[Buddha-l] Return of blasphemy?

[Joy Vriens]

Hi Pedro,

    "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."


I understand your reference to the firebombing to be the attack on the 
French satrical magazine "Charlie Hebdo". It was their intention to 
publish a special number called "Charia Hebdo", with the following cover 
http://www.charliehebdo.fr/la-une that caused the firebombing and 
destruction of their office.

They answer this week with the following cover "Love is stronger than 
hate" *http://tinyurl.com/d6glpno* <http://www.charliehebdo.fr/la-une>
I am not sure the message will be understood, but it's pretty clear.

Joy