This has just brightened up my day far too much.
Much gratitude to Unreasonable Faith for the heads up..
Browsing Posts in Religion
But even if some people are offended, offence is not a sufficient reason for certain artistic and satirical forms of expression to be prohibited. A university should hold no idea sacred and be open to the critiquing of all ideas and ideologies.
- The London School of Economics Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society, as quoted by New Humanist, responding to demands by the LSE student union that they remove a Jesus & Mo cartoon from their Facebook page.
I was going to post some expanded thoughts on this, but it turns out that the National Secular Society has said it so much better: LSE Students Union “being manipulated by determined activists” over Mohammed cartoon
Now is probably a good time to mention that a demonstration in defence of free expression, prompted by the student controversies and organised One Law For All, is set to take place in London on 11 February.
Rather fittingly – and as if to prove my point – my human rights were quashed by a person demonstrating one of the effects of sharia law; the threat of violence for criticising religion.
- Ann Marie Waters who was due to speak discussion of Islamic law at a London university on Monday. This discussion was abandoned after a mindless thug threatened the attendees and some students who happened to be in the foyer.
Rhys Morgan is an intelligent and articulate teenager and someone who impressed many with his work in publicising Stanislaw Burzynski‘s fradulent alternative medicine practices. Last week the University College London Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society were told that they should remove an image, taken from the cover of a Jesus and Mo book, from their Facebook page for their weekly pub meet.
Rhys, along with many others, used the same image on his Facebook page in a show of solidarity for their cause. He left the picture up for about a week, then changed it back and went on with his life.
Until today. Someone who is a Muslim discovered the picture and found it offensive. He politely requested I remove the image -
“… just a kind request to either hide it or completely delete the picture…”
- a request I declined because I do not follow Islamic scripture or rules.
At this point, all hell broke loose and he found himself on the receiving end of a stream of threats and abuse. Then his school stepped in… and threatened to expel him.
So here’s the picture in question:
And I think the head at Rhys’s sixth form college should sit down and think long and hard about why he is so keen to side with a bunch of bullies.
On New Year’s Eve, Cee Lo Green annoyed (via) John Lennon fans everywhere by performing a version of Imagine but changing the line “nothing to kill or die for / and no religion too” to “nothing to kill or die for / and all religion’s true.”
Green’s version is self-evidently absurd but, not being much of a John Lennon fan, I didn’t have much – or anything – to say about this particular absurdity.
Greta Christina, however, makes a good point:
And while I think this desire to ignore religious differences comes partly from a desire to avoid religious wars and hatreds and bigotries, I also think it comes, at least sometimes, from an aversion to conflict that verges on the neurotic. And I definitely think it comes from an intense unwillingness to think very carefully about one’s own beliefs. Ecumenicalism is like a gentlemen’s agreement: you don’t ask hard questions about my religion, and I won’t ask hard questions about yours. You don’t point out contradictions or falsehoods or absurdities in my beliefs, or ask whether they have any good evidence to support them, and I’ll do the same for you. We’ll all hold hands and sing “Kumbaya,” and we’ll utter vague deepities about the beautiful mystery of it all… and we’ll stick our fingers in our ears and ignore the atheists outside the campfire circle, the ones who are yelling, “None of you has any good reason to think that any of this is true!”
Yeah. Good luck with that.
When a religion, or a religious believer, makes a factual statement then the rest of us are more than entitled to ask: “Why do you believe that?” And if there is no answer then the most rational response is to simply dismiss the claim.
Insisting that we take these claims seriously demonstrates an attitude that values insincerity above honesty and such an attitude really doesn’t deserve any respect whatsoever.
So Benneton launched another poster campaign, one which depicted political and religious leaders kissing under the slogan Unhate. One of these posters showed Pope Benedict kissing Egypt’s Ahmed el Tayyeb, imam of the al-Azhar mosque in Cairo and the Vatican threw a tantrum. So Benneton pulled that particular poster.
All’s fair in love and commerce, I suppose, so this should have been the end of the story. But it isn’t, because the Vatican continued to throw a tantrum.
A statement said the Vatican had told its lawyers in Italy and around the world to “take the proper legal measures” to stop the use of the photo, even in the media.
Emphasis mine and, in deference to the Streisand effect, here is the poster:
I will resist the temptation to suggest that the reason the Vatican finds this poster so objectionable is that the imam is too old to appeal to the Pope.
The Register reports that Christian satellite channel, Believe TV is facing “statutory sanctions” from Ofcom (normally a very hands-off regulator) for advertising dodgy products and claiming – among other things – that real medicine can be replaced with Ribena.
Halfway through the article, writer Bill Ray notes:
Ofcom also points out that anyone watching Believe TV is probably quite gullible
‘Nuff said.
From David Byars by way of Jerry Coyne:
I’m going to point out something that tends to get papered over: accommodationalism isn’t just insulting to the Gnu Atheists; It is insulting to believers, on a profound level. Oh sure, accomadationalism will call out Gnus for being jerks (because of honest engagement with ideas)- but then it will ask for us to understand that even if something isn’t true, maybe those weak minded saps over there need that mental crutch, we don’t, of course, but no need to make others miserable with difficult thoughts and logical discussion, and we should understand that all it will result in is stripped internal gears and headaches. Bull and shite.
If a belief is true, those who believe in it have nothing to fear from it being subjected to a free marketplace of ideas. No argument, no logical or empirical process will show a true belief to be false. And if a belief is false, how can you -without arrogance- claim it is better for others to believe it?
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