Regarding the Danish cartoons, read Christopher Hitchens’ "The Case for Mocking Religion." An excerpt…
The innate human revulsion against desecration is much older than any monotheism: Its most powerful expression is in the Antigone
of Sophocles. It belongs to civilization. I am not asking for the right
to slaughter a pig in a synagogue or mosque or to relieve myself on a
"holy" book. But I will not be told I can’t eat pork, and I will not
respect those who burn books on a regular basis. I, too, have strong
convictions and beliefs, and value the Enlightenment above any
priesthood or any sacred fetish-object. It is revolting to me to
breathe the same air as wafts from the exhalations of the madrasahs, or
the reeking fumes of the suicide-murderers, or the sermons of Billy
Graham and Joseph Ratzinger. But these same principles of mine also
prevent me from wreaking random violence on the nearest church, or
kidnapping a Muslim at random and holding him hostage, or violating
diplomatic immunity by attacking the embassy
or the envoys of even the most despotic Islamic state, or making a
moronic spectacle of myself threatening blood and fire to faraway
individuals who may have hurt my feelings. The babyish rumor-fueled
tantrums that erupt all the time, especially in the Islamic world, show
yet again that faith belongs to the spoiled and selfish childhood of
our species.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, the irony! What is his support for the war on terror but a crusade based on revulsion. This most recent version of “la mission civilisatrice” is no prettier for being based on muscular interpretations of the Enlightment.
Faith-based wingnuttery flourishes best where there is no justice, no hope for even grudging representation and the oligarchs lording it over the rest can count on support from their counterparts in richer countries. I have no love for angry reactionaries in any land, but I want to deal with the ones in my neighborhood first.
My limited experience is that one either supports war or renounces it. Very few of us actually have a consistent position regarding violence. I’m told that my smart mouth is often a violent instrument. That said, while I advocate immediate orderly withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, I also think that mob rule in the middle east and elsewhere simply sux. The government of Syria is unfit to govern if it can’t protect embassies of other nations and bring criminals to justice.
Here in the US we have a government of the criminals, by the criminals and for the criminals. We have a deceitful posture that involves somewhat independent investigatory bodies bringing some of the criminals to justice on or about the dates that their terms of office are concluded. Our government officials too are unfit to govern.
Around 1.5 billion of the people on this planet are in thrall to the mystical bullshit that is islam. I don’t have a headcount of the people who are in thrall to the mystical bullshit that is christianity. The warmth that we generate, any of us, all of us, moslem, xtian, jew, zoroastrian, buddhist, or whatever, when we congregate to share a worshipful sense of our place in the universe is frozen out by the dogmatic circumstances of the institutions that control our gathering.
Yours for a better tomorrow through the worship of the flying spaghetti monster I remain,
Touched by his noodly appendage.
Hitchens! A not totally surprising bit of conflation there. I’d say it’s more a case against nutty extremists. Just my opinion, but lumping in the crackpots and despots with the more peace-loving ones (mebbe even the ones you know right in your home town of wisconsin) is, i think, unfair.
Then again, we pick our own religions don’t we. Many go for God of Science & Technology, the chosen god of PROGRESSives. Should we judge all environmentalists with the sometimes “nutty” work of a few enviro-radicals? I guess we all choose our indignations and rank others accordingly.
I want to uplift my wingnut brothers and sisters! I want to help them get over their need to kill our other wingnut brothers and sisters in foreign lands. One could, I suppose, delve into where wingnuttery is worse, though how it can be examined without the cross-fertilization is a task for a scholar, not me. I am a humble Pastafarian, like you, and like you I yearn to see the land awash in marinara, not blood.
It is small minded of me, I know, but is some of the Noodly blessing could fall on Hitchens’ head, I wouldn’t weep.
Oh my bloggy friends, it makes me feel good to read your wisdom here. I agree and agree. A fellow pastafarian, I feel a disgust for these petty foot stompings by the Muslim mob,but I know that compared to our killings of hundreds of thousands, we might better keep our focus here at home. That Hitchens is always a great read, there is no doubt, but ever since he sold out (in an alchoholic haze, in my estimation) to Kissinger and his dark side cohorts, his judgement has been extremely wobbly.
I guess I haven’t paid enough attention to who’s who in the politically correct league of champions of justice and truth. I just kinda liked his essay.
I love Hitchens writing, and suffered through years of The Nation, just to read his column, but when he came out, full steam, for the war in Iraq, he made me very careful towards him.
In the end, I am very unsure of the actual “Muslim” underpinnings to these riots. They seem a good way to keep the masses down. When the population is worn down from a history of poverty and oppression, give them something else to fixate their anger on. As everyone else here has pointed out, one has to look at who gains what from these silly goings on.