Here’s some context in which a judge seems to rule in the affirmative – at least if you’re Muslim.

 

Apparently, it is no longer a crime for Muslims to assault ignorant American infidels, so you better watch what you say in public. At least this is what Judge Mark Martin’s recent decision seems to indicate after atheist Halloween-goer Ernest Perce was assaulted by Talaag Elbayomy for dressing up as Zombie Muhammad.

 

So. What do you think? Impeach the judge? Or open season on atheists and other infidels? Although one can see that getting out of hand ....

getting out of hand

 

      The concept of fighting over religion is really the most stupid thing anyone can do I think that there are two rocks on this planet that ought to be ground into dust.

The concept of fighting over religion is really the most stupid thing anyone can do

 

Definitely not very rational. But then again very few have ever accused humanity of an excess of rationality; still little children in many ways deeply offended at being disabused of our illusions, at being told there really is no Santa Claus.

 

And, quite regrettably and most problematically, children with their fingers on the triggers of some very large guns ....

Are these quotes not from stupid men?   :-)

For simplicity, I like my variation of this one:
  "Faith means not wanting to know what is true, or imagining what you want to be true." [Nietzsche and pk712]

Faith is simply a need to go beyond the knowable. 
Sometimes it's practical to have faith, e.g., when making a lane change on a freeway without 100% certainty.
However, having 99% knowledge and using 1% "intuition" (based on experience) is the next best thing if one does not want to be completely agnostic ... or drive in the same lane from A to Z.

>"open season on atheists and other infidels?"<
-----------

That is a scary thought that goes way back to my childhood ...
   "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words & beliefs may KILL me".

Since our life, and our family's welfare is at stake here, this is an extremely important issue.
If necessary, war is required to wipe out the dangerous ignorant threats, followed by scientific education ...

Since our life, and our family's welfare is at stake here, this is an extremely important issue. [Post #9]

 

Yes, I quite agree that it is a extremely important issue and one that more people should be taking an active role in. Although it is a rather broad one with a great many ethical and scientific principles in play.

 

But I think a salient feature is the scope of free speech and the degree to which our beliefs are to be protected from criticism and mockery by others. Muslims, of course, are trying to promote various blasphemy laws – which I really don’t think are not going to fly at all regardless of how much they huff and puff – and think they are entitled to commit murder and mayhem if people publish cartoons, or wear costumes, criticizing or mocking their religion and prophet.

 

And relative to the latter, I’ve just finished reading Ibn Warraq’s Why I Am Not a Muslim – echoing Bertrand Russell’s similar tome on Christianity – in which he argues, and rather persuasively, that Islam is inherently and intrinsically antithetical and inimical to the principles of democracy and universal human rights. If that is even half-ways true then the ramifications of that idea are, or should be, rather far-reaching.

children with their fingers on the triggers of some very large guns

 

      A very stupid thing for a parent, of any religion, to do is let their children, or the deviants who entice them, decide what is right and wrong. Being a parent is not being buddies with your children, parents who do that never grew up enough to take the responsibility for children. It's easy to have children, it's hard to be a father.

A very stupid thing for a parent, of any religion, to do is let their children, or the deviants who entice them, decide what is right and wrong. [Post #11]

 

Quite agree. Part of my reason for arguing that parents shouldn’t have any right to indoctrinate their children in a particular religion – or to allow various “faith-based” schools to do likewise.

 

It's easy to have children, it's hard to be a father.

 

Yes, I quite agree – at least to do a good job at it – or at being a mother. I seem to recollect that Obama made some comments along the line of criticizing the black community for the disproportionate number of single parent homes headed by women therein.

 

Just out of curiosity, you mentioned in #2 about “two rocks that ought to be ground to dust”: which would those be? Literally speaking I see the Black Stone of Islam being one of them, but I can’t see an analogous one for Christianity. Although, metaphorically speaking, I think the Bible and the Quran can easily qualify, at least as far as their literal interpretations go, and may have been what you had in mind. On which I think T.H. Huxley had, as usual, something of some degree of relevance and profundity:

 

The truth is that the pretension to infallibility, by whomsoever made, has done endless mischief; with impartial malignity it has proved a curse, alike to those who have made it and those who have accepted it; and its most baneful shape is book infallibility. For sacerdotal corporations and schools of philosophy are able, under due compulsion of opinion, to retreat from positions that have become untenable; while the dead hand of a book sets and stiffens, amidst texts and formulae, until it becomes a mere petrifaction, fit only for that function of stumbling block, which it so admirably performs. Wherever bibliolatry has prevailed, bigotry and cruelty have accompanied it. It lies at the root of the deep-seated, sometimes disguised, but never absent, antagonism of all the varieties of ecclesiasticism to the freedom of thought and to the spirit of scientific investigation. For those who look upon ignorance as one of the chief sources of evil; and hold veracity, not merely in act, but in thought, to be the one condition of true progress, whether moral or intellectual, it is clear that the biblical idol must go the way of all other idols. Of infallibility, in all shapes, lay or clerical, it is needful to iterate with more than Catonic pertinacity, Delenda est. —T. H, Huxley, Science and Hebrew Tradition

Ok to assault those who insult your religion?
============================================================================================


Islam defines merely being non-Muslim as an insult to Islam. This is part of what I call "religionism" (the worship of religion itself instead of God).

By definition, a religion is an organized system of worshiping a deity.

My point is that "religionists" are worshiping that system rather than the deity itself.

[Edit & repost #15]

 

Islam defines merely being non-Muslim as an insult to Islam. [Post #13]

 

Generally agree with you there – in effect anyway. Seems that all Muslims – at least to the extent that they accept the literal truth of the Quran – are going to be buying into – tacitly or explicitly – its command to “kill all unbelievers” and into its rejection of the Christian Trinity and of any pagan deities – along with an expectation that those people are going to be tortured in hell forever. It really is a particularly savage and barbaric religion.   

 

This is part of what I call "religionism" (the worship of religion itself instead of God).

 

Not quite sure what you mean by “religionism”, although I’ll agree that many of them seem to be heavy on the idolatry even if that presumes the existence of God to begin with – which seems to be the point in question. But there is sort of a group dynamic, a group-think in play in all or almost all religions – a case of “in-group morality and out-group hostility” that serves to define the groups themselves. Ibn Warraq in his Why I Am Not a Muslim [highly recommended] quotes a number of sources who argue – somewhat credibly I think – that Muhammad simply chose the restriction against eating pork, largely as a method of differentiating his “gang” from the Christian one.

but I can’t see an analogous one for Christianity

 

      I'm not one to bring down any religion but I would gladly bring down a point for their argument. The second rock is not Christian at all. The second one is under the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. The only Christian rock that I could think of would be Peter. Jerusalem had been a fighting point for Dark Age Christians but that was just fear of the different. I think we have out grown that argument; most of us at least.

Islam defines merely being non-Muslim as an insult to Islam

 

      While I think that Islam is a danger to thought, you should read the Koran before you make claims like this. They believe that non-Muslims are self deluded and Muslims have the duty to enlighten them using arguments of value. No where in the Koran does it speak of violence except as in return of violence. Even Sura #9 explains that the sword is used to defend not convert. Islamic conversion is a personal thing not what some idiots say in some radical Mosque.

 

      I have underlined the word read because the only real way to experience the Koran is to listen to its recitation. But, you have to be able to understand Arabic for that.

 

      Note on the Koran;

      Over the years I have heard recitations of the Koran. While I don't understand what is being said the recitation itself is executed using a melodic voice. There are recordings of recitations on-line.