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Blasphemy in Denmark

PhantomWolf said:
You seem to believe that you should get no consequences for your actions? The world doesn't tend to work that way.
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Should it be a criminal act to march in a legally sanctioned protest, holding a sign saying "Islam is not the true faith"?

Some might see such a sign as offensive enough to warrant violence.
 
Hercules56 said:
Should it be a criminal act to march in a legally sanctioned protest, holding a sign saying "Islam is not the true faith"?

Some might see such a sign as offensive enough to warrant violence.
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Again it depends on the circumstances. I'm assuming that if it was sanctioned then it's not going to be a anti-Islamic march up to the steps of a Mosque during Friday prayers.

To boil it down, for me it depends entirely on how the message is directed. If the sign was part of an over all Atheistic march and there was no intent to direct the march at a specific group or get in any specific group's face at antagonize them, then it's fine. If the intent of the march and sign to to deliberately target and antagonize a group of people, then no not acceptable, but as I say, I suspect a march of that kind would not be sanctioned in the first place, at least most places in the world.

And yes, just to confirm it, I am not a supporter of completely free speech, but rather free speech with limitations. When speech is used to spread hate, incite violence, antagonize, cause panic, or to encourage the committing of a crime, then it is not acceptable, and this is true in more jurisdictions.
 
erlando said:
"The literal word of God". No. There is no such thing.



I would have as little problem with burning the torah as I would with burning the bible or the quaran or any other so-called holy book.



What does the US have to do with this?
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Someone referred to (second? amendment) US constitutional rights to free speech.

Can you prove that the Quran / Torah does not contain the literal word of God? That you do not believe it is not proof. In general science works by disproving a hypothesis.

We seem to have to balance some view of the world expressed by dead white male slave owners versus that of the one who created the heaven, the earth and all that is above, upon, and below the earth. I can not see a clear ethical primacy in burning books over respecting those books containing the word of god.

(FWIW I do not believe in a divinity, but putting the view of dead slave owners as being somehow above question does not appear to be what a skeptic should accept)
 
PhantomWolf said:
And yes, just to confirm it, I am not a supporter of completely free speech, but rather free speech with limitations. When speech is used to spread hate, incite violence, antagonize, cause panic, or to encourage the committing of a crime, then it is not acceptable, and this is true in more jurisdictions.
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The problem with this is that anyone can claim anything is "hateful", if they have the agenda to prevent any speech that they disagree with.

How would the courts decide what is "hate speech" and what is not?

Will the level of one's feeling of personal insult come into play?
 
Planigale said:
<snip>

Can you prove that the Quran / Torah does not contain the literal word of God? That you do not believe it is not proof. In general science works by disproving a hypothesis.

<snip>
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Once you start tossing the idea of "proof" and "science" around then the various possible interpretations of the term "hypothesis" becomes more limited.

A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it.
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​
There is no way to test the hypothesis that the Quran / Torah contain the word of god.

So demanding "proof", and talking about "science" and a "hypothesis" is just verbal diarrhea.

The concepts aren't even applicable.
 
PhantomWolf said:
You seem to believe that you should get no consequences for your actions? The world doesn't tend to work that way.
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False dilemma.

One can agree in general that people should face consequences for their actions while also disagreeing that violent reprisal for statements made are an acceptable example.

Proportionality of the consequences is the issue in this case, not a rejection of the idea of consequences entirely.

Even the oft-repeated version where someone calls your mother a whore always fails to sway me because my reaction to some stranger shouting that in my face is..."eh, okay. Go sleep it off, pal." In what way am I actually being harmed? Or at risk of harm?

What is actually feeding the emotional response there is often a fear that other parties observing the exchange will think less of you for not defending your mother's honor (which is a whole other nebulous, baseless social construct) with violent force. Personally, I think people who think less of others for not resorting to violence at the drop of a hat have opinions that aren't worth potentially altering the course of my life over. So really it's violence being used to improve (or recover 'lost') social standing. At the end of the day, it's a response to feeling emotionally insecure.

To which I say: grow the **** up.
 
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Hercules56 said:
The problem with this is that anyone can claim anything is "hateful", if they have the agenda to prevent any speech that they disagree with.

How would the courts decide what is "hate speech" and what is not?

Will the level of one's feeling of personal insult come into play?
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Many countries already have it on the books and operate effectively, the police are pretty good at determining what the intent of the speech was.

I'm sure now someone will bring up the whole Kung Fu fighting thing in the UK, but that's a perfect example of the system working. The Police got a complaint, they acted on it and called the person the complaint was about into the station, interviewed him, determined that the complaint wasn't valid and no charges were laid.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
False dilemma.

One can agree in general that people should face consequences for their actions while also disagreeing that violent reprisal for statements made are an acceptable example.

Proportionality of the consequences is the issue in this case, not a rejection of the idea of consequences entirely.

Even the oft-repeated version where someone calls your mother a whore always fails to sway me because my reaction to some stranger shouting that in my face is..."eh, okay. Go sleep it off, pal." In what way am I actually being harmed? Or at risk of harm?

What is actually feeding the emotional response there is often a fear that other parties observing the exchange will think less of you for not defending your mother's honor (which is a whole other nebulous, baseless social construct) with violent force. Personally, I think people who think less of others for not resorting to violence at the drop of a hat have opinions that aren't worth potentially altering the course of my life over. So really it's violence being used to improve (or recover 'lost') social standing. At the end of the day, it's a response to feeling emotionally insecure.

To which I say: grow the **** up.
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I think the issue is a little more than someone insulting your mother. In the cases I'm talking the things being said and done are being said and done specially to create a violent reaction. They are done knowing that will be the result of the actions. They are done so that when that violent reaction occurs they can pull out the victim card and then further the hate against the targeted group because of how evil they are because "they attacked me and I was just using my freedom of expression." It's a gaming of the system to spread hate against people that the speaker dislikes.

To me there is no difference between someone that deliberately incites people to attack them because of their antagonistic behaviour, and the grand duke of the KKK telling his men to go out and beat up any blacks they see. They are both using speech to incite violence because of hatred. If you want to live in a society where this is acceptable, then fine, I don't and am glad that I don't.
 
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I want to also point out that I am not for the use of violence to suppress speech. In fact when the Fascist, Richard Spenser was assaulted while doing a TV interview, unlike many on this board, I was against that action. The reason being, he was minding his own business and not directing any form of hate at any individuals or groups, he was speaking with a media crew. Attacking him was fully unreasonable.

Compare this to a person that is attempting to incite others to violence. They are not minding their own business, they are trying to cause trouble and get people to commit a crime. They are doing it to further their agenda of hate by playing the victim card should they succeed in starting violence towards themselves or a riot. This is something wholly different to merely speaking your mind. When you incite people to violence or to commit a crime, you are committing a crime yourself.
 
In many countries holocaust denial is a crime. (Not in the UK or US because of free speech issues.) There is a difference between what may be said privately and broadcasting your views. I do think there is a difference between defiling a quran in private and broadcasting an act which is intended to be an insult and provocation to a large proportion of the population. In England if done in public this would certainly fall within the broadsweep of behaviour likely to provoke a breech of the peace.
 
Planigale said:
Can you prove that the Quran / Torah does not contain the literal word of God? That you do not believe it is not proof. In general science works by disproving a hypothesis.
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Is there such a thing as the literal word of God? (glossing over the Big issue)

That you believe that there is is not proof.

In general science works testing a disprovable hypothesis.
 
Planigale said:
Someone referred to (second? amendment) US constitutional rights to free speech.
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This thread is about blasphemy in Denmark. It has nothing to do with the US.

Can you prove that the Quran / Torah does not contain the literal word of God? That you do not believe it is not proof. In general science works by disproving a hypothesis.
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That is not how science works. The burden of proof is on the claimant. You assert that some book(s) contain "the literal word of god". That is on you to prove.
 
erlando said:
That's funny. You had me fooled.
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Feel free to show were I have said that violence should be used to suppress speech. What I have continually said is that if you try and incite violence with your speech, a) in many places this is a crime and should be, and b) don't act all innocent when you get your wish or ask for sympathy.

If you try and get violence and end up getting what you wanted, then it's on your own head.
 
Alright. The next time anyone on this board espouses the opinion that... Triscuits are better than Wheat Thins, I'm gonna go home and beat my wife. And it's all your fault and it's on you and you should feel bad. You should know better then to incite me to violence.

How is that any functionally different? The only modifier anyone's thrown out is a Jabba-esque "Religion is different if you accept religion is different."
 
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Originally Posted by Hercules56
Should it therefore be a crime to say "I believe Islam is not a true religion"?
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PhantomWolf said:
Depends on the circumstances. If you're talking with people and say it in conversation, then no, if you go into a crowded Mosque and scream it, then I'd say you're walking pretty close to the "Shouting fire in a crowded threatre" area of right to free speech ends here.
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You are confusing several issues here:

1) Free speech and common sense. It is certainly not a crime (in countries where there is in fact free speech) to say "I believe Islam is not a true religion", anywhere you will. It is, however, both insensitive, impolite, provocative, and rather stupid to do so in a Mosque. If somebody gives you a beating for it, he is the criminal, you, however, are the fool. (BTW, in many places, I really think you would just be politely, but determinedly accompanied to the exit.)

2) Raising a false alarm. Shouting "Fire!" when there is no fire has nothing to do with free speech. It is disturbing public order and putting people at risk.

And in the Buzz Aldrin/Bart Sibrel case, it was not a question of free speech. Bart Sibrel could, and AFAIK still does, claim Apollo hoax all he wanted, but in the incident in question, he was harassing Aldrin, following him around, shouting insults, and asking him to swear on a bible. Harassment is not free speech. Strictly speaking that did not entitle Aldrin to hit him, but that is another matter. As it were, Aldrin was not booked for assault and Sibrel was not booked for harassment. Seams rather reasonable to me.

Hans
 
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JoeBentley said:
Alright. The next time anyone on this board espouses the opinion that... Triscuits are better than Wheat Thins, I'm gonna go home and beat my wife. And it's all your fault and it's on you and you should bad. You should know better then to incite me to violence.

How is that any functionally different? The only modifier anyone's thrown out is a Jabba-esque "Religion is different if you accept religion is different."
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If you were being serious and someone did goad you on then yes, they would be as guilty as you are for the actions that follow.

BTW because it seems that this might have gone over people's heads. No one is saying that those that react badly to be taunted should not face the consequences of their actions as well. It is possible to charge both sets of bad actors, though I would note that in many jurisdictions provocation can be used as mitigation at sentencing, and depending on the targeted group inciting could be considered a hate crime which would also be considered at sentencing.
 
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