In Pakistan a university lecturer, Junaid Hafeez, 33, has been sentenced to death effectively for thinking. His prosecutors passed round sweets to celebrate the verdict. He has spent years in solitary confinement because he was constantly attacked in prison. His first lawyer was shot dead for defending him.
No man is an island, but perhaps the lecturer doesn't share Donne's view.
Should blasphemy be a crime? Given people somewhere in our "civilised" world are being condemned to be hanged for their words about religion should there be a system in place of condemnation and action to protect victimised fellow humans?
Or should we, in this case, just let Pakistan carry out her own laws without comment?
What can we do to help blasphemers?
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Re: What can we do to help blasphemers?
Post #12If I had more certainty that the actions against the lecturer were wrong, I would have no problem calling for action.marco wrote:Edmund Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.�
Good men shouldn't do nothing.
I am not a good man. I couldn't tell you morality from a bleeding ulcer.
I should do nothing, because I don't know, and I can only make things worse.
I would be happier if people didn't killed for what they thought or said, but I don't confuse my own emotions for morality. Karl Popper has an excellent argument against that works well against free speech, and he's objectively more moral than I am.
And do I know that that lecturer wasn't guilty of intolerance? It may be that something he said was intolerant of Islam.
Re: What can we do to help blasphemers?
Post #13Well given what you've written earlier about the ulcer I don't suppose you do know that the charge was blasphemy. Of course if we never take action in case there is some nuance that has escaped our scrutiny, then we live perfectly safe and secure lives while others suffer.Purple Knight wrote:
And do I know that that lecturer wasn't guilty of intolerance? It may be that something he said was intolerant of Islam.
My thoughts were on what civilised states might do to persuade our medieval brothers to abandon blasphemy as a crime worthy of death.
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Re: What can we do to help blasphemers?
Post #14And isn't blasphemy just a specific case of intolerance: Being intolerant toward a religion?marco wrote:Well given what you've written earlier about the ulcer I don't suppose you do know that the charge was blasphemy.
I encourage anyone who knows an evil act has been committed to take any and all necessary actions against that evil action and/or person.marco wrote:Of course if we never take action in case there is some nuance that has escaped our scrutiny, then we live perfectly safe and secure lives while others suffer.
I don't think they want to, so force is your only option.marco wrote:My thoughts were on what civilised states might do to persuade our medieval brothers to abandon blasphemy as a crime worthy of death.
To me (but, this is just my opinion) this fellow definitely qualifies as an asylum-seeker, so why not extract people like him?
My solution is to open the gates to anyone who wants free speech. Yes, anyone.
Post #15
I don't think it is just a problem confined to "Islamic" countries, there are right wing christians and evangelicals who would instigate similar (if not exact) laws and punishments in western countries if having achieved the power to do so.marco wrote:Divine Insight wrote:
When it comes to religious beliefs, I don't think one nation is going to tell another nation what they need to believe. So if Pakistan wants to kill blasphemers there isn't much we can do about it other than saying that we disprove. That's basically all we can do.
You are absolutely right in relating the present religious cruelty to similar acts in our Christian past. The same sort of minds were motivated by the same idea: God must not be insulted, nor his servants nor his utensils.
The poor apostate in Pakistan might just as well have been a scientist trying to dismiss a geocentric theory or fault a flat earth. If indeed the charges against him are correct then he stopped speaking like a child and put childish ideas aside, for which he is to be hanged. History repeats itself and people die, it seems, when it does so. The lesson we take from blasphemy in Pakistan is that much of the planet is ruled by ignorance and superstition, albeit in different colours.
Our liberal ideas in the west, sometimes extended into absurdity, were won from the flames of brave souls who tried to teach truth. Sadly, wisdom fashions a Kalashnikov and gives it to children to play with. I believe Pakistan, persecutor of blasphemies, is a nuclear power. God help us!
Post #16
I don't doubt that there are people of a Christian colour who would happily burn homosexuals or blasphemers, but that is hypothesis. The actuality is that we have fellow human beings, geographically apart from us, who are subjected to death sentences. I suppose we can simply say it's none of our business and go shopping.Seth wrote:
I don't think it is just a problem confined to "Islamic" countries, there are right wing christians and evangelicals who would instigate similar (if not exact) laws and punishments in western countries if having achieved the power to do so.
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Re: What can we do to help blasphemers?
Post #17[Replying to post 1 by marco]
"What can we do to help blasphemers?"
There's always Best Practice Psychiatry! It is very effective in making people return to rationality and plain behavior! "Transgressions are not the answer!"
"What can we do to help blasphemers?"
There's always Best Practice Psychiatry! It is very effective in making people return to rationality and plain behavior! "Transgressions are not the answer!"
I'm cool! - Stronger Religion every day! Also by "mathematical Religion", the eternal forms, God closing the door on corrupt humanity, possibly!