According to the bill, A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000.And what exactly is blasphemous matter?
It’s anything grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.
That's the way laws should be, right? Very open to interpretation and on the side of those with tendencies to take offence? Oh yeah, wait, it's completely batshit insane.
Well, as part of my contribution to this noblest of
Since you're here, I may as well point you towards Bock's post (which in turn points you towards his previous blasphemous posts), and post a YouTube video or two of a blasphemous nature.
This one might be a slow burner, but it highlights the absurdity of the whole 'Jesus' thing:
And of course, that rant from George Carlin:
Feel free to share your favourite blasphemous exclamation in the comments.
Posts
4 comments:
Ahahahaha, oh dear. I heard about this story a few weeks back but I thought the piece I was reading was satire (seriously). This is utterly retarded.
It's taken the Catholic Church 400 years to recant its condemnation of Galileo and now our government wants to make the publication of such scientific discoveries illegal?! Nice one!
Of course, the counter-argument to that will be 'Dont be silly, as long as you dont intend to cause outrage you'll be fine', but there are two problems there.
1. The occurrence of outrage does not mean it was justified or proportionate. Look at Islam for instance. The anti-west sentiment that pervades much of the Islamic world jumps out in a barrage of burning buildings and stone throwing every time a Western journalist criticises a Muslim cleric, government or group.
Look what happened when a couple of Dutch cartoonists published a picture of Mohammed; the populations of Arab countries are burning embassies and kidnapping Western tourists within minutes. Should those cartoonists be sent to jail because of the scale of the 'outrage'? That is pretty much the definition of loons running the madhouse.
2. The publication of certain material that might cause outrage is not only justifiable but necessary. That is how we move forward as a people. We question long standing beliefs, even if they're held by the majority of the population. The abolishment of slavery caused outrage (hell, it basically caused a civil war), but I would assume it was still morally and ethically a necessity and our government wouldn't argue against it.
After seeing the "What Would Jesus NOT Do," I got sucked into "The Atheist Experience" on YouTube.com. I love that Dillahunty guy. Whoo!
--Priscilla.
P.S. What accents are those in "What Would Jesus NOT Do?" New Zealand?
@SeanH
My thoughts exactly. I'm pretty sure that Ireland would become a laughing stock at first, then a haven for extremists, at which point we'd all be beheaded. Silly infidels.
@Priscilla
I believe that they're Australian accents (and sure enough the video-creator's profile says that he's from Australia).
Not that it makes any difference - New Zealanders and Australians are entirely the same thing anyhow - each group quite enjoys being mistaken for the other, it seems.
Blasphemy Day sounds good.
As long as it's done right.
There's juvenile, flamebait blasphemy (Mohammed fucks kids, Jesus is a cunt), and there's useful, necessary blasphemy (e.g. the Bible is a morally repulsive book written by arrogant, deluded Jewish males).
Mohammed fucks kids
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