Why Dont You Blog?

If you were in hospital, what’s the least appealing behaviour you’d expect from the nursing staff?

(OK, I should rephrase that. The “least appealing” thing after “threats to your continued existence” or “carrying out painful and frightening medical interventions.” )

Anyway the answer to the lead rhetorical question was “behaving like a doorstep evangelist.”

Which is what this nurse did. She got suspended from work for it, but was then reinstated.

I’ve linked to the Times story, out of the many links that I could have put here, because it has a photo of the nurse which would win an undisputed Gold in the Semiotic Olympics. (I defy you to look at it without sniggering. If ever a portrait expressed the sitter’s personality on so many levels, this is it.)

Last week Mrs Petrie, who was supported by the Christian Legal Centre, was summoned to a disciplinary hearing on the basis that she had failed to demonstrate a “personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity” by offering her prayers.

Let me refresh your memory. This nurse bothered people with unsolicited offers of prayer, at a time when they were physically at the mercy of her goodwill. How irritating, even distressing, would that be? Imagine being seriously ill and feeling that you had to politely humour a god-botherer – who was, incidentally, getting paid to attend to YOUR needs rather than her own need to proselytise,

Sir Patrick Cormack, the Tory MP for South Staffordshire and a committed Anglican, told Parliament that the case illustrated the “utter absurdities” of political correctness.

Well, “political correctness” had to have gone mad somewhere in this tale, or we might begin to suspect that the “anti-PC brigade” weren’t even trying. Although, I admit that “utter absurdities” makes a refreshing change from the cliched “gone mad.”

Anyway, the Christian Legal Centre, don’t you just love them? They are like a Superman figure to defending people who somehow skipped the Sermon on the Mount stuff and define their “Christian faith” in terms of jewelry, opposition to statues, homophobia and freedom to push their own beliefs onto other people.

Their biggest moment in the spotlight was their failed blasphemy case against Jerry Springer the Opera.

(Which reminds me that the usually-hilariously-funny Stewart Lee co-producer of the Jerry Springer the Opera show has a new series starting on BBC on 18 March.)

A Channel 4 documentary last year showed Christian Voice and their fundy -funded chums in their true horror. It also did the world a major service by showing the incident in which Steven “Birdshit” Green earned his nickname. I mean, if that wasn’t a message from above, I don’t know what is.

Who would have thought Christian Voice would have cracked under the pressure of the No God bus campaigns in London? OK, most people I suppose. Still it is entertaining that they are riled by a simple poster to the extent they are demanding the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency to rule on the proof of God.

From the BBC:

An atheist campaign claiming “There’s probably no God” has been reported to the advertising regulator.
Posters with the slogan appear on 800 buses in England, Scotland and Wales, as well as on the London Underground.
But organisation Christian Voice has complained to the Advertising Standards Authority saying they break rules on substantiation and truthfulness.

Pardon me for a moment while I fall off the chair laughing.

They are saying that the claim there is probably no god is insubstantiated and / or not truthful. How on Thor’s hammer do they intend to convince the ASA of this one wonders…

But Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice, said: “There is plenty of evidence for God, from people’s personal experience, to the complexity, interdependence, beauty and design of the natural world.
“But there is scant evidence on the other side, so I think the advertisers are really going to struggle to show their claim is not an exaggeration or inaccurate, as the ASA code puts it.”

More laughter rings out around WhyDontYou Towers. Evidence for God exists in “personal experience” – surely this alone is a self defeating argument because if I do not have that experience the advertisement is accurate as stated. I do not have that personal experience, therefore (should the ASA be reading this) the banner is 100% correct. Thank you Christian Voice.

I assume Christian Voice have lodged similar complaints over any advertising that mentions non-Christian religions, so any posters for Mosques, Temples (etc) will have to come down. I would never suggest people be petty enough to go through Christian advertising with a fine tooth comb – each day on the way to work I see a huge poster telling me that I will die for my sins, where is the proof of that I wonder?

In a wonderful bit of understatement (and acting a lot more adult than Christian Voice…), Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, said:

“I am sure that Stephen Green really does think there is a great deal of evidence for a God (though presumably only the one that he believes in), but I pity the ASA if they are going to be expected to rule on the probability of God’s existence.”

Indeed, it will be interesting to see what their decision is…

A reference on PhillyChief’s blog reminded me about Stewart Lee and Jerry Springer, the Opera.

Stewart Lee is a comedian who became an arch-hate figure for Christian Voice a couple of years ago, because he was one of the writers of Jerry Springer the Opera. This was a tv programme that Christian Voice considered so inherently blasphemous that they tried to sue the BBC for broadcasting it. They were crowing on a channel Four documentary last year that they’d bankrupted the producers of the show, although I’m not sure if this has any basis in fact.

There are some really funny anti-Christian-Voice-blasphemy-complaint spiels in other Stewart Lee videos but I’ll post links to them at another time. This link isn’t to one of those, but I had to post it because of the irresistible Richard Littlejohn bit at the end.

Whenever I hear the phrase “Political correctness gone mad” I should reach for this video.

Stewart lee on political correctness gone mad

Parental Advisory: contains some extravagant and well-justified cussing

A Christian Voice spokesman acknowledged to the BBC that

“People don’t like being preached at.”

To what do we owe this unaccustomed recognition of reality?

Unfortunately, he hasn’t had a sudden world-view revision. He’s talking about the British Humanist Association Dawkins-backed plan to put an anti-religion advertising campaign on the sides of London buses. Which the Christian Voice chap has oddly decided to define as “preaching.”

The complete slogan reads: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

I am a bit ambivalent about this. I like the idea of having such slogans on buses and I like the idea that Christian Voice must be a bit nervous that it will actually succeed in deconverting people. But I don’t like the idea of being told what to think, in poster format, by an invisible narrator.