Johann Hari's Independent articles

I wrote these thoughts on Friday after reading these two articles:
Why Should I Respect These Oppressive Religions and Despite These Riots, I Stand By What I Wrote

"Today, whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents immediately
claim they are the victims of "prejudice" – and their outrage is increasingly
being backed by laws."

I am all for dialogue. I really am. I realise that if I want freedom of speech, then I have to be willing for people to be free to criticise my beliefs. I completely agree with that. What I am more concerned about as a 'fundamentalist' Christian (as the article would call me, I suppose) is almost the opposite. It seems to me that laws in our country will increasingly restrict me from holding particular beliefs and trying to share those beliefs with others.

This reminds me of the Jerry Springer The Opera furore from a few years back. If you recall, the Opera featured the Jerry Springer show where some of the guests were God, Jesus and Mary amongst others from the Bible. My Lord and Saviour whom I believe deserves total adoration, respect, reverence, honour, love and glory is depicted as a man who enjoys dressing up as a baby and fouling in his underwear. I won't go into all the details but that's not the end of it. I wrote it like that to show how shocking and horrific it is for me to accept as a Christian. However, I had to think a lot about what I felt about it at the time. Was I going to be one of the people campaigning against it? Did I just have to put up with it because of the right to free speech? How exactly should I respond to it?

In the end I came to the conclusion that although personally I was deeply upset and offended by the content of the show I didn't really have ground to complain about it solely on the basis of free speech. I did, however, feel it was acceptable to complain about it on the basis of decency and offence. Should something like this that offends so many people go by quietly in our society? If there was a show that caused deep offence to the Welsh or black people or ginger people or obese people or disabled people should it go by without comment? Perhaps we decide that such a show should go on but if lots of people are offended let's not be surprised when they raise that point!

Back to the article! The chap loses me when he states the reason he doesn't respect my beliefs is because there is no evidence for them. I don't believe in macro evolution but I acknowledge there is some (inconclusive) evidence for it. The evidence for the resurrection is overwhelming, in my opinion, but, even if you don't agree, surely you would have to say that there is at least some evidence for belief? How can you say you respect me when you call my carefully considered beliefs something which "belong[s] to the childhood of our species"?

"You have an absolute right to voice your beliefs – but the price is that I too
have a right to respond as I wish."

Mr Hari you may of course have your "indivisible human right to speak freely" but when you do, please make educated comments that understand were religious people are coming from rather than dismissing those you claim to respect with a few funny lines.

"...religious fundamentalists – of all stripes – have been progressively stripping
away the right to freely discuss their faiths. They claim religious ideas are
unique and cannot be discussed freely; instead, they must be "respected" – by
which they mean unchallenged."

Personally, as an Evangelical Christian, I couldn't disagree more with the implication that I may be involved in this statement! Please do discuss the gospel freely!

I have been watching the West Wing a lot recently and in Series 3 there is an episode called Enemies Foreign and Domestic, where the White House press secretary is drawn into voicing her personal opinion on a group of schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who died when they were prevented from escaping a burning building by the mutaween religious police because they were not properly dressed according to religious law. In a future episode President Bartlett has a rant concerning the way Saudi Arabia applies their religious laws in this way and he and Toby Ziegler both want to see Western, liberal democracy and freedom brought to these parts of the world. I have to say that watching it I was totally caught up in it and completely agreed with them both. However, I don't think anyone could speak about Christians in that way. Christians do not impose 'religious law' on anybody.

"They do not propose to stop voicing their own heinously offensive views about
women's rights or homosexuality, but we have to shut up and take it – or we are
the ones being "insulting"."

I don't go about stating any views on women's right or homosexuality unless it comes up in conversation. You may possibly find them insulting but hopefully there would be the possibility of dialogue.

"I wrote an article defending human rights, and stating simple facts. Fanatics
want to arrest or kill me for it. Is there equivalence here?"

That's not wholly true. Let's consider some facts:
1. Some Muslims are notoriously easily offended and, when they are, they riot and bring violence
2. You said of their beloved prophet "I don't respect the idea that we should follow a "Prophet" who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him."

Now whether you were right in what you said or not (and not knowing the facts I give you the benefit of the doubt here) you can still surely see that by summing up their prophet in that particular way you would at least ruffle some feathers. I certainly wouldn't say "you were asking for it" because I have a lot of sympathy with what you were saying but I do think that that one paragraph was needlessly offensive. You could have simply said you didn't agree with the beliefs of any organised religion rather than trying to make them look childish.

I guess in all I have written, probably not intelligently in some places, I am just trying to ask why are peace-loving Christians who love the Bible lumped in with violent extremists in both articles?