Spain, Italy, and a Dutch MP post those cartoons
If only they hadn’t kicked up such a fuss in the first place.
The BBC reports that La Stampa in Italy, and El Periodico in Spain have both reprinted some of the offending Mo toons, joining Denmark, Norway, Germany and apparently Iceland in the stand for freedom of expression in Europe. The Die Welt editorial states:
The protests from Muslims would be taken more seriously if they were less hypocritical.
Meanwhile a Dutch MP Geert Wilders has published all 12 of the original Mo toons on his blog.
UPDATE: Dutch daily De Telegraaf has also published them.
UPDATE: The editor of France Soir has been sacked by his Coptic Christian boss, Raymond Lakah. Lakah said it was “as a powerful sign of respect for the intimate beliefs and convictions of every individual”.
Twelve cartoons…. shame it’s too late to release a calendar….
Are the British press going to join in? I hope so.
We need to defend the freedom to question people’s beliefs, even through satire.
Groep Wilders’ hair is hilarious
Dutch daily De Telegraaf also did them, such attention whores like that was unexpected.
And yes Wilders hair is hilarious, he needs it to hide the huge dick on his head.
I doubt any Brit papers will be brave enough given president Blair’s stance on this… but I live in hope.
Where was the outrage when the Taliban destroyed the ancient Buddhist sculptors in Northern Afghanistan ?
I also doubt any British papers will jump on board – 1) fear but to give them some credit, 2) it’s a bit old hat now. Everyone else has done it already, it’s not a game of tag.
What’s more interesting, at the moment, is how neutral many of the British papers are. Don’t sit on the fence!
The Inconsistency of the Cartoon Row
Although the Danish newspaper apologised, many European newspapers have reprinted the slanderous cartoons. Some have called it solidarity, I call it collective slander. Apparently Europe does not realise the difference between ‘freedom of speech’…
Although the Danish newspaper apologised, many European newspapers have reprinted the slanderous cartoons. Some have called it solidarity, I call it collective slander. Apparently much of Europe does not realise the difference between ‘freedom of speech’ and unacceptable slander. At least Great Britain did not jump on the bandwagon like the rest of these losers did.
While supposed ‘freedom of speech’ advocates chant on one side and Muslims argue for an apology on the other, I wonder whether this row would be so popular if it had not centered on Islam. The media has already proven to be islamophobic, and reading comments on this issue at this blog and others will evidence that many backing the newspapers are also against Islam.
As stated by Omar and Aquacool, the inconsistency is that when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust there was an uproar and calls for him to retract his “anti-semitic†words. When a photograph that showed American coffins on their way back from Iraq was deemed offensive there was an uproar and the photographer lost her job. In each case action was taken against the so-called transgressor and the world did not come together to reprieve them, chanting freedom of speech and expression as a justification.
The first consistency so far in this issue is that Managing Editor of France Soir, the paper which has reprinted the cartoons, has been sacked. No doubt many will argue this is wrong, when the reality is that this should have been the standard from the outset.
Mahmud has been DEAD for about 1400 years!
What is “Jamal” protesting about?
AFter all, it’s legal (and true) to say that Yeshua ben Joseph (sometimes called Jesus of Nazareth) was the result of the unmarried mother Mary’s f*ck – and it really annoys the christians, so why can’t we be rude about the old murdering paedophile from Mecca?
Another thought – quoting from the late, great Douglas Adams, and Sirius Cybernetics Corp ….
“Go and stick your head in a pig!”
Thanks, Jamal, but there’s a difference between being anti-Semitic and drawing a cartoon of a historical figure. Cartoonists do it all the time. Book illustrators do likewise. Just because Muslims do not allow themselves to reproduce likenesses (although how they know what Mohammed looked like is anyone’s guess), it does not mean that we in the West cannot produce likeness, or purported likenesses. Why are we finding it so hard to get it into the heads of Muslims that we have freedom of expression here, and, provided we’re not inciting violence against anyone, we should be allowed to say what we wish. I believe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, too, should be allowed to deny the Holocaust if he wishes, just as long as he knows that he will be subjected to international ridicule. So go ahead and ridicule European newspapers who have printed the cartoons – but don’t try to stop them from doing it. By living in the West, European Muslims do have the right to criticise, you know, without fear of execution or other awful punishment. Use that right to criticise the West – but demanding censorship on the grounds of myth and superstition is plainly ridiculous.
Jamal,
I applaud your desire to promote freedom of speech by contributing to this website. But why don’t you,er, bother to read this website, before you kick off? Or, indeed, do a little more research all-round?
If you hadn’t noticed, the vast majority of stuff here is attacking Christian religious bigots, and their funny little oppressive ways. Of course, the website is actually entirely unbiased, and is open to resisting the inanities of ANY theistic dogma. Commercial media, working to a sensationalist profit-driven agenda, are inevitably going to focus on press releases / protests / actions /etc of a more extreme nature. I’m afraid that the more extreme threats seem to come from a small number of sources, which are given far more coverage than their actual support deserves – Mr. Green, anyone? Now you’re absolutely right, there are many Islamaphobes out there. Just as in the Islamic brand of supernaturalism, there are many “secular-phobes”. But I’m curious – how would you categorise all of the non-theists who regard ANY claims to absolute truths or moral authority based on supernaturalism to be untenable? Are we “Islamaphobes”, too? And do you defend those countries which supress freedom of expression against the State, or the established supernaturalism ?
Many news organisations worldwide reacted to the ludicrous American ban on publishing the photos of the dead by, er, publishing them, and running highly critical pieces. On their websites, too, so easily accessible by Americans. [And guess what? Under their freedom of information act, the photos had to be released, in April last year – National Security Archive at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB152 & http://www.nsarchive.org ]. And how are they reacting to this blackmailing attempt at censorship by supernaturalists who don’t like some cartoons? Exactly. By publishing them.
I don’t know the precise legal position of the French editor, but I can assure you that if he were in the UK, he’d be looking forward to a very successful industrial tribunal. And rightly so!
Why don’t you draw some cartoons lampooning Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Jerry Falwell, George Bush, Tony Blair, The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Pope, Buddha, Ganesh, Shiva, etc,etc ? Would you deserve to lose your job, and/or be subjected to threats simply because you exercised your freedom of speech? Of course you bloody wouldn’t. And if it happened, the law would be on your side.
Great vote the other night, wasn’t it?
To Both Andys,
According to both your comments one comes to a conclusion that in a perfect world by “your standards” “Freedom of Speech” allows any person to slander anyone or humilate any person’s role model;since he/she has a right to voice their view or opinion in whatever way he/she deems right.
Cheers for you in your Perfect World.
Perhaps you enjoy humilating others or your role models being ridiculed but the only difference between humans and animals is the ability of sharing our thoughts and beliefs rather than oppose others’convictions just for the sake of argument.
Ignore Jamal, he’s just trolling the same post about
Hi Nojoud, you’re right, freedom of expression does include the freedom to offend and that does include insluting peoples’ role models (by the way, since these cartoons were published in a permanent medium, they would be libel and not slander).
You seem to be complaining about any representation of mohammed, which is hardly insulting per se, and thus you’re requiring we fall in with your religious strictures. Weree you just complaining about the 3 insulting cartoons, then you may have a point, but to require non-muslims to never draw any images of mohammed is ridiculous, especially when we’re free to attack all other religions and the religious are free to attack atheists and the rival religions too.
Raymond Lakah should be sued for unfair dismissal. France is a secular country (like the UK *used* to be beforfe Blair stepped in) and it also has freedom of speech and the press. Muslims are fucking hypocrites, just like pretty much every major religion and this (sacking)only goes to prove the argument again.
Nojoud writes,
Not at all, Nojoud. Quite rightly, there are laws in this country and many others against slander and libel (slander being the spoken defamation, libel being defamation made in a permament form, such as print or recorded or recordable broadcast). In order to prove defmation, some has to prove that they’ve lost out in some way: financially, for instance, lost their job, lost their standing in the community. Lampooning an ideology falls far short of that. I would not libel you, or even risk libelling you, personally. But I claim the right to ridicule your religion (if you have one) if I find it risible, as most religions are.
As for humiliating ‘any person’s role model’, er, how can we do that when the role model at issue here (assuming Muhammad) has been dead for a while. He’s not foing to be feeling any humiliation, is he?
I appreciate that some cultures see their religion (and its figures and its icons) as inextricably bound up with other aspects of their life and, while I can understand that this is the case, it is up to them, when they are in another culture, to examine their preferred one,and that of the country they are in (let’s say a European country for sake of argument) very carefully and spot the different ways of thinking. I wouldn’t go to Saudi Arabia and demand to be able to get pissed in the street. Or get pissed at all. But, when in Rome, as they say, do as the Romans do – and that can mean literally in this case.
A bit more on the sacking of the editor of the French paper here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4672642.stm
First thanks for enlightening me on the difference between using Libel & Slander,
Second I do agree with you on the point that when one is in another culture one should spot the differences of thinking very carefully;but in this case can you tell me what did the Muslims do prior the release of those offensive cartoons?
Did they in some manner offend the culture of the countries they were in? This wasn’t a case of Muslims demanding praise of the Prophet PBUH from the newspapers that published those cartoons…for them to decline and publish those cartoons…
You repeatedly mention the right of Freedom of expression that you are proud of(and rightly so) it being practiced in your democratic countries…But did you think that perhaps this could be translated as a campaign against the Muslims that live within your countries? I know that this could be disappointing to the Muslims who many could’ve left their countries due to reasons of oppression only to find themselves in country that mocks their beliefs!
I don’t believe that this is the Freedom of Speech that you want to show the world.
As the editor of France Soir has been fired, please could someone persuade Rebekah Wade or Paul Dacre to publish these cartoons?
Freedom of speech means freedom to offend. That is something Jamal does not get. I am annoyed (but rarely offended) by lots of stuff. I never call for anyone to be killed, fired or banned. Yet, we hear Muslims calling for all three whenever they are the slightest bit offended.
We, non-Muslims, are not bound by Muslim laws. The sooner the Islamic world gets it through their thick collective noggins the better.
As an atheist, the Koran calls for all sorts of horrible punishments for me: beheading and stoning to name two (there are more).
I find that incredibly offensive. Do I think the Koran should be banned? Do I threaten companies that publish copies of the Koran? Do I send them death threats? Do I boycott goods from Arab countries? NO!
it’s shame to you, we think that you are more gentle to respect our feeling, we love tha person that they were made cartoon of him, that person is the most gentle and the most mercy of the world.
Hello, again, Nojoud (see Comment 20 above)
What began it, Nojoud, was that the editor of the paper Jyllands-Posten (at least I think it was the editor, but it doesn’t matter) had pondered on the self-censorship that it’s so easy for people to impose because they know that something is verboten. We had a similar situation in the UK with Section 28 of the Local Government Act of 1988, which forbade the so-called ‘promotion’ of homosexuality (although how you can ‘promote’ it is anyone’s guess). It didn’t strictly affect schools, but teachers censored themselves because they feared prosecution. There was not one prosecution under S28 before it was revoked a couple of so years ago, but it did its job, in that it silenced people. Religious proscription of certain actions has a habit of doing the same, and it was being asked whether illustrators were self-censoring by being too afraid to produce drawings of Mohammed. So a dozen illustrators put forth their efforts, and some were a bit childish, yes, but harmless enough.
So it was a test – and an important one, because in a society that prides itself on freedom of expression there should be nothing that would make someone self-censor. If people were doing that all the time, no new ideas would ever reach the public arena, and would be lost for ever. It’s only by pushing at the boundaries that ideas take form and take flight.
While no new ideas as such came from this experiment, it was making a statement while asking a question: it is not good that we should find people censoring themselves and thereby never letting their ideas gush forth for fear of some sort of punishment – but is it happening here in the West? I’m not sure he got his answer, because, while twelve people did produce drawings, how many remained fearful of so doing? And look what happened to Theo Van Gogh.
We need to make statements that we are not going to crumple under threats from religions. But what we will do is defend the right of religions to exist, and defend the right of people to follow those religions, even if we don’t follow them ourselves. In return, because those religions are ideologies, we claim the right to take issue with them and to engage with their ideas, and sometimes this is through the means of humour and satire – both perfectly viable means of examining issues and laying them open to scrutiny.
So debate the message, but don’t shoot the messenger.
(Sorry if I’ve gone on a bit – I’m prone to rambling :-))
t’s shame to you, we think that you are more gentle to respect our feeling, we love tha person that they were made cartoon of him, that person is the most gentle and the most mercy of the world.
Another article from the beeb on this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4673908.stm
Found this bit interesting:
it’s shame to you, we think that you are more gentle to respect our feeling, we love tha person that they were made cartoon of him, that person is the most gentle and the most mercy of the world.
Continuing from Comment 24:
Actually, Noujoud, I got it a bit wrong as to how it began. Go to this Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy, for the full story.
In response to jamal’s comment:
“As stated by Omar and Aquacool, the inconsistency is that when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust there was an uproar and calls for him to retract his “anti-semitic†words. When a photograph that showed American coffins on their way back from Iraq was deemed offensive there was an uproar and the photographer lost her job. In each case action was taken against the so-called transgressor and the world did not come together to reprieve them, chanting freedom of speech and expression as a justification.”
No-one got killed though, did they?
Everyone gets offended by things in newspapers. The difference is that it’s only religious fanatics (Christians, Muslims, whatever) who think that murder is a reasonable response to being offended.
If you want to love a person who had sex with a nine year old girl then that is your own personal choice.
Just as it is the personal choice of these cartoonists to make fun of him.
How dare they print a caricature of the great prophet. That is completely unacceptable (All praise) and the most egregious and heinous sin ever. I cannot think of anything more reprehensible. Now excuse me while I go blow some people up.
So…Maybe not the point anymore, but…
Who said that was Mohammad anyway? I’d kinda lean towards it being some caricatures of random Arab guys.
Also in Jordania (al-Shihan), in Spain (El Peridico), in Portugal (Público), in UK (BBC TV), etc., etc.. Also in our blog, and a lot of others portuguese blogs in solidarity with free of speech.
We come in peace! Ha ha ha We come in peace! Ha ha ha: Was that in the movie Mars attacks?
Sorry, guess I’m just getting a bit tired of people with AK-47 telling me they are peaceful…
Back to a former point raised! (why does brit papers not print the cartoons)
I have been trying to get a overview of who is onboard, so far:
Denmark (that’s a given!)
Germany
Norway
France
Italy (home of the Vatican stat ohh and that’s were the pope lives 😉
The Netherlands
Belgium
Iceland
Switzerland
Portugal
Hungary (just got in the EU – I’m especially proud of you!)
Jordan (Well did not see that one coming – but you definitely take the prize being a Muslim country!)
So what’s missing?
Greenland (they are a part of the kingdom of Denmark you idiot, and have access to the same papers! And not a part of Europe)
The Faeroe Islands (they are also a part of the kingdom of Denmark you idiot, and have access to the same papers!)
UK, hmmm you did show one or two frames of the France Soir on BBC – had expected a bit more!
Ireland, guess everybody left for the US…
Finland – given their neutral standing I every thing makes them great go-between-men – guess they did not want to destroy that.
Austria – chairman of the EU at the time – that would make everybody a bit dizzy.
Sweden – my beloved nabours – they have something called consensus debate which mean that you debate till everybody agrees (or in practice don’t till everybody agrees) and the Swedes find sudden outburst very annoying for the debate!
Luxemburg – to rich to care I guess, sorry I honestly don’t know…
Andorra – hmm don’t know?
That’s just about all of what we formerly called Western Europe + some – I will go into the old Eastern European countries – non called non forgotten; almost 😉
So what’s my point? – Nothing really, but what a bunch of nannies! :-)))))
Well what actually really matters here is whether Denmark keeps on standing on it’s own or not – I see a real chance for this settling down this weekend if we do – but if things keep evolving like in this week we are in for a bit of a ride – and I can’t tell the outcome at this point. Then it’s time to get disappointed of the EU 🙂
Ps. Just saw a Danish debate – debating if the freedom of expression has been hurt in Denmark – there was no conclusion – but one of them said it would show in this summers comedies! So go get the beer and the pop corn – in a TV near you! this summer: “DENMARK vs. MUSLIM WORLD 2â€
Sorry I know – not funny 🙁
The editor of the Jordan paper that printed three of the cartoons, and urged Muslims to be resonable, has been sacked.
🙁 What’s new in the world? – there is one man I would love to get a visa.
well all i can say is that Allah almighty doesnt let his people be sad and he doesnt forget
but he gives chances for people to ask for forgivness so i belive that those people will know
who is mohammad peace be upon him and each person will get his moment one day and islam will rise
in top of our heads and the world will be al muslim . so you people better ask for forgiveness
before its too late
allahu akbar
Tareq – what? was that a THREAT?
Ok, you’re making a “claim to truth based on supernatural authority”.
I invite you to prove it.
Prove one, tiny little shred of it.
Oh, that’s right. There is none. “Faith” demands belief without proof, suspension of logic and reason. I forgot.
You can “believe” whatever you like, but if you’re going to throw it around as a basis for preferential treatment, or demand that others act in certain ways according to your beliefs, you’d better be pretty strong on evidence.
Oh, what’s that?
Your deity is invisible, undetectable, omnipotently interfering while leaving no trace? Benign and loving, yet finds it necessary to threaten us with a gallery of horrors if we so much as look the wrong way?
Freedom of speech means I will fight with all I have to ensure that you are free to believe all that, and free to espouse it (but not at taxpayers’ expense!), but we’re also free to take it apart rationally, clinically, piece by piece, and ridicule it if that seems appropriate.
The same goes for all supernaturalisms – no prejudice here!
Now, are you and Nojoud going to get your pens out and start drawing, or what?
I’d be really flattered if you included me in any lampooning cartoon caricatures you chose to publish. I know its pathetic, but my fragile little ego [:-)] would love it!
Nojoud, how can you exclaim the former, “the ability of sharing our thoughts and beliefs”, without allowing room for the latter, to “oppose others’convictions”? People will always have different thoughts and beliefs (it’s a consequence of intelligence), so to expect them not to “oppose others” is either laughably naive, or incredibly stupid.
TERAQ – Bring on your cartoon hero! – the real Mohammed has been dead for about 1400 years so I see no other way but to battle this out in a cartoon script:
I will be the “Blasphemous atheist†and you can be the “child molester Mohammed†looking forward to this – do you think we can get air time on al-Arabia?
Reply to Andy,
My aim in joining this discussion was to come to an understanding to why anyone would release such offending cartoons(to us) and what were their reasons…(I think I’m finally understanding something)
After reading the comments so far I’ve concluded that they are those (the ones here atleast)who believe in Freedom of Expression as a right that should be unquestioned or limited by any religious or cultural restriction..(Am I right?)
For you and many others this Freedom rises above anything else..and as you mentioned the idea that an author was having difficulties in illustrating pictures of Prophet Muhammed PBUH raised the alert about it…
And this is how it all started.
I’d like to shed light on the other side of this story:
We Muslims are defined by our faith and for many of us there is a perception that the Western World are leading some sort of campaign against us:The occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palastine ,Guanatanamo..etc etc..
The content and timing of the cartoons sort of added fuel to the already raging fire since it resembled an attack on the key icon for us and the reaction is what everybody saw.
I’ll tell you frankly I’m in no way against the peacful protests and boycotts because I believe that every (Muslim) who believes in (Prophet Muhammed PBUH) has a duty to defend that belief otherwise we’ll just be hypocrites but ofcourse I condemn the death threats and other violent actions.
What I’m trying to raise here is this:Here again we have 2 sides each claiming that they have a RIGHT to defend, whether its :1-Freedom of Expression or 2-Religion’s beliefs.
So who has better claim?
I believe this is what we’re all actually trying to prove…
My answer is there has to be limits otherwise deadly clashes will bound to occur and if we reach that point I don’t believe any purpose would’ve been served.
Some will say (Freedom is not and should not be limited by anything!) and my reply is then how can we all enjoy it with all the different views?
At some point Freedom must stop at the Freedom of others and boundaries need to be set.
(I know its a heck of a long reply but then I was away for some time 😉 )
To Tallen
In reply to:
>>Nojoud, how can you exclaim the former, “the ability of sharing our thoughts and beliefsâ€, without allowing room for the latter, to “oppose others’convictionsâ€? People will always have different thoughts and beliefs (it’s a consequence of intelligence), so to expect them not to “oppose others†is either laughably naive, or incredibly stupid.
>>
Ofcourse people will always have different thoughts and beliefs and if you reread my sentence carefully you’ll notice “not for the sake of argument” at its end.
Meaning its natural to have different views but what’s not is debating views aimlessly just for the sake of argument.
You may wonder that. I find it amazing how anyone could believe such obvious crap like religion, how any one could put any stock in such an offensive book as the Koran, or how anyone could get offended by cartoons of someone who had sex with a 9 year old girl.
Can we drop the “9-year-old-girl” stuff, guys? Maybe it was a cultural norm for the time? We shouldn’t seek to impose our current social mores retrospectively…and what about the ages of some noble/royal brides in British history, hmm?
Much as I would disregard the concept of someone who preofesses “revealed truths” (or any other supernaturalist dogma without evidence) demanding “respect”, imposing relatively modern values on the past is truly futile, and doesn’t add to debate.
Also, it’s a shame, but there are clearly quite a few contributors to the site (not in this thread) who are just using this issue to promote a biased, anti-immigrant agenda.
Nojoud – yes, I’m prepared to let EVERYONE have complete freedom of speech (even those I find personally detestable), but they must be prepared to bring replicable, verifiable/falsifiable evidence to back it up, or be subjected to public ridicule. Or, in extreme cases, the laws of slander and libel.
E.G. British historian & scholar of the Nazis, David Irving, writes articles/books lying about the scale of holocaust, role of Hitler, etc. A book by American academic Deborah Lipstadt said he had “persistently and deliberately misinterpreted and twisted historical evidence to minimise Hitler’s culpability for the Holocaust”. And that he was a holocaust denier. In 2002, Irving sues for libel. He loses, very, very heavily. And that’s how the system should work.
Anyone should be perfectly free to hold whatever supernatural beliefs they wish. But if you want them to be a basis for depriving others of freedom of expression, then please bring some evidence along. Burden of proof lies with those who would be censors.
Right, burden of proof and evidence you say…So basically every religion is obliged to present some sort of evidence that their beliefs are sacred bec of (a certain reason) for it to be protected from the laws of Libel & Slander?
I don’t see how this can be…
Since they’ll always be those who believe in a certain Religion be it (Christianity,Islam or any other way of life) and those who don’t..and for those who don’t they’ll be no way that you can truly convince them of the sacredness of that religion.
Which means we’ll always reach a dead end bec you & I (&many others)don’t necessarily believe in the sacredness of the same thing…
I don’t know about anyone else, but if you could actually prove that some sort of god exists, then I’d certainly believe it exists.
Until then, we are justified in making fun of your ludicrous beliefs.
No, Nojoud.
The way I argue it, anyone who seeks to impose censorship, or claim moral superiority will have to be able to back their arguments up.
That’s all.
Which allows anyone to believe whatever mythology they want to subscribe to, without being able to impose its values on the rest of us.
Defamatory personal attacks on (real) individuals are subject to the laws of slander and libel, just as now. Why would that change?
It isn’t slanderous to state that, in the incredibly unlikely event of a deity existing, they are blackmailing, bloodthirsty, viscious and stupid. And completely useless in choosing their appointed representatives amongst us. Why?
1) All of the above criticisms can be substantiated from the vast array of supernaturalist scriptures. And the words/actions of religious leaders worldwide.
2) There is no proof of a deity existing. Sorry.
But if I were to write a book making extreme accusations regarding the Pope, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei & Richard Dawkins, several donkeys, assorted small children, and a large quantity of class-A drugs, then I should be prepared to expect a writ pretty damn quick. And to lose an extremely large amount of cash if I couldn’t provide the evidence. In a legally admissable form.
You are beginning to hit the nail on the head towards the end. I don’t exactly hold much (if anything) to be “sacred”. Supernaturalists make claims they simply cannot substantiate. And that doesn’t merit any special respect.
They don’t in my experience, do very well when trying to offer theocratic answers to such questions as:
How old is the planet?
What process has governed the emergence/development of life?
Where did all the dinosaurs go?
Can you give me any proof of the existence of “hell”?
Or, indeed, of the great rewards offered to the true believers?
If you guys are the only ones who are right, then how come all the other sects/creeds claim exactly the same thing, with exactly the same level of “proof” (i.e. none) to back up their claims?
What exactly do you have against the science of genetics? Is it something to do with all the evidence that suggests that homosexuality is a naturally occurring phenomenon?
If “revealed truth” is acceptable, then why isn’t it true when I say that the Flying Spaghetti Monster told me, personally, that I have been touched by his noodly appendage, and that he is in fact the creator of all things, and wants us all to get down and have a great time?
Can you accept the fact that you could very well be completely wrong? (I’m prepared to admit that I could be, but I’d like to see some valid evidence first.)
If some of my questions seem a little mocking in tone (!), well, in my defense, I have years of experience dealing with hard-core US creationists, intelligent design proponents,etc,etc. Not exactly open to logic and reason.
Cheers,
Andy the non-theist
Andy, I read your comments but I’ll have to reply to you tw since I have some connection problems.
Nojoud
One of the writers on http://www.tightladies.com/blog2/blog2.htm made an excellent point pertaining to the boundries of free speech versus the respect for religious beliefs.