Birmingham ban anathematizes atheism
In a deeply stupid move Birmingham City Council has blocked its vast army of employees from accessing atheist websites. The atheist sites are blocked under a policy that prevents staff access to ’sites that promote witchcraft, the paranormal, sexual deviancy and criminal activity’, says the BBC. It’s not quite clear into which of these categories atheism is deemed to fall.
The National Secular Society says the move is discriminatory (and it does look that way, given that sites relating to ’Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions’ are apparently not being blocked, but atheist sites are) and they intend to fight the Birmingham ban. However, this quote from National Secular Society President Terry Anderson caught my eye:
It is discriminatory not only against atheists but they also are banning access to sites to do with witchcraft. Witchcraft these days is called Wicca, which is an actual legitimate and recognised religion.
It’s nothing of the sort: everything about ‘wicca’ from its name downwards is a load of made-up tosh. But then the opinion of a professional secularist on what is or is not a legitimate religion is bound to be a little warped.
July 29th, 2008 at 04:43 pm
How do you distinguish “made up tosh” from all the other religions? Walking on water, the dead rising again, and multi-armed blue goddesses AREN’T made up tosh?
July 29th, 2008 at 05:08 pm
The point I was seeking to make is that something seems a little wrong when the president of the National Secular Society is describing any religion as ‘legitimate’, particularly when the religion concerned is as patently faked-up as ‘wicca’.
July 29th, 2008 at 09:24 pm
Of course it is made up! But God was guiding the person who was making it up. And since you can’t see him, how can you decide which religion he was behind?
Honestly, if you tossed out “made up” religions, you’d have to dump them ALL.
July 30th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
You seem to feel that I am not addressing apples effectively in my post, when it was in fact about oranges.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:34 am
I understood what you meant