Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Sunday bollocks

It's a small point really, but I find it hard to understand this story about the discovery of two dead bodies in a house in Margate.

People said prayers for the dead girls after they died. I'm tempted to say: "So what?" - no amount of prayers stopped them from dying in the first place.

At times like this, churches are portrayed by the media as a community focus where people attempt to come to terms with the horror of what's happened. But are they really any more so than a pub, a social club, a sports club? And why don't we hear about Margate's mosques, synagogues or temples praying for the victims as well? Didn't they do any praying - or did they decide that the victims were unlikely to be from their faiths, so they welcomed them to hell as infidels? Does the Christian church accept praying responsibility for dead people who might possibly have been of their faith? What if the victims were atheists? What if the victims were Jews, or agnostics brought up in a Muslim background? What then?

What I'm getting at is that I wonder what relevance the church can have to these events in the first place. I tend to think it's just a lazy bit of journalistic scripting to pop down the church, seeing as it's a Sunday, and hear a few special prayers. Did the sermon even offer any answers? What does the Bible have to say about these things? Can scripture really explain why such horrendous things happen to ordinary folk, when they've done nothing wrong? What comfort can really be offered?

I think it's something a little more than laziness. It's a false ascribing of respect and emotional value to a church - how many people really turned up and looked to the church for answers? - and journalists might do well to try and think of something a bit more original when it comes to looking for a fresh angle when it's the weekend. For all we know, the reason for the women's deaths might be some bizarre Peter Sutcliffe-style 'voices from Jesus'. What then? All of a sudden, that kind of religion is bad; the other kind, the good kind, is mild and sensible. But is it really the journalist's place to decide that? Aren't they supposed to be impartial observers?

You'll get a similar thing the next time suicide bombers try and blow somewhere up in Britain, especially if they succeed. The press will find out where they come from. There will be photos of them looking normal. And then, from nowhere, will come an interview with a local imam, explaining that they were normal boys and the community is in shock. But why? Given that this disgusting crime will in all probability have been committed in the name of Islam, why then go to a representative of that religion? Why not find out stuff from their workmates, friends, relatives?

Why a church leader at a time when religion has been the cause of the carnage? There may be all sorts of other reasons - but we usually can be sure of one thing; there would have been no such crime of 'martyrdom' without religion promising the perpetrators a lifetime in paradise.

I think it is time journalists stopped giving undue weight to the views of
these religions. They offer few answers and little comfort. And far from
being help in these circumstances, they are often the problem.

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