December 26, 2012
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2012 in Review: How Blasphemy Laws Are Stifling Free Expression Worldwide | Electronic Frontier Foun
You know, the silliest thing about blasphemy laws, other than that they’re akin to laws banning insulting Mr. Spock (Sheldon Cooper would approve!), is that they’re inherently contradictory in any nation which is not a theocracy, and most of the nations where these laws exist, aren’t. If you allow any kind of religious freedom, you allow, by implication, an insult to all religions, because anyone who says “I believe in X” is implying those who believe in “Y” are wrong, ignorant, foolish, etc, even if they don’t directly say so and are basically polite and tolerant. If you believe Jesus was the Messiah, you are telling every Jew “Stop waiting for the Messiah, he’s come. Your faith is misplaced and outdated.”, and every Muslim “Mohammed was just a false preacher, no different from Joseph Smith or L. Ron Hubbard.”. If you’re a Muslim, you are telling Christians that Jesus was just another prophet of God, but not God incarnate. All of the Abrahamic faiths are de facto rolling their eyes at the rest of the world’s religions, and so on. A thing cannot be two things; it must be itself. A=A. Jesus can’t be the Son of God and NOT the Son of God at the same time; someone is wrong, and I don’t see how it makes a difference if the “You’re wrong!” is stated politely, impolitely, or not stated but merely implied; when you profess any religious belief, you are saying all the others are wrong.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/2012-review-how-blasphemy-laws-are-stifling-free-expression-worldwide
Comments (4)
True enough for the most part, but that applies between any two non-reconcilable belief systems, not just religions. And while there aren’t laws against, for example, denying the importance of anthropogenic global climate change, that’s not for lack of serious suggestion from some members of the environmental movement. And heaven help you if you gainsay multiculturalism or related belief systems while on a college campus. I do disagree with your assertion that allowing religious freedom implies an insult to all religions. Individual religions may see it that way, but there’s nothing inherent in it. So far as I know, if you disagree with a Buddhist or a Shintoist or a Wiccan, for example, they’ll just see you as mistaken, which isn’t the same thing as seeing you as having insulted them — assuming the person is not an asshat to begin with. It’s much more a matter of the person than the belief system — in how much of a person’s ego is wound up with others agreeing with them. I don’t doubt that you could find some Playstation and XBox fanboys willing to kill each other, for instance. Their beliefs just don’t have the cultural heft of religion, or the depth of history behind them.
Speaking of individual religions and egos being wound up in others’ agreement, you’ll note that all but two of the countries on the list have Islamic majorities, and those two exceptions are places where the majority religion is entwined with the national identity: Greece and Russia.
Britain and France also have active blasphemy laws; as is typical of the Euroweenies, they’re in the name of “peace” and “social harmony”, which means “pander to whoever threatens to riot the most”. They didn’t come up in the EFF article, but, check out many of the links here: http://www.popehat.com/2012/12/26/vote-in-the-second-annual-popehat-censorious-asshat-of-the-year-poll/ .The UK, in particular, is becoming a festering pit of censorious douchebaggery, between political correctness and libel laws straight out of the middle ages.
Texas has already passed laws making it a crime to “disparage meat”, or some such. It would not surprise me if “blue states” followed suit with their own sacred cows. Pun intended.
A quick addendum: At its core, blasphemy is ANY disagreement with a religion’s Holy Writ. While the law in modern nations usually considers tone and intent, as a basic fact, if I say, “There are no gods, demons, devils, or any other supernatural entities, there is no soul or spirit, there is no afterlife or reincarnation or any continuance of consciousness or identity once the meat suit runs out of gas”, I have blasphemed most religions.
1. Most certainly agreed on Europe. Don’t know how I could have overlooked them, especially since they have what I was alluding to: secular blasphemy laws. In their case, the “religion” is multiculturalism. Allowing a “rioter’s veto”, as some have called it, sends a very dangerous implicit message: “We Christians write angry letters when people insult our religion, and we get Piss Christ. Muslims threaten to kill people with their religion gets insulted, and they get their asses kissed by the President of the United States. Maybe we should change tactics.”
2. It sounds like you’re saying disbelief=blasphemy, which seems overbroad to me. Not having ever really looked into what various religions consider blasphemy, I’m not in a position to intelligently disagree, though I still suspect that some religions may not even have such a concept — never heard of a Buddhist accusing anyone of blasphemy, for instance. Be that as it may, I still think that when you tell someone “I disagree with your beliefs”, the reaction is primarily a matter of the person, not the belief system.* Real life example: about two months ago, I got a knock from a union guy (AFL or CIO, I forget) canvasing for Obama. When I answered, he saw my Che Guevara with red circle and slash t-shirt, and his face instantly went from cheerful smile to dead blank. He went through his questions of “Do you have a positive or negative opinion of President Obama? Senator Reid? (Democrat congressional candidate)?” As I answered “negative” each time, his jaw clenched harder and harder. I gave him a sincere “Have a good evening, nice meeting you,” once we were done, and he walked off without acknowledging it. Now, I wouldn’t have expected him to start turning cartwheels, but he was waaaaaaaay more unpleasant than any a door-to-door Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons.
* — That distinction does not take into account that a given belief system may tend to attract or produce certain types of people.