Blasphemy and the laws against blasphemy

[gotsnowgotslush]

This happened last month- (January 2015)

Stephen Fry gave an impassioned response when asked what he would say to God, if he were to arrive at the gates of Heaven.

Speaking to a TV host on Irish station RTE’s ‘Meaning of LIfe’ programme, Fry, a devout atheist called God “evil”, “stupid” and “a maniac”, and asked why he would create a world that is “so full of injustice and pain”.

He was asked by Gay Byrne, the show’s host, what he were to do if he did meet God after his death.

Fry responded: “I’ll say: bone cancer in children, what’s that about?

“How dare you how dare you create a world where there is such misery that’s not our fault? It’s utterly, utterly evil."

Taken aback, Byrne asks: “Do you think you’re going to get in like that”, to which Fry responded: “No, but I wouldn’t want to,” and goes on to say that he would prefer the Gods of ancient Greece.

Continuing, he adds: “The god who created this universe, if he created this universe, is quite clearly a maniac, an utter maniac, totally selfish. We have to spend our lives on our knees thanking him. What kind of god would do that?
“Yes the world is very splendid, but it also has in it insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind.”

Speaking specifically of the Christian idea of God, he said he is “monstrous and deserves no respect”.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/01/3...-stephen-fry-was-asked-what-he-thinks-of-god/

Pavan Dhaliwal of the British Humanist Association wrote in the Independent that Fry’s comments are technically illegal in Ireland, and would also be criminal in a vast number of countries across the world.

She said: “Blasphemy is illegal in 49 countries.

“In many countries, these laws are used to stifle free expression and promote a climate of fear and punishment for people of minority religious and non-religious groups.

"...though it is unlikely that Ireland will choose to prosecute Stephen under its blasphemy law, shouldn’t it be a source of moral disgust that it could, if it chose to?

“The very presence of blasphemy in law presents a threat to the rights of ordinary people of all beliefs and backgrounds – be they humanists, Christians, Muslims, or simply people whose political views differ from the government’s.”

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/02/0...49-countries-for-something-he-did-last-month/

 

[gotsnowgotslush]

Blasphemy against Jesus the Christ-

"Almost every word ever written about Jesus was written by people who didn't actually know Jesus when he was alive. These were not people who walked with Jesus or talked with Jesus. These were not people who ate with him or prayed with him."

-Reza Aslan

http://www.npr.org/2013/07/15/198040928/christ-in-context-zealot-explores-the-life-of-jesus

Outrage After Fox News Interview With 'Zealot' Author

Charges of anti-Muslim prejudice flew thick and fast following Fox News anchor Lauren Green's interview with Reza Aslan, a religious scholar and the author of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.

Green repeatedly asked Aslan why, as a Muslim, he was interested in writing about Jesus' life.

Aslan emphasized that he is a historian, answering, "Well, to be clear, I am a scholar of religions with four degrees, including one in the New Testament, and fluency in biblical Greek, who has been studying the origins of Christianity for two decades, who also just happens to be a Muslim."

Green, host of the online show Spirited Debate, went on to suggest Aslan hadn't disclosed his Muslim identity during previous media interviews.

Aslan countered that he mentions his faith on the second page of the book.

A post at Buzzfeed asks, "Is This The Most Embarrassing Interview Fox News Has Ever Done?" and The New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum called it "demented."

The Twitter hashtag #foxnewslitcrit was spawned, full of mock interview questions such as, "Ms. Rowling, what gives you, a muggle, the right to write a book about wizards?"

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...e-after-fox-news-interview-with-zealot-author

 

[NeverEndingMe]

derp and derp

 

[phrodeau]

The Book of Job is blasphemous in places.

 

[1sickbastard]

Not a big fan of blasphemy laws and those who promulgate them.

 

[CandiCame]

Jesus Fucking Christ

 

[oggbashan]

Blasphemy in England and Wales only applied to Christianity and specifically the Established Church of England.

There were calls for it to be extended to other faiths as well. The Government, with cross-party support, rejected that, and repealed the blasphemy laws in 2008.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_Kingdom

As usual with any law, the problem was the detail and the application.

What is blasphemy? Who decides what the definition is? When the law applied only to Christianity and the Church of England, in England and Wales there was really only one person who could define blasphemy - the Archbishop of Canterbury, but judges in English courts decided for themselves.

The law as is WAS (from Wikipedia):

Religion to which the offences relate

In R v Gathercole (1838), the defendant was convicted of criminal libel for publishing an attack on a Roman Catholic nunnery. Alderson B., in his direction to the jury, said that "a person may, without being liable to prosecution for it, attack Judaism, or Mahomedanism, or even any sect of the Christian religion (save the established religion of the country); and the only reason why the latter is in a different situation from the others is, because it is the form established by law, and is therefore a part of the constitution of the country. In the like manner, and for the same reason, any general attack on Christianity is the subject of a criminal prosecution, because Christianity is the established religion of the country."

In Bowman v Secular Society Ltd (1917), Lord Sumner said that this was a "strange dictum" because insulting a Jew's religion was no less likely to provoke a fight than insulting an episcopalian's religion.

The Church in Wales was disestablished in 1920. In 1985, the Law Commission said that the effect of this was that that Church was no longer "the form established by law" nor "part of the constitution" of the Principality of Wales, within the meaning of those expressions in the dictum from R v Gathercole set out above. They said that, at that date, there was no authority as to the effect of this, if any, on the law of blasphemy in Wales.


Lord Scarman said that in his judgement the modern law of blasphemy was correctly formulated in article 214 of Stephen's Digest of the Criminal Law, Ninth Edition, 1950, which reads:

Every publication is said to be blasphemous which contains any contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous or ludicrous matter relating to God, Jesus Christ, or the Bible, or the formularies of the Church of England as by law established. It is not blasphemous to speak or publish opinions hostile to the Christian religion, or to deny the existence of God, if the publication is couched in decent and temperate language. The test to be applied is as to the manner in which the doctrines are advocated and not as to the substance of the doctrines themselves. Everyone who publishes any blasphemous document is guilty of the (offence) of publishing a blasphemous libel. Everyone who speaks blasphemous words is guilty of the (offence) of blasphemy.