Stumblin' In

This talks about food, but can apply to other contexts:

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1 Corinthians 10:23-33 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

The Believer's Freedom

23"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive. 24Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.
25Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, 26for, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it."[a]

27If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. 28But if anyone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience' sake[b]— 29the other man's conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience? 30If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?

31So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33even as I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

Footnotes:

1 Corinthians 10:26 Psalm 24:1
1 Corinthians 10:28 Some manuscripts conscience' sake, for "the earth is the Lord's and everything in it"

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So this can be used as a guide to consider Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bill Handel's jokes about the Muslim deaths, or Chevy Chase's joke about Professor Backwards, or whatever.

It can also be used when discussing freedom in a democracy. Unlimited freedom of speech means that a citizen can talk about the aliens inside Tom Cruise's head, or about all sorts of other things.

From AP/Yahoo:

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French and German newspapers on Wednesday republished caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that have riled the Muslim world, saying democratic freedoms include the "right to blasphemy."

The front page of the daily France Soir carried the headline "Yes, We Have the Right to Caricature God" along with a cartoon of Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian gods floating on a cloud. Inside, the paper reran the drawings.

"The appearance of the 12 drawings in the Danish press provoked emotions in the Muslim world because the representation of Allah and his prophet is forbidden. But because no religious dogma can impose itself on a democratic and secular society, France Soir is publishing the incriminating caricatures," the paper said.

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Note that we're not only talking about blasphemy against a particular religion, but that the secular state of the French state is also a topic of discussion. So the secularists argue that you can make fun of any religion - except, of course, secularism itself.

But this is not just restricted to France:

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Germany's Die Welt daily printed one of the drawings on its front page, arguing that a "right to blasphemy" was anchored in democratic freedoms. The Berliner Zeitung daily also printed two of the caricatures as part of its coverage of the controversy.

The Danish daily Jyllands-Posten originally published the cartoons in September after asking artists to depict Islam's prophet to challenge what it perceived was self-censorship among artists dealing with Islamic issues. A Norwegian newspaper reprinted the images this month.

The depictions include an image of Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse, and another portraying him holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet to prevent idolatry.

Angered by the drawings, masked Palestinian gunmen briefly took over a European Union office in Gaza on Monday. Syria called for the offenders to be punished. Danish goods were swept from shelves in many countries, and Saudi Arabia and Libya recalled their ambassadors to Denmark.

The Jyllands-Posten — which received a bomb threat over the drawings — has apologized for hurting Muslims' feelings but not for publishing the cartoons. Its editor said Wednesday, however, that he would not have printed the drawings had he foreseen the consequences.

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In other words, oops. All of us, myself included, have done things or said things without realizing the hurtful consequences of our actions or words. If the editor is to believed (must have had something to do with the lasso), s/he wouldn't have printed the potentially offensive material if s/he had half a brain. For the record, everyone - depictions of Muhammad are offensive to Muslims. Now you know.

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Demonstrations and condemnations across the Muslim world continued.

The Supreme Council of Moroccan religious leaders denounced the drawings on Wednesday.

"Muslim beliefs cannot tolerate such an attack, however small it may be," the statement said.

In Turkey, dozens of protesters from a small Islamic party staged a demonstration in front of the Danish Embassy. About 200 riot police watched the crowd from the Felicity Party, which laid a black wreath and a book about Muhammad's life at the gates of the embassy building....

Norway's deputy state secretary for foreign affairs, Raymond Johansen, said they encourage distrust between people of different faiths.

"I can understand that Muslims find the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in the Norwegian weekly ... to be offensive. This is unfortunate and regrettable," Johansen said on a visit to Beirut.

There was also anger in France, which has Western Europe's largest Muslim community with an estimated 5 million people.

Mohammed Bechari, president of the National Federation of the Muslims of France, said his group would start legal proceedings against France Soir because of "these pictures that have disturbed us, and that are still hurting the feelings of 1.2 billion Muslims."...

French theologian Sohaib Bencheikh spoke out against the pictures in a column in France Soir accompanying them Wednesday.

"One must find the borders between freedom of expression and freedom to protect the sacred," he wrote. "Unfortunately, the West has lost its sense of the sacred."

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Ah, those wacky Muslims, we say. We have no problem depicting God the Son, so why should they have a problem?

Actually, we do have a problem depicting God the Son, or perhaps we don't. Here's one side of the issue:

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Andres Serrano's Piss Christ has been at the centre of one controversy or another for a decade. Much of the debate has focused on questions of tolerance and pluralism. The claim that Piss Christ is offensive to Christians seems to suggest, incorrectly I believe, that Piss Christ has neither place nor precedent within the Christian tradition. To the extent that Piss Christ questions the boundaries between the sacred and the profane, it enacts what it represents. It threatens the identity of conservative Christians who respond by seeking to exclude it from the public realm. I consider that what is at stake is not merely the question of tolerance within a pluralist society but also of tolerance within a pluralist Church. To whom do religious symbols belong and who has the authority to prescribe the manner in which they are used? It will be my argument in this article that Piss Christ, regardless of authorial intention, is a profoundly religious work, to the extent that it raises profound theological questions that speaks to the very heart of Christianity. Consequently, after ten years, Piss Christ is still worthy of consideration....

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So this person (Damien Casey) would be offended if Piss Christ were burned. But there is another view:

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In the latest academic apologia for the antics of bad boy photographer Andres Serrano, Damien Casey attempts to portray him as not only a great liberal artist, but a great Christian theologian too. One suspects Serrano is laughing up his sleeve at the ease with which such ‘post-modern' thinking can be grafted on to the support of his iconoclasm. Casey rehearses some of the standard liberal excuses though with no fresh argument and then settles down to some more novel points concerning theology, Scripture and society. We will give some treatment of his standard liberal case first, then turn to Casey's more original contributions, and finally comment on the current state of the law regarding this issue....

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So in essence it's real easy to offend religious people. But, as I noted earlier, secularism is a religion also. And it's apparently real easy to offend adherents to THAT religion:

All over Europe, the head scarf has come to define the clash between conservative Islam and secular societies, nowhere more so than in overwhelmingly Muslim but vehemently secular Turkey. Here it's so sensitive that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends some government functions alone. His wife wears a head scarf, and her presence could offend secularists.

I would love to say, "Thank God I am a Vermonter." But this is a public forum and it may be construed as a prayer or offend secularists, nonbelievers, atheists or the white and grays hovering above us in the mothership.

I am an Evangelical Christian, but I think that our (Evangelical) support for Israel tends to offend modern secularists of all stripes, including conservatives. It is, after, a religious decision, not necessarily a logical decision.

I'm mulling over the question - if "no religious dogma can impose itself on a democratic and secular society," does it also stand to - uh - reason that no secular dogma can impose itself on a democratic and religious society? And what does that mean to the extra-Constitutional phrase "separation of church and state"?

However, more important than the question "what can we do" is the question "what should we do"? I admit I laughed at the idiocy of an El-Lay traffic helicopter in the middle of Saudi Arabia, and that I laughed at the mermaid demanding favors from an entire family and killing them in the process (even though I don't have the cultural background, I laughed), and that I laughed at Cleese murdering his former writing partner with a considerable lack of kindness. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to ask for "traffic every 10 minutes" while in Medina, or that I'll accuse the owner of a dead ewe of getting some on the side, or that I'll go to David Sherwhatever and ask if Graham's rigor mortis is still rigorous (or, in this case, rigourous).

From the Ontario Empoblog (Latest OVVA news here)