It takes a great deal to stand up against the advance of political correctness on free speech. Other countries haven't nearly done as well as France.
At the end of the day the situation was tragic but the defence of free speech against prevailing winds is incredibly important.
As for religious extremism... I don't think we will see an end until enlightenment spreads and religion fades into historic irrelevancy.
This is happening faster than people think, especially religious people as they can't see out of their bubble.
At least here in Australia the vast majority of people may "identify" as Christian but they don't actually practice any semblance of faith. That being said the Christian lobby parties still have an unreasonably large amount of sway due to being a very vocal minority that leverages this weak "identity" of Australians to further their conservative agenda.
Nevertheless there is less and less children becoming indoctrinated into this nonsense and gaining access to real information sooner through the Internet that by the end of my lifetime I expect religion (in it's current form) in developed countries to be all but extinct.
I think extremism will still be around, it will just be over more real issues and less fairy tale beliefs.
I don't think that the religion is the issue, I think that desperate people with desperate lives will always find something irrational to fill their life with and kill for.
As an example on a smaller scale (smaller as in less desperate) in Italy we have people whose life revolves around going to the stadium on Sunday to watch their football team and getting into fights with the fans of the opponent team. That's the only thing that keeps their life together. And they are ready to kill other teams' fans, we have people killed every year.
Likewise we have extreme right or extreme left groups who fight and kill each other... desperate people filling their life.
Religion, political faith, football team, doesn't really matter, the issue is the people, not the ideas.
True, which is why I went to to explain that I don't think all extremism would go away - just religious extremism.
I just think it's harder to incite organised extreme violence without some highly charged agenda and removing religion goes a long way to making our world a better place.
Correct. Also, it should be noted that Charlie Hebdo recently fired a contributor for mildly criticizing a powerful Jew:
"Below is the full text which got the cartoonist Siné fired and brought before a court on charges of anti-Semitism. He was acquitted and later won a wrongful termination suit against Charlie Hebdo.
"The back story was that Jean Sarkozy rear-ended a BMW driven by some random Arab guy. Instead of stopping, he fled the scene. The police were not interested, but the BMW owner’s insurance company tracked down the scooter driver and it ended up being the younger Sarkozy. He was eventually acquitted of all charges and walked away scot-free. He married an heiress to the Darty fortune (Darty is a chain of electronic stores in France similar to Circuit City in the US). It was rumoured he would convert to Judaism (his great grandfather was Jewish) for the marriage but he denies he did this.
"So in response Siné wrote the following in Charlie Hebdo: Jean Sarkozy, a son worthy of his paternity and already a general counselor for the UMP, was set free –almost with applause — from his criminal proceedings for the offense of on his scooter. The prosecutor actually requested his release! It must be said that the complainant is an Arab! But that’s not all: he [Sarkozy] just declared his intention to convert to Judaism before marrying his fiancée, who is Jewish and the heiress to the founders of Darty. He’ll go far in life, this lad!"
For context, Siné had said a few years before, on the radio, just after a bomb against a Jewish restaurant, in substance, « I am an antisemit, and I am not afraid to say it [...] I want every Jew to live in fear, unless he's pro-Palestinian [...] Let them die! [...] They should be put to death. »
> This is happening faster than people think, especially religious people as they can't see out of their bubble.
I'm no psychologist but I think it might be pretty hard to break yourself out of a religion that makes you perform a ritual 5 times a day where you take yourself to a self-hypnotic state and repeat affirmations.
Islam seems to be the only remaining major religion were you can convince people to override their sense of self-preservation. That's some crazy powerful vudu there.
At the end of the day the situation was tragic but the defence of free speech against prevailing winds is incredibly important.
As for religious extremism... I don't think we will see an end until enlightenment spreads and religion fades into historic irrelevancy.
This is happening faster than people think, especially religious people as they can't see out of their bubble. At least here in Australia the vast majority of people may "identify" as Christian but they don't actually practice any semblance of faith. That being said the Christian lobby parties still have an unreasonably large amount of sway due to being a very vocal minority that leverages this weak "identity" of Australians to further their conservative agenda.
Nevertheless there is less and less children becoming indoctrinated into this nonsense and gaining access to real information sooner through the Internet that by the end of my lifetime I expect religion (in it's current form) in developed countries to be all but extinct.
I think extremism will still be around, it will just be over more real issues and less fairy tale beliefs.