We Must Offend Religion More: Tolerance of Ancient Myths is Harmful

If we look at the horrors being done by ISIS in the Middle East, the constant homophobia disseminated from pulpits daily, and even a fair amount of racism in America, there is one common thread: religion and beliefs based on ancient myths and writings of individuals who were totally ignorant about almost every aspect of modern knowledge, both scientific, medical and in the realm of mental health.  Despite the fact that the unknown authors of the Bible and the falsely honored Prophet Mohammed" were utterly ignorant of knowledge that is the base of everyday life and modern technology, their rants and ravings are given undeserved deference - as are those who cling to, if not openly embrace, ignorance.  A lengthy piece in Salon makes the case that we need to offend religion and the religious more if we are to stop the harm that often seems to be the principal fruit of religion.  Here are highlights:

“Yes, it is freedom of speech, but,” said Inna Shevchenko, the 24-year-old leader of the topless, fiercely atheist activist group Femen in France.  On Feb. 14 she was addressing the conference on art, blasphemy and freedom of expression held at the Krudttønden, a café and cultural center in Copenhagen.  She continued.  “Why do we still say ‘but’ when we…”

A sustained barrage of automatic gunfire interrupted her.  She, the Swedish cartoonist with her onstage, Lars Vilks (famous for his 2007 drawings of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked deadly riots in the Islamic world), and much of the audience hurled themselves to the floor before escaping through the building’s rear exit.  The hooded terrorist assailant, a 22-year-old Danish citizen of Arab descent . . . 

The attacker’s primary target was probably Vilks, but he would have rejoiced at the chance to get Shevchenko, too.  After all, Femen has pronounced religion – in particular, Islam — a bane on women’s rights and has carried out a number of widely publicized, bare-breasted protests against it, burning the Salafist flag in front of the Great Mosque in Paris . . .

The morning after the Copenhagen assault I spoke with Shevchenko by Skype.  Still in the Danish capital, she had spent much of the night at the police station, and had slept poorly after returning to her hotel.  Yet she was calm and lucid, determined to continue with Femen’s fight against religion.  This fight had turned extremely personal for her even before Copenhagen: She lost 12 friends in the Charlie Hebdo massacre last month in Paris, where she lives as a political refugee.

If we have free speech only up to where we might hurt someone’s feelings, then it isn’t free.  ‘You have freedom of speech, just don’t offend,’ people tell me.  Those who say this are only trying to shut down our freedoms.  If we cede to this, we play their game.  Now that offends me.”

In the month between the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the attack in Copenhagen, I both read and heard a number of arguments that in essence blame the artists for their own deaths.  Most, in fact, start with “I believe in freedom of speech, but  . . .”

No Western constitution or legal code guarantees citizens the right to go about life free from offense.  Laws provide for freedom of expression (with some restrictions, especially regarding state security, hate crime and incitement to violence), but they cannot forbid potentially offensive expression without destroying the very right they are meant to protect.  

To devout Muslims, the sight of uncovered women and the serving of pork and alcoholic beverages cause offense.  Devout Hindus would certainly find beef offensive.  Devout Catholics could draw up their own list, and Jews, another.  In short, a lot of things might offend a great number of people all over the place.  In a world ever more connected by the Internet . . . . there is no way to guard against offending someone, somewhere.  We should not be obligated to take into account a work’s potential for inciting murderous mass tantrums in faraway lands or slaughter at home when evaluating it for publication.

Steadfast belief in the inerrancy of religious dogma, coupled with (at times fanatically held) convictions that the dogma’s many mandates are meant to apply to all humanity, clash with principles of secular governance and Enlightenment-era precepts that oblige us, at least ideally, to sort out our problems relying on reason, consensus and law.  . . . . We must unabashedly stand by reason, the rule of law, and secularism.

Our enduring deference to all religions, despite their verifiably phony explanations for the origins of the cosmos and our species, to say nothing of their toxic preachments, only furthers their survival.  We need not less but more frank talk about faith.

Concepts of freedom of expression and the laws designed to protect it were born in Europe’s blood-soaked history of interfaith warfare, mostly between Catholics and Protestants.  The (atheistic) French Revolution aimed to “de-Christianize” France in order to smash the (temporal, wealth-based) stranglehold the Catholic Church had on the country.  

The Founding Fathers well knew how the state could use religion against the people; hence, the First Amendment safeguards both freedom of speech and freedom of religion by forbidding Congress to enact laws abridging the exercise of either.  The Abrahamic faiths have never been simply matters of conscience; they have always served as weapons to impose control, especially over women and their bodies, sexual minorities and education.  Weapons need to be kept under lock and key, or better yet, eliminated. 

Attempts to shield religions from censure in the face of overwhelming evidence – President Obama leads the pack of invertebrate Western politicians doing this — amount to nothing more than pandering acceptance of ancient myths, harmful ideas and the increasingly gruesome violence to which they often lead.  Ideologies merit no a priori respect; people do.

[W]e are engaged in a struggle for the soul of our Enlightenment civilization.  Shevchenko said as much.  . . . To continue accepting quisling pseudo-justifications for — or sophistic, à la Reza Aslan, misdiagnoses of — the role of Islam in motivating terrorism throughout the world presages one thing: We will lose.