The teacher from Batley is still in hiding

[Nicetrynigel]

Teacher Batley
His life ruined because a bunch of thugs decided they didn't like what he was teaching in his RE lesson.
This and the Labour MP's request for bhalsphey laws against those of the Abrahamic faith have made me concerned.

People should be free to offer an view against another's religion. It's scary that we are being a country where people thing being offended gives them a right to made death threats.

Yes all religions are exactly the same. Belief in an imaginary cloud fairy.
The UK should treat all cloud fairies the same.
You are free to believe in whatever entity you wish. I am free to show cartoons of prophets and take the piss.

OK in that vein. Would it be ok to remove Christmas as a holiday for most of the population? After all the guys birthday we are celebrating cannot be seen or touched.

I actually agree with that. Looked at logically, it's difficult to understand. But Its not any different from a lot of things we do as humans. We're not primarily logical creatures to be honest. But yes, I'm very much "to each their own"

Why would we? Last time I checked England was still a CofE country.
Whats your point?
That we remove religious holidays as main stream? Yes an absolutely fantastic idea. I wouldn’t say no to it.

Depends what it is you're used to.

Removing hands for theft, stoning or flogging as legal punishments, making women marry their rapists, fgm.

These are not cultural practises we want to import, nor the mob mentality of fatwahs and jihadism.
Crack on with your faith if it helps you get through the day or informs you to help others who are struggling, if it informs you towards hate and violence, not so much.

Christmas is a pagan festival, like many pagan festivals it was hijacked.

If it was up to me religion would be completely personal and there would be no religious schools or religion in the HoL.

No. All religions are equal. There should be no religion put higher than any other.
No religion is superior to the next.
We do still recognise CofE as the religion of England. In my view we shouldn’t have any main religion, but that’s my own opinion.

But we’re not talking about going to India or any other country, and doing something that’s considered offensive there.
We’re taking about what should and shouldn’t be allowed here in this country.
Showing a picture in a particular context is not considered offensive here and is therefore allowed. Demanding that people here change their views on what is and isn’t acceptable or otherwise risk being attacked is what’s offensive.

I would not go and push any cow off the street in the uk 🤷‍♀️
I would also not live in India because of the laws and culture I’d have to abide by. I would not be prepared to do that.
Why should it be any different to the uk?

I don’t agree that certain religions are somehow entitled to higher levels of respect and tolerance than others.
I don’t think it’s comparable to some people needing more support than others.
Plus, even when it comes to people, needing support and demanding respect are two different things.

Exactly.

We can show a Nazi swastika in schools because it’s educational and actually happened. A genocide of epic proportions which I remember learning about. I don’t think I’ve cried so much over human being since.
Jewish people did not deserve this and through history they have been treated terribly. I’m absolutely appalled that they are now not able to feel safe in the UK anymore.
Antisemitism has surged in 2024 and it’s not the bible bashers, Sikhs or Hindus that are doing it. It’s not your agnostics or atheists either.

Some posters are still missing that the respect means that muslim children will not be asked to draw their god at school during arts lesson. It doesn't mean that noone else is allowed to draw their (muslim's) god if they want, because religious restrictions don't extend to others.
If another child wants to do a cartoon when all different gods meet for a drink, it is ok, thought not a way how to win popularity contest in a muslim area.

Similarly noone will force them to eat the food they aren't allowed to, but others will eat it around them.

I've never known any child being told to draw their god. And the point about this teacher is that he wasn't a Muslim and therefore was not subject to Islamic laws. Consequently he had the perfect right to show depictions of any god/prophet he wanted.
It seems that one religion is expecting special treatment and for some reason people are obeying this demand.

Perhaps Muslim children in Britain need to taught by their parents that people will not be forced to respect their religion.
That if you go to a normal school you’ll be exposed to blasphemy.
That people will oppose the religion because they do not believe and will call our god a sky fairy.
Again, no religion should be put above any other.
There are many faith schools for people who do not want to be taught about other theories and religions.

The problem is, when you try to appease thugs, they inevitably go further

Precisely, @username358

On the face of it not showing such an image "because of the tensions" sounds perfectly reasonable, right up to the point when we consider the consequences

Again, the behaviour of the screamers and spitters involved here indicates they're not moderate and respectable people of any persuasion; they're troublemakers out for a ruck, and if they got their way with one demand we can be certain they'd quickly move onto the next

As for "ask the imam", I've no idea who the local one is and while he may be a thoroughly decent man he may equally be as bad as the protesters
Sadly, and as we've seen too often, practically all places of worship can harbour evil people, and mosques are in no way exempt

The Guardian thought it was acceptable to publish a cartoon depicting Priti Patel, who is from a Hindu background, as a cow. Would they publish something which gave an equal level of offence to Christians? Jews? Muslims?

@TENSsion as I said, I think it's inappropriate to show drawings of Mohamed because it's offensive to Muslims and there would probably be quite a few of them in the class.
I guess there was that thing many years back, with a Cradle of Filth t shirt showing nun getting intimate with a cross. I'd probably not show that to school kids either. I don't know much about religion to think of many examples tbh.

I've never known any child being told to draw their god.

No Christian primary school child has ever drawn a Nativity scene with the Baby Jesus in?

1. they did not draw anything. They looked at a cartoon

2. the cartoon was not sexually explicit which would be illegal to show to minors.

I never drew a nativity scene, neither did my kids. So no. I can't think of any circumstances where a child would be told ' draw your god'.
And, just for info, I went to a church school where we read the Bible every day and attended church on religious days. There were plenty of depictions of Jesus around but I was never told to draw him.

@BobbyBiscuits How is a cartoon of an entity on a par with a cartoon of a nun masturbating with a cross?
And as yet no one has been in hiding for 3 years because of wearing a cradle of filth t-shirt.
In fact if they find a tee that’s doesn’t show nun’s vaginas, perhaps they could use it in lessons too

It’s irrelevant because the teacher did not tell them to draw anything. He displayed a cartoon.

I still can’t believe we have posters going oh but you know Muslims don’t like that so what did they expect/should have changed it.

Yes let’s change our lessons and whatever else one imported religion doesn’t like because some of them will be very angry men who will threaten to harm and kill and in some cases actually do kill people over a picture.

Or how about if people want to live the way their religion says with its rules as laws they should maybe just maybe live in a country where that religion is the law of the land basically.

Im not going to go to India say and demand we all go to church and prey to the almighty lord and eat fish on Friday. I go visit or live and respect their country’s laws and rules and rights and peacefully practise my religion without impacting upon theirs and their lives.

I attended abd later taught at a C of S Sunday School many years ago.

It was common for children to colour in Nativity scenes and pictures related to Bible stories.