[UPDATE] It looks like the BBC listened. My thanks to the editors who took the time to investigate. They've finally addressed the issue and changed the page to show the same respect to all mentioned 'prophets,' not just the prophet of Islam. Now, if we could only show them the fallacy of an "unbiased" news source sending blessings to Muhammad. They call it a "courtesy". I call it submission...
Are all prophets equal?
Let's find out. We'll start on the BBC's "Religion & Ethics" page. (Lol, did they say 'ethics'?) This is what you'll see:
(Click to open full screenshot)
Notice anything interesting on the full screenshot?
No BIAS here! The BBC wouldn't show preference to the Islamic prophet over the prophet of, say... Zoroastrianism, would they? Notice the capitalization in the word "prophet" under "Islam." But look under "Zoroastrianism."
Just a typo, you think? Maybe... So, let delve further. Click on "Zoroastrianism" and you'll get this:
Hmmm... Still lower case 'p' in "prophet"... Let's check Zoroaster's page:
Okay, now, let's go to the "Islam" page:
That's capital Prophet to you infidels! Since Muhammad doesn't have his own page, at least as far as I can see, let's just click over to the Quran page...
WTF? Not only do we have all capitalizations of respect, but we also have the BBC sending blessings to this one particular "prophet"!
Yep, no religious bias here...
Let the BBC know what you think of their religious bias by sending them a note via their contact form.
[UPDATE] The BBC sent me this email:
Thank you for your email pointing out an inconsistency across our site
in the way we capitalise the title 'Prophet'. Balance and fairness are
very important to us and if you are able to provide us with examples of
sections or articles where this occurs we will address the issue as
quickly as possible on the website.
For a full explanation of the reasoning behind the use of the phrase
'peace be upon him' within the Islam section, please visit this page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/practices/pbuh.shtml
Any complaints about issues in other areas of the BBC output may be
submitted here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/
With best wishes
Religion Online team
Apparently, they are too lazy to edit their own pages and wish for me to point out some examples for them. I guess I should have just linked them here, eh?
Comments:
#1 BelchSpeak 11-Mar-2009
ROFL. You know what? No mention of Wiccans either. That's going to piss off a lot of 16 year old attention whores.
#2 Izzy 11-Mar-2009
And what about the Satanists.
Oh, and the Global Warming-ists, too.
Oh, and the Global Warming-ists, too.
#3 captainfish 11-Mar-2009
DMartyr, great catch. Holy moly. Nope, no bias whatsoever. Nope. Nada. At least not FOR Christianity.
Didn't see the word "prophet" attached to Jesus under Christianity. Looking through the Christianity page, I see no big one for Jesus. And, he still isn't stated as prophet or son of God. Though, they do allow his Title of Christ to be added.
Looking at the Jesus link, we see that this was supposedly written by a christian teacher. But, the author of the page spends a bit of time never telling us that Jesus WAS the son of God.....
[i]While the Gospels clearly depict Jesus as having a special relationship with God, do they actually affirm what Christianity later explicitly affirmed, that Jesus is God incarnate, God become flesh? The evidence points in different directions.[/i]
How about getting a true sense of what Christianity is by taking passages from the Bible and not editorializing the religion.
Didn't see the word "prophet" attached to Jesus under Christianity. Looking through the Christianity page, I see no big one for Jesus. And, he still isn't stated as prophet or son of God. Though, they do allow his Title of Christ to be added.
Looking at the Jesus link, we see that this was supposedly written by a christian teacher. But, the author of the page spends a bit of time never telling us that Jesus WAS the son of God.....
[i]While the Gospels clearly depict Jesus as having a special relationship with God, do they actually affirm what Christianity later explicitly affirmed, that Jesus is God incarnate, God become flesh? The evidence points in different directions.[/i]
How about getting a true sense of what Christianity is by taking passages from the Bible and not editorializing the religion.
#4 Editor, BBC Religion 17-Mar-2009
Dear all
Just thought we'd let you know that we have corrected the inconsistencies with the word 'prophet' in the section on Zorostrianism - we're grateful to DMartyr for pointing them out.
BTW, BlechSpeak we do have a very small section on Wicca which you may be interested to read here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/paganism/subdivisions/wicca.shtml
If you have any further comments please do email us at religion@bbc.co.uk
regards
BBC R&E team
Just thought we'd let you know that we have corrected the inconsistencies with the word 'prophet' in the section on Zorostrianism - we're grateful to DMartyr for pointing them out.
BTW, BlechSpeak we do have a very small section on Wicca which you may be interested to read here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/paganism/subdivisions/wicca.shtml
If you have any further comments please do email us at religion@bbc.co.uk
regards
BBC R&E team
