What would you have done in these circumstances: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... sions.html

What would you have done in these circumstances: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... sions.html

I wouldn't have clicked a link to a shi[it[/ity rag in the first place

Sounds like you just did (again).

Personally it wouldn't have bothered me but given that the article doesn't give us the full facts (who'd've thunk it, Mail fans?) it's too difficult to say.

If the judge felt he needed to see her facial expressions, as claimed, then her refusal to remove the veil meant she couldn't serve on the jury. As long as he has followed the correct guidelines and procedures, I don't see any problem, tbh.

Added to that is that the judge will be legally qualified and experienced, far more so than the outraged Rebecca Camber

I'd have followed the guidelines, which say it's down to the trial judge to make a decision on a case by case basis.

Another Mail non-story on Muslims.

Unfortunately, the white male who replaced her was Frank Sidebottom

I'd drink the tea and stroke the kittens

Gawd bless 'im.

Quote ="Dally"What would you have done in these circumstances: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... sions.html'" Deleted my Internet history afterwards, that's for sure.

Quote ="Dally"What would you have done in these circumstances: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... sions.html'" Deleted my Internet history afterwards, that's for sure.

Couldn't care less.

Like this one.

Best plug in ever!

If only it worked in the outside world.

The fact she is religious should be enough to get her off any jury. I’m not sure someone who determines their own life based on blind faith can ever be trusted to determine another’s life by deriving conclusions based on empirical evidence?
These are people who, at the end of the day, will quite happily throw all reason out of the window and go with ‘a feeling they just have’ or some other sanctimonious rubbish.

On the other hand - whats the first thing they ask witnesses to do ?

You can't refuse someone jury duty on the grounds of religion and then use religion as an arbiter of truth in your courtroom.

You can affirm

Yes, they are called socialists.

Do you have to swear on the Bible though? I thought they'd dropped that.

You are right, I don't think in law we can refuse someone jury service on religious grounds alone, however laws can and sometime should be changed. How in the 21st century can we trust the judgments and faculties of people who are guided in life by Bronze Age superstition?

I'm not sure how anyone who has a history of being unable to deal with facts in coherent and rational way, (something I always imagined is a must for a juror and something religious folk seem to have a constant problem with), can be relied upon to produce a valid conclusion based on the predicates presented to them? I suppose in a similar way a witness who is shown to be inconsistent or a liar is considered unreliable.

You're making big assumptions. Whose to say what is coherent and rational?? Humans are humans and will always be affected by their own personal prejudices. It may be that someone who is totally irreligious doesn't happen to like people with red hair and would be more inclined to disbelieve them in court. The jury system is supposed to be judgement by your peers and whether you like it or not, there are a lot of people who are religious.

I was a bit tongue in cheek but anyway I’ll have a go...

A person with prejudices can slip through the selection process, although good a judge, legal representation, etc should go some way to sorting this problem, we do not just accept these people exist and let them on to a jury. A person can be thrown off a jury, e.g. for a racist remark while in discussion with other members, but I don’t think they would if they said something like, ‘God is guiding my hand in this judgement’.

Peer judgement can be a great thing, many people put aside their prejudices every day in order to get on in life, but no one person decides the method to be used for that judgement it’s a matter of following the logic to its conclusion and accepting its determination no matter what. This is what a jury is instructed to do, I’m not sure religious folk can be trusted to do this; I don’t think it’s within their nature.

Who’s to say what is coherent and rational? I think that may be a category mistake, it shouts for itself. The difference between knowledge and belief is that to know something to be the case one must have justifiable evidence, to believe something to be the case one needs only mere acceptance. Religious people have a history of mere acceptance, they can have all the condemning evidence there can ever be and they can just fly in the face of it all... unashamedly more often than not.

I think a good thing about being judged by our peers is that they may have personal insight into ‘their likes’ and judge accordantly. But, these judgements should be based in fact and analyzed and concluded within the laws of logic, and not on some mystic whim.

Or something like that....I'm not sure...I could just be being a tw&t and having a go at religion because I don't like it. But I may have a point...

You don't trust the majority of the human race then? Atheists and the irreligious are in the minority, and always have been. Estimates vary that between 80-84% of the world's population follow a religion of some form.

I've always wondered, do those slating religion (as certain folk so love to on here) truly believe they are the insightful minority and the majority of the human race throughout known history is, and always has been, gullible and deluded?

As you say though, religion is a funny human trait. Even casual research into the origins and history of religion and the twists, turns and blatant cons that have taken place throughout human history tell you there are many enormous flaws to the God argument. Yet billions still visit places of worship every day.

FWIW, I don't think religion should be a factor in law. I've sworn in as a witness twice with no reference to God.


It's not black or white though. Some religious folk go through the motions, some use the church simply as a community centre, some have a genuine but casual belief, some follow their religions to the letter, some are aggressively religious. It's an infinite range and in between you have just as many interpretations and individual meanings of religion.

You think religious people are unable to deal with facts because they believe in a God? You think many judges, solicitors, teachers, engineers, scientists, soldiers, doctors, surgeons, nurses, computer programmers, etc, etc, etc, aren't religious? These people, and many others, kind of need to deal with and make judgements based on facts and their religious beliefs are probably irrelevant. There are always exceptions of course, as I'm sure someone will point out.

BTW, I'm not religious. I was taken to church as a child and had a brush with 'born-again' Christianity as a young and befuddled teenager, but those things are many years behind me. I simply see no need to jump on the 'beating religion to a pulp' bandwagon, as right-on as that might make me - unless stupid people use it to demand stupid things, as seems to be all the rage in the States right now.

Fact is, the judge wanted to see this woman's face and she didn't want to show it. Perhaps she had a big spot on her nose. No issue.

I think you answer your own question here TBH:



And so it has always been.

The largest number of people who buy/read newspapers in the UK buy/read a tabloid. Do you think they're as informed etc as those who buy something a tad more sensible – just because they're in the majority?



No. Because for much of known history, religions offered the only coherent explanations of natural phenomena.

Why is the majority automatically worthy of trust?


Sort of. People who follow a religion [inow[/i are gullible and/or deluded: Back in the day folk didn't know any better so it would be a tad harsh to judge them by modern standards.

That to me has to be one of the great conundrums of the modern age, why are so many medical people religious ?

The Fabrice Muamba situation for instance, a consultant cardiologist who was in the ground on saturday and helped with the resuscitation was interviewed this week speaking of "a miracle" that the player survived (so far) and there have been many references to "the power of prayer" this week, whereas the truth is that if you are going to have a heart attack then a full premier league football ground is probably as good a place to have one as any, a place where medics are already in attendance, where defib equipment is (or should be) in place, where medically qualified people are in the crowd in abundance and one of them is a consultant cardiologist, and the medically qualified people should be the first to acknowledge that its their well practised procedures that kept him alive not 40,000 chanting a prayer.

What the consultant cardiologist forgot was the figure quoted this week of 20 sudden deaths that occur every year in amateur football (where no apparent heart condition previously exists) where the unfortunate players did not have defib equipment or a consultant cardiologist on the touchline - or the hundreds of deaths every year from sudden cardiac death (not cardiac arrest) - its why portable defib equipment is kept in lots of public places now, its that common, and waiting for another miracle or chanting a prayer does absolutely no good for those people at all.