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February 17, 2006
Blasphemy
I am a religious person. Heck, I reckon by many 'post-modern standards' I am very religious. Not only am I at church several times a week, but I'm also fairly involved in my church's governance. I'm a Presbyterian. I believe in God, and I believe that Jesus Christ was His Son. Your mileage may vary.
I am an American, and I believe in our Constitution. I especially believe that
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances
and that means to me that you or I can say whatever we like about any religion, and the government can not do anything about it. Specifically, it can not pass any laws making 'blasphemy' a crime, because to do that would clearly be making a law respecting an establishment of religion as well as abridging the freedom of speech.
And that's how it should be. A central strength of our society is that while we all have a right to different beliefs (including of course believing in, er, not believing) we do not have the right to impose the strictures of our faith on others who have not willingly signed on. And we most certainly do not have the right to get the government to force our religious beliefs or non-beliefs on others. End of story. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Worshipers of C'thulu, Pastafarians, Atheists, whatever; our freedom requires that all ideas and beliefs are subject to debate and, yes, ridicule.
If this offends you, too bad. Argue back. Try and convince others of the validity of your position. Were Christians offended by Piss Christ or the painting of the Virgin Mary covered in dung? Yes. Did they riot and destroy stores? Not that I recall. Violence is not an acceptable option. If your god or prophet or xenu master is offended by something that a non-believer says then it seems to me they should make their case, not the government and not you by throwing rocks at people. As I said in an earlier thread I could not worship a god who required humans to settle his scores for him, and I'll add nor one that runs to secular law either.
And neither should you.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at February 17, 2006 11:08 AM
Comments
What the Brother says!
Posted by: tree hugging sister at February 17, 2006 11:13 AM
Quite so.
Posted by: Ken Summers at February 17, 2006 11:23 AM
Posted by: Ken Summers at February 17, 2006 11:25 AM
(I thought in your world, that was BAAAAAAsphemy.)
(And for the record, I worship rocks and trees. But I figure someone had to come up with the first one...)
Posted by: tree hugging sister at February 17, 2006 11:37 AM
I worship Seymour, the Norse god of off-color jokes.
Posted by: Ken Summers at February 17, 2006 11:48 AM
We don't want to return to Life of Brian days:
--------[As Brian and his mum come over the top of a hill, they see large
number of people stoning some unfortunate. MC hurries Brian along to
get to the next victim in time. When he is, we see that he crowd
consists entirely of women wearing fake beards. An elder stands in
front of the next prisoner holding a scroll as he waits for the
crowd to settle down.]
Elder Mathias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath.
Mathias [to a guard] Do I say yes?
Guard Yes.
Mathias [To the elder] Yes.
Elder You have been found guilty by the elders of the town of uttering
the name of our lord, and so as a BLASPHEMER...
Crowd Ooooh.
Elder ...you are to be stoned
to death.
--------[The crowd look anxious to kill Mathias]
Mathias Look. I'd had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was 'That
piece of hallibut was good enough for Jehovah'.
Crowd Oooooooh!
Elder BLASPHEMY!!!! He said it again
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at February 17, 2006 11:54 AM
Amen.
Posted by: Cullen at February 17, 2006 11:56 AM
A leader of the Religion of Peace in Pakistan has taken out a hit on a cartoonist.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060217/ap_on_re_mi_ea/prophet_drawings
Posted by: Susanna at February 17, 2006 12:26 PM
A leader of the Religion of Peace in Pakistan has taken out a hit on a cartoonist.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060217/ap_on_re_mi_ea/prophet_drawings
I am thinking he put his pinky finger to his lip like Dr. Evil when he said, "One... MILLION... dollars!"
Posted by: Susanna at February 17, 2006 12:28 PM
The European Union wants to screen all school textbooks and ban any intolerant depictions of Islam and other faiths.The call for a special committee to examine religious education in schools came yesterday from Hans-Gert Pöttering, the German Christian Democrat, who heads the largest group of MEPs. Pottering, head of the federalist European People’s Party suggested in a debate about the crisis brought about by Islamic intolerance to cartoons published in a Danish newspaper, that the EU should co-operate with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to establish a textbook review committee.
This committee would screen existing and new publications intended for use in religious and history teaching in European schools and colleges. In other words, Islamic representatives would be invited to edit material about Islamic faith and the centuries of bloody conflict between the western and the Muslim worlds, effectively rewriting European history from an Islamic perspective! It is an astonishing act of appeasement.
Media code of conduct opposed
Also in the debate MEPs announced opposition to a proposal by the Commission to make European media operations sign up to a voluntary "code of conduct" for reporting on Islam and other religions.
"The press has to draw its own code of conduct, we cannot do it for them," said German Green MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
Danish Liberal MEP Karin Riis-Jorgensen read out a Danish constitution article on freedom for the printed media stating, "censorship and other repressive measures shall never be again introduced".
A fellow Dane, MEP Jens-Peter Bonde from the Parliament’s Independence/Democracy group, said, "Islam is not above the Danish constitution".
Posted by: tree hugging sister at February 17, 2006 01:07 PM
Well said. You don't have the right to not be offended.
Posted by: Crusader at February 17, 2006 03:21 PM
Jens-Peter Bonde had better be paid up with Mutual of Copenhagen after that one.
Posted by: Nightfly at February 17, 2006 04:12 PM