My first post was about my book, ‘Of Assassins and Kings’,
my second was on the controversial fall in GCSE grades, so, staying true to the
title of this blog my third shall be about Atheism.
Rimsha Masih, I wonder how many of you have heard that name;
I first heard it this morning on The Young Turks. She is young girl living in
Islamabad, Pakistan, about a week ago she was arrested on the charge of
blasphemy and is now being held in solitary confinement partly for her own
protection after she was attacked and beaten by a Muslim mob shortly before her
arrest. Her supposed crime; ripping a few pages out of the Koran. Reports vary
as to her age and mental state, most say 11, some say 14 or 16 and a few claim
she has Down syndrome. What is not in dispute is that a young girl, a child,
has been threatened, beaten, arrested and traumatized for ripping some pages
from a book.
This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened
in Pakistan, harsh Islamic blasphemy laws mean that anyone can be accused and
arrested, facing a death penalty if convicted. Fortunately this barbaric
punishment has not yet been inflicted upon anyone but it’s only a matter of
time. Unless something is done, one day, it won’t be an arrest or a riot on the
news, it will be an execution and perhaps Rimsha will be the first.
Religion asks for our respect, all religions, not just the
extremists, demand unconditional respect and reverence for their beliefs. They
do not understand that respect is not given, it is not a right, it has to be
earned. I for one refuse to respect anything which can be used to justify the
barbarism shown to Rimsha Masih.
And it is not just extremist Muslims who deserve our disdain
and condemnation, it is all religion, Catholicism, moderate Islam, Anglicanism
and Judaism, because all religion is to blame. They may not have been in the
mob beating an 11 year old girl but they have created a world in which such a
thing can happen. Religion gets a free pass and it has for too long, and it
will continue to get that free pass so long as mainstream moderate religion
exists and demands respect for its beliefs and holy texts. Anglicanism is
probably the most innocuous of the mainstream religions, yet even it is in a
small way responsible, because it cultivates this attitude of respect for
religion.
The Catholic Church is currently fighting the legalisation
of same sex marriage in Scotland. If any politician expressed the same
sentiment, sighting their private beliefs as the justification, they would be
shouted down and rejected as a homophobic bigot. But when the same sentiment is
expressed by church men, garbed in the respectability of religion, they are
taken seriously and anyone who questions them is told they are being intolerant
of peoples private beliefs, private beliefs that must apparently be imposed on
the whole of society. And while priests in Scotland preach from the pulpit the
message that same sex marriage is a crime against god, Imams shout from the
minarets of Islamabad, inciting a mob to attack a young girl for ripping up a
book.
So if you are religious and you think your religion is
harmless, think about Rimsha Masih alone in a Pakistani jail, too scared to
talk, and ask yourself if your religion is worth the life and happiness of even
one girl.
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