They just don't get it, do they?

[mdlbear]

Catholic News Service: Vatican says freedom of expression does not mean offending religions

The Vatican, commenting on a series of satirical newspaper cartoons that have outraged Muslims, said freedom of expression does not include the right to offend religious sentiments.

At the same time, the Vatican said, violent reactions are equally deplorable.

"Intolerance -- wherever it comes from, whether real or verbal, action or reaction -- always constitutes a serious threat to peace," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement Feb. 4.

(From The Volokh Conspiracy by way of DocBug.)

Bad church: no cookie. Any deity that can't handle satire, scholarly scrutiny, scientific facts, and even consumer complaints is obviously not omniscient, not omnipotent, and in fact has a serious inferiority complex. The Jews have been poking fun at, studying, and even complaining about (and to) their deity for thousands of years, and He apparently hasn't abandoned them yet. Any religion that can't handle satire, scrutiny, hard facts, and skepticism is clearly inhabiting a fantasy world of its own making.

And any religion that claims to have a corner on religious truth, in spite of the obvious fact that every other religion has claims of roughly equal validity, has a very high probabability of being simply wrong. That's the essence of fanaticism, folks -- being so certain of one's own beliefs that you can use them to justify any action, no matter how evil. It's not the only excuse for terrorism, to be sure, but it's a common one.

Comments

[mithriltabby]

And in the context of the complete set of cartoons, we see free speech in action: a decent chunk of them are critical of the newspaper asking for the cartoons in the first place. This is free speech in action. If you see someone using their freedom of speech to commit blasphemy, that lets you know to stand well clear of them if you’re expecting a thunderbolt to strike them down. (Which is my translation into this issue for my opposition to amending the Constitution to allow flag-burning to be banned: “I want to know which people are willing to take a match to Old Glory so I know who’s too extreme for my taste.”)