Yet another reason to not read the Sun

[Ashles]

The Sun newspaper has been carrying out a survey of beliefs. It has found that the majority of people still believe in a God in the UK. Fair enough.

What is slightly more offensive is the tone in today's paper which firstly implies that it is basically one in the eye for "Intellectuals and atheists".

Then the "award winning journalist and author" (I can't remember his name) goes on to add that this survey shows that we haven't all become, and I quote, "soft-minded and amoral".

WTF?

What a staggering moron. Okay I know he's writing for the Sun, and I also know I shouldn't have picked up a copy on the train, but really...

Why aren't atheist covered by these new religious offense laws?

Of course there is no-one with a belief in God in prison is there. Oh no. It must be entirely atheist and those damn "intellectuals".

It's really annoying.

Very brief outline of article

 

[dharlow]

I'm assuming that Bryan Appleyard wrote the article (his name was listed in the summary you posted). The latest (at least at my bookshop) Fortean Times had an interesting interview with Appleyard, who has recently published a book on alien abductions. I know a few years ago he reviewed the book on the Scole Spiritualist phemomena and was pretty (and justly) critical of it. However, he seems to have modified his views about mainstream science a bit recently, perhaps because of his work with abduction cases. At least that seemed to be my impression reading the FT interview in which he takes Hawking and Dawkins to task about some of their comments.

 

[lumos]

Why aren't atheist covered by these new religious offense laws?

Do y'all really have religious offense laws in the UK? What do you have to do and what are the penalties? I'm glad we still have freedom of speech here in the US. Sadly, George Bush is trying to eliminate that...

 

[geni]

Re: Re: Yet another reason to not read the Sun

Do y'all really have religious offense laws in the UK?

Not yet

What do you have to do and what are the penalties?

They wont tell us. With the reduced labour majority it may not get through.

 

[Ashles]

Re: Re: Yet another reason to not read the Sun

Do y'all really have religious offense laws in the UK? What do you have to do and what are the penalties? I'm glad we still have freedom of speech here in the US. Sadly, George Bush is trying to eliminate that...

I think you are confusing freedom of speech with laws to protect minority groups.

I can assure you that your speech is also not totally free. Try publicly saying you are going to assasinate the president or defamatory remarks about black people or Jews.

There are laws to prevent incitement to hatred towards minorities and religious groups, but recently there are plans to enable these laws to cover a wider area. Whether they will actually be acted upon is debateable - they have probably been suggested only to be used in very specific circumstances where the law was rather greyer before.
And they are designed to protect "The believer not the belief".

But I don't think there is any real difference in levels of freedom of speech between Western countries. Europe and America are pretty similar in freedom of speech.

Link to story about the new laws

Edited to change the words.

 

[lumos]

Re: Re: Re: Yet another reason to not read the Sun

I think you are confusing freedom of speech with laws to protect minority groups.

I can assure you that your speech is also not totally free. Try publicly saying you are going to assasinate the president or defamatory remarks about black people or Jews.

There are laws to prevent incitement to hatred towards minorities and religious groups, but recently there are plans to enable these laws to cover a wider area. Whether they will actually be acted upon is debateable - they have probably been suggested only to be used in very specific circumstances where the law was rather greyer before.
And they are designed to protect "The believer not the belief".

But I don't think there is any real difference in levels of freedom of speech between Western countries. Europe and America are pretty similar in freedom of speech.

Link to story about the new laws

Edited to change the words.

Freedom of speech does not give you the freedom to threaten to harm or kill. It does not give you the freedom to do harm to others. I can, however, say anything I want about any racial or religious groups and nobody can put me in jail. I may become unpopular and people may not like it, but the government won't do anything about it. (Look at the KKK or any other white supremist neo-nazi group here.) As long as I am not defamatory or threatening to an individual or group of individuals, my opinions and beliefs are protected by law (not by society, however).

 

[Ashles]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Yet another reason to not read the Sun

Freedom of speech does not give you the freedom to threaten to harm or kill. It does not give you the freedom to do harm to others. I can, however, say anything I want about any racial or religious groups and nobody can put me in jail. I may become unpopular and people may not like it, but the government won't do anything about it. (Look at the KKK or any other white supremist neo-nazi group here.) As long as I am not defamatory or threatening to an individual or group of individuals, my opinions and beliefs are protected by law (not by society, however).

Well okay, that's the same as over here then.

 

[Matabiri]

I'm assuming that Bryan Appleyard wrote the article (his name was listed in the summary you posted).

Bryan Appleyard shows up occasionally in other papers, posing as an atheist/sceptic. I usually get about a third of the way into his articles before I can't take any more of him.