A Special Kind Of Stupid

I've just listened to a talk on free speech. I don't think I've ever heard the case better made. For those of you already yawning can I ask you, for a moment, to consider just how much you take for granted? Readers of this blog know my views on religion; I consider it brain acid, Route 1 on the yellow brick road to bad ideas. In the west we can, for the most part, speak freely. For example, I can dismiss the prophet Muhammad as a war mongering peodaphile and point to verses within scripture to illustrate this. I can mention that Jesus never once condemned slavery and advocated that a person leave his home to follow him without giving second thought for their family. Stupid role models, stupid ideas, sadly followed by a large volume of the worlds bewildered populace. I can say these things because society has been shaped to allow me to do so. In the video I watched it was pointed out that the first Gay pride was attended by 26 persons, all of whom were arrested and beaten by police. Fast forward to this century and we close down central London so these wonderful people can express who they are without fear of repression. Hard fought ideas, hard won.
Be under no illusion; both Christianity and Islam would withdraw these rights at the drop of a hat if they had power to do so. Now Christianity is a dead religion, or certainly in its death throes in Europe. I for one am perfectly happy to nudge its rancid corpse into the nearest open grave. But Islam is another proposition entirely. It is demanding more and more, and actively seeks to afford us less and less. If you're a female expect to become subject to the rule of man once again, and if you're gay well raise the barricades. You are punishable by death. And as for me, an Ex-Christian and staunch critic of all religion I can look forward to arrest and conviction for failing to show due deference to a set of ideas designed to reduce humanity to credulous sheep.
I dislike all religion. It makes good people slaves to bad ideas. And if they've learned these ideas on Mother's knee they have next to no chance of escaping them. Your freedoms have been hard won. And what can be won can be lost. And if you doubt this then sit back and watch as the tide of Islam sweeps in. Only this is no ordinary tide because it creates its own shorleline as it goes.