"Muslim nations seek blasphemy ban"

Thus ran a headline this morning on the back page of our local newspaper. The piece comes from the Associated Press, from which I take this excerpt:

Four years after cartoons of the prophet Muhammad set off violent protests across the Muslim world, Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery—essentially a ban on blasphemy that would put them on a collision course with free speech laws in the West.

The cartoons referred to were originally published in Denmark, on September 30, 2005. And, of course, the cartoons did no such thing as "set off violent protests"; they'd have gone unnoticed but for some Muslim activists' picking them up and rubbing then in the faces of their impressionable brethren. Have you ever heard of anyone as pliable as a Muslim?

Maybe a fundamentalist Christian, or a devotee of Fox News [sic]?

    Ah, right.
    The idea of a "blasphemy ban" would be laughable to a rational person except for the tendency among Muslims to threaten or murder people they consider "blasphemers." Are you, for example, a "blasphemer"? Have you ever uttered the sentence, "God does not exist"? To some Muslims at least, uttering even such a plain statement of fact (or at least opinion) is a "blasphemy," meaning (according to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary):

a. the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God,
b. the act of claiming the attributes of deity, or
c. irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable.

I note that the first definition seems to grant the existence of God. Would it be blasphemous to criticize the definition for that? I'm sure some Muslims would think so.
    The ban is being sought through the U.N. General Assembly:

If ratified in countries that enshrine freedom of expression as a fundamental right, such a treaty would require them to limit free speech if it risks seriously offending religious believers....

"Algeria and Pakistan have taken the lead in lobbying...."
    Well, such a ban has no chance of succeeding, but people unfortunate enough to have been born in a Muslim country, or dumb enough to move to one by choice, had better keep their heads down and their free thoughts to themselves.