As I mentioned earlier in my Weekly Recap, September 30th is International Blasphemy Rights day, as designated by the Center for Inquiry. It used to be called Blasphemy Day; the word "Rights" was inserted to more accurately represent the purpose behind it.
It's not about infidels and apostates having a day to antagonize people who still hold religious beliefs. It's not about members of a mainstream religion ritualistically taunting and harassing people of a minority faith. It's not about goading religious extremists into a murderous rage.
It's about people who value freedom of speech raising awareness of how easily that freedom can be trampled upon. It's about recognizing that as another set of claims in the marketplace of ideas, religion should not be immune from the same scrutiny, criticism, and satire that we freely apply to other forms of speech. It's about believing that offending someone's religious sensibilities is not a crime.
Chances are that right now as you read this, you are committing blasphemy against someone's religion. It might be the clothes or jewelry you're wearing. It might be a symbol or phrase you have tattooed on your skin. It might be the person you are in a relationship with or are attracted to. It might be the "unclean" food digesting in your stomach right now.
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| Forbidden food AND irreverence to a revered tale! It's sacrilicious! |
It might be the lighthearted joke you made about a traditional practice. It might be the way you celebrate a certain holiday. It might be the particular translation of your religion's holy book that you read. It might be a recent (or centuries old) scientific discovery that you now know as fact.
It might be the fact that you find a particular supernatural claim so absurd that you snicker at the very idea of it.
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| His Merriness will not be mocked! |
The bottom line is that someone somewhere believes that their god hates what you're doing right now, and that person would be deeply offended to know that you're doing it so brazenly. In some parts of the world, that makes you a criminal who deserves fines, imprisonment, torture, or the death penalty.
If you live in a country where treating religion with anything short of veneration is legal, consider yourself lucky. Don't take freedom of speech for granted.
