… in Swedish Parliament should really be the title of this lovely piece of news (here’s the same in Swedish). In short, ambassadors from 20 muslim countries have been invited to a dialogue about Mohammad caricatures. The ambassadors will bring a list of “demands” to prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.

I tried to pick out a quote from the Egyptian ambassador from the article, but he says pretty much the same thing over and over again: It’s not us, it’s you. Sweden should make it unlawful to wound the feelings of sensitive muslims by drawing their prophet. Sweden should teach its youths that freedom of speech is only okay so long as you don’t piss anyone off (especially muslims). Sweden should deal with islamophobia with a permanent parliamentary committee. Obviously there’s not a word about muslim leaders standing up and calming their followers down.

Now, the meeting hasn’t happened yet, and when it does no press will be there, so I can’t say for sure that the prime minister and his associates will crawl around and try to placate these righteous men. For all I know, Reinfeldt is planning on finally thumping his fist into a handy table and saying, “You know what? This is Sweden. We have human rights. One of them is freedom of speech. We won’t give that up, ever. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to come here, you don’t have to read our newspapers or watch Swedish TV.” Yeah. He might do that.

But just in case, if you have a spine to spare, please send it to Sweden. I think we’re going to need them over the next while.

sweden, muslims, reinfeldt, freedom of speech

Richard Dawkins has reviewed Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great (hat tip to Pharyngula).

I hadn’t actually planned on reading it, because I doubt it will tell me anything new. And really, I am already sufficiently rallied and standing up for my atheism. However, it does seem like an entertaining read. Perhaps I could do with something to reignite my passion for the secularist cause.

Man, that sounds a bit creepy, doesn’t it?

It ties in with my post about the useless infighting among atheists. I feel I should clarify my own position when it comes to the loud polemics that certain people think are hurting “the cause”. I think these “New Atheists” are doing one hell of a job helping fellow non-believers come out of the closet and stand up for themselves. While I certainly understand that a lot of religious people will find the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens off-putting and that what they write and say may in some twisted way support the views some religious factions have of atheists as angry and disrespectful, I still think that is very much a minor problem. After all, deconverting people from religion is not the point here. Jason Rosenhouse at EvolutionBlog wrote a good post about all this recently.

I could use myself as anecdotal evidence: Had it not been for Richard Dawkins, I would probably never have gotten involved in the secularist movement at all, and I know I’m not alone in this. In the US, it’s even more important with loud-mouthed role models that encourage people to stand up and be counted. “New Atheists” on tour in the states frequently report large audiences of atheists completely baffled that they’re not alone.

There’s a lot more of us than many think, and the “New Atheists” are bringing us out in the open. That’s what they’re for. Not to convince religious people that they’re wrong, not to make atheists look good, but to make people understand that we do exist in the first place.

dawkins, hitchens, god is not great, atheism, new atheists

Because it’s … umm … true, I guess.

The truth.

(Annoyingly, the more I stare at the word, the more meaningless it becomes. In fact, it’s beginning to sound downright ridiculous. “Truth.” Ehehehe. Hehe.)

truth