United Kingdom's Blasphemy Laws
After studying the three important cases, in 1979, 1990 and 1997, www.vexen.co.uk/religion/blasphemy.html concludes:
"Unused for decades, the UKs blasphemy laws have come to the fore since 1979. Blasphemy laws are invoked when closed-minded religious bigots want to stifle the free speech of others.
The blasphemy laws are used to stifle artistic expression and free speech, such as in R. v Lemon 1979 when a poem about Jesus was published in a gay magazine. [...] 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 is that the UKs blasphemy laws only protect Christians - not Muslims or Jews - and historically only the Church of England. It is deeply prejudice, intolerable and confusing that we still have such laws. Thankfully the European Courts, British legal community, Lobby groups and British politicians have spoken out against the blasphemy laws. We should all make a big of it when it is annulled, as the blasphemy laws are one last legal pillar of Christian intolerance and bigotry."
Blasphemy
Most countries have blasphemy laws. As shown above, the United Kingdom has an old, mostly disused blasphemy law which is rarely evoked. In Western countries, blasphemy laws largely protect Christianity but are unused and considered non-democratic and obsolete. Many mostly Muslim countries protect Islam in a much stricter way. Pakistan (1986) and Sa'udi Arabia are examples of countries with very strict blasphemy laws. In Pakistan the law is used to prevent any criticism of Muhammed, including literary and historical criticism[Watt, 1989, p32]. 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Saleh was arrested in 2003 and charged (2 months later) with "contempt of the Islamic religion" for questioning, in an unpublished work, Muslim beliefs in the murder of apostates and the ban on Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men1.
In England, the blasphemy law exists for two reasons:
- Because blasphemy is intended to cause a breach of peace between the blasphemer and those outraged
- Because Christianity was part of common law, blasphemy tended to undermine the law
The advent of blasphemy
Blasphemy includes terms such as: Holy Shit, Fucking Hell, Jesus Christ!, God!, etc. Some of these have ambiguous meanings, and we can say that frequently the way in which you say is more important than the actual content. It is not just swear words though. Also, concepts can be blasphemous. 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.
Now, in a pluralist society such as the UK or large countries such as the USA, blasphemy means very different things according to who you ask. Where a particular religion is the established religion, such as Islam in Pakistan or Judaism in Israel, then blasphemy is defined according to that particular religion. So far does everything seem well?
I will make a particular note for Islamic countries concerning the publication of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Versus. 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.
" Blasphemy is required to weed out people who would restrict our speech, not for fear of us insulting people, but for us questioning concepts. "
Vexen Crabtree
Justification of Blasphemy.
Blasphemy is different for everyone. There is no central document that governs what religions are allowed to consider blasphemous.
For a Satanist, let us presume that our very religion is blasphemous in the eyes of most monotheists. This is not our fault, Satanism uses Satan as a metaphor, and as long as monotheists continue to not understand us they will continue to naively feel blasphemed against. Now, for a Satanist (and Humanists, I could add), 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, 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.
For a Christian, blasphemy is against the trinity or their own doctrines, for Muslims blasphemy is against Muhammad or their religion. These two groups both advocate blasphemy laws (except some liberals who prefer an ethic of reciprocity.), but why is it that the Satanist does not?
Blasphemy does not harm anyone. There are no victims of blasphemy. Satanists do not care what other people think of the Human race - people are free to form the opinion that all people need to be saved by a son of a god. People are free to say so, it is not an attack on atheism, even if it is contradictory. The thing with blasphemy is that monotheists are insecure about their religion, perhaps, but either way it is an abuse of the power they once had to force people to adhere to what they personally feel blasphemy is. There are many belief systems in the world, and some of them have rituals that are blasphemous to others. A Muslim cannot drink wine as part of communion, whilst a Christian does it arbitrariily as part of their rituals. If a Christian says the Islamic god is stupid for banning alcohol, the Christian is blaspheming, and the same goes the other way round. If we took account of every crack pot faith, obsolete religion or every archaic monotheistic tradition and tried to impose blasphemy laws according to it, the system would break down.
It could be said that blasphemy only occurs relative to the culture the individual is in. So that blasphemy in a Christian community cannot be extended to non-Christians - the major Islamic countries feel that this is wrong, as can be seen with the Rushdie affair they clearly feel that no matter where you are, if you blaspheme against a religion you are to be punished, no matter where or who you are.
The application of blasphemy laws is therefore inconsistent, obsolete and biased towards the more powerful monotheistic church's definition of blasphemy. 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. Blasphemy should be on an individual basis. If a person feels that working on a Sunday is blasphemous, then they shouldn't do it, but they cannot and should not force others to do the same. Allowing these blasphemy laws to continue bars the progress of a tolerant society and continues the oppression of religious minorities.
Opposing the blasphemy laws is in the interest of the global community, of tolerance and of the advancement of critical thought and compassion.
- Find those who wish to uphold the blasphemy laws
- Judge your chances of legally defeating them
- Create blasphemy
- Fight those who oppose
If a society disregards blasphemy laws, there is no problem, as there are no victims of blasphemy. It is the initial step, though, of making it known that society no longer needs these superstitious restrictions on speech. Blasphemy, remember, is not the same as political incorrectness. Step one requires that we blaspheme. The two major religions that uphold blasphemy laws are Islam and (left) Christianity. Statistically, Islam will numerically outnumber Christianity in this century, so it must not be overlooked. Once blasphemy is accepted, occurrences of the Rushdie affair will not happen. Neither will a Christian be able to prevent people from saying "Jesus Christ was gay", nor a Muslim prevent people from saying, "Muhammad was a polytheist in his youth".
Blasphemy is required to weed out people who would restrict our speech, not for fear of us insulting people, but for us questioning concepts.
Some religions are inherently blasphemous to others. To end this, Satanism provides a religion that is blasphemous to all religions and gods. Satanism is the UnReligion, the religion that seeks to destroy white light religion. You cannot be a Satanist and not blaspheme against other religions, so have fun, go forth and blaspheme.
God is blasphemy in our eyes, blasphemy to Human nature, so when a theist says your are blaspheming, he is also blaspheming against you.
- http://byrden.com/suralikeit/index.shtml - a colorful, quick way of arguing this point.
Satanism
Satanism is full of imagery. Satanism is not called Satanism because we worship Satan, but because we rebel against god(s) (which is of course what Satan is in most theologies and mythologies), we question everything and we find theistic religions to be corrupt and untrue. Etc etc. Satanism is a religion that is geared towards the repulsion of white light religion, and divine concepts. By our nature we blaspheme, just by existing. This suits our position and the motives of the average Satanist fine.
Guide to blasphemy.
First of all, a word of warning. 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, because having a big nose is not part of Judaism. This particular stereotype was invented (along with the others) during the Dark Ages, so not only would such a stereotype be racist, it would be aiding the Christians original intentions.
Upside crosses are good blasphemy, because they are insulting to no person, but to a concept. Which is "clean" blasphemy. Blasphemy should be fun and effortless. The point is not to be evil, but to make people realize how absurd the concept of blasphemy is.
The art of parody and the caricature are useful. GodHatesFags.com is a very good example of what puts people off of Christianity. Don't be afraid to play with the idea of using a religion's own absurdities against itself.
Satanism represents every evil figure throughout the world's theological history, see the essay Why SATANism for more.
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.