Aug 28 2006
Stuck on Stupid Award
I do not give out as many of these as I should or could, but every once in a while somebody writes something that literally screams for a Stuck on Stupid Award.
Today’s award will actually be shared by two people… Omri Ceren of Mere Rhetoric and Scott Johnson of Power Line.
Omri wins for this blog entry in which he attacks The New York Times for having the audacity to claim that FOX News employees Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig were released by the kidnappers in Gaza unharmed despite the fact that they were forced at gunpoint to “convert” to Islam. Omri maintains that this forced conversion did Centanni and Wiig irreparable harm and that the folks at the Times were “blistering idiots” for claiming that they were released without harm.
This looks to me like nothing more than a lame attempt at finding something… anything… for which to attack The New York Times, which, as we all know, is the newspaper that righties love to hate.
Does Mr. Ceren sincerely believe that Centanni and Wiig “converted” to Islam and will now become practitioners of that faith? Is not conversion a matter of the soul? Do you really convert to another religion simply by being forced to speak some words by someone holding a gun to your head? Are the god of Islam and the god of whatever religion these two men professed before this “act of conversion” going to recognize their conversions as valid?
Ceren writes:
Being forced to convert is a harm. It might be the oldest harm short of death – being forced to renounce your faith and your god. Millions of people – literally millions – have died rather than deign to utter words that would force them to give up their faith. No wonder liberal journalists are utterly baffled by fully half of the United States – they don’t think having to give up your religion is harmful.
A) Nobody converted; and 2) I seriously doubt that anybody gave up their faith. Ceren’s entire premise is flawed and his argument plain silly.
Centanni and Wiig were indeed released unharmed unless there are psychological issues which are yet to manifest.
Scott Johnson shares the award for linking to and agreeing with this idiocy.
One Response to “Stuck on Stupid Award”
How stupid does one have to be to say that someone else has been harmed by pretending to change religions, rather than face execution? Religions are human constructs, responsible for more war and killing than anything else. Having nothing to do with spirit or love of God, religion benefits nobody but the people who run them.
Oh, all right, they do give a certain amount of comfort to a certain number of people–and there’s nothing wrong with that side of it–but the unkindnesses that people commit in protecting their religion’s turf is real sin.