Over on Liberal Conspiracy a very good debate is formulating over a series of posts about abortion and the liberal/left stance, with a surprising amount of decent interjection coming in from those that tend to always disagree with the postings on there. Once again I found myself responding to something on there and it getting too long to be a comment, so here is my view on the very muddy subject.

I can't bring myself to support abortion or oppose it on the basis of socially prescribed ethical codes, religious belief or, most crucially, the date at which a foetus has at least some chance of staying alive if removed from the womb…currently found to be 24 weeks and being argued by conservatives and more sensible religious groups to be lowered to 20 weeks. To me the issue is about the life of a child, just as it is for the god squad or those that put a great deal of weight on the rights of the unborn, it is just that such a question of quality of life and reasonable expectation have to enter the debate.

I'm trying something new here, not sure if it's going to work as well as intended but here it is. Read more for the transcript of this movie.

When starting to peg down a few more blogs and aggregators a few days back to increase my scope of reading I came across this blog that simultaneously tries to condemn the Labour government for trying to "abolish" mass worship and at the same time heap praise on faith schools and, therefore, Christianity. It's the sort of blog that just makes me angry to read it and gives me a desire to find out more with the hopes of just completely being able to discount what bollocks it being said. So with that, here we are, and it's time to look deeper into Cramner's claims.

The facts, in reality, are these: Faith in schools is doing nothing to stem the flow of individuals "losing" religion nor the drop in perception about how important religion is. Faith is not intrinsically linked to morals, and in fact history will show that for every moral good dead there is a quite evil bad one to counter it with the Christian church. And finally, the big myth, faith schools do not offer your child a better opportunity at education unless you were already predisposed for good educational achievement in the first place due to your social and economic background. So, kindly, take your sanctimonious bollocks and shove it up your collective worship.

At least this is what he might have well said when extending the following comment...

Britain technically is a Christian country with many secular features. It’s those two things. It’s not anything else. If you expect that you would have the same response to your faith needs in Britain as would happen within a Muslim or Islamic country, [you] would be disappointed

This is in reference, I assume, to the idea that universities that allow Muslim students to attend religious meetings and prayer should be reporting suspicious activity and keeping checks on them. Effectively we have moved no further away from spying on our students than we were one year ago.

Commons Leader Harriet Harman has told the BBC she wants the law to be changed to make it illegal to pay for sex.

This subject is always a controversial one, and feminists I have seen debate this issue on both sides of the spectrum. However I personally think that in the current climate, and based on my personal opinion, Harriet Harman's statement about changing the law on prostitution is ill conceived. Let's take a look at the rest of the content of this article...

Over at "Question That" Ian has written an article discussing and questioning the standards of the BBC when it comes to religion, specifically in one of the hot topics du jour: "The BBC loves to bash Christianity but won't touch Islam with a barge poll" (post-publication edit: initiating article can be found here)

Now this might sound a bit rich coming from me given I have a distinct issue myself with BBC's impartiality, at least when it comes to news broadcasting, and where their ability to be thorough with the facts rarely shows light of day (R.I.P Panorama). However this is one issue which I have to wonder if there is really an issue present at all.

Lets get started with my response to this article...starting with a quote that originally came from the Mail on Sunday, stating that the BBC...

...deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians

Just a quick one, again from pointed out by Scepticisle. The BBFC have had their ruling on the game Manhunt 2 overturned!

This issue was much greater than a game that was given a distinctly average rating, it was much more important to the core issue of liberties in this country, the hypocrisy of the BBFC as a regulatory body, and the influence of the god squad on personal choices in every day lives. I am not at all going to believe this will be the end of the issue as, like the television series "24", it will never ever die, but it is a great result for the time being.

By and large the subject is covered much better than I will be able to cover it by Scepticisle on his own blog, however I simply have to air as it is my right to do so about how much I feel that the original decision by the BBFC was outrageous.