Oh dear, I think I may have just broken a law.
An Italian town is introducing a new law making it illegal to ‘blaspheme against any faith or religion.’
Officials from Saonara, in northern Italy, will issue fines of up to €400 (£360) to individuals who break the new law, as part of a raft of new rules to tackle uncivil behaviour.
Mayor Walter Stefan, told The Telegraph: ‘Blasphemy is offensive, it offends me.
‘With this law you will not be able to cause offence to any religion, we have to respect the faithful.’
Remind me which century this is… There is no place in a modern society for the anachronism of blasphemy laws – and, no, I do not have to respect the faithful. I am happy to respect their liberty to believe whatever they wish, providing it does no harm, but respect for their faith or their sensibilities? Respect is earned. It is not some sort of God granted right based upon your religion of preference.
This nonsense is why modern civilisations have a separation of state and church to put an end to this kind of behaviour.
‘We want to send a message that incorrect behaviour will no longer be tolerated.’
Wow! Joe Stalin’s ghost lives on.
BTW, I appear to have broken JRM’s style guide. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.
going to be an interesting balancing act, if a christian claims that jesus is the son of god, how does this square with the islamic belief that he’s just a prophet who appeared before Mo, or the Judaic belief that he’s not and Mo doescnt count either
Of course, fine them all and get more money for. The govt.
That is a very difficult question to answer. Many millions if not billions of words have been written over the centuries answering that very question. The problem rests with the fact that people who cannot step back and study their beliefs from a, as near possible neutral stance, will always cause division. The Jews don’t believe J.C. Is the messiah because they interpret his coming differently. J.C. Himself is quoted in John ch 24 that many will come after him who will claim to be the true prophet. Mohamed’s behavior when compared to J.C. would suggest that J.C. Is probably of God rather than Mohammed. However if you don’t believe in the Monotheistic religions it’s all moot. Except for the hatred enshrined in the most recent one, which causes great suffering to all others.
Well at least in Italy they are unlikely to commit blasphemy against the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Having followed the link to JRM’s guidelines, I find myself to be broadly in agreement. I think that he is being a little too restrictive and his insistence on imperial measurements is absurd. Being an engineer, the metric system has just made life a thousand times easier. I was reminded just how much easier when the company that I work for started selling equipment from the US.
Is the metric system a thousand times easier or is the imperial system a hundred and forty-four times harder?
Kilotimes or megatimes easier?
Only bad ideas need laws to protect them from criticism. This is why religious types are so keen on blasphemy laws. The fact that all the different religions blaspheme each other can be conveniently ignored. Only those rational people making points that we can’t refute need to be crushed by the full force of the law.
This is the reason why those on the political left have been forced to abandon the principle of free speech. Their ideas can’t possibly survive exposure to informed criticism.