Comments on: “Educate Yourself” http://www.hannahnicklin.com/2010/03/educate-yourself/ Playwright, blogger, academic, tech-enthusiast. Eco-anarcha-socialist-cyber-feminist. Wed, 25 Aug 2010 07:56:54 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: Hannah Nicklin http://www.hannahnicklin.com/2010/03/educate-yourself/comment-page-1/#comment-2552 Hannah Nicklin Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:43:37 +0000 http://www.hannahnicklin.com/?p=1418#comment-2552 Don't apologise for expressing your views. I personally don't hold any religious beliefs, but I do recognise that my right to not do so should be as inalienable as the right to believe in a god, and worship that god. The majority of the problem with most belief systems and dogmas is the prejudice of the people enforcing and interpreting them, not the basic ideologies, which generally come down to 'don't do bad stuff mmkay'. I do entirely support the separation of church and state. But I also believe you can be equally violent and immoral with and without religion. Yes people have done and continue to do some terrible and oppressive things in the name of religion, but they have also done so in the name of capital, or non religious beliefs of superiority, revenge, and other power dynamics. When I stood alongside UAF I was standing against the EDL and what they represent, what they represent is a tabloid black-and-white view that a particular religion = bad, or 'not english', or that a certain type of person is fundamentally different from another, and therefore does not and can never belong. I do not agree with this, and I do not agree with you when you say all religion = bad. Such is my right :) as is yours to continue to disagree with me. Don’t apologise for expressing your views. I personally don’t hold any religious beliefs, but I do recognise that my right to not do so should be as inalienable as the right to believe in a god, and worship that god. The majority of the problem with most belief systems and dogmas is the prejudice of the people enforcing and interpreting them, not the basic ideologies, which generally come down to ‘don’t do bad stuff mmkay’. I do entirely support the separation of church and state. But I also believe you can be equally violent and immoral with and without religion. Yes people have done and continue to do some terrible and oppressive things in the name of religion, but they have also done so in the name of capital, or non religious beliefs of superiority, revenge, and other power dynamics.

When I stood alongside UAF I was standing against the EDL and what they represent, what they represent is a tabloid black-and-white view that a particular religion = bad, or ‘not english’, or that a certain type of person is fundamentally different from another, and therefore does not and can never belong. I do not agree with this, and I do not agree with you when you say all religion = bad. Such is my right Smile as is yours to continue to disagree with me.

]]> By: Becky Taylor http://www.hannahnicklin.com/2010/03/educate-yourself/comment-page-1/#comment-2550 Becky Taylor Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:25:54 +0000 http://www.hannahnicklin.com/?p=1418#comment-2550 Sorry Hannah but as much as I dislike the EDL, religion poisons everything. Homophobia, the oppression of women, genital mutilation of children (some people seem to view female circumcision as 1000x worse - I don't make such a distinction, it should all be illegal without consent), holy war, the list goes on and on. And don't you think its teriibly ironic that Mr Wilders' film was saying that this extermism is real, and the response was to issue a fatwa on his head? Surely to disprove his views would have been to come up with a counterpoint rebuttal, rather than confirming the mad barbarity that he depicts. Sorry Hannah but as much as I dislike the EDL, religion poisons everything. Homophobia, the oppression of women, genital mutilation of children (some people seem to view female circumcision as 1000x worse – I don’t make such a distinction, it should all be illegal without consent), holy war, the list goes on and on.

And don’t you think its teriibly ironic that Mr Wilders’ film was saying that this extermism is real, and the response was to issue a fatwa on his head? Surely to disprove his views would have been to come up with a counterpoint rebuttal, rather than confirming the mad barbarity that he depicts.

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