[Unfamiliar with the latest Muhammad Cartoon Circus? Read this first.]

We may have circumnavigated the globe, split the atom, walked on the moon and cured polio, but the human race still faces its share of barriers. For example: it can be incredibly difficult to name a teddy bear or a pineapple, or to draw a cartoon.

Since the Jyllands-Posten fiasco in 2005, people have been very edgy when it comes to cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. You’ll never find a cartoon of Muhammad in the news, and while this is justified as “avoiding offence” in most instances, you only need scratch the surface to find “…and we don’t want to be murdered” plays into an awful lot of the reasoning too.

One of the few sites to regularly flaunt this taboo is the brilliant, blasphemous and — in some countries — blocked webcomic Jesus and Mo. I was fortunate enough to get a short interview with the anonymous artist behind this controversial cartoon: Read the rest of this entry »

Long before Adam Ant copyrighted his face, there lived this dude called Muhammad…

In case you haven’t been following the latest Jesus and Mo circus, here’s the run-down:

In October last year, two students at the London School of Economics — Chris Moos and Abhishek Phadnis — were harassed by security at their Freshers’ Fair because of their t-shirts. Their shirts had Jesus and Mo cartoons which security considered too offensive. The cartoons are below:

Read the rest of this entry »

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

— John 3:16 (KJV)

I would say this verse is pretty much the crux of Christianity: that our souls might have salvation in the afterlife because God made the difficult decision to send His only son to earth to die for our sins. We should be eternally thankful for His sacrifice.

I have tried for years to understand and believe in Christ’s sacrifice. It’s a core belief of millions across the world, and if it’s true then the fate of my eternal soul rests on understanding it (I’m not big on blind faith), but to this day I still can’t get my head around it. As it’s Easter I’m posting this as an open letter to Christians everywhere, asking you to help me understand the core belief of your religion. To understand God.

Read the rest of this entry »

Latest additions to the ‘things which made me angry this week’ list…

1. A man in Indonesia faces up to five years in prison for writing “God does not exist” on Facebook. [Article][Petition]
2. A man in London has been convicted for saying “cunt” on Twitter. [Link 1] [Link 2]
3. An art student in Canada took the following photograph for her coursework: Read the rest of this entry »

While I’m sure my constant ranting is just as annoying as being woken up on your day off by someone at your door wanting to talk about Jesus, days like today serve as a good reminder of why I can’t just shut up and mind my own business when it comes to religion.

The first thing I saw when I checked the news today was this parody of the Stonewall “Some people are gay, get over it” bus ad campaign. While I had mixed feelings about the original campaign [Patrick Neylan gives  a good critique of Stonewall’s marketing campaign here] I can safely say I prefer it to this poster, which was scheduled to go up on buses around London next week. The posters are funded by two conservative Christian groups that both support the idea of a “cure” for homosexuality.

This caused me to sigh a little, but I’m not hugely concerned about this: I’m a free speech advocate, and think these banners are little more than shouting matches between two sides. They’re annoying, but not hatred-inducing. And by this evening the international outcry surrounding this poster prompted London mayor Boris Johnson to announce he’s going to stop it going up. No doubt this will lead those who believe in its cause to feel suppressed and so strengthen their belief — perhaps creating a few homophobes in the process — but at least it’ll give the rest of us less of a headache.

But the next item I read raised my blood temperature a little bit closer to boiling… Read the rest of this entry »