw a lot of promise in religion and were concerned with protecting the dualism of mind and body, matter and soul against what they saw as the reductionist, and unproven, total materialist and naturalism of popular science and thought at the time.
In many ways this puts them quite at odds with those who are trying to capture the word humanist today. The neo or American humanists, who revived the term, were believers in the importance of free will, human dignity, responsibility, choice, imagination and liberal arts. All these are crucial to humanism as far as I can see; in what sense are the mostly reductionist, scientistic materialists of secular humanism really humanist then? They have little time for free will, human digntu, responsibility, imagination or even in the end the human. They’re frauds.
Btw for a mid-level attack on much modern thought Babbitt and More are an excellent read.
The point made by the British-pseudo-Humanist association spokesman in the article linked to is highly ironic. They’re saying the census pushes people into saying they’re religious. However what they’re trying to do is get people to say they’re not religious and then claim them as conscious atheists, scientistic materialists and secular (pseudo-) humanists.
This is highly inaccurate. The sort of thought out, conscious atheism of the likes of Dawkins(I’m not saying he’s thought it out well, simply that he has thought about it and has some basic idea of his position.) hasn’t increased that much in Britain today. Among the irreligious I’m sure New Age beliefs and the like dwarf this kind of atheism and certainly vague spirituality and religiosity do. Britain may be much more secular, agnostic and irreligious in recent decades but it is hardly atheist or secular (pseudo) humanist.
Btw can I say as a religious man that I love Dawkins and the New Atheists, they’re just such good opponents. They don’t have the intelligence of the likes of Hume and yet don’t quite have the tedious idiocy of the post-modernists and their ilk. I don’t know why the religious don’t take more advantage of such god-sent( 🙂 ) opponents.
dawkins has been challenged to a debate on revelation tv by DR Grady McMurtry
Jacob Prasch has also accepted an offer to debate if dawkins accepts
Jacob is a messianic jew who REALLY knows his stuff……should Dawkins fancy tackling him on theology he had better be on his toes!
I wouldn’t advise a debate before an audience that gets to vote for the winner. I’ve seen several where the religious side have done at least as well as the irreligious side, such as the BBC one with Stephen Fry, but the audience still voted greatly against the religious(ie they lost votes from the total favourable votes they had before the debate began.).
I suspect this has a lot to do with the unconscious popular prejudices of modern society against things like hierarchy, tradition, authority and restraint. This makes it a lot harder to win the masses over to traditional religion, even when you have the better argument.
Dawkins should be easy to beat in pure argument terms. What would be better though is someone with a bit of oratory skill who can really run rings around him and show him up.
William Lane Craig is the best Christian debater in the World. He humilated Christopher Hitchens, most atheists were embarrassed . He also managed to debate Dawkins even though Dawkins has been ducking Craig for decades. Craig make Dawkins look like a lying retarded imbecile.
Here is a taster of Craig as he pulls apart Peter Atkins. You won’t see any of this on the BBC.
I have just read a great book called The Plot to Kill God by Paul Froese. It is about the Secularisation of the Soviet Union by the atheists. Those secular atheists in the Soviet Union are probably working for the BBC, because some of their tactics are very similar. The promotion of scientific atheism and the ridicule of traditional religeous belief.
But here is an interesting conclusion from the book. Even though the atheists liquidated the clergy, closed down 92% of the churches and had secular humanist education for 70 years, the number of proffessing atheists was only 20% of the population. Now this is remarkable because atheists got better jobs housing food from the Communist State. And since the fall of the Soviet union the number of proffessing atheists have dropped to 5%.
The book also notes that the American Secular Humanists Association can only pull in around 5300 members, where as the southern Baptist Convention has around 16 million members.
No wonder why the BBC is into the minority thing. One can only hope the BBC goes the same way as the Soviet Union.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plot-Kill-God-Experiment-Secularization/dp/0520255291/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1
I’m at odds with this, I was christened, have been confirmed and got married in a CoE church.
Yet I do not go to church, so I am not a practising Christian. I have become tired of all forms of religion.
I became irked with religion when the wife (a teacher) tried to apply for a school job in our area (Blackburn), she fell at the first hurdle in all applications, (Are you a practising Christian?).
This riled me, because if I was employing in my line of work (Software Development), I couldn’t discriminate on grounds of race, sex or age, yet a non-practising Christian can be discriminated against.
Why shouldn’t employers discriminate? Discrimination shouldn’t be a magic word that makes everyone flinch. Injustice is what matters not discrimination; it can be unjust not to discriminate.
Anyhow that is hardly an argument against religion.
“atheist maverick archiologist Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s prime-time series on ‘Bible secrets’, which seeks to undermine the Bible by presenting highly controversial theories as fact”
That’s completely untrue. She repeatedly states that this is just her own interpretation of the historical evidence – “What I think is…”.
“…and atheist astrophysicist Professor Brian Cox, whose own prime-time series again presents theories on which there is often no scientific consensus as fact…”
Again, completely untrue. Unless of course you can come up with a couple of examples?
“All this at the very time when people are busily filling in their census forms. I seriously doubt whether it is coincidence.”
You provide three web links, two of which are about the census and you’re wondering if that has anything to do with the census?
Wow, nothing gets past you does it 😉
“That’s completely untrue. She repeatedly states that this is just her own interpretation of the historical evidence – “What I think is…”. ”
That’s fine, or it would be fine, if the BBC had many defences of traditional Christian positions in its programming, both documentaries/current affairs and entertainment. The BBC does not.
“Again, completely untrue. Unless of course you can come up with a couple of examples? ”
This doesn’t make sense. You say it is completely untrue and then suggest he might be able to provide examples that prove it is true.
Zed
has a habit of crawling out of his rat hole for a quick dig at what he thinks is an easy target
you’ll look long and hard to see him tackle the really meaty stuff
a bit like a pally terrorist in that respect
To say the ‘extinction of religion’ is utterly spurious in a scientific sense is to put it mildly.
London was a much higher proportion of the UK population in the past and a key indicator for trends in the whole country. In the eighteenth century communion was taken by between one and two per cent, and attendance even under duress was well well under half of all people. This before the French Revolution, Darwin, Dawkins or whatever. In the nineteenth century the middle and upper class were 12% of the whole population yet the majority of church goers came from this class in London and throughout the UK. Why choose the starting points the bBC do? Because it makes their figures suit themselves. Gordon Brown would be proud of them. Claiming today a dramatic fall off in followers of religion requires careful selection of when to compare figures to in order to deliberately give a false impression, it seems the bBC are well up on the game.
But come to think of it I like this bBC method, let me see, the bBC once had a 100% audience share when it had the monopoly up to 1955, By 1974 bBC1 the main channel still had 45% share. By 2005 it had fallen to 23%. Now it is at 20% and bBC2 has slumped to 7%. Using the bBC’s own extrapolation their extinction is soon. Maybe they are on to something after all.
Kitty,
“In the eighteenth century communion was taken by between one and two per cent, and attendance even under duress was well well under half of all people”
I’d like to know where you’ve got your figures from because they seem quite interesting. However, I fail to see anything in your (rather convoluted) argument which contradicts the suggestion that “religious affiliation” has been in terminal decline for the last 100 years. Or, for that matter, since the 18th century.
The study was about religion (not just Christianity), and in nine countries (not the UK).
“Why choose the starting points the BBC do?”
Don’t be silly; the people doing the study chose the starting points. The BBC are just reporting the study. Would you rather they didn’t?
come on Zed
move up the threads and tackle the really tough stuff instead of skulking around on almost dead ones in the middle of the night
I would be surprised if traditional religious observance fell much further. There are few members of traditional religious establishments who are not committed members. The word terminal decline is one of the problematic parts, I see no evidence to suggest a real extinction. Also as I pointed out the idea that this means that most of the irreligious are committed atheists and secular (pseudo-) humanists is silly. At the moment there are probably more traditional Christians in Britain than there are committed, thought-out philosophical atheists and secular (pseudo-) humanists.
The point of the BBC coverage is they rarely cover much that makes traditional religious look good and the reporter who covered this seems to be attached to the secular (pseudo-) humanist movement.