Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “errors”, comes pretty close to the kind of tautological arguments made by very orthodox Christians and Muslims.
For Christians—not so much Muslims—some of those scriptural errors, which are real (e.g., the absence of a Roman census around the time of Jesus’s birth, the absence of evidence for the exodus of Jews from Egypt, and, of course, the creation story of Genesis) are dismissed by claiming that these are metaphors, not factual errors. Others, most notably and recently William Lane Craig, have admitted that the Bible is erroneous because humans were involved in writing it, and simply appropriated stories from other sources. In contrast, the average Muslims tends to take his scripture much more literally, so Mo’s argument may be apposite there. 
I’ll point out once again, and for the last time, that my reproduction of Jesus and Mo cartoons has caused this website to be banned in its entirety in Pakistan. Further, my host organization, WordPress, supposedly dedicated to free speech, has implemented that ban at the request of the Pakistani authorities. I’m not sure which is worse: the Pakistani government, which simply censors criticism of its national faith because that’s considered offensive, or WordPress, an American company that does the Pakistanis’ dirty work for them.
Who is worse? WordPress – they are the ones turning on the gas chamber gas. They could refuse and act ethically, but they don’t.
It wouldn’t worry me so much if WordPress were honest about their position.
They claim to be for free speech but, instead of making a stand, they cave in to the Pakistani government’s demands. If they simply said “we put access to the platform for Pakistanis ahead of your free speech rights”, I would have less problem.
As things stand, ordinary Pakistani people are unaware that WordPress is censoring the Internet on behalf of their government and the government can say “we are not censoring WordPress, they are doing it themselves”.
That last point (continuing your analogy) is the equivalent of the Nazis saying “we are not gassing Jews, it’s him over there [points to prisoner operating the gas tap at gun point]”. Obviously, that kind of reasoning shouldn’t fly, but all to often it does.
Of course it’s worse that WordPress is complicit in the censoring. The Pakistani government is simply acting in “perfect” agreement with the “perfect” dictates of their faith. Hence they are “perfectly” justified!
The WordPress argument is that bloggers in Pakistan wouldn’t be able to post. But that would be a good thing because they’d soon be protesting their government and the protest would get international recognition. The government might have to cave.
I’m pretty sure that the Pakistani constitution guarantees freedom of speech too.
I think they wouldn’t be protesting their government, and I bet that Pakistani constitution does not guarantee freedom of speech but rather the primach of Islam. Aasiya Noreen (Asia Bibi), an ordinary Christian woman who allegedly said in a moment of anger that Jesus was better than Mohammed, has been lingering in prison for a decade under a death sentence for blasphemy. Two politicians who spoke in her defense were gunned down.
“primacy”
If WordPress refuses to block WEIT, the Pakistan censors could just block the whole of wordpress.com. (This might be technically easier than just singling out WEIT, I don’t know).
Why should all the other sites hosted by WordPress be held hostage in this fight?
cr
Jesus and Mo does it again! The Profi(teer) Muhammad states a triple negative on his exit.
Twitter also frequently hides tweets from your account saying they may contain sensitive material.
And one account’s sensitive material is another account’s materialistic sensation. So since 3.2 billion accounts have an average of say, fifteen sensitivities we can block approximately any tweet we wanna block.
Boo to you, WordPress.
Is that true of “average Muslims” or just of fundamentalist Muslims?
According to this, in every majority Muslim country surveyed a majority of Muslims believe the Koran is the literal word of god.
http://www.pewforum.org/2012/08/09/the-worlds-muslims-unity-and-diversity-executive-summary/
I think that, globally, “average Muslims” and “fundamentalist Muslims” are synonyms.
Mo’s logic is reminiscent of Descartes’ ontological argument for the existence of God. If you can imagine a perfect thing, it must exist; otherwise, it wouldn’t be perfect. Imagine, for instance, a perfect, space-faring teapot…
Or, to quote the (possibly apocryphal) mathematician, “consider a spherical cow”.
You can keep your space-faring teapots. I prefer the perfection of existing poverty, tuberculosis, genocide and mould on bathroom ceilings. Such a pity that smallpox no longer exists in the wild.
I love how you lump bathroom ceiling mould in with genocide. Sounds like you view the world as one big, delightful bucket of rainbows and unicorns! =) Interesting point, though… If existence is superior to non-existence, then God emerges as the loser in comparison with genocide. So, what about a non-existent god who COMMITS genocide?
Well, look on the bright side. At least you do not live in Pakistan.
“I’m not sure which is worse: the Pakistani government, which simply censors criticism of its national faith because that’s considered offensive, or WordPress, an American company that does the Pakistanis’ dirty work for them.”
The Pakistani government. Private organizations are, and should not be, under any obligation to provide a venue for any speech for any reason. Remember that freedom of speech means that blog hosts are free to censor content for any reason. And “any” reason includes caving into autocratic regimes for the sake of maintaining the respective countries market.
Governments, on the other hand, should protect the rights of citizens to speak and to hear. Let’s not play word games here. Pakistan is worse. Way worse.
The Koran is by one author, whereas any Christian is told that god supposed spoke to many different people. So they in a way expect “differences in voice”, even if contradictions and such are harder to stomach.
The Bible may only be flawed because man tinkered with what God gave us. Genesis is not a metaphor, it is truth. There is evidence for this in all of creation (the account of the flood, etc.) but it is overlooked by science because it doesn’t fit mainstream thought. Regardless, God’s Word prevails.
Umm. . . . it is overlooked by science because there is no evidence for the Genesis flood, Adam and Eve, or any of that nonsense. Have you actually looked at the evidence for evolution? Have you read my book? And why, pray tell, do you think that Christianity, instead of, say, Hinduism, Islam, or Buddhism, is the “true” religion?
Countless sunken cities, for one, show evidence of the flood. Christianity is the only true faith simply because Jesus is God. No other faith you mentioned explains how their Messiah is, in fact, God. Nonsense you say? It’s more plausable that a man and a woman created the human race through procreation than bateria evolving into every single species on the planet. Evolution, nonetheless, is a theory – which is not fact.
You’re assuming what you were asked to demonstrate. I’ve never seen so much ridiculous blather in my life, not to mention your complete misunderstanding of what a “theory” is in science. Evolution is a fact, and your resistance to it shows that you’re in the grip of a very powerful and harmful delusion: Christianity. Please go peddle your fairy tales at some other website where the deluded congregate.