Blasphemy Laws
Why not? Well put quite simply: honest dialogue, honest criticism, honest debate.
You see, I agree that non-instructive and vindictive attacks on religious beliefs are in poor taste - as a Christian living in America, I know well what it means to have my faith villified and...well...my God Blasphemed.
But as Mark Galli, managing editor of Christianity Today, notes in the article above: my God is used to being blasphemed. He was betrayed, spat on, insulted to no end, beaten, whipped, condemned, and then crucified as a common criminal. Allah and Muhammed are perhaps less used to allowing such abuse go unpunished.
So, while I decry pointless insulting of another persons religious beliefs, I would not like to see laws made to prevent that from happening. For while it may eliminate childish lashing out against religion that has no redeeming value (a sort of theological-philosophical pornography), it could also be used to prevent me from saying why I am not a Muslim, and why I am not a Jew, and why I am not a Protestant.
The Koran blasphemes - on purpose - the Christian faith when it claims that Jesus was NOT the Son of God, that there is no Trinity, and that Jesus was not tortured and killed on the cross. So Blasphemy laws would neccesarily ban the Koran. By the same token the New Testament claiming all of these things to be true is a blasphemy against Allah...and arguments suggesting that the NT was written 600+ years before anyone knew Muhammed would consider it blasphemy would likely fall on deaf ears.
Sadly, freedom to seriously dialogue and debate affords idiots the ability to do things simply for the sake of offending others. Let them have their fun...as for us Christians, well our God told us to expect persecution so we might as well get used to it. He set for us an example, and for now I'd like to maintain the freedom to be able to say that other religious founders set a rather different example that is playing a profound role in news headlines today.
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