First off, I have to say I am sorry. Once upon a time I had thought all those years of compulsory Religious Education at school had taught me a thing or two about religion. I think I was wrong.

Take one of the basics as an example. I was taught that Moses had carried a tablet with ten commandments which formed the basis of the annoying triumvirate of Monotheistic religions we suffer with in this day and age. Today, reading Wikipedia, I learned I may be wrong. This is from Wiki’s page on the Ten Commandments:

1. I am the Lord thy God
2. Thou shalt have no other gods before me
3. Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol
4. Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God
5. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
6. Honor thy Father and Mother
7. Thou shalt not murder
8. Thou shalt not commit adultery
9. Thou shalt not steal
10. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
11. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house
12. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife

Now, I might be a bit old fashioned but I actually count 12 there… It seems most religions get round this by lumping two of them together every now and then. I suppose the “Ten Commandment” had a more authoritarian ring to it even all those years ago.

This leads to the second bit of confusion. I was brought up thinking the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” was on the books and it was only today I discovered the rules were you couldn’t murder someone. Apparently only Catholics say the “not kill” bit (must have caused a few problems during the crusades). I find this odd as my school was at most a Protestant one (mostly secular) and we certainly weren’t taught the Catholic doctrine anywhere else.

Anyway it now seems killing people is fine, as long as it isn’t murder. This creates a bit of confusion though. Does God wait until a secular court has reached a verdict before he consigns the killer to hell? Who decides when taking a life is murder and when it isn’t?

Why cant these bloody religions make sense. It is all proof that the bible was written by Loki while he was bored if you ask me…

The teddy bear fiasco in Sudan doesn’t look like it is going away. Null’s WTF is a good starting point, and from there the Times Online takes up some of the slack.

Writing today, Joanna Sugden notes:

Gillian Gibbons has today been charged with blasphemy, and accused of inciting hatred and insulting Islam, in Sudan for allegedly naming a class teddy bear Muhammad.

Now, I am obviously much to rational to be able to work out how naming a class teddy bear Muhammed either incites hatred or insults Islam. If she had named the bear “Islamic law is madness and anyone who follows it is a lunatic,” I could see their point, but she didn’t.

She made the mistake of allowing her class to vote on a name for the bear. Obviously this is the problem. Acts of democracy and free-thinking for children is potentially deadly for Islamic nations and they seek to stamp it out at the earliest possible stage.  Loki forbid that Sudanese law have concepts such as mens rea – who cares if she intended to do wrong, the fact of the matter is a thinly skinned religion has taken the hump over a trivial issue. Who said Islam had no sense of humour? (Well they were right)

Interestingly, and just in case the raging nutcase Christians thought they were being let off lightly today, the article on the times has this snippet:

Blasphemy is a crime on the statute book of Sudan, as it is in many countries governed by Islamic law.

My, what backward nations they are… Oh, hang on a second… Blasphemy is still a crime on the statue book of the United Kingdom and we certainly are not governed by Islamic law… (I suppose the only difference is you wont get 40 lashes in the UK…)

If you are sane enough to think this is madness please take a moment to sign the petition calling for the revocation of this nonsensical law. If you have a blog, please spread the word about this petition.