Thought for the Day reconsidered
The BBC Trust has launched an investigation into The Today programme's regular religious slot and the possibility allowing non-religious voices.
The Guardian and The Times reports.
And the Radio 4 controller, Mark Damazer, is also reconsidering. Here's what he said on Radio 4's Feedback on Friday (1.20 mins)
Mark Damazar wrote on this blog in January that 'it was a genuinely difficult question', but that 'we believe that broadening the brief would detract from the distinctiveness of the slot.'
Mark Damazer declined to come on the iPM programme earlier this year, but we had a huge response and your comments formed the basis of a discussion between the Rev. Prof Alister McGrath and Prof AC Grayling.
This is the edited version (8 mins) as it appeared on the programme, you can hear the full version (22 mins) on this earlier post.
Also today, The Today programme asked if TFTD should stay sacred.
UPDATE: Mark Damazer writes about appearing on Feedback.
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Great news that Thought for the Day is receiving publicity,I personally believe in God and value what one would call the sacred approach,but in this complex and increasingly complicated world,one has to be willing to listen to what others,including non-believers,have to say.
Prayer for the Day is often very powerful too.
From my point of view,the sooner Sahaja Yoga www.sahaja.org becomes mainstream the better.More people should be made aware of this wonderful gift to humanity.
It would be great to have speakers introducing BBC listeners to Sahaja Yoga.
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As a practicing Christian, [and a regular Radio4 listener] I have no objections whatever to those of other religions - or those of no religion at all contributing to Thought for the Day. I'm not, nor are many of my christian friends and acquaintances, nearly as narrow minded as many of no faith would imply! In fact I find it quite interesting finding out 'how others think' about many subjects. To those Christians who fear that we would be 'losing something' I point out that do we have very regular programs all to ourselves - and others do pay licence fees too, so are equally entitled to air their views. The more the merrier, so far as I am concerned!
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Thought For The Day is discriminatory and irritating. I know a lot of folk who listen to the Today programme and none of them can stand Thought For The Day. When it comes on I change station to Radio 3. I always change back; sometimes after 5 minutes, sometimes after 25 minutes.
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Why atheists are so obsessed with Thought for the Day
All religions claim to know the truth because in a variety of ways it was revealed to them by god. This motivates them to claim to have moral authority not just over their own followers but also over the rest of us. This may be of little consequence if their morality was based on natural humanist principles that we both shared, unfortunately it isn’t.
Each religion brings to the table its own set of prejudices ranging from intolerance to bigotry as part of their moral authority. In Islam the killing of apostates and often of homosexuals and adulterers too along with the attitude towards women is sickening. The Catholic Church has been involved in an obscene attempt to cover up the abuse of children by its clergy and it would rather see millions of its congregation die of HIV/Aids in Africa rather than change its policy on contraception and the use of condoms. It has amassed a vast fortune and yet passes little of it on to the needy. Judaism maintains that it has a god given right to an area of the Middle East where others have lived for centuries and underpins the state terrorism that Israel has displayed in their recent destruction of Gaza.
And yet religion is good for us.
That the establishment is still in the thrall of religion is astonishing until you look a little closer, For the politicians it is their grovelling pursuit of votes that motivates them but for others it is the cosy familiarity of Bishops smothering us all with pious words and incantations of Gods love, But for the BBC an organisation that many of us are tremendously proud of, that has been the source of creativity and innovation for most of my lifetime to succumb to such intellectual and moral cowardice is deeply saddening.
So the reason why this five minute slot in the midst of a three hour news program causes such controversy is that by excluding the atheist/humanist voice it is saying to us (who probably make up a large proportion of listeners) that you have no contribution to make. We will continue to give a platform to speakers who believe that their faith gives them an insight into the human condition and ignore the eminent and authoritative individuals waiting for the opportunity to offer their thought for the day; you atheists have no right to speak of such things because you have no god.
That’s why we are angry!
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And if you want to know what an atheist thought for the day might sound like....
Thought for Armistice Day
At 11 am today many of us will share a moment of silence to remember those men and women from the armed services that have died serving this country. It is hard to imagine the pain felt by mothers and fathers, husbands and wives and especially the children who know that they will never see their loved one again. And for comrades who shared the horror of war comes the survivors’ guilt, reawakened at the passing of each anniversary.
War is started by a conscious act; it is never inevitable but is sometime necessary. The justification for it can seem overwhelming at the time but sometimes less so when the verdict of history is delivered. Those bereaved by conflict draw comfort that their loss was for a noble cause and that it was not in vain. For their part, our leaders both political and military, display fortitude and resolution when the coffins of the dead and the wheelchairs of the maimed pass before them.
But in all conflicts there are those who question the assumptions that lead to war and the expectations raised in the pursuit of it. Do we have accurate intelligence? Is it legal? Is it just? Are we adequately prepared? And in a world that we hope is governed by reason and not emotion is there an alternative?
In the early 19th Century Clausewitz described war as “diplomacy by other means” a callous if realistic definition, perhaps apt for those times but not for our own. We see war as an aberration, we attack in order to defend and not to conquer. In the end what is needed is a moral justification for war, not a political or economic one. We must be as certain as we can be that all options have been pursued before we send our young men and women into battle. We must ensure that they are protected as much as is possible, both by adequate training and the best equipment, if we do not, the covenant between us and them is broken.
Our leaders have to shoulder this enormous burden of responsibility. We hope that they will be guided by a strong moral compass as well as good advice from their colleagues. Hardest of all is to admit that the sacrifices made by the armed forces are not achieving the intended results. This may or may not be the case in Afghanistan but if the time comes that we realise that our objectives cannot be met then it will take tremendous courage to admit failure. Let us hope that our politicians can muster this courage in the same way that our armed forces have done.
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