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Name:Polimom
Location:near Houston, Gulf Coast, United States

Conservatively liberal, moderately well-educated, and highly opinionated...

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Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Masochistic Christians

Polimom's been wondering about an interesting phenomenon: Why does the American stance on free speech only apply to lampooning some religions, but not others?

WaPo's Neely Tucker has an interesting article about how blasphemy is apparently okay against Christianity, but not against other "minor" religions. One of Tucker's sources is Mark Galli, who apparently provided this gem:

First, he notes, Christians worship a man who was persecuted, beaten and killed. The sense that people might persecute Christ's followers is an inherent part of the Christian ethos, he says, so Christians are inherently likely to tolerate offense. Muhammad, a prophet who died after an illness, did not leave behind a religion with that mindset, he says.

Let me see if I understand this correctly... Because Christ was abused, Christians have internalized an expectation of persecution. Maybe that explains self-flagellation, too (something else I've never understood).

A religion of masochists... hmmmmm.....

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