The fallout from the Charlie Hebdo massacre continues to rain down on us. The usual pattern of claim and counterclaim on social media observed a brief dignified silence over the weekend, but today, the Monday after the attack, the gloves are off.
Some people are posting about why there's a double standard regarding defaming Jews and Muslims. Their argument is that no-one can be critical of Judaism without being censured, but it's open season on Islam. There may be something in this; I don't know. I don't have an over-arching and objective view of all broadcast media. No-one does. So none of us can form an objective opinion, only a subjective one. As with all subjective opinions, it's probably a mix of 75% prejudice and 25% anecdotal evidence. That's a recursive subjective opinion right there of course. You don't see those too often.
But that argument is to miss the point spectacularly. A friend on Facebook alerted me to an article by Stephen Fry that does get to the heart of the matter. In this piece, Fry dismantles the supposed motive of the terrorists: that they're offended by the perceived slight to their god and/or prophet. However, let's conduct a little thought experiment. If you did actually have the answers and could see life for what it really was: all-loving, everlasting and meaningful in the embrace of the godhead, how would you behave day-to-day?
If you think about this for a moment, it's clear that anger, envy, avarice and all the petty, self-serving motives that fuel most of us in the everyday lives would wither and die for you. These emotions no longer have any purpose, do they? But the people who carry out these actions are angry (even they'd admit that much), which suggests their claims to religious "insight" are flawed.
QED...for all the good it'll do us.
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