Why be afraid of offending Muslims?

August 1st, 2007 • idiocy, intolerance

I’ve thought about this for the last few days while pondering over something Christopher Hitchens wrote. Should we — whomever ‘we’ constitutes — be afraid of offending Muslims? In the terms of non-theists, should we be afraid of offending Muslims? I do not think so, I mean, we’re busy offending Christians so why stop with Muslims? But more on my thoughts in a moment. The religion of Islam should not be set atop a pedestal for no one to poke fun at or offend its constituents and this is what Hitchens thinks as well. After reading this, I realized that should God or Allah ever be proven to actually exist, Christopher Hitchens would be the most amazing apologetic father that ever lived because he’s such a pompous idiot.

He thinks we should be out offending every Muslim we can find, just like he thinks we should be doing with Christians and this is where he clearly lodges his foot clearly in his mouth. Hitchens is clearly equating Muslims with Christians in terms of extremism and fundamentalism and thinks there’s no reason to be worried about offending anyone. I guess he’s forgotten about the centuries old wars still being waged by Muslims, against Muslims, over their beliefs because another tribe offended them. Or perhaps he’s just playing ignorant of the subject for the purpose of getting on his soapbox. Or did he forget about the beheadings of non-Muslims at the hands of Muslims for simply not being a member of the nation of Islam and thus, were offended? Hitchens needs to stick to pissing off the Christians and worrying about if he should offend them or not. He should read the intelligent and insightful comments on his Slate article.

Personally, I feel the same way Hitchens does to an extent. I can go to Georgia and offend as many Christians I want and the worst I’ll get is called names or perhaps “put in my place” by some God-fearing nutcase. If I went to Iran and did the same thing to some random Muslim I met, I’d probably be shot. Or if I went to Iraq. Or the Philippines where there is a large, fanatical, Muslim population. Or even France where the Muslim population has been booming for the last few years and they’re up in arms for just about anything.

There’s a time and place to pick your fights, Christopher, and you never know which Muslim you’re busy pissing off isn’t carrying and will shoot you without regret. Pick your fights intelligently and do some good or pick them stupidly and do nothing, think about that the next time you want to shout at the rest of us from your ivory tower.