Give Piss-Taking A Chance

It’s 45 years since John and Yoko suggested that we “Give Peace a Chance”. A laudable suggestion and a very handy sound bite for the budding Beauty Queen.

For many however such commendable desires for world peace are often tempered with their own indoctrinated ideologies. Many falsely believe the path to peace and harmony lies exclusively within their own particular faith. Increasingly we seem to be witnessing examples where those ideologies appear to be so entrenched and perverted that those captivated under their spell abandon reason and humanity in violent and bloody pursuit of their own deluded notions of Nirvana.

Imagine if John was still with us today, it’s easy if you try. The rolling news coverage on any given day may well lead him to conclude that his admirable 1968 proposal is not going as well as he had hoped. We tried staying in bed. We tried painting our naked bodies in psychedelic patterns and flouncing around to Jefferson Airplane whilst shoving flowers down the barrels of rifles, but it didn’t really work. More recently we tried retaliating against terror with well financed “Shock and Awe”. But that didn't seem to work out too well either.

Now what?  Are we all out of ideas? Do we just cower behind our enhanced airport security and knee jerk anti-terrorism policies and wait for it to go away? Do we redefine our goals for peace to be a little more localised?

I think not. I think we’ve just been retaliating with the wrong weapons. I propose a fresh assault on terror. Not with guns and bombs but with satire, sarcasm and ridicule.

Let’s rip their ideology apart with cutting satirical warfare; let’s rain down cogent and piercing ridicule on their fragile dogmas. Let us unleash the weapons of mass derision. Put down your swords, pick up your pens and let’s make the fundamentalists of all faiths into morons rather than martyrs. And let’s indiscriminately deploy the same sardonic sortie on our own more familiar ideological claptrap.


NB: Extracting urine from deeply held yet completely ridiculous ideologies does not contravene your diversity training

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 011 #CZK

Past Episodes

Episode 001 Episode 002 Episode 003 Episode 004 Episode 005 Episode 006 Episode 007
Episode 008 Episode 009 Episode 010

New Episodes every Saturday

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 010 #CZK

Past Episodes

Episode 001 Episode 002 Episode 003 Episode 004 Episode 005 Episode 006 Episode 007
Episode 008 Episode 009

New Episodes every Saturday

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 009 #CZK

Past Episodes

Episode 001 Episode 002 Episode 003 Episode 004 Episode 005 Episode 006 Episode 007
Episode 008

Jerry Coyne caricature by Neil Davies

New Episodes every Saturday

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 008 #CZK

Past Episodes

Episode 001 Episode 002 Episode 003 Episode 004 Episode 005 Episode 006 Episode 007

New Episodes every Saturday

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 007 #CZK

Past Episodes

Episode 001 Episode 002 Episode 003 Episode 004 Episode 005 Episode 006

New Episodes every Saturday

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 006 #CZK

Past Episodes

Episode 001 Episode 002 Episode 003 Episode 004 Episode 005

New Episodes every Saturday

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 005 #CZK

Past Episodes

Episode 001 Episode 002 Episode 003 Episode 004

New Episodes every Saturday

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 004 #CZK

Past Episodes

Episode 001 Episode 002 Episode 003

New Episodes every Saturday

Winchester Science Festival 20-22 July 2013

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 003 #CZK

Past Episodes

Episode 001 Episode 002

New Episodes every Saturday

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 002 #CZK

Past Episodes

Episode 001

Creationist Zoo Keeper: Episode 001 #CZK

50 Years of Progress

It may seem awfully unfair to compare scientific and religious progress over the last 50 years. I suspect we all had an inkling of which methodology would have yielded the most progress and the most good for society.


Indeed when plotted side by side the comparison is pretty stark.

However, most of today’s established religions were, I imagine, fairly progressive at their outset. They emerged in more brutal times and mandated moral and liberal attitudes that represented great progress from the status quo of the time. However by attributing those laudable human ideals to an infallible divine origin, the limits of those ideologies were capped.

We thankfully live in a time when generic humanitarian values have, in most societies, overtaken those once progressive religious ideologies. As a result the progress achieved by religion in recent times looks rather pitiful when compared to the recent progress achieved by a methodology that actively embraces new ideas and contains a mechanism for evaluation, unbiased review and self-correction.

As a direct result of the inbuilt progress limitations inherent in religion, what religious progress we have seen over the last 50 years broadly falls into 2 camps.

Firstly there is the recognition that mainstream religion needs to catch up with modern views on items such as the equality of women and homosexuals. Despite lagging behind the rest of society, many progressive people within mainstream religious organisations recognise the need for equality beyond that originally foreseen by their religions’ founders and the need to upgrade their religion accordingly.

Alas, the second type of religious progress highlighted by the diagram above shows an ugly form of religious progress that is becoming more and more familiar. When modern society is seen at odds with religious teachings many look to progress their faith towards a more literal interpretation of their scripture. Many faiths have regrettably progressed over recent years by branching out at the fringes to a more fundamentalist stance. Hence the chart below is littered with progress in the form of new creation museums, opposition to life saving medical procedures and numerous landmark cases of bigotry and discrimination. Not the sort of progress to be proud of.

Everybody Draw Mohammed Day

Today (20^th May), is Everybody DrawMohammed Day – so here are my pathetic attempts:

Now then, now then

Moses, Christ and Mohammed on a bike

If you fear your faith, and the faith you wish to impose on others, may not necessarily stand up to unpalatable criticism, then a popular option is to censor any ideas that you suspect might challenge that faith. Of course this doesn’t just apply to Islam.

When it could, and where it still can in some parts of the world, faith happily propagated itself with unquestionable brutality. Where the religious grip has loosened, it seeks alternative methods.

This may take on many forms. Religious parents may stop their children reading certain books, or listening to certain music. They may send notes to their children’s teachers to excuse them from eye-opening multicultural school visits to places of worship alien to their own particular faith. In short, religious fundamentalist desire to blind others to ideas, thoughts and opinions that look at their faith from a different perspective.

Such censorship can be easily applied within the family unit, but where it cannot be applied directly, faiths will resort to either claiming offence and oppression or in extreme cases, use threats and violence to try and impose their illegitimate censorships on the wide community.

Unreasonable faith survives under the protection of ignorance and censorship. We should not kowtow to the whining false claims of oppression or the heinous threats of violence.

Help breakdown the acceptance of this illiberal censorship by refusing to comply with nonsensical religious dogmas. Blaspheme, lie in on a Sunday morning, eat a bacon sandwich and draw a picture of Mohammed and stick it on your Facebook wall..

NB. If you would like a weekly fix of only slightly better drawn, but far more profound, Mohammed cartoons, I highly recommend a visit to Jesus & Mo. (on which I have shamelessly based my attempts).


Here's the other Mohammed's I have been sent so far today...

@BadgerB

My attempt via.me/-c9gru3k #everybodydrawmohammed QT @Crispian_Jago: Everybody Draw Mohammed Day crispian-jago.blogspot.com/2013/05/everyb…

@Calalaera

Am I doing #EverybodyDrawMohammed right? (cc @Crispian_Jago) pic.twitter.com/Hc2RDFJyaP

@rossbalham

@Crispian_Jago I really cannot draw so this is the best I can do. Sorry! pic.twitter.com/QuWCuDy9jC

@DutchyMDHC

@Crispian_Jago yfrog.com/obtjcftj

@sean_t_ellis

.@Crispian_Jago Here we go - moteprime.org/images/mohamme… - I have made him all smiley and nice so that no-one could possibly take offence.

@WondieBee

@Crispian_Jago DMD day! pic.twitter.com/qo7YoviQDB

@adam_ashford

@Crispian_Jago As I can only draw one thing, here's my attempt. pic.twitter.com/gtBE2ZxTWM

@neonbubble

I've decided to join in with Everybody Draw Mohammed Day as @Crispian_Jago has mentioned it once or twice. pic.twitter.com/AqUBJgmQqm