Resist theocratic bullying and the superstitions that underlie it. - Christopher Hitchens

[RadiationTherapy]

I will always support free speech, creativity, and freedom of expression. No matter how stupid and offensive the video was, I will not kowtow to those who threaten and perform violence in the name of their personal, private religion because of videos and cartoons. This is nonsense.

[Lucy Goosey]

1. Thanks for posting this

I agree

[slackmaster]

2. Kicking. Good stuff.

[RadiationTherapy]

3. Families are grieving because of the arrogant, disgusting, nonsensical notion

that one has the right to kill when offended.

[RadiationTherapy]

4. Kick for Hitch. An eloquent warrior who struggled against the imperial religions who

wish to move their clumsy beliefs into our schools, governments, and civilization using violence.

[treestar]

5. No one said to kowtow to them

But that if you play with fire, there are people who don't care what the law is and what your rights are, there's no reason to provoke them, especially if they kill someone else.

[RadiationTherapy]

6. Nonsense. THEY are murderers and deserve no accommodation by civilization whatsoever.

I refuse to concede one inch of civilization to a group of backward, animalistic, zealots who can't keep their own religion from being splattered with blood.

"If you play with fire..." what are you implying here? That we concede ground to an imperialist religion who treats humans as worthy sacrifices for pretend offenses. No. Not an inch.

[treestar]

7. Well we don't kowtow to them by not trying to inflame them?

Whether they are wrong or not, they are going to react their way.

I mean you can say they are wrong if they kill you after you make fun of Mohamed in the middle of downtown Riyadh. But you were a fool for doing it. You consider it kowtowing to them if you don't do that what you are in the middle of Saudi Arabia? If you had the nerve to go there you'd consider it your duty to test them?

[MNBrewer]

12. But they don't stop there!

They don't just want to murder people for "insulting the Prophet" in the middle of downtown Riyadh, but in the middle of downtown Copenhagen, or London, or Rome, or Paris, or New York, or Minneapolis, or Peoria! It's a world-wide reign of terror.

[RadiationTherapy]

16. They are an imperial religion who tries to control people through ridiculous violent tantrums.

And, as Hitchens often noted, one can try and blame it on fundamentalists, but it is part of their doctrine and codified in their religious texts.

[MNBrewer]

19. They sentence people to death for doing frikkin' magic shows, for goodness sake

Why are we not treating these people like the morons they are?

[RadiationTherapy]

13. No one "made fun of mohammed in downtown Riyadh." What an absurd analogy.

Murdering is wrong and to give them a pass because they were "inflamed" or whatever is fucking nonsense. Oh, and to be clear, by "giving them a pass" I mean "blaming the videographers in any way at all." I live in a country where our police defend KKK parades because freedom of expression is more important and more civilized than making restrictions on expression. I personally will not tolerate the ridiculous violence from backwards religious nutjobs and I will defend my greatest enemy's right to produce offensive (non-exploitative) material to the very end.

[Amimnoch]

17. So, basically, if Christians in this country start killing people

every time something like artistic expression portrays a cross or that thingy they were up in arms about a while back (some artistic thingy, i don't care enough about the details to google it). Or whenever Christ is portrayed negatively in things like Southpark, Family guy, or the last temptation of Christ..

If they stopped complaining about stuff like that and actually started killing people whenever someone portrayed Christ in some negative way.. You'd support going after the film producers? Really??

NO NO NO NO NO! I totally agree with the OP here. NO allowing fucked up religious fanatics to dictate what is/isn't acceptable material for movies. No matter what religion it is.

AND, no allowing fucked up Christian fanatics in this country to use this as yet another one of their fucked up excuses to spread hate on >1.5 billion people on the planet.

[4th law of robotics]

21. I think it's safe to say that Christianity is in a better place today

than it was 1000 years ago.

Did it get there by being coddled? By never facing criticism or mockery? By being told it was perfectly valid and everything about it was great?

Of course not.

It was forced to confront it excesses and it's extremists by people constantly drawing attention to those examples.


Why would islam be any different?

[hifiguy]

8. Hitchens was a tireless defender of rationality

against superstitious BS. He is missed.

[JRLeft]

9. Religion is a trauma to the planet.

[MNBrewer]

10. Don't offend me, or I'll kill you.

That's basically what it boils down to. Primitive superstition.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. Hitch could be an annoying, pompous, drunken git...

But on these matters, dude was spot fucking on.

[MNBrewer]

14. He was a monumental intellect

and when he was right, he was spectacularly right, but when wrong, spectacularly wrong.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. Agreed.

He is, to say again, missed.

[RadiationTherapy]

18. To listen to him debate once is worth dozens of hours of study of rhetoric and philosophy.

[MNBrewer]

20. I especially like how he doesn't allow the idea that deference must be paid to the delicate

sensibilities of muslims especially in the face of threats of violence.