There is a horrific story about a mob of thousands of people in Pakistan being incited by religious leaders to pull a mentally ill man from a police station, beat him to death, and set his body on fire for allegedly ripping out pages of the Koran.
Apparently Pakistani has a blasphemy law that imposes the death penalty on those who insult Muhammad or the Koran. But apparently no charges are going to be filed against those who committed this heinous crime or incited it.
Jonathan Turley says that political leaders in the west are implicitly aiding this kind of barbarism by promoting the idea that free speech must be curtailed in the name of faith and attacking atheists and atheism.
Time for the apologists to come out and say that ‘no true Muslim’ would do such a thing.
Allah is indeed “merciful” just like his followers. A religion of peace as long as you are willing to tape your mouth shut.
Yahweh & Jesus were just as merciful for most of their religions existance still are occassionally.
The cowardice of the West is contributing to the increased boldness of violent Muslims around the world.Western media and governments are so scared to death of anyone labelling them as ‘islamophobic’ or ‘racist’ that they stay quiet over brutalities by Islam in the name of ‘tolerance’. By tolerating such barbarities & continuing to remain silent at home over increased flexing of muscle by islamists the western countries are going to face severe difficulties at home in the future.
western media like CNN,BBC,NEWYORKTIMES,GUARDIAN need to get out of the business of glorifying islamists & start to critically examine their actions.This fixation with political correctness is aiding Islamists all over the world.
Abdul Basit @ # 2: This fixation with political correctness is aiding Islamists all over the world.
“Political correctness”? Uh, have you noticed that Muslim nations have a lot of money -- including significant equity within the corporate media -- and have exercised that leverage with much more effect than have any latte-sipping librulz?
It’s not “free” speech if it’s curtailed by the threat of violence. And it’s virtually certain that if one religion can put blasphemers to death, then another religion will want to put their adherents to death, likewise. It’s the faithful’s tendency to want to kill blasphemers that should make faithless and faithful alike acknowledge that it’s necessary to rein in religious privilege.
It seems to me that those who would imprison or kill people for blasphemy must be fully aware of how powerless their all powerful god is. Their god is like Tinkerbell, if enough people stop believing in him he will fade away to nothing. Hence the coercion and violence. Just ask Zeus.
it might be nice if some muslim apologists jumped up and did the ‘no true scotsman’ thing with them. ‘these people aren’t real muslims, they’re just drunken filth, all they need is a reason to do horrible things, and they will’, though we know the sentiment is incorrect, it’d give a strategy. ‘you, why are you yelling for this man to die? ah, well x apologist says reasons like that are only for fools, that no real muslim would do such a thing. why are you pretending to be a muslim? you give such a bad name to your people’, if it was at safe distance, it’d be worth it to do the ‘no, i didn’t say it, he did, he’s a muslim apologist, so, of course he knows what a true muslim is, and he says you aren’t it. why don’t you take it up with him if you think he’s wrong?’.