Friday, May 15, 2009
Friday afternoon free speech video
Free speech, from the perspective of non-Hitchens British atheist Pat Condell.
Commentary
Get past the broadside attack on religion, per se, and to the heart of Condell's argument, which is that "his religion" is free speech and other secular humanist values. Interestingly, this is precisely the argument made by religious people in the United States, who argue that the Establishment Clause should not bar religious speech in public facilities (such as schools) because we permit other "faith-based" philosophies -- Condell's "religion", for instance -- that are different from religion only in their own characterization of themselves. So, an atheist from a country with an established religion makes the same argument as religious people in another country with a long tradition of anti-establishmentarianism, the former to denounce a specific protection for religious speech, and the latter to claim for religious speech the same protections as for secular speech. Life's little ironies indeed!
Release the hounds.
2 Comments:
By 
Christopher Chambers, at
Fri May 15, 02:37:00 PM:
Oh Jesus Christ who cares? The only "religious" people who bray and whine about the Establishment Clause and the "humanist" (as opposed to who--the robots?) attack on God are the folks who are the Christian counterparts to the mullahs overseas. The rest of us cannot understand all the nonsense--even Condell's. It's never about God or one's spirit. It's never about personal faith. It's always about meanness, power, control. Isn't that what you say about the mullahs?
By Dan Kauffman, at
Fri May 15, 07:39:00 PM:
Pat Condell is a favorite of mine. I particularly like this recent video
Freedom go to hell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW6PRABq4HM
