John Finnemore on Religion from The Now Show

[@peechykean]

I love this guy, he always make the most reasoned and balanced argument hilarious.

[@alexdee6927]

Brilliant - love this man, wish there were more like him - and that those in government were half as clever!

[@lpinbrez]

No one says it better than John!

[@frankzappaspussy7362]

apart from maybe David Mitchel ??

[@KarlHayden]

Just Brilliant!! He nails it so well...

[@motorbikehorseman]

Brilliant, great guy and someone who actually thinks.

[@nakkadu]

John Finnemore should be forced to write radio sitcoms all day every day....we need more.

[@eLJaybud]

At gunpoint, while being fed buttered toast, tea, and amphetamines, but fed colonically, so it doesn't become a distraction.

[@Timlagor]

NOOOo! SKETCHES. No one should EVER be allowed to write Radio Sitcoms!

[@RonWylie-gk5lc]

Yes on peril of his life. Wonderful writer

[@quasarsphere]

@@Timlagor Why not? There's some brilliant ones out there! Hitchhiker's Guide, Cabin Pressure, Old Harry's Game...and in podcast world there's The Amelia Project, which is simply one of the most amazing things I've ever heard.

[@Zaphodox]

@@eLJaybud colonic rea and amphetamine... okay, unorthodox but okay. Where you loose me is on the notion of colonic toast. Would it not jus get stuck in the pipe? Oh wait, we can dissolve the toast in the tea.

[@KabukiSenseiFuckYeah]

my god he makes my day so much better

[@LBickford1]

I love it!

[@HappyTexan3]

Jeez, I always think I can't love John Finnemore any more than I already do and then I find another video...

[@eLJaybud]

Are you capable of being his love child? Or vice versa? 🤣

[@slightlyinsaneFTW]

Arthur is saying something smart... My head is about to explode

[@edjones3390]

Brilliant!

[@eLJaybud]

There should be a split between religion and state, which it seems to have already done between ethics and state, which is the one thing it shouldn't have.

[@TallinnTadgh]

All council and Parliamentary sessions would start with 3 minutes of John Finnemore if I ruled the world. Which would considerably improve the mood and all other matters.....(the 3m of JF, not me ruling the world).

[@lexglover]

I'm pretty sure the point of this is John Finnemore is a comedy writer and is very good at his job.

[@Timlagor]

Captions add a whole extra dimension

[@XxCarlieCullenxX]

...Arthur? Are you hiding as someone called John Finnemore?!

[@iainb1577]

The Now Show now in 2023 is unlistenable and this reminds me how very excellent it used to be. Punt and Dennis ought to listen to some of this to see how far they have fallen.

[@newsles2]

I thought the last series was ok. Not sure what the problem is.

[@ribby9069]

Can someone really be considered a Christian in the same manner as a regular churchgoer if they’ve never read the bible or been to church?

[@Lemma01]

Yep. Christianity is like that. Didn't used to be. Back in the day they'd burn you first...

[@Ariadne4]

I don't understand how one can be a christian and not have read the Bible, which is literally the Word of God. But I can say that reading the Bible doesn't mean you are a christian. You need to have true faith.

[@iainb1577]

@@Ariadne4 In the very old days they kept the whole thing in Latin so the ordinary folk could neither read it (if they could read at all) or understand it they attended a service.

[@diablo0073]

To everyone saying "He's misunderstood Dawkins" or something to that effect. That's NOT the point. The point is being a Christian (or indeed a person of any other religion) is more than just knowing about all that is written in the books. It's a life choice. Dawkins and others (myself included) have made the choice of being atheists. We choose to not believe in the notion of 'God'. That automatically disqualifies us from commenting on what other people believe in. Yes, we've read the religious texts and disagree with them. But religion is more than that.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

Having a different opinion does not remotely disqualify anyone from commenting on what other people think, on the contrary the best people to point out faults in what other people think are people who think differently from them, not people who think the same. I am not an atheist and I generally despise Dawkins but he is right to be sceptical of figures like '71%' of this country's people being Christian; that is a huge number of people who don't have Christianity in their life in any meaningful way simply falling on back on the category when being asked in a poll. We should ask among other things what other options there were and weren't in the poll. And while I completely agree Christians don't have to pass a test 'set by Richard Dawkins' - or me or anyone else, to be accepted as a Christian, it's actually a perfectly reasonable question to ask of someone who calls themselves a Christian. People who call themselves Christian disagree among themselves about who counts. Most of them don't accept Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, but Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses think they are. Plenty of evangelical Protestants in the USA say Catholics aren't Christian. Messianics think they're both Christians and Jews, and there are people who consider themselves Christian Pagans. I get the feeling Finnemore wants to go down the 'self-definition' route. This is nice and liberal and empowering but there are problems in relaxing a supposedly objective category to being purely subjective in its application. This can be seen when it comes to racial categories for instance. People who look very white calling themselves black, Australians who claim to be aboriginal with no outward sign, 'Jews' with only one (secular, assimilated) Jewish grandparent. Social identities become a minefield of subjective claims, all allowed by the liberal atmosphere but none able to triumph as more true than any other because we are not allowed to believe in a criterion or test any more. This is not a good idea, and not a good precedent. It's not a sound basis for a society of equality, and an unequal society will always foment struggles and rebellions by those who feel they're being disempowered by an entrenched privilege.

[@rhmbock]

Matthew McVeagh Do I understand correctly that you're claiming religious categories are objective in nature? If so, I would dispute that on two grounds. First, if two people both see themselves as belonging to a particular religious faith but don't see each other as belonging to said faith, how does one determine who is objectively "correct?" Second, though there may be widespread, or even universal, agreement on what it means to be a member of a specific group, this definition can change over time. That it can change, and that there isn't necessarily universal agreement on what defines a category, shows that the definition can only be subjective in nature, even arbitrary to a certain degree.

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

Curator674 I don't think mutual disagreement or change over time mean that a category is subjective. Instead they just mean it is problematic and open to disagreement. There are lots of categories and terms used in humanities and social sciences which have blurred boundaries like this. For instance, historical periods in history. Or political terms like 'empire' and 'independence'. But in all such cases even tho there is disagreement and change this does not mean there are not objective facts at the bottom of the issue. Just a dispute about what the facts are, or which ones are relevant for the defining of a term or category. What's more even the choice of which facts to believe or find relevant is not necessarily subjective, as an individual can have reasons for their choice, and reasons for those reasons - everything explained in external objective terms rather than merely internal subjective feeling. There tend to be coalescences of opinion on these things, in which a majority of interested parties gather around one general area of definition. There are usually minority opinions, and there can be change in this situation too. Thus, there is no absolute establishment of objective fact. But we are still interested in the subjects, and we still need to talk about them and assign things to categories, so we do the best we can with the arrangements we have. Also, changes in the meanings of terms is general, constant, and unavoidable. Never mind the meaning of 'Christian' or 'God', the meanings of 'fork' or 'true' have changed. We still think we know what we mean by these terms, and we still have to use something to indicate that meaning. And we still believe there is objective reality behind the meaning.

[@rhmbock]

Matthew McVeagh I agree that some of what you call objective is, indeed objective. But religious categories can't be objective because whatever might be behind them, they can't exist without people. People defined religious categories to begin with, and continue to do so. The categories are completely subject to how people define and interpret them. Can you give me an example of an objective fact that a religious category might be based on, or is that beyond the scope of this venue?

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

Curator674 Facts about what people believe. E.g. do they believe in the Trinity or not. And do they see themselves as part of a particular religious group or not.

[@DriveIn8]

Bloody Guantanamo Bay. The Americans really are taking the piss...

[@VayDooble]

He's completely missed Dawkins's point. It wasn't that they weren't Christians, it was that you can't use the 71% figure to justify prayer in schools or bishops in the House of Lords. Completely different. Warsi was foolish, and she knows that.

[@PeterCamberwick]

It's a comedy skit pal. Lol

[@RFC3514]

Precisely. If statistics about who checks a box are going to be used to determine policy and state benefits, then the validity of those claims needs to be checked, same as for everything else.

[@thatguyfromthatthing8573]

I think Warsi is conflating secularism and multiculturalism - yes, it's true that Christianity is no longer the only religion and that of everyone, but that is because there is simply a much wider choice of religions including atheism, agnosticism and humanism.

[@eLJaybud]

There should be a split to say practicing or non practicing. I might identify as a whale 🐋, or a unicorn 🦄, but that doesn't mean I am one. 🤣

[@RFC3514]

None of those are religions, just like "off" isn't a TV channel.

[@HarryPotterAddict11]

This comment.

[@SerendipityChild]

😃 imagine wanting people to read the bible before basing their morals on pleasing the god its about

[@robkeeleycomposer]

Looking forward to John’s humorous sketch on Islam. Oh, hang on….and yes, I know he did an amusing a sketch on this very topic in the Souvenir Programme. Where would The Now Show be without its self-selecting, liberal-left Radio 4 bien-pensants. And it must be said that John is clever, humane, cultured and cute.

[@GingerJoberton]

People do fear the militant secularists, but only because they are threatening, not necessarily in a grrr I'll kill ya way but more that atheist jokes tend to be well concentrated. Make a youtube video about some 90s comedian saying God doesn't exist and you're assured 2 million views and 85% likes if you post it to Reddit. As for the BBC, comedians are on the whole not religious or they make wry antireligious jokes, but really that comes with the turf. I don't see why paid clowns have to crusade all the time. Like John Finnemore says, Christians have been through worse than disgruntled atheists! I guess people just need to be quiet. It's not going to happen though....

[@ulture]

"Like John Finnemore says, Christians have been through worse than disgruntled atheists" fascinating that that's how you interpreted that sentence pointing out that a tiny town has a dozen churches but the whole of North Devon has only one weekly secularist meeting.

[@jamesflaxman6342]

Posh rap

[@ossyable]

Not a particularly cohesive argument as keeps switching attacks of the protagonists. Still very funny which is his primary purpose.

[@ferb1131]

+dmotorhead I'd say an argument is all the better for pointing out some strengths and weaknesses on both sides, which I think is what he does. The two times he starts to say 'and they all lived happily ever after', the first time he's basically pointing out first that the council prayers were nothing for the secularists to get all upset over, and the second time he's pointing out that they were nothing for the theists to get all upset over. I think his argument was both cohesive and balanced, a rare thing in a debate about politics and religion.

[@TheValeyard92]

dmotorhead That's the point.