AS I PLEASE

Prejudice against Muslims has "passed the dinner table test" argues Barones Warsi Co-chairman of the conservative party. BBC News 20/1/11

The term Islamaphobia has become a big bird now, it now sits squat upon the nest refusing to budge, it is here to stay.
That said the Baroness needs to be made aware that in this country people are free to express dislike of any religion. I for one dislike all three monotheisms intensely and though it is a long time since I attended anything that could be remotely described as a ‘dinner party’ should I be invited I would feel free should the topic arise to give vent to this dislike. The Baroness describes this dislike as prejudice, i.e. an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts. This may indeed be the case, though given that presumably she has not been present at these dinner parties how would she know? However should our hypothetically ignorant dinner party guest choose to disabuse themselves of this ignorance they, I suspect, would find much about Islam to dislike. Like the Bible the Koran contains much in it that is extraordinarily unpleasant, cruel and inhuman, incidentally a key indicator that such texts are indeed man made since they reflect so much of the darker side of the psyche. In so much as many elements of the Koran are built on older Old Testament mythologies it is inevitable that it does reflect these earlier cruelties, though it does build on these to add new dimensions of barbarity, though it is difficult to locate Christian prelates anywhere in the world advocating the stoning of adulteresses or throwing gay men of high buildings or introducing the death penalty for blasphemy, no such problem exists respecting Islam.
Now it is being suggested that bringing up such disagreeable topics as the misogyny in Islam is not only bad manners at polite dinner parties but is akin to racism. This conflating of religion and race representing a recent development on the part of that strange alliance of ‘leftists’ and Islamacist apologist’s, part of that phenomenon commonly called ‘political correctness,’ designed to close down avenues of free speech in the name of a range of particularly smelly orthodoxies.
Making sweeping statements about all Muslims is just about a silly as making sweeping statements about all Americans, such lack of discrimination like the sweeping anti Americanism that infects the left is to be deplored and ought to be challenged. Bigotry is unacceptable whatever guise it takes and in a free society people should be free to practice whatever religion they choose, providing the exercise of this freedom does not impinge upon the freedoms of others. This right to practise ought to be respected, as Voltaire almost certainly did not say, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." This respect of your right to practice does not however extend to a right to have those same beliefs respected; nobody has the right to demand this, you can believe what you will but don’t demand that I respect your belief in the tooth fairy or the archangel Gabriel.
The emergent of a confident and assertive atheist rationalism seems to have unnerved the peddlers of religious piffle who have taken to whinging about something called ‘secular extremism!’ I would be grateful to anyone reading this to send me incidents of murders committed in the name of secular rationalism. No this pernicious nonsense needs to be combated and the special pleading on behalf of religion resisted. In matters respecting religion I will continue to speak as I please.



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