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One of the fixed points of my life is BBC Radio 4. I have listened to it since I was about 10. I have grown up with it. It has been a major influence on my life, my humour and my intellect. I have never listened much to pop music radio, I have wanted much better food for my thoughts.
Radio 4 is a speech based radio station which covers a huge range of subjects: news, politics, science, the arts, women's issues, drama, a little sport, quiz shows, panel games and humorous sketch shows. It is the finest media outlet on the planet, with the possible exception of the BBC World Service in English, which shares much of the same content but with a better global awareness.
Of course no listener to radio is satisfied with the output, there is always room for improvement, there are always new ideas which are not a patch on the old ways, or so it seems. But there is one long running gripe I have with this service, and I am not alone. Thought for the Day.
Every morning there is a religious message at peak morning listening time, around ten minutes to eight.
The BBC charter ensures that there is a minimal religious content to broadcasting. There is a daily service on BBC Radio 4, but this is usually put only on Long Wave, and not on the FM band which has more listeners, only on Sunday morning is there an actual church service broadcast as a regular fixture on FM. I re-tune to Radio Five Live on a Sunday morning, for politics and a little sports news.
Thought for the Day is hard to avoid, like an advert break, not quite worth the bother of re-tuning to avoid but very annoying all the same. There is a wide range of different religions featured and some of the regular presenters are very skilled broadcasters, I much prefer Rabbi Lionel Blue and Indarjit Singh to most of the Christian presenters, they seem to know that the audience does not share their beliefs but is interested in them. They also seem to give a thought that is far more moral and less based on simple faith.
I have no problem with a daily Thought for the Day slot to give a moral angle to the news stories, and even to a slot giving theological opinion. My objection is that while it caters for Orthodox and Liberal Jews, Catholics, Church of England, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Orthodox Christians, Muslim, Sikhs etc. It does not address one of the largest groups in British society, those without a faith. This helps to perpetrate The Big Lie, that only through absurd unquestioned beliefs can humanity find any grounding in morality. That is why this slot is so deeply damaging. It shows morality only as an aspect of faith, leaving those without such faith in a moral limbo and reinforcing the prejudices of those believers who think that faith and morality are virtually synonymous.
While it was refreshing to hear an alternative voice on Thought For The Day I think Richard Dawkins' piece was inappropriate to the slot as it was tantamount to proselytizing, which is not what the slot is about. I don't know if proselytizing is specifically banned but it certainly does not happen regularly on the slot, no attempt is made to change people's faiths or seriously to challenge beliefs. If atheists, humanists, agnostics and secularists are to be allowed onto this hallowed slot they should stick to addressing The Big Lie, stick to showing how morality is normal, natural and fully consistent with a scientific outlook on life.
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Thought for the Day: Recent slots (Real Audio format, 16.0 kbps, fast loading, average 2 minutes 40 seconds run time) Judge for yourself. |