[Buddha-l] Return of blasphemy?

[Vera, Pedro L.]

I don't really undertand why the issue ends up framed in terms of "defamation" or "discrimination" when the discussion originated from a definition of "religious tolerance".

I think a simple, straightforward definition of "religious tolerance" is:

You are allowed  to hold whatever absurd, crazy, irrational and inane beliefs your particular flavor of religion holds to be "true", as long as:

         A) I am not forced to acknowledge them as true or to live by them;

         B) I am still allowed to call them "absurd, crazy, irrational and inane" and no harm should come to me because of that.


I understand that part A will anger most fundamentalists of any flavor (christian or muslin) and part B is likely to get individuals and newspaper offices firebombed if they publish the "wrong" cartoon "defaming" some flavor of religion or other (as seen recently in th news). However, I frankly do not see the need for any more respect or deference to religion than shown in the definition above.

Regards,

Pedro