How to Discuss Religion Without Appeasing Tyrants
In 15-minute segments many panelists offered insights on dealing with the candor-or-respect issue. Journalist Ari Goldman admitted that objectivity “is dead.” The best option is for journalists to use “fairness.” Respect is what journalists owe the subject of an article and candor is what they owe the reader.
Faisal Devji, assistant professor of history at the New School, discussed the limitations of the law in dealing with boycotts and other protests against blasphemy. In the following Q&A session, Bat Ye’or, an Egyptian-born historian who has researched the history of dhimmitude, pointed out that Islamic law does not recognize these legal limitations.
When Bat Ye’or spoke as part of a panel discussion on “Why is religion such a touchy subject?” she investigated the reasons why Muslims were so touchy about criticism. Muslims believe that the Koran is a “divine truth” and that the prophet was a perfect model for all to follow, whose every word and deed was inspired by God. Islam is not just a religion; it’s a lifestyle, a political system, and a legal system. For believers, if one criticizes only one aspect of the belief, the entire system is under attack.
Marci Hamilton of Cardozo Law School discussed the tension between what one is allowed to say about religion and what one is not. This concept was basically unknown to her ten years ago, when a religious lobbyist told her that it was “wrong” to use the words “religious” and “lobbyist” in the same sentence. But when she found out about this unwritten and unenforceable law, she lightly noted that she was determined to say those words in the same sentence every day.
Legal theorist Brian Tamanaha discussed the way the subject of religion can cause disagreements among friends or colleagues who otherwise agree on most principles. Of all of the insightful observations expressed during this conference, this one was very apt. The majority of the speakers agreed about basic political issues: most disagreed with the UN and the OIC’s attempt to stifle free speech; most agreed that respect should be earned, not forced through intimidation. All agreed that nations based on Sharia law were totalitarian states, attempting to impose their legal system on the rest of the world. But when the subject of religion and discussions about faith began, panelists were criticized (and criticized each other) for not respecting or condemning enough. Since the introduction of religion to a discussion does tend to create insolvable conflict, even among allies, how can issues of candor or respect be resolved?
Keeping religion out of political discussions would be one solution, but these days that’s not an option. Philip Hamburger of Columbia Law School, who arranged the conference, said that before 9/11 there was a brief period in human history in which we could pretend that religion didn’t matter anymore. Then, he said, it “all came crashing down.” Religion matters, so we have to deal with it.
David Littman, a UN historian and human rights activist, whose right to speak out against Sharia law is relentlessly censored by other UN delegates, suggested that we follow the advice of Sir Karl Popper, who said:
If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. …
We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.
Another useful idea to remember is the quote often attributed to Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” The violent Muslim reaction to Jyllands-Posten’s publication of the Muhammad cartoons was an attempt, organized by Islamist states like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran, to enforce Sharia law in Europe. The Western government and media response to this violent intolerance and this attack against our laws was, for the most part, submission. The elites showed that they were not willing to stand beside the people who bravely created and published the drawings. They were not willing to risk death or even mild social discomfort to defend our rights. This obsequious reaction proved to the Islamists that they had free rein to bully us further.
The opponents of the “anti-blasphemy” resolution need to put various divisive religious and cultural arguments aside, and we need to unify to defend our right not to tolerate the intolerant. In addition to Littman and the participants in the conference, many rational voices are speaking out against the United Nations’ attempt to make the “anti-blasphemy” resolution binding for member nations. The West missed — or chickened out of — our last opportunity to defend our rights. We can’t let that happen again.
This weakening of our culture is the result of that insidious virus called, political correctness,injected to and infecting all the nooks and crannies of western society. It has so seriously weakened the will of good people that they are afraid to say anything these days about evil. These evil people at the UN know this, and so do the totalitarians that try to rule us here.
Can you imagine the outrage here and abroad, if the United States wanted a resolution that stated that taking Jesus Christ’s name in vain would be a crime? Yes I know you can imagine.
And yet, we are afraid to stand up to their tyrannical evil?.
Speak out now !
These tyrants are banking on your silence..
Political correctness is cultural Marxism. We have thought and viewpoint police.
Yes they are afraid to the Use of the Name of Jesus except when taking His name in vain.
This issue is less about religion than about political correctness and the socialist victimhood food chain (see Dr. Sanity blog). An artist displayed a crucifix in a vat of urine, called it “Piss Christ” and liberals defended his free speech rights against “religious fundamentalists”. But draw a picture of Mohammed or criticize Islam, you will be prosecuted under hate speech laws. A Lutheran minister in Sweden was jailed for giving a sermon against homosexuality, yet in Europe, Muslims at their mosques invoke the vilest hatred against Jews, and they are left alone. Muslims can assault and execute gays, and the silence on the left is deafening. So the bottom line is that the Muslim out-victimizes every other victim group, and therefore they can act with impunity, as they express their culturally-sanctioned reaction against their oppression.
Well, the republicans have used religion as their own stamp of approval. My neighbor is a republican Methodist minister and is a war monger. How Jesus is that?
She snubs me and I am her neighbor…she snubs me because I had an Obama sign in my yard. How Jesus is that.
bunch of hip O crits
acJ: repent while there is still time.
Ah, nevermind, just go off yourself.
Hip O crit my, unbaptized fannie.
Yeah, it’s lame AJC, but does she try to put you in jail? Have a little freakin perspective. She snubs you! The Horror! She doesn’t say hi to you in the street, call Amnesty International. She doesn’t invite you to parties… My God Delusion, I’ll tell you this, Episcopalian, she ain’t! Not agreeing with your politics in a first amendment country (for now)? Call the Chicago Machine to adjust her attitude!
There is a yawning chasm between showing contempt for someone who disagrees with you and your imaginary friend, and having the heretic/blasphemer/non-arse-kisser thrown in the Hooskow, sorry, Harmony Hut, for ecumenical indoctrination (read torture, brutal mistreatment — all of which is approved by the aforementioned imaginary friend and his self-anointed best friends on earth). This is exactly what’s happening in some of the countries that are pushing for these calls.
If you don’t know the difference from a neighbor who won’t swoon over your Obama sign and imprisoning dissidents, female genital mutilation, institutional misogyny at the state-scale, grow up.
This weakening of our culture is the result of that insidious virus called, political correctness,injected to and infecting all the nooks and crannies of western society.
The UN is motivated by 2 things
1. their pacifist abhorrence of war, even wars to prevent genocide or wars of self-defense
2. stealing, bribing or guilt-tripping America into giving them money
They have no interest in defending democracy, they have no interest in preventing genocide or oppression. Their support of the petrodollar fueled “anti-blasphemy” law is proof that they don’t support the separation of church and state or free speech. They’re greedy cowards. What else is new?
Hello, acj:
I cannot speak for your war-mongering neighbor, but the threat is real and will need to be confronted:
http://breathofthebeast.blogspot.com/2009/04/why-we-must-fight.html
Something else the “progressives” and islamofacists have in common – their intolerance for any view but their own to the point of shoving their view down a dissenter’s throat. This is all done in the name of “tolerance” of course.
If I am not free to say **** Islam, I am not free.
The United Nations “anti-blasphemy” resolution should simply be seen for what it is, another example of the Arabization of that body.
Nothing more, nothing less.
CAIR and so many other Islamist organizations operating in North America promote and rely on engendering fear and intimidation relative to any criticism of Islam. (Why should God’s word require such spineless defense ?)
Soft jihad is intentionally applied in countries that haven’t (yet) bent their necks to the inevitable Islamic sword of submission and dhimmitude.
Scholars don’t have to debate this stuff endlessly. It’s not the least bit complicated to anyone not residing inside the pea-soup fog of academia.
It’s always refreshing to read a Muslim who tells the truth about attempts to silence through intimidation…
My persecution by the Muslim McCarthyites
Bill, very well said. I somehow doubt that acj will wrap their head around what you’ve said though.
As a Democrat you’re supposed to be able to diffuse any criticism from a Republican by automatically claiming they are guilty of what they criticize (ie. hypocrites). And then, apparently, there is no longer any reason to address the original criticism. This type of thinking is so unsophisticated, it is really just a variation of “I know you are, but what am I”.
The UN is an instrument whose purpose is to turn goodwill into a weapon the non-Communist states and societies turn on themselves.
Isn’t it – for example – called the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea?
Please. The last 60 years have been nothing but a colossal bait and switch game run induce the West to fall on its face. Well, it’s working. F–king TROTSKY AND LENIN used the term political correctness first; who knows – maybe it was actually Marx or his Jacobin predecessors. In any case, the ignorance is APPALLING.
Of course it is. The same people behind the UN have turned education into a weapon – against the educated.
Islam is not a legitimate religion. I classify it as both a cult and a political ideology focused on world domination. Therefore, if I use material from their own scriptures (Qur’an), traditions (ahadith), and the life of the prophet (Sira) to criticize it, I fully expect my right to free speech to be respected. And I am not in the least afraid of the Muslim water carriers – our Leftist elites and their various Marxist front groups. They don’t scare me. Nor should any of you dance around them. Speak the truth to power. The enemy and their allies can kiss my @ss.
#6 — Yeah, it’s lame AJC, but does she try to put you in jail? Have a little freakin perspective.
Indeed. And that persepective is that in small towns full of like-minded religious people, snubbing and shunning and so on are as close to jail as the law allows. The neighbour refrains from putting acj in jail because the law forbids it, not because the intent or belief that acj deserves jail isn’t there.
You have confused christian belief with western law derived from the classical societies. The law is just as much about protecting those who aren’t of the cohort as it is protecting the right of the cohort to believe what it will.
Mary Madigan also makes this mistake, making unsubstantiated claims about the UN membership. As far as I can tell, the UN’s biggest problem is the assumption that nations are equal rather than claiming that all people everywhere have equal rights.
Mary Madigan also makes this mistake, making unsubstantiated claims about the UN membership
My claims can be substantiated by observing the UN’s actions, rather than by listening to their words.
Observing actions and contrasting them to an organization’s bloviations and press releases can reveal an awful lot about any political entity.
Sorry, G Alston
Having lived in both small christian america towns where even the vegans played with guns, and a couple major college towns that are notoriously intolerant of conservatives (Berkeley and Boulder, where ironically I am supposed to more readily identify), I think your post is a textbook case of Projection.
Islam is a false religion built around a mad man Mohamed who enjoyed murder, and rape. Allah is a moon god, one of many gods from three thousand years ago.
CAIR, the Muslim brotherhood, Hizboallah, and Hamas individuals are not inside America to help make America great. Why does our government allow the religon of peace into this country?
Our government has sold out to special interests, allowing the destruction of our culture with increased moon god worship, and an illegal alien invasion.
There, I sounded the alarm on three enemys under this topic of Islam.
Prove me wrong.
Fred – thanks for your usual blunt assessment of the reality behind Islam. You’ve been remarkably consistent the past 12 months on this subject. Very few of the antagonistic posters here (more are coming) have done any research on the subject of Islam, and I enjoy seeing you dissect their arguments using “The Prophet’s” own words, deeds, and traditions.
What? You mean like murdering all those Jews, raping the women, selling them into slavery, and raping his 9 year old wife. That is for starters pal.
Fred is correct a 100%. What part of correct history don’t you get wpb?
ROPMA!
BTW, you have read the archeology Dr. level reports on Allah haven’t you? Islam has that moon thing going on their Mosque to this day.
Islam has always had a strong militant element, It did not destroy Christianity all across north Africa and Asia Minor in the eighth cebtury by sprinkling Mecca water on Christians. Nor did it overrun Constantinople and reach the gates of Vienna in the 15th cengury by gentle persuasion. I submit that that militant effort is evident today and dominates Islam because it will stop at nothing to gain what it deems its objective, viz, political control.
#17 — I think your post is a textbook case of Projection.
Yours is a textbook case of protesting too much. The reason we have law to guarantee the minority’s right to free speech etc is because… the majority would never use jail or the threat thereof? Why have it then?
(This reminds me of the local ren faire actress playing Elizabeth I claiming that the people loved the queen and she was never dissented against… which explains why she also has a contingent of guards around her at all times.)
Regarding the comment from #6, I said that what separates ‘us’ from ‘them’ is law, not intent. It matters not whether it’s organised religion or global warming religion; the original comment is still true, and you’re blathering emotionally about what you probably have perceived as some sort of attack on christianity. Typical.
#16 — My claims can be substantiated by observing the UN’s actions, rather than by listening to their words.
So when a conservative politician says “A” and a politically opposed pundit says that the politician’s actions mean “B” instead, you wholeheartedly agree on principle. Or is it only you who gets to be right? Do you have anything beyond repeated assertion here?
Couple of years ago we had two preachers who said something about Islam..(forget what now) anyway, whatever it was it caused the congregation to laugh….they were reported and the lefties had a ball making an example of them…it ended up costing them around $200,000 fighting it in court and narrowly escaped going to jail..over here in Australia we have the same PC problems…it’s Australia no more, too many of these a..holes coming here demanding we change our ways.
I find it absolutely shocking that civilised and seemingly educated individuals from the west can actually defend something totally unethical, tasteless, and ugly in the name of Freedom of Speech. Recently Turkey objected to the choice of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the new General Secretary of NATO.
The issue was about the so-called Danish cartoons.
Christians, almost all sects, do believe that Jesus is the Son God. We moslems, though with highest respect and reverence for Jesus, do not believe that and we can in a civilised and intellectual level can argue about the principle. However, if in any Moslem country some moron said Jesus was just a son of a bitch, we would make sure that he would spend a considerable part of his life in jail. Worst still in some of the very conservative Moslem countries could even mean a death sentence. One does not insult beliefs of other people. I have the right to criticise any political idealogy, religious dogma, but that does not give me the right to insult values that other people hold dear. Imagine what would happen if I shouted that ugly statement in St.Peters Square on a Sunday morning or in a small US town in the Bible belt.
So please cut the crap and be fair. Freedom of Speech does not give me the right to call anyone a thief, a whore or whatever. So why should that Danish son of bitch have the right to insult what I believe in.
Regards
It gave you moon god worshipers the right to yell back in the oven to Jews who defended themselves after three years of Rockets from Hamas.
How many Christians are left where Hamas rules? Christians in Egypt get attacked by the religion of peace. Sudan. Etc…
Those are but a few examples of your fairness Mehmet.
you people scare me. what a bunch of intolerent frightened people. i have many arab and muslim friends…….most are some of the nicest people in the world. you really think christianity is any better?? how many gays are denied basic rights in the name of jesus? how many born-again bible thumpers have had books removed from our libraries? how many jesus freaks have pushed their views on our country to roll back the advances of science in teaching their silly creationist nonsense?
I guess some are not following Mohamed then. Your slander for Christianity precedes you trueamerican. If indeed you are a true American, and not a moon god worshiping apologist, or a secular humanist idiot.
Cheers.
We moslems, though with highest respect and reverence for Jesus, do not believe that and we can in a civilised and intellectual level can argue about the principle. However, if in any Moslem country some moron said Jesus was just a son of a bitch, we would make sure that he would spend a considerable part of his life in jail.
The right to criticize any person, any religion, any leader and any idea is (supposedly) guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognized in international human rights law in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
Which (if the UN stood for anything at all) would mean that Danes have the right to make stick figure drawings and caricatures of any subject that they choose. You have the right to criticize their actions, you have the right to complain, but you and your legal institutions should not have the right to put people in jail for doing this.
Muslim law is based one simple principle – the Muslim man is superior to all other men, to all women and to all forms of life in the universe. Therefore, Muslim men tend to support sharia laws.
But sharia laws also prevent free expression, because if anyone was allowed to speak their minds, they would have to point out that Muslim men are not superior beings, which would destroy the entire foundation of these laws.
Unfortunately, free dialogue (prohibited by Sharia) leads to innovation and technological progress. You can’t wage war or succeed economically without free thought, innovation and technological progress. So, in the end, Sharia laws guarantee that Muslim men, in their effort to enforce their belief in their inherent superiority, will always be ten steps behind everyone else.
To Mehmet Dervish: Oh yes, you have the right to call whomever you wish a thief or a whore. In the West, that is. And despite the fact that your fellow Muslims are doing whatever they can to undermine our rights in order that you and your religion are not offended. The exchange of ideas in the comments section shows graphically what a different set of values Muslims and Westerners have. We should have no quarrel with the Muslim world enforcing censorship within its own borders. In the West, however, we cannot allow it.
So when a conservative politician says “A” and a politically opposed pundit says that the politician’s actions mean “B” instead, you wholeheartedly agree on principle..
I’m not a Republican or a Democrat, so I evaluate any political claims about the “the other side’s” motivations or actions with skepticism.
…Or is it only you who gets to be right? Do you have anything beyond repeated assertion here?
In this article, we have proof that the UN is not willing to support article 19 in their own Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
To prove that the UN is also motivated by their need to fleece Americans, we can look at their response to the most horrific disaster of this century, the Tsunami. Immediately after the disaster struck, “15,000 troops, a carrier task force and a Marine expeditionary force deployed to the region, with the U.S. Navy effectively setting up a “sea base” off the coast of Indonesia. This flotilla of ships enabled supplies to be transported to the coastline, where ports and roads were all but washed away. As the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, commented, “We literally built a city at sea for no other purpose than to serve the needs of other people.”
Only the U.S. military had the ability to conduct such an operation.”
Across the Western world, individuals contributed more than $5 billion to the victims of the disaster. While they were contributing, and while the US military was saving lives, Jan Egeland, U.N. humanitarian gave a press conference in New York City attacking the “stinginess” of wealthy nations.
I’m sure he enjoyed an fine dinner and parked illegally (without being ticketed – diplomatic immunity) after his press conference, as UN matchstick men are wont to do.
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