Pope Francis on Paris Attack - "one who throws insults can expect a 'punch'"

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm very disappointed.

Why?  Two wrongs don't make a right, no matter how wrong one of the wrongs may be.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I'm very disappointed.

Why?  Two wrongs don't make a right, no matter how wrong one of the wrongs may be.

Except that mocking religions isn't "wrong" in any way. It's the right of any person in a secular society, and religions should finally understand it.

There is a difference between mocking and insulting, and too many people fail to comprehend the difference.  In their eagerness to push the boundary between mocking and insulting, Charlie Hedbo often crosses that boundary.  It did so with their latest cover, not because it depicted Mohammed, but because it put words into his mouth.  (They're words he might well have spoken were he alive today, but that's not their call to make.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

There is nothing wrong with insulting religions either. Insulting a religion is not the same as insulting believers.

You couldn't be more wrong about that, and I feel the same way in regards to non-thiestic religions such as atheism and humanism.  That said, insulting religious leaders is in general not the same as insulting their religion or their followers.  I say in general because in a very real sense, Muhammad, Jesus, Gautama , etc. have transcended being people who are leaders of a religion to becoming symbols of that religion.  That's a distinction that many secularists have difficulty grasping the concept of, let alone acknowledging the validity thereof.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

There is nothing wrong with insulting religions either. Insulting a religion is not the same as insulting believers.

You couldn't be more wrong about that, and I feel the same way in regards to non-thiestic religions such as atheism and humanism.  That said, insulting religious leaders is in general not the same as insulting their religion or their followers.  I say in general because in a very real sense, Muhammad, Jesus, Gautama , etc. have transcended being people who are leaders of a religion to becoming symbols of that religion.  That's a distinction that many secularists have difficulty grasping the concept of, let alone acknowledging the validity thereof.

Atheism is a religion?

Yes.  A religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence.  While most religions contain some supernatural aspect to them, it isn't a requirement.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

There is nothing wrong with insulting religions either. Insulting a religion is not the same as insulting believers.

You couldn't be more wrong about that, and I feel the same way in regards to non-thiestic religions such as atheism and humanism.  That said, insulting religious leaders is in general not the same as insulting their religion or their followers.  I say in general because in a very real sense, Muhammad, Jesus, Gautama , etc. have transcended being people who are leaders of a religion to becoming symbols of that religion.  That's a distinction that many secularists have difficulty grasping the concept of, let alone acknowledging the validity thereof.

Bullsh*t. Jesus, Muhammad etc. are only sacred figures to believers, but nonbelievers may say whatever they want about them. It's not that secularists don't "get" it. They simply understand that their liberty is not limited by other people's beliefs.

This. Plus Ernest's definition of 'religion' extends to things such as state Communism. If you have a philosophical worldview, with or without a god head it should be subject to criticism and ridicule because those two observations often overlap; how they are interpreted is often subject to the observer. If I ridicule the fact that Mary was a virgin and that Jesus flew up into the sky, at what point would me saying 'Virgin birth is impossible as is flying literally or metaphorically into heaven' cross the line from criticism to ridicule? I'm belittling that belief either way.

It depends on how you say it.  Obviously a simple statement of disbelief in the beliefs of another is criticism and not an insult.  Something like "Only an unfeeling ignoramus who thinks physics can explain everything would deny the existence of the Divine," would be an insult.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

True, but as it had developed, it was more an R&P thread than an IGD thread.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I highly doubt that censorship would have been his preferred solution to this, except maybe some kind of voluntary prior restraint, like the Comics Code but for Islamophobia or something. To whatever extent he's calling for that, I'm not sure I agree with him (the Comics Code was flagrantly ludicrous, after all), but I don't think it's an inherently inappropriate or callous or cruel position to take, I think some of our more anti-clerical and/or European* posters are reacting to this as if he'd said that these people deserved to die when that's clearly not the case, and that's all I was really trying to argue in this thread to begin with.

Just out of interest, would this be a two way street? I mean, if I show restraint, should religious figures be required to show restraint and not for example caricature gay people as either being sinful, possessed, threats to society, purveyors of vice or have veiled innuendoes made about them comparing them to paedophiles or pedarasts? (all of which the RC has done - we are after all guilty of a 'moral evil')

Yeah. Of course. They really, really, really should stop doing that, and I dearly hope I would still think so even I were cis and/or straight. I think both religious and non- or antireligious people should avoid resorting to defamatory innuendo and raucous mockery on these kinds of issues.

The problem is what constitutes mockery? If 'mockery' is what is to be restrained. Because mockery isn't always just a devolved form of discussion. Sometimes it has nothing to do with discussion or position taking at all. A real life and surreal example of this would be a school child taken aside for eating a ham sandwich at Ramadan in a school with a large Muslim population. Eating and what was being eaten was perceived as 'mockery' when all it really was was simply having a sandwich. Why should the person who considers it 'mockery' be empowered because we consider mockery to be a step too far. That argument requires that the 'step before' is actually meant to be an acceptable 'action' against a person. Often that is not the case at all.

A very common argument against SSM for example (and one made by the subject of this thread) is that allowing it 'mocks' religion, or religious beliefs about marriage and what marriage means and who marriage is for. I'm sure for some people it is mockery, but that's only in the view of the person who perceives it. And it makes an assumption that the person who perceives mockery has a reasoned insight into what mockery is.

Eating the ham sandwich (assuming the kid wasn't taunting Muslim kids as ey ate it, and was just eating it) certainly should never have been considered mocking.  Nor should someone wearing religious clothing should never be considered a mock of or insult to secularism, tho some secularists seem to think so.  As for SSM, so long as those choosing to be in one don't try to force private persons in providing wedding facilities or services to do so for SSM, I don't see anything that should be considered to be a mock of certain religions in extending legal recognition to SSMs.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Charlie Hebdo is huge in Europe. It is the closest we have been to a 9/11. Bigger than the attacks in London and Madrid (outside UK and Spain at least) because of the symbolism of it all. There isn't that much room for being in the middle on this issue. It is "Western values" or pro-Islam/pro-terrorism for many people and the church can ill afford to be seen as too complacent.

The problem is that for many "Western values" are the same as "secularism" and they don't handle it well when people tell them they aren't.  While Charlie Hedbo was certainly not a promoter of violence, in their aggressive secularism, they certainly haven't been a model of religious toleration either.