23/04/2010
While bragging about the forbearance of their god, very often, “believers” would not refrain from throwing accusations at all those who are different or would differ from them. They are perpetually whinging and whining, claiming to be ruthlessly subjected to some sort of moral persecution especially when they represent a religious minority in certain foreign societies which are allegedly seeking to curtail their religious freedoms.
Here, one needs to wonder about the very meaning of freedom, a term which is alarmingly absent from their mental dictionary. The “believers” believe in nothing other than monotheistic thought, in the One and Only, in that which can be neither criticized nor discussed. They would go to great lengths to select from their religious lexicon powerful words to reprobate the other and to lavish several nicknames on all those who are different from them. It is of little or no consequence whether this difference is religious or ideological. Even when it is a case of the other simply embracing a different social ethic, still in the mind of “believers”, a wide range of differences are conflated and described indiscriminately as moral perversion, as deviant behavior and as intentional vitiation of their monotheistic truth. The “believers” would then take upon themselves the role of re-educating and re-directing the other to their flimsy doctrines.
Ever inventive with their strategies, ingenious with their schemes and resourceful in their relentless and tireless strife against all those who strayed from their gospel truth, the “believers” would practice different strategies of assault which fall into three major categories. First, the “assault on expression” which is conducted through an organized attack on websites, web pages or blogs. This maybe qualified as a rather classy violation compared to the two other categories of assault namely: “taunting verbal assault” which consists in sending curses and threats to those who consider voicing their criticism or expressing their opinion; and then finally “assault on life” when, literally, the toppling of heads marks an extreme degree of cold-blooded violence.
After committing these heinous acts of ravishment, the “believers” would come to you complaining, and crying and accusing the other of failing to respect their beliefs and their personal freedoms. At this point, it becomes imperative to question the limits of personal freedoms and to examine the position of various parties involved in this debate.
We begin first with religious fundamentalists living and working in western societies. Let us take a look at their seemingly partial demand for all kinds of freedoms of dress from the veil to infinite other forms of fancy attire of dissimulation. Who can tell that such demands will not one day extend to claiming their sacred right to practice their prayers in the middle of the road, or campaign for pubs and bars to be shut down, for alcoholic drinks to be prohibited and for sexual freedom to be condemned and punished? Who knows what would be the end of these infinite demands voiced under the banner of practicing their personal freedom, protecting their beliefs and doctrines and respecting their susceptible and fragile feelings?
Times and times again, “believers” would lavishly teach us a lesson about respect and consideration towards the other, all in the name of “personal freedom”. They, on the other hand, would never practice what they are preaching with regard to those who are different from them; for only the “believers” are the ones who own the truth, they alone are the devout lovers of Allah. Their god has singled them out to receive the enlightenment of thought and knowledge. This presumed election has, to their minds, given them a sacred right to practice, with neither restraint nor scruple, extreme forms of repression and tyranny on the other who is different from them.
The “believers” are in a perpetual race to stifle anyone trying to express him or herself, trying to criticize and practice her right to a personal freedom that questions or goes against their beliefs. At this point, we need to think carefully in order to find new ways to reformulate this debate, redefine personal freedoms and set up boundaries for everyone. The two parties, the “believers” and the “other” will have to abide by the principle of the freedom of opinion and expression without persecuting each other. Because this matter is still difficult and unsettled, the “believers” today will have to acquire the culture of “accepting the other” and seek to achieve a religious maturity. To my mind, the “believers” are now behaving like unruly children who would cry and scream if they hear something not very much to their likes.
Yes, regrettably, the majority of “believers” are still psychologically immature. We see them doubting all opinions or criticism and accusing their authors of betrayal. Therefore, before defending their personal freedoms, moderate believers will have to condemn the culture of “killing the other and legalizing his blood” in a clear and open way without hypocrisy or ambivalence through a serious endeavor to ban all religious programs which openly endorse and popularize this very culture.
One also needs to question the position of some of those who defend the rights of tyrants to practice religious freedoms founded on the extermination of the other and the extermination of freedom itself in its very essence and in its intellectual and practical meaning. There are many of those who defend the criminals of freedom while pretending that they do not approve of their deeds. I believe from my own perspective which is open to discussion, that we need to take explicit and bald positions free of hypocrisy or interests with regard to such attitudes.
Let me come back once more to those who hold and cling to religious beliefs which consist in one truth not liable to deconstruction or reconsideration, beliefs perpetrated by the rule of a tyrannical, repressive god guilty of crimes towards humanity, living creatures, nature and the universe; a god who owns nothing other than the sword and the dagger, god of ignorance and the spring of hatred in the souls of his followers.
Out of my love for life and death and freedom, and in defense of nature and all creatures; let me say that none of us has the right to defend the personal freedoms of the violators of freedom, none of us has the right to give them the right to use against us those very standards that we aspire to develop with time to embrace both life and freedom so that we can reach universal values converging towards the meaning of life itself.
This is our pursuit and our strife towards the achievement of a greater awareness of external things in a more unbiased way while being able to put our “self” perspective aside so that we can delve deeper in the Self to touch other selves. This is a journey in the culture of life to reconcile ourselves with death through a reconciliation with all meanings and to elucidate those accumulating experiences summed up in expressions and proverbs. This is the journey of the living creature in the depths of nature, the quest for a freedom which surpasses all divine standards, a journey in the very essence of the self in its stark nudity.
Perhaps, I am going to be radical in my position, but I believe that freedom comes at a cost, and this cost would consist in blocking the way before all those who want to hamper our progress and shut our mouths. These programmed humans who are fed some information and who know nothing other than the rote repetition and regurgitation of that which is planted in their brains are living in a herd-like condition and are incapable of thinking. Together, they represent a homogenous entity which is in its essence antithetical to the very idea of nature. Nature is characterized by its diversity and we are but a part of this diversity. They, on the other hand, are nothing but parasites to life, to nature and to freedom. By monotheizing truth and knowledge and through their devotion to the idea of perfection and virtue, they subscribed to a mechanical law that is not open on new discoveries and neither is it liable to change. Nature knows nothing of mechanical laws. It is ever-changing and mobile as understood in the science of physics in the sense of mobile and transmitted energy.
I believe that it is now absolutely imperative for us to defend this pursuit by exposing those who are trying to turn our values against us to destroy us and destroy freedom itself, by divesting them of these very freedoms which they are abusing and misusing. Let us stand firm around this basic consensus: that no freedom should be granted to the slaves of the god of ignorance and ruin.