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Atheist Ireland Publishes 25 Blasphemous Quotes

Sun, 2010-01-03 04:42 — ABN

From today, 1 January 2010, the new Irish blasphemy law becomes operational, and we begin our campaign to have it repealed. Blasphemy is now a crime punishable by a €25,000 fine. The new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.

This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic States led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

We believe in the golden rule: that we have a right to be treated justly, and that we have a responsibility to treat other people justly. Blasphemy laws are unjust: they silence people in order to protect ideas. In a civilised society, people have a right to to express and to hear ideas about religion even if other people find those ideas to be outrageous.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

We agree with this initiative and would encourage Irish Buddhists to publicly blaspheme Buddhist monks, symbols, and texts as a way of illustrating how wrong-headed this law is.

The new law defines blasphemy as "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted".

Gather some willing monks in a public place, alert the press, then spit on the monks, smash some Buddhist statues, burn some sutras or flush them down toilets. Generally be as "intentionally outrageous" as you can. If you succeed in pissing off a "substantial number of adherents" to Buddhism, that would be fine and certainly good for their moral and intellectual development.

Buddhism has a long history of deliberately disrespecting Buddhist symbols for the express purpose of preventing Buddhists from being morons about external symbols. If the cops bust you, you can honestly declare that your actions are a bona fide part of the tradition, and you can document that claim. American Buddhist Net will support you with testimony from Buddhist clergy if needed. You can also simply claim, that limits on freedom of speech and thought are "outrageous" and "grossly abusive" to your deepest religious sensibilities, and we will support you 100% on that as well. ABN

Comments

Sun, 2010-01-03 05:08 — Robyn

being offended

I think that we, as humans, also need to acknowledge how much we really enjoy being offended. It's an easy feeling to feel. It fills our lives with purpose and meaning and coherence and it engages our primal urge to fight without necessarily requiring us to put our bodies in danger. It gives us an excuse to get and stay mad, forever if we like; humans love this. Afterall, regular day-to-day life can get pretty boring.

I observe evidence in many people of this kind of fiery, addicting love affair with being offended. And I have felt it in myself.

Sun, 2010-01-03 07:21 — ABN

Furthermore, being offended

Furthermore, being offended is the normal excuse in far too many cultures for becoming aggressive, even violent. It's a goofy chain of very often fake cause-and-effect that can lead from a supposedly "insulting" statement to an act of physical violence, but it happens all the time.

People who do it, usually want to "get even" or "teach a lesson" show the victim "how to treat them." I find it kind of weird that this reaction does seem to be sort of hard-wired into human beings. The good side of it is it does not take much brains or analysis to see through the faulty "reasoning" that turns a feeling into an act of violence. The bad side is so many religions and cultures actually teach that revenge is good and that it is something to be praised, even glorified. This is not the case in Buddhism, of course. Even a beginning student of the Dharma should understand this.

While on the subject, recall the reaction of the Buddhist world to the destruction of the Bamiyan statues in Afghanistan. There were some complaints, but no one went wild or harmed anyone over that act of desecration, which was a pretty big insult both to Buddhists and to the history of the region. Anyway, I actually felt proud of the Buddhist community for not getting all excited about that and believe that our quiet response was actually more effective than if there had been riots somewhere with cars being overturned, etc.