Insulting Religion

Here are a couple of interesting headlines.

A teacher in Sudan is being charged with insulting religion and inciting hatred because she asked her children what to name a teady bear, and accepted their suggestion of Mohammed.

A Turkish prosecutor is looking into prosecuting a publisher for publishing Dawkin's book The God Delusion (for which, we must assume, Dawkins would deserve a worse penalty for writing it).

At this rate, these actions are heading towards a state of making people the world over afraid of saying or doing anything that might offend fundamentalist Muslims.

Where the real 'incite to hatred' exists is in a culture that incites people to hate and to potentially maim a teacher who accepts her students' name for a teddy bear, or to incite violence against the publisher of a book that challenges those who use superstition and nonsense to justify violence againt others.

This way of thinking is simply barbaric. It belongs in the history books, not in 21st century society.