... if more Christians were like ***Dave and less were like Pat Robertson:
Shame on the Vatican for basically agreeing with the Moslem cartoon rioters:
The Vatican on Saturday condemned the publication of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Mohammad which have outraged the Muslim world, saying freedom of speech did not mean freedom to offend a person’s religion.
Yes it does. Because without allowing the possibility of the latter, the former is meaningless. Practically anything anyone can say of some substance is likely to “offend a person’s religion.”
“The freedom of thought and expression, confirmed in the Declaration of Human Rights, can not include the right to offend religious feelings of the faithful. That principle obviously applies to any religion,” the Vatican said.
“Especially ours,” the Vatican said in subtext.
Nobody is claiming a “right to offend.” Freedom of thought and expression simply means that the prospect of someone feeling offended (whether offense was intended or not) isn’t something that can be allowed to legally block freedom of thought/expression. Otherwise, we better all shut up pretty damned quick.
It does my heart good to remind myself that there are folks like ***Dave out there who are quite capable of both believing in their religion as well as maintaining a rational thought process. Go read the full entry.
Here, I’ll compensate by being pedantic and noting that it should be “and fewer were like Pat Robertson.”