Activists Unite with a Manifesto Against Islamic Totalitarianism

Jim Hoft, at Gateway Pundit has the story: Activists Unite with a Manifesto Against Islamic Totalitarianism.

Michelle Malkin has more on this, with further linkage -- including a very good one, to a dissenting opinion.

Being an agnostic, I tend to find myself tangled somewhere in the middle, again, intellectually. I really want to support the manifesto against totalitarianism, but absolute secularism isn't exactly the answer, either.

From a pure survival viewpoint, I'm with the writers, today. Any manifestation of faith which prohibits free speech -- and therefore free thought -- is a threat to every other freedom as well. Defending that freedom is crucial, and this group of writers is doing a bang-up job of standing guard on a dangerous frontier.

But then, the writers take it too far, by taking faith out of the debate as well. They, too, become guilty of threatening that same freedom of speech -- although, I seriously doubt one of them would resort to violence if, under their benevolent policy, my friends among the faithful were to discuss their beliefs. Nonetheless, the groundwork would have been laid.

Some discussion of faith is inevitable. We have millennia of precedence to build upon, and, in particular, our own Western Ethics are, in my opinion, the Parthenon on the top of that Acropolis. Our perspectives on freedom, responsibility, fraternity and forgiveness are columns built of the stone of Christian and Jewish teachings. We can hardly ignore their impact, let alone forbid them their place in the discussion of law and right. They most certainly can not be neglected in defending our freedom.

Still, these twelve writers have shown themselves repeatedly to have courage, to stay the course in their defense of liberty. On that, I am with them -- without reservation.