The whole Islam cartoon thing has really vexed me. I’m horribly confused about why it’s OK for religious fundamentalists from any faith to threaten anyone in response to criticism or the exercise of free speech against that very religion. Is it OK to threaten death and destruction on others but not to speak out on any religious issue? Bah.
It comes as no surprise to many of you that I hold a great loathing and mistrust for religions of all sorts. Having spent almost two decades studying them in an attempt to determine if I was indeed missing something and needed it in my life, I came away from that experience a better man who found no need for any religion. I discovered that each and every one of them was responsible for some of the most heinous crimes committed against fellow human beings, the endorsement of intolerance and hatred, the torture and murder of millions throughout history, and the greatest offense of all: a blatant war against free thought.
Religion has nothing to offer but pain, bitterness, resentment, violence, and bigotry. This has been and always will be its historic legacy to humankind. The German Holocaust against the Jews (and the general death and war that Germany brought upon the planet) are perfect examples. Consider that Hitler did what he did because he felt it his Christian duty. To wit:
And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited.
Why did he feel it was his right to try wiping out all of the Jews?
And the founder of Christianity [Jesus] made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God.
Based on his Christian beliefs, he even went further to clarify the difference between wanton violence and that perpetrated in the name of religious faith.
Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook.
In Hitler’s eyes, the only good violence was that which was meted out in the name of spiritual righteousness. The summation of his religious war against the world as outlined above must seem terribly familiar to anyone who has watched existing religions visit upon humanity terrible crimes and injustice borne of ignorance.
And it’s not just Christianity, although I do hold a certain personal disdain for this stolen and backward cult. It is all religion everywhere, although there are philosophies around the globe that could teach religion a great many things about peace, love, forgiveness, tolerance, decency, and all other traits which religions claim to uphold yet squander in their own selfish desires for control of the planet and large sums of money. You can see the evil self-righteousness and “we can do no wrong” attitude in Islamic terrorism, Christianity’s fight to subjugate people who are different (whether that be Protestants against Catholics, Christians against gays and scientists, or a great many other conflicts), the Pakistan-India conflict between Hindu and Islam… I could go on, but I’m sure you see my point.
The Islam cartoon fiasco is yet another example. Religion can not stand up to criticism or free thought. When they are forced to face such things, they lash out with violence akin to every crime against humanity that history recorded. It is offensive, and it is precisely why religion will be the downfall of humanity if it is not stopped and vanquished from our planet. While religion may include fantastic ideas about morals, humans are incapable of the objective practice of such things, often skewing valid morality to mean it must be forced on others. This occurs because humans are incapable of separating personal desires from the practice of any belief. Instead, they interpret faith-based proscriptions to mean followers are granted a god-given right to utilize murder, torture, rioting, and terrorism as methods to force their beliefs on others.
Because religion can not stand up to intellectual scrutiny and fails to withstand dissent except through the use of force and violence, it demonstrates itself as inferior to secular philosophies which promote the valid and enlightened views of humanitarian attitudes, the very same attitudes that religion claims to uphold yet readily discards in the name of brutality and hatred. Religion has become the blunt object used to bludgeon the world into subservience, fear, ignorance, hatred, intolerance, subjugation, and all manner of physical, emotional and intellectual harm. It in all its forms has truly become the Great Satan, the very evil from which its followers claim they are fighting to rescue the world. In the modern era, just as in previous eras, religion is nothing more than the amplification of hate.
My freedom to say what I will does not stop when it meets with what might offend someone else. If what I say or do offends any religion or its followers, that offense does not negate my right to say or do that very thing. The cretins who wish to subjugate dissenters with violence do nothing more than make clear their own faith’s inability to stand freely and openly in the world’s marketplace of ideas.
If the world press caves to Islamic fundamentalists in this manner, they reinforce the censorship of Muslims by their own governments, something we in Western countries have long claimed is immoral and a violation of basic human rights. Anyone who caves to the lunacy of the Islamic thugs is supporting this violent reactionary stance to freedom of expression. Sadly, it would appear the thought police are gaining ground throughout the world, and this is the most recent example.
[Adolf Hitler quotes from Mein Kampf]