Do Rights Ever Make A Wrong?

Since the dreadful scenes witnessed in Paris of late, lots of discussions have taken place over the rights to free speech. 

I have argued, and always will argue, till the day that I die, that freedom of speech in a democracy is of the utmost importance. We cannot move on as a society or species unless we debate, learn and change. This of course will upset people, that's the way of the world. I get upset every time I see a Tory party conference, but I don't insist that they are stopped because they have a different ideology to me!

This is how it is if you have a religious belief. You will have no doubt put a lot of time and energy into your particular belief and, yes, it is offensive when someone comes along and mocks it. This is tantamount to them saying you're stupid for holding such opinions. But what you have to remember is that they are your beliefs. That's it. You have a right to believe them, but they are of no more worth than believing in fairies. You shouldn't have any special privileges, just because you believe in a supernatural being. I'm not talking about religious persecution here, that is as stupid as hating someone for liking a different power ranger to you.

What ever God or deity you choose, it will require you to be totally subservient. Now you're angry because this is not true, God loves you and wants you to be free. You can now trying to fit a large square peg into your tiny little round hole! If God knows the past, present and future, your life has already been mapped out: you cannot change it, he already knows the final score. Start shaving your peg now with your answer. If your God is a supreme being of vast intellect and tolerance why do we need blasphemy laws? Why can you not criticise the prophet Mohamed? Can his ideology not stand up to scrutiny? If God is religious? If so which religion is he? Keep on whittling those pegs!

Why, if God loves you and you are his children, does he want you to keep your women covered from head to toe and away from society? Why does he want you to mutilate the bodies of your children with circumcision? Why, if this benign loving being cares so much about you, does he have you die? I know it's so you can sit at his side, does he need a test for this to happen? Why is it that people with no faith such as myself can lead a full and happy life and luckily so far free from illness, while my lovely sister who was a devout Catholic, died a horrible death through cancer? Is your peg round enough now?

All the knowledge you have about your particular God will come from a book. You have never had a two way conversation with him. If you have, then you need to see a doctor for some tablets. If I were to stand in an airport and shout "Oh Great Elvis in the sky, come down and save me!" then prostrate myself on the floor, then stand up and repeat the process over and over, security would be called, and no doubt I would be removed from the airport. Change the name from Elvis to Allah, and now you are starting to squirm. How could I make such a comparison? Why not? At least we knew that Elvis was a real person. We have special rooms in airports for people to pray: why is their requirement of belief any different to someone who claims to be a Jedi? They are both just supernatural belief systems, and they are both personal belief systems, they should have no sway over any society.

I personally don't care what you believe, as long as it doesn't effect me and my life. But all belief systems affect us all. From Sunday trading laws, to religious holidays, to the more extreme examples of being burnt on a stake or gunned down in the streets. Is not the threat of death for not believing in a tolerant loving supernatural being an oxymoron? I know of a man who thinks that crystals can cure you of all ills and make you stronger. He has a theory, it makes sense to him. If it makes him feel better about his day to day living, who am I to criticise him? But if he were to have children, and they were to develop some hideous medical complaint such as leukaemia, and he refused to take them to a hospital, preferring to treat them with his crystals, then, my friends, we, as adult human beings, should be able to step in and tell him that he is a stupid retarded idiot and have the child get proper treatment. 

Now change the word "Crystal" for "God"! This happens all the time. No doubt if you have a belief system (if you are still reading) you will no doubt have your peg nice and round by now with your answers, but remember all you know about your God was written in a book thousands of years ago then re-written and re-written again, to suit the politics of the day. Even now the Catholic church, when they are not protecting paedophiles, sacks saints they can no longer defend because the claims are just too stupid. When the world was flat and "there be dragons" over each hill, it was quite easy to believe in such things, but now we have pieces of hardware flying around other planets. God didn't do any of this! We witnessed this week what God wants, he wants bitter, twisted misogynistic, sectarian, bigoted, unthinking, unquestioning servants.

Now you are probably sharpening the end of your peg to stick in me. I know that lots of people with religious beliefs are loving, tolerant and intelligent human beings, who do lots of good work for not only their own societies, but for people around the world. My wife is religious and she is far more caring and gentle and understanding than I will ever be. But that doesn't make your God real! These people would be like this without their God, because they come from a loving understanding backgrounds. They are also intelligent, it's just that they cannot shake off the indoctrination they suffered as children, although they, of course, don't see it like that. When I first married my wife and we were making our first Christmas lunch together she informed me that when you prepare the sprouts you peel them then make a cross in the base otherwise they will not cook properly. Not being a sprout expert I did as I was told and sure enough they cooked perfectly. I did this without question for a few years then one day I cooked the sprouts without the cross in the bottom and guess what? They cooked perfectly. When I asked my wife why she put the cross on the sprouts she said because her mother had told her that's how you cooked them, she was told by her mother. The Christmas meal is all about ickle baby cheeses and his birthday but for some reason the implement that killed him is now used to celebrate his birth hence the crosses on the sprouts. You may now think that I have now lost the plot, in fact you may think I lost it many years ago, but this shows you how easy it is to develop such learned behaviour without questioning.

You can try to intellectualise religion as much as you wish, you can theorise about everything from what the book means to where heaven is situated but it's all just blind belief. It is all just mind custard. 'If you want to make a good man do bad things give him religion!'.

So yes, we should have total free speech. Not persecution, not libel, not racism and blind hatred, but the ability to have a rational discussion about the world, its differences and its wonders. Beliefs are just that, they are no more viable than the tooth fairy, and she owes me money!

Live long, live happy, be tolerant to those that are tolerant, but don't be afraid to question and stand up and be counted.

Now go on put your square peg in its hole, now you've shaved it down until it's nice and round!