Over at Telic Thoughts there is a quote from Ian Lowe of the British Centre For Science Education. The quote originated at David Anderson’s BCSE Revealed blog.
At the BCSE website, under the subheading “What BCSE is not” we read:
We do not object to or support religion or atheism.
But David Anderson provides some interesting insights into two of BCSE’s major players.
Here are some of David’s comments and quotes:
Here’s Ian Lowe. You may remember Ian for some of his earlier quotes, such as this one:
“Have you lost sight of the fact that the actual enemy here is the fundmanetalists (sic), and not in fact the big mouthed atheists?”
or this one:
“I have little or no time for religion of any kind.”
But what’s particularly relevant is what Ian said about his goals and motivations:
“That’s where we need to be – that being a fundamentalist christianis as [sic] socially as acceptable as being a paedophile.”
In the same message, Ian discussed further how he wants to achieve such an aim. It is quite revealing, and certainly will give new insight to anybody who saw Ian’s letter in the Financial Times:
“It should be relatively easy to rally against the fundies.”
“Pick an obnoxious trait, focus on what that would mean for the public at large, exaggerate it, and demonise that trait to the point that no rational person would consider supporting them. Caricature the entire dominionist/reconstructionist movement as nothing more than an embodiment of that trait.”
“Then, in every public debate or discussion, keep returning to the same obnoxious trait, referring to it the same way, giving the media their sound bite, and making sure that even if someone can’t tell you one single element of a group’s actual beliefs or plans, they can tell you that they have this obnoxious trait.”
David Anderson again:
Ian Lowe: His own self-description is “I consider myself a fairly virulent atheist. I have little or no time for religion of any kind”. Ian is the founding member of the “Scottish Atheist Council”. He uses the username “freefromchrist” and says that his goal is to make people think of “fundamentalist Christians” (apparently his description of evangelicals) as they do of paedophiles. “I am, pretty much unashamedly, anti-religious.”[8]
I checked out the Scottish Atheist Council website and found this on their FAQ page:
Q: Are you Anti-Religious?
A: Yes.Some Atheists don’t want to bash religion, and prefer a path of Universal tolerance. That just isn’t us – religion is a virus of the mind, passing intolerance, hate and ignorance from generation to generation.
Just to put a little icing on the cake, it also appears that Ian Lowe and Brian Jordan, two of BCSE’s heavy hitters, are signatories to the infamous British petition to “make it illegal to indoctrinate or define children by religion before the age of 16.”
If you visit the BCSE website you’ll see a lot of hysteria about the coming theocracy. Isn’t it ironic? As David Anderson puts it:
Apparently, the only reason why Dr. Jordan opposes theocracies… is because he himself is campaigning for an a-theocracy!
If you’d like to hear David’s comments about himself and his blog you can listen to a short mp3 file here.