UN Committee Votes To Condemn ''The Defamation of Religions''

[DeSwiss]

Should I Be Worried?

OttawaCitizen.com
Citizen Katzenjammer
By Dan Gardner
Posted Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Yesterday, http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=9b8e3a6d-795d-440f-a5de-6ff6e78c78d5">a key United Nations committee voted 85 - 50 in favour of a measure to condemn "defamation of religions." The principal force behind the vote is the Organization of Islamic States, whose next goal is a full-force UN treaty. I'm tempted to mark the moment with profane comments about various invisible deities, but the Internet is forever and such commentary may be legal for much less time than that.

Am I being a tad alarmist? Perhaps. But then, consider http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/30/pressandpublishing.religion">this.

And don't forget that no less an authority than http://www.dangardner.ca/Colfeb1006.html">Canada's own Louise Arbour, former UN high comissioner of human rights, wrote in response to a complaint about the publication of those famous Danish cartoons "I find alarming any behaviours that disregard the beliefs of others. This kind of thing is unacceptable." And remember that when the cartoon controversy exploded into violence, Ms. Arbour's office stated that the UN "deplored" the publication of the cartoons and was "equally concerned" by the threats and bloodshed that followed. Got that? Publishing cartoons that offend a religion is an offence on par with riot and murder.

So will I always be free to write that Mohammed was a disturbed fantasist? Can I be sure that I won't be arrested sometime in the future if I mock people who think crackers turn to flesh and Jesus rigs football games? I really don't know.

http://communities.canada.com/ottawacitizen/blogs/katzenjammer/archive/2008/11/25/should-i-be-worried.aspx">LINK

- Religion has always sought out and then clung to the power of the state. Which is why it has been found aiding and abetting atrocities of all kinds as a necessary requirement in maintaining their relationship with the state and the access to its power.

Now, I believe that we are seeing Fundamentalists of all stripes (those without any imagination but too much power), showing their true fear of the reactions of those who are now discovering just how ugly religion truly is and can be. For much of this we have the internet to thank for these exposures. We are seeing that religions will oft times sacrifice anyone so that it might live on. That it will cover-up the abuses of its follower's own children, and then shield its leaders from prosecution. That it will commit, in secret, the very acts that it preaches and rails against to us. And upon their discovery will first piously and arrogantly deny it, then when the evidence is overwhelming, will contritely admit to the power of Satan who has once again undermined their glorious all-powerful god. But it wasn't them. Because they will never capitulate, nor abrogate the power that they must have to survive. Without it, they are NOTHING.

So it is now that we see the Wahhabi of Islam seeking to codify their religious stupidity and insanity. A belief that denigrates women and any and all who deny their god. We the infidels. But if such a UN vote were to succeed, it would be a travesty spitting in the face of humanity. They are grasping for anything to secure a place for their pious bleatings and inane supplications, and seek now to shackle them to the foundational organization whose existence was created as a monument to human dignity and freedom. And ultimately, this proposal violates the UN's founding charter as put forth under the Universal Declarations, which among other things states:

"....disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind and that the four freedoms: freedom of speech, belief, and freedom from fear - which is "proclaimed as the highest aspiration" of the people."

And you'll note that freedom of speech, as it must always come before the freedom of belief....
==============================================================================
DeSwiss


http://www.atheisttoolbox.com/">The Atheist Toolbox




"Prayer is just a way of telling god that his divine plan for
you is flawed -- and shockingly stingy" ~ Betty Bowers

[msongs]

1. a religion that cannot stand criticism is not worth much lol nt

[DeSwiss]

2. Yep.

But the ones that can stand it, aren't worth much either....

[BlooInBloo]

3. Hmmm. I guess this means I can stop waiting by the mailbox for my UN Grand Ball invitation...

Oh, poo.

[DeSwiss]

6. Wouldn't have been much of a ball anyways...

...with the all men on one side and the women on the other.

- In burqas

[MNBrewer]

4. I find this very disturbing.

[DeSwiss]

7. So do I.

- And I find their religion (in particular), even more so....

[pokerfan]

20. I find your lack of faith

refreshing. :)

[TheDebbieDee]

5. That's too bad, cause most religions deserve to be defamed......

Don't get me wrong, I believe in God. But I wouldn't give a squat for ANY religion on this planet.

[DeSwiss]

8. I hear ya....

...and despite my more obvious http://www.atheisttoolbox.com/forum//">trappings, agree with your point-of-view.

[TexasObserver]

9. Thank God for the Security Council!

And the atheists on it.

[DeSwiss]

11. I hear ya!!!

Because there's no tellin' what "parting gifts" Dubya would try to leave behind for his friends....

[charlie]

10. Pfft. The most prevalent defamers of religions are...

...other religions. Let's see what the idiots think about resultant UN resolutions that call for sanitizing holy texts, swapping such freighted terms as apostate, heretic, and infidel for "religiously challenged" or somesuch.

Maybe Satanists can use the opening to shame the Pope into laying off Lucifer. Or Wiccans to excise passages like "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" from the Bible.

Right, I'm dreaming. Criticizing religious condemnation is the ultimate religious "persecution" and "defamation."

[DeSwiss]

12. "The most prevalent defamers of religions are other religions."

Agreed. But they accept this as normal. Well it does become the norm I s'pose after the first 1500 years or so of religious struggle, conflict, war, etc.

To me, asking to codify into some sort of universal law and/or understanding, that the criticizing of religion is a "right" any that religion has to be "protected" from, is ludicrous on its face. It flies in the face of the UN Declarations of Human Rights. Religions don't have any inherent rights. They cannot prove harm by criticism of it. It can only prove the weak of a system of belief that it truly must be, if it now seeks to hide behind the skirts of the state for protection. Or, as in the UN's case, a reasonable facsimile thereof.

- It is the people who give religions the right to exist, not other way round. They need to be reminded of this...

[pokerfan]

13. Right

[DeSwiss]

18. Right on!

[pokerfan]

19. Another favorite

http://www.atheist-community.org/atheisteve/">

[quaker bill]

14. Separation

of church and state was a Christian religious idea a full 100 years before it became a secular notion. There is a statue in Boston Commons. The person in bronze is Mary Dyer. She was an itinerant Quaker minister and the last person hung in Boston Common for seeking freedom of conscience for the practice (or non-practice) of religion in opposition to government mandated faith. Check it out, she is still there.

[DeSwiss]

15. Were it not for the....

...disgustingly heinous and depraved nature of what happens when The Church and the State are one and the same (as in the beginnings of this mess we are currently still in), the concept would likely never have occurred to anyone as being necessary. Imagine -- no religion.

The beginnings of this concept in fact go back to the time of the Israelites where various kings attempted to control the influence of the Temple priests. The wars fought all during Medieval times furthered the idea among many of its necessity. The Church with its intrigues, power-struggles and back-stabbing, are at the core of much of that upheaval and death. And not to overlook their Inquisitions, where "heretics" who often seemed to have a lot of wealth, were shaken-down to buy their innocence. And the uncooperative ones being found guilty and having their possessions seized by The Church. And now their plunder adorns the walls of the Vatican.

Later, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States">John Locke wrote that "the government lacked authority in the realm of "individual conscience," as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control."

As for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Dyer">Mary Dyer, she understandably sought a separation of church control of the state, as her battle and disagreement with them was of a theological one. And one for which the punishment was death. Her belief that god speaks directly to people instead of "just" through the clergy, is the central reason for her position of support of separation. Because she and Anne Hutchinson were a direct threat to the Patriarchal Authority (a battle that continues to this day). And she is certainly to be remembered for her contribution.

However, it was Thomas Jefferson in his http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States">Danbury Baptist letters, where the concept is made crystal clear:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

- So from looking at the historical record, it would seem that pulling the priests away from the levers of power has been something we've had to do for sometime. Because we know what happens when they obtain power and control over people's lives. They've demonstrated this over and over again. And its never good....

[TWiley]

16. Religious Bullshit does need a subsidy; it cannot withstand the truth.

This is an attack upon rational thought.

[DeSwiss]

17. An attack upon rational thought....

...in addition to being a blatant attempt to hold back the tide of democracy. Which is the logical next step after one gains their reason and stops living a life based upon fairy tales and BS.

The Wahhabi Islamainiacs in particular, seek to use the UN as a means to justify and legitimize their continuing mistreatment of women, homosexuals and anyone who violates their interpretations of Islam.

- Religious interpretations which, not coincidentally, also includes the retention of their monarchies.