Free speech

[robvalue]

My reply here is in response to the opening post, but it's not aimed directly at that person. It's my general thoughts on the issues, directed at anyone who thinks there is a problem with allowing religious criticism as part of freedom of speech.

There is a big difference between posting jesus memes on the internet and treating an actual christian badly, as a person. Such as discriminating against them at work. The problem there is the discrimination, it's a separate issue.

There is a big difference between insulting ideas and insulting people. If theists choose to take insults about their ideas to be personal insults, then that is their problem.

There's also a big difference between saying something in general about christians, or christianity, and going up to a specific christian with hateful comments about them specifically. The second is also part of free speech, but it may be punishable due to the fact that it is harassment or hate speech. It depends on the severity, and each case would be considered separately. But the point is you don't get censored or arrested just for uttering certain words or opinions. It is looked at after the fact, to see if it was acceptable or not.

So please be very clear what it is you are objecting to. What kinds of things are being said or done, in what context, and to what audience. If something is being said so that other people can easily choose to read/hear it or not, it's not causing a public nuisance or being intrusive, it's targeting ideas rather than people, and it's not openly encouraging hateful acts... then as far as I'm concerned it's fine. If you don't like it, ignore it. If you think it's wrong, debate it. If you think it is hate speech and has gone too far, report it. But don't try and censor speech. Even if it doesn't meet my arbitrary guidelines above, the proper thing to do is complain about that specific piece of speech. Not to try and censor speech as a whole as a pre-emptive measure. That in itself would be extreme prejudice. My guidelines were just a rough idea of what I would interpret as perfectly fine, and would not be punishable if reported.

If something else is happening along with the "free speech" such as discrimination, violence... anything... then complain about those other things, don't try and make out that freedom of speech is part of those other things.

And here is the rub. If you say you can't say anything that may offend a theist, consider this. Anyone can come up with any arbitrary religion, any time they like, and they can decide that anything is offensive to them. For example, I just created a religion where I find apples sacred, and no one should ever talk about them. It is deeply offensive to write that word. Should everyone respect this and stop writing the word apple? [Don't worry, I'll be punishing myself later for my blaspheme, to my very core]. You can say "a new religion like that is just stupid", but it's no more or less stupid than established religions. Not at all.