This article is written by Peter Hinchliffe, who runs the Atheist Ireland Kerry Group.
A few weeks ago a local paper asked if I could submit responses to questions raised by the issue of RTEs sketch showing the Abrahamic god being arrested for the rape of Mary. The Paper had also contacted a local representative of the Catholic Faith (Fr Kevin McNamara) and asked him some Mirror questions.
It was my impression that both sides would be printed opposite one another, but what actually happened was that our answers were used to create a piece that gave the appearance of a first person interview. This meant that much of my argument was lost, some conclusions watered down or left out in favour of my starting speculation and in general I felt a very weak argumentThe RTE  was put forward for my own contribution.
Fr McNamara had answered his questions on the phone rather than in writing so had no record, but was happy to redo the project with me, using the questions sent to me as his guide. Obviously his own original contribution would have undergone the same change in format, but he had no written copy. He is aware that this will be published on a secular website aimed at people who would not share his views, and I can only give him credit for doing so.
Here are my answers to the questions:
1. What is your opinion of the RTE sketch depicting God being arrested for sexual offences?
The sketch did not happen in a bubble, the account of Marys impregnation was not written by Atheists or non-believers and it has not been passed down and taught by those either. In Ireland the Catholic Church uses the schools it controls to teach that even though Mary did not understand and was frightened and confused she still said yes, in the last few years they produced a poster for the classrooms of six year olds depicting Mary as a young girl sitting on a bed with exactly that message, the message is clear and extremely dangerous, but this is the teaching today.
If we forget about the comedy sketch and instead imagine that argument for consent being used in a court of law, what outcome would we expect and what title would we give to the alleged offender? If after the trial we were then told that the offender had a recorded history of ordering multiple counts of mass murder, genocide, infanticide and rape, would we struggle to call him what he was?
None of this is taken from anywhere but the bible and Christian teaching, but today the catholic church demands not only the right to spread this tale in state schools but also to control how we interpret it and in that way very definitely seeks to have its cake and eat it.
2. Why would anyone feel the need to upset a person’s faith just for the sake of being humorous?
It’s an odd question, “why do we feel the need” that’s very much part of the human condition, we laugh at things for a number of reasons and we find things amusing that others do not.
I would have to ask: how do we decide that humour is inappropriate or crosses a line? Is it all good until one person is offended, two people, a hundred?
We can fall back on some basic principles, the same principles that we apply in so many other areas. The main one being that people have rights ideas do not.  All religions are ideologies, exactly the same as political ideologies or those wild conspiracy theories that are becoming more popular amongst other things.
Many people hold their religious beliefs very sincerely and feel a personal affront when they are challenged, not just in humour but in general discourse, we have no control over those feelings of offence, they can pop up at any time for an infinite number of reasons and if we give them the power to censor as we have in the past, those feelings will be wielded mightily in place of good argument or rational debate.
In this context I can only give my personal take on the humour because it is of course subjective. For millennia the church has taught that its god is a loving god, a powerful god and of course a vengeful god, many of us can clearly see it is also a petty narcissistic god and it is beyond doubt that if you followed its many hundreds of commandments you would receive multiple life sentences.
Of course I don’t believe this god is guilty of anything, especially existence, but the fact is that for a very long time people with far too much power have been telling us that not only is this all real, but its wondrous and we had better get in line and say thank you and of course respect their authority because of it- if that’s not a recipe for some humour I for one certainly do not know what is.
3. Do you feel sorry for those who feel offended?
I feel sympathy for those offended, I understand that many good decent people have a great love for the god they believe in and for the character of Mary. I support fully their right to state their feelings, to produce counter argument and to make demands for their feelings to be taken into account and for the skit to be censured. That is their right.
However RTE should have shown more courage and should not have apologised, a simple acknowledgement that feelings were hurt but that that is not uncommon in humour would have sufficed.
The skit was not conjured up simply to offend and attack individual believers. They could have done that in a number of ways to little point. This skit only worked because it was based on the Bible and the teachings of the Christian churches, if those very churches with their bishops at the helm had not sold the impregnation of a person incapable of giving informed consent as a positive act based on nothing but her supposed adoration and fear of the perpetrator the skit would have fallen flat to all observers, let us remember that is exactly what they teach in schools today.
Religions have their own agendas, they want to spread just like any other institution and of course they want to keep what they already have, they succeeded for hundreds of years in making questioning of them a dangerous act, in many Islamic theocracies it still is, just as political descent is so dangerous in countries like china, dogma is a humourless stance in any ideology.
They demand the right to a special status based solely on their view that that is their entitlement, that their message is so special it is beyond parody and humour and they demand that they not anyone else be the judge of when that line is crossed.
So yes I have sympathy for the individuals, but offence is not cause for censorship and deciding where offence crosses the line cannot be left to the offended. Read more…

Calling concerned teachers

If you are a teacher and concerned about unwanted religious influence contact Chris at teachers@atheist.ie