Don't Get Me Started - Stewart Lee - What's So Wrong About Blasphemy?

worship a puppet snake or a man from Bethlehem who could make a loaf of bread feed more people than could reasonably be expected somehow in an increasingly multicultural multi-religious society we are all going to have to learn to get along, so, why is it like this? Government initiatives appear designed to increasingly segregate children based on their parents' religious beliefs. The public opposes discriminating against children on the basis of their religion or the religion of their parents, feigned or not, and opposes the segregation of children on racial and religious grounds which makes for an overwhelming majority against, but we have an extremely conservative government that thinks it's a good thing to do despite that because they want to stay in the faith.

I am delighted to have the opportunity today to pay. tribute to the works of faith and work that you, as churches and Christian organizations, carried out in communities across the country, the decision to not only allow faith schools, but to actively promote them, comes from above. I know why they did it, I mean partly because not only because Tony Blair is religious and sends his children to religious schools, but David Blunkett, who I don't think is particularly religious, said that when he was education secretary I would like to bottle the magic that religious schools have. What he meant was that he saw religious schools. being very orderly, often in very poor areas, religious schools often have, you know, the best behaved children, quite often they do better because they exclude chaotic families, by definition, they are operating a different type of selection procedure, so you are not obliged. having to deal with students or families that could lower their batting average basically, not at all, they're not going to be families of drug addicts and depressives and people with serious problems, alcoholics and everything else, um, so they end up being

what

they are called the best schools, that is because they have good children and the ministers are

wrong

and think there is some magic in the fact that it is religious, the only magic is selection and although most Britons have left behind religious beliefs, the possibilities of our children who avoid being presented with faith as a fact are thin and getting thinner hamish renfrew a father and non-believer had to ask his daughter at school to allow him to skip school religious education encountered resistance to her attempts to question the way religion was taught as unconditional truth in her school and was disappointed that disbelief was not an educational option.

She now campaigns on behalf of the national secular society. First semester. Four and a half years. I received a paper that says low knowledge and understanding. Believe. kind of a misnomer in re children will learn the importance of baptism with a capital b, right, I'm not baptized, my wife is not baptized, my daughter is not baptized and unless she decides to change her mind as an adult it will stay that way What's

wrong

with teaching them? about baptism, you know it per se, I mean that it is part of social traditions. I agree that there is nothing wrong with teaching baptism as a function performed by certain people in a certain religion, but that is not

what

it was.

This was the importance of baptism with a capital letter. b we are talking about george w bush and his companions here I have worked in texas and other southern states I have seen these types of Baptists well and they scare me less many people feel the same many parents are very distressed when they discover that in their area they can having to choose between two different faith schools, such as a Catholic Church of England, perhaps in some areas a Muslim school or between a girls' school and a boys' school, and they don't have the opportunity of what most people I want it to be a non-denominational mixed school I don't have a religion I consider myself pure now the fact that you don't have to have religion is not taught it's more like football it's which team you support you don't like football yes Do you get tired of that presumption ?

Yes, especially from taxi drivers. If there is someone, that's the problem. And I think the problem for politicians is that if you support Manchester United or Chelsea, we can appeal to that. caucus, you'll vote for me, right? If your Church of England or Islam or whatever you've put yourself in a box that politicians can drag to where they want you to be, they don't have to go to people who can think for themselves and me. I think that individuals can think for themselves as probably the biggest fear a modern politician has, what really worries Hamish is that when religion is taught in school, the line between reality and fictional facts and faith often It fades at Christmas.

My five daughter is celebrating Christmas. play was the night before Christmas they called me at school they gave me the script I said no no take it home you know check everything make sure you're comfortable with it I said okay it's a play it's pretend when she's 14 Yes you want to cast her as Lady Macbeth, I actually won't think you're getting her to incite someone to murder, it's a play and she said, well, you're being very reasonable about that, but we tried it a couple of years ago. something for diwali and we had Christian parents who said I'm not going to let my son use those words, say those things and because of that experience we have to overlook this, that's the kind of censorship that's happening in this, that's the kind of falling in love with any kind of non-religious viewpoint that I so strongly oppose, don't you think there should be some kind of religious education in schools because that would partially help defuse any problems if people at least understood the cultures of others?

Oh, and religious education is very important and on the one hand, only for cultural reasons, but how could they understand Jerry Springer? Opera unless they need the stories. But it is strange that they are accused of

blasphemy

. I don't know if any of you have ever been formally one. accused of

blasphemy

, but I'm always relieved when people laugh at that idea because all over the country, hey, I don't know if any of you have ever been accused of blasphemy, people say, ah, no, be ridiculous, except in uh bill fwells, don't imagine. that my contribution to jerry springer's opera means that i am against all aspects of religion.

I don't think you should throw the baby out with the bathwater, especially if you're caring for children and there are few better tools for understanding the human experience and the rich heritage of stories like the Christian myth seen here, passed down through the destinies of the world. Why is it important then that we are allowed to comment on criticism and, yes, laugh at religion? At their best, religions have inspired some of the greatest works of art and musical literature in history. and   provided a mythopoetic framework for our best ideals, hopes and values ​​in its worst religions, have been used to excuse the most vicious aspects of human nature, legitimize persecution, genocide, slavery and war, when religions embody immorality and irrationality, must be open to criticism, communities often remain silent. about some of the bad things that happen within them and once the open debate is closed, it actually inhibits, especially women, from talking about the bad things that are done to them, so I am very against the idea that in some way we close the debate. with respect to religion because I actually believe that religion, like any other belief system, has to be there to be examined and to be examined in some of the ways that it does bad things to others.

I don't think they should censor me for going. in areas that some people may find offensive if I have a very good and coherent argument for why it is okay to do so here we are back where we

started

looking for evidence in Christians about jerry springer, Liverpool opera, the right to ride a comic. An opera that supposedly features Jesus in diapers, but has never actually done so, may seem like a fairly trivial issue, but it has implications for the extent to which we are willing to accommodate the opinions of people who are inspired by Faith.

This production not only undermines the authority of God but undermines the divinity of divinity in an increasingly complex world. Perhaps it is better to look towards more tangible certainties. It may seem like reckless behavior, but wouldn't it be nice to dream of a society where belief does not exist? Was it an obstacle? to dialogue you know how they say that some things in life are bad that really can be in 1979 the british film censorship board ruled that 14 year olds could watch brian's life and they agreed that the average teenager could distinguish between provocative satire and gratuitous insult Nearly 30 years later, are we really going to let the new Puritans do our thinking for us in the meantime?

If it all becomes too much, don't complain, whistle and this will help things go better and always look to the light. The side of life that is not all good Next night I will remember the ice storm that devastated Montreal, a perfect disaster or there is something even worse to come.