A resolution was just passed in the UN Human Rights Council which urges a global prohibition on the public defamation of religion.
The resolution was formed by the group of Islamic countries on the UN Council and did not make specific mention of any other religion besides Islam!
If we allow these people to keep gaining ground, we will witness the death of our freedom. This is a direct impingement on all of humanity’s freedom of speech. I do not condone hate speech against anything, but when I am not allowed to speak out against irrationality, I will give up hope for this world.
We need to be pushing back these fundamentalist views! Europe and America, get your act together and give me back my freedom! The “Human Rights Watch said the resolution could endanger the basic rights of individuals.”
I do not care what laws you impose on your own society, provided a member is allowed to leave whenever they wish (this is rewarded with the death penalty in many Islamic countries), but please, do not stop me from printing cartoons in my own country.
April 3, 2007 at 11:53 pm
Well, atheism IS a religion, so that UN resolution should protect them too (or is it?) 80
April 4, 2007 at 12:49 am
No, I will accept that atheism is a religious view or opinion, but it is not a religion.
Wiki says: “A religion is a set of beliefs and practices generally held by a human community”
Atheism is a single lack of belief with respect to all gods. A religion can not be founded on unbelief.
I will grant there is some dispute as to whether it is denial of god (which would be a belief) or just a lack of belief in any deity. However, most atheists will tell you that they are not in denial about anything, they merely do not believe.
April 5, 2007 at 11:38 pm
That’s incredibly disappointing, I hadn’t heard about that. There seems to be lots of fear in the world right now, and with fear often comes desire for control.
I do wonder about your exclusion of “hate speech”: to the resolution advocates, I’m sure religious defamation IS hate speech. Why do you feel your limitation on freedom is justified and theirs is not?
April 10, 2007 at 1:13 am
You are right poppies, I will not condone hate speech. But this is a slippery slope with the current religious fundamentalists claiming that a cartoon depiction is as bad as “hate speech”. What I support is sanity, and I do support opposition to religion where it is reasoned and approached without too much emotion.
The claim, in the article, that there is a ” “campaign” against Muslim minorities and the Islamic religion around the world” is insane. There is a lot of anger since the London bombings and twin tower attacks, but they should realize they have to deal with it, not try to solve the “problem” (as they see it) by trying to limit what others say about their religion.
Stopping hate speech would be good, but I fear that they would push for as much limitation of our right to say ANYTHING about the Islamic religion.
April 11, 2007 at 9:01 am
I believe human rights should protect individuals and not institutions. This resolution isn’t about people being discriminated against BECAUSE of their religion. This resolution is about criticism of a religion. There is a difference. This resolution was made in large part due to the Danish cartoon incident. No one was discriminated against because of their religion because of a cartoon. It was a criticism of the religion. Muzzling people’s ability to criticize religion and giving it immunity is not helpful.