Foreign preachers of hate to be banned from UK
An article that appeared today in the Daily Telegraph in the UK which banns foreign preachers of hate to enter the country until they renounced their teachings publicly.
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Mike, give us the lowdown on this Professor Muhammad Kalisch who upset the Muslim community in Germany by writing that there was no historical evidence that the Prophet Mohammed existed.
ReplyDeleteThankfully, we still live in a country that allows FREEDOM OF SPEECH!
ReplyDelete(Even though we don't like all of what we hear.)
Despite the 'dispicability' of the some 'hate mongers', I'd rather live here than in Britain right now, or any part of Europe
(Sorry G.Mike and Tilia and others I may offend)
I have mixed feelings on the whole 'hate speech' issue.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw/read about the extremism being preached in the UK, I thought that it was indicative of european maturity - tolerance of the truly offensive. And yet, there's been lots of coverage on how it actually *is* changing society over there. Young men are recruited, secular society is being destabilized, etc.
Well, if not "secular" then at least "multi-cultural"
I'm a little disappointed in the decision, but I certainly can understand why it was made.
I want to apologize for the judgment of Ray and others. I am a Pastor and Christian, but I am very disappointing with the hell fire and brimstone preaching coming from Ray and others. It is not that I don't believe in Hell or Judgment. It is just that I believe that the message of Christ and the church is called to be "rooted in love" (EPHESIANS 3:17). It is obvious that some neglect to preach the love of Christ and instead preach as if the church should be rooted in judgment and hell (fire insurance). I APOLOGIZE. I want everyone to know that Christ couldn't love you more and he won't love you less. Yes, even the sinner. He loves you. He always will.
ReplyDeleteJustin Douglas
justindouglasblog.blogspot.com
laof,
ReplyDeleteThankfully, we still live in a country that allows FREEDOM OF SPEECH!
(Even though we don't like all of what we hear.)
Despite the 'dispicability' of the some 'hate mongers', I'd rather live here than in Britain right now, or any part of Europe
(Sorry G.Mike and Tilia and others I may offend)
well, that sounds funny from the country that invented the Patriot Act...
Anyway, I don't think this British law would affect Ray. At least he usually doesn't say it would be a good thing to kill other people.
mike,
ReplyDeletedid you see that he let you post a link at his site?
Either he likes you very much or he's going to make a post out of it...
(third possibility: somebody in his stuff is to thick to recognize a link when it's right in front of his eyes...)
Thanks for the thoughts, Mr. Douglas.
ReplyDeleteI think a good portion of the Raytractors here understand the difference between religion and fundamentalist religion. The real problem is that the moderates are content to worshipping peacfully and quietly.
It's the extremists who repeatedly stand up and shout that they represent Truth and the only path to salvation (et al). As such, they tend to be the visible face of religion when the topic is broached.
The moderates need to be more loudly moderate, in my humble opinion...
Justin,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Raytractors. That's an interesting take you have on Christianity, and I mean that sincerely. I do not agree with it, but most of us disagree with each other here. It's not a big thing.
I think that if the message of Christianity were more often delivered as you just did, more people would listen, and you might even have more converts.
Also, your version of Christianity often brings up more questions than even Ray's, which I'm sure people would ask if you hang around here.
Either way, thanks for stopping by and have a good one.
justin,
ReplyDeleteI want to thank you for stopping by too.
I think preachers like Ray make a grave mistake. They do speak of Christian love, and of how the coming of Jesus allegedly saved/saves us from the vindictiveness displayed in the OT. Their mistake is that they compulsively and obsessively drag the OT events to the front of their arguments whenever someone expresses disbelief or doubt, from an atheistic viewpoint as much as from a Christian or deist one.
Their message is, 'you must believe in what Jesus said and that he saves you, but if you choose to love people for any other reason, your choice is worthless and Jesus will slap you over the head for all eternity'. They want people to follow Christianity not for its merits, but for its threats.
I wouldn't want to live in a universe ruled by an authoritarian dictator who threatens anyone with everlasting torture for not worshipping him. No amount of love can counterbalance such a threat. Once the threat is issued, love becomes compulsory and thereby ceases to be worthy of the name.
Good for us it isn't true.
Yes, I saw that he let me post a link...
ReplyDeleteseems as if he really want to write an article on that.
Tilia sez:
ReplyDeletewell, that sounds funny from the country that invented the Patriot Act...
We didn't invent the Patriot Act...we just cribbed it from the Enabling Act of 1933.
The last statement in the article is an interesting one.
ReplyDeleteWhat can a society do against people who incite hate and socially destructive behavior over the internet?
Secret services probably have the means to disable most of such content, but in doing so have to use illegal methods.
The guideline should be fairly simple: those who abuse free speech to promote a goal of ending free speech lose their right to free speech.
But that is much more difficult to execute in practice.
The ideal is that free speech will expose proponents of hatred and make them shunned by the rational majority. The crux is that the majority can be coaxed into irrational behavior, resulting in suppression of minority views and even violence. When the rational view becomes a minority opinion, it is often just a question of time for a society to collapse.
And yet irrational minorities abuse their freedom and the protection they enjoy to expand and gain influence.
In a parable, Jesus spoke of letting the weeds grow unhindered and separating them at harvest, suffering their growth, and leaving the judgment and destruction to higher powers.
This is one of the more problematic teachings of Christianity in my view, for it encourages apathy and relegates the establishment of a better condition from human decision. Weeds grow and spread faster than crops and eventually suffocate them. I don't know if Jesus was aware of that fact, or if he merely overstretched the analogy.
The parable speaks of good versus irredeemable evil.
In reality, what the Bible sees at irredeemable evil may be the highest virtue to its adherents. Medieval witch hunters sought to cleanse humanity, just like modern extremists want to create a world devoted to the one true faith by taking control. With the exception of truly pathological sociopaths, there is no pure evil in anyone. And even those individuals are only evil because their brains function abnormally.
The real world is not black and white. What is useful to one may be harmful to another. An obnoxious weed may be bred into a healthy crop. Some animals have achieved immunity to specific poisons, enabling them to thrive on prey or fruit that would kill others.
If we can rationally discern when and how to develop such an immunity for our society, then why not do so before we experience the suffering, the suffocation of what previous generations have achieved. The weeds have grown enough, already successful in diluting the UN Human Rights decisions. Cultural relativists think that the weeds will breed into crops by themselves, as long as the crops give a good example. I think that is a false and dangerous view, because the weeds regard themselves as the best possible crops. Do we want to provide them fertile fields when they have exhausted their own, or do we uproot them before they suffocate ours?
p.s. Word verification shows me 'unite' for this post. Is it a sign? ;)
trip,
ReplyDeletethat's scary. Haven't thought of it, but there are some disturbing similarities.
Waaaaaaay too much to respond to in your post, Felix :)
ReplyDeleteI find myself alternately agreeing and disagreeing with some of the things you say. For example:
The guideline should be fairly simple: those who abuse free speech to promote a goal of ending free speech lose their right to free speech.
I don't find that guideline to be simple at all. Imagine patriotic Americans rising up to oust the Bush Administration from power through rebellion - wouldn't said guideline exclude them from speaking their minds?
---
Rather than pick on your post, I think I'll just comment that I like the way you framed the internet issue - I'm going to modify it a bit to make it more general:
"How should a society deal with people who incite hate and socially destructive behavior, while at the same time promoting the individual's right to expression?"
---
I certainly don't have any fool-proof answers. However, I would have the society include 2 new manadatory courses-of-study in public education:
Skepticism
Thick Skin
I don't find that guideline to be simple at all. Imagine patriotic Americans rising up to oust the Bush Administration from power through rebellion - wouldn't said guideline exclude them from speaking their minds?
ReplyDeleteNot at all. Would those patriots seek to end free speech?
There are fascists who consider themselves patriots, and there are many patriots who speak out against fascists. From excercising free speech criticising a government to an armed rebellion is a huge step. Were the government to abolish the right to free speech, the case would be clear-cut. When they narrow down free speech here and there, who makes the decision when they've gone too far? That would be up to the Supreme Court. But what if a sheepish electorate had kept a government in power for so long that they had replaced all independant judges with cronies? I see the US Constitution as very robust in this regard, don't get me wrong. That's why citizens need to be informed and aware.
As famous people have said,
The government should be afraid of the people, not vice versa.
Justin, thanks for the sentiment, and don't take this the wrong way, but -- apology not accepted.
ReplyDelete(Hey, Nonmagic and Felix warned you that we Raytractors disagree all the time. I'm disagreeing.)
Your Christian love is no better than Ray's weak brew of fire-n-brimstone. There's no practical difference between a mother who feeds her child sugarwater while informing him that it is indeed sugarwater, and a mother who feeds her child nothing at all while exclaiming "oh, isn't this promise of sugarwater simply scrumptious!" The only result is that the child doesn't get what it needs -- real food.
Ray thinks we reject his teachings because he's all stern and solemn about THE LAW. (Leave aside the fact that a short guy with a funny 'stache and an Aussie accent can hardly manage to be stern and solemn about anything.) And you think we reject the Christian message because of guys like Ray.
You're both wrong.
There are more nonbelievers among teenagers and college kids than there have ever been before. (Don't believe me? You can look it up.) You and the clergy who follow you will find it increasingly difficult to get young people to come to your churches, because neither Ray's fearmongering nor your sweetness-and-light is what they need.
Sorry. But not very.