CHRISTIAN thinktank Ekklesia warned yesterday that repeated and unsubstantiated claims of anti-Christian discrimination:
Only serve to make Christians appear defensive and obsessed with their own status.
Commenting on the case of fundie Colin Atkinson, who faces disciplinary action from Wakefield District Housing (WDH) after refusing to remove a palm cross from the front of his vehicle, Ekklesia said that the electrician:
Pesky 'persecuted' Christian Colin Atkinson (Photo Ross Parry Agency)
Does not appear to be a victim of anti-Christian discrimination, since the rule in dispute does not single out any particular religion or belief.
Ekklesia went on to caution against:
A simplistic approach to such cases, which are being used to buttress campaigns suggesting that Christians face systemic discrimination in the UK.
The thinktank pointed out that the WDH ban applies to all religious symbols and other personal items. It says that while the rights and wrongs of such a prohibition can reasonably be debated and questioned, it cannot fairly be considered discrimination against Christians in particular.
Symon Hill, associate director of the thinktank, commented:
Wakefield District Housing allow employees to wear religious symbols but not to display symbols in vehicles. This rule may or may not be defensible, but it applies to everyone – not a particular faith group. There therefore appears to be no substance to claims that WHD are discriminating against Christians in particular.
Cases like this are most likely to be resolved by mediation and dialogue, not by scaremongering and hysterical headlines. We have seen no evidence that Christians as a group face systematic discrimination in Britain – but the constant repetition of unfounded claims may be in danger of bringing Christianity into disrepute.
Hill added:
It is also ironic that this case should be about a cross and should be raised in Holy Week – since the cross symbolises Jesus’ sacrificial death at the hands of political and religious authorities who wanted to suppress his nonviolent resistance to injustice. Properly understood, the cross is therefore a sign of self-giving love, not a justification for preoccupation with one’s own status as a religious group.
The New Statesman, meanwhile, claims that:
In our increasingly secular society, many religious people feel their voices are not heard.
To put matters right, it asked 30 “prominent” believers to explain their faith.
Among this bunch of believing elite Â- which include Cherie Blair (who produced a hopelessly inane comment: It’s been a journey from my upbringing to an understanding of something that my head cannot explain but my heart knows to be true); Richard Swinburne, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Oxford; Jonathan Aitken, former politician and jailbird; and right-wing hack Peter Hitchens – was Stephen “Birdshit” Green, of Christian Voice, who explained that he had come to God via … DUCKS:
I came to faith in God through seeing the ducks on a pond in People’s Park, Grimsby. It struck me that they were all doing a similar job, but had different plumage. Why was that? Why did the coot have a white beak and the moorhen a red one? Being a hard-nosed engineer, I needed an explanation that worked and the evolutionary model seemed too far-fetched and needful of too much faith!
I mean, what could possibly be the evolutionary purpose of the bars on the hen mallard’s wings, which can only be seen when she flies? Or the tuft on the head of the tufted duck?
So I was drawn logically to see them as designed like that. I suppose I believed in an intelligent designer long before the idea became fashionable. So, that left me as a sort of a deist. But God gradually became more personal to me and I was drawn against all my adolescent atheist beliefs deeper and deeper into faith in Jesus Christ.
You really couldn’t make it up!
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
April 21st, 2011 at 9:08 am
Hard-nosed engineer? Half-wit tosser, more like.
Within 30 seconds of Googling ‘Evolution of Coot plumage’ I had found this introduction to a research report authored by Bruce E. Lyon, John M. Eadie and Linda D. Hamilton of the University of Toronto, Canada:
“Here we show that parental choice selects for the bizarre ornamental plumes of newly hatched American coot (Fulica americana) chicks. Experimental manipulations of chick plumage revealed that parent coots feed ornamented chicks preferentially over non-ornamented chicks, resulting in higher growth rates and greater survival for ornamented chicks. Moreover, we show that parental preference is relative, rather than absolute, an important element in the evolution of exaggerated traits. These observations provide the first empirical evidence that parental choice can select for ornamental traits in offspring.”
So, no need to turn to some fictitious sky fairy after all, Stephen. Just try doing some digging for the answers, you lazy fuckwit.
April 21st, 2011 at 9:10 am
“the evolutionary model seemed too far-fetched and needful of too much faith!”
Birdshit has made my day!!!
“something that my head cannot explain but my heart knows to be true”
So has Cherie.
In fact LMFAO!
April 21st, 2011 at 9:20 am
“I don’t know – and I’m not going to find out. BLAH BLAH BLAH I’VE MY FINGERS IN MY EARS BLAH BLAH.”
Christians say the funniest things.
April 21st, 2011 at 9:45 am
Gadzooks! Irreducible complexity hits a new low. Not for Green the complexities of the flagellum. Oh no, he baulks at an easily explained colour-pattern on a bird. How can he not be embarrassed to come out with this tripe?
As to the first part, blow me down! I think I just agreed with a Christian regarding ‘persecution’.
OT: Here’s one for Tony.
April 21st, 2011 at 10:04 am
Here you go, Green. God’s perfect design.
Attempts to breed a rare species of duck to avoid extinction in the UK have backfired after the only two remaining males fell for each other
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ear.....ether.html
April 21st, 2011 at 11:17 am
Perhaps Green might want to buy a copy of this too:
‘The Evolution Of Bill Coloration And Plumage Dimorphism Supports The Transference Hypothesis In Dabbling Ducks’, by K. P. Johnson of the Department of Biology, University of Utah, available from Oxford Journals.
Hardly sounds like riveting bedtime reading, but at least it answers more of his supposedly unanswerable questions.
April 21st, 2011 at 11:36 am
Can anyone confirm if it was a duck that gave ‘Birdshit’ his nickname? That would be delightfully ironic.
OT:
Daz,
I had completely forgotten about the Screaming Blue Messiahs!
Let me return the favour in a similar fashion.
http://youtu.be/LqzlYS0Ye94
April 21st, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Alas, Tony, it was a herring gull that splattered the silly little man. A cameraman who was filming Green fulminating in Brighton failed to yell “duck”.
April 21st, 2011 at 1:26 pm
He was in a fowl mood, though.
Sorry…
OT again: Here ya go, Tony
April 21st, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Ah those poor xtians, having to obey the same rules and laws as everyone else – it just isn’t fair is it! Every time some religious idiot whinges about “persecution” they make themsleves look childish. As for Green, the odious Blairs et al, they really are first class imbeciles; just how much more evidence do these people need to be convinced that evolution is a fact.
April 21st, 2011 at 2:17 pm
It’s a good job Green was never an MP – he might not have been able to resist the temptation to claim on expenses for a church for his ducks!
April 21st, 2011 at 3:46 pm
Considering Atkinson’s profession and alll those local government cutbacks, it struck me that his employers should have just responded “Get down off that cross, we could use the wood.”
April 21st, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Oh bollocks, another engineer killing our credibility.
This whole argument from design crap from engineers is really irritating: when the design is so obviously faulty in so many ways how is such a designer worthy of praise?
April 21st, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Seems to me there is more to these whingers than merely whingeing. I have occasionally come across fundies who are so proud of their faith that they insist on being in my face. They really push it. They are so full of themeselves that they just cannot take a step back to consider another point of view. They want everyone to know that they are christians. They are right and I am wrong. And they will try to prove that by assertion and preaching.
But there is another aspect to this and you see it with this man: vanity. Publicity and support from his co superstitionists, no doubt flooding in, will feed that distasteful character trait.
And the third aspect is pseudo martyrdom. And I say psuedo because they risk nothing and instead indulge in the sad fantasy that they are martyrs for their faith. The trouble for them is that they have so overdone their passion for imagined victimhood that they have shot themselves in the head. Even their co religionists are now saying, “For god’s sake give it a rest. You are heaping ridicule on all of us.”
April 21st, 2011 at 5:21 pm
What a prat Stephen “Birdshit†Green is. He may have had a hard nose but he clearly lacked (and lacks) any ability to think rationally.
April 21st, 2011 at 5:25 pm
“In our increasingly secular society, many religious people feel their voices are not heard.”\
Well you have had 2000 bloody years to be heard and still the world does not believe in the fairy stories …so give reason and logic a go …it’s more likely to be accepted by the masses as it requires no leap of faith.
April 21st, 2011 at 6:24 pm
@dogon: You make a good point. After 2000 years with no result and never the least indication, not the most minute jot of evidence, of the existence of their god would not any sensible person think that he is not there. The best evidence they can manage is that they feel something in their heart. If they got on with their feelings and let the rest of us be then who would quarrel. But that is never enough. They have to ram their views down everyone’s throats and, over the years, that means killing, torturing and laying waste to the homes of those who do not believe.
Today the pestilence continues. An attempt has been made to kill or maim the manager of Celtic football club and two prominent supporters. This cowardly act is described by the BBC and others with a wringing of hands, as sectarian. The word that dare not speak its name in this context is religious. And is this case christian. Religion poisons everything.
April 21st, 2011 at 7:51 pm
Broga,
Ref the Celtic incident.
I’ve lived in Glasgow all my life. I am constantly embarrassed by the behaviour of the protestant/catholic fuckwits.
Let me tell you my observations.
1. The press are guilty of never challenging this pathetic nonsense and giving both sides space to air their views rather than the ridicule that these twats deserve. The press have also used words like ‘Bhoys’ and ‘Hun’ to make some unfunny pun. Hardly helpful.
2. The police, year in and year out, promise to crackdown on sectarianism. 1 or 2 token arrests per year is not a crackdown. Furthermore there are dozens, and I mean dozens, of pubs which, if you went in wearing a certain top you would be badly hurt. During football games these pubs openly blast out sectarian music, and the police walk by and do sod all.
3. The football teams themselves (Rangers/Celtic) thrive on this. They bleet, constantly, that they are trying to stamp it out but go to a social fuction at either of these clubs and hear the songs sung at the end of the night. There are doing nothing. If the hatred was not there they would not make nearly as much money as they do.
All the of the above know the extent of how bad it is, but they are too pathetic and incompetent to do anything about it.
April 22nd, 2011 at 12:32 am
What do you know? A rational voice among the rabble.
I mean, what could possibly be the evolutionary purpose of the bars on the hen mallard’s wings, which can only be seen when she flies? Or the tuft on the head of the tufted duck?
What is it about believers that they see something beautiful and think it couldn’t have a practical or evolutionary purpose and could only be from their magic man?
April 22nd, 2011 at 2:29 am
Dogon, you’ve said it best. 2000 years when we had to listen to their gibbering shite, at sword-point. For all their airy-fairy displays of meekness, you just know that the noisiest ones among them would have that world back in an instant if they could.
April 22nd, 2011 at 2:46 am
Sigh!! Freethinkers, huh? The man actually has a disjointed point.
The universe is an accident when all matter and energy and time and space sprang out of nothing? Years ago, scientists thought that the Milky Way was the universe. Now, we know that it is so enormous, that we really can only guess about it’s size. And built within this “accident” is a mechanism where life spontaneously generates where conditions allow. To me, it seems like an unlikely accident. But, the origin of a “creator” is even more problematic.
Where Birdshit and I come to philosophical blows is the absurdity that if he has doubts about the origin of the universe, that he would assume that the answer is contained in goat herder mythology. Why Jesus and Jehovah, and not Zeus and friends, or Horace, or Tamus, or the Great Spirit? The reality is that he chose his myth based on his culture and upbringing, and his prejudices are a product of the thoughts of people who lived before they understood that the stars do not revolve around the earth.
And he wants to preach a “loving” patient god, but his god’s supposed creation is a random killing machine, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes. And evolution has absolutely no tolerence for weakness, either. Adapt or disappear. Judge the artist by his artwork, god is a sociopathic monster.
Many birds show their plumage as part of their mating. Like human women are impressed with that pair of socks you shoved in your crotch. Men impressed with a bag of saline implanted under their tits. Everyone likes a pretty face, but what do Elvis and Brad Pitt, have in common with Tom Selleck? Babyfaces, and a caveman? I’m no connoisseur, it’s confuses me. Another, “I don’t know”.
NeoWolfe
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:15 am
@tony e: Thanks for your comments about Glasgow. I have Scottish relatives, some of whom live in Glasgow, and I spent holidays there as a child – Springburn, near the park and pond if it is still there – and they were happy times. However, one of my late uncles was a vehement Protestant, passionate supporter of Rangers, and his rage against Roman Catholics, Celtic, the Pope sent him berserk. He attended parades, sang songs like “The Sash my father wore” and had indoctrinated his children.
Apart from his vehement, and vile, religious bigotry he was a decent man, and very kind, difficult though that may seem from my first paragraph. Religion poisons everything.
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:34 am
“since the cross symbolises Jesus’ sacrificial death at the hands of political and religious authorities who wanted to suppress his nonviolent resistance to injustice”
Non-violent? If you can believe anything in the bible (which I don’t), a few days before his arrest he had carried out a vicious attack with whip on perfectly peaceful and legitimate tradesmen and visitors in the temple. At his arrest one of his followers drew his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant or slave. What were the late JC and his buds doing carrying swords? These guys were armed insurrectionists not peaceful non-violent chaps. No wonder the romans had to suppress them!
“I needed an explanation that worked and the evolutionary model seemed too far-fetched and needful of too much faith!”
WTF. So he adopted the most far-fetched explanation possible?? One which really needs faith by the shitload! I hope this guy doesn’t design airplanes or anything else where brains might be needed.
April 22nd, 2011 at 3:50 pm
God Created Man?
Super God Created God.
Super Duper God Created Super God.
Super Duper Duper God Created ….
Man Created God.
Man Invented God.
Rag headed men living in caves invented God.
Man Created God.
Amen, Amen, Amen!
Religion is a fantasy world created by men.
Make believe imaginary, magical, friends.
Socially accepted, but still loopy, loony, nutter.
Violent suppression of the truth.
The only way the fantasy world of religion has continued,
is by the continued violent suppression of the truth.
Man Invented God.
Man Created God.
A simple powerful historical fact.
Accept this simple truth.
The truth shall set you free.
© 2011
April 23rd, 2011 at 12:01 pm
The Argument from Ducks! Well, I think ‘ll just throw my three Zoology degrees in the bin. I guess God designed the tendency for gay rape and necrophilia in mallards too?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallard
April 23rd, 2011 at 5:03 pm
I have a possible answer to the mallard wing bar question – some mallard copulation takes place in flight.
It’s commonly known as “rape flight”, and in fact the only recorded case of homosexual necrophilia in animals occurred in mallards, after the victim of a rape flight collided with a window and was killed, and the perpetrator decided not to let that stop him. But that’s by the by, I guess.
I guess if a significant mating strategy in mallards is rape flight, then it would be a great evolutionary advantage to recognise female mallards in flight so as to not waste valuable energy and risk injury assaulting the wrong species.
Also, coots and moorhens aren’t ducks. I’d say that any idiot could see this, but Birdshit would prove me wrong.
Even if this “I don’t understand it therefore God did it” logic was plausible, I would still reject the God of the Bible. He is a petulant, bloodthirsty, childish, violent, demanding, evil monster who punishes generations of people for something they didn’t realise was a sin and for behaving in a way he “programmed” them to, and commands his personal army of the chosen race to kill men, rape and enslave women and slaughter children of tribes for the heinous crime of having not heard of him, because he didn’t make himself known to them.
April 24th, 2011 at 1:09 am
Whiner am I? First of all, I have a constitutional and moral right to whine all I want so you left-liberal socio-facists back off. Second, no one whines and snivels nearly as much as the left-liberal marijuana crown so back off. Some time aga in my city someone wrote a letter to the paper in which he called Holy Mother Catholic Church a ‘criminal organization’, and by direct implication calling all Catholics members of a criminal organization. Believe that if you wish although it is obviously a rant; that is, the inverse of a whine? In any case a very insulting and stupid thing to say. I complained to the left-liberal Human Rights Commission and they cavalierly dismissed me. OK. However, can you lefties imagine if that letter had been directed towards muslims or homosexuals? Everyone in the government funded thought police would have been falling over themselves to prosecute the matter with feigned righteous zeal. Socio-political cowardice and hypocrisy. Rather bad form, yes? With the exception of a situation of having to avoid a bad beating, try telling me and my Church to my face that we are criminals! The Church and Christians have allowed ourselves to be easy targets, and we haven’t fought back. No more. I am not an easy target and sure as hell will fight back however I must. Cheers. P.S.: I still don’t believe that there really is such a thing as a real Atheist. More Cheers.
April 24th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
@Above: Yes your church is a criminal organization as far as I’m concerned and you and all other pseudo-tough-guy christians who don’t like people saying that can go f*ck yourselves. Cheers to you too, tosser.
“I still don’t believe that there really is such a thing as a real Atheist.”
Then you are retarded.