Auschwitz memorial director offers to share Nigerian boy's blasphemy jail term
reuters.com
reuters.com
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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
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!
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).