Pericles,

In your post of 21 March 2011 2:50:45 PM, you berate Aime for expressing what you call “fear and loathing”.

>>Ashiq Masih has the look of a hunted man - gaunt, anxious and exhausted.

Though he is guilty of nothing, this Pakistani labourer is on the run - with his five children.

His wife, Asia Bibi, has been sentenced to death for blaspheming against Islam. THAT IS ENOUGH TO MAKE THE ENTIRE FAMILY A TARGET*.>>

See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11930849

>>Taseer, …, had turned his largely ceremonial post into a platform for a campaign to amend Pakistan's blasphemy laws. Bhatti, the only Christian in the Cabinet, … swore to battle intolerance. Both men supported clemency for Aasia Noreen, a Christian woman who had been accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death. Taseer's stance on the issue infuriated a large part of the population that, THANKS TO RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND SCHOOL CURRICULUMS, BELIEVES THAT BLASPHEMY IS A SIN DESERVING OF EXECUTION*. In the weeks leading up to his assassination, Taseer had been denounced at Friday prayers, excoriated in the media and largely abandoned by his Pakistan People's Party (PPP) for fears that his campaign would prove politically toxic. The witch hunt culminated in a bodyguard's pumping 27 rounds into his head and chest in the parking lot of a popular Islamabad shopping center.>>

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2058155,00.html#ixzz1HSPwTM3C

>>Within hours of Taseer's death, telephone text messages celebrating his assassination made the rounds. "Justice has been done," read one. "If you love the Prophet, pass this on." A Facebook fan page for assassin Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri garnered more than 2,000 members before site administrators shut it down. Even the leaders of state-funded mosques refused to say funeral prayers for the slain governor. When Qadri was transferred to a local jail, he was GARLANDED WITH ROSES BY HUNDREDS OF LAWYERS* — the vanguard of a movement that in 2008 helped unseat a military dictator — offering to take on his case for free.>>

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2058155,00.html#ixzz1HSQgnGv5

*Capitalisation added

At this point the bien pensant usualy make some comment about the thread having become a "hate fest" or that the "bigots are out in force" and decline to address the issues.

Sorry, Aime, which part of this contribution of yours did I misunderstand>?

>>Put simply, Islamists don't live and let live. The slightest hint of an insult against their religion and they are forced by their own religion to kill you.<<

Which prompted me to ask, "What, all of them, Aime?". I construe your silence on this to be confirmation that you do, indeed, believe them all to be of this mind.

>>What makes you think I'm in the camp of the fearful and loathing fraternity?<<

Well, for a start, the fact that you claim that all followers of Islam must kill people for the slightest hint of an insult, can only be construed as a form of loathing. And what could possibly prompt you to categorize an entire religion as gratuitous murderers, if not fear?

stevenlmeyer clearly is of a like mind, citing an assassination carried out by "the organization of al-Qaeda and the Punjabi Taliban" as supporting evidence. As the article he refers to points out, "Using religion to shore up political support is nothing new in Pakistan", but this is ignored in the crusade to paint religious extremists as somehow mainstream.

Also ignored is the following:

"To further appease Muslim religious leaders, Zia-ul-Haq strengthened the colonial-era blasphemy laws, mandating that breaches should be answered by the death penalty. Since then, more than 1,274 cases have been lodged. As repeating blasphemous words could be considered to be perpetuating the crime, many cases are accepted without evidence, a system well primed for the pursuit of vendettas. That nobody has yet been executed by court order is hardly reassuring: 37 of the accused have been killed by vigilantes."

The maths is interesting. 1,274 cases lodged, nobody executed. But thirtyseven have been killed extra-judicially, by religious fanatics.

But back to Deveny for a moment.

If her trade-mark jokes were about fat people, instead of Christians, would you expect her to make an equal number about thin people?

After many evasions and attempts to change the subject Richard Dawkins finally extracts an admission from an Imam on TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQzuFrMRA3M

It happens in the last few seconds of the clip but it's worth watching the whole clip to see how everybody including the moderator attempts to derail Dawkins.

This is part of the reality that dare not speak its name.

Ok Pericles. Let me try to put my deeply held beliefs on the record. Oh and my silence wasn't anything to do with avoiding the issue. I'm a night shift worker and sometimes I'm not in the mood to reply to adverse reactions!

I've studied many different religions back when I was seeking the "truth" and found all of them severely wanting, although there is a positive message to be found in most of them and that's to live and let live, do no harm and to treat others as you'd like to be treated yourself. I found Buddhism to be the strongest in this deeply held inner belief, but even they can be found to have committed atrocities throughout history. Even a mouse will fight back if cornered (and they have sharp teeth).

When I mentioned AK 47's and such, I was of course referring to that section of Islam that has followers who have perverted the words of the Koran to suit their own agenda and there are many millions of them. This makes people who don't understand them scared of the consequences of jokes made against the Islamic faith and why people like Catherine Deveny would think twice before making a joke towards Islam. I have no doubt that there are people in Christian organisations who would kill you in defence of their god too, but such intolerance appears to be less visible than in Moslem quarters.

Notice Pericles, that I said "appears to be less visible." Am I wrong to suggest that a joke pertaining to Christians will get a limited response, but a joke about Islam will see demonstration and death threats by Islamic fundamentals all around the world?

Pericles

To reinforce Aime's previous post.

You know and I know what the consequences would be if a Melbourne comedian were to give a show in which they stated that parts of the koran were a croc of you-know-what. Compared to Deveny's scathing and often scatological denunciations of Christianity the Muhammad cartoons are tame.

What would happen if someone were to produce a "Life of Abdul" parodying the life of Muhammad in the same way that "A Life of Brian" parodies the life of Jesus?

Again, we both know the answer.

So what do you propose? Blasphemy laws to avoid offending Muslims? The quiet surrender of self-censorship? Banning “The God Delusion” or “God is not Great”?

I cannot read Deveny’s mind so I do not know why she refrains from subjecting Islam to the same contempt, satire and scorn that she heaps on Christianity. I guess it’s a combination of political correctness and fear but I don’t know.

However it does not smell right. And I think deep down you know that.