Freedom to Engage in Offensive Speech

A few years ago Todd & Tyler, Omaha morning radio personalities, made the statement that "Muslims can't take a joke". It seems like everyone else can be the butt of jokes, but that many Muslims take it more seriously that Christians, Buddhists, Jews or (in this political season) Mormons.

But why are we surprised that this kind of violence takes place? Much of the Middle East is a toxic combination of lack of education, poverty, anger at Israel for transgressions real and imagined, anger at the United States and other western nations, also for transgressions real and imagined, a majority following a dogmatic religion, would-be "leaders" not shy about exploiting all of these things for their own advantage and almost instantaneous communication.

In the United States of the twenty-first century we are used to freedom of speech. We have elevated it (and rightly so in my view) to the status of a self-evident right, which is not really open to debate any more. What we have evidently forgotten is that the First Amendment to the Constitution forbids government from (among other things) abridging freedom of speech, it does not suggest that speech should be consequence-free. We have however evolved in our customs and conventions to the point where, not only do we prohibit the government from limiting our freedom to express ourselves, but now implicit in that right is that we are protected from the consequences of our speech.  For example, one might be offended at an insult that someone made about one's sister and respond by beating up the other guy. The offendee who responded with violence would be subject to arrest and prosecution. There was a time when such words would be considered ample justification for the administration of a good beating. But even today, despite legal ramifications, many feel that violence is a justifiable answer to offensive speech. Several months ago I read an article about a town's response to the idiots from Westboro Baptist Church in Wichita, the group that regularly protests at the funerals of the military. Part of the response involved beating up a few of the Westboro members at a local gas station. I wasn't completely sure about the veracity of the article (What? Facebook is sometimes wrong?) but several people who I know expressed admiration for those who beat up the protesters. I was (figuratively) shouted down for expressing the opinion that responding to speech with violence was wrong.

But by and large, despite the reversion to violent response at times, our national consensus is that protecting our own right to freedom of speech (and religion, which goes hand in hand with free speech rights) justifies allowing speech that we disagree with or which offends us. We subscribe to the theory of the slippery slope, that if we empower the government to restrict the other guy's speech or religion, what's to stop it from restricting our speech and religious observance?

In some ways the Muslims who react violently to words are at a point similar to medieval Europe where the Catholic Church ruled all and any deviation from approved doctrine was called heresy and punishable by death. In those days church and state were one - and the First Amendment was centuries from even being conceived -  not so different from some Middle Eastern countries - and even those who are not officially Muslim (i.e. Koranic law is the law of the land) there are significant portions of the population that would be happy if that were the case.

Regarding the recent lethal uprisings in Libya, Egypt, Yemen and other places, obviously the notion of freedom of speech as understood in the United States is not considered a good thing there. Without being insulting or patronizing, I don't think they've really thought it through. Even in hypothetical 100% Muslim country, there are different sects of Islam with differing opinions on what makes a true Muslim. Muslims of different sects and various degrees of radicalization routinely declare that other Muslims aren't really Muslims. While the protesting and pillaging hordes want to execute anyone who insults "The Prophet", or at least make such insults legally actionable, they don't take this to the next logical step: what if a rival Muslim group was in power and decreed that their customs, beliefs, mode of dress etc were "insulting to Islam"? While they all think that they agree on what blasphemy is when practiced by non-Muslims, or Westerners, I guarantee you that there is no agreement among the multitude of competing groups about what Islam really means. They would be in for a rude awakening if the harsh measures that they advocate for others were applied to them.

Should people who are offended be legally allowed to protest? Absolutely. That too is a form of speech. Should their anger at perceived insults and affronts to their dignity cause the source of their anger to therefore be proscribed? Absolutely not. In my view this goes beyond differences in culture and religion. As idiotic and provocative as the video in question apparently was, outlawing it sends us down a dangerous path that would take us backward as well as forward.

Equinox

Today was not the Autumn Equinox. The day where light and dark are perfectly balanced is a couple of days off, but I chose to observe it today. What does he mean: "observe it?" one might ask. As part of my spirituality I count as significant, not birthdays of gods or prophets, or commemorations of great events, but the progression, the turning of the Wheel of the Year. The rhythms of nature, celestial and terrestrial, mark for me points of remembrance and reflection, meditation and pondering of the future, striving and acceptance. As do many others, I recognize eight points throughout the year that merit attention. My personal rituals involve finding one of the "wild" areas and walking slowly through it, allowing the illusion of being immersed in the wilderness connect me to The Other, and today I have chosen, as I sip the last of the Silver Tip Oolong tea and burn sticks of dragon's blood and sandalwood incense, to talk a little bit about it.

Spiritual experiences, including my own, are subjective and hold no truth that can be grafted onto any other person, or even applied to myself at any other time. The "map" that I use to connect and categorize, catalog and characterize, classify and compartmentalize, changes from year to year and sometimes from day to day. This framework arises from my own experience with the divine and my own vision and interpretation of it. Of course actively seeking out contact with the gods is not without risk, but it is also an adventure with great rewards.

Walking in a somewhat natural area, if one has ears to hear and the desire to know can expose one to a touch of the sacred; not just light and life, but dark and death and every place in and on the great cycle that lies in between. I often choose the sunrise or sunset time for these observances to better feel the contrast - for we are not all light, nor all dark; our life is not endless in this form, but death is part of the wheel as well.

Dá fhada an lá tagann an tráthnóna.

No matter how long the day, the night still comes

Not Tolerating Intolerance...Isn't That Also Intolerance?

No.

Oh, I should say more? Alright, I think I will!

One of the statements that one hears from time to time is that those who oppose some form of intolerance, or prejudice, are themselves intolerant. An example of one form of this position is that when people protest laws that discriminate against or fail to provide equal protection for a minority group. The protesters criticize those who marginalize their fellow citizens and are accused of being intolerant of those who believe that discrimination is okay or even of attempting to prevent them from exercising their First Amendment rights. Oftentimes the really intolerant ones use religion to justify their position that some of us should not have the same rights and protections as the rest of us, throwing back the accusation that those who protest should be tolerant of their (intolerant) beliefs. The First Amendment argument is equally illogical. Leaving aside for a moment that the First Amendment prohibits the government from limiting speech, there is nothing, anywhere, that gives people's opinions immunity from criticism. Offensive opinions should be criticized, even if they are wearing religious garb. Just because an opinion is based on some "holy" book, doesn't mean that it is protected from disagreement. If you want to hold the opinion that some find offensive, be prepared for people to disagree, verbally...out loud. An argument that some people who give their discrimination a religious veneer is that they should be allowed to discriminate against people who they disapprove of, for instance, a landlord who feels that his religious liberty is infringed upon by being forced to rent to homosexuals. Would that same landlord be alright with a landlord who discriminated against Christians? Or if the Defense of Marriage Act was written so that Christians were prohibited from marrying?

The difference, as I see it, is that when you are intolerant of other people, and advocate that their rights be proscribed, or suggest that the laws protecting every other citizen do not apply to them, that is bad intolerance. It is perfectly ethical to refuse to tolerate those who wish to limit the rights and privileges of others, that's good intolerance.

So...yes...but it's acceptable.

Why Do Agnostics Go to Church?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/fashion/an-agnostics-guide-to-marriage.html?pagewanted=all

The link above is to an interesting article in the New York Times this past Sunday - it was the weekly 'Modern Love' column. The writer is an agnostic who knew from age seven that she didn't believe in God but married a guy who, while not a churchgoer or especially religious, did believe in God. neither had a problem with the other's beliefs. Two years into their marriage he changed his mind and decided that he didn't believe in God anymore. Not all that unusual until you get to the last paragraph - the couple has recently become parents for the first time and the lifelong agnostic asks her husband if they should start looking around for a church. Her reasoning is so that they can "...give him some kind of spiritual base...an education of sorts about Christianity so he can have knowledge with which to agree or disagree." There is no resolution in the article, so we don't know if they ultimately decide to start attending a church and "educating their son about Christianity". Now I'm not one of those people who think that parents should shield their children from their own convictions so that one day they might make up their own minds. Children, once they get to a certain age or maturity level will make up their own minds, no matter what their parents believe or don't believe or how vigorously the parents inculcate their points of view into their children's minds. I believe that parents have the responsibility to pass on to their children ethics, morals and standards that will make them good and successful adults some day, whether that is religion or rationalism or something in between.

What puzzles me is that why someone who seems to have no interest in religion in any form seems to think that attending a church or other religious house of worship is the thing to do when life changing events happen. I came across a sermon by a Unitarian-Universalist minister who addresses this very issue. I'll include a link. http://www.uucastine.org/sermons/2010/why-agnostics-go-to-church/ - but his basic point is that they are seeking meaning, just like everyone else. Keep in mind that the Unitarian-Universalists are very inclusive and non-doctrinaire, so if you don't know what you believe, they won't give you a hard time about it.

My own opinion is that there is a huge cultural partiality toward church going as an indicator of morality, despite statistics showing that church attendance is down. People are less likely to attend church than a generation ago, but the residual bias tends to cause people to think that the way to "get one's life together" or clean up one's act is to go to church and be (or act) religious. The number of people that I have known over the years who fall into this category is far from a valid statistical sample, but since I don't believe that I live in a unique bubble that is different than the rest of the world, I suspect that my experiences translate to the larger world.

The assumption inherent in this mindset is that there are two mutually exclusive poles. On one side is the person who is hedonistic, self-centered and living for the day. On the other side is the "good" person, who, of course, goes to church. You can't be a "good" person if you are an atheist, and you're kind of suspect if you are part of a non-Christian religion (although allowances are made for Hindus and Buddhists if they were born oversees or are the children of immigrants - Jews are kind of exempt too, but they have their own problems). The idea that you can "get your life together" while avoiding Jesus is a fairly foreign concept for most people. Of course there are all kinds of self-help books out there where one can learn to turn one's life around without the help of a deity, but they are kind of frowned upon by the mainstream...and a lot of them take work. Could it be that the act of church attendance is a shortcut, a way to become respectable without doing the hard work of actually doing much changing?

Then there's the whole concept of Pascal's Wager - where you are wagering on the existence or non-existence of God. If you wager that he exists and he doesn't, well, you've lost nothing - but if you wager that he doesn't and he does - well, I doubt if I have to spell it out for you. the problem with Pascal's Wager is that it's a false dilemma, two choices are presented when there are actually a plethora of choices. It's not a matter of God vs. No God, but Biblical God, vs. Deist God vs. Hindu pantheon vs. Wiccan God & Goddess vs. Native American spirituality vs. use your imagination! Even if you think you have objective proof that there was/is a creator God...how do you know he takes the form of the local dominant religion?

You don't...