Mildly ironically, in a week in which the BBC stands accused of doing some serious blagging, there is a discussion forum on the BBC website about Ethics and freethought<\/a>. OK, ethics= a Good Thing; freethought = a Good Thing. But, how will they fare under a combined onslaught from possibly the madder reaches of the commenting community? (The sort of people who populate some of the BBC comments pages)<\/p>\n

Picking a few topics at random:<\/p>\n

The latest discussion is called BULLMUCK<\/strong> and has some posts on the Hindu holy bull, Shambo, which is about to face being killed as a supposed TB danger. (Welcome to the badgers’ world.)<\/p>\n

This is one point of view:<\/p>\n

… its religion that is exploiting them, forcing these unfortunate creatures like we do pets into accepting our unwanted adoration and worship….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I must say that unwanted adoration and\/or worship are rarely forced on animals, but it made me think. Is worshipping some entity cruel to it? In fact, it seems that quite a few commenters see forcing worship on creatures as inhumane. Maybe, if there were a God, it would piss him\/her\/it off as well. So let’s all do the decent thing and stop doing it.<\/p>\n

Next thread :MILK THE CRUEL DRINK<\/strong>? There are loads of vegan comments posters. Yes they have a point about cruelty being involved in milk production, but there are also enough people trying to claim that milk products are poisonous to humans, which strikes me as being on a very slim science basis.<\/p>\n

In any case (and I’m a vegetarian), I’m starting to panic at the extremely strong animal-orientation of freethinking ethicists. Ethics should be mainly about humans, surely? No, it’s a statistical blip. There’s only one more purely animal-oriented thread on the page and I’m going to skip it.<\/p>\n

Oh dear, though, the CONCLUSION TO EVOLUTION<\/strong> thread already smells of some Intelligent Design stuff. Lo and behold, it starts from this post:<\/p>\n

Is the only logical conclusion to Evolution an ultimate “being” that knows everything & is able to Create everything?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You would think a simple no would suffice.
\nIndeed, that’s exactly what the next post says:<\/p>\n

No.
\nHope this helps,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another post says<\/p>\n

For the sake of entertainment, perhaps you could explain just what you think evolution is and how you think it works<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m starting to warm to this page, now. To save me copying and pasting edited highlights here, if you are slightly interested, look at it yourself.<\/p>\n

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    Mildly ironically, in a week in which the BBC stands accused of doing some serious blagging, there is a discussion forum on the BBC website about Ethics and freethought. OK, ethics= a Good Thing; freethought = a Good Thing. But, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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