PZ Catches Some Flack

blood.jpgPZ Myers posted a link to a new video, in which a Dutch somebody or other takes a whack at Islam … by showing pictures of beheadings, bombings, etc. You’ve probably read about it by now. The film is called “Fitna,” and does present a pretty harsh picture of Islam.

A substantial number of the commenters interpreted the posting of the link as a racist attack on Muslims, and they jumped on Prof. Myers in the comments with claws out on all four feet.

Those poor, maligned Muslims, can’t catch a break because so many people are so racist, so hateful, and the Muslims are really just downtrodden lovers of peace, blah, blah, blah.

Basically, they misinterpreted what Myers did, and what he said, and overreacted.

Here’s my comment on the thing:

Some of us need to calm down. PZ didn’t post the video here. He posted a LINK to it. Among people who value the free exchange of information and ideas, this is not out of order.

PZ, it’s not only commenters here unhappy with this video, though:

Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist of one of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons of Muhammed, has expressed concerns because his cartoon is used in the film without his permission, a violation of copyright.The Danish Union of Journalists has said it will file a lawsuit on Westergaard’s behalf as he is still in hiding from the death threats against him.

Too funny, huh?

I don’t like Christianity. I think it’s one of the worst things ever to happen to humanity, and the planet Earth.

But considering that I live in this time, long after the Inquisition and such, Islam actually scares me more.

I can’t get away from the fact that it was Muslims – not Christians or Buddhists or Jews or even Scientologists – who flew those planes into the Twin Towers.

All this talk about the film being made by a notorious bigot, or the use of propaganda techniques, I can take that into account and I’m still left with film clips of real atrocities.

Beheading women?? Shee-it, you don’t get THAT act in western religious freak shows. It doesn’t matter who brought it to my attention, or how bad a person he was. The act itself, the fact that it happened at all, is completely disgusting.

Yes, yes, yes, there are millions of wonderful people who also happen to be Muslims. But me being an atheist, I’m pretty sure they’re wonderful people because they’re wonderful people, and NOT because they’re Muslims.

Just as Christianity is good stuff mixed in with poisonous shit, Islam itself is good stuff mixed in with poisonous shit. As it stands today, the poisonous shit in Islam is scarier than the poisonous shit in Christianity.

The fact that lots of people can swallow small doses of the poisonous shit and still function, even still be wonderful people, is testament to the people themselves, and not to Islam, or Christianity.

My dream is that we can have a world in which we recognize that the main goal is GOODNESS itself. And not Goodness arrived at as an accidental byproduct of Religion A, Religion B or Religion C, all with unhealthy helpings of poisonous shit.

Shy away from it as you will, bend over backwards to generously allow for respect for other peoples’ culture, it’s still a mistake to not notice the poisonous shit.

Scream at me as loud as you like that I shouldn’t be afraid of gentle, well-meaning Islam. I still am. Because I can’t help seeing the poisonous shit, and the real-world results of it.

Some of us here don’t seem to understand the difference between “our” religious radicals and “their” religious radicals.

Given their own country, I really believe people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson would have public executions less than five years after taking over, and it would be for stuff like adultery, or being gay.

The difference is this: In the west, we don’t let them.

In the west, it’s not just the common Christians who have to be nice people. In the west, even the radical fundamentalist Christians have to be nice. We place sharp limits on their hate speech, on their hectoring others to go out and kill. Falwell and Robertson said some ugly stuff in their time, but neither of them dared actually encourage people to go out and murder unbelievers.

Yeah, we’ve had some rogue Christians who’ve shot doctors at women’s health care clinics. And you know what we did? We put them in prison.

We have Christian parents killing their sick kids by praying over them instead of getting them to doctors. That act inspires almost universal horror here, and triggers the intervention of doctors, police and judges. It gets reported as shock news – news stories that are framed from the get-go as “Here’s something REALLY nasty.”

Islamic radicals committing acts of violence are inexcusable. Unacceptable. Intolerable. And yet, we seem to be laying an argumentative groundwork in which they are in some ways excused, accepted and tolerated: That’s only the violent lunatic fringe!

Sure, they’re the violent lunatic fringe of Islam. But I still can’t help but notice that Christianity has no such violent lunatic fringe equivalent. And that makes me think there’s something wrong with Islam itself.

Until Islamic radicals are transformed into the mouthy-but-nonviolent equivalent of Falwells and Robertsons, I’m going to continue to be concerned about, wary of – scared by – Islam.

A first necessary step to dealing with all this is a surgical focus on the radical speakers.

Every religious leader inciting followers to deadly violence against others has to be arrested and sent to jail. Every one, every time, everywhere. This includes Islamic imams.

This is not a matter of disrespect for culture, or deliberately offering insults to innocent Muslims, it’s a matter of “Here’s something a peaceful multicultural society can’t tolerate.” It’s something that has to be fixed, no matter whose nose gets out of joint over it.

As yet, we don’t have it. I fancy an official making such a statement in public would spark massive protests and probably no small amount of violence.

I also fancy it wouldn’t be Christians doing the rioting.