Hiding Behind Religion
Religion is a matter of personal choice to believe something, not an inborn fact of a human being. Humans must be taught to believe and accept that what they believe is not subject to any testing.
Despite claims that this or that religion is the one, true religion, there is no way of knowing, of proving that claim. Individuals tend to create their own personal religion in their minds.
When the Bible says “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain”, I interpret that as meaning “So help me God” at the end of civil oaths, “In God We Trust” on money, “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance are all blastphemy, i.e. “in vain”, but that is what I believe, and I can’t prove it in a rational sense.
What happened in Paris at Charlie Hebdo was murder, not a religious act. It was an act of terrorism, an attempt to censure the media. There are laws in place in many places that already block the satirical magazine’s import because of a perceived need to protect religions from satire. They were passed to protect primarily Christian beliefs in the West, but they also protect other belief systems from ridicule. France and Denmark don’t have these laws, nor does the US.
January 8, 2015 11 Comments
