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Blasphemy in Denmark

Planigale said:
You may start off with paper and ink, but you end up with the literal word of God. The attitude towards the Quran is similar to that from religious jews to the Torah. Both the Torah and Quran need to be buried at the end of their life.
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"The literal word of God". No. There is no such thing.

A question I would put to people talking about desecrating the Quran would be would they do this to a Torah? Is this an act that one would perceive as anti-semitic and associate with the far right? Remember that this is not a private act, but one that is published. This is more akin to shouting fire is fine in private, but not in a crowded theatre.
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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.

It should be remembered that the US will send a drone to kill you and your family for things that you may publish on line if they are thought to incite violence against the US, but it seems like it is OK to broadcast acts intended to incite violence if the target is not the US.
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What does the US have to do with this?
 
PhantomWolf said:
There is no "Right to avoid the consequences of your actions" either, and if you go out of your way to get people enraged then you have to suffer the consequences of your actions.
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The "right to avoid consequences"? You mean the protection by law from harm?

If somebody harms me because I in some way offended them, they will be subject to punishment, not me.
 
PhantomWolf said:
If you know that something will provoke a person, and group of people, and deliberately set out to do so, that's on you, even if it wouldn't provoke a different set of people.
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What does "That's on you" mean? What would be on me? Actually, we all know the answer. If I burned a Bible, on me would be disapproving looks and the odd tut-tut. If I burned the Tibetan Book of the Dead the same, minus the tutting. If I burned one of the Vidas I might provoke a small and transient demonstration although nobody in the broader community would care. If I burned the Torah then, if I were unlucky, I could be arrested for antisemitism, although I've not heard of that happening. If I burned the Koran then I would not only be immediately arrested but I would run the real risk of being murdered, and not only that, but a whole host of secular Islamic apologists would defend the rights of the killers.

Oh, and let's not forget the Atheist. What happens when the Atheist is deliberately offended by the pandering to, or the observance of, lunatic bigoted texts and barbaric cultural throwbacks? Nothing, of course, because to even raise an objection would label us as racists or, worse, Islamophobes.
 
PhantomWolf said:
There is a small different between declaring no gods exist and publicly burning religious books.
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Correct. The former is declaring your legitimate view, the latter is a provocation. (I assume it is not a case of some religious books that happen to be included in a batch of books disposed of by burning).

However, provocation is not illegal.

Hans
 
PhantomWolf said:
If you know that something will provoke a person, and group of people, and deliberately set out to do so, that's on you, even if it wouldn't provoke a different set of people.
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That encourages people to behave badly. All you need is a reputation for being violent and the law would protect you... while not protecting well behaved folks. That's a bad message for society to send... eventually everyone would behave badly.
 
PhantomWolf said:
If you know that something will provoke a person, and group of people, and deliberately set out to do so, that's on you, even if it wouldn't provoke a different set of people.
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Depends on what you mean by "on to you".

If you mean they might stop saying "good morning", stop doing business with me, say nasty stuff about me, etc., all in a legal way, then, yes.

If they would even threaten me with violence, then absolutely no.

Hans
 
Planigale said:
You may start off with paper and ink, but you end up with the literal word of God. The attitude towards the Quran is similar to that from religious jews to the Torah. Both the Torah and Quran need to be buried at the end of their life.

For christians the best analogy would be the wine and bread of the sacrament, which religious christians believe becomes the literal blood and flesh of Jesus. (It always seems strange to non-christians this canabalistic element of christianity.) One does not just throw left overs in the bin or down the sink.
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Those are rituals within religious communities, which they are, of course, free to follow. They do, however, in no way oblige people who are not members.

A question I would put to people talking about desecrating the Quran would be would they do this to a Torah? Is this an act that one would perceive as anti-semitic and associate with the far right?
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This is irrelevant. Of course, anybody planning to provoke somebody should consider the consequences. That does not imply that such consequences are acceptable, or legal.

Remember that this is not a private act, but one that is published. This is more akin to shouting fire is fine in private, but not in a crowded theatre.
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No, that is entirely different. That example is a question of public safety. A quite objective problem.

It should be remembered that the US will send a drone to kill you and your family for things that you may publish on line if they are thought to incite violence against the US, but it seems like it is OK to broadcast acts intended to incite violence if the target is not the US.
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No, they will not, unless I'm some terrorist in a conflict area. If I do it, they well contact the proper authorities in my country. - And probably exert some diplomatic pressure, too.

Of course the US will probably not react if I incite violence against some other country. Why should they? It is up to the country in question to react.

Hans
 
MRC_Hans said:
Those are rituals within religious communities, which they are, of course, free to follow. They do, however, in no way oblige people who are not members.


Hans
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This is the key point. And very important for a functioning pluralistic society.
 
PhantomWolf said:
I'm not saying you can't talk about how deranged Trump is, but if you get in the face of said trump supporter and go on about it at him, then what you get back is totally on you, and who knows, if you get the same DA that Bart Sibrel did after getting punched by Buzz Aldrin, you might even get a disturbing the Peace charge to go with your black eye and fat lip.
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No.
 
Arcade22 said:
Although i find such laws objectionable it's incredibly likely that the Danish authorities would treat real and authentic religions and religious community's different from those that are obviously artificial and made up.
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Which religions are not made up?

I mean, how could you possibly tell that they weren't? Seems like there would need to be some sort of evidence that the gods being worshiped actually existed. Where is it?

All religions start out as someone's stories. If any of them are based on concrete, reproducible evidence then I haven't learned about them yet. What you seem to be saying is that the stories that have been around a long time are somehow special, and deserve preferential treatment over any new ones.

How long is long enough?

The CotLDS hasn't even been around for two hundred years. They've got their own magic book.

Are they 'real and authentic"?

If so, what's the cut-off age?
 
As I said in the Rudeness thread there seems to be a lot of people advocating the "Look at what you made me do" defense.
 
JoeBentley said:
As I said in the Rudeness thread there seems to be a lot of people advocating the "Look at what you made me do" defense.
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You can even go one better than that. "Look at what you made me do and now you must pay for it." As an example, when Salman Rushdie was subject to a fatwa in the UK for writing 'The Satanic Verses', the Archbishop of Canterbury not only did not condemn the fatwa, he demanded that new Islamic blasphemy laws be ushered in to criminalise those who might be tempted to follow suit and exercise their right to free expression. Norman Tebbit MP had a similar take, calling Rushdie a 'despicable villain' who deserved everything he got, and Keith Vaz MP, on a rare break from cavorting with male prostitutes, led a march demanding the book be banned (a march on which copies of the book were burned). Say what you like about Thatcher, but if she hadn't been in charge at that time, criticising Islam would now be illegal and Salman Rushdie would be dead.
 
Fudbucker said:
Totally disagree with this. Even if I know a certain Trump supporter will fly into a rage, and likely attack me, if I talk about how deranged Trump is, I should be allowed to talk about how deranged Trump is.
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You are (still) allowed to talk about how deranged Trump is.
 
JoeBentley said:
There is however zero difference between burning religious books and burning copies of Harry Potter or the owners manual for a 1992 Toyota Celica.
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So why do the Quran burners (or flag burners) seem to be able to distinguish between Qurans (or flags) and other books (or pieces of cloth)?
 
dann said:
So why do the Quran burners (or flag burners) seem to be able to distinguish between Qurans (or flags) and other books (or pieces of cloth)?
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I neither know nor care. Their distinction doesn't matter to me nor effect my rights or freedoms.
 
Fudbucker said:
Of course I am, and that should never change, no matter how violent his supporters might get over hearing criticism of him. Agreed?
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I wouldn't let my criticism of Trump (or his supporters) depend on the legality of expressing it. But I might consider how to express it anonymously if it were suddenly made illegal …
 
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