Hemming the lemming

Noa

No matter how asinine the remarks of one useful idiot cannot be regarded as representative of the Lib Dems or the Westminster political class.
Persistent, systemic denial is quite another matter.

JohnBUK

Have no fear, no doubt Plod will be heading right now to "some enterprising and courageous undercover reporter" and hauling her in front of the beak tomorrow.
We mushrooms can all get back under the sheet and carry on as if nothing had happened.

lb

John Hemming is usually a competent MP, but in this case he is terribly wrong.

Nick

Religious schools - Muslim, Christian and Jewish - have no place in 21st Century British society. They are an absurd anachronism, fostering intolerance and prejudice. They should be abolished forthwith.

Truthtriumphs

More interesting than that was tonight's BBC2 Geert Wilders: Europe's Most Dangerous Man?

A Martian visiting Planet Earth would conclude from the tone and content of this piece by the British Biased Corporation, that Wilders was the terrorist, and his victims, the Islamists.

It was typical textbook BBC fare, and predictable to the last word.
How depressing!

dave

Faith schools cause divisions in society,schools should not be for teaching separate religions as this leads to intolerance and hate between different religions,I thought God was all about love not hate.

The Bleedin' Obvious

Has no one ever wondered how children - who find it difficult to sit through the multi-media, fast paced lessons in their schools - manage to sit through hours of tedious Koran recitation every night at the madrassas?

Alan Harper

It's all the EDL's fault, even though they formed in 2009. Thank you Mr Hemming. Expect the Dispatches crew to get a knock on the door by the police for offending Islam. That's how it works in this country.

Nathan

Another great post, but the commenters show a moral relativism that is almost as scary. When one hears of Islamic terrorists, people are quick to say that there are Christian and Jewish terrorists too, despite the numbers being relatively negligible. And so it is with saying that all religious schools cause hatred when the only ones shown to do so are Muslim schools. Religious schools in general cause no more hatred than religion itself, and unless anyone is suggesting that religion be abolished, the teaching of religion must obviously remain a free right. Until there is evidence of such hatred from Christian or Jewish schools, such comments are entirely out of line and missing the point.

AllanS

Well said Nick. You are clearly a man of unclouded intellect. Religious schools teach intolerance and prejudice. God, I hate 'em all! They should be abolished, and replaced by nice, tolerant, unprejudiced, secular schools where we can give kids the facts: religion is bunk, men are monkeys, and monkeys are machines.

Roy

This is one country within another. This is worse than the usual Christian denominational schools. Which often, are of better caliber than State schools. No comparison can be given to the Muslim system which is completely abhorrent in every respect to the British educational way. If nothing is done over this, what hope have we of any correction to the system or of learning from these disastrous mistakes? Let alone the infectious way these jihadi indoctrination systems have got through the guard of authorities. If indeed there is any, or are they too tired, Islamic themselves, or too PC to take any action. Boy, does there need to be a shake up.

elixelx

@Bleedin: it's called "corporal punishment", Bleedin, and it's a fearsome motivator!

Didn't you know? or was that just rhetorical wonderment on your part?

Andre

The touchstone issue of our time is Israel - it's right to exist, prosper and live in peace within internationally recognized borders. Interestingly Wilders and the EDL are great supporters of Israel. Wilders visits the country almost every year. At EDL rallies we see the Star of David flying alongside the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. Do you see this at an Islamic school? No you don't. How people react to Israel defines whether they are on the side of the west, personal freedom and democracy.

ppeter

Child abuse is good and should be covered up, so long as it is not perpetrated by RC priests: that's today's message from the ruling elite.

steve

AllanS:

Faith schools have a right to exist but, as in the United States, they should not receive any public money. If parents want a religious education for their children then that's their business. However, they shouldn't expect this to be paid for by taxpayers.

M.Fishburn

Apart from the time-honoured system of beating information into small boys, which has always been prevalent in Muslim society, and I know this from first hand witnesses, what shocks the most is the fact focused on by Ms Phillips that these Madrassas are Ofstead approved. BBC and politically correct officials can not in all honesty wriggle out of this situation by denial.
Comparisons with Xstian & Jewish faith schools are misleading. Nowadays children are not beaten as part of the educational atmosphere.

Nick

AllanS writes "religion is bunk, men are monkeys, and monkeys are machines."

I agree entirely with that. Well, we're not machines, strictly speaking, but a collection of molecules governed by the laws of thermodynamics. But otherwise yes, spot on.

'God' is a fiction. There is no 'meaning' to life and the Universe, other than the Universe is blind and pitiless. There is nobody out there, and in death only personal oblivion. Get over it. And have a nice day.

Meri

Some people don't believe in evolution yet they do not neglect learning it's theories and other reltated arguments. I agree with Nathan. Everyone is free to believe but I must add that studying religion is of not less importance than any other subject taught in schools, it should actually help different cultures relate to one another and not be the cause hatred amongst them.

pete

truthtriumphs..
perhaps its the bbcs orwellian idea of balance.
even by the bbc s bias standards, this just about the worst i ve seen...a colluded mishmash of nonsense
wilders, spencer, even d. pipes, the edl, all of course... very "bad", whilst
laughably, the questionable muslim council of britain, another imam, im sure i ve seen before,up to something very dodgy, that nutjob M.Smith of the UAF
oh yes all of course....very "good"
(they must have forgotten the UAF thugs causing many £1000 s of damage attacking the bbc centre, MCB, just where do you start! Sacranie, Rushdie, death too good for him etc etc, etc ...yes, all a distant memory :-)

BIASED BROADCASTING CORP, has outdone itself this time, why is it that Wilders,H Ali,Spencer
& many others have protection?, bullet proof vests?, telephone books full of death threats?, why is it, that on this programme, the camera crew/interviewee were threatened
by muslims as they filmed?

Ian

John Hemming he'd love sharia law esp. polygamy.

wikipedia: Extramarital affairs
Shortly after his election in 2005, he made headlines when it was revealed that he was the father of a child with his personal assistant and fellow councillor Emily Cox, though he would stay with his wife and her three children. His wife Christine commented that she forgave him and is standing by him, as he has always been honest about his extramarital affairs, of which she said this was "about number 26".

pete

ps.
on the ch4 dispatches programme, strange how, a councillor can appear within a couple of minutes, to the mosque, as erm any "difficult"
questions begin to arise :-)
must be the "batphone"

Geoff

John Hemming is a a complete idiot. He is ignoring the evidence in the film just as I am sure the police will do. Can you imagine what the reaction would have been if this were a normal state school?

Also look at these points from aMuslim Q&A web-site.

http://islamqa.com/en/ref/50022
http://islamqa.com/en/ref/13807

Andy Gill

Hemming is an idiot who epitomises everything that has gone wrong with multiculturalism.

And - I'm just guessing here - I wouldn't be surprised to discover that there are a large number of Muslim voters in his Yardley constituency.

Kiwi

@Dave "...I thought God was all about love not hate."
Depends on which imaginary god we're talking about, the god of the Hebrew Bible and the old testament, the Christian god of the new, or Mohammed's alter ego?
Re 'Religious Schools',I'm with Nick on this one, abolish the lot of them, and would add that British schools must teach British values and ethics in addition to core subjects. Surely it's not a big ask to teach the 'golden rule' to receptive young minds?

Margaret Muller-Johansson

I feel sorry for the muslim children in those schools they are getting abuse, I wonder what Baroness Warsi thinks about this?

Derek Pasquill

Viewing programmes like this is an incredibly depressing affair and only strengthens my resolve to get out of the UK within the next five to ten years.

All indications are that the UK will be a place of pain and turmoil equal to one of Dante's cesspits after say about fifteen to twenty years.

As Dr Taj Hargey said, create religious apartheid and you will reap the whirlwind.

Reuven

Having now read the talkbacks, I am dismayed to see those with blinkers on. It is specifically Muslim schools the report is talking about - not Christian, Jewish or other. Such tunnel vision is reprehensible.

Truthtriumphs

AllanS/Nick.

Such lazy thought processes, always a sure sign of ignorance.
Christian and Jewish schools do not preach hatred--- I have experience of both.
Unfortunately, abolishing Islamic schools also won't solve the problem, because the problem is Islam itself.
What you saw in the film begins in the home, at a very early age.
Islam preaches hatred of the kuffir, namely us and the host country in which these people have chosen to live.

Miranda Rose Smith

Nick
February 14th, 2011 10:56pm
Religious schools - Muslim, Christian and Jewish - have no place in 21st Century British society. They are an absurd anachronism, fostering intolerance and prejudice. They should be abolished forthwith.

Dear Nick: What if a religious school is the only place where a parent feels his child can get a decent, affordable education?

Miranda Rose Smith

dave
February 14th, 2011 11:17pm
Faith schools cause divisions in society,schools should not be for teaching separate religions as this leads to intolerance and hate between different religions,I thought God was all about love not hate.

Dear Dave: A faith school can perfectly well teach that the sun shines on the entire world, but it shines on different parts of the world at different times-the different religions are the different places the sun shines on.

Miranda Rose Smith

ppeter
February 15th, 2011 8:06am
Child abuse is good and should be covered up, so long as it is not perpetrated by RC priests: that's today's message from the ruling elite.

Dear Ppeter: You took the words right off my keyboard. If this sort of thing was going on in a Catholic school, or in a yeshiva, Mr. Hemming's howls would be puncturing all our eardrums.

James Murphy

Andre - well said! The issue of modern moral conscience in a nutshell.

Miranda Rose Smith

Reuven
February 15th, 2011 10:03am
Having now read the talkbacks, I am dismayed to see those with blinkers on. It is specifically Muslim schools the report is talking about - not Christian, Jewish or other. Such tunnel vision is reprehensible.

Dear Rueven: How often have you picked up a newspaper and read an article about a Catholic priest convicted of raping boys? Many people feel that when MOSLEMS do this kind of thing, it's downplayed or hushed up.

Grumpy true Zionist

always intrigued to see how some bumkin manages to somehow introduce the Israel/palistinian situation into whatever topic...in this case the very dangerous terror breeding ground aka the madrassa

this usefull idiot then attempts to draw some convoluted relationship with Israeli/USA flags at an EDL meet......and the lack of them in an 'islamic school'

just one question here for the poster....how would you know what is inside a classroom at a madrassa unless you're currently teaching at or attending one

Tintagel

I emailed John Hemming's office. He replied within the hour:

"They (the school) were not allowed to see the film before it went out and want to do a detailed investigation. I am aware that there are other aspects beyond the issue of the 17 year old who had a thing against Hindus. However, it is likely to take a bit of time before they give a detailed response.

I have gone through the transcript and will be looking at the whole thing in some detail."

If you've got something to say about this why don't you contact him too? - hemmingj@parliament.uk

Frank Sutton

Nick 10:56pm
Religious schools... are an absurd anachronism, fostering intolerance and prejudice.
I don't recall intolerance and prejudice being fostered at the religious schools (primary and secondary) that I went to.

Merlyn

pete,
Its not just the BBC broadcasting lies... its also Channel 4 with "The Promise"
Lets start with the "British being the filling in the sandwich, trying to keep the Jews and Arabs from fighting"..

In "Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam" by Mark Curtis we discover how the British did their usual trick of divide and rule to create trouble and keep power.
Then they describe the West Bank as occupied by the Jews, and the wall as something of a land grab cleverly inserted as an opinion of one of the dissident Jews.

Because this was a "drama", is it then permitted to transmit propaganda?

raymond

What do folk think of the Gert Wilders programme on BBC2 last night? For my part, I detected massive bias in the programme against Wilders and against any who agree with him. We had the standard, nice, peaceful Muslims presented to us. And also the standard pictures of EDL supporters as drunken louts/extremists.Typical BBC

Joshua

I read a letter out to a judge yesterday in which a solicitor had responded to another solicitor's letter asking what the costs of his client's were, to which the solicitor responded: "Our client's costs at the moment are £1217 plus VAT and £150 disbursements." The judge held that to be an estimate and not an accurate statement of costs.

This is the "Alice in Wonderland" world we are living in and when this kind of thinking permeates all walks of life where common sense seems to have gone out of the window.

However outrageous, don't expect common sense to prevail. And those poor children? Who is there to protect them?

Woody

Fuss over nothing. If Ofsted and the BBC approve of this sort of school then it must be all right.

Brian Williams

Hemming likely didn't even watch the programme. He picked up a few key words in the description and went into Libtard knee-jerk rant.

More fool him, because when people compare what they see with what he said, they will know him for the clown he is.

Dave M

The point to pick on here I'm afraid is that many religions are guilty. Anyone who's seen the Magdalene Sisters will know about young girls being sent to ocnvent schools and being beaten by nuns and so forth. The problem we have today is that we're going back into a Dark Age where science is being replaced by religion. People are simply being indoctrinated into a set of beliefs and given names accordingly. We're not talking about opinion being formed after personal investigation and study but whole sets of ideas handed down and taken as absolute gospel. Natuarally most of the muslim populations of Euirope want to see censorship as well so religion can't be criticized or questioned.
Personally I'd like to see religion studied properly as a collective subject at schools. That is, putting all religions in the light of historical, analytical, scientific investigation. Imagine the uproar that would cause too! Of course, I'm talking about teaching atheism but simply teaching people to ask questions about the validity of religion. What does science say about evolution and what do the Abrahamic religions teach?

Ofsted Comms

Just as clarification - while Ofsted does inspect a number of independent faith schools, they do not have a remit or power to inspect 'part time' schools such as the Madrassa in Keighley which featured in the programme.

The Darul Uloom school that featured was most recently inspected by the Bridge School Inspectorate as designated by the Department for Education.

Austin Barry

Hemmings website provides a clues to his absurd comments, it states:

"He was a candidate for Britain's First Astronaut."

Clearly then - a self-confessed space cadet.

Augustus

It may be significant to point out that Catholic priests who abuse children, and those leaders who support them, are all operating outside the doctrinal mandate of Catholicism, but Muslims who forcibly marry underage girls, sometimes in tempory marriages equating to forced child prostitution, and at other times
in long term polygamous marriages, are operating in perfect and immutable doctrinal accord with Islamic Sharia law
as established and practiced by Mohammed, and as supported by
devout imams for 1400 years.

passerby

The "Big Society" is shaping up nicely, eh!

Penny

For me, there is another aspect of this documentary that merits consideration.

Why haven't the parents of the children protested to the mosque/madrassah? Why was it necessary for the mother and daughter appearing in this program to do so anonymously?

Is this parental consent or is it fear of the community and/or the mosque's leaders?

As for faith schools, there's a lot of assumptions going on here. What was laid bare in that documentary is not remotely similar to other faith's schools. I went to one, have visted several in my area and know that in many cases, parents of all faiths and none apply to have their children attend simply because they are often better schools.

Michael White

In reply to those concerned about public funds going toward 'any religion', I would add that the vast majority of state secondary schools do not now include the doctrines of Christianity, as was the case before the latter half of the 1980s. Here, Christian assemblies and hymns have gone, as have Christian lessons or any worship, and also Christian symbols and pictures are prohibited from display unless grouped with other religious symbols. A local Christian Minister had considerable difficulty getting an appointment to discuss a Christian-themed talk in our local school - not because of the timetable but because of a consultation process that had to be completed with numerous parties signing off. Sadly permission was ultimately not granted. Although in the same school regular speakers attend to discuss Global Warming and Diversity Awareness, sex education/infection control and, strangely, a teacher of Jainism was allowed. So in my humble experience it is not now the norm to observe Christian education in secondary state schools, although they do receive considerable public money to ensure – as they must - that all cultures, religions, languages and ethnicities are accommodated. You may agree or not with the direction of education in this regard, but to cite public funds as a reason to halt Christian teaching in schools is I think inaccurate.

Sergio

Completely agree with Penny. It is implied by the lack of protests that parents agree with that sort of treatment. It is impossible that no parents are aware of the treatment and study subjects learnt by the children there. It is therefore not a problem with a school, but with many families living in the UK. Should those children be taken into government custody? Taking religions aside, I would not like my children to be around those children whose heart has been filled with fear and hate. Did anyone see how they treated each other?

wonderer

I wonder whether the footage amounts to evidence of the commission of offences under The Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. If it doesn't it certainly should.

Perhaps some of the shifty arguments aired in the programme would get these madrassahs off the hook, eg that the speaker was only a visitor and his views were not those of the mosque.

In that case, doesn't recent legislation provide a blueprint for dealing with such loopholes? If it is found that the agent or employee of a British company bribed a foreign official, the company can be fined even if the management knew nothing about the offence. So shouldn't there be a law that an establishment commits an offence if a preacher or speaker uses its premises to incite hatred of non-Christians, non-Jews, non-Muslims, non-atheists, non-Pagans etc? The penalty should be substantial, eg a significant fine or even closure in extreme cases.

WetherspoonThree

My daughter has just completed exhaustive tests and examinations, within her own home, so that she can lawfully care for other people's children. How galling must it be for her to learn that OFTED apply their tests selectively and are timid in the face of a alien and hostile culture.

But we have known for years that a relatively small number of our religious minorities have always totally rejected Western values and institutions, and despised our values long before they arrived in the UK.

We ought to be far more vigilant and outspoken, whatever the religion involved, and withdraw all financial support.... but its hard to be self-righteous on a day when it has been revealed that our own Health Service routinely ill-treats our old people!

JohnW

"If parents want a religious education for their children then that's their business. However, they shouldn't expect this to be paid for by taxpayers."

Well, I object to my children being subjected to leftist dogma spouted by Labour-voting teachers. Where do I claim my tax rebate so I can educate them privately at a religious school of my choice?

Gerry C

"Personally I'd like to see religion studied properly as a collective subject at schools. That is, putting all religions in the light of historical, analytical, scientific investigation. Imagine the uproar that would cause too! Of course, I'm [not?] talking about teaching atheism but simply teaching people to ask questions about the validity of religion."

@ Dave M: You may sleep soundly tonight. I taught religious studies for twenty-five years and that was pretty much what I did - and the vast majority of other teachers of the subject do the same. Most of the posters here who have written on the subject of RE seem to have a very limited and extremely out-of-date notion of what RE is and how it is done. A little research never harms one, you know!
As for faith schools being divisive: an OFSTED report last year (or it may have been 2009) found that in the majoity of faith school, the majority of pupils had developed much greater levels of social awareness and concern than their counterparts in secular state schools.
And just for information, I taught in a Catholic school which also had a significant percentage of Muslim, Hindu Sikh (and other Christian) children. I recall ONE 'interfaith problem' in the twenty-five years I spent there.

JohnW

I'm sick and tired of Christian schools being lumped together by all those advocating secular schooling.

My own children went to Catholic schools, and more polite and well adjusted kids you will not meet anywhere. Their education certainly did not contain any of the disgustingly hateful and violent elements of Islamic schooling that have been exposed here.

Call it for what it is. It's not Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism we have a problem with here - it's only Islam causing these issues. We need to deal with, and we need to do it urgently.

John Edwards

I knew a John Hemming who stood in elections for elections to the Oxford University Student Union as a "Mercian Nationalist". I always wondered what became of him.

I haven't seen the programme but I understand the student who talked about cow urine got expelled from the school.

david elder

Nick at 8.45 am: sorry, I tried to get over it (religion) and think sceptically like you tell me to - I'm just a biological machine. But I couldn't. You see, I have no free will. Because I'm just a machine. You proved it, didn't you?

AllanS

Nick,

If the universe is meaningless, that statement also is meaningless. So why believe it? Rather, the universe is full of meaning because truth is more real than atoms. It is eternal, immaterial and indestructible.

Materialists believe all reality is material. But this is an idea, not a thing! Therefore, Materialism itself cannot be part of a materialist's reality.

New Atheists, more Lite than Bright, sell their birthright for a mess of pottage.

Derek BLADES

The real objection to religious schools is not that they are divisive but that religion is, by definition, anti-education. Education is about logical reasoning and empirical investigation. Faith is the rejection of reason and has no place in the school-room. Once again the French have got it right.

AY

david elder

Where do You see problem?
This is like, leaves on trees are "green" - is is true or not? Certainly not - nature knows nothing about "green", it is just an anthropomorphic shortcut.

Don't worry, you have free will, morality, intelligence, and so on (even God) - in hte same way, as anthropomorhic shortcuts for brain properties and funcitons developed by evolution for complex social animals.

Other things as stated above.

Lizzy

We're getting off track here.

The problem is not so much teaching religion as teaching intolerance - and I'll wager that in this century Islam is the only religion in the West indoctrinating children to hate others.

Resist.

Miranda Rose Smith

Derek BLADES
February 15th, 2011 9:45pm
The real objection to religious schools is not that they are divisive but that religion is, by definition, anti-education. Education is about logical reasoning and empirical investigation. Faith is the rejection of reason and has no place in the school-room. Once again the French have got it right.

Dear Mr. Blades: If that's so, why was Sir Isaac Newton a religious man? Without faith, there is no science. If the universe just happened, like a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a car, why look for the rules and order that underlie genetics, astronomy, physics, chemistry?

Nick

AllanS, where do ideas "come" from?

Correct, the release of neurotransmitters from synapses within the brain. Ideas are very material things.

And David, I distinctly remember saying that we're not machines. Machines imply the presence of a designer. There is no designer. We're just an assemblage of molecules. Amazing what evolution can do over 4.5 billion years, isn't it?

Cavatus

Well, here in Sweden the debate is the same, but here ALL politicians (except the Swedendemocrats) would deny the facts and say that the facts would boost the Swedendemocrats.

Go to my English-speaking blog to see how twisted Sweden is in its PC-convulsions. www.cavatus.wordpress.com

kate b

Robert Spencer says this school is now under investigation from the law.

All over the Arab world there is uprising over their corrupt dictatorships, is that a wonder when they have been taught these tenets. The acid test of a religion is, are the followers doing 'What would Mohamet do?" the answer is clearly yes. Since Tunisia (see what they are doing around the great synagogue there), Egypt, algiers, Bahrain, Libya are all set upon the sharia it is clear they are not going to improve, the countries are going to resemble this school and others like it, I doubt this is an isolated case for Islamic schools.

Mr. Mabutoh Afunfa

Derek BLADES, Thank You!.

Fiona Hook

Hitting children in any educational context, full or part time, is illegal. Where is Plod?

BalaamsAss

I expected that this revelation of abuse in MUSLIM schools would be used as a stick to beat Christian schools.

I was right.

DeeJay

Whilst I can fully appreciate why some parents continue to support faith schools, because of their superior educational standards, it is their diviseness for society which worries me. However, whilst the overall standard in our state schools remains so disappointing it seems quite unfair to deny parents the opportunity to improve the life chances of their children by opting for a religious education.

I wonder though, if by some miracle of government intervention, state schools were transformed into beacons of educational excellence, whether some parents would still insist on a separate religious based education for their siblings.

Which leads me to the next question.. Why?.. when the are plenty of opportunities to teach religious values in the home and elsewhere during the evenings and on non-school days. What is it exactly that such parents fear?

John.

DeeJay: In France it is forbidden to teach any religious subject in school. A free afternoon is provided every week for religious indoctrination out of school. It should not be beyond the wit of man to do the same thing here. The French have been doing it for over 100 years!

aelle

Dear John,

The French also executed their royal family, so I trust you are not proposing them as role models.
They also produced Voltaire who observed : " Si Dieu n'existait pas il faudrait l'inventer. "
Since Britain is not a secular Republic but a Christian Monarchy it is difficult to see what harm instruction in Christian principles and belief might do to our young people. It might conceivably even do some good.

DeeJay

John @ 1.35pm

I wonder then, if we might have been spared the sectarianism in Northern Ireland if we had enjoyed a similar system to French. On reflection, I suspect the French needed a revolution to separate religion from their state activities.

Our current system seems to be the result of 'unintended consequences', rather than the development of specific and coherent government policy. A desire firstly, to support the established Church of England schools, then Catholic schools and subsequently, to be seen to treat all faiths equally, regardless of what might follow.

But as I hope I made clear, I see no hope of change, desirable as I am certain it would be, whilst state education in the UK continues in its parlous state.

Celato

Miranda Rose Smith:

Charles Darwin was also a religious man. Then he discovered how evolution worked ... and woke up with a bump.

Derek BLADES

Miranda Rose Smith asks me "If the universe just happened, like a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a car, why look for the rules and order that underlie genetics, astronomy, physics, chemistry?"

Wind blowing through a junk-yard and assembling a motor car is an example of instant creation. Instant creation is how religions explain the world although they usually envisage a god waving a wand rather than wind blowing through a junk-yard. It is of course complete nonsense. Darwin explains how the world as we know it evolved slowly over many years with the different types of flora and fauna following the rules of survival and adaptation that Darwin so eloquently describes.

Miranda also makes this astonishing claim "Without faith, there is no science." Even now there are religious nutters in the United States who have managed to insinuate absurd creationist theories into school curricula. Religion is, and always has been, the number one enemy of science. Back to school please Ms Smith.

Andy T

And Sir Issac Newton was an 'enemy of science' was he Mr Blades?! True science and true religion complement each other.

raymond

Yes, I also watched that gert Wilders thing on BBC2. Standard BEEB stuff. Utter denial laced with shots of nice, peaceful Muslims. Impartial it was not !Stll, what do you expect. Well done chaneel four though. Courageous reporting.

Augustus

It has always been a short step from the religious principle to
an educational commitment. An essential part of Arab education, from earlist childhood onward, is a dehumanizing hatred for the Jews as the enemies of Islam and of Allah. Jews are depicted as subhuman (Koran 5:60, for example where Allah likens them to swine and apes), but at the same time as deviously intelligent, using their wiles
and machinations for things like
world domination and evil plots against Islam. Not only is everything Jewish evil, but everything evil is Jewish.

Dave M

Have to agree with Derek for once. Religion is anti education perhaps in the sense it renders scientific investigation useless. Put simply, if God or Allah created the cosmos and mankind with a concrete plan why should we bother going into deep space? Why try to find life elsewhere?More to the point, most Abrahamic religions teach not to question but to blindly accept (as little children). Yet by nature we have cognitive resources, to study and investigate. We were born to think and question. This is why radical Islam in Europe is so much of a risk because adherents seek to censor criticism and free thought. They seek immunity from questioning of corse sets of beliefs. Yet people are free to criticize Darwin without Darwinists waving placards in the streets.

Corin

When I was teaching in Birmingham, I had occasion to reprimand a small boy who had been very naughty. This infant instantly wet himself when I reached out towards him. On reporting this to the Headteacher, she told me that he was used to beatings by the Imam and would assume that I was about to do the same. This has been going on for years. I should note that there is a vast difference between this and corporal punishmnet. Who has ever wet himself because a man raises his hand in a non-aggressive gesture?

I could also list the girls (under 16 years of age) who go on 'holiday' to Pakistan during term-time. Forced Marriage and rape, by our laws and the rapist is then allowed in as a 'husband'. Not to mention the children who on no account must be collectd from school by their fathers or else they will never be seen in the UK again.

I promise you I have personally witnessed all this.

Michael White

"Why try to find life elsewhere? More to the point, most Abrahamic religions teach not to question but to blindly accept (as little children)."

I hear your view, but the Abrahamic laws account for only part of the Bible. To complete the picture, check the New Testament. It challenges the monotony of old religious practice, (crucial for that time, it says, but time to move on). It tackles all sorts of repetitive rituals that you previously had to perform, for example who to see in order to pray, what you had to eat/drink, who you were in society, ways to cleanse yourself, sacrifical quotas, and so on. Given that all these areas are completely turned on their heads, the NT makes for fairly important reading for those with a thirst for freedom. The ability to no longer feel guilty is perhaps the most liberating value of all, and rather than encouraging children to blindly follow the rest of the sheep, it surely does the reverse. If ‘blindly following the pack’ is the villain being criticised, then the Western cultures of consumerism (sometimes bordering on material gluttony), 24 hour television and mass entertainment ought to be key starting points.

AllanS

Nick,

The area of a circle in euclidean space is piR2. Even if the universe ceased to exist, this would still be true. This truth is causeless, timeless and indestructible. It is therefore more real than material. Intelligence can perceive truth, and technique attempts to actualize it, but nothing can create it.

My dog sometimes barks at the TV. He thinks there's another dog living inside the box. Materialists who imagine the brain creates truth make the same error. Our brain is merely a receiver. The truth of our existence (which like all truth is timeless, causeless and indestructible) lies elsewhere. In Christian jargon, "Our life is hidden in Christ."

Hakim Altair

I am a muslim who went Christian Catholic school I never witness anything like this, the nuns our teachers was peaceful the priests was peaceful, they were so peaceful that you couldn't hear them walking they never wear shoes make annoying noise, they talked to us calm, they accept me even my parents was muslim they didn't discriminate or anything, i don't remember them ever talking bad about Muslims, Jewish or Hindus, they were highly educated people not only Christianity but they read Latin, History, philosophy, some of them could speak 4 or 5 languages, sorry i could not compare my experience to this Madrassas in Birmingham and Keighley, never.

ginger nicol

What a touching and beautiful posting by
Hakim Altair. Lilting and poetic.