Iceland makes blasphemy legal | Hacker News Reader

Iceland makes blasphemy legal

bbc.co.uk

104 pointsteh_klev35 comments

In Ireland blasphemy was made a crime in 2009! There was a provision in the constitution that mandated it be defined but politicians never got around to it which kind of left it an open ended question but decided it would be a good idea to follow through on the provision and define it.

Atheist Ireland campaigned against it as Ireland as it was being introduced as Ireland was clearly becoming more secular and non religious and yet we were introducing religious laws and leaving its Catholic past behind.

It was controversial internationally because Ireland is an advanced Western country and then Pakistan literally lifted the wording straight from Irish law and implemented in their own law which granted the action some legitimacy.

That said the law actually has no teeth and was challenged by Michael Nugent of AI who released 25 blasphemous statements to show that he'd never be convicted. http://atheist.ie/2010/01/25-blasphemous-quotations/

Its an interesting selection as Jesus and Mohammed, the Pope and a slew of comedians, politicians and creatives are quoted.

Ireland held a "Constitutional Convention" to consider this and a bunch of other changes. They decided to introduce referenda on some of them, including removing the requirement for blasphemy to be illegal. So far they've held referenda on reducing the age at which a person becomes eligible to be president (result: rejected by a large majority) and on permitting same-sex marriage (result: accepted by a sizeable majority). There is not likely to be a referendum on blasphemy until after the general election in 2016.

Meanwhile New Zealand will put you in jail for offending someone on the Internet:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I've lived here all my life and I didn't realise this had been passed.

"A new offence will now be created of sending messages or posting material online that were intended to cause harm, and did so."

Really worrying, that. If I were to say, "NZ's National Party government is really shitty, and everyone reading this should not ever come to NZ, ever!" and people listened, does that mean I just caused... harm to a political party? It's so vague and stupid it's not funny! Ahhhhh!

EDIT: If anyone is interested in a write up about this; http://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2015/0702.shtml

In Germany we have this law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law#Germany

Kind of crazy that it wasn't already legal, to be honest

Not the same thing, but I'm always perplexed that the normally free-expression country of Germany prohibits Nazi symbols and salutes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch_section_86a

You'll even go to jail if your DOG does a nazi salute!! http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dogs-nazi-sal...

You'll go to jail if you name your dog Adolf and teach him to do a Nazi salute. The dog didn't do it accidentally.

Oh, that makes the law much more defensible. Never mind, then.

It is a common thing in many legal systems in Europe. Nazi/Soviet/Other victims and their descendants consider it defamation to deny various genocides or to promote particular symbols. The law you have mentioned is essetially a short-cut for legal defense against slander, and also an honorable and a fair way close the sad chapter of WWII.

This is on a certain level very similar to positive discrimination regulations in the US. One could say - declare a law that states it is illegal to discriminate basing on race, gender or sexual orientation. The problem is that such a law is too weak - it does not serve its purpose in practice. Similarly, the generic and good anti-defamation law needs support in the most extreme cases.

Don't forget Holocaust denial, which is illegal to various extents in Germany and many other countries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial#...

Even doubting the usually thrown around number of 6 million is punishable by law in countries like France. So now we can't debate the casualty count? Talk about double standards.

France also did the same with the Armenian genocide recently.

That's not what the law says.

The french law you are talking about gives the same force to the conclusion of the Nuremberg trials as all other justice decisions. We call that "autorité de la chose jugée".

You can still discuss the body count.

Can you doubt it and say it was closer to 7 million?

What do you think of the arguments in http://lesswrong.com/lw/ase/schelling_fences_on_slippery_slo... ?

I generally don't place much stock in slippery slope arguments, but it obviously depends on how confident I am about the slipperiness of a slope. I would, for instance, make the argument that a recovering alcoholic should not have even just one drink, because that's very real slope that's truly very slippery.

If you Bing [Nazi Holocaust] , it may unperplex you. Free speech is never an absolute right, and recent massacre of millions of people and losing a huge war is pretty much a textbook compelling national concern.

Ok, I Bing'd [Nazi Holocaust" as you said. What am I looking for exactly?

The USA is getting pretty close to doing the same for the so-called "Confederate Flag"

On state public grounds, yes.

You can naturally be as big an idiot as you want on your own land, and there is no doubt that that right is protected 100%.

There are all sorts of things you can't say in the US.

When something can't do any good to anyone, but rather the contrary, it makes sense to forbid or restrict it.

Do you really believe that?

"Can't bring any good to anyone" is such a low bar for making something illegal. I understand restrictions in the case that an action actively hurts someone, but only permitting actions that the government deems good is a worrisome trend.

Even if an action appears to do some small harm, I would argue it is often more harmful to ban it. A ban suggests enforcement and punishment, and in marginal cases, the cost of banning an action can be greater than the reward of its absence.

Finally, some people believe that the ability to determine for oneself whether an action is good is a benefit in its own right. I for one would much prefer for the government not to tell me with such absolute certainty the morality of my expressions.

Just my personal stance.

> Do you really believe that?

I do, but it's not important. I was trying to state the average point of view of European countries.

> "Can't bring any good to anyone" is such a low bar for making something illegal

Perhaps the wrong wording, but by this I meant "obviously" bad actions. Driving while being drunk doesn't right away cause harm (if you're lucky enough), but it is dangerous and therefore unacceptable. Hate speech doesn't cause direct harm because "that's just words after all", but hatred is dangerous and spreading it is considered not acceptable by a majority of people.

> I for one would much prefer for the government not to tell me with such absolute certainty the morality of my expressions

Individual rights and the rights of the People are in conflict (e.g. the right to go naked versus the right not to have to see you naked). In democratic countries, it is solved by letting the people vote laws to strike a balance between the two. At least in theory, it's not the government that tells you what moral and what is not: it's the people around you.

Do you mean things like homosexuality, unions, immigration and the Roma, or is it possible for people to disagree about what completely lacks merit and should be suppressed by force?

This has the same flaw that all utilitarian arguments do: imperfect knowledge of future consequences.

Specifically, by driving distasteful expression underground, you may find that you've hidden it just well enough to allow it to grow unchallenged.

The antidote to bad speech -- the only antidote -- is more speech.

In turn, the flaw in your argument is that you let the poison spread. You take the risk that it can spread unchallenged, or insufficiently challenged.

Speech - communication - is not that much different from physical force. Some people can speak louder than others, some people speak better than others. Some people own powerful media groups and some people are trained in manipulative speech: sophists yesterday, spin doctors today. Those people are "stronger", but of course not necessarily more "right". Still, they can win.

Both philosophies have their pros and cons.

Speech - communication - is not that much different from physical force

Spoken by someone who has clearly never been in a fight.

Prohibition?

To be frank, the thing that does no good for anyone, but rather the contrary, is passing laws prohibiting free expression of ideas.

Uh huh. And who makes that decision? Once you give someone that kind of power they're going to decide criticism of themselves "can't do any good to anyone, but rather the contrary".

I was confused by your comment until I remembered that blasphemy is different from slader and libel.

They are coming along, soon you will be able to name your child whatever you like.

Shouldn't it be "Iceland abolished blasphemy" ?

No. The act of blasphemy has not been abolished, but it is no longer a crime.

Blasphemy is subjective. What is blasphemy to one person is common sense to another.

Aha, Britain demonizes Iceland because it allowed to hunt for banksters in 2013. And UK banksters are the most notorious.

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