littled.net

I must have been in a good mood this morning as I just laughed at Anne Atkins on Thought for the Day rather than just shouting abuse at the radio and despairing of the world as I usually do.

For those of you who might not have any idea of what I’m talking about, Thought for the Day is a five-minute slot on BBC Radio 4’s flagship news programme, The Today Programme in which representatives from various religions all get to talk varying degrees of nonsense about what they believe. If I listen to TFTD in the morning, it’s bad for two reasons: one — it means I’m running late and two — it annoys me intensely.

Anne Atkins is a particular favourite or bête noire of mine, depending on my mood. Basically she’s an incredibly smug, patronising, horribly conservative Christian who likes to point out how awful secular liberals are for doing things like stopping religious bigots like herself discriminating against people they don’t like.

This morning’s was a corker. In summary it went something like this: our liberal secular society is intolerant and we should show a bit more charity (her word, used sans irony) when dealing with people of faith who refuse to act within the law because their beliefs tell them they shouldn’t. She quoted the example of a registrar in Islington who refused to conduct same-sex ceremonies and who claimed she was harrassed because she refused to do so. Religious intolerance won the day on this occasion. Basically, said Anne, us intolerant liberals should be learn to be kinder to these people of faith and cut them some slack when they want to act outside the law.

I have no problem with people holding these views of course, but I do have a bit more of problem with a publicly-funded broadcaster providing a mouth-piece for them. Still, on the other it’s nice to be reminded occasionally why I’m an atheist, and this did the job nicely. Thanks Anne.