Secular convocation vs fundie radio
Oct 25th, 2008 | By Ian Bushfield | Category: MediaSo I’ve been having a media circus in Edmonton here over trying to change one line from the convocation charge. The best so far was the radio interview I agreed to without looking into (I still would have done it had I known).
The station is AM 930 The Light. On their website is featured ads for Focus on the Family and Christ Centred Professionals Club (among others). This showed me that it would be a very en”light”ening interview.
I recorded the stream and posted it on my blog. Check it out there and see how far into the call ins you can get (hint: they advertise Expelled several times).
Last 5 posts by Ian Bushfield
- What’s happening in Canada? - December 4th, 2008
- More reassuring news on Obama - November 10th, 2008
- A skeptical White House? - November 9th, 2008
- Talk of change or more of the same? - November 6th, 2008
- Apply science to colloquialisms - November 4th, 2008
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I made it through the entire clip, and I’m glad I did. The first and penultimate callers made sensible points, despite the obvious closed-mindedness of the show’s presenter, who’s arguments were feeble in the extreme.
I would, however, take issue with the idea of ‘offence’ in the context of offending religious or non-religious beliefs. It may work in the short term to complain that such-and-such offends someone’s beliefs, but that is exactly what the fundamentalist Christians and Muslims are doing. I don’t think non-believers should be using this same tactic in response. Rather, I would assert that ‘offence’ is something that should not be an issue in matters of faith - so no-one can claim offence as a legitimate reason for censorship, on either side.
Favourite quote from the clip: “The film was lying.” I saw ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ for the first time a couple of days ago, and was appalled - not so much at the ‘lies’ about why some creation scientists lost their jobs (I understand that the website http://www.expelledexposed.com has convincingly exposed the lies of ‘Expelled’ in this respect) - but at the blatant and completely unjustified linking of Darwinism with Nazism. That this spurious relationship is implied from the very first frame of the movie shows that the producers had an obvious agenda, and that they didn’t implement that agenda very well (although judging by some of the fundie responses to the film, I can’t help wondering whom its target was intended to be).
I wish you success in your campaign.
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Tauriq Moosa Reply:
October 25th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
I agree with you on the matter of offence - I unfortunately have not heard your interview, Ian, but I imagine you did admirably (duh). But PaulJ, I think this is very true as was argued by Stephen Fry & Hitchens (if I’m not mistaken) in The Great Blasphemy debate they had. To paraphrase Stephen Fry:
“I never understand offence. People say: ‘Oh that offends me.’ Well? So fucking what?”
That made me laugh
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You had to love the last caller though, who kept listing all the religious schools in the region, saying: “Look, if you have a problem with the rest of the world not being Christian, there are schools for you. The evil Secular Humanist World Conspiracy/Enigma Babylon One World Mystery Religion hasn’t done away with them.”
A few of those callers seemed to think the opposite of Secularism if Christianity. What a Christo-centric view! Fallacious, too, when you’ve got all those OTHER religions. The kind of other religions whose existence made me question mine in the first place.
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I support the liberohomosecularazi agenda: gay sex, communism, moral relativism, godlessness, church-closing, satan-worshipping, baby-eating, and abortions for all!
GO OBAMA!
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