Charlie Hebdo

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Charlie Hebdo publishes satirical cartoons

No-one catch this little gem? The mag in question has a long track record for publishing offensive satirical cartoons featuring religious and other figures and decided to give the prophet Mohammed the same treatment this week, depicting him in the buff. On the one hand they're showing no fear or favour and it's a noble stand for free speech, on the other you can't help wondering if they haven't just poked an already angry dog with a very big stick.

Oh and I and some friends have started a new religion. One of its tenets is that we shouldn't look at people's faces. So I'm going to need all of you to wear masks in public from now on otherwise you'll be offending us. I hope you will have the decency and respect to cover up.

I dream of the day when over night, we can make people all over the world forget about religion. Seriously, some guys (for they will have been guys) were probably laughing their socks off for people believing their stories. Bet they didn't think there would still be people thousands of years later, believing in their 'sacred' words.

Why are these so-called beliefs still sacred after years and years of science?!

This is why Life Of Brian was both funny and sad because people really do think like that.

He has given us a sign!
He has given us...his shoe!
The shoe is the sign! Let us follow his example!
Let us like him, hold up one shoe and let the other one be upon our foot, for this is his sign that all who follow him shall do likewise!
No, no, no, the shoe is a sign that we must gather shoes together in abundance!
Cast off the shoes! Follow the gourd!

Perhaps later I will burn a shoe on youtube.

They both agreed that freedom of expression has to be used responsibly otherwise it threatens the whole concept.

if you look at the last frame of the cartoon it says "for that is going to be far easier than sorting out how we fit in each other's world." (referring to how we should deal with this problem and one of the solutions is clearly not "drive them from their homes into the sea").

of course both immigrant communities and the communities where they go change, and that is often a good thing. people (in britain) accept that some people have strange dress (turbans, hijabs etc) and accept other differences. but there are some ideas where "we" (let's say people who support "british values") don't want to compromise. I don't want to "fit" into their world into their world in certain ways. I don't want to compromise on women's rights, the death penalty, or freedom of speech.

there suggestion of using speech "responsibly" is totally vague and frankly meaningless. Many people do use speech responsibly, but we have such freedoms that some don't. are they suggesting that such speech should be banned?

We should also remember who exactly suffers the most from anti-blasphemy laws. Is it people in the west, or is it muslims in the muslim world fighting for equal gender rights and rights for gays?

Freedom of expression has been hardly free, under threat and clamped down on for ages, and not by terrorist threats, but by our Western governments who seem free to decide what is "freedom of expression/press/speech/assembly" and what they can toss under any other label to silence those not toeing the line.

If over a dozen mosques being violently attacked and synagogue suffering arson attacks and nazi pamphlets and tags on Jewish business and schools earlier this week (and attacks on French Jewish sites averages 2 a week, Muslim sites even more frequent) is not indicative of French values than terrorist attacks by 3 people should not be indicative that the entire French Muslim community values are in conflict with the mainstream. Religious figures might be powerful, but religious people who are already under repeated threat and under powered in general community are not. It would just as easy to properly satirize living people in power that are actually causing these problems in these religions than pulling out the whole 'oh Muslims don't depict their prophets visually so we're going to do it to show we're better and more free than they are' BS.

If you don't like what someone has said it is NEVER justifable to respond with murder. We have courts to decide the line between free speech and incitement to hatred. It is unforgivable for Muslims or anyone else to take the law into their own hands and kill.

It has to remembered that one of the victims of this massacre was a Muslim. This terrorist attack has attacked the Muslim community in France as much as Charlie Hebdo.

Please remember Ahmed Merabet as well as the cartoonist. Ahmed was just a policeman on his bicycle who happened to be passing by.

No it is not a justifiable response but nor is dumping pigs heads outside mosques which is what happened in my area today. Not much better than some racist bigots on MN yesterday suggesting a British-ness test involving handling pork and doing a hundred other things specifically offensive to Muslims. There also needs to be careful identification of the ISIS terrorists as being SUNNI and SALAFI, more specifically. I have no idea how they interact or how they radicalized the three gunmen who had all grown up within the French care system with Westerners, not in Muslim households and who had previous lives which were a far cry away from Islamic as there is ample evidence to suggest.

As for the atheists suggesting that they are free of all religion and somehow better than people belonging to the three main faiths, could I earnestly suggest that the atheism is a faith choice and has a large intellectual bedrock underlying it spanning many centuries. It is not a superior choice by any means and given that science has simply failed to solve the problems of the world, it does not seem to fare well in delivering anything positive other than sanctimony.

Not much better than some racist bigots on MN yesterday suggesting a British-ness test involving handling pork and doing a hundred other things specifically offensive to Muslims

That was me and I'm not surprised you didn't understand it. My suggestion was not that anyone would be forced to pass a test. Only that they pass a test that couldn't be passed by the most extreme religious people IF they wanted to become British citizens.

The point being that none of it would bother the vast majority of open minded Muslims that people have said represent the real Islam.

btw the main test was shaking a woman's hand, because if a man finds that so offensive that he'd give up the chance to live here then we don't want him here.

Now I've explained that permacult I'd better explain to you what atheism is.

I earnestly suggest that the atheism is a faith choice

Wrong. It is the absence of belief in gods.

Belief btw is when you choose to believe something is true without any reason whatsoever. It includes believing in gods, but you can have a belief that the UFOs are out to get you or that you are a long lost princess. It's not rational without at least some reason to think so.

It is not a superior choice by any means

It is not a choice. A choice would be if I suddenly chose to believe that pixies are real.

given that science has simply failed to solve the problems of the world,

1. science isn't for solving the problems of the world. It is about gaining knowledge. Being less ignorant does often have the knock-on effect of helping solve problems though.

2. You love science. You use the results of it all the time. If you object to it that much turn of your computer, your lights and your phone and hide under the bed and tremble in case the thunder comes.

It is not a superior choice by any means and given that science has simply failed to solve the problems of the world, it does not seem to fare well in delivering anything positive other than sanctimony.

Permacult I'm sorry to say it... But I hope deep inside that you are not a teacher. People who think like you are void of reason.

Without science, you would not be on MN and freely spread your opinion. Without science, you would not have medical supplies. I don't know how old you are, but if you aren't in your 20s or younger, without science, you may have been dead by now.

What problems on Earth has 'Allah' (or any other fictitious character) solved?!? Zero. Nothing. Nada.

People think that religion gives people values. How? Because of rules that need to be followed and a bit off fear mongering. We now have the law... and well, if we bring back the death penalty, the law could do a bit of fear mongering, too.

And I really can't get the fact that people choose to idolise characters who would find themselves in jail if they truly existed today.

Aethism is the default setting. Everything else is what a person chooses to belief.

Surely agnosticism is the default?

Why?

From a theoretical point of view you cant actually be atheist. Since outside of mathematics complete proof is impossible. However I'm 99.9% sure there is no god so label myself as atheist to serve as a distinction between the "not sure" crew. But yes the default is probably agnostic

The default setting is ignorance of everything.

I returned some pork at Sainsbury's because it was off.

The woman at Customer Services thanked me for telling her so she didn't have to handle it and triple-bagged it. I realised from her name badge that she was probably Muslim.

Who knows whether she was a religious fanatic or just didn't want to touch dodgy meat?

Another Muslim in there directed me to the the self-service tills.

I said: 'I'd rather queue up at the manned checkouts because I have a bottle of wine in my shopping and I can't be bothered to wait while a member of staff verifies it.'

I didn't really say all that btw. It's just a fucking pain in the arse getting age-restricted things through the self-service tills so it's easier to go through the checkouts.

But I did think: 'Oh my God! Does she think I think she's being difficult about her touching alcohol?'

At which she said: 'I'll do it.' And she did.

People are very reasonable.

Even me.

Thereyouarepeter I'm not atheist because I have proof that god doesn't exist. I simply have not been given a reason yet to suppose he does.

AuntieStella The words may have drifted in meaning a bit. Atheist now usually means a lack of belief in god.

I know an agnostic who believes there is a god, but hasn't decided which one yet.

yes, you're right. agnostic.

I wonder if people ever stop and wonder why pig meat us supposedly forbidden to them? There was a R4 programme a while back that explained how all these beliefs came about, often as practical solutions to problems that existed at the time.

Cant they recognise that we've moved a bit since then?

I simply have not been given a reason yet to suppose he does.

True neither have I. But that doesn't mean that there isn't some empirical data that may reveal itself in the future. Even though we have no concept of what that could be at this present time.

This argument about being 100% atheist has been done to death in atheist circles so I'm not going to replay the logic here, but every "famous atheist" who has written about it (Dawkins even deals with in the god delusion) agrees it's intellectual dishonest to describe yourself as anything other than agnostic...atheism is a practical label.

But that doesn't mean that there isn't some empirical data that may reveal itself in the future.

Of course not. And if it does then I will know there is a god. That's how it works.

I never said there wasn't one. Just that it would be silly go pick one out of a hat and go around believing in him before we had any reason to know he was there.

I may as well add this too. In the case of a few particular gods I can say that 'that god doesn't exist'.

Eq: the god that paints all houses blue every morning doesn't exist. I can tell cos the house isn't blue.

Also no god exists that is all powerful and opposed to suffering, Just looking around proves that one.

But there may be 100s of other gods all over the place for all I know.

I never said there wasn't one - well then, you're not atheist.

I know I'm being a pedant and it really is only a logical distinction that serves to confuse rather than provide clarity. I agree with you, in my mind there is enough evidence to prove there is certainly no Abrahamic god as described in the bible et al

Honestly I know what you mean, but the common usage has changed for those words. If I say agnostic then people think I'm not sure what I think. Or maybe that I'm coming around.