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Global blasphemy laws?

zooterkin

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zooterkin
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(I'm posting this in Social Issues and Current Events since the issue is not about the content of religion itself, but whether those who are not religious should be subject to the demands of religion, and whether the UN should be the means to impose those restrictions.)

According to the Christian Science Monitor the other week:


World leaders gathering at the United Nations this week for a special session of the General Assembly to advance interfaith dialogue should have no illusions that their efforts will miraculously promote mutual respect between religious communities or end abuses of religious freedom.

Saudi King Abdullah, who initiated this week's special session, is quietly enlisting the leaders' support for a global law to punish blasphemy – a campaign championed by the 56-member Organization of Islamic Conference that puts the rights of religions ahead of individual liberties.

If the campaign succeeds, states that presume to speak in the name of religion will be able to crush religious freedom not only in their own country, but abroad.
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It's not a muslim-only campaign, according to a Reuters blog:

At the Catholic-Muslim Forum in Rome three weeks ago, the two sides agreed in a statement about religious minorities that “their founding figures and symbols they consider sacred should not be subject to any form of mockery or ridicule.” Muslim countries, which were not very vocal on the international scene back in the 1960s, are now working hard at the United Nations to push through a global blasphemy law.
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Now, what standing, if any, such a global 'law' would have I don't know, nor how it would be enforced.
 
<pre-emptive action>I hereby proclaim, in the name of madeupreligionism:

1. It is blasphemy to declare that madeupreligionism is less than 3000 years old.

2. It is blasphemy to declare that the 5000 members of madeupreligionism do not exist.

3. It is blasphemy to lay claim to the creation of the universe.

4. It is blasphemy to do things because voices from the sky told you.

5. It is blasphemy to eat flesh and drink blood, especially during a religious ceremony.

6. It is blasphemy to commit any sort of act of violence.</pre-emptive action>
 
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That sounds really stupid. America would never go along with that little law first of all. And second, if they do make that law, I think I will start a website called depictMuhammad.com. On this website, I will post up submitted drawings of muhammad for everyone to see. Why would I do this you ask? Because I can.
 
Sounds like the article was written by a fear-monger who doesn't understand international law.

Here's how international law works:

1) Countries decide they agree with the agreement in principle and sign it, becoming signatories to it
2) Signatories incorporate the agreement into their own laws, thus ratifying the law
3) Sufficient signatories ratify the agreement and it becomes international law

It's fairly common for countries to sign international laws but not ratify them. There is nothing any country can do to make another country ratify an international agreement.

An international agreement will only become international law when sufficient signatories have ratified it - for example the two covenants of the International Bill of Rights were signed in 1966, but not made part of international law until ten years later when sufficient signatories had ratified it.

As an example, New Zealand didn't ratify the covenants until 1990 because they conflicted with some of our existing laws (such as compulsory unions).
 
Pardalis said:
If I may add:

7. It is blasphemy to call humans sheep.
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Not so much. Evidences against your assertion of blasphemy. The below is doctrinal, and neither heresy nor blasphemy.

Matthew 25 31-40
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
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23rd Psalm
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
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That would be the sheep talking, though a sheep cannot write. So there's this guy, writing as a human sheep, and there you have it. Not blasphemy. Here is heresy, the part where a guy says that the real passage is

And yea, though I walk through the Valley in the shadow of Death, I fear not, for I am the meanest sumbitch in the Valley.

Gets the clerics all up in arms, does that one.

DR
 
Sod blasphemy.
Screw all gods and the horses they flew in on.*

*Bags I Pallas Athene - a serious hotty in my opinion.
 
Hmmp we still haven't got the last lot of blasphemy laws off the books yet we hardly need more of them.
 
Would that make it illegal for me to change my name to Blasphemy, or would the name change make me illegal.
 
Quad4_72 said:
That sounds really stupid. America would never go along with that little law first of all.
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They couldn't. Congress is forbidden from passing any law that "respects an establishment of religion". Which I think the SC interprets also as "or all religions".

Moreover, it would doubly trod on the 1st ammendment because it pees on free speech. The purpose of free speech is to have an effect on other people. Mockery is one such, and a primary, method of doing this.



It's interesting the Founding Fathers never anticipated that such an iron-clad protection of free speech would result in people feigning ever-more severe mental, stress, whatever isuses, worse and worse, oh no! Until it passes some magic limit that it's literally causing harm to someone, and thus bannable as surely as a punch in the nose is.


Sigh. And sickening.
 
Would this mean I have to stop doing cheers for my favorite god?
He's the son god!
He's a real fun god!
Ra Ra Ra! :D
/the veal... try it
 
There's a growing number of Americans who would like nothing better than for the UN Assembly to be moved to another country, like oh, maybe Somalia.

Spending their time and energy on these kind of issues keeps that number going up.
 
I started to post this in a current thread in Religion and Philosophy about a woman sentenced to death for blasphemy in Pakistan, but then decided to find a thread more generally about blasphemy laws.

I Googled "Blasphemy laws" to see what predominantly Christian nations have death sentences for blasphemy. As egregious is the fact that blasphemy laws still exist in some predominantly Christian nations, I couldn't find one with a death sentence.

Apparently, some US states have blasphemy laws, but they are rarely enforced and would likely be declared unconstitutional if challenged. Oklahoma's blasphemy law entails a punishment of up to a $500 fine and one year in prison. This past summer, a Pennsylvania man challenged that state's law that forbids blasphemous corporate names.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/us/21religion.html

Ed Brayton on Science Blogs commented a couple of weeks ago on a study by Freedom House about blasphemy laws in Algeria, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Poland.
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2010/10/new_study_on_impact_of_blasphe.php
http://freedomhouse.org/images/File/policing_belief/Policing_Belief_Full.pdf

Greece has punishment of up to two years in prison for blasphemy. The Freedom House article doesn't specify what punishment the Polish statutes suggest, but one concert promoter was sentenced a $10000 fine, and an artist received a sentence to six months of community service and “restricted freedom” which was later overturned.

In July of 2009, a blasphemy law was passed in Ireland prescribing a fine of up to €25,000.

The Wikipedia article on blasphemy laws lists Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, San Marino, Spain, and Switzerland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law

The UK abolished its blasphemy law in 2008.

Many European nations have the crime of "religious insult". Religious insults are illegal in Andorra, Cyprus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.

The religious insult laws and laws against hate speech have effectively become blasphemy laws yielding punishment for persons who criticize one particular religion:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/ive-be...eaking-the-truth-about-islam/?singlepage=true
 
Obama would love this, you could never oppose the Obamessiah and his worshippers. I expect him to support this.
 
Surely the entire holy book of one religion is just one big work of blasphemy when viewed from the standpoint of a different religion?
 
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