Jesus and Mo cartoons should be banned.

Ho-hum. So I’ll do my best to counter your points and provide what I hope will be a solid defence of why Jesus and Mo should not be banned. Firstly, thanks to Ricky for accepting the challenge. I appreciate you’re not arguing the side you want to on this, so well done for giving a shot anyway. Notwithstanding this, please understand I’ll spare no quarter as I take your argument apart! C1 Your first point seems to provide good reason why the Jesus and Mo cartoon should NOT be banned, rather than why it should! I would have thought religious satire to be an essential tool to counter government bias for religiosity. You seem to be suggesting that banning the cartoon would make people realise the government is becoming too religious in its nature, and such censorship would trigger the public at large to rebel against encroaching totalitarianism. I fear the exact opposite, in that such censorship would encourage religious groups to lobby for the reinstatement of blasphemy laws. Satirical criticism of ideas – religious or otherwise – is a vital tool for the following reasons: a) Irony and satire can provide much keener insights into a group’s collective psyche and values than years of research. [1]b) In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. [2]c) Comic satire can attract a demographic that may not normally be interested in religious debate. d) Humour! Satire allows us to enjoy our right to free speech and challenge religious ideas, while simultaneously being entertained. C2 This seems to cover the same ground as C1. If you wish to mobilize a “voting opposition constituency”, I would suggest that taking a strong stand for free speech by defending the Jesus and Mo cartoons, would provide a better vehicle for change. Censoring the cartoons is more likely to be the thin end of the wedge, and would encourage yet more censorship of critical thought. C3 You suggest by banning such cartoons, Internet activists would be forced into the traditional political sphere, thereby restoring some of the founding principles of American democracy (“real political action”). I would argue the Internet is rapidly taking on an important new role in facilitating social change. We have witnessed this in the Arab Spring, and indeed we are actively part of the online debate here in this forum. The Internet has the potential to be a powerful democratic tool [3], but it is vitally important censorship is kept to a minimum. C4 This is essentially the same argument as C1Your closing statements are certainly fun! I do like the thought of an uprising of atheists, rationalists, freethinkers, libertarians, and constitutionalists, all forcing the government to better protect the principles of free speech and free expression. It’s an appealing notion! I’m just not sure it would happen. .. In Britain, the Jesus and Mo cartoons are at the centre of a (small) controversy at the moment. The London School of Economics Students’ Union has forced the removal of the cartoons from a Student website [4]. But for all the uproar in secular circles, the story hasn’t made a dent in the national press. So far at least, your proposed uprising looks decidedly unlikely. I suggest we watch and listen with interest as the debate unfolds. [5]Now, as I right royally messed up my opening argument (by not writing one! ), I’ll take some time to augment my argument (nice) with some further points. Laws on Freedom of SpeechThe UN “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” provides the following rights [6]:- individual liberty, in the form of the freedoms of movement, thought, conscience and religion, speech, association and assembly, family rights, the right to a nationality, and the right to privacy (Articles 12, 13, 17 – 24);- prohibition of any propaganda for war as well as any advocacy of national or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence by law (Article 20); Freedom of thought and speech are thereby enshrined in international law, provided they do not constitute “religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence”. So for our purposes, we need to determine if the Jesus and Mo cartoons incite discrimination, hostility and violence. I think what we are looking at here, is where to draw the line between valid and constructive satire, and hateful propaganda. For the later, we need look no further than the vile anti-Semitism of the Nazis - Google Image search this if you need reminding [7). We can clearly see, that the Jesus and Mo cartoons are a world away from this. Christians and Muslims are not being vilified in these cartoons; they’re not being portrayed as evil, corrupt people. At worst, they are being portrayed as uncritical or lacking scepticism. But more importantly, it is the ideas and principles of the two religions that are being criticised – not the Christians and Muslims themselves. Art Finally, a point on art. Not so long ago, Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” was banned in Britain, Norway, Iceland, and elsewhere. I have to ask, would you want to live in a country where “Life of Brian” was banned? The Jesus and Mo cartoons are just like “Life of Brian”: they are humorous, intelligent satires, that hold a mirror up to religious ideas. Summary I have countered your arguments, C1 to C4, and added additional supporting arguments why Jesus and Mo should not be banned. Your opening argument provided an original, and frankly unexpected defence of the motion; but ultimately, it seems very unlikely that censorship of the cartoons would result in the secular revolution you are proposing. Much more likely, that religious fundamentalists would feel vindicated, and empowered, and seek to censor more art and literature critical of their worldview. I feel we must stand firm against any censorship of critical thought, and fight against any restoration of blasphemy law. Freedom of Speech is too fundamentally important a concept to allow the religious right to run roughshod through it. It is simply not sufficient to be offended by something for it to be banned. As Hassan Radwan of the Council of Ex-Muslims has said: “If we allow religion – any religion – to dictate what we can say and do, you can kiss goodbye to freedom of expression and a good many other freedoms. Christianity today is only relatively benign because secularism and the enlightenment has pushed it into the private sphere and defanged it. But give it half a chance and it would soon be enforcing itself on us all – for the love of Jesus of course. ” [5][1] Vine Deloria, Jr. (1969) Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto chapter Indian humor, p.146 as quoted in Allan J. Ryan The trickster shift: humour and irony in contemporary native art p.9[2] Robert C. Elliott, Satire, in: Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004[3] Lincoln Dahlberg (2001) The Internet and Democratic Discourse: exploring the prospects of online deliberative forums extending the public sphere. [4] . http://www.secularism.org.uk...[5] . http://freethinker.co.uk...[6] . http://en.wikipedia.org...[7] . http://www.google.co.uk...