Friday 5 February 2010

Theocracy in practice

Ironic: My last post referred to a 'get out of jail card' for religious believers and then along comes a story about Cherie Blair in her capacity as a part-time judge giving a suspended sentence to Muslim Shamso Miah for breaking the jaw of a man in a queue-jumping argument -  on the grounds that 'You are a religious man and you know this is not acceptable behaviour'.

From the Islamophobes this will doubtless provoke an 'it's political correctness gone mad' bleating about special 'treatment' for Muslims. But for us Humanists  it throws up a couple of serious concerns. 

Presumably any atheist who has  received a harsher sentence for the same offence will now have grounds to appeal on the  grounds of discrimination. 

Most of all we again have to suffer the smugness of religious-types assuming that they hold the monopoly on a moral compass. That kind of thinking has a deep hold on society as a whole - how often do we  hear that  its said that churches or faith schools may preach some nonsense but at least they give  kids 'values' ?

1 comment:

EFComrade said...

It is sad to see that so many have attributed moral values with religion on one hand but on the other attempt to demonise any other religion.

In reality of course religion does both but inevitably will always used to push the agenda of the ruling class and therefore in many ways organised religion is morally bankrupt and the product of some many conflicts in society