It's child abuse! Children AS YOUNG AS 4 to be 'educated' in atheism! What is the world coming to?

Yes, it's a long headline above, and reflects this blogger's pissed-off-ness with the likes of the Daily Hate (sorry, Mail – old habits die hard).

Its headline screams: CHILDREN AS YOUNG AS FOUR TO BE EDUCATED IN ATHEISM.

What is really happening is that humanism will be incorporated into religious education in primary schools in Blackburn with Darwen, Lancashire (in the north of England), to accompany the religions that are there: Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism and Islam. So kids will be told that certain religions exist, and this is what they say, and that there are people who don't do religion, and this is what they say.

Simple and, if you're going to teach religion at all, sensible. Religions can then be put into a context: that there are people who have no religion and there are people who have.

But it's not just the Mail's take: it's also lousy journalism. A Mail hack knows he can get away with the utmost shit if it leads to a screaming headline with some sensationalism in it, manufactured though that sensationalism is in this case.

So he gets brownie points.

However, if you read on you realise it's a story that comes down in favour of humanism and the new bit of the curriculum. There's even a priest quoted:

Reverend Kevin Logan, a local journalist, author and religious community leader, said: "It is quite a change but it is completely right to recognise atheism and humanism.

"They are religions like any others. It is just that people worship man instead of a god.

"I am certainly not worried about Christianity. It can stand against any belief and come out in a good light."

And others quoted in the story come out in favour of a more sensible approach, too. So why do the headline (which is down to the subeditor, usually, not the writer) and the intro make out it's a crime against humanity to teach kids as young as four about atheism?

And nowhere, you'll note, does it venture to suggest that it's perhaps more dangerous to teach kids as young as four about religion, rather than leaving that till later in their school lives, when they are better able to offer critical judgement.

That's shoe business!

At least one person is up in arms over the perceived desecration of a religious artefact. But we’re unlikely to see riots, murders, shouting and jumping up and down in the streets.

“Sight-seeing in Switzerland does not leave a vacationer horrified,” says a story in the Times of India, “but Patna’s Prabhat Choudhary, his wife and daughter were shocked to see a Lord Buddha statue garlanded with a pair of shoes at a footwear shop in Geneva.”

The paper quotes Prabhat as saying, “We were strolling on shopping street when my 15-year-old daughter insisted that we got into Anne Fontaine, a designer footwear shop. There in the shop, we saw a four-foot statue of Lord Buddha on the shelf displaying shoes and slippers, garlanded with a pair of shoes.”

Prabhat’s daughter, was furious, says the paper. “Though her parents were a bit frightened, she persuaded them to let her shoot the sight with her videocam. The girl, a student of Patna’s prestigious Notre Dame Academy, accomplished her mission without anyone – the shop staff or the crowd of customers – knowing about it.

“Back home, Prabhat has sent a letter to the ministry of external affairs, requesting it to take up the matter with Swiss authorities.”

And that’s as much as we get in several sources.

Imagine what would have happened if a Muslim symbol had had a pair of shoes strung about it. The mere existence of a representation of their “prophet” would be bad enough (since he’s not supposed to be represented in likenesses), but to hang a pair of shoes about his neck . . .

It doesn’t bear thinking about.

A torch for Tibet

When it comes to the issue of Tibet and the 2008 Chinese Olympic Games, politicians and athletes alike argue that politics shouldn't be brought into it. But the inescapable fact is that politics are a part of it. The irony is that a successful Olympic Games in China will be useful politically for the Chinese authorities, and they are well aware of this.

I do have sympathy with athletes who say they've been training for these games for many years and this could be the only chance they get, and I agree with the point made by Steve Redgrave in the Telegraph recently that boycotts should be fair and even-handed, which they often are not.

Sporting events are an easy and relatively painless way for hypocritical governments to pretend that they care about the plights of others. In 1980, for example, the US government led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics because of the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan, but continued to sell grain to the Soviets.

Why is it that Western leaders, who when it suits can't wait to denounce foreign regimes or wage illegal wars on sovereign states, are being so lacklustre in their treatment of the Chinese authorities?

Despite French President Nicolas Sarkozy's determination to try to hold the Chinese government to account, Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown justifies his own determination to attend the opening ceremony in Beijing because "the Dalai Lama himself has said that he does not want to see a boycott of the Olympics". Well, if I remember correctly, the Dalai Lama also wants to see his people free of Chinese oppression, so what is Brown's answer to that? Perhaps he should listen to Joanna Lumley and support her call to the International Olympic Committee (IOC):

The Olympic Charter defines the Olympic ideals as: "respect for universal ethical fundamental principles". Despite being the host for the 2008 Games, the Chinese government has shown clear contempt for such values in its recent brutal crackdown in Tibet. The IOC must therefore break its silence on China's human rights record and defend its own Charter's values. The best place to start would be by insisting that the Olympic Torch is not allowed into Tibet. China's parading the torch triumphantly in front of a cowed and repressed Tibetan population would be an abhorrent sight for anyone concerned with true Olympic values.

I support the Dalai Lama’s call for a Tibet free from Chinese oppression, but have to ask whether he would have the same enthusiasm for the liberation of the Tibetan people from the age-old tyranny of the Buddhist establishment he heads.

You can read more about the Free Tibet Campaign here.