A rather pious Sunday from the Daily Mail

I'm going on a short break until the end of my libel case; it's taking up far too much of my time so something has to give and this blog is it. However, I couldn't resist posting once more after being alerted to some rather religious indignation over at the Sunday Mail (Sunday edition of the Daily Mail) - courtesy of Angry Mob.

Firstly , the front page contains this rather startling headline...

Who is the Mail writing to? The "year of our lord"??? Our???

Do Muslims read the Mail? Probably. Sihks? Hindus? Jains? Atheists? Buddhists? I hate to think how many people this headline excludes.

But then the target audience for the Mail is not liberal minded persons with ideas about equality and fairness.

It's a newspaper for the person who says "I'm not a racist but..."

Moving on from the headline, it turns into a rant about the BBC replacing BC/AD with BCE/CE. They need some religious outrage, and it is duly supplied by the Rev Peter Mullen:

"This is absurd political correctness and these new terms do not mean anything to anyone. I think it's an example of the BBC trying to undermine Christianity by pushing an aggressive secularism."

As opposed to a minority religion pushing aggressive religious dogma in using a term that no-one was consulted on? And despite the BBC saying:

"The BBC has not issued editorial guidance on the date systems. Both AD and BC, and CE and BCE are widely accepted date systems and the decision on which term to use lies with individual production and editorial teams."

I swear the idea that Christians are somehow victims in some crazy secular vision is nonsense. And Rev Peter Mullen just demonstrates his ignorance and, once again, how out of touch he is.

On the inside pages, deceased Jade Goody's Mother made this rather surprising claim:

And another pious story is arrived at shortly after and this time it's about police brutality... (allegedly)

The guy owns a cafe and  displayed bible passages which are now considered homophobic (most of the bible is considered completely irrelevant if you didn't know). This guy was, in all honesty, standing up for his right to display homophobic messages in his own cafe.

The owner said:

"At no stage had they [the Police] spoken to me like I was a law-abiding citizen trying to earn a living. I felt like a criminal."

Is the Mail now the first port of call for complaining about oppressive police tactics? I would have thought that the best route would have been the force's Chief Inspector or the IPCC...

The final story is the best. Bestiality in fact.

It's not the story that is relevant here... it's the comment from a Mail reader:

If this is a genuine comment, then it speaks for itself.

So, the message to take away from the this edition of the Mail on Sunday is that if secularism has it's way in removing relics of Christianity to meet the needs of modern society then not only does this lead to racist ex-big brother contestants having their babies sent from heaven die but this will prevent homophobic cafe owners from making a living promoting their hateful material...

...leading to everyone sleeping with their pets.

Prayer prescriptions

On the 22nd September 2011 a hearing will take place conducted by the General Medical Council:

Doctor Richard Scott found himself in hot holy water back in May this year after a patient's relative complained about him pushing his faith onto the patient in question. The GMC agreed with the patient's version of events and issue a warning letter which Dr Scott refused to accept. He wanted to keep doling out prayer prescriptions so he contacted the Christian Legal Centre and the above hearing is taking place to establish whether he deserves a warning or not.

The ECHURCH Blog says:

"On the face of it, it would appear that this “Official Warning” is unwarranted, if indeed the medical consultation was concluded and the discussion of faith was with consent."

No-one has access to the GMC files or decision making process. If a patient makes a complaint which concerns misconduct and the GMC has investigated it to the extent that they feel a warning is necessary then it has to be accepted "on the face of it" regardless of whether we feel the decision is right or wrong. This is because we do not have access to the full set of facts enabling us to decry the decision and support Dr Scott. If the discussion was with consent, there would have been no complaint worth taking. The fact a complaint was made demonstrates, on the face of it, that Dr Scott stepped over the line.

The TelegraphView says:

"Nevertheless, the mother of one of those with whom he raised it complained. Indeed, she was perfectly entitled to do so – but we cannot see how her complaint can be grounds for the GMC to take action against Dr Scott. After all, no one maintains that he ever forced religion on anyone, or that his faith ever impeded his ability to dispense medical care."


Again, we do not know the complaint detail so it is tricky to decide whether it was a meritous complaint or not. Considering the GMC thought it was a complaint worthy of warning Dr Scott over, perhaps we should accept that there were grounds. But if she was entitled to make a complaint, why wouldn't it be grounds for the GMC to take action? I suspect it was poor phrasing from the writer which made it look like they were contradicting themselves...

The bold type, emphasis mine, is pretty much what the complaint was about otherwise the GMC would not have investigated the complaint. There must have been an element of forcing his religion on the person subject to the complaint otherwise Dr Scott was playing by the rules. The GMC don't tend to raise phony cases.

So what did Dr Scott say about the matter? Here is a video clip of his version of events. Two comments stand out:

1) “I encourage people to come down to our local Church.”

This is, in my opinion, forcing his religion onto a person. Dr Scott does not want a general chat about faith; he wants people to join his Church. This is his words on the matter and he says he has offered it to thousands of patients. So, not a one off and clearly a demonstration of Dr Scott's motives which has impacted upon his duty to dispense medical care because he has caused harm/distress to a patient. That seems to me to be the reasoning behind the GMC decision based on the information available to us all. And the last part of the GMC hearing notice appears to state that they acknowledge his media comments on the subject to be an admission that this was the case:

"It is further alleged that Dr Scott subsequently confirmed, via national media, that he had sought to suggest his own faith had more to offer than that of the patient."


So there is clearly more going on within the investigation than just an innocent chat and hopefully the details will be released in good time.

2) “I offered a needy patient a way out of the situation”

Religious arrogance. Crikey... you can smell the smugness a mile away. The only way out of a medical situation, to my knowledge, is with medical intervention. This is how we have extended lifetimes and better quality of health. It's remind me of a quote:

Give a man a fish and he'll feed himself for a day. Give him a net and he can feed his family for lifetime. Give a man prayer and he'll die praying for a fish.

So we have motive of Dr Scott and the means to employ his brand of dogmatism. The GMC decision to warn him seems light in regards to the thousands he has "helped" in this way. His beliefs seem to drive his career; indeed Dr Scott used to be a missionary in Africa and this is not a criticism. It's a worthy endeavour. But if you allow religious beliefs to be a part of the scientific methodology of medicine then heed these words from a fellow GP:

Dr Shaba Nabi, a GP in Bristol, said:

"To even consider bringing religion into consultations is unacceptable. It's as bizarre as bringing up witchcraft or folklore. I'm extremely respectful of patients that are religious. That is their personal belief, but we shouldn't bring our personal beliefs into consultations."

And this is what it is all about. Imagine a Satanist GP offering 'tactful' advice to a patient who looked "needy". I imagine the Christians would not be so 'tolerant' then.

But this isn't a harmless story about the tooth fairy in a Dentist's surgery... imagine a Dentist who took the tooth-fairy literally!

Scary thought!

The Telegraph then proceed to slide into the typical victimisation routine containing irrelevancies, fallacies and bullshit... a reet ole' recipe!

"What, then, is the fuss about? The GMC's excessive reaction is part of a tendency: a number of institutions and companies have, in a misguided attempt to be "multicultural", banned Christian symbols and overt expressions of faith, something that would never be attempted in the case of other religions."

The GMC would have been more than aware of the spotlight on religion but chose to make a decision based on the evidence they held. There is even the inference that Dr Scott withheld information relevant to the investigation. 

The GMC actually supports, wrongly in my view, "offers of prayer" by medical staff. Hardly the actions of an organisation banning the Jesus Cult. Nor has the GMC stated that other faiths have more rights in this area than Christianity/

The writers of the articles simply jump to conclusions that do not exist. Classic signs of paranoia and don't the Christians just love to be victims!

"And yet the Christian faith is central to our country's history and our traditions. Its legacy is visible everywhere."

Yes, but in a secular society there is no longer any need to put Christianity above any other faith. That's sort of the point of secularism. But an argumentum ad antiquitatem is always on weak grounds. Society has changed and Christian church attendances are dropping. No reason to place Christianity above any other religion whatsoever.

"It is right that today, no one expects a person who holds positions of power and responsibility to be a practising Christian. But we appear to be heading towards an alarming situation in which the profession of faith becomes an active disqualification."

I have never heard of a case where someone has been sacked or treated differently for holding a private belief. Where that belief causes an issue within the law then there is an approach that is taken to put a stop to it. Where that belief contravenes a code of conduct you are damn right that it should be dealt with via the sanctions available. 

This would apply to Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims and Atheists alike; no-one should be subjected to questions about faith upon their admission to hospital because medical care is not there to pander to cultural desires.

People need to accept that medicine is going to help/save them, or at least make them comfortable, and that this will be done without preference to any one religion.

My gut instinct is that prayer is simply the offer of false consolation. I could point to studies which show that the efficacy of prayer is non-existent but this would offer some sort of admission that the point is worth discussing. It's not. 

Prayer simply does not work. Never has done.

Medical staff who think it does should be willing to place their heads above the parapet and leave the profession and set up ministries healing people and then compare their success rates with that of a hospital. The faith heads can then admit that prayer doesn't work and should be kept out of the medical profession once and for all.

My guess is that the challenge will not be accepted. Have a guess why?

Alan Craig's Homosexuality Issues

This is going back a couple of months but it concerns an article on "Anglican Mainstream" whereby it discusses the curious case of a mild mannered and self effacing married couple going about their law abiding work in running a guest house in Cornwall.

The sign on their guest-house rules board read:

“Here at Chymorvah we have few rules, but please note that as Christians we have a deep regard for marriage (being the union of one man to one woman for life to the exclusion of all others). Therefore, although we extend to all a warm welcome to our home, our double-bedded accommodation is not available to unmarried couples. Thank you.”

Alan Craig, the author of the article in question, says:

"Just 90 miles away in Torquay, Devon, is “the UK’s first and only” gay men’s resort which, amongst other things, has been happy to promote its sauna with photos of male genitalia on its website. In March this year I challenged the EHRC about the resort on the basis that what is sauce for the straight goose should be sauce for the gay gander too, but they declined to take action. To the equalities watchdog it seems some are more equal than others."

I think I see what the problem is.

Alan Craig is very happy at being able to go to a guest-house in Cornwall where the owners break the law... but what he really wants to be able to do is party with the homosexual crowd. He simply feels he cannot do so because this gay sauna seems to be "more equal that others". 

Clearly gay people must become more straight, and then this gay resort will be open to be people like Alan Craig to visit? 

But then it wouldn't be a gay resort. Just, ah, um, a resort.

One wonders how far Alan Craig will truly go in the search for male genitalia to support his arguments in the future? Because in his article he doesn't seem to use it for a single argument as to why the mild mannered and self effacing couple should not have been punished by the law for an oppressive and 14th century policy of refusing to allow same sex couples to share a bed. 

He seems to only conclude that because there is a gay resort, there needs to be a place for straight people to stay too. Well guess what, straight people can stay at a "gay resort". That's because gay people don't give a shiny turd whether you are straight or not. 

Granted, the gay resort in Devon restricts persons who are not gay or bisexual. But why oh why would a straight person want to go to a gay resort, with all of that open homosexuality on offer and male genitalia hanging out? And if you were "straight" but wanted to go to a gay resort you could clearly register as a bisexual and be covered. There you go Alan Craig... that's an idea for ya!

But equally the UK's population is overwhelming heterosexual and it's a percentage close to 0.00000000001% that you are going to be turned away from an establishment based on your heterosexual tendencies. So perhaps it's fine to allow homosexuals a refuge to engage in their anti-god practices and safe from the prejudices of the pious communities who have helped spread homophobia throughout the ages?

Perhaps I am forgetting that case where a straight person was beaten to death by a gang of homosexuals because of their creepy "straightness"? Or perhaps there is a prominent campaigner for heterosexual issues that was butchered for speaking out against ignorance? 

Oh... looks like those should be the other way around doesn't it?

They should have stayed at the gay resort that Alan Craig has highlighted. Maybe they can take Alan Craig along with them such is the curiosity on display?

Still, staying at home to look at male genitalia is far more fun. And no doubt Alan Craig can probably find some more faith based stories to use the argumentum ad mal genitalia in the future...

...so the research continues