Mary Louise Michie; career ended

A bit of a disturbing story coming out of the Northern Territory today; a long serving Teacher, possessing an excellent record, has been placed on a good behaviour bond (and can never teach again) because a student sustained the grievous injury of … a swollen thumb. There are many things wrong with this story and fault lays all over the place – but to think a teacher’s career can be ended instantly (as you’ll see below) over such an incredibly minor instance is mind-boggling to say the least.

Judging from the various sources available, this seems to be the order of events (please note, summary is based solely off the various below news sources):

An 11 year old student came to school and misused a piece of sporting equipment. The teacher in question, Mary Louise Michie, told the student to get off the ‘scooter board’ and bent down to pick it up. At this time the girl’s thumb came into contact with the board though this seems hard to understand how exactly. The student commented that the Teacher had hit her, supposedly with a cheeky grin. At lunch that same day Michie was called to see the Principal and, after a short interview, was told to pack her bags and that her career was over.

We have here a teacher who had impeccable references from other staff and served, as the judge admitted, as an excellent teacher for 33 years. Her career is ended because of one rather small mishap in the yard with the possibility that the the student in question blew the matter completely out of proportion. Was the incident intentional? There is absolutely no indication of such. Was it accidental? This seems far more likely. Either way, would it be worth a charge of aggravated assault? It was a swollen thumb, apparently fine after being treated with an ice pack, not what could be labelled a life changing injury by any stretch of the imagination.

This seems to be a case of something that is unfortunately an increasing occurrence with today’s generation of children.  It has often been said that the children of today are so incredibly protected from any adversity that they should be called the ‘Cotton Wool Generation’, this is a notion I find myself in agreement with. How would such an incident be handled ten or twenty years ago? The child might be told to suck it up and not misuse equipment again, a brief word in the staff room maybe or (worse comes to worse) the parents might come and sit down and everyone talks about it over a beer or coffee – almost certainly with the conclusion that incidents invariably happen in any school yard and injuries will be sustained. It is just part of growing up. Yet somehow we have managed to instil such a feeling of privilege in today’s children that they have absolutely no resilience in facing difficulty and that usually results in educators taking on more and more responsibility. And yet they wonder why people are leaving the teaching profession in droves, one of the reasons is simply cases such as this.

Now who seems to be at fault in this particular case? The Principal certainly failed to stand by a member of staff in any perceivable manner, effectively firing her instantly without any sort of investigation. The child certainly has a share of the blame as her parents probably do as well. The Judge is at fault for relying on the statement and notes of one person, the Principal, over the statements given by the defendant which seem to be backed by an incredibly good record and testimonies by her fellow staff members. As noted by the Judge, the Police certainly needed to clear the matter up when it happened and not eight weeks later – but then perhaps they thought it was truly a frivolous matter as it seems to be.

Principal’s notes inaccurate, teacher tells court

N.T Teacher denies hitting young girl

Teacher found guilty of assaulting young girl

Teacher guilty of assault

Teacher guilty of assault

Teacher escapes assault conviction

“I’m an atheist…I don’t believe there is a God”.

NO. You just don’t have the NERVE to believe in God.

Belief in the Judeo-Christian deity is a psychological crutch that is often comforting in everyday life. It can be nice and reassuring to believe that some supernatural-creator force is looking over you and is concerned about your safety and well-being. Believing in such is the easy way out, a placebo well suited to making you feel more at ease about events. But, like any placebo, it is not actually true and properly effective – it is just a trick of the mind. It is much harder to go through life without that psychological aid, so to claim one does not ‘have the nerve’ is a rather absurd claim to say the least.

But, of course, truth is far more important than happiness.

We are all created in His image and likeness. There is not a single one of us who was born to “not believe in Him”. We are all created to worship, and to believe.

Statements without evidence or proof. Worthless. Not only are they without evidence of any kind, they also make no sense when you consider them for even a moment – and if we are created merely to worship and believe, that makes that particular deity an insanely huge egomaniac.

Then you have a moral conscience. That moral conscience didn’t just “happen” to come upon you. It’s conditioned in you. Even those who do not believe in God and His commandments and laws, follow the same basic moral laws in their own lives.

That seems to be entire crux of the entries argument; you are not evil and follow roughly the same moral code so god exists. This, of course, is what can only be described as a load of bollocks. The construct of societal morality is well documented; it has certainly changed over time (see slavery and there attitudes relating to it) and has specifically formed to keep social cohesion reasonable stable and strong. It is very much a case of common sense; if members of a given community start to steal from and murder each other then that community will simply dissolve and be no more. Those communities that learned how to live as a stable community survived and prospered; forming unspoken rules first and then, later, qualifying them into written laws in a bid to lessen the frequency of disputes. We even see this exact sort of behaviour in certain animal species – there are primates, as an example, who show relatively strong community minded rules.  A member of this primate community who steals from another member is exiled from the group. These animals certainly have no sense of ‘god’ but do show the same exact tendencies, as relating to social cohesion, as early man did.

To put it a different way, there are two things that allowed humanity to become more advanced than every other species on the planet. The first, of course, is a more developed brain. The evolution of the brain is well documented and there really is not much room for debate on this matter. The second reason is because we are social creatures; we learnt very early on that physically we are not very special. We are not the strongest or fastest species but we did happen to be the smartest and most inventive. Part of that was learning to act as one community, growing strength through sheer numbers if nothing else.

[Snip some stuff here, including the use of circular logic and other nonsense.]

Conclusion: You were not born an atheist…nor were you born homosexual.

Everyone is born an atheist. We are literally blank slates upon the moment of our birth, with some behaviour genetically influenced but that seems to be relatively minor according to available research. We do not even have a sense of self upon birth – knowing that you even exist is a learned fact, gleaned from exposure and experience to the various stimuli that assaults us in our formative years. We do not know what colour is. We do not know how to speak. We do not know how to interpret words so they have meaning. All of these things are learned. And if we do not know such incredibly basic concepts, including that we even exist, than how can be possibly know about a supernatural creator being? That too is learned, or rather indoctrinated in a lot of cases, from those who control our upbringing and life as we develop.

There is an extremely good reason why children tend to be the same religion as their parents, it is what they are brought up to believe. Children do not know any better than to accept blindly what their parents tell them, which is to be expected since said parents overwhelmingly look out that child’s safety and well-being. You are not born with knowledge of Thor, Zeus or any other deity. You are not born with innate knowledge of any deity. The only knowledge you happen to be born with is the automatic functions your body needs to survive; blinking, breathing actions and so forth. Every single other action and fact after that is learned from experience.

As for the homosexual comment; that is just sheer nonsense as well. Some people like the colour red. Some like the taste of mushrooms while others do not. Some like blondes. Some like brunettes. Some like short people, some like tall. Many like the members of the opposite sex, some do not. And this is where the minor influence of genetics I mentioned above come into play – every single one of us is genetically directed to like and dislike certain things, be it the way our brains interpret signals from our taste buds or olfactory senses, or how we are attracted to members of the society around us.  For example, I like slender members of the opposite gender and tend to find them much more attractive than those who possess a rather large bust. This is something I can not help, it is how my brain happens to be wired. The same, research shows, is the same for those who find those of the same gender attractive.

Pope says sex education an ‘attack on religious freedom’

Sexual and civic education in schools in Europe is an “attack” on religious freedom, Pope Benedict XVI said on Monday in a traditional annual address to foreign diplomats to the Vatican.

“I cannot remain silent about another attack on the religious freedom of families in certain European countries which mandate obligatory participation in courses of sexual or civic education,” the Pope told the ambassadors.

He said such courses “convey a neutral concept of the person and of life, yet in fact reflect an anthropology opposed to faith and to right reason”.

The Pope said this was an example of the “threats” against “the cultural roots which nourish the profound identity and social cohesion of many nations”.

In a collection of interviews published in November 2010, Pope Benedict said for the first time that he approved of condom use to reduce the risk of disease, leading some to wonder whether his attitude to sex education was changing.

But the Vatican later insisted that the Pope’s comments referred only to sex workers who were HIV positive and could not be applied more widely.

Education is a wonderful thing, it is one of the aspects of humanity that separates us from rest of life found on Earth. Each generation actively works to build and pass on knowledge to the next, giving descendants the best possible chance of leading happy and productive lives. It does not matter in the least what the subject matter might be – knowledge is intrinsically a treasure, to be valued as highly as anything can possibly be. It does not matter if you do not find a particular field interesting to learn about, if you have the time … learn about it anyhow for you never know where such knowledge might lead you or affect other aspects of your life. Without education, we would be condemned to live in ignorance and humanity would not have even mastered the use of pointy sticks to hunt with.

To even imply that the ever growing collection of knowledge, regardless of the subject, that we have acquired is somehow a bad thing is staggeringly and insanely … again, words fail me.

Ah. But perhaps I am regarding this topic from the wrong angle. It must be recalled that the Catholic Church is the organisation that has actively been spreading falsehoods about the use and effectiveness of condoms in regions where they are needed most. Effective sex education in such regions would indeed completely scuttle said efforts and undo the damage caused by the Vatican, so perhaps the Pope is attempting to somehow disparage proper education to head off such a move.

From another angle again; is the Pope now trying to somehow imply that education is somehow the anathema of religion? Not surprisingly, many people have already been saying this for many years. This story certainly seems to support such a notion, it must be said. If education (again, regardless of the subject) is somehow an attack on freedom of religion and a choice must be made then it is a very obvious choice indeed – education wins every single time.

The first comes from the blog Curious Presbyterian. Now, to be fair, the blog itself is quite alright and the author seems to be a reasonably articulate and intelligent person. Instead a quote they have selected to … well, quote is exceptionally silly.

‘Atheists should not be patting themselves on the back for discovering that creation science isn’t real science.  That’s a bit like discovering the two men inside the horse-costume.’ ~ R. Joseph Hoffmann

This quote quite clearly misses the entire point. It is blatantly obvious that creation science actually has nothing to do with science, much akin to how it is blatantly obvious that sticking your face into the blades of an operating lawn mower may be somewhat detrimental to your own person. It is not a startling discovery and it is only noted because there seems to be a remarkable number of people who have not yet clued onto it yet. The number of young earth creationists (and creationists in general, for that matter) in society trying to impose their completely unsubstantiated whackery on other aspects of society is astounding. Atheists (and science in general, it should be noted) do not pat themselves on the back when debunking creationism – they facepalm because they have, yet again, encountered incredible levels of ignorance and/or stupidity.

The next example comes from the blog Word Salad, which goes on to say the following;

Atheism is also a religion. Nothing of what you say can change atheists’ faith. Because atheism isn’t really a proof of one’s high intelligence but a form of close-mindedness. Atheists can only understand their language – a language that doesn’t use the words “God”, “Miracle”, “Prayer”. They cannot translate the language of theists into their language and vice versa even though what the both are saying is just the same. In this sense, atheists and people with blind faith to their religions are very alike.

Where to even start? Atheism is not a religion – the best example I can think of is the old comparison; Atheism is to religion as baldness is to hair colour. Atheists, generally speaking, are scientifically minding (yes, there are exceptions but I am speaking in broad generalisations in this particular instance) and that means that they are always looking for evidence. Science is brilliant in that it is constantly trying to prove itself wrong and any good scientist is ecstatic wherein he is proven that he is incorrect and the real solutions is revealed. All Atheists insist on is being shown testable evidence for the existence of some sort of deity/supernatural entity – and as of yet, none is forthcoming. I know perfectly well what the words ‘god’, ‘miracle’ and ‘prayer’ mean; back when I was a naive child I even bought into the superstitions but then, as my critical analysis skills developed, I simply de-constructed all the so called ‘truths’.

The Lewis Crusade comes in at this point which a supposed example of a miracle. Honestly, it is not even worth copy/pasting his account for it is so … well, insignificant.  If that is the criteria offered to be counted as a miracle or the power of prayer, then I would argue the same stringency be applied to all other facets of everyday human life. That would mean everything we do would have to be based on co-incidence, from paying parking tickets, taxes, grocery shopping (“I’m going away on the 12th and that is exactly when this bottle of milk is set to expire! It’s a miracle!“)

Wintery Knight really comes on in strong, somehow linking the Arizona shooter’s supposed atheism with his actions, for a reason which is not particularly clear;

One of his other videos comments that he resented being given a Bible by a military recruiter since he professes no religion or faith. In short, the man is likely an atheist who resents people who hand him Bibles when he has no need for one.

If that is the authors entire line of evidence for that obviously mentally ill man being an atheist then it is indeed a long bow that he is attempting to draw. No other alternatives crossed his mind? Perhaps he simply did not believe that a government agency, in this case the military, should be pressuring recruits into following any sort of religion. This is not a silly notion since your personal religious beliefs have absolutely no effect on whether or not you can be an effective soldier. But the real mistake of the notion is regardless if the suspect was an atheist or not, it is entirely irrelevant to the crime he is accused of committing. Perhaps he likes the colour yellow as well – I do not know but it is not important, it is simply irrelevant and does not link back to the actions he is accused of in any way.

Even Optimus facepalms at the stupidity

But all the above are runners-up in today’s comment for silliness. The champion is a man called Butch Anderson who comes up with absolute gems such as;

Where are the atheists to protest the building of a mosque at Ground Zero?

Why should Atheists protest such a thing? They wish to build a religious meeting point on private land. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that and I wish them luck in their endeavours.

Where are the atheists to protest the hegemony of Jews in our entertainment (propaganda) industry? Where do you hear them protesting the government bailout of the Jewish Wall Street financial empire?

Oh dear, it seems we are now in paranoid-conspiracy loon country. He seems to possess some sort of irrational hatred towards the Jewish community for some reason. In the first instance I have seen no evidence of the entertainment industry being some sort of Jewish propaganda machine. Secondly, even if it was … well, that is a by-product of having a free-market based economy; those that own industries get to call the proverbial shots. Whether or not that is a good or bad thing is an entirely different argument but that is how the United States has elected to go.

His second point is just as absurd. The financial crisis the world experienced was devastating to a lot of sectors and Wall Street was particularly badly hit. My own country of Australia did not suffer nearly as badly thanks to, in large, to the Government spending a great deal of money stimulating the economy and pumping money into various institutions so they could ride out the massive downturn. If they had not done so, the effects on the everyday person would have been considerably worse than they were.  The United States did much the same, though to a lesser degree, and that seems to have cushioned the impact somewhat. What is to be protested there and how can it even be linked back to atheism?

But just let them discover a cross in the Mojave Desert that has been there for years and years and all hell breaks loose. It’s got to go. Enlist the atheists and new world order dictators in the Ninth Circuit to make a new law banning crosses on government property.

If it is the cross I am thinking of, the reason it had to go was because it was located on government property which means it was a clear violation of the separation of church and state. If it been on private land, then there would indeed be no problem at all and that is the key difference.

Further I’ve never heard an atheist say that Muslims or Jews are stupid because they believe in their religion but they are constantly saying it of Christians.

I would hope that no atheist would say a person is stupid. I know I try to refrain from such, instead I like to point out how particular religions are stupid. In this case I am not called Butch Anderson an idiot, I am calling what he is saying idiotic and there is a lot of difference there. All the Abrahamic faiths, and every other religion I can think of to be honest, are devoid of evidence and to believe in their tenets is indeed to be quite silly. I hope Butch is happy now.

While atheists give lip service to being against religion in general, they save their real ire for we Christians because they know that we are the ones who stand in the way of the eventual enslavement of the human race to an elite of godless dictators.

That paranoia seems to be showing again, it would seem. There are two main reasons most of my religious based comments are directed against Christianity;  a) It is the religion I am, by far, the most familiar with.  b) It is the religion that, by far, most tries to impose itself on my personal life. I have yet to encounter a Jewish person try to argue that science education needs to be changed, as an example, yet I see it all the time from aspects of the Christian community. Now at this point I should point out my underlying philosophy on religion and personal freedoms; I do not care what you choose to believe in, as long as it does not impact on me or my life. You also need to be able to defend your particular beliefs in reasoned debate, else they are not much of a belief at all. That is it.  Thus far the only sector of the religious community that has tried to change the way I experience life is Christianity and that I find to be quite unacceptable.

There are some more ramblings of little consequence until we get to this particular line:

However sad I feel for them, however, I realize that they must be stopped along with all the alien cultures and religions that are attacking our way of life.

This links back to what I said above, with people trying to impose their beliefs on the rest of society (and then acting hurt when they get told to sit down and be quiet). The author’s chosen words at this point also indicate, though far from conclusively, an underlying tendency towards racism and dislike of anything that might be ‘different’.

Immigration, both legal and illegal, must be stopped until we have full employment for our citizens. When legal immigration is resumed it should be for Europeans only.

Ah. I think the evidence for my above hypothesis just grew somewhat stronger.

Judges must be impeached when they obviously break their oath of office by writing new laws. They are not legislators, they are judges and they are not above the law.

Someone also, it would appear, needs to be educated on the role of the judicial system as well. There is an extremely good reason why the judicial system is completely separate from the political system; it tends to keep political powers more honest and accountable for starters.

The Constitution is not to be “interpreted.”

I have actually read the Constitution of the United States (which, as is my understanding, is a better achievement than many of the citizens of said nation) and it is worded rather vaguely. When something is written in such a manner then it demands to be interpreted. Especially when the language used is dated and not entirely suitable to the changed circumstances of modern society compared to when said document was first drafted.

Many of those I knew became Christians when they kept bumping up against things that their limited atheist religion could not explain.

I started to see where the author may have gone wrong in drawing his conclusions. Atheism (and science, for that matter) do not (and never have) claimed to have all the answers. Generally speaking, atheists and scientists are nowhere near that arrogant. The closest you might get to that is a statement akin to “we do not have all the answers so we will follow the best tools yet developed for getting such answers and see where they lead us. Yay for rational enquiry and scientific testing!”. Religions may claim to have all the answers but that is a far cry indeed from those answers being correct.

Don’t be shocked when I call atheism a religion for it truly is. It is just not a very good one. All religion requires faith and while Christians put their faith in a God that is everywhere evident, touchable, palpable; atheists put their faith in a god of…nothing.

‘everywhere evidence, touchable, palpable’. Those are very interesting terms to use and yet not backed up by any evidence at all. I can touch the keyboard in front of me so does that mean I am touching god? No. I am touching a man made plastic device formed from a petroleum based process, mixed with some cleverly-manipulated metals. Anything that I can touch is explainable, anything I observe is explainable. Not through the tenets of religion but through evidence and experiment based fact. There is no faith in that process since faith is the anathema of evidence. Faith, by definition, is blind but scientific conclusions are reachable and repeatable by anyone.

Autism vaccine study ‘an elaborate fraud’

Posted 2 hours 9 minutes ago

A 1998 study that unleashed a major health scare by linking childhood autism to a triple vaccine was “an elaborate fraud,” the British Medical Journal (BMJ) said.

The study was blamed for a disastrous boycott of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine in Britain.

It was retracted by The Lancet last year and its senior author disgraced after the country’s longest-running hearing for conflict of interest and unethical treatment of patients.

But the BMJ has taken the affair further, branding the paper a crafted attempt to deceive.

“The paper was in fact an elaborate fraud,” it said in an editorial.

“There are hard lessons for many in this highly damaging saga.”

The journal pointed the finger at lead author Andrew Wakefield, then a consultant in experimental gastro-enterology at London’s Royal Free Hospital.

Mr Wakefield and his team suggested they had found a “new syndrome” of autism and bowel disease among 12 children.

Autism is the term for an array of conditions ranging from poor social interaction to repetitive behaviours and entrenched silence.

The condition is rare, predominantly affecting boys, although its causes are fiercely debated.

Mr Wakefield and his team linked the syndrome to the MMR vaccine, which they said had been administered to eight of the youngsters shortly before the symptoms emerged.

Other scientists swiftly cautioned the study was only among a tiny group, without a comparative “control” sample, and the dating of when symptoms surfaced was based on parental recall, which is notoriously unreliable.

The study’s results have never been replicated.

The controversy unleashed a widespread parental boycott of the jab in Britain, and unease reverberated also in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The BMJ says hundreds of thousands of children in Britain are now unshielded against these three diseases.

In 2008, measles was declared endemic, or present in the wider population much like chicken pox, in England and Wales.

‘Evidence of falsification’

Mr Wakefield was barred from medical practice last year on grounds of conflict of financial interest and unethical treatment of some children involved in the research.

The BMJ says Sunday Times investigative journalist Brian Deer has “unearthed clear evidence of falsification”.

It says not one of the 12 cases as reported in the study tallied fully with the children’s official medical records and diagnoses had been misrepresented and dates faked in order to draw a convenient link with the MMR jab.

It says only one of the nine children described by Mr Wakefield as having “regressive autism” clearly had this condition and three were not even diagnosed with autism at all.

The journal adds the findings had been skewed in advance, as the patients had been recruited via campaigners opposed to the MMR vaccine.

It says Wakefield had been confidentially paid hundreds of thousands of pounds through a law firm under plans to launch “class action” litigation against the vaccine.

Mr Deer, in a separate piece published by the BMJ, compared the scandal with the “Piltdown Man” hoax of 1953, when a supposed fossil of a creature half-man, half-ape turned out to be a fake.

Mr Wakefield, who still retains a vocal band of supporters, has reportedly left Britain to work in the United States.

He and his publishing agent did not respond to calls and emails requesting comment.

Mr Wakefield has previously accused Britain’s General Medical Council (GMC) of seeking to “discredit and silence” him and shield the British government from responsibility in what he calls a “scandal”.

The Lancet says it will not comment on the accusations.

Convenient chart of bat-convenience

Some time back I created a quick comparison, for satirical purposes, between Autobot Leader Optimus Prime and Christian Leader Jesus Christ (there is even a useful pictorial chart for convenience). This comparison showed that if you wish to live by the example of a particular character than you would indeed be much better off going with the Peter Cullen voiced bearer of the Matrix of Leadership. If nothing else, he can give you a lift down-town whilst his opponent could do nothing of the sort.

This time we take a look at the Dark Knight Crusader vs. Jesus Christ. Which possesses the better philosophy? Which has the better track record and achievements? Who has the cooler car? And, most importantly, who serves as a better role model and example for humanity?

I am fairly sure that certain people will jump up and down and most likely get offended in some manner. My reaction to such is two-fold; firstly they’re missing the point. Secondly, tough.

The point is that if you wish to have an example to live your life by then choosing Jesus is probably not the best cut of meat in the market. This has already been shown by the previously mentioned Optimus Prime piece but is merely reinforced by this one. How does this comparison do so?

The character of Batman presents many fine moral and ethical examples. As a child he was faced with incredible tragedy with the murder of his parents and, despite his age of eight, he vowed that he would do whatever it took to make sure that no other person experienced that tragedy again. This is very important and shows incredible dedication. He did not bemoan his new orphan status. He did not pray or hope for some supernatural forces to rectify the situation. He took responsibility for his own life and made something incredible out of it; he decided that he would sacrifice any chance of a normal life (and of real happiness and contentment) to do whatever he could for everyone else.  He did not die for others, he lived for them instead. Or as the old adage goes; Dying for a cause is noble but living for one is far better. (Yes, I am paraphrasing but you get the point).

Batman serves as an excellent example that you should not externalise blame and grief. You should not pray (or hope) that some other entity/person/forces should fix matters for you. You need to roll up your sleeves and make yourself a better person. If help should happen to come along later, that is fantastic but do not fold under the pressure of adversity and tragedy. Use it as a springboard to make yourself a better person and, more importantly, make the world a better place for everyone else around you. It would have been the easy path for a young Bruce Wayne to fall back on his incredible wealth and spend years in therapy, blaming society for the loss of his parents whilst partying it up and generally being a socialite douchebag. Instead he took self-responsibility and sacrificed of himself to do what needed to be done; fully knowing that he would never grow old and happy with a loved one. He did not get to ascend to paradise after three days. He get no reward from his efforts apart from the satisfaction in breaking the jaw of people who seek to hurt others.

That is a much better method of thinking than what the character of Jesus offers. Prayer solves nothing. Hoping someone/thing else aids you because you hope for it is not practical and will not happen. Nothing changes unless you work to make it change. And that is the point of this comparison.

In good news, Pakistan is looking to relax the blasphemy laws a little though the Government denies any plans to remove the death penalty component. That has still angered a few people and it resulted in everyone’s favourite peaceful activity; riots (because everyone knows the best way to get your point across is to go destroy stuff in the street. Great thinking).

Proposed changes to blasphemy law prompt Pakistan strikes

By South Asia correspondent Sally Sara

Posted 3 hours 17 minutes ago

Islamists have staged strikes in major cities across Pakistan to protest against possible changes to the nation’s blasphemy laws.

Demonstrators threw rocks at police, who responded with tear gas in the southern city of Karachi.

leaders called for a national shutdown to protest against the possible weakening of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.

Shops were closed and roads were blocked in several cities across the country as part of strikes against the possible changes.

The government has denied it plans to scrap the death penalty for those who make offensive remarks about the Prophet Mohammed.

But the introduction of a private member’s bill has drawn an angry reaction from Muslim clerics.

Here is my reaction to said blasphemy laws. Mohammed is no more a holy figure than my worn out sneakers resting under my bed. His teachings range from plain common sense to outright bizarre and certainly immoral in places. He married and had sex with young children which certainly makes him morally dubious from the get-go – and anyone who thinks that anyone who says bad things about him (such as I just did) should be put to death … well, it says a great deal about their particular mindset. A mindset that is, as mentioned, barbaric to say the least. Same goes for any other religious figure for that matter.

No beliefs should be closed to debate, religious or not. All ideas need to be critically examined on a constant basis to ensure their worthiness and accuracy, to make sure they have a place in modern society. Open debate and open forums lead to the refinement and improvement of ideas. That is how humanity has been able to progress so quickly over the past five hundred or so years – a lot of the taboos about debate were dropped and people could actually properly investigate the Universe around them.