Essay talk:Why Heresy Is Good And Blasphemy Is Bad

So - what exactly is the problem with lacking respect for any particular religion?

For that matter, why should any particular worldview or opinion - be it religions or secular - be automatically be worthy of respect?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 17:47, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Well, by "disrespect" in this essay, I mean flinging around insults rather than simply not agreeing. If you don't agree with a religion or other worldview or opinion, that's fine. I'd say that most opinions, including religious opinions, are worthy of the basic respect of not being subjected to abusive and hateful remarks, even from those who don't agree with them. Basically, "agree to disagree". Respecting an opinion does not mean refraining from politely pointing out its problems and pitfalls; you can respect an opinion and still criticize it where criticism is warranted. Heck, you can respect an opinion and outright mock some of its sillier aspects as long as you're not being mean-spirited. It's only when some opinion is so broken, warped, unrealistic, spiteful, dishonest, and/or devoid of good intentions that it becomes borderline dangerous — for instance, fundamentalism, bigotry, or denialism — that it loses the right to basic respect. Furthermore, there is definitely a line to be drawn between simply not respecting an opinion (i.e. thinking that it has a lot of problems, but maybe not thinking that it's completely unsalvageable) and outright hating it. --Luigifan18 (talk) 18:26, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure I get the point.

Do the religiously-motivated Taliban or the hijab-enforcing Mullahs deserve respect - where the politically-motivated MAGA republicans or Kim Jong-undo do not?

If we should treat them equally - what is your point? If they are all obviously doing bad things why shouldn't we deliver them the same levels of scorn?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 19:37, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Not all religious people are "obviously doing bad things". The ones who are doing bad things (like, again, the fundies) deserve scorn, yes. The ones who are simply trying to follow guidelines on how to be a good person without hurting anybody do not. Heck, even with fundies, one should keep Hanlon's razor in mind. Some people are more-or-less just using religion as an excuse to be sociopathic control freaks. Others are genuinely trying to help humanity, but have a wrongheaded idea on how to achieve that. While some of those well-intentioned idiots are still doing too much damage to deserve respect, one should at least not (figuratively) completely tear them to shreds (actually, literally tearing them to shreds would be wrong, too). --Luigifan18 (talk) 20:21, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree that not all the consequences of religious belief are necessarily bad, though some are really horrendous. (And my personal opinion is that the majority of consequences would skew in the "bad" direction.)

But the whole idea behind concept of "blasphemy" is to protect specific religious views for mockery and criticism. Furthermore the "blasphemy" is defined by the religion itself. It puts religions in a position to tell societies what people can and cannot say about their religion.

No other group in western democracies has, or askes for, such protection. The only similar examples I can think of would be dictatorships like North Korea or Putin's Russia where criticizing the government can land you in jail. Naturally theocracies really love blasphemy laws - see how long you would stay out of of jail in Saudi Arabia if you criticize Sunny Islam; or if you criticize Shia Islam in Iran.

Why is it reasonable in a democratic county to give some specific institutions control of what is said about them?Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 06:10, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I would redefine blasphemy as being basically the religious equivalent to hate speech, slander, and/or libel. It's one thing to call a religion out for bad shit it's actually done, like the Catholic Church trying to cover for its priests diddling kids while also taking extremely ineffective measures to curb the priests' misbehavior itself; it'd be one thing if the Church prevented secular authorities from interfering while resolving the problem itself, but it instead tried to sweep the problem under the rug entirely, with disastrous results. It's another thing to make false accusations that a religion is depraved in some way while not suggesting any ways to improve the situation or advocating for the religion's complete destruction, such as pushing International Jewish conspiracy theorizing. Saying that the Catholic Church should own up to the misbehavior of its staff and change its procedures to prevent more molestation from happening is a fair criticism — the Church may not like it and is within its rights to call you a heretic for disagreeing with the way it conducts its business, but it cannot invalidate your critique by calling it "heresy" if your criticism is fair, accurate, and aiming to make the Church better than it is. Spreading IJC rumors helps nobody; all it does is spread hate and paranoia, which can potentially escalate to persecution. Thus, calls for clerical reform are merely heresy, while International Jewish Conspiracy is blasphemy.

By reclaiming the terms "heresy" and "blasphemy" in this way, I seek to make them into something more than religions calling the wahmbulance and trying to crush everyone who speaks ill of them. They are simply different modes of disagreement with a religion: one of which can be good, bad, or neutral, depending on how it is framed, and one of which is always bad. This also prevents them from being used to completely shut down discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of religion. Maybe I'm being naive, but I think I might be on to something to make religion a little more respectable. Luigifan18 (talk) 02:10, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

OK. If you are making an argument based on your personal redefinitions of the terms in question then that's your choice.

I'm talking about what the religious institutions themselves regard as blasphemy against their beliefs, and I don't think these institutions should be able to control what people are ablle to say.

But if we are using different definitions of terms then there is not much way forward. Thanks for the conversation.Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 06:21, 13 April 2023 (UTC)