Friday, October 20, 2006

More depth on Insulting Islam

My brother read my blog. He told me subsequently that I should start a new blog for everything I write that is serious to distance it from what I have on this blog that is quite frankly unequivocally insulting. He thinks that by confusing the two styles I am significantly undermining my objective of actually promoting awareness and concern of an essentially valid and serious issue. I have little doubt that absolutely every sane and reasonable person will think that he is absolutely right. I certainly understand his concern and I am even tempted to agree with him myself. But I don’t.

I have no desire, and in fact believe I would have no capability, to become a politician. I do see a similarity between politics and blogging when it comes to serious matters and I think I can learn a great deal from politicians that will help me in what it is I am trying to do. After all, politicians are often embroiled in controversy. They are supported by some, attacked by others and they must play a constant game of maintaining boundaries between different issues, their personal life and feelings, and the passions of the mob. Indeed, there must be much I can learn.

But should I emulate?

I am not a politician and I am not at the whim of their self imposed constraints. They pretend to be what they are not and we, the mob, simultaneously demand it and yet enthusiastically attack them when they turn out to be real people after all. It doesn’t actually matter if I offend someone. I am not looking for their vote. Neither is it in my interests to sanitise my comments to pander to the morality of those that may discover them. Why should I pretend that I am satisfied to say that I disapprove of Islam, or any other religion or opinion, when I am perfectly free to use the word "fuck"? Perhaps to maintain a level of mature debate?

But by whose definition of maturity are these constraints derived? What validity is there in imposing essentially irrelevant constraint? Does such constraint make a valid assertion more valid or an invalid assertion less valid? I fail to see a connection in the facts of the matter and instead I suggest that the connection is purely a prejudice in the mind of the reader who expects politics whenever anything serious is discussed. Politics, and politicians, are an expression of the unrealistic and irrational desire to create a reality of discussion and opinion that clearly doesn’t actually exist. Why else do we take such interest in exposing the contradiction between our political expectations and the actual lives of our politicians?

I believe that Islam, Christianity and in fact all religions, ideologies and ideas are not only open to insult and ridicule but in fact require it. The line that is drawn between acceptable criticism and unacceptable insult is so arbitrary as to be utterly meaningless. It is also a line that historically has been drawn by those with the most interest in protecting their otherwise vulnerable ideas.

There is a name for this line when it comes to religion. It is called blasphemy. Those that have, according to the opinion of others, crossed that line have traditionally paid an extremely high price. Often, they have and continue to pay with their lives.

"Behead those that insult Islam"

This is the statement of intent of an individual who has a very strong idea about where the line is drawn. It is a statement from someone that demands that absolutely everybody agree with him and that if they don’t then they should be murdered. By itself such a statement requires a new word to describe it. It is not just bigotry. It is bigotry with a genocidal lust. It is an insult beyond comparison to those that simply disagree. Why should I let this hypocrite draw my line for me? Why should I even acknowledge his line and try to tiptoe around it the best I can? I am not a politician after all. I have no interest in attempting to appear perfect and I am certainly not seeking this man’s vote.

But isn’t it just invalid to fling an insult when I could have voiced my disagreement with less offensive words? Of course not. The offence is not in the word I choose but in the opinion I express. The offence is not the language – it is the opposition. It is the fact that I oppose this mans world view. I oppose his beliefs. And if he wants to cut my head off for disagreeing with him then I see no reason to censor my opposition by restricting it to words my mother would be pleased for me to use. Fuck him. Is it not clear from those two words that I will not submit to politicking with this mans madness regardless of his threats?

Fuck is an extremely useful word within the English language. It has so many uses and meanings that it’s quite possibly the most versatile word that we have so far coined. And in each of those uses there is an intensity of expression. It is as though we can condense an entire diatribe into one singular word.

Fuck Islam.

Is there anybody that doesn’t know what I mean when I say that? Do I mean it also to simultaneously convey all of my reasoning? Certainly not. But it certainly does convey my opposition and its strength. It clearly states that I am opposed and it does it in a way that cannot be side stepped, re-politicked or down played. It is a very committed statement; both forcefully clear and economically concise. And further more, it demonstrates what fanatical (scripturally literalist) Muslims need to know. The attempt to clamp freedom of speech will be resisted. The requirement that all others agree and adopt the same beliefs will be denied. There are those that have absolutely no respect, none at all, for how seriously you take the myths of your sky faerie and who object to being required to pretend they respect it at all.

I am one of those people. I do not respect religious faith at all. I will not pretend to respect faith any more than I would pretend to respect the intentions of someone who wants to rape my daughter (or anybodies daughter for that matter).

If it is labelled as hate speech then so be it. I call it free speech and the day when it is accepted as such can only come faster if more people stop pretending to be the fantasy ideal of a politician and start speaking openly and frankly about what they consider important. In other words, I think it benefits all of us if extreme line drawers get used to having their lines extremely crossed.

So I will not separate serious from insulting. The difference is entirely arbitrary and solely in the mind of the reader. I am not writing to please or offend. I am writing what I think and what I feel.

Fuck Islam. Fuck Christianity. Fuck Judaism, Fuck Hinduism - the list goes on and on.

Fuck Communism. Fuck racism. Fuck sexism – on and on and on.

The rest of this blog will cover some of the reasons why I choose one of the English languages most versatile words as a summary for everything I have learned. But "fuck" will stay and if you don’t like it or can’t accept that serious issues can be expressed with what is so irrationally categorized "foul language", then I hope I make myself clear when I invite you to fuck off.

Or should I translate that into language that means the same but conforms to your prejudice against certain words?

If you enjoyed this article please feel free to digg it down below.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

CD,

Glad to see you are no longer exclusive in your condemnation.

Do you see any problem with condemning religious faith in others when you seem to have a faith in reason?

BDE

chooseDoubt said...

There is no equivalence between faith and reason. To suggest that faith in reason is necessary to support reason is both a misuse of the word faith and a misunderstanding of the concept of reason as it applies to rationality – logical thought.

Faith, according the dictionary I have open in front of me, is belief without proof. Reason is self proving, which I will come to in a moment, but it is also distinctly different to faith because faith is focussed to a specific conclusion determined with no reliance on or causal dependence upon the facts. Reason, as logical thought, is not concerned with a specific conclusion. Reason, is a methodology of determining whatever the valid conclusion may be without loyalty and without any need for belief yet absolute dependence upon the facts.

Reason is also self-proving, thus removing the requirement for belief when a conclusion is produced. The process of reasoning by logical thought, based upon evidence, has been demonstrated many millions of times to work. It is a method of thought that can be applied to deduction that has proven itself repeatedly and thus our knowledge has constantly been enhanced by the application of reason to questions and problems. If reason didn’t work, if it was unreliable, then there would also be many millions of failures and this simply has not happened. History is full of examples where someone as reasoned incorrectly and the conclusions that they reached have been shown to be invalid and contrary to the facts. Their conclusions have not been shown to be invalid by faith, but by superior reasoning - by someone connecting the dots of evidence in the correct way that the answer, or at least the fallacy of the previous answer, is revealed.

Reason is thus tested and the result is that it works. To "believe" in reason is the same as believing in mathematics. Belief is irrelevant, the results invariably demonstrate the validity of the process for determining conclusions unlike faith which declares the conclusion with no deterministic evidence or support.


So, no, I see no problem in condemning faith. I have no faith. Where I am ignorant then I am ignorant and having faith that I know the answer anyway is absurd.

Vile Blasphemer said...

Viva la Blasphemy!

Baconeater said...

This is your God damn blog and you should do and say whatever the fuck you want to.

One thing though, lose the black background, it is a turnoff to readers. I have to highlight your posts and they still are hard to read.

Other than that, let your mood dictate whatever the hell you post.

Republidan said...

O hells, just don't make it a white backround with a colored font. Personally I like the black and since you spent as much time as you did with the new layout....

Your blog is your blog. Your ideas stand by the merrit of their argument and not by the terms in which they are couched. Fuck incompent idiots who use linguistic preferences and childish simpliticity to filter out their intake of another's thoughts.

Anonymous said...

CD,

Of course you have faith; faith in reason, faith in your senses, faith in yourself. If you had no faith you would be paralyzed by fear.

You should go back to first principles and re-read your Descartes. All we can really know is cogito ergo sum; all else is merely supposition.

You are a slave to the dogma of reason which ultimately is as dangerous as those who have faith in the divine.

Republidan - what are you trying to say? Debate and argument have no validity? If you believe something and I come up with a series of arguments that counters your belief am I an "incompent idiots who use linguistic preferences and childish simpliticity" or are you just a sore loser ;)

BDE

Republidan said...

Ummm no... actually I said the exact opposite. I said that somebody is acting stupidly if they discard a reasonable argument BECAUSE it doesn't meet their standards of speech. What Choose was saying is that his brother is worried people won't take his serious posts seriously because he says "fuck" or "shit" in them. I'm saying that it's ignorant to base your view of an argument because somebody has a "potty mouth". Fuck 'em.

So again, let ideas stand by their own merit and not assume the amount of cuss words used to express them has anything to do with their validity.

Simon said...

Yeah, don't legitimise religion by taking it seriously.

chooseDoubt said...

BDE,

You are misusing the word "faith". Look it up in the dictionary and you will notice that it cannot be applied to any belief or assumption that is based on evidence. You are saying I have faith when what I really have is suspicion based upon evidence. It's a very big difference indeed.

It's the difference between deduction and delusion.

chooseDoubt said...

Republidan and Simon

Absolutely right. Being respectful of religion is sort of like the respecting your elders blanket rule that many people still think is right idea. Plenty of old people are idiots and uneducated who have made and continue to make dubious moral choices, often themselves based upon a religious interpretation. Plenty of old people are paedophiles, murderers, rapists, racists, thieves, brutes and any other dodgy demographic you can think of. Respect, surely, should be based upon your admiration of individual merit.

Some old people are awful people. All religions are nonsense and some of them are violent nonsense. I'll give the respect I consider them due.

Republidan said...

Agreed. However, I would like to point out that disagreement doesn't automatically imply that somebody is an asshole or an idiot. I'm a theist, your an atheist... I neither think your a dick or look down on you. Hopefully you don't think that way about all the people in my position even though a whole helluva lot of us tend to be.

Red Tulips said...

Choosedoubt:

One thing you forget: Hinduism is not a monolith, and there are strains of Hinduism that actually embrace atheism. Hinduism has no set scripture that must be followed in order to be a Hindu (one can even be Hindu and not believe in the Bagavad Gita), and I feel cannot be cast with the broad brush you cast the other faiths, given that.

chooseDoubt said...

Hi Red Tulips,

You've lost me there. I am not aware of any non-theistic strains of Hinduism. I don't doubt what you say, I'd just appreciate some links I could follow to learn more.

I've spent quite a bit of time living and working in India but I never encountered or even heard of such a strain. There are some atheists. Some have been very prominent such as Jawaharlal Nehru who said of his own country, "No country or people who are slaves to dogma and dogmatic mentality can progress."

Booty Be Gone said...

for the sake of intelligent life forms on earth, Pleaseeeeeee go and education yourself. Your ignorance is astounding. I would suggest/recommend at least a year taking a few anthropolgy papers, a couple in thelogy and perhaps a couple in some field of social sciene.
I note you are very good at sprouting copious amounts of text that basically say nothing.
Once you have actually educated yourself in some minor way you may at least safe those around you from what must be a very painful experience.

Anonymous said...

allahe 'll punish you then you'll regret what you've written in this blog I think that having ideas is personnal but publishing on a blog is not wise... One day you'll regret
Na3lato allhe 3alayka

chooseDoubt said...

Nihad,

Allah doesn't exist. You are wasting your life. You have an amazing gift. You have a power that no one on this planet had ten years ago. You have access to a fair percentage of all the knowledge that our species has struggled to acquire through millenia of ignorance and superstition and it's all free and it's all virtually instant. Use that gift and set your mind free from the shackles of ignorance your forefathers endured.

I make no apology. I'll write what I think. Your fictional god punishes thoughts so what difference does it make to the punishment you believe awaits me if I write my thoughts? None whatsoever, unless of course your comment is intended as a threat? If it is a threat, what makes you think your threats would scare me if your god's threats do not?

You might like to study your religion. In numerous verses in the Koran it states quite clearly that Allah makes unbelievers as unbelievers, they do not make themselves. Who are you to challenge the will of your imaginary slave master?

Yahweh will punish you. Zues will punish you. Wenabohzo will punish you. Countless other imaginary gods will punish you according to the beliefs of those still lost in each delusion. I place the threat of Allah with the threat alongside the threats of each and every one of these insults to the true complexity and scale of the universe. They mean nothing to me except a tragic reminder of the lowly stupidity that some are prepared to accept as truth.

Many would say "Go fuck yourself" to your threatening message. Instead I say go educate yourself. Educate yourself and understand that those that force their views on you do so because their views require force because they lack the natural strength of reason. Good luck.