My take on David Silverman's blasphemy position

  The link to the original article by David Silverman

As a fallout of the recent anti-Muslim adultarated video trailer, recently people started to talk a lot about freedom of speech and expression. The latest such essay is coming from a source I highly respect but this time I have a somewhat discordant opinion. Not a strategical discordance rather, in a way, a tactical one.

In the above referenced article (click on the link to see it!), I agree that American Ateists president, David Silverman is correct in principle: opinions that deviate from religious doctrines should be allowed free expression!

However, and here comes a big "but", I strongly feel that certain refinements to this principle would be helpful for a desired peaceful coexistence.

Before I proceed, let me reiterate a conviction of mine, one that came out in several of my previous blog entries. Namely, that the principle of a peaceful coexistence of various cultures in today's combustible world is more important then it has ever been in history. Perhaps important enough to even trump most, if not all, other principles. So, here is my take on David Silverman's position.

Imagine your reaction when someone looks in to your eyes and says: "Your mother is a whore!" - and you know she isn't.

For sure the offending person has the right to speak what he/she wants but you will have hard time to think about freedom us speech rather, you'll feel raw emotions rising inside you. Apparently, for certain groups of people the Profet Mohamed is as important than the mother is for you. Why? I don't know but I need to accept this fact unless I want to exert my conviction with physical power over those people and force them not to think about the Profet the same way as I think about my mother.

Here I must admit that common sense and mutual respect are hard to frame within principles. Instead, one has to feel what these poorly defined concepts mean and unfortunately only a very few seem to be able to do this.

I don't think there is any question that the movie that inflamed the Muslim world was produced by hate and disrespect in mind. Should we be stunned then that it triggered the same kind of response?

At this point I want to make one thing very clear: despite what anyone might think reading this, and a few of my previous blog entries, I'm deeply disturbed by the Muslim reaction to the movie trailer and cannot find strong enough words to condemn the violence that ensued!

But here is an other thought, I believe is highly relevant to the subject:
Shouldn' we be a bit more patient to allow time for the rest of the world, the Muslim world in particular, to accept a brand new concept, namely the freedom of speech, after centuries of censorhip that, after all, successfully sustained their system far longer then the existence of Western Democracies?

Think a bit further! Weren't lynches and imprisonment common retaliations for practicing freedom of speech and expression in the US a mere few decades ago ?

Think about it!