"Right now nothing is more aggressive than political religion," Pat Condell intones in his most recent video on so called "aggressive atheism" that has recently been the focus of "bleeting and whining in the press," as well as a focus in the United Nations "Human Rights" Council.
In light of the United Nations passing "Defamation" of Religion as a human rights violation in March (as well as other similar resolutions in previous years), nobody should be surprised at groups and individuals applying more pressure in the social sphere on religious fanaticism - especially when it is taken into account that the anti-defamation resolutions passed are largely a result of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), an organisation which has "indicated that the goal of its efforts is the adoption of a binding international covenant against the "defamation of religions" [1] which is nothing more than an attempt to bring to the West the oppressive blasphemy laws found in many theocratic Muslim nations.
This group has undertaken efforts to give Muslim citizens special protection, which we can confirm, because the original resolution submitted in 1999 was entitled "Defamation of Islam" and later changed to 'Defamation of Religions' (which was, ofcourse, necessary in order for the resolution to gain favour of predominately non-Muslim nations) with the aim denoted as:
"...a view to contributing concretely to the prevention and elimination of all such forms of incitement and the consequences of negative stereotyping of religions or beliefs, and their adherents..."
(Human Rights Commission 2008 - Combating Defamation of Religions, pg. 83)
These resolutions, while given the justification of being intended to prevent human rights abuses such as "the propaganda campaign that had been led by the Nazis in the Second World War against the Jews which had led to the Holocaust" [2] are in essence a deviation from the concept of universal human rights because the resolutions are an attempt to "protect religious institutions and interpretations, rather than individuals, and could help create a new international anti-blasphemy norm."
The notion that speaking against an idea (which is essentially what religious ideology is) can be thought of as defamation requires us to redefine the term itself, which is generally defined as "the act of making untrue statements about another which damages his/her reputation."[3]
The idea of defamation, and claiming right to protection from it, is obviously a matter regarding the protection of individuals - not institutions or ideas from criticism. The right of people to speak critically (and even offensively) in regard to an idea or an organisation should always be upheld by a freedom loving society, for if it is not, then the body deciding what speech about an ideology or group is acceptable will be the governing body.
