Today is the first international Blasphemy Day. This is an event organised by the Center For Inquiry to commemorate the Mohammad Cartoons controversy and celebrate free expression and the “God-given” right to mock, ridicule and blaspheme religions.
To some people it may seem juvenile and unnecessary. But it’s very important to keep up the pressure on freedom of expression. Especially since the last year has seen many setbacks, the most extreme being:
- Whilst many countries are removing archaic blasphemy laws from the book, this year Ireland passed a NEW blasphemy law, making it illegal to blaspheme any religion. As well as being evil, the law is insanely stupidly laid out since the plain meaning could well prohibit the Bible since it blasphemes against Baal-worship.
- Then there was the absolutely obscene UN Human Rights Council resolution. To quote the Reuters article: “Defamation of religious is a serious affront to human dignity leading to a restriction on the freedom of their adherents and incitement to religious violence,” the adopted text read, adding that “Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism.”
To see modern-day blasphemy talk in action outside the legal arena, you just have to go to the Wikipedia article about the Mohammad cartoons controversy. The talk page contains what could well be the largest historical Wikipedia discussion, with 24 pages of archives, multiple polls and so forth. The cartoons must have been removed from the page hundreds of times — luckily the resolution adopted was that they stay because indeed they are relevant to the article. In this, Wikipedia scores 1 with Yale scoring 0 — they just published a whole book about the controversy without including a single one of the cartoons.
But don’t think that this is special to Islam (or that the threats of violence that have accompanied these particular cartoons) make it a special case. Click over to the Wiki article on Bahá’u'lláh, the founder of the Bahai faith. Displaying a photo of this person is also considered taboo in this particular faith. There is also a huge talk page with arguments going back and forth. Except this time there’s more accommodationism with the photo buried halfway down the article to prevent “accidental viewing”.
The moral to the story (if there is one) is that we still live in a world where religion can trump anything. The Bahais involved in the discussion were not threatening violence, and I’m sure neither were the Muslims in the 1st Wikipedia discussion. Both just cited deep offence — and in one case it was enough for an exception to be made. But of course everything is offensive. The Documentary Hypothesis literally blasphemes against fundamentalist Christianity and orthodox Judaism. Modern academic analysis of the Koran is probably just as blasphemous as the cartoons. If the cartoons go, everything else has to go too.
I wanted to close on an image that celebrates the concept of blasphemy as freedom of expression without singling out any particular religion. So this is a good one: from the Israeli magazine Nana showing a foursome with Jesus, Moses, Mohammad and Buddha. According to my uncle, the label means “a draw!” — indeed a lovely sentiment!
8 comments ↓
I am instantly a fan of this day. Ironically, can you imagine the adherents to any of the “four”* religions depicted in your cartoon as agreeing it was anything like a draw?
* I say “four” because of those four characters, many religions have been born – just because Anglican and Catholic are both Christian, for example, they’re really entirely different faiths.
[...] in mind, today I’m celebrating International Blasphemy Day. You can read all about it here at my friend Michael’s blog. For my part, I want to share today’s Jesus & Mo cartoon. (Jesus & Mo is one of my [...]
Well maybe the most liberal factions of each religion will agree in an “all paths lead to god” bit of nonsense.
As will Karen Armstrong
My favourite bit is the Buddha daintily hooking his leg onto the sheets — what a nice touch!
[...] Blasphemy Day — a Nadder! anadder.com/blashphemy-day – view page – cached Today is the first international Blasphemy Day. This is an event organised by the Center For Inquiry to commemorate the Mohammad Cartoons controversy and celebrate free expression and the… (Read more)Today is the first international Blasphemy Day. This is an event organised by the Center For Inquiry to commemorate the Mohammad Cartoons controversy and celebrate free expression and the “God-given” right to mock, ridicule and blaspheme religions. (Read less) — From the page [...]
The UN Human Rights Council resolution is not just obscene; it is also irrational. As you point out, by adopting religion A, say, chances are you are blaspheming religion B. (Example: In the Greek Orthodox “tradition”, there is a song/poem some older people sing during the week before Easter that mentions the “thrice-cursed Jews who crucified Christ”.)
Therefore, if one is to abide to the law, one should not be a member of a religion that is in conflict with at least another religion. Since (I think) there is no religion that has absolutely zero conflicts with another, the only logical conclusion, following from the UN resolution, is that one should be an atheist. This could (should?) be pointed out to the brains who voted for such an obscene/irrational thing.
To play the role of the devil [sic] now, may I point out that your Baal example is not very good because nobody worships Baal nowadays. As a counterargument to this you could, of course, tell me that if someone decided to start worshipping Baal he would not be able to because Baal is condemned by the Bible.
I deliberately used an obscure religion as a reminder it could be anyone’s private religion too, not just the major ones (plus to make it more literal blasphemy based on the Bible).
Also I’m pretty sure there are SOME people out there somewhere worshipping Baal. It’s like they said on the Atheist Experience: you might use Zeus in an argument as an example of a ridiculous God nobody worships anymore. But because they have a large audience, they then get emails saying “I worship Zeus, how dare you blaspheme against him?”
I would even assume there’s a movement in Greece to revive “old/original” gods linked to nationalism (as there would be in other countries) — between that and the new age movement someone would have picked up Baal.
I understand. We are then on the same boat. Because I do often ask the following question: What exactly do we mean by religion? How do we define it? If, say, I start my own religion am I also under the protection that the law offers to “standard” religions? Can I claim that I should get the same respect that, say, Christians or Jews enjoy? Sometimes I ask: Can I adopt a different religion on different days? (I call it time-varying religion.) Nobody answers these questions.
Yes, there IS a movement in Greece to revive ancient Greek religion (actually, ancient Greek religions, because there were a few, some worshipping Zeus, some Apollo, the orphic religion,…). I will try to find a link. They are becoming somewhat stronger lately, they try to hold rituals on, say, the Acropolis, but they are being ridiculed and bullieed both by the Christians and the police. I happen to believe that they are, well, funny–to put it mildly. But, on the other hand, I find it ridiculous to have their freedom of expression restricted by equally funny individuals.
There you go:
http://www.ysee.gr/index-eng.php
or, in Russian:
http://www.ysee.gr/html/rus/index.html
There are actually many sites, blogs, etc. Some of these people refer to Christians as “Nazarenes”. The page
http://krisaion.pblogs.gr/tags/nazoraioi-gr.html
says that it was posted on the “Βοηδρομιώνος” month, on the year 2783 after the first Olympic games. Enjoy.
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