You wouldn’t say that about Mohammed!

1 April 2007  

I’ve noticed something strange coming from the mouths of theists, especially those of a christian bent, recently.

Whenever there appears to be something that they take exception to, because it either ridicules their religion, or just represents a facet of it that they just don’t want to talk about, or otherwise has some connection with their religion, they say something like this:

You wouldn’t say this about Mohammed!

Now, why is that?

It seems to me that these theists see some benefit in the threat of extremism; they see that it does make some people turn around and stop themselves, censor themselves for fear of retribution. But the other thing that I see is that they are either unwilling or unable to carry out this threat themselves; they only want to benefit from the fear of extremism, without even having to make any actual threat.

Taking, for example, the recent chocolate Jesus episode: a spokesperson for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (ha!) said:

They would never dare do something similar with… the Prophet Mohammed naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan.
The Independent

See what I mean? And this person has a point: most people wouldn’t dare do as they suggest, because muslims are not just capable, but willing of enacting some kind of ‘retribution’ for the imagined insult, if not happily.

The main point of these sorts of comments appears to be a call for ‘respect’ for their beliefs, which can be suitably rejected when we have the prime example of these people claiming that they should be allowed to discriminate against homosexuals because it’s their tradition, or their scripture tells them, to do so. Their ‘beliefs’ are not due respect — they’re due the perfectly justified ridicule they receive.

Christians are, in general, not willing to go to the extremes that muslims are — they’ll just intimate that there might be consequences if the object of their offense isn’t eradicated, and often this is enough to get their way. And, of course, this is a sham.

In essence, what they are doing here is riding on extremism’s coat-tales, reaping the benefit of the threat (and sometimes the reality) without actually having to go to the god-awful (pun intended) lengths of threatening or carrying out the shameless, bigotted acts that religious extremists are now infamous for.

If we were to ignore these protestations, what would happen? One possibility is that they would be forced either to put up, or to STFU.

Violence isn’t really an option in places like North America or Western Europe — this would force governments to respond in the same TWAT way that they have with islam. And, knowing their propensity for mouthing off about anything and everything, regardless of it being true or not, the possibility of them shutting up is, frankly, unlikely.

So, I invite all free-speech advocates to continue to rip the piss: draw those cartoons, mould those sculptures, paint those murals, write those articles that point out the ridiculousness of their religions’ bigotted backgrounds and insanity of their dogmas. If they choose to use violence to fight for their ‘right’ not to be offended, then I predict that they’re would be, very quickly, on the losing side.

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6 Responses to “You wouldn’t say that about Mohammed!”

  1. Honjii on April 1st, 2007 2:18 am

    I’m sure this will be considered terribly irreverent and I’ll be told I’m going straight to hell, but that chocolate jesus thing got me going. I just cannot help thinking that those of the Catholic persuasion should be jumping for joy at the prospect of a chocolate jesus. I would think they’d be contacting the artist and putting in a standing order. (Just keep ‘em comin’) I’ve never had one, but I’ve been told by Catholics that the wafer (the one that represents the body of Christ)that they eat when they take communion is pretty disgusting. How much more fun would church be if that wafer could be replaced with some yummy chocolate?

    There you see that, atheists aren’t against religion, here I am trying to improve it.

  2. nullifidian on April 1st, 2007 2:21 am

    I hear that the artist is selling bits of it on eBay. Perhaps the vatican can put in for a bulk order… ;-)

  3. AV on April 1st, 2007 10:17 pm

    Incidentally, what’s the Catholic League’s position on the Danish cartoons?

  4. TW on April 2nd, 2007 10:30 pm

    to be honest, I would be more than happy to see someone do the same about Mohammed…

    I am intrigued why some theists have got their knickers in such a twist over this. Do they not like chocolate or something?

  5. [...] As I’ve mentioned before, it seems that christians are not averse to riding on the coat-tails of islamists who might actually make good on their threats of violence. It seems that they’re content to equate the consequences of insulting christianity with those of insulting islam, yet they’re not so keen as to actually make any overt threats of violence, and even less keen to carry out those that they do make. [...]

  6. noodle-soup on November 28th, 2007 4:33 am

    When the Christians assert, “you wouldn’t say that about Mohammed” they imply that the reason many people self-censor is because of a political correctness that excludes Christianity when the actual reason for self-censorship is fear of violence. Much the way a person would remove a rainbow bumper sticker from their car, avoid certain clothing or statements, or modify their usual behavior when traveling in the Southern U.S. to lessen the chance of being beaten by the Christians (i.e., Baptists, Evangelicals, and Fundamentalists).

There's probably no god.  Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.