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I had submitted this comic to The Peak a week ago, but John Morrison III decided that a cat with a giant penis was funnier, and Graham Templeton found the idea of “everybody draw Mohammed day” hypocritical. He wrote a scathing critique of the event on the basis that the western world is only now – after the fire and brimstone riots have passed – deciding to support free speech, whereas they should have stood together and republished the Danish cartoons when this freedom was the most fragile and in need of support. I agree that the western media displayed extreme cowardice in leaving the Danish cartoonists alone to face the violence of Muslims with hurt feelings, but I won’t condemn a stand for free speech whatever the circumstance.

The SFU Human Rights Office recently sent out an email message dedicated to the accommodation of religious “holy days”. The contents are based on British Columbia’s Human Rights Act, which, much like the Charter of Rights, embeds religious accommodation in the legislative and social framework.

The message specifies that student and staff requests for days off in order to observe holy days as prescribed by their religion must be accommodated without penalty unless it presents undue hardship. This would apply for example if a holy day conflicts with an exam, where a student will not lose grades due to it. The message goes on to say that “it is difficult to imagine, in a University of this size and scope, the point at which we would be justified in saying that undue hardship had been reached”. Verifying whether a claimant actually belongs to the religion they claim is discouraged, and a rule of thumb for acceptable religions is provided as those listed in the interfaith calendar, which the same office makes available. Even more onerous requests are accepted, such as “Orthodox Jews and Seventh Day Adventists, [who] practice their religious faith by worshipping from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday”, or “Muslims who fast during Ramadan”.

While it seems everything is being monopolized these days with Microsoft, Apple, MPAA, RIAA, and your local ISPs, etc…the bigotry industry remains a largely competitive market. Apparently some Christians are not content with a Muslim monopoly on bigotry, and a certain sect decided to have their own ridiculously insignificant subject of disproportionate whining, except this time it’s a cracker instead of line drawings.

What happened? Some guy decided to smuggle a cracker from the ceremony, and now he’s getting death threats. From Fox (Full Article):

A UCF student claims he’s getting death threats for messing with something sacred.
Webster Cook says he smuggled a Eucharist, a small bread wafer that to Catholics symbolic of the Body of Christ after a priest blesses it, out of mass, didn’t eat it as he was supposed to do, but instead walked with it.

PZ Meyers wrote an amazing commentary on this:

Came across an interesting cartoon while doing research for a paper:

Some additional information at the source
http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000783.html.

On the subject of religion, tragic events are often brought up. The religious use tragic events to support the claim that god loves you and will help you solve problems. A large list may be enumerated of people who after having suffered a tragic event turned to god for consolation and strength. On the other hand, the non-religious use tragic events to support the claim that god either hates you, don’t care, or is simply inept at his job. A large list may also be enumerated of people who shed their convictions as a result of tragic events, because surely god wouldn’t permit such horrible things to occur. The religious might counter this with a variety of possible arguments, all of which are open to further counter arguments, and so on. So what’s actually the case? Why do tragic events sometime convert people, and sometimes deconvert people?