Everybody Bake Jesus Day – Facebook Event

Yeah we realize the title is not very imaginative coming on the heels of Everybody Draw Muhammad Day, but wait till you hear all our reasons for why we think you should participate in this particular celebration of free speech and expression.

The Everybody Bake Jesus Day facebook event is being organized as a response to a recent incident involving an assault on our fundamental right to a well-cooked Jesus. Javier Krahe, a musician from Spain, has been charged with blasphemy simply because of a benign and victimless act of self-indulgence committed over 3 decades ago. Krahe made a satirical home video in 1978, in which he oven-baked a properly seasoned statue of Jesus that he pulled off a crucifix. A few frames from this 54 second video were shown on Spanish TV more recently and the Catholic church went all batshit crazy over it. Now Krahe could end up paying a fine of up to 192,000 euros. P.Z. Myers blogged about this on Pharyngula last month. We have decided to make this an official event on facebook along the lines of Everybody Draw Muhammad day.

Event : Everybody Bake Jesus Day

Start Time: Saturday, July 3, 2010 at 12:00am
End Time: Sunday, July 4, 2010 at 12:00am
Location: Everywhere

Support free speech by baking Jesus in your favorite cake, cookie, pie, pastry, whatever. Have a barbecue and bake Jesus shaped pork ribs. If you’re vegan, bake a tofu Jesus. Maybe you’d like to get together with your friend Jesús from next door and do some ‘baking’ together. If you cannot actually bake anything for want of hardware, do something creative. Make a video or design a graphic. Whichever way you choose to participate, join the rest of us on Saturday the third of July, and share your ideas by posting them on facebook.

It is true that the forms of Christianity in practice today are on average less violent and fundamentalist than modern Islam, and this case of Javier Krahe is indeed an aberration in the West. But nevertheless, we think that this case deserves our full attention. Even if we are unable to provide any real support to Javier Krahe, we must at least use this incident to demonstrate to those in the Muslim world that the atheist/freethought community is equally critical of and opposed to attempts by all religious authorities and groups to transgress on the fundamental rights of human beings. The message that we send is peaceful and coordinated defiance of the coercive tactics that religionists resort to when their absurd beliefs are ridiculed. The message is that one act of censorship of ideas will inspire many more acts of free expression of ideas in its place. The message we send to the mullahs and priests of all religious communities is this: If you want to escape the ridicule of the world’s nonbelievers, censoring us or attempting to criminalize free speech is the last thing you want to do.

Here is the original video by Javier Krahe: