Secularism Gets the Last Word

Note: The purpose of this section is not to bemoan “bias” in the drive-by media, which would imply that we consider anti-Catholicism to be something about which one could be even-handed; it is, rather, to highlight the fact that the most well-funded news publications in contemporary Britain are in the hands of Secularists (with sometimes nominal theism) who should have the honesty to admit as much in their titles. We suggest the following renaming of them: The Secularist Guardian, The Secularist Times, The Daily Secularist Telegraph and The Independent Secularist.

Some newspapers seem content merely that those hostile to religion should have the last word. For recent examples, see The Guardian and the The Daily Telegraph (27/9/05). These last words on religious schooling should be compared with those of the Nazi Reich Minister for Church Affairs, Hans Kerrl. Another attempt to portray the enforcement of anti-theism in schools as “inclusiveness” appears in The Independent for 26/1/06 (“Evidence against 'choice' of schools”, Letters). (An illustration of how such inclusiveness would work out in practice is provided in The Times of 25/1/06.) See also a recent letter in The Independent on “faith hospitals” (24/11/05). Leaving aside, if it were possible, the merciless references to child killing, the newspaper failed to publish any response to this letter pointing out, for example, that “a 'welfare church' . . . existed long before the welfare state” and that the “destruction of this welfare church [by Henry VIII] . . . led to the creation of the welfare state”¹.

The same correspondent to The Independent reappears today with the jocular suggestion that an “atheist Jehovah's witness” would have “no apparent reason” for knocking on a person's door (see second letter under “The optimistic atheist”, 16/2/06). That atheists have “no apparent reason” is belied by his own and his Guardian- and Telegraph-published colleague's views on religious schools and hospitals referred to above. These views are identical to those given in a 1936 edition of Der SA-Mann, weekly periodical of the Brownshirts of the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party. Ironically for the Independent's correspondent, in Munich the pursuit of this policy included house-to-house visits to put pressure on parents to make them vote for the Nazi community schools² (a practice that is apparently being revived today – 15/1/07). If only all atheists did have “no apparent reason” then the death-toll of the twentieth century would be a lot lower than it was.

On 1/12/05, The Guardian published four letters attacking the Church's teaching on sodomy as if it singled out some sort of ethnic group. No reply was published. Such a reply could have included the Church's simple and universal doctrine that “each and every marriage act . . . must remain open to the transmission of life”³. The same paper has since suggested that whether St. Thomas More would have concurred with this universal doctrine “is a moot point” (Leader, 10/1/06). As to why it is a moot point, the leader writer appears to be keeping his cards close to his chest. It seems we will have to wait for a future instalment before we get any details on this. Having exploited More's sainthood in order to agitate for lust, The Guardian tees the ball up nicely for a letter writer to drive home the view that Thomas was not the saint we think he is after all (14/1/06). (See this Catholic Encyclopaedia entry for information on the Chancellor's enforcement of England's anti-heresy laws.)

The number of religiously-orientated attacks on the origins of life theory known as “Intelligent Design” that have appeared in newspapers these past few weeks is also worth considering in this context. While The Guardian is adamant that evolution is “quite simply, true”, the paper believes it is important to invite the views of all and sundry on the meaning of Genesis (16/1/06).

Et cetera, et cetera

Further illustrations of this point may be found here: The Independent (see second letter under “Irving sentence sets worrying precedent”, 23/2/06) – a blatant example of argument by forced analogy where one could easily substitute 'Evolutionism' for 'Intelligent Design' and make an equally compelling point.

Addendum: Secularism gets to choose the meaning of words

Today's Secularist Observer quotes a Secularist activist as having an “Orwellian experience” when hearing the language of Liberalism being used to justify oppression (2/3/08). There is nothing Orwellian there. Liberalism is a political movement which seeks to remove all legal impediments to a person's choosing to do good or bad. As such it oppresses anyone who seeks to resist evil. A perfect illustration comes from The Secularist Guardian of 5/1/06, mentioned elsewhere on this Web site, in which the same Secularist activist is quoted as demanding that Catholics be deprived of their livelihood if they refuse to abet the killing of innocent human beings. No doubt a letter to The Observer stating as much will be rejected for Orwellian reasons, such as the verbal whitewashing of said killing as being, in “fact”, the provision of “healthcare” (cf. the slogan “War is Peace”, from 1984). In which case, we think our point is proved.

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