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EFF Looks At How Blasphemy Laws Have Stifled Speech in 2012
As part of their 2012 in review series, the EFF takes a look at how blasphemy laws have chilled online speech this year. A "dishonorable mention" goes to YouTube this year: "A dishonorable mention goes to YouTube, which blocked access to the controversial 'Innocence of Muslims' video in Egypt and Libya without government prompting. The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, a group based in Egypt, condemned YouTube's decision."
All I said was that this piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah!
I am officially gone from
Using the term "Blasphemy" serves to moderate what is truly an abomination: the fanatical intolerance of Muslims for anything that even smacks of an insult to the so-called prophet and they outrageous response that ultimately ends up getting people killed. Ironically, the people getting killed are usually Muslims.
A real shame not more people got killed because of an unfunny badly created clear "lets stir some shit up" movie.
Like it's scumbag creator, perhaps? Ya'know, the one who remained somewhat anonymous while allowing the actors and actresses to take the heat for something they didn't even know about.
Considering the UN's liberal agenda of stifling free speech, and the US submitting to trampling over its constitution, we are facing another step closer to an Orwellian dystopia. See where the slippery slopes lead?
"Present them."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Well, infinitely powerful God apparently needs humans to kill off his political enemies. Censoring them ain't no thang.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Free speech incorporates the right not to say things just as much as it incorporates the right to say things. YouTube should be allowed to determine what it is saying on its network just as much as the creator of the video should on whatever channels it controls. EFF is wrong about this.
Those people did not get killed because of an unfunny movie, those people got killed because certain other people felt they, and only they, are entitled to not have their particular set of irrational believes made fun off.
that is not why anyone got killed. the problem was between the left ear and the right ear of religious whackjob killers. they will kill again for no reason
Radical Islamic Fundamentalism is to Islam as the KKK is to Christianity (as paraphrased from The West Wing). Let's call out those who hate and oppress, and leave the rest of the members of a religion that preaches peace alone.
It isn't about religion, but the decline in Moderate thinking.
With the internet people in general get caught up in a competition on who is the best in their group.
I don't have the citation and it has been a few years (and I am too lazy to look it up for a slashdot post), but there was a study that shows the stricter groups (Religions, Parties...) have a better retention and growth rate then the groups that are a bit more moderate.
So a Religion that says you are going to Hell unless you follow these commandments are more popular and tend to last longer than a religion that states if you are good of heart than you will be saved.
The same thing is happening with political parties, Parties are creating stricter guidelines to say what it means to be in the party. The difference between a republican and democrat isn't as simple as Small Local Governments vs. Large Centralized government. But to an array of policies often contradictory to each other that define the groups stances.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Not saying something for fear of some group of asshats using it as an excuse to kill people is being a coward. These people would have killed even if the film hadn't been made. It was nothing but a convenient excuse.
That's very dangerous reasoning.
For residents of countries where separation of Church and State is upheld, Blasphemy Law is clearly one step too far.
What interests me is the tensions which exists between Free Speech, Privacy, Intellectual Property and Slander. There are Non-Trivial Tradeoffs involved, making this a domain where opinions are more divergent and definitions far trickier to formulate. Attacking an Idea or an Institution is quite a different story than attacking a Person.
... try being a right-leaning prof in a large, prestigious college (or in Hollywood), or a skeptic of $prevailingOpinionOnHighlyPoliticizedTopic in the scientific community.
Just something to keep in mind.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
For a moment there, I thought you were talking about Salman Rushdie, but then I realized that he just wrote an unfunny 'let's stir some shit up' book, not a movie.
My bad.
So wait, which one do you think deserved to die again?
(I think I still have Satanic Verses in the bookshelf somewhere, just that I can't be arsed to crack it open.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
One person's scumbag is another person's multi-platinum recording "artist".
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
the problem was between the left ear and the right ear of religious whackjob killers. they will kill again for no reason
So, umm, what valid reason did these guys have then?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I had explained that a woman's asking for equality in the church would be comparable to a black person's demanding equality in the Ku Klux Klan - Mary Daly
Youtube's blocking of that video was an effort to save lives. I'm not convinced that the production of the "Innocence of Muslims" wasn't intended to have the effect it had. Perhaps as a people those who are murderously offended by such things need to grow up and get a thicker skin. I'll grant that. But any words, religiously themed or not, which are intended to offend are reprehensible. And I applaud Youtube for taking steps to mitigate the disaster that video initiated.
Beyond this, so many people (Americans especially) have this "I may not like what you say, but I'll die to defend your right to say it" attitude that sounds good on the surface, but which denies a basic fact, which is that words which are intended to be hateful do hurt. There is no place for any action which is intended to harm, whether that action is picking up a stick or a pen. There is a difference between an unpopular idea expressed in good faith, and one intended to offend. And while differentiating may be difficult, in an age of instant global communications, at least Youtube stood up and tried. They made a call with what they will allow on a network they own. No one should have gotten murderously angry over this video, but the fact is some people did. And you may not like suppressing ideas, but there may be some people alive today who wouldn't be if that video wasn't turned off for a time. Which of those people is the EFF going to tell shouldn't be alive today?
In a world where you know that there are people ready to kill over an insult, slinging out insults (or helping someone else do it) becomes an irresponsible and antisocial act.
And women wearing revealing clothes deserve to be raped? Because showing ankle skin is too much for men to resist?
Did you ever think that under that "logic" we'd be justified in killing your for that oppression-enabling weakness?
Of course not - you don't think at all, do you?
Neither group had an acceptable reason (either may have been valid).
They appear to have been motivated by the delusions of religion and ideology, respectively.
Irresponsible, maybe. Antisocial? Only if the killers were the majority. They are not.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I think I see Godwin lurking just around the corner.
Again, they didn't kill because of the film. Almost none of the people outraged by it had even seen it. It was used as an excuse for why they were killing people. Nothing more. If the film had not existed something else would have been used as the excuse. You're ether incredibly naive or stupid to think that stifling free speech in some misguided attempt to appease a bunch murderers is the right thing to do.
It's called fetishes. Oh wait, that's not logical because we live in a civilized society. Don't mind me, I'm just here to mention S&M, foot, and school girl fetishes. I mean, guys don't get hot over that? Nahhhh, that's a myth.
So in a world where there are people that will kill to protect slavery, slavery should never be criticized?
Being willing to kill to prevent something from being said does not make it wrong to say that thing. It just makes you wrong.
It's not "saving lives" it's rewarding intolerance by showing sensitivity to intolerance. It also creates a precedence that says that you recognize their intolerance and will react affirmatively to it again in the future, guaranteeing another intolerant reaction.
Is it wrong to purposefully offend someone? Sure, that's Ethics 101.
But Ethics 201 asks more questions about what intent means and what it means to be offended and how far you can go to react to that offense.
By most civilized standards, rioting and killing people in response to a video is also unacceptable.
The headline reads like something from a new fiction genre... cyber-inquisition-noir.
Tolerating the existence of "people ready to kill over an insult" is the problem, not the insult itself. But how do you get rid of those people without becoming the person that can't be tolerated? That's why people like Dawkins come in and say things like "every one of you who tolerates the belief in a supernatural power makes this problem worse, because these beliefs are always going to be mutually incompatible." His point is to start from the viewpoint that everyone who believes in the supernatural is defective, and should be fixed instead of tolerated.
So I'd say you're exactly half right. Insulting people's religions is antisocial. But if it's part of an attempt to get rid of it, it's not irresponsible.
John
Blasphemy is for wimps. Real men use heresy or apostasy to distinguish themselves from the common infidel.
A lot of people got offended this year, like Sarah from New York who was called several unpleasant names by a stranger on the street. Sarah, as most people, was told an important lesson from her parents: Sticks and stones may break my bones, But names will never hurt me.
Some people however, weren't brought up with common sense, and got quite a bit of a knee-jerk-reaction to the insults. These 'knee-jerkers' went as far as trying (and unfortunately in some cases succeeding) in shutting people up. Because of 'insults'. Mind you, these 'insults' are the 'names' bit in the lesson, not the 'sticks and stones' bit! People who just had a different opinion or said something the "offended" got REALLY CROSS about.
The nominees for the 2012 "Stop offending me"-award are:
- The Christians living in predominately Muslim countries for being physically and verbally abused by the followers of the religion of tolerance, peace and respect; the Muslims
- The homosexuals that got beaten up, hanged, stoned or otherwise mistreated by the followers of the religion of tolerance, peace and respect; the Muslims
- The Jews who got an even worse treatment by the followers of the religion of tolerance, peace and respect; the Muslims
- The people who wore 'the wrong clothing' or listened to the 'wrong music' and got in quite a bit of trouble with the followers of the religion of tolerance, peace and respect; the Muslims
- The women who (this year again) had to suffer gross inequality, injustice, mental, verbal and physical abuse by the followers of the religion of tolerance, peace and respect; the Muslims
- The Girl who got shot in the face by by the followers of the religion of tolerance, peace and respect for wanting to get a proper education
- The Girl who got accused for burning pages of the Koran and was severely endangered of being killed by the followers of the religion of tolerance, peace and respect; the Muslims
- The people who got fed up with the followers of the religion of tolerance, peace and respect, stood up to them and got their mouth shut by the Muslims
- And the last nominee is: the followers of the religion of tolerance, peace and respect; the Muslims themselves!
Complaining about 'offences' the most in 2012 were... DRUM ROLL PLEASE ! ! !
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
No amount of appeasement will ever satisfy them. If it isn't a silly video, it's a silly cartoon, or "santanic passages" or whatever.
Kill the infidels where ever you find them, right?
Sorry you are wrong. And for these reasons:
- The KKK would wish for the enormous numbers of followers (hundreds of millions world wide)
- The KKK would wish that democratic leaders would just bend over and appease them
- The KKK was a 'secret' society, the scimitar yielding hatebeards are in the open (without caps that is)
- The KKK was. (yes there are a hand full left, but that hardly counts does it?)
- The KKK were never demanding respect and a 'different treatment' to their wishes as the Mohammedans are. (let alone getting their wishes granted)
- The KKK was a political group, not necessarily a religious one
- The KKK would wish that their atrocities wouldn't be criticized
The similarity is the same only as far as their extremism and funny dresses go. The rest is a completely different matter.
rm -rf --no-preserve-root /
The people ready to kill over an insult need to be removed from society or chill out. It is an irresponsible and antisocial act to allow people to kill over hurt feeling. I find someone saying fuck jehova offensive but it doesn't make me mad and want to kill someone.
So in a world where there are people that will kill to protect slavery, slavery should never be criticized? Being willing to kill to prevent something from being said does not make it wrong to say that thing. It just makes you wrong.
Nobody is arguing that kiling people who say a prohibited thing is wrong. Another wrong thing is a presumption that it is OK to push unstable people over the edge into violence rather than pulling them back.
The people ready to kill over an insult need to be removed from society or chill out. It is an irresponsible and antisocial act to allow people to kill over hurt feeling. I find someone saying fuck jehova offensive but it doesn't make me mad and want to kill someone.
How do you propose to prevent people from hurting each other over bullshit? Really, what's your practical solution that isn't worse than the disease?
It's necessary to first do away with the notion that it is acceptable to kill (or even hurt) someone over a religious dispute, however serious, before you can make inroads on belief itself. Once that goal is achieved, the urgency of the latter seems a great deal lessened.
For a moment there, I thought you were talking about Salman Rushdie, but then I realized that he just wrote an unfunny 'let's stir some shit up' book, not a movie.
My bad.
So wait, which one do you think deserved to die again?
(I think I still have Satanic Verses in the bookshelf somewhere, just that I can't be arsed to crack it open.)
And so you illustrate the problem. For Muzzies almost anything is blasphemy. being an atheist, holdin a bible study group, or writing a love poem that quotes from the Qur'an. This is why restricting anything that makes the Muzzies riot will end up in us not being able to say anything or express our own beliefs.
Helping the killers create the disorder in which they kill with impunity? I consider that antisocial.
They hate it, they would kill for it, yet they don't want to see it banned or blocked.
Are they fucking mental challenged? WTF with these people, eh?
Anyone who believes that God chose a pedophile warlord as his prophet, and that his message of "peace" is to kill unbelievers is totally mentally screwed up
Well it depends on what you do to push them. Now I agree that the Innocence of Muslims was a piece of crap, likely designed to do exactly what happened (although I might be giving the author too much credit, he could just be an idiotic asshole rather then just an asshole), and the movie should not have been made.
But should Youtube have censored one asshole to appease another? Once they started doing that, where would they stop? When the only content available was selected readings from the Koran?
Irony? "and would probably ask if it is already "in"."
The nuttier religions may be about to crack. In the US, the number of people reporting "no religion" has doubled in the past decade. There are now more than twice as many atheists and agnostics (4%) in the US as Jews (1.7%). "Unaffiliated" is at 16.1%. Islam only has 0.6% market share in the US, and Mormonism is at 1.7%. Total US "Christian" is at 78%, but that's self-reported. The number of people who say they go to church is about twice the number churches report showing up.
Some religions need a high level of coercion to maintain market share. For most of the period since the decline of the Roman Empire, Catholicism was the worst offender. It took several wars in Europe to overthrow that tyranny. Today, militant Islam (and its mirror image, ultra-orthodox Judaism) struggle to keep their members in line and coerce their children into their grip.
That isn't about religion. It's about power. Political power. The religions that fear "blasphemy", demand obedience, and want theocracy are political organizations. They should be treated as such. They have no moral right to demand that they not be criticized. Indeed, citizens have a duty to point out their failings and fight their excesses.
So keep that "blasphemy" going out. Religious leaders, not their followers, should be afraid. (And up the production value; "Innocence of Muslims" was ineptly executed. Read "Florence of Arabia" for what's needed.)
History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose. - Jefferson
Sounds like insecurity is ripe within Islam.
Translation: 5.08 cm.
Even in muslim countries, islamists were more or less a secret society too until 30 or 20 years ago. They were only recently permitted to crawl out of their holes (where they should have remained).
As are the islamists: a political group hellbent on shoving their twisted worldview down other peoples' throats (be they regular muslims or not). All in all, there are more similarities between both sects than you imagine.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
No one is helping the killers. They find reasons all on their own, because they're killers.
Ask a bunch of logically minded people what they think about the supernatural and you get the their honest opinion. Or do you mean "religion" as in the organizations that control religious people? As far as that goes, they deserve whatever disrespect they get.
What? Lets talk about the Danish caricatures. The problems was not them, but a long thread of events that created friction, and when the caricature came around, the friction busted a bubble. IoM has the exact same event pattern: If was just the last event in a long line.
We should, though. Nothing worse than a dry flag, I say.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No, being ready to kill over an insult is the irresponsible act. There is NO excuse for it. All you are doing is justifying violence.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
But how do you get rid of those people without becoming the person that can't be tolerated?
That's an age old dilemma that was answered by Aristotle. "We make war, so that we may have peace". You have to become them for a while. But the thing is, they can never become you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The KKK, in its heyday:
- had millions of members constituting a significant percentage of the white population in the areas they were active, and a larger number of sympathizers
- had prominent elected officials in its ranks, and was involved in killing officials that did not support them
- were about as secret as your church membership about who was in it
- were firm believers in Protestant Christianity (their most important symbols were crosses in various forms)
- committed atrocities with the full support of the white population of their area, as demonstrated by the routine acquittals in any cases where KKK members were charged for their crimes
- absolutely demanded respect from all residents of the areas they were active in
And lastly, there are still several thousand Klansmen in the US. For reference, Al Qaida's membership is according to most estimates somewhere between 500 and 1000 people.
The comparison seems apt.
I am officially gone from
I am a constitutional libertarian. Anything that degrades the constitution, and any natural rights not specifically spelled out in the constitution, is worthy of scrutinizing. I wish more people would move beyond the tight, smothering binds of democrat and republican philosophies.
I have jsut as much right to be irrational as the other irrational people and claiming that somehow i need to be less irrational because they are more irrational is pretty irrational.
Good-bye
Congratulations! You defied /. groupthink!
I consider that you have no ethics, only morals.
Good-bye
Exactly, finally somebody gets it. When something posted on YouTube starts causing riots, they should thak that off. It was "free speech" only in the sense that I can yell insults at you from across the street.. When people start fights over the speech it's time to shit them up. Mostly, they blocked the video from countries where they knew it would just cause trouble... Where it was INTENDED to cause trouble.
YouTube was trying to be responsible.. ID guess they got a polite call from the US State department, kind of like when police expect a bar to have bouncers.. So the problem doesn't BECOME a LAW problem.
No one is helping them do anything. They are making up flinsy, post hoc justifications being murderers. Stop being an idiot thinking that this film gad anything to do with their actions. It didn't. It was merely a red herring.
This film didn't push them to do anything. The "outrage" over the film wad nothing more than a post hoc excuse to try to deflect that the were murdering people.
Other than educating them to not be asshats, not much. That doesn't justify censorship just because someone will use someone's speech, movie, song, etc. as an excuse for murdering someone.
Try walking into a bar and deliberately insulting somebody's religion... See how long before the owner throws YOU out for running your mouth.
There are lots of cases where management will shut you up because the topic of discussion causes fights. In the case of that video, it was created to be insulting... No point to leave the discussion where it can be used to start fights by either side. It's basic civility not censoring at that point.
The American taxpayers paid for the initial development of the Internet. Result? First Amendment trashed. Online companies are turning cyberspace into the equivalent of an American university (or should I say monoversity), where one is free to express any opinion one is allowed to.
Stop capitalizing god, is shows unnecessary respect for absurd superstitions.
Bilbo Baggins is also a fictional character. Does that mean we should stop capitalizing his name? Of course not, because capitalizing a name has nothing to do with whether or not the noun being referenced is real. Though you may have a point when it comes to He, Him, and all the other pronouns that people capitalize when referring to their particular flavor of God. However, such capitalization isn't always about showing respect.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Try walking into a bar and deliberately insulting somebody's religion... See how long before the owner throws YOU out for running your mouth.
There are lots of cases where management will shut you up because the topic of discussion causes fights. In the case of that video, it was created to be insulting... No point to leave the discussion where it can be used to start fights by either side. It's basic civility not censoring at that point.
WRONG.
It's censorship.
Even if it was created for the sole purpose of being insulting, SO FUCKING WHAT?
Something FIVE MONTHS OLD, created THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY, is NO FUCKING EXCUSE FOR VIOLENCE.
Unless you're an uncivilized medieval jackass.
But who's literally lacking in basic civility then?
Have you read the Koran ? Do you know its teachings to make judgements?
And the answer is: YES
There's a reason why non-Moslem suicide bombers are the exception that proves the rule. Islam.
There's a reason why fundamentalist Moslems want to literally wipe Israel off the map and commit genocide. Islam (Don't believe me? Grow some nads and Google "dar al-Harb")
There's a reason why Al Qaeda bombed Spain, er, al-Andalus. Islam.
There's a reason why you can Google "honor killing" and see reports of way too many women who were murdered for committing the crime of being raped. Islam.
If you're talking about Great Purge in particular, then that was largely a struggle for power within the Communist party. It did suck in many innocent people when they were accused of supporting various newly-declared-heretical factions (to provide a convincing display of a widespread conspiracy), but ultimately it was all about power.
If you're talking about Soviet repressions overall, then (where the reason above does not apply) it's also about religious whackjobs - it's just that their religion was called "communism".
Hosting a video that is solely intended to cause outrage is bad for business and YouTube should remove it if it causes trouble. What does YouTube gain by hosting this video? This is not a US First Amendment issue, since the producer of the film is quite welcome to have the film hosted and published by some other means. Put it on vimeo your own web site or even host it via The Pirate Bay. Free speech does not mean that a company has to help you to spread your message.
The blasphemy laws in this could easily be revised. I'm not against moderating public speech to some extent in order to respect public sensibilities. We have this in the US with our obscenity laws; free speech is important to us, but we realize that not all types of speech are good or valuable to a free society. In countries which have liberal democracies, blasphemy laws can be a little difficult to understand since people here generally don't care about religion, but oh boy if you criticize something they really care about then you're in for it. In how many of our countries is treason punishable by death? Forget about asking people to respect God--we demand respect for something so lowly as the state.
That being said, the revisions I would propose to blasphemy laws are simple. With mediums like the Internet and computer, everything people access is done so voluntarily--you get content only when you request it. This is not like shouting something in public with a megaphone or broadcasting something on radio or television where someone may unwittingly be exposed. Therefore, the laws could make a clear distinction that would allow blasphemous content when transferred over the Internet or in writing, but forbid it in volatile spheres. The goal of the laws is not to stifle discourse, but rather prevent public unrest, so this measure would be fitting. Take the recent example in Egypt where there were massive protests in response to the YouTube clip of the video that ridiculed the Holy Prophet; a great many people were genuinely hurt and upset, but not because the video was on YouTube. The outcry started because the offensive content was broadcasted publicly on local television in Egypt. This is analogous to shouting fire in a movie theater. Shouting fire in this manner is illegal not because of whether or not fire is dangerous, but rather because it generates a crisis when the people react. Therefore, with respect to religious sentiment and social order, I suggest that websites or written materials not be censored, and that blasphemy laws be refined to apply to spheres in which they were originally intended to do good.
It was driven by Stalin - who wanted to destabilise the leadership to cement his position. Several times he would get people to do his dirty work for him (such as run denouncements, trials and executions), then turn on the person doing the work by appointing a new person to take over the very same role.
...(missed adding this)...
The original guy would typically then be denounced, trialled and executed (often using the very same system he had set up).
Great Purges? Almost certainly all driven by Stalin himself (via the system he set up). A very, very nasty man.
The same could be said about christians to. As a matter of fact, all religions have their extremes and those people will take offense at any other religion.
I guess to stifle freedom of speech all you have to do is claim that you attacked someone because of another person's speech. After doing so, you've effectively outlawed any similar speech, or at least that's how some people think it should work. The words made them do it! Really!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
and if you want to ban all "likely to incite" things, we should start with burning all books that are not officially government sanctioned.
And what's not "likely to incite" someone today might tomorrow! We might have to ban speech entirely to appease to a few would-be murderers!
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Try walking into a bar and deliberately insulting somebody's religion... See how long before the owner throws YOU out for running your mouth.
I have never once understood the point of examples like these. "Go up to X and do Y; they'll beat you up for it!" So? Does that mean I'm somehow wrong?
It's basic civility not censoring at that point.
Have you changed the definition of censorship or something? It does not matter why it was created.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Nobody is arguing that kiling people who say a prohibited thing is wrong.
You might as well argue precisely that, because that's where it leads to. Just about anything could be a known 'trigger' for "unstable people." Using the logic of certain people here, anyone who triggers the killers should be punished. The slavery example is relevant.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
The same reason as many other religious fanatics. They just so happened to have replaced the usual god-image by that of Stalin. Or did you think that Soviet communism was a textbook example of an atheist society?
--frank[at]unternet.org
"But who's literally lacking in basic civility then?"
And THAT is the question I'm interested in. So they are medeval hicks, WE KNOW they are medeval hicks and that's no excuse to antagonize them. Especially when the video in question is some obscure piece that was created just to antagonize them.
A child does whatever he thinks he can no matter how it affects others, a wise man considers what his actions might do and contains himself if other people would be ill affected.
India has pretty strict blasphemy laws. Recently, an atheist was charged with it when he declared a Christian statue a fake. Ireland has had annoying blasphemy laws for years as well.
Agreed. And that last bit is sickening.
The same could be said about christians to. As a matter of fact, all religions have their extremes and those people will take offense at any other religion.
Same old lie - all religions are as bad. Find me one Christian organisation today that preaches that atheists are blasphemers and should be killed. Find me one Christian country that wants preaching other religions to be a criminal offence. While you're about it find me one Sikh who claims that his is the "one truer religions" and that all others are blasphemy, or one Jain who believes in violent Jihad.
You can not tolerate people who would kill over an insult, yes. But the insult is still also a problem, a much smaller one yes, but still a problem. An insult does not help a discussion in any way, it will not get anyone the revise their world view to the better. It may even make people more fanatic.
But compared to what Dawkins says, that is really just nitpicking. Tolerating or even holding supernatural beliefs does not make you tolerate people who would kill over an insult. It also does not make you a person who would kill over an insult either. And not holding or not tolerating a beliefs in the supernatural does not prevent you from becoming such a person or tolerating people like that. Dawkins just ignores that there most believers in the supernatural would never kill anyone over an insult. He also ignores that killing humans over a disagreement is something that happens everywhere and has nothing to do with the supernatural. He prevents that the real problem is fixed, because he makes people believe that this is an problem that would go away if no one would believe in the supernatural. He also prevents the building of alliances between believers and non-believers against fanatics.
His point is to start from the viewpoint that everyone who believes in the supernatural is defective, and should be fixed instead of tolerated.
And here it is where it starts to get really dangerous. This viewpoint is just as bad as "Everyone who does not believe in god is defective, and should be fixed instead of tolerated." It justifies taking away human rights from believers and can even by used to justify killing believers: "They couldn't be fixed, so we needed to kill them, otherwise we would have been forced to tolerate them."
Jan
If you're talking about Soviet repressions overall, then (where the reason above does not apply) it's also about religious whackjobs - it's just that their religion was called "communism".
Communism is not a religion, it does not contain any kind of supernatural believes. If you want to call "communism" a religion you need to call "new atheism" or "humanism" religions as well. Communism mirrors some aspects of religion, like providing a system of values. But that is true for "new atheism" or "humanism" as well. Mirroring some parts of religion is just not enough to be call a religion. A reasonable definition of religion always must include a believe in the supernatural, otherwise there would be no difference between religion and ideology.
Jan
Of course it is OK to criticize some decisions of Youtube, but bashing it like this seems childish, unfair to me. No other company has done as much for free speech (by far IMO).
I sincerely hope the EFF can one day have 10% of the impact Youtube has had to defend our rights worldwide.
In particular among the corporate world, no company is close to Google in the defence of freedom and openness. The fact that some times they give in to government pressure does not change that. I believe it is in our interest to recognize that fact, even when urging Google to do better.
Westboro Baptist? Also, if the basis is on today, let's look at that. Today, Christians (this is a generalization) believe in the death penalty, with holding taxes from their government, personal financial growth, an end to welfare, oh, and that their God is the only true god and all other gods are blasphemy and heresy. How many times now have we seen it where christians in THIS country have tried their best to silence other religion? And if you can't think of any, I'll be more than happy to give examples of those too. Back to my original statement, all religions have their extremes and those people will take offense at any other religion.
I'm not disagreeing that the insult isn't a problem. After all, I even said it was "anti-social", which it is.
Dawkin's viewpoint is not as dangerous as the religious version that you put forth, because his is based on the lowest common denominator: since different religions can't all be right (according to their own internal teachings, each is the only correct viewpoint), all but one of them must be wrong, and there's no evidence saying the last one is right, either. Since science agrees with the viewpoint that there is no explanation for the world that requires the supernatural, this just includes the last religion in the group of "must be wrong."
Of course, this is the epitome of anti-religious. As religions and society are thoroughly intertwined in much of the world, it's taken as an anti-social viewpoint even though it isn't. But if we viewed all religions as anti-social institutions then we have a common ground: anyone who says "exclude unbelievers" or "only include believers" has the dangerous viewpoint.
And religions are anti-social. This is evidenced by the many variations of exclusion they preach, ranging from the gentle: "he who believes in me and is baptized shall be saved" (which translates to the anti-social "we exclude non-believers from our version of an afterlife"); to the violent: "kill the blasphemers". And most religions have had violent sects at some point in their history, meaning that the difference between "tolerable anti-social" and "intolerant anti-social" remains only a fanatic's whim away from being dangerously violent. It's certainly not a stable foundation.
Even if we divide religions into "always gentle", "mostly gentle", and "violent", and decide that we can tolerate one but not another, then we're saying that one is "more right" than the others, perpetuating the problems that any supernatural viewpoint brings. Instead, Dawkins says we should treat them all as equally delusional - any viewpoint that excludes people based on lack of belief in the supernatural is anti-social and dangerous. I know it's a tautology, but it's the only one that brings evidence from the real world into the discussion. And we all have to live in the real world - supernatural beliefs don't change it.
Of course, this leads to an equally large problem of nihilism, which you could argue is the problem that religion "fixes". And we're seeing more of this kind of behavior, where someone "checks out" with an assault rifle or a bomb and takes innocent people with him on his way out of life.
So basically we're screwed no matter what we do or don't believe.
John
Communism is not a religion, it does not contain any kind of supernatural believes.
Many strains of Buddhism also don't contain any kind of supernatural beliefs, but we still consider them religion.
Dawkin's viewpoint is not as dangerous as the religious version that you put forth, because his is based on the lowest common denominator
Lowest common denominator? Dawkin's viewpoint is hardly something that is shared by everyone or least most of them.
since different religions can't all be right (according to their own internal teachings, each is the only correct viewpoint), all but one of them must be wrong, and there's no evidence saying the last one is right, either.
First: If you look at polytheistic religions you will notice that "(according to their own internal teachings, each is the only correct viewpoint)" is not true. But this is not the main problem with this argument. Your idea of an religion being wrong is "There is at least a single teaching that is not correct." However even if that is true for all religions a huge number of their teachings can still be correct. Many religion also agree on some teachings and some also acknowledge this.
Since science agrees with the viewpoint that there is no explanation for the world that requires the supernatural, this just includes the last religion in the group of "must be wrong."
Uh, no. This is wrong on so many levels:
1. Even when it is possible to explain the world without the supernatural, that does not mean the supernatural does not exists. Occam's razor is useful heuristic for building scientific theories, but it is not a proven property of the real world. So even if you have a simple and natural explanation for something and a complex and supernatural explanation for the same thing, it is way more likely that the first explanation is true but it is still possible that the later one is true and the first one is false.
2. There are clearly explanation for the world that require the supernatural. I think you confuse this with "There are no observed facts, that require a supernatural explanation."
3. Science does not agree with anything. It is a process not a person who can agree on something.
And religions are anti-social. This is evidenced by the many variations of exclusion they preach, ranging from the gentle: "he who believes in me and is baptized shall be saved" (which translates to the anti-social "we exclude non-believers from our version of an afterlife");
There are many religions that have some concept how non-believers will be saved in their afterlife, e.g.: See the "baptism for the dead" practiced by Mormons. But even without that, the religious teachings can be right: Maybe there is an afterlife and maybe not everyone will get it. Not the believers exclude anyone from the afterlife then, but god does. You can then complain about God being anti-social.
But even if we go by the hypothesis that all religions are wrong, calling them all anti-social is still wrong. Religions are very efficient at bounding groups together. They will bound together huge groups passing barriers provided by nations and languages.
Even if we divide religions into "always gentle", "mostly gentle", and "violent", and decide that we can tolerate one but not another, then we're saying that one is "more right" than the others, perpetuating the problems that any supernatural viewpoint brings.
No, we are not saying they are "more right" than others, we are just saying that we can tolerate them. One religion can completely disagree with known facts but can still be easy to tolerate, because it teaches non-violence and other nice values. While a different religion can have no disagreement with known facts but impossible to tolerate because it seeks to kill everyone who is not a member.
Jan
Buddhism is also often considered a philosophy and not a religion. But many strains of Buddhism also contain clearly supernatural beliefs and I would consider the concept of karma and rebirth, which is afaik shared by all strains, to be supernatural. At least current scientific theories do not provide any mechanisms for that.
Jan
Westboro Baptist?
Though they are truly vile, in comparison to Islam they are much, much better. None of them have killed any gays (unlike Muslims), or even incited others to do the same. They have not killed anyone for leaving their religion. There is not one incident of a Westboro Baptist carrying out a terrorist act.
Back to my original statement, all religions have their extremes and those people will take offense at any other religion.
Perhaps you could explain how Sikhs could take offence at other religions (except of course when the other religions are trying to kill them) when their teachings explicitly state that all religions must be respected. Sikhism was a reaction to the murderous intolerance of Islam. Or tell me the troubles caused by extremist Jains (who are totally pacifist and live peacefully among Hindus). Your words are just apologies for Islam. The thing is even if it were true that all religions had extremists, the key difference is that Islam's basic teachings are "extremist" (e.g. death penalty for conversion, subduing non-believers, etc), and in my view a crime does not become right just because someone else committed it too.
If you're scared to say something for fear of upsetting "the religion of peace" then you are their bitch from this point on. It's the radical assholes who need to STFU and be reasonable. STOP APPEASING THEM.