{"id":556,"date":"2015-01-08T04:46:21","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T04:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/?p=556"},"modified":"2015-01-08T04:46:21","modified_gmt":"2015-01-08T04:46:21","slug":"some-thoughts-on-the-slaughter-at-charlie-hebdo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/2015\/01\/08\/some-thoughts-on-the-slaughter-at-charlie-hebdo\/","title":{"rendered":"Some Thoughts on the Slaughter at Charlie Hebdo"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Here are some thoughts on the brutal slaughter yesterday<\/a> at the Charlie Hebdo office\u00a0in Paris (I don’t pretend that all of these points are original):<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Responses that concentrate on criticising the magazine, or noting that some people were offended by its output is akin to pointing out that a rape victim was wearing a short skirt. Yes, it might be true, but if the implication is to present the fact as some sort a justification for what happened to them, then that is a disgraceful response to an awful crime.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The best response to demands that a particular form of expression should be stifled is to actively defy those demands<\/a>. If those demands threaten violence then that complicates things, as “best” must take safety into account. Nevertheless, it is generally wrong to give in to the demands of terrorists (in part because it rewards\u00a0their approach), and if enough people are defying violent threats\u00a0then the threats are shared and\u00a0diluted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Media outlets reporting on the slaughter that don’t\u00a0publish Charlie Hebdo images\u00a0are making life harder for those that do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The only Muslims who should be blamed for the murders are those who carried them out, and any accessory to the crime. All other Muslims are innocent, even those who agree with\u00a0the actions of the terrorists (though they should be reviled for\u00a0that<\/em>).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5)<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s possible to recognise that Islam was a major motivating force in the slaughter, without any blame being laid on\u00a0the vast amounts of innocent Muslims.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

6)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Muslims are\u00a0no\u00a0more<\/em> obliged\u00a0to condemn the attacks than non-Muslims. It must be frustrating whenever something like this happens to have lots of people looking at you as if to ask “Well? Aren’t you going to condemn it then?”. I’ve experienced something similar myself, and thus I have changed my view on this point. Perhaps we\u00a0all\u00a0<\/em>have some obligation to condemn it, but my point is that Muslims have no special obligation over and above that base obligation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

7)<\/strong><\/p>\n

In solidarity:<\/p>\n

\"kissing_hebdo\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Here are some thoughts on the brutal slaughter yesterday at the Charlie Hebdo office\u00a0in Paris (I don’t pretend that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/notung\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}