ASA Defends Imaginary, Not True Values

Sent to The Star, Johannesburg Thu 10/11/2011 22:01, not published.

I refer to Irvine Moyo's letter "Ads can't venture where even angels dare not tread" in the Star Letters, Thursday November 10, supporting the ASA's banning of the Axe "Fallen Angels" advert.

The ASA should have banned Axe's adverts for their sexism, but we can see that the ASA supports religion but not gender equality.

Mr Moyo, you can wax lyrical about your "Almighty God", His Bible, and His Angels.  However the reality is that your god and his angels are imaginary, and your bible is a quaint collection of fables.

You like the moral standards given by the bible?  The bible approves of murdering people for collecting sticks on Saturday, the subjugation of women, slavery, and genocide.

If you do not want your religion to be mocked, you should not follow such a mockable religion.

Consider what you as a Christian probably believe: That in the face of all geological and other scientific evidence to the contrary, the earth is only a few thousand years old and was created over six days.  That god is one person and three people at the same time, which any maths teacher can tell you is nonsense.  That god committed adultery with another man's wife so that the other part of him could be born into the world.  That this part then died to make up for the sin we inherited from some people who ate the wrong fruit generations before.  But actually he didn't stay dead; he got his life back again.  That if a priest mumbles over wafers and wine, they become the flesh and blood of your god (never mind that no human DNA is present).  And you should take part in ritual cannibalism by eating this.

You probably also believe that anyone who doesn't believe what you do, will be tortured forever after they die by your just and loving god.

Muslims believe the latter too, except that you have to believe in their god.  And in a polygamist who flew to Jerusalem and heaven on a magical flying horse.  That if you enrich the corrupt dictatorship in Saudi Arabia and throw stones at a pillar, you will be blessed. And other nonsense like, if you do something really evil by blowing yourself up along with a lot of people you don't like, you will be rewarded in an unverifiable hereafter with many virgins. Or maybe they won't' be virgins, but raisins: What a let-down!

You think that such superstition deserves respect, instead of gales of raucous laughter?