Sunday 1 February 2015

The free-speech debate: Analysing the Pope's comments

The Pope, and Charlie Hebdo

Pope Fran-key-"to-the-kingdom" has recently raised some eyebrows, shall we say, in our community when he spoke recently on the topic of free speech in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

In response, Brian Dalton, best known for his persona "Mr. Deity",  produced a video in which he had a "few choice words" for the Pontiff. Warning for some pretty severe language here!

Further, Mr Deity was interviewed by Seth Andrews on his Thinking Atheist podcast where he goes into more detail on the ire that stoked the video's creation:

http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/podcast/in-the-wake-of-charlie-hebdo

This episode of Seth's excellent show, which I highly recommend, also includes a very interesting discussion on the problems with Islamist fundamentalism, including a contribution from Ali A. Rizvi who I've mentioned before.

The Pope's arrogance in claiming that we cannot say what we think against a religion, that has caused much demonstrable harm to the world without expecting some kind of grievous bodily harm in response, is staggering. He is basically acquiescing to terrorism and admitting that the Charlie Hebdo attackers were perfectly entitled to seek retribution for a victimless "crime".  At best, that is victim blaming, and at worst it is directly approving of terrorist acts. It is re-making the mistakes of the past, and drifting far from Jesus' proclaimed message of love in the face of violence, let alone speech. This is a sentiment of mine not borne of hatred but a genuine desire to avoid the giant rabbit hole the Catholic Church is in danger of falling down.

Therefore if I ever meet Pope Fran-cis-"gender-bias" in person, I shall expect a punch from him, or I'll be disappointed.

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