It’s Astonishing What This “Quality” U.K. Newspaper Can Get Away With Saying About a Religious Minority November 29, 2015

It’s Astonishing What This “Quality” U.K. Newspaper Can Get Away With Saying About a Religious Minority

Here’s how columnist Giles Coren, a 22-year veteran of the London Times, announced his disgust of Jews yesterday.

God, I hate Jews. I don’t think there can be a group of people on earth more convinced of their own rightness, more dismissive of other people’s interests and beliefs, or more dogmatic and humourless about their own massively unappealing and totally irrelevant weltanschauung than the “I believe in Yahweh” squad.

Weltanschauung,” rather than simply “world view,” is what Oxbridge language fops use to set themselves apart from the commoners.

Continues Coren:

But it’s not the nihilism, the soullessness, the lack of poetry, the moral and physical ugliness, the shallow iconoclasm or the vainglory of Jews that bother me most. It’s the boringness.

Is it cricket of Coren to slander and generalize a whole group like that, accusing its members of being arrogant, physically ugly, and more? Can a man this bizarrely hateful really have a gig with one of Britain’s foremost broadsheets? Is this the Times or Der Stürmer?

But no, of course I kid. Giles Coren did not write that about Jews (he’s of Jewish ancestry himself). Or Muslims. Or Christians. He wouldn’t dare.

Here are his actual words, from the column his newspaper really did see fit to publish:

God, I hate atheists. I don’t think there can be a group of people on earth more convinced of their own rightness, more dismissive of other people’s interests and beliefs, or more dogmatic and humourless about their own massively unappealing and totally irrelevant weltanschauung than the “I don’t believe in God” squad.

But it’s not the nihilism, the soullessness, the lack of poetry, the moral and physical ugliness, the shallow iconoclasm or the vainglory of atheists that bother me most. It’s the boringness.

That’s where the Times preview ends; the rest of the article is stuck behind a paywall. Of course, Coren has given me no desire to shell out $26 for the privilege of reading the remainder of his rant. It’s possible that there’s some great reveal in an ensuing paragraph that makes it evident this is all a big thigh-slapper of a joke. If you have full access to the U.K. Times, please do share with all of us, in the comments, what we’ve been missing. [EDIT: Done, thanks to commenter gonegirl. See here.]

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P.S.: A recent British poll found that 19 percent of the population identify as atheists; seven percent think of themselves as agnostic; and three percent are self-described humanists. In total, 42 percent of respondents said they have “no religion.” In other words, Coren and the Times have just expressed their hatred and contempt for anywhere from 11 to 25 million Britons. (If nothing else, that can’t be good for business.)

P.P.S.: Coren must think remarkably highly of his own looks. As evidenced by his diatribe about atheists, and also his 2011 tweet about a soccer player he dislikes, he appears to easily call other people either “ugly” or “very ugly.” Reminds me of this commenter, “Clarissa.”

(Image via YouTube)

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