Dear god, does it fekkin matter ?

Yesterday a god-botherer lost her second appeal against her employer who had requested that she not wear her cruxifix over the top of her company uniform.

Full story here

British Airways are the employer in question and their company uniform policy states that religious symbolism should not be visible - end of story.

You can wear a cruxifix, they are not preventing you from wearing a cruxifix, you just wear it underneath your shirt, blouse, whatever.

But that wasn't good enough for Nadia Eweida, check-in desk clerk, who insisted that she be allowed to wear her cruxifix over the top of her uniform, to the extent where she was suspended without pay pending an enquiry into her complaint.

She has now been ruled against twice by the airline who have asked her to return to work with the cruxifix suitably concealed, or to take another job in the organisation which doesn't require a uniform and where the cruxfix rule doesn't apply - she's refused to do both.

Why ?

Because she is more than just a lady with a strong religious belief - she is a god-botherer.

She confirmed this when interviewed on that bastion of news gathering this morning - GMTV. During the interview she displayed all of the atributes of 100%, nailed-on (no pun intended) god-botherers, in that every sentence that she used had to contain a reference to her religious beliefs and/or her "father", "saviour", "lord almighty" and other such tosh.

She actually stated that it was not in her remit to decide how to wear the cruxifix, she had been told by the almighty to wear it outside of her uniform and she could not deny her saviour as she would have to face him one day and explain why she'd tucked the cross inside her shirt - lady that is one very petty and vindictive god that you are worshipping.

She's even got the Archbishop of York on her side who called the BA decision "nonsense", but of course he would say that wouldn't he, being that he wears the biggest cross you've ever seen outside of his frock on a sunday.

I have nothing but sympathy for people such as Nadia Eweida, but its sympathy for her state of mind rather than sympathy for her cause, she has a serious problem inside her head if she thinks that her god gives one flying fuck about how she wears her cruxifix, but therein lies the problem with god-botherers - they honestly believe that they have a direct line to their god and their lives are totally ruled by the voice in their head or the voice of a bloke in a frock at their local church.

We used to have a business competitor in Leeds who was a 24 carat gold-embossed god-botherer, the rep for Yellow Pages once came to us straight from a visit to his business and she couldn't get over the fact that he wouldn't make a decision on whether to take out some extra advertising until he'd popped upstairs and had a word with god to see whether He thought it was a good deal, she was flabergasted when god said that it was too expensive and would not make a good enough return on the investment, even more so when Bob, the god-botherer, explained that god ruled his whole life, god had given him his wife, his house, his business, the food on his table, and his Yellow Pages advertising budget.

Bob would sometimes pop in to see us at our office, have a cup of coffee, chat about business - but he never failed to leave us without trying to press a god-bothering leaflet into our hands, or to bless us, or get us to sing one of his little hymn-things with him, he never left our office without the words "fuck off Bob" ringing in his ears.

I will finish with a parable from that great prophet Eddie Izzard who tells the story of how God looked down at earth in the 21st century and was displeased with what he saw, he called for his son Jesus and pointed out to him all of the evil corrupt ways of man and how the world was in a much worse state now than when Jesus had been sent down to sort it all out 2000 years previously.

God spaketh unto Jesus and told him to go back down to earth and sort the mess out properly this time, to which Jesus replied "You must be fuckin jokin dad, don't you remember last time, they're animals down there, they nailed me to a fuckin tree for gods sake"

Would you smote down one of your employees like this ?

I have a little problem with this news story.

In fact its not so much the news story itself, but the whole basis of organised religion.

Poor old Archbishop Lord Dr Hope (that man has an impressive list of titles) has been smote down with a "debilitating illness" which is nothing to laugh or point fun at, I do hope he is OK and that he enjoys his retirement.

Just as a bit of background filler poor old Archbishop Lord Dr Hope is the bloke who used to be the Archbishop of York, which is the second most important job in the Anglican church behind the Archbishop of Canterbury.

OK so its the third most important job in the Anglican church, given that God is the boss first, then possibly his lad Jesus (what does Jesus do in the organisation these days since we nailed him to a tree all those years ago), so maybe the Archbishop of York is a bit further down the pecking order - but hey, its a big job ok ?

But having clawed his way up the corporate tree, no doubt kicking lots of other aspiring Archbishops in the teeth on t he way up, ex-Archbishop Lord Dr Hope stuck out the job for a short while then told God that he couldn't be arsed with all this Archbishop-ery stuff and that he wanted to be a parish priest again.

And God saw that it was so and gave the job to someone who wanted the job much more and he made A-L-D Hope a simple parish priest again.

But as we all know, God can be a right vindictive bas'tad when he wants to be and he has obviously sat and stewed on this one for a long time, who knows, maybe he started recieving prayers from some of the priests that A-L-D Hope kicked in the teeth on the way up, maybe there is a lot of infighting and cats-claws within the Anglican priest business, maybe there is truth in the motto that you shouldn't upset people on the way up as you'll have to meet them again ont he way down - whatever the truth God has seen to it that A-L-D hope does not have the quiet and happy retirement that he wished for himself and has smote him down with a debilitating illness to cope with .

"Ha !" said God, "See how you like that you bas'tad. That'll learn'ya" (for God has spent too long in the Bronx)

And thats where I have the problem with organised religion - as an organisation its just too vindictive for me, the range of punishments meted out to transgressors is so ferocious that the Cosa Nostra would be calling for reforms to their punishment book if they followed the same course.

I once had the misfortune to visit a church - yes just the once - it was the church where we were getting married and the bans were being read - and the vicar, who had been a very nice man when we met him in his house, turned into a raging, spitting, fire-breathing, brimstone-hurling fekking maniac who terrorised the dozen or so old ladies in his congregation by graphically explaining how Gods punishments would rain down on their heads and tear them limb from limb if they didn't sing up a bit when he got to the hymn singing part of his sermon - I left his church absolutely terrified and couldn't sleep for four nights, I still check the sky for falling meteors from on high whenever I swear and I dread to think what will happen to me today after wrtiting this piece.

Have to go to Hull now (God works in mysterious ways) - toodle pip and good fortune.