Freedom of Expression

Given the recent climate of political and religious debate, I thought I would dig up an old essay about one of our most important freedoms: the right to speak as we see fit. As a free-thinker I believe the FoS is extremely important to all of us, and I feel incredible gratitude toward anyone who has helped us along our way of instituting and preserving this freedom.

I'm going to try the embed feature on Scribd rather than copy/paste the whole thing, hopefully it works well.

Freedom of Speech

Also, this video absolutely rocks. Thanks again for reading.

Commandment #6

So it continues, here is number six. Yet another useless order:

"You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name."

Alright, this one is just a little less useless than the previous six; but still, not one single mention of morality in six orders. I think we could do better. No mention of murder, rape, theft, child abuse, etc. No advice about how to live a good life. No plan that will guide you to truth, or knowledge. Not one word about right action, and responsibility. Instead, we get orders barked at us about how we're supposed to fall in line.

Who gives a shit about us using the Lord's name in vain? Using John Stuart Mill's "Harm Principle" -- which seems to me to be a very reasonable benchmark -- we see that no one is harmed by us doing so. If there is no injury, why would it matter? Insecurity on God's part? What kind of God would be so crazy as to advise us against using his name in vain before advising us on basic human solidarity? This is more of the same: another nonsensical and petty command from an imaginary deity who has no sense of punishments that fit the claimed injuries.

Number seven isn't looking any better either.