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Blasphemy

As a Christian, anti-blasphemy laws baffle me. There can be no possible need for them.
It seems to me that blasphemy law are there as a protectionist deterrent, in my opinion, some religions are very insecure about their continued existance, so the make laws to nip in the bud any discontentment with said religion, to stop mass agreement with 'unreligious' sentiment, and to keep the populous in line and under the influence of the religion.
 
In my opinion religion was set up by man, to control man, end of story.
I've believed that and it's always a tempting idea, but I think we see ample evidence that beliefs to explain the unknowns of the world emerge and spread organically in communities.
 
It seems to me that blasphemy law are there as a protectionist deterrent, in my opinion, some religions are very insecure about their continued existance, so the make laws to nip in the bud any discontentment with said religion, to stop mass agreement with 'unreligious' sentiment, and to keep the populous in line and under the influence of the religion.
Slightly different take, not pursuing blasphemy might jeopardize the power of the people who are using the religion to gain - whatever. I don't think you'll find truly believing people spending a lot of time worrying about it. The most popular religions speak strongly about non-judgment and compassion. As always, there's a gap between the actual belief structure and how it manifests in inevitably flawed human society.
 
Surely any god worth his...well, whatever sacrifice he (or she) demands, is perfectly capable of smiting the unbelievers, and doesn't require the hand of man to intervene?
 
I am an atheist myself but I respect other people's right to their religious beliefs.

I may not always respect the belief itself, of course. That depends on a number of variables about the belief, with a huge subjective element on my part.

However, I will judge you by how you behave towards me and other people, rather than whether you believe in God, or that every pool and glade has a genius loci, or you have a sophisticated spiritual concept of the unity of the universe and the godhead.

In theory, I also respect everyone's right to show legitimate disrespect towards the religious views of others. Freedom of speech is important, as are freedom of religion and freedom from religion.

However, I have no respect for someone choosing to offend other people's sensitivities just because they can, whether they are stepping on a picture of the BVM, or burning the flag, or urinating on the cenotaph. I have no more respect for those provocative actions than I do for the people who react to them with violence and hatred.

Setting aside the literal truth, or otherwise, of religion, I think that all societies, all communities, have things that they hold sacred. Shared veneration of a place, or symbol, or a story provides an essential social bond.

To some extent, it doesn't matter what the thing is that is venerated, or whether it is real or imagined, or physical or metaphysical. It is the act of veneration that is important.

I would not deface a picture of Jesus any more than I would desecrate a cemetery, step on the grave of the unknown soldier, or fart loudly in the minute's silence for a recently deceased football manager. I will speak freely against the irrationality and excesses of organised religion, but I do not feel entitled to gratuitously insult beliefs that are important to people.

At their worst, anti-blasphemy laws can impose a climate of fear and enforce conformity, and I guess we all see that as a bad thing. However, at their best, anti-blasphemy laws simply protect what the community holds sacred, and that can be a good and necessary thing.

I am atheist and I believe that when we die, we are gone, but nevertheless, for the last 40 years I have quietly marked the anniversary of Buddy Holly's death: a singer who died before I was born. I also sometimes quietly nip down to the local churchyard to tidy the grass around the memorial slab to my wife's late first husband: a man I never met. Showing respect never does any harm. Disrespect for its own sake can be destructive.
 
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Surely any god worth his...well, whatever sacrifice he (or she) demands, is perfectly capable of smiting the unbelievers, and doesn't require the hand of man to intervene?
Yes I think that in general whether it's called smiting or karma that's part of most belief structures.
 
I have always regarded blasphemy laws to be most suited to the believers it pertains to, and not the unbeliever.
My take on this is this: blasphemy is a 'crime' committed by a follower against the religion they follow. Thus, in the (very) old days, a worshipper would be in fear of excommunication. It would refuse them access to the privileges associated with the belief system. It would also limit the actual resources they could call upon from others. Nowadays ... well, I don't think the Church is so quick to throw excommunication around as a threat because it's not so much of a threat any more.
In the modern world, the Church wants to use secular laws to include behaviour that might be considered blasphemy as this carries real-life consequences.
Me myself? I wouldn't actively commit blasphemy to make a point. Each to their own and as long as that Church doesn't force me to do anything, I'll not bother it. It's respect - not for the belief system, or it's leaders, but for it's general mass of followers who have done nothing to me so why should I go out of my way to offend them?
 

Eight-year-old becomes youngest person charged with blasphemy in Pakistan


He’s from a Hindu community.

The boy is accused of intentionally urinating on a carpet in the library of a madrassa, where religious books were kept, last month. Blasphemy charges can carry the death penalty.

“He [the boy] is not even aware of such blasphemy issues and he has been falsely indulged in these matters. He still doesn’t understand what his crime was and why he was kept in jail for a week.

Blasphemy charges filed against a child have shocked legal experts, who say the move is unprecedented. No one this young has ever been charged with blasphemy before in Pakistan.

Blasphemy laws have been disproportionately used in the past against religious minorities in Pakistan. Although no blasphemy executions have been carried out in the country since the death penalty was introduced for the crime in 1986, suspects are often attacked and sometimes killed by mobs.
 
Lynched by islamist mob.

Police have arrested 13 suspects and detained dozens of others over the lynching of a Sri Lankan employee at a sports equipment factory in eastern Pakistan, officials said.

A mob of hundreds of enraged Muslims descended on the factory in the district of Sialkot in Punjab province on Friday after the Sri Lankan manager was accused of blasphemy.

The mob grabbed Priyantha Kumara, lynched him and publicly burned the body, according to police. Factory workers accused him of desecrating posters bearing the name of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Punjab police chief Rao Sardar said on Saturday that investigators arrested prominent suspects after seeing video showing their role in inciting workers to violence, killing the manager and dragging his body outside, and taking selfies with his burning body and proudly admitting what they did.

Mr Sardar, in his initial report to authorities, said the victim had asked the workers to remove all stickers from factory machines before a foreign delegation arrived.Friday’s attack came less than a week after a Muslim mob burned a police station and four police posts in north-western Pakistan after officers refused to hand over a mentally unstable man accused of desecrating Islam’s holy book, the Koran.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40759137.html
 
Another lynching by an Islamist mob.

A mob has killed a man for allegedly burning pages of the Koran in central Pakistan, police say, in the latest case of blasphemy-related violence in the country.

Police say more than 80 people have been arrested in connection with the killing on Saturday in the district of Khanewal in Punjab province.
Reports said the man was in police custody before a crowd snatched him. His body was handed over to his family and a funeral held on Sunday.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said the case would be "dealt with the full severity of the law" and asked for a report on police officers accused of failing their duty to save the man. His government, he said, had "zero tolerance for anyone taking the law into their own hands".

Police official Munawar Hussain said officers arrived to find the man, reportedly in his 40s, unconscious and tied to a tree. Khanewal is located 275km (170 miles) south-west of Lahore.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-60368498
 
Yet another lynching by an islamist mob.

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A student was beaten and burnt to death Thursday by fellow students in northwestern Nigeria after she was accused of making a blasphemous social media post, witnesses and police said.

Deborah Samuel was killed in the Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto state after being accused of “making a social media post that blasphemed ... Prophet Muhammad,” according to a police statement. Two students have been arrested in connection with the incident.

Authorities also closed the school indefinitely, in a bid to calm frayed nerves in that part of Nigeria where residents have in the past violently reacted to actions or comments deemed anti-Islamic.

Witnesses said Samuel, a second-year college student whose age was not made public, was immediately attacked by her fellow students after she criticized a religion-related post on the students’ WhatsApp group.

“She was angry the way Muslims were talking about Islamic affairs in that WhatsApp group, which made her to make some un-Islamic utterances against Prophet Mohammed,” said Basharu Guyawa Isa, a resident and human rights activist in Sokoto.

The school authority quickly deployed security personnel to protect Samuel but they were overpowered by angry youths.

“Students forcefully removed the victim from the security room where she was hidden by the school authorities, killed her and burnt the building,” said Sokoto police spokesperson Sanusi Abubakar.

A video of the incident posted on social media and verified by The Associated Press showed Samuel lying on the ground as she was stoned and beaten with planks. The young men surrounding her then dumped tires on her, and set them ablaze.

https://apnews.com/article/africa-religion-social-media-nigeria-7342dd7bc54a56afdd1797bb6eab2d63
 
Yet another lynching by an islamist mob.

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A student was beaten and burnt to death Thursday by fellow students in northwestern Nigeria after she was accused of making a blasphemous social media post, witnesses and police said.

Deborah Samuel was killed in the Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto state after being accused of “making a social media post that blasphemed ... Prophet Muhammad,” according to a police statement. Two students have been arrested in connection with the incident.

Authorities also closed the school indefinitely, in a bid to calm frayed nerves in that part of Nigeria where residents have in the past violently reacted to actions or comments deemed anti-Islamic.

Witnesses said Samuel, a second-year college student whose age was not made public, was immediately attacked by her fellow students after she criticized a religion-related post on the students’ WhatsApp group.

“She was angry the way Muslims were talking about Islamic affairs in that WhatsApp group, which made her to make some un-Islamic utterances against Prophet Mohammed,” said Basharu Guyawa Isa, a resident and human rights activist in Sokoto.

The school authority quickly deployed security personnel to protect Samuel but they were overpowered by angry youths.

“Students forcefully removed the victim from the security room where she was hidden by the school authorities, killed her and burnt the building,” said Sokoto police spokesperson Sanusi Abubakar.

A video of the incident posted on social media and verified by The Associated Press showed Samuel lying on the ground as she was stoned and beaten with planks. The young men surrounding her then dumped tires on her, and set them ablaze.

https://apnews.com/article/africa-religion-social-media-nigeria-7342dd7bc54a56afdd1797bb6eab2d63

Islamist mobs are running amok but fake news is making the situation worse.

After the killing of Deborah Samuel, a Christian, second-year student in the northern Nigeria city of Sokoto on Thursday for alleged blasphemy, fake news and disinformation have been widely shared on social media.

A war of words erupted on Twitter and Facebook between some Muslims and Christians in the country, with each side accusing the other of intolerance and extremism.

Two days after the killing, a peaceful protest in Sokoto turned violent, with demands for the release of the suspected killers of Ms Samuel. A plethora of fake pictures, videos and posts have been shared by social media users to incite violence and cause further damage and division in the country.

Many of the fake stories are accompanied by comments on why Nigeria should be divided between the predominantly Muslim north and Christian south.

Facebook user Emeka Fans Page posted a video in which he makes many claims, one of which is "Sokoto people done butcher all the whole Christians in their state".

His video has been viewed over 670,000 times and shared more than 5,000 times. He also urges his followers to continue sharing the video.

A police statement said two protesters were shot by the police when they tried to occupy the palace of the Sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims.

There are some genuine videos that show protesters burning tyres on streets, wielding machetes, knives and sticks while running across the streets and chanting Islamic prayers. Another video showed people looting and burning shops in a market. But there is no evidence of killing or butchering as claimed by Emeka Fans Page.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61456485
 
So merciful and compassionate.

Nigerian police say a man who had a row with a Muslim cleric died in the capital, Abuja, after being set ablaze by a mob supporting the cleric.

Ahmad Usman, 30, was in a local vigilante group and police say about 200 people were mobilised against him. Eyewitnesses said the row was over an alleged blasphemous remark, but the police have not confirmed this.

Last month, a Christian student was killed by Muslim students who accused her of blasphemy in the city of Sokoto.

The Abuja victim was described by police as "a member of the local vigilante around Tipper garage at Federal Housing Estate in Lugbe Area".
Police found him at the scene with severe burns and took him to hospital, but he died of his injuries.

BBC Abuja reporter Chris Ewokor says there appears to be a rise in mob violence in Nigeria.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-61691819
 
Justice at last.
.
A Polish pop star who said the writers of the Bible had been intoxicated on wine and cannabis has had her conviction for blasphemy overturned.

Dorota Rabczewska, known professionally as Doda, was fined by a Warsaw court a decade ago for making the comments in an interview. But the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg said her statements were protected by her right to free speech.
It ordered the Polish authorities to pay her €10,000 (£8,680) in damages.

The damages amount to more than nine times the fine she was ordered to pay by the Warsaw court.
The original charges stemmed from a TV interview with the 38-year-old singer that was broadcast in 2009.

During the transmission, she said that although she believed in a "higher power", she was more convinced by dinosaurs than by the Bible.
She added: "It is hard to believe in something written by people who drank too much wine and smoked weed."
She was charged the following year and found guilty in 2012 by the Warsaw District Court, which imposed a fine of 5,000 zloty (£915; €1,060).

The court in Strasbourg ruled that although her statements could shock believers, it had not been established they would stir up violence or hatred and were therefore protected by her right to free speech.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62915672
 
Professor Joseph was treated badly by the police and his college at the time.

In 2010, the hand of a professor in India was cut off by extremists after he was accused of insulting Islam in an exam paper. Last month, the government banned the controversial Muslim group Popular Front of India (PFI), whose members had carried out the attack. The BBC travelled to Kerala to piece together the grisly incident and its aftermath.
Warning: This article contains details some readers may find distressing.


TJ Joseph remembers the attack from 12 years ago vividly.

It was a rainy July morning. Prof Joseph, then a 52-year-old teacher of Malayalam language at a local college, was driving home with his mother and sister after Sunday Mass in Muvattupuzha, an idyllic town in the southern state of Kerala set on the banks of a river by the same name.

Barely 100m from his house in a leafy, undulating lane, a Suzuki minivan barrelled down, took a sharp turn and blocked his hatchback.
The door of the minivan opened, and six men burst out. One of them ran up to Prof Joseph's car. He was carrying an axe.

As the man approached the driver's door and tried to yank it open, another man, brandishing a dagger, brought up the rear. Three others reached the passenger's side where his sister was sitting. Cowering at the wheel of his four-year-old Wagon R, his engine switched off and the driver's side window smashed into pieces by a blow of the axe, Prof Joseph realised he was trapped.

The axe-wielding man opened the door from inside, pulled him out, dragged him along the rain-slicked road and hacked away at his legs and hands.

"Don't kill me… please don't kill me," Prof Joseph pleaded with him.

The axe-wielding man kept stabbing and slashing, slicing his hand and legs like "chopping wood". The palm of his left hand had already severed and had been flung aside. The right arm was barely hanging from the rest of the body. ...

The offending question was a punctuation exercise in which Prof Joseph had borrowed a dialogue - an imaginary conversation between "God and a mad man" - from a book on screenplays written by filmmaker PT Kunju Muhammed.

He renamed the "mad man" Muhammed, he says, after the second name of the director.

"Muhammed is a common name among Muslims. It didn't cross my mind that anyone would misunderstand that as the Prophet Muhammad," Prof Joseph said.

Thirty-two students, including four Muslims, had taken the test. None of them had objected to it; and only one female student had "displayed some hesitancy". ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-63141119Prp
 
I bet that shook him up.

13:06

Nigerian sheikh sentenced to death for blasphemy​

A Sharia court in the northern Nigerian state of Kano has sentenced a prominent Islamic cleric to death by hanging, after finding him guilty of blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad as well as incitement in some of his preachings. Sheikh Abduljabar Nasir Kabara has been detained by the authorities since July last year after being accused of spreading lies against the Prophet.

The trial is being closely followed by Nigerians. Kano is among a dozen states in northern Nigeria where Sharia is practised alongside the country’s secular law.

The 52-year-old scholar is from the Qadiriyya sect. He has a sizeable number of followers mainly in Kano state.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world?ns_m...9b16ede5907c23469ffbb0&pinned_post_type=share
 
In the name of Allah the Merciful and Compassionate.

A mob stormed a police station in Pakistan and killed a man suspected of blasphemy while he was in custody, in yet another incident of religion-linked violence in the country.

The victim, identified as Muhammad Waris, was dragged out of the police station in the Nankana Sahib city of eastern Pakistan by the mob, officials said on Saturday.

The man, in his twenties, was reportedly in police custody for desecrating the Quran, the Muslim holy book, according to police spokesperson Muhammad Waqas.

The mob stormed the police station, dragged Waris out, beat him to death and attempted to set his body on fire, Mr Waqas said. “Police could not resist them because a handful of officials were present in the police station,” he said. ...

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/pakistan-mob-attacks-blasphemy-b2280638.html
 
A 14 year old autistic boy gets death threats. The school suspends those who damaged the quran but not those who made death threats.

Death threats sent to pupils who damaged a copy of the Quran at a school have been condemned by an education minister as "totally unacceptable".

West Yorkshire Police said officers had spoken to a child alleged to have made threats and given "words of advice".

The cover of the Islamic text was torn and some pages marked when it was brought into Kettlethorpe High School in Wakefield last month.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has spoken of "deep concern" over the case.

Four students were suspended as a result of the incident.

A Year 10 student brought the Islamic text to school on 23 February, reportedly as part of a dare.

The boy's mother, who said he is 14 and has "high functioning" autism, said he had received "death threats" over the incident.

Police said they had investigated a report of a "malicious communications offence". A force spokesperson added: "A suspect was identified, who was also a child, and they were given words of advice by an officer."

The force added they recorded the damage done to the religious text as a "hate incident" but officers were satisfied "no criminal offences were committed".


https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-64835023
 
Executed for blasphemy.

Iran has executed two men who were convicted of "burning the Quran" and "insulting the Prophet of Islam", the country's judiciary says.

Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli-Zare ran dozens of social media accounts "dedicated to atheism and desecration of the sanctities", the judiciary's Mizan news agency reported.

Mr Mehdad's lawyer had insisted that he was innocent and his sentence unjust.

A rights group called their executions "a cruel act by a medieval regime".

There has been a surge in executions in the Islamic Republic amid continuing anti-government unrest, but those for blasphemy convictions are rare.

Mizan said Yousef Mehrad and Sadrollah Fazeli-Zare were hanged at Arak Prison in central Iran on Monday morning.

The two men were arrested in 2020 and accused of running a Telegram channel called "Criticism of Superstition and Religion", according to Iran's Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). They were held in solitary confinement for the first two months and denied access to a lawyer, it said.

In 2021, the Arak Criminal Court convicted Mr Mehrad and Mr Fazeli-Zare on blasphemy charges and sentenced them to death, HRANA added. They were also given six-year prison sentences for "running groups to act against national security".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-65523996
 
I noticed all the recent posts are about muslim countries. But the christians are just as bad, it's just that the laws in countries that are predominantly christian like the UK and Australia don't allow blashpemy to be a death sentence any more. And in the U.S. treason and murder are the only death sentence crimes as it is not a predominantly christian or any religion country (contrary to popular belief in some parts, like the deep south and Texas). I was called a blasphemer when I was too young to even know what that meant because I tried to correct the sunday school teacher for misquoting the bible, so I was a blasphemer to her because I could read. It is a subjective term used to control and denigrate people. It is sad that in some places it can be used in law to abuse people.
 
Even schoolgirls face death.

A Mauritanian secondary school student has been arrested for writing an exam paper considered insulting to the Prophet Muhammad in last month's baccalaureate exams.

Domestic media have reported that religious authorities demanded the death penalty if the young woman, who has not been named, is found guilty of blasphemy in court.

Mauritania has strengthened blasphemy laws, prescribing the death penalty for Muslims who "ridicule or insult God or the Prophet, even if they repent". Previously people could avoid the death sentence if they expressed remorse.

Pan-Arab news outlet al-Quds al-Araby reported on Wednesday that the student is from the north-western town of Atar and comes from the Haratin ethnic group, who are the descendants of slaves of sub-Saharan origin.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world/afri...ba9530e3a72e6ac42439df&pinned_post_type=share
 
I've believed that and it's always a tempting idea, but I think we see ample evidence that beliefs to explain the unknowns of the world emerge and spread organically in communities.
Delayed response, came here becos recent activity.

I think it's important to differentiate between belief (faith) and religion, especially religion with a power structure.

The former is a personal, matter, the latter at best consists of people gathering together to congratulate themselves on how much more enlightened they are than the common folk, at worst (and usually) they are faithless power structures to control the peasants. Desire for a blasphemy law seems an absolute red flag that one is dealing with the worst sort of religion.

I happen to believe in a God, but I don't find my beliefs reflected in any of the religious organisations that claim to follow that God's precepts. Indeed in most cases they actively defy clear instruction in our source book. Some of course are worse than others.
 
As a Christian, anti-blasphemy laws baffle me. There can be no possible need for them.

Yep, me too - faith is personal and I am free to live in/with my faith. I am also lucky to live in a place that allows me to talk about it if I wish. I'd prefer it if others were respectful about it but they are free not to be, if they so wish.

I might find blaspheming unpleasant but that's my own personal feeling and have no right to impose that on anyone - it's (literally) not my judgement call!
 
The Orthodox Church has gained a lot of power. It was always there in the background in the USSR days, legally operating at a lower level.
A bit like Scouting, then.
One of my uncles, a dedicated longterm Scout leader, told me that when the Berlin Wall fell there were suddenly Eastern Europe Scout groups coming out of the woodwork, where they'd been hiding since the War ended. All their flags and badges had been safely stowed against freer times.
 
Linked, there was a clergyman on Radio 4 yesterday (Sunday) who was moaning about being 'cancelled' because he published a comment about gay pride marches, pointing out that in Leviticus, pride is a sin.
Of course, it's a neat bit of sophistry - if he'd said that being gay was a sin, he'd have considerable backlash if only from his own church. Didn't work though because he clearly linked sin to images of gay pride.
The interviewer pointed out that the Church has no problem with people having pride in their children's attainments and, in fact, the website of the firm he founded stated that it "Takes great pride in ...". Surely it's down to the actual use of the word pride?
Nope, says the Hypocritical One - "My belief is in the Bible being the LAW! If it says pride is a sin then gay pride marches are sinful.
:rofl:
 
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