The AFA is Right; Not Censoring New JC Show Would Be Unfair

I saw this e-mail today. I'll quote it first, then expound upon it:

Comedy Central set to blaspheme Christ with "JC" show

The Comedy Central network is planning a cartoon series about Jesus Christ entitled "JC."

June 7, 2010

Dear (name removed)

In its promotional material for the program "JC", Viacom describes Jesus as a "regular guy" - rather than the Son of God - and depicts him moving to New York to "escape his father's enormous shadow." The Father is depicted as an apathetic dad virtually addicted to video games and totally uninterested in his son's life.

So Comedy Central is set - unless we intervene - to blaspheme two-thirds of the Trinity on a weekly basis.

A depiction of Jesus on Comedy Central's "South Park" (Courtesy of Comedy Central)See how we expect Comedy Central to mock Christ by viewing this previous offering of anti-Christian bigotry from the show "South Park." Warning - It is offensive, but depicts the animosity the network has toward Christianity.

Yet in recent weeks Comedy Central bowed to pressure from Islamic groups and heavily censored an episode of "South Park" that showed Mohammed in a bear costume. The hypocrisy here is staggering.

Comedy Central shows more respect for Mohammed and for Muslims, who represent two percent of the American population, than for Jesus Christ and the 83% of Americans who believe in him.

We need to send a loud, clear message to Comedy Central and all potential advertisers of "JC" that this kind of insulting programming is completely unacceptable. If we speak with one voice now we can keep this program from ever seeing the light of day.

Sign our petition today and make your voice heard. This petition, with your signature on it, will be sent to the decision-makers who will determine whether this program airs.

At first I thought, "these people have no right to suppress free speech".

Then I realized something else-- the violent, threating members of Islam have already done this when the most recent South Park's depiction of Mohammad was censored on television.

This is not fair after all.

We pick on Jesus because Christians probably won't come together in larger numbers and threaten to murder. One might kill, but a community of Christians won't come together and threaten everyone with misery and death if the JC show airs and offends the majority of America.

But we won't dare say anything about Allah or his (so called) prophet Mohammad (why should peace be upon him? he certainly isn't generating peace upon us after he's been gone for centuries!).

Just that comment above could get me killed if I had a wider audience. I could have this blog pulled because I defamed the name of Mohammad.

Until our society realizes that we need to have the balls to own up to our rights of free speech, free inquiry, and freedom to criticize, then we sure as hell have no business making fun of Jesus Christ without censoring him in the same way that South Park's recent depiction of Mohammad was censored.

We must not forget where we came from. During an era of witch hunts, despotic kings and governors, kidnappers and slave traders, inquisitions, and spreading of religion by dominant force-- a beacon of reason and Enlightenment declared that enough was enough. The people wanted a government that gave a rats ass about the people, a ruler that was respected, but could be taunted, and a freedom to pursue happiness and liberty.

And the people knew that in order to have this, an environment needed to be created where someone could discover controversial truths and express them openly for the ultimate betterment of human kind.

If people can't say something negative or controversial about Mohammad, Jesus Christ, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, or even yours truly, then we will find ourselves too afraid to point out danger when we see it. We will hold on to delusions out of fear. We will dismiss the reasonable when insanity is handed to us. We will fall into a well of ignorance and usher in a new Dark Age.

Mohammad doesn't have the right to do that to us. But until we get that into our heads, we don't have a right to pick on JC while cowering in from of Allah.

Enough Is Enough

Well . . .

Lately, I've grown tired of writing about a god that I don't believe exists.

Why spend so much time talking about something or someone that I don't believe is really there?

I find that I really don't concern myself with god so much any more. Rather, my concern is more so with the actions of Fundamentalists that think I'm a fool for not worshiping him. Or the foolish actions of Fundamentalists that make news headlines.

But this sort of talk is preaching to the choir.

I'll still post things here, but probably not nearly as much as I used to-- which really wasn't all the frequent anyhow.

I'm just tired of writing about this topic. So unless something juicy comes up (which I'm sure it will from time to time), I won't post here much any more.

However . . .

While I've grown tired of writing about religion and non-religion, I have not grown tired of writing or blogging in general.

I've started a new blog spot called Uruk's Black Box.

There, I'll talk about all the other things that are on my mind when I'm trying to forget that I live in Jesusland.

Feel free to stop by if you wish. But audience or not, I gotta have an outlet and my new blog spot is (mostly) where that outlet will be.

The Poo-Poo of Our Children

The movement against homosexuals in Uganda is growing worse, despite the fact that the Uganda Parliament still has not passed that horrid anti-homosexuality bill which still remains in limbo.

I used to hear in church a lot, "Love the sinner, but hate the sin".

This is just plain hate.

I had embedded a video here at one time from the former Current TV where an evangelist stated that the homosexuals eat the "Poo-Poo of our children". I thought at the time that was such an outrageous statement and somehow embodied the ugliness of hate mindless hate that people sometimes harbor towards others for no good reason.

Special Agents

Fundamentalist usually regard their deity as the ultimate authority. All law and morality comes from their god and is handed down to all humankind to obey.

That means you-- regardless of whether you worship that same god as someone else or no god at all.

And if God says "do it", it had better be done or you will find yourself trying to defy the laws of reality.

But this authority that God supposedly has . . . how does humankind receive the instructions?

Usually, through one of God's Special Agents.

Special Agents can be apostles, prophets, angels, priests, saints, or messiahs. Special Agents can also be a pastor, priest, bishop, or a pope.

Even a dumb ass can become one of God's Special Agents-- if the situation is just right.

Psychology studies have shown that people tend to readily obey any person they regard as an authority figure. People will obey even to the point of taking actions which are blatantly erroneous, reckless, and even harmful to life!

People can be unquestioning towards a figure which they regards as an agent of authority.

So what do you get when you mix the authority of God with the authority of one of his Special Agents-- and then add in devoted religious followers and an unscrupulous soul?

You get a confidence artist taking advantage of his or her victims.

The confidence that a theist has in his god's authority often extends to his Special Agent. A confidence artist will happily exploit this dynamic for filthy gain.

All at the total expense of the religious victims, er, I mean, religious followers.

But forget about the confidence artists.

How do you ever know that any person (or dumb ass) is truly a Special Agent of God?

If you need an Agent from God to know what God is saying, when does God make it clear that he has sent an Agent to speak for him? I suppose a talking ass is a fairly clear sign. But who has seen a real, talking ass nowadays.

OK, don't answer that last question . . .

At it's worst, organized religion is a huge confidence scheme.

But even when God's Special Agents are sincere and honest, how can you ever know that their beliefs are harmless? How can you be sure that their instructions won't ever hurt you and truly come down from God above?

Heretic

See??

This is what I was getting at when I point out the need for the separation of Church and State.

In Pakistan, extremist Muslims killed about 80 worshipers of a minority religious group known as the Ahmadis.

The Ahmadis are forbidden in the eyes of other Muslims to refer to themselves as members of Islam and may not refer to their places of worship as mosques.

The Ahmadis believe that the (so called) prophet Mohammad predicted a future messiah in the person of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (whoever he might be).

Fundamentalist, extremist Muslims feel that this belief makes the Ahmadis non-Islamic-- not even worthy to be called a fringe group of Islam.

When the Ahmadis try to act like members of the Islamic faith, they committed a crime so horrible that extremists gunned down scores of worshipers today as two suicide bombers added to the carnage.

The Pakistani police tried to control the situation. But the police and the media made sure not to slip up and call the Ahmadis Muslims.

This sort of violence has been on the rise in Pakistan. The extremists claim that even Pakistani law forbids the Ahmadis from claiming to be true Muslims. So, that just further justifies their actions.

And Fundamentalists in the United States want a Christian nation?

The heretic is the one who isn't mainstream while the orthodox believer is the one with the majority and the muscle. Should the tables turn and you one day become a heretic through no fault of your own, will you still want Church and State to mix?