BENEATH an hysterical headline in today’s Dail Wail - How cash meant for promoting faith is going to an organisation that campaigns AGAINST Christianity - someone called Steve has left this comment:
Christianity is dead in the UK – RIP bible bashers! As for the other muppet religions, they should be banned. Well done Labour, keep up the good work!
This has infuriated Wail readers, who have given it a negative rating of almost 100, which we think is a little harsh. So let’s see if we can lift its approval rating from out the red and into the green, if only to annoy readers further.
The gist of the Wail’s article is that some money – a paltry few thousand – has been given to the British Humanist Society by the Government – and the BHA, as we all know, was a major player in the Atheism on the Buses campaign.
Writer Ariane Sherine and Prof Richard Dawkins launch the Atheism on the Buses campaign
Contrast that with the millions spent each year by the Government on various initiatives designed to increase the influence of religion in schools and in a variety of public institutions, like hospitals, prisons and the armed forces.
Said the Wail:
The cash is supposed to be used to build ‘faith communities’ but has been given to a controversial group accused of aggressively promoting atheism.
There’s more of this garbage by reporter James Chapman. Opposition MPS, he wrote, have accused the BHA:
Of attempting to bully town halls into tearing down religious images, axing funding for Christian groups and scrapping Christian worship in school assemblies.
According to parliamentary questions tabled by Caroline Spelman, the Conservative communities and local government spokesman, the BHA was given £25,000 by the Department for Local Government run by Hazel Blears.
The money came from its Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund to run local campaigns promoting atheism. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has given the group a further £35,000 to promote secularism in the public services under equality and human rights laws.
Public money is apparently being used to boost the influence of atheism in councils, schools and the police.
Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the association, insisted:
The BHA does not seek to marginalise faith or to tear down the fabric of our nation. All we want is inclusion and an end to discrimination against the non-religious.
Update: March 22 – We seem to have done it! Steve’s comment is now in the green. Take a bow all of you who gave him a thumbs-up. Oh, and please don’t stop voting.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
March 21st, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Anyone up for some vote swinging?
March 21st, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Duly wailed…
lot of credible steves out there.
*whistles*
March 21st, 2009 at 10:25 pm
I gave it a positive rating, and couldn’t resist adding a comment of my own (it’s not up yet though).
March 21st, 2009 at 10:32 pm
I’ve just made my annoyance known to the ‘Daily Fail’, for all the fucking good it will do. Might just as well post on Freethinker!.
At least here you may get some feedback once in a blue month of sundays!
March 21st, 2009 at 10:33 pm
I went and did some rating on the comments there, and added one myself, I wonder if it will make it past the moderator.
March 21st, 2009 at 10:41 pm
no sign of my comment -
March 22nd, 2009 at 12:31 am
Alas Shargraves one has to wait a while before the Daily Whale sticks its head above water and takes a sharp intake of breath.
Congrats on the new arrival last Tuesday. Fingers crossed the baby is doing well and I hope you will kick any cunt who suggests a religious ceremony firmly in the bollocks.
That aside are we invited to the confirmation?
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:49 am
This is outrageous! Don’t these people realise that our religion is better than all of the other religions.May God forgive them!
Penny jackson, luton, 21/3/2009 7:58
Classic…………….
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 am
I left the following comment:
“An organisation that campaigns against Christianity”? Just about all other religions campaign against Christianity, because religions are mutually exclusive. If the claims of Islam are true, those of Christianity must be false (and vice versa).
“‘There is a clear agenda to twist so-called equality and human rights”
Boo, hiss, those nasty humanists, wanting to stone gays, lying about the efficacy of condoms in the fight against AIDS and thinking that some of their representatives, as of right, should have a place in the House of Lords!
Oh no, wait, sorry, that’s the religious.
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Hmmm, I don’t recognise any posters here among the Wail comments, even though there are plenty of negative ones. I wonder if the Wail has some sort of id filter in place? I’ve commented numerous times on a variety of topics and NEVER had a comment published. For long enough, I couldn’t even get past the I/s/l/a/m/ submission page, more recently it just never appears.
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Just had a look at the Daily Fail page; Steve now has a rating of +12. Well done team!
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Our god is definitely the best and I am talking here of the FSM.
A long time ago, in another country, I declared myself an atheist to a fundie type. I think he was from something called the Church of God. A few days later he said he much preferred my stance as an atheist to a Roman Catholic whom he detested big time. His explanation was that the RC “knew” god and could be “saved by the blood of the lamb” and “read the good news” and still persisted in “turning away from our Lord.”
I, on the other hand, was an atheist and made no attempt to “know…” and all the rest of it. So I was more likely to be looked on with kindness by God while the other was headed for the Fires of Hell. The man I am talking about was a Dail Wail reader which is what reminds me of him.
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:55 pm
My comments are not there either. The gist of what I said was: the money given to the BHA was miniscule compared to the amounts lavished on army padres with the rank of Major while squaddies were dying for lack of adequate equipment. Similarly, money was spent on hoispital chaplains while patients lay in pain in hospital corridors unattended.
March 22nd, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Broga,
There’s just no point trying to figure these people out is there?! They are totally barking! Still, at least we can rest assured that we are all going to heaven, though I was kinda looking forward to spending all eternity having fun with interesting people in hell. I didn’t see that one coming.
I wish bob were here to read that one!
Barry, it’s official. You no longer have to repent. I’m sure you’re very relieved and can get back to sleeping at night instead of “wrestling with your conscience and resisting the temptation to start reading the bible”. I think that was how he put it before.
So, Bob was wasting his breath all along? Who’d have thought, eh?
March 23rd, 2009 at 9:51 am
To quote Mark Thomas ‘The Daily Mail?! D’you know how many trees died to make that shit?!’
I fell out with it the minute I read a homophobic pro-Christian bullshit rant by Richard ‘That Bastard’ Littlejohn.
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
@ Godless, who wrote “I wish Bob were here to read that one!”, I should point out that our troll hasn’t vanished up his own fundament,alas, and is reading every word on this blog.
He also keeps changing email addresses and names in a bid to slip his juvenile gibberings past our defenses.
I have just ascertained that Bob Hutton is over 50. Hard to believe, huh? He “found Jesus” at the age of 16. As a result, Bob clearly suffered grievous harm to his intellect and has never recovered.
He is truly a pathetic, stunted little troll!
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Fifty? not fifteen? That is unbelievable. Over fifty and still believes in fairy stories and has never advanced as far as getting a life. Next you’re going to tell me that he still lives with his mum.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Once again the Daily Fail has mailed to post my comments.
What a cunch of bunts.
Bob was brought up (as in puke) into the catholic faith. He met a strange man in the Star Cafe, Canterbury who converted him to the baptist faith. It’s all in previous Freethinker comments, unless Barry has been over zealous with the blue pencil.
I can’t be arsed to look though.
Still miss him. Sigh.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Aw, never mind Remigius, they may yet get round to it, but don’t hold your breath. Take solace in the fact that Steve’s comment is still sitting at the top, and now has a positive rating of 80, which I like to think was our doing.
Oh, the power!
As for missing Bob, you’ll have to seek him out elsewhere. There aren’t enough drugs on the planet to induce me to let him back in. I’m getting far too much pleasure hearing him whimpering and pawing at the gate. The latest name he used was “Persecuted”.
Almost, but not enough to melt this stony heart.
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Why can’t you share some of that misery with the rest of us?
After all we’ve bloody well earned it!
March 24th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Barry,
From previous post of yours I was aware that Bob was attempting to sneak in under the radar and was also very aware that he would still be reading through all the posts, seething that he was unable to intervene to save us all from the eternal damnation which we are all apparently careering aimlessly towards. I was really just trying to rub salt in the wound!
Persecuted eh? He doesn’t even have the gumption to be less obvious. I suppose that shouldn’t come as a surprise to us though since he believes in the invisible man in the sky etc.