It took a little longer than I expected, but the accommodationist fringe has stepped up to the plate with the usual trope. We brought the Paris Charlie Hebdo shootings upon ourselves, by mocking the deeply-held beliefs of those who are not in power.
The video below is unusual in that the presenter continually tries to bring rationality into the discussion, against a tidal wave of loony cultural relativism from both her guests, who succeed only in making themselves sound very silly indeed.
Click for video
Moreover, contemporary thought professor (and Self-styled wannabe thought policeman) Will Self observes that the notion of absolute freedom of speech is "exactly the same as a religious idea".
How dreadfully confused these people are. Religions such as Islam are totalitarian in nature. They seek to control every aspect of the lives of every one of us. They would dictate (i.e. severely limit) what we can read, what we can draw, what we can see, what we can say and how we can dress. To suggest by association that the ideal of freedom of speech is some kind of totalitarian imposition is ludicrous in the extreme. Freedom of speech does not need to be enforced, and it is not predicated upon the propitiation of any deity. Freedom of speech does not enlist the service of the gullible through the empty promise of impossible rewards in an imaginary, uncorroborable hereafter.
Professor Self might just as well argue that the universal right to oxygen is a religious idea. Supposing a crackpot religious sect imprisoned a few hostages and sealed them in an airtight room to suffocate. Amid the global outcry for the hostages to be freed before they run out of air, the lone voice of Professor Self pipes up: "Just remember - to claim that every person has the right to free oxygen is as much a religious idea as are the sincerely-held beliefs of these men." And some of those who had been clamouring for the hostages' freedom tiptoe quietly away to re-evaluate the matter.
In fact the issue is far less complicated than these high priests of obfuscation would have us believe. Some very nasty bullies, who happen to share a title (Muslim) and some of their beliefs with a very large group of people (most of whom have never questioned or examined the belief system they were born into), have sought to impose a set of restrictions upon all of us. We have rejected those restrictions, and so the bullies have resorted to murder. That is all. This was no desperate act by heroic, downtrodden underdogs with no recourse to debate or protest. The Paris shootings were not the result of western foreign policy. They were a cynical attempt by a gang of thugs to score brownie points with their imaginary totalitarian deity. Such a mindset ought to have no place in a civilised society, and represents a real, immediate danger to it.
As @MrOzAtheist has pointed out, not all Muslims resort to murder over cartoons, but all of those who murder because of cartoons are Muslims, following the teaching of their religion. Furthermore, the Paris gunmen were heard to shout that they had avenged the prophet Muhammad, and that god is great. We should have stopped ignoring the elephant in the room on 11 September, 2001. It is still here, generating a growing mountain of repellent ordures.
The video below is unusual in that the presenter continually tries to bring rationality into the discussion, against a tidal wave of loony cultural relativism from both her guests, who succeed only in making themselves sound very silly indeed.
Click for video
Moreover, contemporary thought professor (and Self-styled wannabe thought policeman) Will Self observes that the notion of absolute freedom of speech is "exactly the same as a religious idea".
How dreadfully confused these people are. Religions such as Islam are totalitarian in nature. They seek to control every aspect of the lives of every one of us. They would dictate (i.e. severely limit) what we can read, what we can draw, what we can see, what we can say and how we can dress. To suggest by association that the ideal of freedom of speech is some kind of totalitarian imposition is ludicrous in the extreme. Freedom of speech does not need to be enforced, and it is not predicated upon the propitiation of any deity. Freedom of speech does not enlist the service of the gullible through the empty promise of impossible rewards in an imaginary, uncorroborable hereafter.
Professor Self might just as well argue that the universal right to oxygen is a religious idea. Supposing a crackpot religious sect imprisoned a few hostages and sealed them in an airtight room to suffocate. Amid the global outcry for the hostages to be freed before they run out of air, the lone voice of Professor Self pipes up: "Just remember - to claim that every person has the right to free oxygen is as much a religious idea as are the sincerely-held beliefs of these men." And some of those who had been clamouring for the hostages' freedom tiptoe quietly away to re-evaluate the matter.
In fact the issue is far less complicated than these high priests of obfuscation would have us believe. Some very nasty bullies, who happen to share a title (Muslim) and some of their beliefs with a very large group of people (most of whom have never questioned or examined the belief system they were born into), have sought to impose a set of restrictions upon all of us. We have rejected those restrictions, and so the bullies have resorted to murder. That is all. This was no desperate act by heroic, downtrodden underdogs with no recourse to debate or protest. The Paris shootings were not the result of western foreign policy. They were a cynical attempt by a gang of thugs to score brownie points with their imaginary totalitarian deity. Such a mindset ought to have no place in a civilised society, and represents a real, immediate danger to it.
As @MrOzAtheist has pointed out, not all Muslims resort to murder over cartoons, but all of those who murder because of cartoons are Muslims, following the teaching of their religion. Furthermore, the Paris gunmen were heard to shout that they had avenged the prophet Muhammad, and that god is great. We should have stopped ignoring the elephant in the room on 11 September, 2001. It is still here, generating a growing mountain of repellent ordures.
