The Veil Debate

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Some very interesting reasons posted for why religion should remain on the school syllabus.

Maybe it's just me and the life I live / choices I make, some of which have led to my getting a few seriously bad kickings from the 'morally correct' and 'religiously decent' in society. You know.., good Christians..? Not to mention that many believe that gays or bisexuals should be burned at the stake or stoned to death for the 'sins' they deem our lifestyle to be...

I have nothing but utter contempt for any religion that endorses this hatred and all of them seem to do so. I watched a show recently where a young, British born, Muslim woman who couldn't string two words together coherently, openly stated that homosexuality was sick and anyone 'doin' it' should be punished. At the time I thought 'she'd look nice with a strap-on bomb around her chest and no target to take out. She was also wearing a veil. Why are imbeciles like these being encouraged?

What I have to say next might seem odd for an Irish rebel to point out but seriously; what about all the people who died for Britain during the 1st and 2nd World Wars? Didn't they fight to remove fascism from the planet? It makes absolutely no sense that a diseased individual like Hitler was fought, if we're now going to allow even more condescending, judgmental morons access to call the shots.

I understand fully that religion has played a major part in the development of history, but most horrific scenes from history where thousands of people have been killed to further a message of 'love' is completely screwed up. Isn't it time that humanity faced up to the fact that there is no god? We are here on the planet due to evolution and if we don't wipe ourselves out in religious wars, we might yet see a time when everyone is equal and the mistakes of history are not repeated...

Take a look at just one significant story from the bible; Christ's death. Like Delph pointed out, the whole symbol of 'the cross' can only be viewed as an implement of suffering and torture. Yet the tale of his death is glorified as something to look upon with wonder... 'The Ressurection' to me was a story made up to protect the emotions of the weakened who bought into it all in the first place. All I see when I read about the death of Christ is a reason to view martyrdom as acceptable and we all know where martyrdom leads. Yip, suicide bombers and American Baptist soldiers, bombing and killing in the name of their gods...

Christ, if he existed, fought the Roman Empire on idealogical grounds. He also supposedly took on the might of conventional Judean preachers. He endorsed equality and got murdered for daring to speak out. So did Mahatma Ghandhi and Martin Luther King. I'm sure there are loads more. It would appear that anyone campaigning for a more harmonious world is targeted by the 'morally correct' at any given time. They are normally the people spouting pious religious beliefs.

That is what has to be stopped. This is why I believe religion should not be taught to the young and impressionable minds of children in our schools and anyone campaigning for the right to wear veils and practice even more dogmatic faith should be told to piss off. Like I asked earlier; would the faiths of the Western World be accepted in the homelands of veil-wearing religions?

IMAGINE

Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...

Imagine no possessions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.

I have edited this thread to correct mispelling of 'religious' and tighten up grammar in all of my posts.

[Catherine Edmunds]

Lugh, your arguments are precisely the reason why there should be religious education. Remember; the word is education, not indoctrination.

The stupid, ignorant and bigoted will always be with us. The only effective weapon against their views is education.

The argument about the existence or not of God is a red herring here. If people are educated, rather than indoctrinated, then they are empowered to make up their own minds on that one. I don't for one moment think the removal of the concept of 'God' would solve all the ills of the world, but that is an argument for another day.

When I was little, I thought that the people my parents referred to as 'natives' were only just out of the jungle, and that 'we' were far more advanced. Without education, maybe that view would have stayed with me. Maybe I'd now be the worst kind of racist. Luckily for me, I became educated, so that years later when my next door neighbour was a kindly Jamaican lady, I didn't avoid her in fear and hatred. Unfortunately for her, when I moved away, her new neighbour was a fascist pig with a couple of vicious alsatians, whose education had clearly been lacking. (The pig, that is. The alsatians were probably bright enough.)

Bigotry of all kinds can only be fought with education. It is based, after all, on misinformation. Give people unbiased information, and teach them the sense of what the Jesus who is depicted in the Bible was trying to get across (or the Prophet, or any other great religious leaders) and you're half way to removing bigotry. Teach them nothing of these matters, and their bigotry is free to flourish.

That's why you need religious education.

Oh yeah, and Lugh, 'religious' has two 'i's and one 'e'...

[spacecadet]

The reaction to the Pope pretty much summed up the situation for me. It was along the lines of "Anyone who says Muslims are violent should be killed". What more can you add to the debate?

[spacecadet]

....and don't get me started on John "Lennin".

He wasn't a working class hero. He was brought up in a nice area and went to art college. If he was working class he would have been slinging crates down the docks.

As for Imagine........ well it's easy to imagine no possessions when your flitting between your New York penthouse and your pad in L.A..

Fantasatic musician he was and the simplistic beauty of his music almost reminds me of the likes of Mozart. He was a genius. Until he opened his gob.

[Catherine Edmunds]

What more? You can add that it is vital to remember that these views are those of a small minority of militant extremists, and are not even remotely the views of the ordinary Muslim in the street.

Look, Muslims are ordinary people, same as Christians, Hindus, Jews, Wiccans, Sikhs, atheists, or anyone else. Some of them are total nutters - same as Christians, Hindus, etc. Most of them are just ordinary folks getting on with their lives and wondering why the hell they're supposed to be upset about a nativity play in a school, or an easter egg, or anything else. They're not upset about those things; but they are upset about the way they're being demonised; about the way a minority in their midst is making life so bloody hard for them.

They need more people to speak up for them in order to prevent this creeping bigotry, and I, for one, am quite happy to do so.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Hi folks ...

I'm going to respond to these replies one at a time because each are highly deserving of healthy debate. So if I screw up with the quote/reply thing on here, please bear with me. Thanks.

Lugh, your arguments are precisely the reason why there should be religious education. Remember; the word is education, not indoctrination.

The stupid, ignorant and bigoted will always be with us. The only effective weapon against their views is education.

Ok, but if it is taught in a way that is free of all dogmatism e.g; 'Class, today we are going to discuss the role Jesus Christ's story played in history. Christ was a Hebrew who rebelled against the hatred going on at his time. Some say he was the son of God, put here on earth to provide enlightenment and a message of universal respect for everyone else', then yes, that might work. Likewise for Mohammad. Mind you, I believe the first question kids would ask would be 'What is god?' Or, 'what is Hebrew?' Already it's going down the path of teaching the history of seperatism. Dangerous stuff religion, even if taught without dogma...

Above you say "the word is education not indoctrination" and I agree, but letting someone who wishes to acknowledge her subjugation through a faith that sees women as inferior/unequal really shouldn't be encouraged in such an environment or anywhere for that matter. Seriously Delph; who is going to listen to a teacher talk about religion and its history in a positive way if that teacher's assistant puts on a veil everytime a man walks into the room because the branch / sect of her religion that she follows instructs her to do so?



The image above is really quite ridiculous if in a placement where freedom to advance through learning or questioning is supposedly the order of the day. By the same token, if a Catholic priest wanted to sprinkle holy water all over anyone who took the lord's name in vein or spread the notions of demons or guilt, or an evangelican preacher wanted to lay her/his hands on the masses to heal them in the name of Jesus, I would take issue.

The argument about the existence or not of God is a red herring here. If people are educated, rather than indoctrinated, then they are empowered to make up their own minds on that one. I don't for one moment think the removal of the concept of 'God' would solve all the ills of the world, but that is an argument for another day.

Yes, but it is part of the whole 'God' or 'no God' scenario. Are all the advantages of living in Britain / Europe where the art of conversation has been hard fought for, going to be allowed to fall by the wayside because of a few dogmatic faiths, followed by uneducated people who believe it is wrong to have an alternative opinion or freedom of speech?

This is what I am talking about. For most of our lives we have been encouraged to rationalise and come to our own conclusions about gods. Some people see advantage in teaching morality through the medium of a fairytale like the bible but moderation steps in when it becomes fanatical.

If fanatics who follow these faiths blindly are allowed anymore leverage, then we will all take a few steps backwards in our progress and their dogma will become even more mainstream. We will allow ourselves to become as subjugated as the woman campaigning to wear her veil in the classroom. We would openly acknowledge that homophobia was ok because 'God / Allah' disapproves and if we dared speak out, we would find ourselves on the recieving end of extremist violence.

I'll lighten the atmosphere a bit here and say that we are a cluster of countries that believed 35 to 40 years ago that war was wrong, governments were corrupt and peaceful co-existence was on the agenda. This was known as the time of the 'Hippie'. Stop The War (in Vietnam), Long hair, colourful clothing, smoking pot, dropping acid, writing music and songs, painting pictures and coming to our own idealogical conclusions based on or gained through meaningful conversation and freedom of expression, were the things people campaigned for.

Then there was the Punk generation who directly confronted all notions of unreasonable order and in my opinion very healthily spat in the face of government. Are their beliefs, now so much a part of the culture we live in, to be thrown aside to accommodate people who haven't risen above extremist violence in the name of their god or their sectarianism / sexism?

I know you to be a highly talented artist and writer Delph. Hypothetically, if you painted a picture depicting the times we are living in now and it offended a few Christians, Jews or Muslims so much so that they damaged either your work, lifestyle or reputation, would you not take issue? It is the 'veil - wearing' or 'demonising preachers and priests' among us who police art with perverse notions of morality. Giving them anymore openings in our advancing society would be a form of intellectual mass suicide.

When I was little, I thought that the people my parents referred to as 'natives' were only just out of the jungle, and that 'we' were far more advanced. Without education, maybe that view would have stayed with me. Maybe I'd now be the worst kind of racist. Luckily for me, I became educated, so that years later when my next door neighbour was a kindly Jamaican lady, I didn't avoid her in fear and hatred. Unfortunately for her, when I moved away, her new neighbour was a fascist pig with a couple of vicious alsatians, whose education had clearly been lacking. (The pig, that is. The alsatians were probably bright enough.)

Bigotry of all kinds can only be fought with education. It is based, after all, on misinformation. Give people unbiased information, and teach them the sense of what the Jesus who is depicted in the Bible was trying to get across (or the Prophet, or any other great religious leaders) and you're half way to removing bigotry. Teach them nothing of these matters, and their bigotry is free to flourish.

The woman wishing to wear her veil in the classroom and further the notions of a seperate identity, or her right to practice a faith that is opposed to the civil liberties we have come to expect, is a bigot. She was most probably schooled through fear of men and in a cultural enclave that inflicts violence on anyone opposed to her religion.

However, and it must not be forgotten, she is a European / UK resident with the right to take issue with the environment she lives in. Realistically, if she were in the homeland of her religion and expressing what she thought were her rights, she would be ostracised or stoned to death for having an opinion. Women in the homelands of her faith are not allowed opinions. That is clearly condoned by the males who preach her religion. She is attempting to advance the notion that they are right. That is a form of bigotry.

That's why you need religious education.

If it is taught in an equal environment, free of separatism and as part of the Social Studies / World History syllabus then yes, but is it possible to forward any religious education without causing or exacerbating tensions borne from all the ignorance it generates?

Oh yeah, and Lugh, 'religious' has two 'i's and one 'e'...

Would you believe if I told you I used to spell 'religious' the right way but was corrected on MSN The Pleasure Dome one day by a member who said it was spelled 'religeous'?

I have edited this thread to correct mispelling of 'religious' and tighten up grammar in all of my posts.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

The reaction to the Pope pretty much summed up the situation for me. It was along the lines of "Anyone who says Muslims are violent should be killed". What more can you add to the debate?

All the Pope needs is a good man to love him ...

....and don't get me started on John "Lennin".

He wasn't a working class hero. He was brought up in a nice area and went to art college. If he was working class he would have been slinging crates down the docks.

As for Imagine........ well it's easy to imagine no possessions when your flitting between your New York penthouse and your pad in L.A..

Fantasatic musician he was and the simplistic beauty of his music almost reminds me of the likes of Mozart. He was a genius. Until he opened his gob.

Fair enough, but he earned the money to buy his different houses legitimately. He worked in both countries and practically speaking it was wiser to own properties in both.

Maybe he went to art school so he could avoid working down at the docks slinging crates. Aren't we all educating ourselves out of slave labour jobs?

He was an exceptional musician with a keen mind and critical eye on the powers governing us all. He spread a message of tolerance and campaigned against New World Order by singing about equality. He was opposed to religion and felt compelled to share his belief through the mediums of music and song.

If he hadn't been shot dead by that retarded fuckwit; Mark David Chapman, then the Ayatullah, Pope or President would most probably have had him stiffed to maintain their hate agendas.

Let's not forget he also managed in his brief time on the planet to annoy the white supremacists / Ku Klux Klan and send his OBE back to the Queen. Anyone who can do that earns my unwavering support and undying affection...

He could have just as easily become an art student / singer/songwriter without a conscience and allowed bigots to tear him apart. He didn't. He took a stand.

Salute...

I have edited this thread to correct mispelling of 'religious' and tighten up grammar in all of my posts.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

What more? You can add that it is vital to remember that these views are those of a small minority of militant extremists, and are not even remotely the views of the ordinary Muslim in the street.

Look, Muslims are ordinary people, same as Christians, Hindus, Jews, Wiccans, Sikhs, atheists, or anyone else. Some of them are total nutters - same as Christians, Hindus, etc. Most of them are just ordinary folks getting on with their lives and wondering why the hell they're supposed to be upset about a nativity play in a school, or an easter egg, or anything else. They're not upset about those things; but they are upset about the way they're being demonised; about the way a minority in their midst is making life so bloody hard for them.

I agree with you entirely Delph but people like Aishah Azmi (the veil - wearing fanatic) are a threat to us all.

They need more people to speak up for them in order to prevent this creeping bigotry, and I, for one, am quite happy to do so.

So am I mate, but only if they get off their knees and prayer mats and explore their individuality and personal space. I'm most certainly not going to waste any time 'getting in there' to fix them. They would kill me for that...

I have edited this thread to correct mispelling of 'religious' and tighten up grammar in all of my posts.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

It would appear this could get a whole lot worse before it gets better, according to Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.

I still think there is much more tolerance in Europe, Ireland and the UK for these religious sects than there would be for anyone of a differing faith in the homelands of these religions.

Hyperlink is to The Guardian Online;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/stor ... 45,00.html

[spacecadet]

I still think there is much more tolerance in Europe, Ireland and the UK for these religious sects than there would be for anyone of a differing faith in the homelands of these religions.

My point exactly.

[spacecadet]

The debate goes on.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

The debate goes on.

Nice one Dave.

What is becoming increasingly alarming is that a minority group are holding everyone else to ransom. Slag off their dogmatism and get a violent response. Attempt to negotiate with them and be seen to be interfering. Don't arrest criminals within their communities during their times of prayer or face revenge attacks. Ignore their plight and be viewed as complacent. There is no compromise with people like this and tensions are going to escalate. Civil disturbance is on the way.

Trevor Phillips is 100% right when he says Britain is becoming polarised and at the core of all of this are the fanatical views of one side and the xenophobic views of another. Both are equally wrong. Both have no place in a cosmopolitan / progressive society. Both have absolutely nothing to hinge their futures on but fucked up notions from the past.

Ban religion. Suffer the inevitable backlash that will either burn itself out as people become acustomed to a new way of living. Or the fanatics continue their barbaric ignorance until all that will be left at the end are the people who want it all to stop.

I will add to this and say that the British Government have a vested interest in fuelling the fire and letting this all spiral out of control. As fools fight the 'establishment' earns fat contracts arming all sides.

Certain Muslims are angry because of what is happening in the homelands of their religion. I can't say I blame them for that, but to assume they can enforce their faith on everyone else simply is not on.

The 'establishment' also wins when it arms policing agencies, closes down airports, demonises all people from Islamic backgrounds, condones or refuses to speak out against shoot-to-kill policies and brands anyone with an alternative view, a terrorist. They are past masters at this and many make a shapely income from inciting hate.

Tomorrow night on Channel 4, Dispatches have a debate special hosted by Jon Snow at 8pm; Muslims and Free Speech. Anyone interested in understanding all that lies at stake in this current situation would do well to watch it...

Hyperlinks in this post are to bbc.co.uk;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6074286.stm
Channel 4's Dispatches;
http://www.channel4.com/news/microsites ... index.html

[spacecadet]

I suppose one way to take the discussion further would be to find a run down area of a large town or city, congregate into two polarised mobs and shout your point of view while throwing rubble at each other. Best to torch a few cars for extra lighting after dark.

If an argument is worth having then it's worth rioting about.

Incidentally, my experience of the "Race" riots of the early eighties was standing amongst Asian, Black and White people who were all having a jolly good time throwing bits of the public highway at policemen.

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

hahahahhahaha - g'wan ya rascal ...

Laughing my head off here mate.

Did you throw any bricks and were you all singing this?

Hyperlink to Google's Youtube;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28TeUbYvXS0

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Oh, forgot to say. Dave, please don't burn any cars in here. It takes ages to get rid of the stink and the curtains have to be dry cleaned...

Cheers ...