UKC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-35988115

Not only is this absurd (religion is, after all, just a lifestyle choice) but it also represents a very worrying erosion of what used to be our right to free speech and freedom of expression.

In reply to Foxache:
It certainly looks bad there, but I'm sure I read about this before (I bet there's a big ol' 2-year old thread about the original case on here somewhere) and vaguely recall there was a fair bit more to it than just giving her colleague a book.

In reply to deepsoup:

I remember that too. There's more in the older article linked at the bottom of that story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32386927

and I seem to remember there was even more than that.

In reply to Foxache:

Yeah that article just doesn't read right, something missing

In reply to Foxache:

There are rather stronger allegations in the linked article on the subject

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32386927

I'll do a deal - anyone touching my knee whilst praying for me at work won't find themselves on the receiving end of a sueball if they don't take offence at being told to f--k off and stick their head where the sun doesn't shine.

In reply to Foxache:

There was quite a lot more to it. For a bit of balance see:

http://www.secularism.org.uk/blog/2015/04/the-christian-fired-for-praying-a...

In reply to Foxache:

That is a truly terrible piece of journalism. You only have to read the judgement of the employment tribunal to see just how off the mark it is.

In reply to Rob Naylor:

Not sure the National Secular Society would necessarily be the best source of "balance!"

Ms Wasteney actually sounds perfectly reasonable in wintertree's bbc story link but reading the original eight page letter of complaint in your link is interesting to say the least! Only skimmed it but if even 10% of that is true then she clearly has a case to answer!

If she was just a bit "happy clappy" then it would probably be best just to roll one's eyes and ignore her but she seems pretty out there as far as I can see.

In reply to Foxache:

The better message is "keep your religious beliefs to yourself at work, and certainly don't try to impose them on your subordinates".

In reply to mudmonkey5:


But their report includes the full transcript of the original judgement, which they quote extensively.

The closing comments are also sensible.

In reply to The New NickB:


I just did (thanks for the link, whoever it was).

I'm relieved to see there's apparently much more to it but also surprised that the BBC of all sources (aren't they supposed to be strongly left-leaning?) would publish such a distorted article. If I'd read this in the Mail or the Express then I'd have been more suspicious.

In reply to Foxache:


Right wing commentators would have you believe that, they seem pretty centrist to me, but I suspect that comes down to how you calibrate you political compass.

Religion of course crosses political boundaries anyway.

In this case it is more a case of poor journalism, lapping up a story from one very biased source, a Christian pressure group. You are right of course, as presented it the sort of story the Mail or Express would love.

In reply to Foxache:

Religion has a lot to answer for in my opinion

In reply to blurty:


Couldn't agree more.

In reply to The New NickB:


Hmm I'm not so sure. The other week they referred to the systematic, large-scale sexual assaults in Cologne, virtually all of which were committed by migrants, as 'a number of sexual assaults in which some migrants were said to be implicated'. They also have this bizarre insistence on referring to Islamic State as 'So-Called Islamic State'!

They definitely seem to have a strong reluctance to portray ethnic minorities in a negative light, and although religion crosses political boundaries, this story portrays the Muslim woman in a negative light (and very unfairly it would seem) as some hypersensitive troublemaker, which is again unusual for the BBC.

In reply to blurty:


Well secular ideologies have been hugely successful.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/maos-great-leap-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge

http://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-kill-1111789

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism

Yours,

An atheist.

In reply to Toccata:


I think you are a tad confused about what secular means.

In reply to Toccata:

Right...so using that logic:

None of the above believed in leprechauns, therefore we can attribute their atrocities to their lack of belief in leprechauns.

In reply to Foxache:


The BBC might have been somewhat left leaning back in the 80's but nowadays they are very might biased towards the right to say the least.

In reply to Foxache:

A pretty good rule of thumb here is that, if both the left and right wings accuse you of bias, you're probably doing a good job of taking the centre position! In this particular case they don't seem to have done a brilliant job but on the whole I'll take the BBC over pretty much any other news agency.


That's because they're a) not a state, and b) not Islamic. Calling them a state is elevating a bunch of terrorists to something they only dream of achieving, and calling them Islamic is insulting to the vast majority of muslims.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:


How can *you* say that? As with Christianity there are many different flavours off belief. As there is no definitive Eye Spy guide to what is a religion, surely it comes down to what someone believes they themselves are?

Otherwise the first Jews to declare themselves Christian, were not Christian etc.

ISIS believe themselves to be Islamic. As soon as you find a scientific, evidence based way to authoritatively prove or disprove the religious affiliation of a person in the context of a fractured, multifaceted faith with no single governing body, please let me know.

Faith by its very nature is self declared and not appointed by a central authority.

They're certainly not a state however!

In reply to Foxache:

Often get into discussion with parents at work. Been given two copies of the Qur'an in the last year. Not offended in the least.

In reply to Foxache:



I remember why I gave up trying to have intelligent debate on UKC.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:


Of course they are Islamic! They are most definitely one version of Islam. There are, of course, other versions of Islam that are less extreme.

Can you explain why you think it is "insulting" to other Muslims to state the blatantly obvious truth that the Islamic State are Islamic? Stating that is *not* asserting that all Muslims agree with them on everything -- any more than saying that both Protestants and Catholics are "Christian" implies that they agree on everything.

As for being a "state", well, they fit most definitions of a "state" in that they have political control of a large swathe of territory.

In reply to Foxache:
I suspect this is a case of crap reporting. Generally, the way this sort of law works is that for there to be a ruling of harassment the offended party would first have had to make a request to the offender to stop their behaviour - probably on multiple occasions. The offender would have had to ignore the requests and continue the harassment in order for the company to be able to take disciplinary action which was subsequently ruled legal.

In other words, this is not going to be a case of "political correctness gone mad" (TM) but a case of a religious nutjob harassing a colleague despite being asked repeatedly not to.

In other news, no council has yet actually tried to ban Christmas.

In reply to Foxache:


Given that Islamic State has yet to actually be recognised as a state by the United Nations, or indeed by any other country, why is that problematic?

In reply to Foxache:
http://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/wasteney-et-ruling.pdf

I am pretty sure that telling a subordinate at work that their illness doesn't exist because its not in the bible, constantly calling and texting them out of work hours to attend your church when they don't want to, arranging a healing for them which they didn't want to etc is not a freedom of speech issue.

The woman in question said the NHS made her sound crazy. I saw her on TV, she was seeming crazy without any help.

In reply to BarrySW19:


Because there isnt a requirement for that to be the case.
They do seem to meet the standard model though. A community operating under a single government. Pretending they dont arent, effectively, operating as a state seems odd.

In reply to Removed UserDeleted bagger:


What did you do with them?

In reply to Big Ger:


Left them in the back office with a note on them saying staff are welcome to read. Quite useful having a copy. A couple of issues have come up which I've been able to check the relevant references.

In reply to Removed UserDeleted bagger:

Fair comment.

In reply to mudmonkey5:

I agree. For those hunting the link, here's the original complaint
http://www.secularism.org.uk/uploads/wasteney-susbordinatescomplaint---john...

That, together with the detailed judgement, make a pretty strong case I'd say.

In reply to Coel Hellier:


Well, yes. I'm quite sure they believe they are acting in an Islamic way. But in the same way that most moderate Christians would regard a fundamentalist nutjob who cherry-picked the nastier bits of Leviticus as a set of life rules as un-Christian, it's my understanding that a majority of moderate muslims regard Daesh as un-Islamic.

I'm a disinterested atheist, for what it's worth; my point was that I think the BBC is right to attach 'co-called' because to allow Daesh their chosen title of IS supports the view that they are equivalent to any other muslim, and that easily leads to the mindset of asking a woman on the tube to 'explain Brussels'.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:


And ISIS regard the moderates as "un-Islamic" for not being faithful to the original teachings.


It is wrong to regard Islam as a monolith where every Muslim thinks the same and is "equivalent to any other Muslim", and so saying that ISIS is Islamic is not saying they are indistinguishable from Muslims in general. It is clearly a much more extreme version than the majority hold to.

Your refusal to recognise the Islamic nature of IS just buys into the meme that religions are "good things" and thus if anything is bad it can't be "religion".

In reply to Coel Hellier:

I certainly don't buy into that meme - as I said, disinterested atheist. But if we are to allow the majority of moderate christians to lay claim to the definition of 'Christian', shouldn't we allow the majority of moderate muslims to lay claim to the definition of 'Islamic'?

Or do we need to allow both words to encompass any acts that are believed to be so by the perpetrator? If that's your position, then I have to agree.

Either way, though, I do think that the BBC describing them as 'so-called' is right, and I'm quite sure it helps, to a small extent, to distinguish them from moderate muslims, especially to the Daily Fail brigade.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:


Religions tend to be broad agglomerations, having a sufficient ``family resemblance'' as to be usefully grouped together. I don't think we should allow the majority to define the boundaries -- religious people tend to be too keen on declaring other heretics for that to be sensible. Afterall, there are Protestants who don't regard Catholics as "Christian". Are Mormons Christians?

By any ``family resemblance'' grouping, ISIS is "Islamic". They are indeed the extreme wing, but nearly everything they do can be seen (in slightly less extreme form) in other variants of Islam. In many ways they pay much more attention to the founding texts of the religion than the moderates.

Refusing to call them "Islamic" is really making a value judgement about them and about what Islam is, trying to avoid them tainting the Islamic religion.

By the way, you call them Daesh, but I presume you're aware that that is simply "Islamic State" in Arabic? So why don't you call them ``so-called Daesh''?

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:


The more moderate christians also cherry pick their beliefs, so your argument swings both ways and the hard liners can consider the moderates as un-christian.

Labelling one set of cherry-picked and reinterpreted beliefs as un-Islamic and not other sets of cherry-picked an reinterpreted beliefs is a nonsense. You don't see the BBC referring to the "so called Catholic Church" despite the multitude of human suffering laid at the feet of the popes.

In reply to Coel Hellier:
OK - so imagine that a group of Christian fundamentalists bombed an American abortion clinic, killing many, and justified their actions by reference to the old testament - specifically saying their actions were 'Christian'. Then various religious leaders - the pope, and various archbishops, said that these actions were not Christian.

Would you agree that if most Christians regarded their interpretation of scripture as beyond the acceptable scope of their religion, then they were indeed not entitled to the description? The argument wouldn't be about whether the pope and archbishops were 'Christian' but the activists.

That's my point here - that if most Muslims regard IS/Daesh as simply beyond the boundaries of what can be described as Islamic, then they've lost the right to that word. In just the same way that the abortion clinic bombers may well describe themselves as Christian activists, but most Christians would agree that they are not acting in a Christian way at all. And if they tried to call themselves 'Christian whatever' we'd probably start referring to then as 'so-called', wouldn't we?

Regarding the name: my understanding is that yes, Daesh is a literal translation of the Arabic words' initial letters - but that Arabic languages don't use acronyms, so in fact it's just a nonsense word as far as any Arabic speaker is concerned.

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:


No both sets would be Christian but just with different interpretations of what means. Just because some other Christians have decided something unpleasant was just an allegory doesnt mean who still treat it seriously lose the right to the description.
Is a muslim someone who prays three or five times a day?

In reply to Jamie Wakeham:


No I wouldn't agree. I'd still use them "Christian" for them, if there was sufficient ``family resemblance'' between their beliefs and mainstream Christian ones. That would include emphasis on the Bible and on Jesus.


Well no. I've never heard anyone call the Westboro Baptist Church ``so-called Christian'' even though they are very much a fringe denounced by the mainstream.

And, to take your example, some Christians *have* killed doctors at abortion clinics, and the media refers to them as "Christians". As an example:

"A born-again Christian who believes abortion is a sin failed yesterday to ­convince a judge that he need not stand trial for murder after he admitted shooting dead an ­abortion doctor."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/28/scott-roeder-abortion-doctor-k...

In reply to wintertree:


I don't think I've ever seen such glorious nonsense. It is, as they say, not even wrong.

It has literally as much logic as saying you don't like the way the BBC doesn't call AVFC the" so-called Aston Villa Football Club" in spite of global warming.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:


Exactly. The Catholic Church may well be historically and in modern times responsible for more suffering and death than ISIS (although give ISIS time) but you considering it a nonsense to preface their christianity with the "so called" preface. So do I. So how anyone can deem it logical or correct to apply that moniker to ISIS I don't know.

Edit: it's a it muddled that I used church instead of christian but I'm sure a smart chap like you can see the general gist of what I was saying.

In reply to Toccata:

Because you're not intelligent enough to come up with a cogent argument?

Because you're not intelligent enough to come up with a cogent argument?