Ireland Makes Blasphemy Illegal

http://www.palibandaily.com/2009/07/09/ireland-makes-blasphemy-illegal/

Ding ding ding - organised religion manages to piss me off yet again. In all rights those of any religious beliefs should be pissed off by this law. Its impact on free speech is a pile of C.O.C.K.

Ireland's Catholic, Protestant bs is nothing but a hinderance in this day and age, i dont care about the chairty work they provide, its inconsequential, give the PILES of money they recieve to another charity and we would have the benefits without the STUPID DOGMA.

 

... I cant imagine anyone who wouldnt be outraged about this (except those 200 people in ireland that it actually 'protects'). They are taking piss into the pool of freedom and common sence.
This law has nothing to do in a western country, especially as a member of the europian union. (I dream of a day where EU actually has some authority and can condemn its members for doing BS like this... I dream...)

Needless to say that Ireland has been messed up for a long time though. Even before this legislation, going against the catholic church was not very pleasant experience.

Alternate source for ijffdrie: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/libel-and-blasphemy-bill-passed-by-the-dail-1813479.html

 

could you state another, aka more reliable, source for this info.

I dont see any source links in the article, and i would like to be able to check my info on a news site or something like that.


edit: thanks for the source

the news article doesnt really say what the bill entails though, but if it is what the first site stated, its pretty darn-gosh ridiculous

 

nice, there is no good reason to step on the religous peoples icons. Since some people has failed to realise this, even though it doesnt require the brain of a squirrel to figure it out, they had to make a law about it.

 

and the flamerain shall begin.

it the first site is right, it is not so much about stepping on religious icons, but rather eliminating a philosophical direction.
Dont insult religious people i can understand(i mention nothing about agreeing with), but if the first site is right, it would make it illegal to openly state you are a jew or an atheist

 

Exe you fail at understanding how free speech works. You DO NOT have the right to not get offended. I can insult you all I want regardless of if my reasoning is valid or not, that is my right as a free citizen.
Whats even worse - this law protects only single group. It doesnt protect all christians, muslims, jews, other theists and atheists but rather only certain, specific views. Its sickening and I am really disappointed that anyone in here can agree with that legislation.

 

actually, there are laws against that too.

 

Well there is slander, yes, but criticism/making fun of religion does not fall into that category. At least not without going into the very extremes.
It depends in what country you live, when I argue this issue I over the internet I usually base my arguments on the US constitution which seems to be sufficient document when it comes to quantifying liberty.

 

No good reason to step on religious people's icons? Are you kidding me? Even if their icons have the moral standards of a turd and do nothing for our society? Im sorry, but either way, stepping on peoples 'icons' is often necessasary as it forces them to question why they do regard them as 'icons'.

In respect to speaking out against such insititutions, 'stepping on' would be regarded as just that - speaking out - and with the law, its regarded as a large infiringment of free speech. Forcing censorship of peoples opinions against certain ideals is a stupid thing to do. It denies the voice, the counterargument that forces evolution of these ideals. Without counter argument they remain (even more) stagnant than they are now.

Without people 'stepping on' such ideals, then the institutions that they are based on, are even more free to be steered by the needs of a immoral individual, which does often occur.

Failed to realise? How old are you? Im sorry but a law forcing a knife into free speech is not necessasary, people have every right to detest, or openly display their opinions about such things.

This law is just another 'ooh, i better not mention why im an atheist because im worried this guy will cry a river' except with a ****ING FINE instead of a river. Its not necessasry and i dont approve of the whole 'Oh its antisocial to point out this fallacy, or 'its blasphemous so i wont bother' point of view, its just cowardice, and i hate it when people like you jump in to its advocation.

 

@ rie
i dont understand what you are saying

@higgs

I can insult you all I want regardless of if my reasoning is valid or not, that is my right as a free citizen

no you can not. So you fail. and it is you who fail to understand what free speech is about.
the laws against pedophilea doesnt protect everyone too. Only a single group, namely the children. Your point again?

 

I agree with Renatus although I tried to keep out of the actual religion since (even though its valid) Exe would use it to demonstrate how 'blasphemious' we really are to backup this ridicilous legislation.
This is outrages regardless if its targeted on religion or not. Its a matter of freedom of speech and you can criticize it simply based on secular, liberty issues.

edit: "no you can not. So you fail." - Unless you live in Ireland or in 3rd world country I find that hard to believe. Again - there are things such as slander which are persecutable and I am fine with that, but nobody has or should have the right to not get criticized for his beliefs. Period. US constitution happens to agree with me. Constitution of my country happens to agree with me. My guess is that most of EU constitutions (or simmilar documents) makes this point as well.

edit2: "fail to understand what free speech is about." - freedom of speach was definetly not designed to give specific, government chosen groups immunity from other people opinions. In fact it provides the opposite - the opportunity for the people to voice their decent on issues that they find discriminative, dangerous, infringing or plain and simply wrong. Its the basis on which Democracy has been built.

 

@renatus

you need to find out more about necessasary. what is necessasary is food, water, some love and warm. You can easily go through life and have a great life without stepping on other peoples religios icons.

Why would you bother about what other people beleive in, in the first place? Its non of your business, its a private matter.

Now, you can talk about religion, and you can do it in a nice way. You can say
I dont beleive in this, however i can see you do. Lets share a pie?

Instead of this:
I dont beleive in this and btw i have heard the god which you beleive in is eating horsesh1t because he is so ashamed of having created you*.

Thats ofcourse in a metaphoric way. So im not saying that religion can not be discussed, because thats what you want to, right? Ofcourse you can discus religion. Its just you can do it in a sober way or in a provocating way. But why would you do it in a provocating way? You know, to some religious people their religion means more to them, than what money means to you. So insulting their religion doesnt help anything, it will only make them angry. If people came and took your money would you then go through the rest of your live without pursuing money? Making people angry has never converted them into following your vision. And you are only trying to provocate the religious people because you dislike their religious beleives. Try the other approach and you will see results.

*the "you", refer to an imaginary person and not you renatus.

 

exe, you are clearly the one who is failing to understand free speech. yes, i CAN insult you all i want. that's free speech. free speech DOES NOT protect people from being insulted. it's all about allowing people to say whatever the hell they want.

other laws, like anti-libel, anti-"hate speech", and yes, even anti-pedophilia, all RESTRICT free speech and were passed because people felt the pros outweigh the cons.

anti-blasphemy is just plain idiotic, helps nobody, and protects nothing. and no, with an anti-blasphemy law, you CAN'T discuss religion, other than sit around in a circle and agree with each other.

saying "i don't believe god exists" is blasphemy. try to avoid that in a religious discussion. hell, even saying "i don't believe what [deity] says is correct." is also blasphemy. your only choice is to agree with everything that's defined by religion, because, by definition, disagreeing with it is BLASPHEMY.

edit:

so you're saying everything except food and water is fair game to be outlawed? i mean, heck, you can survive without playing video games, can we outlaw those too? all they do is waste peoples' time, and in a productive society, we can live without video games. let's make them illegal!

 

no you can not insult me all you want. Free speech protects some groups to be insulted, like for example homosexuals, (and in the same way also heterosexuals). You can not insult me about my sexuality. That is just one example. And since you used the word "ALL", i just need one example to proove you are wrong. So i guess you are the one failling to understand what free speech is about.

Well, thats how it is here. It may differ from one region to another region of the world.

 

@exe: First of all "I dont beleive in this and btw i have heard the god which you beleive in is eating horsesh1t because he is so ashamed of having created you" - thats hardly insulting someones religion. Thats insulting them directly. (and it is still protected speech.)

Second of all religion is hardly stays private. Religion is an institution and is a subset of faith, but not the same thing as faith. If someone religion starts to leak into public sector and/or affect another people then it can create havoc and injustice which is exactly what happened in Ireland. (another good example would be the middle-east) Granted there are some people who keep their faith private and I dont go around insulting them. I dont think anyone does. Mutual respect does not equate into a law.

Its so unbelivable that people are willing to give all their freedom away to never get their feelings hurt and allow them to live in unquestionable ignorance.

EDIT: Actually Exe, it doesnt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church. You can criticize peoples sexuality as long as you stay from discrimination, slander and such which arent there to protect peoples feelings but to protect their actual lifes and rights.

 

you do realize almost every country has anti-harassment laws that go in effect if all you do is insult a certain person without a good reason?

yes, there is free speech. there is also a ****load of other laws to protect citiziens. The question is what should be forbidden.

Harassing someone verbally untill he goes literally crazy should certainly be forbidden

having constructive critisism on the current economic plan of your government however should not.

I think this(if the first website isnt exagerating the law) is way over the top. Spending all day preaching hate against a religion and riling up people to use violence shouldnt be allowed, but this simply forbids atheists and jews from talking about their faith

 

yes, i can insult you. this is FREE SPEECH. what you're talking about is the RESTRICTION of free speech. anti-homophobia laws stop people from insulting homosexuals. anti-racism laws stop people from discriminating by race. anti-verbal assault laws stop me from threatening to kill you. these laws work AGAINST FREE SPEECH.

Free speech is all about being able to say what you want. you're the one that's mistaking anti-homophobia, anti-racism, anti-"hate speech" laws for "free speech."

all those other laws that restrict free speech are put in place to prevent ACTUAL HARM from being done. what does an anti-blasphemy law do? prevent a tiny bit of harm (oh no, it's an atheist walking towards me! he can't make me doubt my faith! yes!) while producing much MORE harm by preventing any thoughtful discussion or opposing viewpoints to be expressed.

 

And they are not allowed. Not on any basis - religious or not.

 

what i said was:
free speech is nice and all, but most countries have exceptions to that, which are pretty valid. Saying that a new law goes against free speech isn't a good argument, since there are already plenty of laws that do that.

 

my arguments were mostly directed at exe, who seems to believe free speech inherently has built-in restrictions. it wouldn't exactly be free speech if it did.