> Every other faith (and other large group of people) seems to have accepted it however.

This is obviously false. In England the film "Life of Brian" faced multiple bans from local councils on being shown at cinemas. Glasgow had a 30 year ban that ended in 2009. The comedian Stewart Lee faced legal action and a vicious campaign after his opera "Jerry Springer: the musical"; Jewish groups (rightly) decry Holocaust denying cartoons or cartoons comparing treatment of Palestinians to anything that happened in Nazi Germany; Sikhs in Birmingham (UK) violently protested a play, causing it to be stopped.

Life of Brian: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west...

Stewart Lee: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N9EUe8jNr6o

Sikh protest stops play: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/dec/20/arts.religion1

Fair enough, but I would say the former still holds.

You have no right not to be offended, it just doesn't exist.

I'm embarrassed to say that some of my fellow Catholics don't entirely get it. After the attack the Catholic League had a truly stupid editorial of "provocation isn't free speech" flavor.

Religious people will always have a struggle between their notions of the sacred and others' freedom to ignore those notions. Those using their minds will see the necessity of freedom of conscience -- there is no faith without choice -- and accept its implications for speech. But the temptations and ignorances that move people to dictate to others are, I think, common to all religions. Yes, the mainstreams of Christianity and Judaism have gone much further in thinking this through, but we'll always have to guard against this instinct.

Not really. I have some integrists (Catholics) in my family, and they took the trouble to forward e-mails explaining that they didn't really like Charlie Hebdo, because it wasn't respectful towards any religion. In fact, they don't think much of press freedom:

«freedom of expression and freedom of the press don't extend to insulting, showing contempt, blaspheming, trampling, mocking the faith or values of co-citizens». The justification: «insult is violence».

Possibly they are afraid of being mocked. Realizing that people didn't have to take (the idea of) god seriously was transformative for me.

Their email forward about Charlie Hebdo described a cartoon of pope benedict xvi «taking position on pedophilia» (sodomizing children), here's the drawing: http://culturebox.francetvinfo.fr/tendances/evenements/dessi... . The cartoon is not actually related to Charlie Hebdo, which goes to show they don't read it. That said, here's a drawing that's really be Charlie, lampooning the catholics for a hush-hush attitude to pedophilia: http://stripsjournal.canalblog.com/archives/2010/03/31/27376... . It's accurate: those well-to-do catholics I've talked to, including priests, reacted to the scandals strictly by being preoccupied with perception of the catholic church.