The Pro-Blasphemy Position: Satanism in Action!

Contents:

1. The Positive Reasons to Intentionally Blaspheme

2. Reasons Why Blasphemy Laws Should Never be Enshrined in Law

3. Satanism
   1. A Blasphemous Religion

   2. What is Blasphemy Against Satanism?

4. The Realities of Blasphemy Laws
   1. A Religions' Territory

   2. United Kingdom's Blasphemy Laws

1. The Positive Reasons to Intentionally Blaspheme

1. Intellectual blasphemy questions things that religionists do not want questioned. This can include historical queries, for example, was there really an exodus of Jews from Egypt, lead by Moses? (The answer is no.) Scientific progress sometimes requires the questioning of societal taboos - which in a religious community, often means it is necessary to explore blasphemous conclusions. The very concept of blasphemy is anti-scientific and harms the search for truth. If dogmatic taboos are stifling free thought, the promotion of intentional blasphemy can be a breath of fresh air through the stale corridors of religious conservatism.

   In Pakistan the law is used to prevent any criticism of Muhammed, including literary and historical criticism₁. In Egypt Mitwalli Ibrahim Mitwalli Saleh was arrested in 2003 and charged (2 months later) with "contempt of the Islamic religion" for questioning, in an unpublished work, Muslim beliefs such as the murder of apostates and the ban on Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men₂.

2. Emotional blasphemy is a personal catharsis for someone who has struggled against their own religious convictions. To purge themselves and revel in the new freedom that comes from abandoning religious beliefs, a person can go through a phase of blasphemous expression. This is healthy and normal, and should even be encouraged, to help lighten the mood of society in general, and allow people to see religious conventions in a more balanced, humurous light.

3. Blasphemy as warfare: In the battle against overbearing churches, who seek to limit the extent of free thought, the forceful ridiculing and questioning of the religion's tenets serves as an example to society that the church does not deserve special exemptions from freedom of expression.

The point of blaspheming is not to insult, but to show people how absurd some of the superstitious or religious dogma is. The better you can show up and discredit the doctrines, the better. Blasphemy is required to weed out people who would restrict our speech, not for fear of us insulting people, but for us questioning concepts. The point is not to be evil, but to make people realize how absurd the concept of blasphemy is.

2. Reasons Why Blasphemy Laws Should Never be Enshrined in Law

1. Blasphemy is a voluntary code: If you have beliefs, you will find that some thoughts and actions are blasphemous. You should therefore abstain from those. But you can't expect others to adhere to these rules if they do not share your beliefs. If they take their beliefs seriously then religious communities can manage their own internal rules without the need for formal legislation in law.

2. Bias: Existing legislation favours only those heavy, domineering branches of religion that have, historically, had power over states. To provide a free market for religious ideas, this bias should be removed and blasphemy laws, where they stand, should be abolished in order for all religions to have an equal basis in society.

3. Open Debate: Questioning and ridiculing religion means that religionists have to defend and demonstrate their claims. If their religions are based on rational truth and evidence, then this will be no problem for them. Anti-blasphemy laws prove that monotheists are insecure about their religion, and the brave ones can support, in the name of peace and free debate, their abolition.

4. Religious Plurality: There are so many religions, with so many obscure and irrational beliefs, that it seems that if we let them define blasphemy under the law, the free world would end! It is impossible to avoid blaspheming against some god or other, once you take a look at how many gods and religions there are. The only answer to this dilemma is to abandon the concept of external blasphemy, and leave it as a voluntary, personal restriction and not a legal one.

Opposing blasphemy laws is in the interest of the global community, of tolerance and of the advancement of critical thought and compassion.

3. Satanism

3.1. A Blasphemous Religion

The Satanic religion is inherently blasphemous in the eyes of most other religions. It is an anti religion that is against the limits to expression and thought, and therefore is a pro-blasphemy religion. Its patron saint is Satan, which is (suitably) a symbol of the enemy of God, as well as a symbol of death. Its tenets are an atheism, materialism and world-embracing attitude that flies in the face of spiritual religious sentiments. The art of blasphemy is not as simple as it may first seem. Saying "Jews have big noses" in order to ridicule Judaism is not blasphemy, it is racism. Personal attacks and racists target individuals, whereas blasphemy targets ideas.

Whereas Anton LaVey articulated the blasphemous nature of his new religion when he codified Satanism, it was not without precedent. The historical strains of thought that led up to the rise of Satanism had seen intentional blasphemy become a viable option for the irreligious. Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) indulged in "deliberate and sustained blasphemy" according to the careful historian Prof. R. Hutton₃.

In his chapter on The Black Mass in The Satanic Bible, Anton LaVey expands on the idea of blasphemy in Satanism, showing it to be more than simply parroting Christian ideas.

3.2. What is Blasphemy Against Satanism?

For Satanists (and secular Humanists, when they think about it) attributing Human suffering to "sin" and rejection of god is insulting. Disabled people do not like to be told that they are suffering for the sins of Adam and Eve, their parents or themselves. It is not right, and damnit, it is downright blasphemous to tell a Satanist that his life belongs to Christ, that God loves him (a dangerous delusion), that we are inherently evil or sinful (we don't need the guilt) and so on. These things are seen to be by Satanists and many other freethinkers such as our fellow atheists & Humanists to be dehumanizing and guilt ridden sources of destitution.

God is blasphemy in our eyes, blasphemy to Human nature, so when a theist says "you are blaspheming" to a Satanist, he is also blaspheming against his target.

4. The Realities of Blasphemy Laws

4.1. A Religions' Territory

Most countries have blasphemy laws. In historically Christian countries, they largely protect only Christianity, even if they remain unused and considered non-democratic and obsolete. On the other hand, Muslim countries' laws protect Islam in a much stricter way. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are examples of countries with very strict blasphemy laws.

Countries which fell to particular religions have tended to adopt Blasphemy laws protecting that religion against criticism and ridicule. This is because the clerics and powerful within the religion, which historically were the most educated, knew that their most potent enemies were the truth and popular opinion. The religions that do not need their ideas protecting from critics (i.e., religions that are truer) have left no legacy of blasphemy laws in places where they had power. Such religions are few.

Religions will naturally want to extend their censoring of criticism as far and wide as they can. In a globalized world, it is no good preventing only locals from publishing websites that question dogma. Take the publication of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. Published and wrote in England, the book was primarily a Western fiction. Yet, Muslims in Islamic countries declared a fatwa (legal statement) against Rushdie, putting a price for his murder. We can note that Muslims feel that blasphemy is blasphemy no matter where or who you are.

A short video (with a score by Siousxie and the Banshees) which depicted a nun's fantasies over Jesus Christ was banned due to its blasphemy, simply because it wasn't the type of idea that Christian religionists like to think about.

4.2. United Kingdom's Blasphemy Laws

“Unused for decades, the UKs blasphemy laws had come to the fore since 1979 before being abolished in 2008. Blasphemy laws were invoked when closed-minded religious bigots wanted to stifle the free speech of others, such as in R. v Lemon 1979 when a poem about Jesus was published in a gay magazine. In Pakistan they are used to, for example, block any scholarly discussion of any aspect of Muhammad's life. The publications in question are not personal insults or hateful literature; they are not professional or political, they are largely expressive, emotional or scholarly. That blasphemy laws are used in such a way - to protect concepts from being questioned - is not only wrong and closed-minded, but undemocratic.

The final straw was that the UK's blasphemy laws only protected Christians - not Muslims or Jews - and historically only the Church of England. It was deeply prejudiced, intolerable and confusing that we still had such laws. Thankfully the European Courts, British legal community, Lobby groups and British politicians have spoken out against the blasphemy laws. Good riddance, the world is now a fairer place.”

"Blasphemy Laws in the UK" by Vexen Crabtree (2008)