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Topic: Blasphemy and Free Speech  (Read 27636 times)

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #25 –
Quote from: Macallan on
Well, this is neither Granny's living room nor a bible study group. What good would a debates & discussions forum be if everyone had to make sure not to (possibly) hurt anyone else's feelings?
(I want a quote shortcut. Not need, just want...)
Let me narrow the discussion. Let me take it in the context as not a "freedom of speech [whatsoever! ???]" but rather a freedom of expressing your own opinion on issues...

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #26 –
Quote from: mjmsprt40 on

Quote from: Macallan on

Quote from: Jimbro3738 on

Quote from: Macallan on
Blasphemy is an incredibly squishy concept. First, how would you determine which religions, beliefs, superstitions etc. are worth protecting? It's either all or none. I for one find public displays of ancient torture instruments seriously offensive.

If you pick the wrong religion, say, radical Islam, you're likely to find out quickly. :'(

They can wail & gnash their teeth to their little hearts' content.

Unless you're physically in a radical Islamic state when you make the blasphemous statement.

I'm not and neither is anyone else here. What's the point of this statement?

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #27 –
Quote from: Macallan on
Well, this is neither Granny's living room nor a bible study group. What good would a debates & discussions forum be if everyone had to make sure not to (possibly) hurt anyone else's feelings?
No good at all IMHO, There is a very big gap between the Nervous Nellie approach to PC where you don't or can't do things just in case some obscure harm can happen and downright and personal harassment or extreme insults verging on the suicidal. That is where judgement on what is reasonable comes into play, first by the person who makes the post, secondly by the people who might be inclined to report the post and lastly by any passing moderator. The old D&D had it about right I think and all of us were happily rude to each other at sometime or other. Long may it continue.

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #30 –
Quote from: Jimbro3738 on

Quote from: string on
The old D&D had it about right I think and all of us were happily rude to each other at sometime or other. Long may it continue.

Really? What would you know about it, Brit! ;D ;)


Hey, Michiganian, give the guy a freekin' break!

Just because everyone knows that the Brits are hopelessly inferior Homo Sapiens to the last, no need to rub it in ..................... repeatedly ............................... regardless of how much fun it is!

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #31 –
Quote from: SmileyFaze on
So can a lot of politically correct rubbish, but both would (& should) be protected as Freedom of Speech irregardless of our likes or dislikes.

An interesting phenomenon is when political incorrectness evolves into a from of political correctness itself some circles. It's also interesting when the "politically incorrect" crowd staunchly defends freedom of speech for view that they agree with and try to shut it all counter arguments. Political correctness isn't even necessarily liberal , some is but "correct" speech occurs across the political spectrum.

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #32 –
'Politically Correctness', or as 'Cooney also put it 'Political Incorrectness', has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of 'real life' , Public Freedom of Speech. The only way PC or PI might have any affect on 'real life' Public Freedom of Speech is how they erroneously attempt to define Freedom of Speech, usually in their own behalf, & on how it applies to them.

In our forums though, where the speech is shared between private parties (non-government), all speech is therefore subject to the rules & regulations of the forum in which the speech is being expressed, & in the end free speech between private individuals begins at the speakers lips (keyboard), & ends at the listener's ears ( or eyes when dealing with the written word) at the sole discretion of the forum moderators.

'Real Life' , Public Freedom of Speech, should be protected at all costs, especially from those that attempt to pervert any group or individuals right to Free Speech through erroneous interpretations disguised as being in line with some form of Political Correctness.

Just because what is said might be emotionally upsetting or distressful to any group or person should not preclude what is being said from being protected by the Freedom of Speech, unless what is said is said with malice of forethought in order to specifically incite a criminal act against the person or group.

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #33 –
Quote from: SmileyFaze on
Just because what is said might be emotionally upsetting or distressful to any group or person should not preclude what is being said from being protected by the Freedom of Speech, unless what is said is said with malice of forethought in order to specifically incite a criminal act against the person or group.

+1 http://vorige.nrc.nl/opinie/article1654061.ece/The_Right_to_Offend

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #34 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

Quote from: SmileyFaze on
Just because what is said might be emotionally upsetting or distressful to any group or person should not preclude what is being said from being protected by the Freedom of Speech, unless what is said is said with malice of forethought in order to specifically incite a criminal act against the person or group.

+1 http://vorige.nrc.nl/opinie/article1654061.ece/The_Right_to_Offend
This is exactly the concept I objected to: Looking at the offence only keeping in mind the intention, not the outcome. When you look only at the intention, then how can you judge? Are you such a competent mind-reader of other people's minds? When you look only at the intention, then you could wiggle out from any kind of damage you caused by citing your noble intentions.

So, you have to look at the outcome too. And no, the outcome is not just someone's short-term hurt feelings. The outcome is express truth and revealed facts. To me it's obvious that, in ideal, freedom of speech isn't about my or anyone else's right to speak up about something, anything. It's not about letting everyone speak their mind to their heart's content regardless of the content. Instead, it's about letting people discuss and debate to find a solution or a better way, while it's understood that lies are still lies, slander is still slander, and blasphemy is still blasphemy. Even though the last concept has no legal purpose these days, isn't it evident enough that it has no constructive purpose?

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #35 –
Quote from: ersi on
This is exactly the concept I objected to: […] And no, the outcome is not just someone's short-term hurt feelings. The outcome is express truth and revealed facts.

That means you're not objecting at all.

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #36 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

Quote from: ersi on
This is exactly the concept I objected to: […] And no, the outcome is not just someone's short-term hurt feelings. The outcome is express truth and revealed facts.

That means you're not objecting at all.
Let's take the Muhammad cartoons. The outcome was outrage across the Muslim world, i.e. it was an emotional offence. That's right, I said this alone doesn't make the cartoons wrong. However, is there any truth or facts in the cartoons? Even your article doesn't say that truth was the intention. The intention was to express an opinion. The question is, was it a constructive opinion? Was there any constructive purpose at all? The most evident purpose I see was to make a joke. So, were the cartoons funny? This last question is the only purpose where the cartoons can be coherently tied to. Again, there's no truth or facts in just being funny.

Therefore I object. Please exercise some consideration when you intend to be funny and nothing else. The cartoons had nothing else in them besides the purpose of being funny, but it didn't work out due to ill-chosen topic. There was nothing constructive or educating in them, nothing even remotely promoting critical thinking or such. Lack of consideration is the opposite of critical thinking.

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #37 –
You're quite wrong about the context of those cartoons. But I suppose it is true that even if you were right, I'd still disagree with you. Humor is part of free inquiry, and if some of it is unsophisticated you can mock it or deride it; banning is for the weak. If your faith, standpoint or conviction can't stand a little criticism or crude humor, maybe it shouldn't stand at all.

For example, I'd call the image Smiley likes to post of some kind of Calvin knock-off peeing on gun control crude and unconstructive. But why should that be a reason to ban it?

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #39 –
Frans, Ersi, the question of such humour's effect is about the perception. Which is corporal/individual/psychic/whatnot.
If someone can be offended by an image of a person they respect (the prophet or such), then someone else can more or less to a similar extent be shocked at an "eating shit" emoticon.
There are people are here there are their attitudes with them.

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #43 –
Quote from: Frenzie on

You're quite wrong about the context of those cartoons. But I suppose it is true that even if you were right, I'd still disagree with you. Humor is part of free inquiry, and if some of it is unsophisticated you can mock it or deride it; banning is for the weak. If your faith, standpoint or conviction can't stand a little criticism or crude humor, maybe it shouldn't stand at all.

For example, I'd call the image Smiley likes to post of some kind of Calvin knock-off peeing on gun control crude and unconstructive. But why should that be a reason to ban it?
Well, let's be clear that I do not favour banning in this case either. It's a cartoon, for cryssakes. It doesn't even pretend to be for truth or facts or anything. This format is frankly out of reach of laws that regulate slander and lies. Sure, I regard the cartoons blasphemous and it's pretty clear that they were intended this way too, but I am perfectly okay that blasphemy is eradicated from laws in multicultural or religiously neutral societies. In this sense I agree with you, Muslims should have handled it with more cool.

Then again, were the same "opinions" expressed in an opinion piece of a newspaper, the case would more likely come under litigation. And as a regular news item, no Western law would allow it even when you appeal to free speech, freedom of press or things like that, right? So the cartoons get a pass only because they are cartoons, not because free speech as such. There is no "freedom to offend".

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #44 –
Truth & Facts have no determination of what is or isn't free speech.

I am free to lie my ass off about anyone or anything I so please, as long as I don't incite direct criminal violence against the person or persons I lie about.

No American court will say I can't do that, but if I be found guilty of slandering someone, someone who must first take me to civil court & file a complaint for such, then the act of slandering is what I'd be penalized for if found guilty by a jury of my peers, & not the Free Speech I initially freely exercised.

I would be free to exercise my right to lie & slander as often as I please --- as often as I wish.....& possibly be subject to penalty in court every time I do so.

I say possibly because the government can't try me for slander on it's own volition, no....another entity, other than government, must first bring suit against me as a prerequisite to further a finding of potential guilt in court.

That's the way it aught to be, but as I well know, there are places in this world that think quite negatively toward free speech, & have much narrower opinions on how it may be used & exercised, & also how any penalty for abusing their narrow definitions are to be handed out.

To me such governments could very well be promoting tyranny upon the citizens, & should, in my opinion, be overthrown post haste.

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #45 –
Even deliberate libel and slander is difficult to prove. I think if was otherwise, at the end of each election each candidate would probably try to sue to the shit out of  each other. Hrm, that might not be a bad idea. Let's make it so candidates can sue each other over misleading statements. Soon both the DNC and RNC would be bankrupt from all the lawsuits  8)

Now what I was bitching about before was the some conservative groups seem to demand everyone else walk on eggshells. Religious groups are particularly guilty of this. This is also a form of political correctness. But they slander entire groups of people, the LGBT community in particular. So when we offer a rebuttal to that, they scream "PC!" It's like they're not self-aware enough to see the irony.

SF noted PC isn't valid in the real world. Isn't it, particularly the work place. Being politically incorrect about racial and sexual minorities is usually a good way to lose your job. This isn't because some leftist or liberal agenda, but if  your crew is all offended and arguing with each other, the work won't get done. Recently at work, a group of African Americans were calling each other "nigga" and addition they tended to over generalize "white" behavior.*  There was a big investigation and everyone, including your's truly was interrogated. In fact, I even had to write a report about what I witnessed :p . So from a retiree's perspective, politically correct speech might be irrelevant but the rest of us need to watch what say or face dire consequences.

*in fact, some of those low level workers comments were so comically wrong that it was more funny then offensive. For example, most white people are sexual perverts. Oh yeah, I mentioned that I would heat ramen noodles in the microwave and suddenly I was "ghetto" and not white  ;D

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #46 –
Quote from: Sanguinemoon on

Even deliberate libel and slander is difficult to prove. I think if was otherwise, at the end of each election each candidate would probably try to sue to the shit out of  each other. Hrm, that might not be a bad idea. Let's make it so candidates can sue each other over misleading statements. Soon both the DNC and RNC would be bankrupt from all the lawsuits  8)

Isn't it the fact that laws in every country provide this opportunity for candidates to sue the shit out of each other, and they actually do from time to time, even though it's hard to prove? E.g. rape is also notoriously hard to prove (the intercourse may be provable, but the nature of the intercourse is word against word), but is forbidden everywhere.

Re: Blasphemy and Free Speech

Reply #47 –
Quote from: Sanguinemoon on
Being politically incorrect about racial and sexual minorities is usually a good way to lose your job. This isn't because some leftist or liberal agenda, but if  your crew is all offended and arguing with each other, the work won't get done.


Ok, so what your saying is virtually identical to what I said. In the public world between private individuals if you say something that is offensive to another person, because of Political Correctness, private individuals or corporations can limit your freedom of speech, not because they have a right to, but because the person being penalized allows them to.

It's not the speech that I or you can't say because government won't let me or you, or the speech is prohibited in any way, no it's private concerns that penalize us because they don't want us to express our right to the freedom of speech, they have leverage (your/my job), & because they use false argument of Political Correctness as their reasoning for penalizing us.

If anyone lost their job for what you described earlier, would they go to court to sue for their job back....no, because the expense of litigation would probably be way too prohibitive, & not because the actual speech is prohibited in law.

I submit, if that person who lost their job had big bucks to front up --- that the job they lost they just had to have back --- if they wished to take it to court, they would probably win based on the precepts of the First Amendment, Freedom of Speech.

But in reality, those suits never take place because of the cost, & cost alone. Most people fired don't think the job they lost is worth the humongous cost of litigation .... the outlay necessary to fight the firing.

The Freedom of Speech takes the hit, & most people will probably grumble, solely because they lack the ability to backup the principal of fighting for it.

Those Political Correctness people that agree with the firing feel that they have proven that the Freedom of Speech is limited, when all along all they have prevailed in proving is that on any given day incorrect decisions can & do prevail, & people are willing to temporarily forfeit their Right to their Freedoms.

Political Correctness did not prove that the Freedom of Speech is limited at all.

In the end free speech between private individuals will always begin at the speakers lips, & end at the listener's ears.

It's all fair game.