Slavoy Zizek has once wisely noticed that each and every nation has its own blasphemy laws.
In the Soviet Union a joke about Lenin could ruin your career. In the UK expressing politically incorrect opinion about genders may turn an otherwise successful writer into an outlaw. In Austria expressing doubts about Holocaust will bring you into prison.
> In the UK expressing politically incorrect opinion about genders may turn an otherwise successful writer into an outlaw.
"an outlaw", really? This might be one of the most hyperbolic statements I've ever seen. The uproar about JK Rowling is not equivalent to the treatment of "blasphemers" in the Soviet Union, give me a break.
You mean comparing the one where a car with its headlights off turns up at your apartment around midnight and you're never seen again to one where you're a billionaire who gets angry comments on Twitter and, maybe, a non-material reduction in ongoing revenue from a work you finished years ago?
In the original post I was talking about the late (no pun intended) Soviet Union: 1960 onwards.
You were not executed for political jokes. You will just be shunned by your friends and won't be offered any decent job and your kids may never get into the college.
In the Soviet Union, the "blasphemers" were actually tried in a show trial, which sent them to labor camps. All they did was to write satire that did not go well with the state.
The point everyone seems to be missing here is that it's not like if you said something bad about the party then bam, off to the labour camps you went. The entire Soviet Union would be one huge labour camp if that was the case. That would happen to you if you somehow got published in a newspaper being critical of the government. Or if you were say a headmaster of a school or the director of a state owned company - then yeah, the punishment would be pretty severe. But your regular Joe making a bad comment at the wrong time? You'd definitely lose your job first, few phone calls to the right place and it would happen. Or maybe you got a mandatory re-assignment to a middle of bumfuck nowhere. Not a labour camp, just the same job you were doing already, but in a small town out thousands of km away from your family. Or maybe you were waiting in a queue to get a flat assigned to you - well, that's not happening anymore.
Like, my point is, there were escalating punishments to criticizing the government. Some people here suggest that it was like "say something bad about the government = black volga picks you up and you disappear forever". It wasn't that unless you had certain amount of outreach.
JK Rowling is already a millionare, she can make pretty much any unpopular opinion on twitter or elswhere and apart from the outrage almost nothing will happen to her. She might stop being invited to some events, boo hoo.
If you or me posted on twitter that(as an example!!!) people shouldn't be free to pick their own gender and I'm like 99% certain I'd get fired or at least reprimended at work, and I'm sure finding further work would be difficult.
And I think you might be a little bit off the mark, because I do actually come from a formely communist country - and yeah, making unpopular statements against the ruling party wouldn't throw you in prison(at least not straight away) but you can guarantee most jobs would fire you on the spot and you'd have problems finding any further work. It's not as different as you think.
> If you or me posted on twitter that(as an example!!!) people shouldn't be free to pick their own gender and I'm like 99% certain I'd get fired or at least reprimended at work, and I'm sure finding further work would be difficult.
I think you overestimate the reach of Twitter and the number of jobs that trawl employee and potential employee Twitter post history.
Possibly, but I also think that it's not so unlikely that some "kind soul" would quickly find out where I work and tag them in a reply saying "you need to fire this guy". Then it gets picked up by our PR department and it's all downhill from there.
It's possible that it wouldn't have such a large impact on looking for a new job I guess.
I'm not sure what the above poster means by "outlaw", but yes police do investigate and have sometimes issued fines for public statements that don't invite violence or harass but espouse unpopular views:
YouTuber was arrested and convicted in Britain for teaching his dog to do a nazi salute. It's not a ten year sentence for 13-year old but still a very real legal sanction.
Please don't equate questioning the Holocaust - a factual historical event - and blasphemy.
Regardless of whether you think anti-Holocaust-denying laws are justifiable, even making this comparison seems to put the Holocaust in the same realm of opinion and faith, which is most assuredly is not.
But blasphemy laws are justifiable as well. They try to avoid riots on the streets by true believers and also limit the punishment to a well defined point.
I have no doubt about the existence of the Holocaust, but I put the laws in the same bucket of forcing people to think or speak in a way or else. People should be free to think and speak whatever they want, from flat earthers (plain stupid) to Holocaust deniers (ignorant) to religious (no comment) without stupid laws to force them - this is why I love the idea of the USA' First Amendment.
Please don't equate blasphemy - questioning God himself - and a historical event.
Regardless of whether you think anti-blasphemy laws are justifiable, even making this comparison seems to put the Holocaust in the same realm of opinion and faith, which is most assuredly is not.
Religion is one of this weird things that seems to be deeply "built in" into our mind, some kind of atavism.
It is much more prevalent than a rational, scientific approach and I can understand people want to defend something they deeply believe in. We are not a tolerant species.
Now, as a pure atheist, I am all in favor to ban these laws and pus religion somewhere n the side, together with fairy tales (or psychiatric studies). I also know that this will not happen.
The benefits which come from scientific advances aren't distributed equally. My take on this is that for many people religion offers the only justification of suffering on Earth. Otherwise people with low education level and socioeconomic status don't understand why they have to live on 1$ a day.
So why are there so many religious people in the US? Are they all living on $1 a day? It probably also explains the current state of the US, as reason and religion usually don't cohabitate too well.
- because it worked for previous generations: America became one of the best countries to live in while being religious
- I guess some people also shared my experience that it worked, despite how unreasonable it seems. (Yes, this means I am an engineer who discuss evolution with you guys and have studied a tiny bit of astrophysics, but still pray to God and is heavily influenced by what I read. It kind of works like wave particle dualism: I use the model that works for the situation.)
Religion is a codified belief system while science is a codified knowledge discovery system. They cohabitate just fine until one is mistaken for the other.
You know that psychiatric studies often belong next to fairy tales but want to use a "rational, scientific approach" over thousands of years of evolved tradition. How much better is sociology or management science than psychiatry?
Why impugn all religions when this sort of extremism is unique to one religion in the last many centuries? Even then, there are presumably many Muslims who do behave peacefully and tolerantly. Moreover, in the west were seeing a significant spike in secular political violence (namely riots), and of course political violence has been far more common and severe than religious violence in the last several centuries. Perhaps the key factor is neither religion nor secularism, but something else altogether (I propose “tribalism”).
EDIT: I began drafting this comment before others posted their flame comments. My bad for bringing nuance to a “flame religion” thread.
Hey, I'm a Jew and an atheist. I pray to a God I don't believe exists. My wife was raised as a Christian and she hates organized religion but still has me put an evergreen up in our house every December. The Nazis and Soviets were atheists. Which is all to say, people are complicated and if they want to find a way to demonize each other, they'll find one, religion or not, God or not.
I'm ambivalent whether religion has done humanity more harm than good, but I think that it probably on balance is too humanity's benefit.
In any case, what we have here is a case of extremism. Let's call that out instead of using it as an example to bash all religion.
I don’t think there is a “church” in Islam. Correct me if I am wrong but the imam is only the prayer leader and nothing more. Islam is by definition social (the concept of Ummah) and includes a corpus of laws.
And anyway in most Muslim majorities country you couldn’t enforce such a separation anyway.
The new attacks in France linked to the republication of depictions of Muhammad by Charlie Hebdo and the violent protest in Sweden after a Danish politicians burned some copies of the Quran shows Thant it can be hard to enforce even with a Muslim minority.
you can s/religion/church if you want; the intent is the same. I just used the common American synecdoche.
Any way you want to slice it, official state sanctioned sectarianism is deadly. Don't do it, that way leads only to pain and degradation. It doesn't matter what family of religions the sect is part of.
If full participation in the doings of the state as a citizen requires you to publicly swear to certain religious doctrines as a prerequisite, at least two things happen: 1. religious disagreements are now treasonous threats to the authority of the state that must be met with force, and 2. you cannot trust anyone's affirmation of their beliefs, including your own. Both are extraordinarily corrosive truths to the people who have to perform them, not to mention the state and the religion.
It's true, but I would be surprised if the Auschwitz memorial director is really against _all_ blasphemy laws.
France just jailed an intellectual, Herve Ryssen, for the contents of his books and documentaries about jews. In the meantime, French political elites, including President Macron, are lauding the re-publication of Charlie Hebdo caricatures about Islam. Some animals are more equal than others...
Except for the United States, no country has real freedom of speech, and all countries have taboos that can land you in jail if you write books about certain topics.
>>Except for the United States, no country has real freedom of speech
That's a joke, right? US cosplays at having freedom of speech, the law only protects you from the government, but even that applies selectively - look at the treatment of journalists in the US. No wonder the country is 16th on the freedom of press ranking!
In countries with a state religion, blasphemy is an attack to the very foundation of that state. Secular countries have similar laws and concepts. It can include hate speech and flag desecration. Some monarchies have lese majeste laws that are similar in nature.
In fact, blasphemy and hate speech are very similar. In hate speech, you will, for example, insult the ancestry of your fellow citizens. This is not considered acceptable in a society based on equality, and generally can incite violence, and therefore is illegal in some countries. In blasphemy, you insult the religion of your fellow citizens, this is not acceptable in a society based on that religion and can incite violence, and therefore is illegal is some countries.
Other laws that can be related to blasphemy are related to fictional child porn (ex: lolicon). Real child porn is a product of rape, so it is understandably illegal, but lolicon is essentially blasphemy against the sacred "purity" of children. The idea that it can cause distress, incite actual child rape, etc... is the same idea as how blasphemy can cause distress for believers and incite others to not follow the (religious) law.
Note, as an atheist, I am against state religions. I am also in favor of freedom of expression over protecting people feelings, especially with such harsh punishment. However, I am not Nigerian, I don't know their culture, so I won't give them lessons when it comes to their internal affairs. I can only disagree.
I appreciate the sentiment, but there's some difference between splitting 13 years of jail in 2 vs splitting it in 120, which make this offer a lot less impressive, even if it made any sense from a legal point of view.
Still, it's a gesture that can be commended, but the title is a bit misleading.
Yes and no. It'a a gesture because it's hard to conceive the government would agree. However, in the extremely unlikely case they agree, it's unthinkable the volunteers could chicken out. They must have already fought the battle in their minds, imagining the consequences of a month spend in a jail in Africa - if they are not stupid they know everything could happen. Personally I admire these people a lot.
The offer is coming from the director, so he _is_ offering. 'Misleading' makes it sound like the title is a lie, which it isn't. You just misunderstood.
Also, the offer coming from 120 people is a lot more powerful than just 1 person. It signals that many people find this an unjust ruling, rather than just 1 person, and are willing to go all the way to Nigeria for it and spend a month in what is probably hell on earth, especially for westerners.
As I understood GP's comment, these 120 people are offering to each take 1/120th of the jail time. As I understand your rebuttal, 120 people individually offered to take 1/2 of the jail time. I haven't read the article but you're arguing over the title and you seem to be assuming a different situation. Depending on which situation is true, the title is misleading or not. This info isn't in the title so you can't "simply misunderstood" that.
The title definitely suggests 1 person offering to take 1/2 the jail time, and while that is congruous with 119 others offering the same (to take 1/2 the time), it would not be the same as offering to take 1/Nth. Then it would be misleading. If it's not misleading, then GP misunderstood the article or the article is unclear (not the title).
It depends on the benefits, many people would do anything for a publicity stunt. Maybe this guy is genuine, there is no way I can tell, but it is entirely possible to find cases where it's just a marketing move.
I would think so. Fatwas i.e. the Sharia rulings are legally non-binding (https://en.unesco.org/courier/2017-april-june/what-sharia-no...).
'Secularism, Sovereignty, Indeterminacy: Is Egypt a Secular or a Religious State?' by
H Ali Agrama is a very interesting anthropological account of Sharia law for those interested in exploring the issue further.
What is the connection between the Auschwitz memorial director and this Nigerian boy? Why is he (and these 119 others) trying to take a bullet for him, so to speak?
> As the director of a memorial to a place “where children were imprisoned and murdered, I cannot remain indifferent to this disgraceful sentence for humanity,” he said in the letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, posted on the Memorial’s Twitter account.
Just imagine being a God and you think it's oke for your minions to trow a 13 yo in Jail for 10 years...must be a really grumpy and not really self-assured "God"
Just imagine being a god and giving cancer to little kids, allowing kids to be abused, raped, murdered, allow women to be beaten and raped by men, allow mankind to murder en mass other species..
The above is why I believe that there is no god, of course people may believe whatever they chose to, but in REALITY no such thing exists. Also it is the perpetual question, if there is "one true God", who is it? My god? Your god? Zeus? Some other got of some other species on some other planet in some other galaxy? (The Delta Quadrant?)
The main problem is not the idea of God (imho god = love)
The main problem is the people who self define/proclaim as the god's chosen people on earth.
> The main problem is not the idea of God (imho god = love)
Well there goes your problem, you're countering something that these religions don't claim in the first place:
None of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.) claim that God is pure love, butterflies and spreads happiness on earth.
Their scriptures explicitly talk about how life on earth is (also) filled with pain, disease and man-created problems.
I'm not sure why this criticism ("What kind of god gives kids cancer") on religion is so common in Western countries... it's a giant strawman that a simple question to a believer of such religion would dispell.
Let me reiterate. There is no god. If there is one and we have evidence of Her, let her show herself and lay a lightning on me. Oh wait, there is no god. Now then, most gods (or the fanatics that self proclaim that they are the chosen ones on this earth) tend to write books etc that either speak of love or of hate. I am the kind of stupid that I prefer the love over the hate. We can find a million reasons to hate one another. I prefer to go with the one million reasons to love one another. Thus my god = love.
Either way, this discussion is moot since there is no god :)
religion, is and was foremost, always a way to end a conversation, a debate, by declaring the topic holy and decided. Nobody could decide it, not your children, nor the woman or slaves, and especially not apostates or other religions.
As such it can not be part of any civil democratic society, which by its very nature demands that all but the most human basic rights be debat- and negotiable.
You can not declare something sacrosanct, cut the fabric of society without a reason, and expect perferable treatment by those whose society you trampled over because you threatened civil war.
With respect, it’s a mischaracterisation and a huge overreach. It’s like saying democracy is a disaster because it leads to Trump, or the next populist.
The separation between the sacred and the profane predates religion and persist even in atheism. Topics related to human life are broadly forbidden to economic activities for example.
Pakistan has similar blasphemy laws, where it seems it is commonly used to resolve personal vendettas against non-muslims.
A lot of attention, and rightly so, is paid to racial and other kinds of discrimination. But nothing has caused more harm and more deaths and suffering over the centuries than religion.
I consider religion to be the worst human invention of all times.
Whether there is God or Gods or not, can be debated for ever, but religion is a useless, evil and malicious construct.
Perhaps religion is just another place where various forms of moral evil manifest as a result of human nature? You’re almost enacting your religion by talking so categorically.
Therein lies the problem: in this case, you consider Islam a human product; however, muslims don't see it that way: Islam is Allah's revelation. When people explain religion as a human product, they are NOT explaining anything at all. In other words, these so-called scientists selling religion as a human product(necessity) don't understand believers at all.
One of the ways Orientalists ridiculed muslims to call them as Mohammeden (or Mohammadiyas). Muslims don't see it that way. Also look at how Sunnis ridicule another sect by calling them Ahmediyas.
> But nothing has caused more harm and more deaths and suffering over the centuries than religion.
Colonialism and racism have also caused a significant number of deaths.
> I consider religion to be the worst human invention of all times.
I somewhat differ. I am no historian but religion does add some discipline to a society which is in a complete mess. In today's times, as long as religion is at the periphery of one's life, it seems fine. The problem arises when religion becomes life.
Religion doesn't cause harm by itself. Just like a gun doesn't. It's religious people. And who if not people harming others deserve punishment? Furthermore the sentiment of his comment definitely aims into that direction.
There is a lot on this thread of the usual “just look how nasty religion is”.
I think basically you can cherry pick facts about democracy and reach the same conclusions. Just look what western democracies did in the Middle East, what’s happening (and who is the president) in America. It’s an instrument of oppression and nothing else, just a way for the powerful to amass power.
It’s misguided and painfully selective. Sure, plenty of people use religion / democracy for nefarious goals. This does not even commence to assess their wider utility.
The answer to improving both is usually education. It’s not religious people as such who prosecute blasphemers, it is uneducated people, or those looking to whip up their support.
The Western civilization has several problems, but the freedom of speech is incomparable. The maximum punishment you can get for not embracing diversity, LGBT rights and so on is getting fired and public ostracism. I haven't heard of anyone jailed for saying that there is a distribution of certain traits between the two sexes and so on.
I’m not in any way supporting the sentence, or anything about it. It’s the extension of “hence all religion is evil” is wrong.
You could say, hey look democracies wage all these nasty wars. Killing people is the ultimate bad thing, and North Korea isn’t doing it, so communism must be better. It’s not, and yes killing people is bad.
What is going here is both really funny and typical of HN groupthink. Every one is criticising blasphemy laws but virtually no one even dared to mention the legal corpus which justifies it here: Islam, referring to ‘religions’ or generally to ‘blasphemy laws’.
It’s funny to that people here will demand that Nigerian authorities do something putting their physical safety and civil peace at risk but are afraid to look bad from a SF-centric perspective and be downvoted here.
> What is going here is both really funny and typical of HN groupthink. Every one is criticising blasphemy laws but virtually no one even dared to mention the legal corpus which justifies it here: Islam, referring to ‘religions’ or generally to ‘blasphemy laws’.
It's not just political correctness and being afraid to single out Islam. Christianity had many similar problems in the past. Even now, all Judeo-Christian religions are based on a book that would be considered an extreme example of hate speech if written now. Indian traditions have the caste system. Buddhism is in a better position but even there have been cases of abusing it. So if you just limit your criticism to Islam, it's not entirely fair, even though many consider it the most problematic religion in the world at this point of our history.
I am a lifelong atheist so don’t expect me to defend (even modern) Hinduism and Christianity. They have their own flaws that are also deep. I was just pointing out no one dared to use the word Islam - so at this point it was clear for me it was for political correctness - and while being afraid for so little they are hypocritically saying the Nigerian authorities should prevent that. A move that could actually trigger deadly riots or attacks.
However thanks for actually replying and stating your disagreement instead of acting like those who predictably silently downvoted.
96 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 163 ms ] threadIn the Soviet Union a joke about Lenin could ruin your career. In the UK expressing politically incorrect opinion about genders may turn an otherwise successful writer into an outlaw. In Austria expressing doubts about Holocaust will bring you into prison.
We all are a bunch of intolerant hypocrites.
"an outlaw", really? This might be one of the most hyperbolic statements I've ever seen. The uproar about JK Rowling is not equivalent to the treatment of "blasphemers" in the Soviet Union, give me a break.
Which one do you see as being worse (and why?)
In the original post I was talking about the late (no pun intended) Soviet Union: 1960 onwards.
You were not executed for political jokes. You will just be shunned by your friends and won't be offered any decent job and your kids may never get into the college.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinyavsky%E2%80%93Daniel_trial
Like, my point is, there were escalating punishments to criticizing the government. Some people here suggest that it was like "say something bad about the government = black volga picks you up and you disappear forever". It wasn't that unless you had certain amount of outreach.
If you or me posted on twitter that(as an example!!!) people shouldn't be free to pick their own gender and I'm like 99% certain I'd get fired or at least reprimended at work, and I'm sure finding further work would be difficult.
And I think you might be a little bit off the mark, because I do actually come from a formely communist country - and yeah, making unpopular statements against the ruling party wouldn't throw you in prison(at least not straight away) but you can guarantee most jobs would fire you on the spot and you'd have problems finding any further work. It's not as different as you think.
I think you overestimate the reach of Twitter and the number of jobs that trawl employee and potential employee Twitter post history.
It's possible that it wouldn't have such a large impact on looking for a new job I guess.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-47005937.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-offensive-face...
This isn't just JK Rowling getting a Twitter backlash, it's being enforced by police.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/youtuber-count-dankula...
Regardless of whether you think anti-Holocaust-denying laws are justifiable, even making this comparison seems to put the Holocaust in the same realm of opinion and faith, which is most assuredly is not.
[1] https://news.yahoo.com/another-blogger-hacked-death-banglade...
Regardless of whether you think anti-blasphemy laws are justifiable, even making this comparison seems to put the Holocaust in the same realm of opinion and faith, which is most assuredly is not.
An “outlaw” whose latest book went on to top the UK book charts: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/23/jk-rowling-thr...
It is much more prevalent than a rational, scientific approach and I can understand people want to defend something they deeply believe in. We are not a tolerant species.
Now, as a pure atheist, I am all in favor to ban these laws and pus religion somewhere n the side, together with fairy tales (or psychiatric studies). I also know that this will not happen.
- tradition
- because it worked for previous generations: America became one of the best countries to live in while being religious
- I guess some people also shared my experience that it worked, despite how unreasonable it seems. (Yes, this means I am an engineer who discuss evolution with you guys and have studied a tiny bit of astrophysics, but still pray to God and is heavily influenced by what I read. It kind of works like wave particle dualism: I use the model that works for the situation.)
Religion is a codified belief system while science is a codified knowledge discovery system. They cohabitate just fine until one is mistaken for the other.
Maybe some in the us use religion to explain why they should be in a privileged position compared to others?
EDIT: I began drafting this comment before others posted their flame comments. My bad for bringing nuance to a “flame religion” thread.
I'm ambivalent whether religion has done humanity more harm than good, but I think that it probably on balance is too humanity's benefit.
In any case, what we have here is a case of extremism. Let's call that out instead of using it as an example to bash all religion.
The Soviets yes. Communism was the religion and Lenin its' prophet.
Nazis had "gott mit uns" though.
And anyway in most Muslim majorities country you couldn’t enforce such a separation anyway.
The new attacks in France linked to the republication of depictions of Muhammad by Charlie Hebdo and the violent protest in Sweden after a Danish politicians burned some copies of the Quran shows Thant it can be hard to enforce even with a Muslim minority.
Any way you want to slice it, official state sanctioned sectarianism is deadly. Don't do it, that way leads only to pain and degradation. It doesn't matter what family of religions the sect is part of.
If full participation in the doings of the state as a citizen requires you to publicly swear to certain religious doctrines as a prerequisite, at least two things happen: 1. religious disagreements are now treasonous threats to the authority of the state that must be met with force, and 2. you cannot trust anyone's affirmation of their beliefs, including your own. Both are extraordinarily corrosive truths to the people who have to perform them, not to mention the state and the religion.
France just jailed an intellectual, Herve Ryssen, for the contents of his books and documentaries about jews. In the meantime, French political elites, including President Macron, are lauding the re-publication of Charlie Hebdo caricatures about Islam. Some animals are more equal than others...
Except for the United States, no country has real freedom of speech, and all countries have taboos that can land you in jail if you write books about certain topics.
Ahem...
- https://youtu.be/TIClA57jWmQ
- https://youtu.be/xuAAPsiD768
Particularly the second link, the journalist is forbidden from interviewing an inmate. Also he's under special surveillance.
Call that "freedom of speech".
That's a joke, right? US cosplays at having freedom of speech, the law only protects you from the government, but even that applies selectively - look at the treatment of journalists in the US. No wonder the country is 16th on the freedom of press ranking!
In countries with a state religion, blasphemy is an attack to the very foundation of that state. Secular countries have similar laws and concepts. It can include hate speech and flag desecration. Some monarchies have lese majeste laws that are similar in nature.
In fact, blasphemy and hate speech are very similar. In hate speech, you will, for example, insult the ancestry of your fellow citizens. This is not considered acceptable in a society based on equality, and generally can incite violence, and therefore is illegal in some countries. In blasphemy, you insult the religion of your fellow citizens, this is not acceptable in a society based on that religion and can incite violence, and therefore is illegal is some countries.
Other laws that can be related to blasphemy are related to fictional child porn (ex: lolicon). Real child porn is a product of rape, so it is understandably illegal, but lolicon is essentially blasphemy against the sacred "purity" of children. The idea that it can cause distress, incite actual child rape, etc... is the same idea as how blasphemy can cause distress for believers and incite others to not follow the (religious) law.
Note, as an atheist, I am against state religions. I am also in favor of freedom of expression over protecting people feelings, especially with such harsh punishment. However, I am not Nigerian, I don't know their culture, so I won't give them lessons when it comes to their internal affairs. I can only disagree.
I appreciate the sentiment, but there's some difference between splitting 13 years of jail in 2 vs splitting it in 120, which make this offer a lot less impressive, even if it made any sense from a legal point of view.
Still, it's a gesture that can be commended, but the title is a bit misleading.
It’s all about pointing out how wrong it is to send a 13-year old to jail for blasphemy.
Yes and no. It'a a gesture because it's hard to conceive the government would agree. However, in the extremely unlikely case they agree, it's unthinkable the volunteers could chicken out. They must have already fought the battle in their minds, imagining the consequences of a month spend in a jail in Africa - if they are not stupid they know everything could happen. Personally I admire these people a lot.
Also, the offer coming from 120 people is a lot more powerful than just 1 person. It signals that many people find this an unjust ruling, rather than just 1 person, and are willing to go all the way to Nigeria for it and spend a month in what is probably hell on earth, especially for westerners.
The title definitely suggests 1 person offering to take 1/2 the jail time, and while that is congruous with 119 others offering the same (to take 1/2 the time), it would not be the same as offering to take 1/Nth. Then it would be misleading. If it's not misleading, then GP misunderstood the article or the article is unclear (not the title).
1. Help ameliorate the punishment for a less unjust outcome in this specific case.
2. Take a symbolic action to protest blasphemy laws as a whole.
No need to look for hidden motivations!
The above is why I believe that there is no god, of course people may believe whatever they chose to, but in REALITY no such thing exists. Also it is the perpetual question, if there is "one true God", who is it? My god? Your god? Zeus? Some other got of some other species on some other planet in some other galaxy? (The Delta Quadrant?)
The main problem is not the idea of God (imho god = love)
The main problem is the people who self define/proclaim as the god's chosen people on earth.
Well there goes your problem, you're countering something that these religions don't claim in the first place: None of the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.) claim that God is pure love, butterflies and spreads happiness on earth.
Their scriptures explicitly talk about how life on earth is (also) filled with pain, disease and man-created problems.
I'm not sure why this criticism ("What kind of god gives kids cancer") on religion is so common in Western countries... it's a giant strawman that a simple question to a believer of such religion would dispell.
Either way, this discussion is moot since there is no god :)
As such it can not be part of any civil democratic society, which by its very nature demands that all but the most human basic rights be debat- and negotiable.
You can not declare something sacrosanct, cut the fabric of society without a reason, and expect perferable treatment by those whose society you trampled over because you threatened civil war.
Écrasez l'infâme
A lot of attention, and rightly so, is paid to racial and other kinds of discrimination. But nothing has caused more harm and more deaths and suffering over the centuries than religion.
I consider religion to be the worst human invention of all times.
Whether there is God or Gods or not, can be debated for ever, but religion is a useless, evil and malicious construct.
One of the ways Orientalists ridiculed muslims to call them as Mohammeden (or Mohammadiyas). Muslims don't see it that way. Also look at how Sunnis ridicule another sect by calling them Ahmediyas.
BTW, I was not pointing to any single religion, I was talking in abstract since I believe that religion has been misused to cause much human misery.
It’s just sad is all.
Colonialism and racism have also caused a significant number of deaths.
> I consider religion to be the worst human invention of all times.
I somewhat differ. I am no historian but religion does add some discipline to a society which is in a complete mess. In today's times, as long as religion is at the periphery of one's life, it seems fine. The problem arises when religion becomes life.
I think basically you can cherry pick facts about democracy and reach the same conclusions. Just look what western democracies did in the Middle East, what’s happening (and who is the president) in America. It’s an instrument of oppression and nothing else, just a way for the powerful to amass power.
It’s misguided and painfully selective. Sure, plenty of people use religion / democracy for nefarious goals. This does not even commence to assess their wider utility.
The answer to improving both is usually education. It’s not religious people as such who prosecute blasphemers, it is uneducated people, or those looking to whip up their support.
You could say, hey look democracies wage all these nasty wars. Killing people is the ultimate bad thing, and North Korea isn’t doing it, so communism must be better. It’s not, and yes killing people is bad.
It’s funny to that people here will demand that Nigerian authorities do something putting their physical safety and civil peace at risk but are afraid to look bad from a SF-centric perspective and be downvoted here.
It's not just political correctness and being afraid to single out Islam. Christianity had many similar problems in the past. Even now, all Judeo-Christian religions are based on a book that would be considered an extreme example of hate speech if written now. Indian traditions have the caste system. Buddhism is in a better position but even there have been cases of abusing it. So if you just limit your criticism to Islam, it's not entirely fair, even though many consider it the most problematic religion in the world at this point of our history.
However thanks for actually replying and stating your disagreement instead of acting like those who predictably silently downvoted.