Oh, and on the subject of mocking things.
1. Things that are ridiculous should be mocked. That's how you should the ridiculousness. Or more specifically, they should be ridiculed.
2. Most mocking is, in fact, criticism. And every idea should be subject to criticism. Every. Single. One. Mockery is just criticism with a specific tone. Sometimes it's derisive. Sometimes it's silly. But the central theme is just criticism. And anyone whose opinions, ideas, or beliefs cannot stand up to criticism should get new opinions, ideas, or beliefs. Criticism is how we refine our ideas. It's like the scientific method.
Don't get me wrong: When we're talking about genuine religious fanatics, I agree with you.
But criticism that makes more than obvious that those advancing it have not the slightest bit of understanding about the target of their mockery, makes them look silly.
I think 90% of the "funny" pictures here are based on strawman misrepresentations of religion, like for example the absurd idea that religion always claims to contradict science and trumps it, totally ignoring that the vast majority of religious people are neither Christian fundamentalists nor orthodox Muslims and thus don't make that claim. Or on a naive childlike approach to the theodicy question.
So don't fool yourself. I think you know as well as I do, that this isn't about rational arguments or the noble cause of spreading rational thinking. Most of the time, it's about poking cheap fun at something you don't understand.
3. Making fun of something is a whole lot better than killing them. This is first a major step up from how people reacted to ideas they didn't like for most of human history, but also a point for atheists over the religious. We don't kill or torture people in order to prove our point about spiritual beliefs being wrong. The religious have been doing that for thousands of years. We mock the religious when we disagree with them. They murdered us when they disagreed with us. Makes it pretty clear who the good guys are, huh?
Yeah right, because, you know, the vast majority of religious people don't argue, but simply kill their opponents.
This "argument" is so silly, it makes my brain bleed.
It's fascinating that really good, rational people who usually take care to make really good arguments, suddenly become not much more than schoolyard bullies the moment religion is the topic.
4. Some jokes are funny to some people, and not funny to others. Even jokes about people hanging on crosses are funny to some people. Just because you don't think it's funny doesn't mean that it's wrong to make the joke. No one has the right to not be offended, and if your position is subject to someone else's mockery, maybe you should re-evaluate your position.
I don't think anybody here claimed that you guys don't have the right to make these jokes.
I even found some of them funny. A lot of them are funny, as long as you have in mind they target only religious people with a particular interpretation of their respective religion (like people who actually believe their religion is in contradiction to science and trumps it). What I find not so funny is that some doing the mocking apparently don't understand that not all religious people are like that.
