by Vorjack
You may remember that over the summer the country of Ireland passed an anti-blashphemy law. The law requires a €25,000 penalty for a person who “publishes or utters matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion,” provided that the person intended to cause such a reaction.
This generated quite a bit of uproar. They law was scheduled to go into effect on the beginning of 2010, and several groups promised to challenge it.
Well, the first group out of the gate seems to be Atheist Ireland, who have published a list of 25 “blasphemous” quotes on their website. I suspect that this attempt would have simply been absorbed by the net without creating a ripple, but the BBC has written an article about it, giving it much greater visibility.
The quotes have their own blog: blasphemy.ie, but heavy traffic – probably resulting from the BBC story – is making the site sluggish.
The quotes come from people ranging from Richard Dawkins to Pope Benedict, including Salman Rushdie, PZ Myers and George Carlin. A few of my favorites:
4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy – he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.”
[...]
6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”
[...]
9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.”
[...]
18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”
As acts of civil disobedience go, putting quotes on the web seems kind of lame. Still, I think it works as an opening salvo it what is likely to be a long battle. I think this attempt would benefit from greater exposure: the more famous it becomes, the harder it will be for the Irish government to ignore. So give both the Atheist Ireland site and the Blasphemy site a few hits when you get a chance, and spread the word where you can.
As I recall, the rather laughable excuse for this law being pushed through was that only Catholics had their religion protected by law, and they wanted to protect all religion. It’s absolute horse-shit, of course – the real reason is that the Catholic church owns and runs Ireland in all but name, and they think that by banning people from speaking negatively of the church (“blaspheming”, my arse) they can retain their grip in a world that’s becoming les and less religious.
From blasphemy.ie:
“The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.”
Rofl…
My guess is that if such argument have actually happened then the phrase used would have been sons of a dog of the female persuasion and was changed to the devil later so they can get it on network TV.
“As acts of civil disobedience go, putting quotes on the web seems kind of lame.”
IIRC the idea behind the quotes is to force the issue to court to show that it’s unworkable and effectively make the law null and void. It’s what happened in the UK when Christian Voice attempted to use the blasphemy law. Sort of ironic that they managed to get the blasphemy law in the UK removed.
None of those links seem to be working properly!
There’s a trailing quote on them.
Links fixed.
Those really leave a lot to be desired as blasphemous quotes. If they’re actually trying to piss people off enough to go to court, they’ve really got to step it up. Most Christians I know wouldn’t even care. My own response? You want to insult people’s religions, fine, that’s your right, shutting people up who say things you don’t like gets nowhere and religious people need a kick in the pants occasionally, but don’t get your panties in a twist if I happen to say atheists are the devil or something similarly categorical and wrong.
Verbally responding (be that getting “panties in a twist” or whatever) to something someone has said is entirely different to demanding that the person who said it have their right to free speech removed.
You are fully entitled to accuse atheists of every bad think you can think of, including being devil spawn, eating babies, and what have you. But you must also expect and accept that people will challenge you if they disagree. That is what freedom of spech means, and that is what the politicians behind this disgraceful law fail to understand.
“As acts of civil disobedience go, putting quotes on the web seems kind of lame.”
I disagree. The quotes are are a clear attempt to directly violate the law. That’s pretty good civil disobedience in my book. Either prosecutions are coming, which will bring the matter to a head, or no government action will be taken, effectively showing that the law has no teeth. (Or at very least is selectively enforced.) I like it.
If I’m understanding this correctly, none of those quotes were any where near the caliber they should be in trying to prove their point.
A list of quotes is a rather weak attempt at blasphemy. Comparatively, if I were to publish a list of nazi quotes, I doubt people in general would take notice. Only if I were to adopt those quotes as my own opinion would people feel offended.
The same applies to this list. The “YMCA Jesus” picture at the top of this page is considerably more blasphemic, and that’s not saying much.
This “law” is like a return to the dark ages, where the Catholic church murdered all those people who spoke of The Book of Love- remember the book Jesus and the Cathars had.
So now that the brainwashing is wearing off and humans are evolving, the patriarchs try and create more fear in order to keep control.
It is a sign of their fear of the people.
I hope some Wiccan group will file suit against the Christians for defaming their religion. I wonder if it’s too late for a class-action suit against the church for the persecution of witches?
Aren’t all religious people going to consider people of any competing religions to be blasphemers? I mean, a Christian would certainly call if blasphemy if a Muslim denied Christ’s divinity. Or a Jewish person might call if blasphemy if a Christian says that God came to earth in the form of Jesus. That’s crazy.
It’s a law that seems awfully similar to some laws mentioned in Ben Elton’s ‘Blind Faith.’ I find this a little scary, especially seeing as it directly violates freedom of speech and enforces ignorance. Oh dear…
What amazes me, is that this is the country who’s Bishops are gradually being shamed (very reluctantly and slowly) into resigning for covering up the sexual abuse of children. The church has struck a deal with the government to pay out a tiny amount and no-one has been prosecuted.
It would appear that you get prosecuted and pay out bigtime for verbally upsetting a Catholic in Ireland, but if the preist tortures and sexually abuses a child for years, then he doesn’t get prosecuted and the compensation is derisory.
Clearly Ireland hasn’t entered the 21st century !
Aleister Crowley 2012 website has 25 blasphemous quotations by Aleister Crowley in response to the new blasphemy law in Ireland:
http://ac2012.com/2010/01/05/against-all-gods-of-men/