|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
 Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 12:18 pm Post subject: Why should I respect these oppressive religions? |
 |
|
Two people in India have been arrested "hurting the religious feelings" of our sensitive little flowers, the radical muslims. The two are editor and publisher of the English language The Statesman.
The article they published, ironically enough, asks why free speech much be restricted for the religious (though targeted). Aaaannndd this got them arrested.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7883612.stm
Here is the original article. It is superb.
| Quote: |
The right to criticise religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism � giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds � are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we "respect" religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten � to put him on the side of the religious censors.
Related articles
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that "a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people". It was a Magna Carta for mankind � and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Today, the Chinese dictatorship calls it "Western", Robert Mugabe calls it "colonialist", and Dick Cheney calls it "outdated". The countries of the world have chronically failed to meet it � but the document has been held up by the United Nations as the ultimate standard against which to check ourselves. Until now.
Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to be able to think and speak freely failed to "respect" the "unique sensitivities" of the religious, they decided � so they issued an alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you can only speak within "the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community".
In other words, you can say anything you like, as long as it precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy of Christian fundamentalists.
Incredibly, they are succeeding. The UN's Rapporteur on Human Rights has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent free speech � including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate recently demanded that his job description be changed so he can seek out and condemn "abuses of free expression" including "defamation of religions and prophets". The council agreed � so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who wanted to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself.
Anything which can be deemed "religious" is no longer allowed to be a subject of discussion at the UN � and almost everything is deemed religious. Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union has tried to raise topics like the stoning of women accused of adultery or child marriage. The Egyptian delegate stood up to announce discussion of shariah "will not happen" and "Islam will not be crucified in this council" � and Brown was ordered to be silent. Of course, the first victims of locking down free speech about Islam with the imprimatur of the UN are ordinary Muslims.
Here is a random smattering of events that have taken place in the past week in countries that demanded this change. In Nigeria, divorced women are routinely thrown out of their homes and left destitute, unable to see their children, so a large group of them wanted to stage a protest � but the Shariah police declared it was "un-Islamic" and the marchers would be beaten and whipped. In Saudi Arabia, the country's most senior government-approved cleric said it was perfectly acceptable for old men to marry 10-year-old girls, and those who disagree should be silenced. In Egypt, a 27-year-old Muslim blogger Abdel Rahman was seized, jailed and tortured for arguing for a reformed Islam that does not enforce shariah.
To the people who demand respect for Muslim culture, I ask: which Muslim culture? Those women's, those children's, this blogger's � or their oppressors'?
As the secular campaigner Austin Darcy puts it: "The ultimate aim of this effort is not to protect the feelings of Muslims, but to protect illiberal Islamic states from charges of human rights abuse, and to silence the voices of internal dissidents calling for more secular government and freedom."
Those of us who passionately support the UN should be the most outraged by this.
Underpinning these "reforms" is a notion seeping even into democratic societies � that atheism and doubt are akin to racism. Today, whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents immediately claim they are the victims of "prejudice" � and their outrage is increasingly being backed by laws.
All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don't respect the idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water and rose from the dead. I don't respect the idea that we should follow a "Prophet" who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him.
I don't respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering it. I don't respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats, and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of "prejudice" or "ignorance", but because there is no evidence for these claims. They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal.
When you demand "respect", you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade.
But why are religious sensitivities so much more likely to provoke demands for censorship than, say, political sensitivities? The answer lies in the nature of faith. If my views are challenged I can, in the end, check them against reality. If you deregulate markets, will they collapse? If you increase carbon dioxide emissions, does the climate become destabilised? If my views are wrong, I can correct them; if they are right, I am soothed.
But when the religious are challenged, there is no evidence for them to consult. By definition, if you have faith, you are choosing to believe in the absence of evidence. Nobody has "faith" that fire hurts, or Australia exists; they know it, based on proof. But it is psychologically painful to be confronted with the fact that your core beliefs are based on thin air, or on the empty shells of revelation or contorted parodies of reason. It's easier to demand the source of the pesky doubt be silenced.
But a free society cannot be structured to soothe the hardcore faithful. It is based on a deal. You have an absolute right to voice your beliefs � but the price is that I too have a right to respond as I wish. Neither of us can set aside the rules and demand to be protected from offence.
Yet this idea � at the heart of the Universal Declaration � is being lost. To the right, it thwacks into apologists for religious censorship; to the left, it dissolves in multiculturalism. The hijacking of the UN Special Rapporteur by religious fanatics should jolt us into rescuing the simple, battered idea disintegrating in the middle: the equal, indivisible human right to speak freely. |
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-why-should-i-respect-these-oppressive-religions-1517789.html
So? Why should I? |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
Anything which can be deemed "religious" is no longer allowed to be a subject of discussion at the UN � and almost everything is deemed religious. Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union has tried to raise topics like the stoning of women accused of adultery or child marriage. The Egyptian delegate stood up to announce discussion of shariah "will not happen" and "Islam will not be crucified in this council" � and Brown was ordered to be silent. Of course, the first victims of locking down free speech about Islam with the imprimatur of the UN are ordinary Muslims.
|
The IHEU is a well-known anti-religion organization. Nothing wrong with that, but if the purpose of this particular UN forum were to address the issues of adultery and child marriage, I would think that the appropriate people to be hearing from would be activists on those issues, not people focussed on criticizing the very idea of religion itself.
The Hari piece is not clear about what exactly this UN forum is. It sounds to like a place that's in the business of facilitating shouting matches between anti-religious skeptics and the devout. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Freedom can only exist with tolerance and tolerance is easier to practice when everyone agrees...at which point you don't need it. It's when the ideal of tolerance is tested that it's difficult. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:58 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Ya-ta, you know that what you wrote doesn't actually mean anything, right? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:05 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Read it again. It does make sense. You don't need to be tolerant if there's nothing to tolerate. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:23 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Hari wrote: |
| I don't respect the idea that we should follow a 'Prophet' who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him |
Hari is an amateur. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Big_Bird wrote: |
| Read it again. It does make sense. You don't need to be tolerant if there's nothing to tolerate. |
Which is entirely irrelevant. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Pluto
Joined: 19 Dec 2006
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:27 pm Post subject: |
|
|
You didn't catch this one?
| Quote: |
| More shameful behavior in response to the "threat" of radical Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, this time from the increasingly illiberal government of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Yesterday I noted that a Foreign Office employee was arrested after denouncing the "fucking Jews" in his local gym; now the Home Department has forbidden Wilders from entering the UK because he would "threaten community harmony and therefore public security." |
Threaten community harmony!!!!???? Seriously, wtf? The Labour government's press releases are sounding a lot like something off the wire from Chinese state run media.
| Quote: |
| But what really rankles is the kid gloves with which lunatic Islamists are treated, while radical anti-Muslims like Wilders are denounced as agents of intolerance. And again, I believe Wilders impressions of Islam to be reductionist and, I would imagine, deeply offensive to that great majority of Muslims who do not condone or engage in violence. But let us recall that London's former Mayor Ken Livingston invited�and publicly embraced�Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a "moderate" preacher who advocates the killing of pregnant Israeli women, gays, Americans, and all other sinister kafirs, to discuss how we can all just hold hands, sing "Up with People," and dance around rainbows. When human rights and gay rights groups protested, Livingstone sputtered that his critics were spreading "lies and Islamophobia." Al-Qawadari, he explained, desires the spread of mutual respect, such as when he recently told an audience that "Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler." |
At least Ken Leavingsoon is now gone, but still what is it with the UK? Must be the water or something, I don't know.
Rules for Radicals: UK Edition |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
fiveeagles
Joined: 19 May 2005
Location: Vancouver
|
| Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Only truth can bring freedom and thus why secular humanism is a doomed philosophy. It can't over come the more oppressive philosophies and it can't cover up the light. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:50 am Post subject: |
|
|
| fiveeagles wrote: |
| Only truth can bring freedom and thus why secular humanism is a doomed philosophy. It can't over come the more oppressive philosophies and it can't cover up the light. |
There is no "truth". At least none that a mere mortal like you could comprehend. The most you can do is interpret, never 'know'. That's why your so-called faith is a sham. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
fiveeagles
Joined: 19 May 2005
Location: Vancouver
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:13 am Post subject: |
|
|
You are right.
God can only reveal truth to those who love it. That is why people perish...because they hate it. So God sends a powerful delusion so that those who hate truth will perish.
Pray that God may reveal his truth to you, a mere mortal, while you can still find it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: |
| Threaten community harmony!!!!???? |
Translation: May upset certain members of a tolerant and peaceful religion who will start throwing petrol bombs and riot. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
visitorq
Joined: 11 Jan 2008
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:01 am Post subject: |
|
|
| fiveeagles wrote: |
You are right.
God can only reveal truth to those who love it. That is why people perish...because they hate it. So God sends a powerful delusion so that those who hate truth will perish.
Pray that God may reveal his truth to you, a mere mortal, while you can still find it. |
Your mind is finite. You would have to be omniscient to know of any kind of "truth". Know your limitations. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:53 am Post subject: |
|
|
| fiveeagles wrote: |
You are right.
God can only reveal truth to those who love it. That is why people perish...because they hate it. So God sends a powerful delusion so that those who hate truth will perish.
Pray that God may reveal his truth to you, a mere mortal, while you can still find it. |
translation: "I have a special relationship with god, and you don't. If you don't believe what I believe you will burn in hell. I am saved from this fate because I am special. You are not."
Note the arrogance here, people.
Anybody who says humility is a Christian virtue is fooling themselves. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Mix1
Joined: 08 May 2007
|
| Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:44 am Post subject: |
|
|
Anyone who can't see the parallels between Islam and Fascism...here it is for you in black and white.
First, It's not just respect they want, it's obedience.
Second, The main issue here is whether or not it's OK to imprison someone for stating an opinion. Remember the concept of freedom of speech?
Here is the sad part. The writers were imprisoned because some Muslims felt the article "outraged their religious feelings".
So, there you go. Someone offends you, it's OK to put them in prison, right? Anyone want to live in a world like that? If so, go ahead and move to Saudi Arabia. If not, stand up to this kind of crap right NOW.
People need to understand, at stake is not only the erosion of the right to criticise religions, but the right to freedom of speech. Do you think this sort of thing couldn't happen in the West? It certainly will be happening if rational, freedom loving people don't stop waffling and bending over backwards to satisfy every whim these religious nutballs throw at us.
That goes for other religions too. Did anyone notice the Islamic rights declaration was backed by the Vatican and fundamentalist Christian leaders? Don't think that they also wouldn't love to have censorship laws like this on the books as well.
I've seen way too people lately complaining that things should be censored because they are "offensive". Well, saying something is "offensive" is not an argument, and it's certainly NO reason to ban something or put someone in prison for. If you don't like an opinion, you don't have to listen.
It's a slippery slope. Time to tell them all to take their preciously fragile "religious" feelings and get the F*CK away from our legal systems.
Also, the editor should not have apologized. Why did he? Because if he didn't his office might be bombed. Now are you starting to get it, people?
The problem is not religious intolerance, but rather religious tolerance. In other words, how much more crap like this do we have to tolerate?
We're living in the 21st Century now, it's time to start acting like it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
