Talk:Blasphemy

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Warning: Reading This May Condemn Your Soul To Eternal Hell

We are presented here with a genuine philosophical problem, one which inherently requires for its full discussion that we describe something which some minds might find altogether shocking and distasteful -- but this is a discussion from which we can not cower, for we shall not censor ourselves in the pursuit of the greater truth simply because some might find distress in the particulars. And so, we now envision for a moment a meeting in the desert between Jesus Christ and Mohammad, the Prophet of Islam. Imagine that in this meeting, Jesus falls to his knees before Mohammad, and Jesus proclaims fealty to the holiness of Mohammad, and then Jesus joyously performs oral sex on Mohammad, to the point of bringing Mohammad to orgasm in his mouth, culminating in Jesus Christ willingly and happily swallowing Mohammad's semen. This vision, though surely shocking, is not intended simply to shock for the sake of shock, but to raise a serious theological question, one which can not be fully explicated without discussion of this idea or something like unto it.

According to Jesus in the Bible, to sin in one's mind is the same as sinning in reality. Matthew 5:27-30 recites:

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

From Islam, we similarly have the words of Mohammad, admonishing:

The fornication of the heart is to desire evil.

But if it is at all a sin to imagine Jesus taking happiness in the moment of licking and sucking Mohammad's erection to an explosive orgasm (a proposition necessary to discuss this philosophical point), then surely by reading this -- and thereby inviting the irrevocable instillation of this image into his (your) own mind -- the reader (you) who would condemn this image thereby sins. And this sin is certain and irrevocable -- simply passing your eyes over the phrase "Jesus happily licked his lips as he tried to swallow every spurting drop of Mohammad's sperm" inevitably and indelibly causes the forces within your mind to generate an image matching the concepts, an image of the mouth of Jesus willingly sliding back and forth over the spit-slickened cock of Mohammad, and of Mohammad's hot semen spurting into Jesus's mouth and Jesus gulping it down like a baby supping milk from its mother's breast. As you can not unring the bell; some things, once seen (even only in the mind's eye), can never be forgotten. Surely one cannot easily dismiss the image of one's savior taking pleasure in fellating the Prophet.

Naturally, it may be begged that the reader bears the responsibility for choosing to read a passage titled "Warning: Reading This May Condemn Your Soul To Eternal Hell"!! Reading this essay was a choice; allowing the vision of Jesus nimbly using his lips and tongue to orally pleasure the full, erect length of Mohammad's penis to be forever seared upon ones thoughts was a choice, the reader's choice (your choice), possibly even the reader's destiny (your destiny, if our Creator knew in creating the world that your moment of reading this would come). And so the reader deserves the eternal damnation which accompanies the reading of these words.

And consider the possibility that the next time you masturbate or have sex, whichever form of stimulation may come first, you might well come to think of Jesus sucking a cock (possibly, if you've got one, of Jesus sucking your cock). Because you have read the suggestion of these lines, this image may spring unbidden to your mind even the next time you become sexually aroused, by whatever forces work this upon you. The power of suggestion effectively demands it, makes it impossible for you to do otherwise, for in your truest self, the self which would be subject to judgment, you have become desirous of seeing Jesus sucking a cock (or, again if you have one, of having Jesus lick and suck your cock). And if such desire merits punishment so shall you be punished.

According to the many worlds hypothesis, there must be some alternate Universe out there where exactly such a blowjob has been bestowed. Or we might exist in the sort of reality once hypothesized by Robert Heinlein, where out manufacture of a mythical Universe wrenches it into a reality. And the novelization of Jesus enjoying homosexual activity is hardly newly introduced in this philosophical problem -- there exists a common subgenre of fan fiction is called "slash" fiction. And, surprise, it has nothing to do with horror stories, but is instead focused on the imagineering of romantic -- and oftimes explicitly sexual -- relationships between the characters.

There are, naturally, an out, a route of escape from this eternal condemnation. Most prominently is if the whole idea of sin and divine judgement is mythic. But, if such account is true, and the only release is cutting away the part that sins, then it seems that the only liberation from damnation for those who have read this far is lobotomization; the erasure of whatever parts of your brain would store such a memory.

Another problem arising from this formulation is that of allowance. To be specific, the question may be raised, why is it at all possible to speak and write so disrespectfully of religious icons without some intervention on the part of any purported deity? This may seem a trivial objection, a theodicy problem easily answered by reference to the convoluted ways attributed to such deity, but a critical difference lies herein. For this is not merely a proposition that some unattended "evil" exists (in this instance, the generation of a permanent image in the reader's mind of Jesus slurping the milk of Mohammed's stiffened man-bone, which the reader might consider an evil). This is, instead, a proposition of an act which is at the same time damning under the conventional theological model, and incapable of evasion -- it represents not an exercise of a choice to be damned by the reader, but an exercise of our inherent psychological state which overrides free will, leaves it laying bruised and battered by the roadside, powerless to prevent our brains from forming images which are of the type our brains will generate in response to the stimuli of descriptive words.

In other words, if the theistic idea of sinning in the mind is true, then the deity described in such accounts has laid an inescapable trap for its followers. It has given them over to be eternally damned by a reflex which lies outside of human control. And that is an evil which crushes any notion of free will. And further, it seems equally damning to question why any deity would allow such a sentence to be put to words. Why is it even possible for me, even as a philosopher arguing a point which requires this assertion, to write the phrase, "Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, gleefully sucked on Mohammad's hard cock until Mohammad ejaculated so much that his hot man-juice sloshed down Jesus' throat, even as a little bit spilled out of Jesus' mouth and ran down Jesus' beard."

It is a problem for the ages. ^{— Unsigned, by: 208.7.132.130 / talk / contribs}

That's nice

It's a problem for the ages of about 15 or 16, in my estimation. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 12:49, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks but no thanks for the mental images. Aaaauuuuugggggghhhhhhh. Luigifan18 (talk) 02:46, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

|}

The position in the uk

From the article

“” In the UK the obsolete blasphemy law was repealed in 2008,[2] although another law, the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006, has also been invoked to punish blasphemy.

I find this troublesome. First of all it's uncited, an example might give it more weight, but, crucially, the act cannot be used to punish blasphemy. It can only be used to punish attempts to stir up racial hatred. There's a huge difference in what is being punished. Blasphemy laws punish offending god, the Racial an Religious Hatred Act punishes offending people.

I know that the Racial and Religious Hatred Act is controversial but let's not strawman it. Placeholder (talk) 09:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

UN

I'm not familiar with the specifics of how the UN handles this, but I'm assuming it reversed positions to a great extent recently. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Why the issue of Defamation of Religion may be relevant.

I'm putting this on the talk page because I do not want to be seen as vandalizing this page but I think this page has got this issue mostly (but not entirely) wrong. The use of the word defamation when it came to religion was originally used to counter antisemitism (see Anti-Defamation League). It differs from the concept of blasphemy in that blasphemy refers to any theological narrative that runs counter to one's theological narrative. Blasphemy can refer to defamation but is not necessarily defamation. The defamation of a religion is to misrepresent the beliefs or rituals of a religion in order to discredit the religion (ie: Blood libel). Is there potential for the abuse of the term in order to silence other points of view? Absolutely. However, the defamation of a religion is often a tool of persecution of religious groups, particularly when religion is associated (implicitly or explicitly) with race. To deny the existence of the defamation of religion is to deny the existence of religious persecution and thus Denying the victim. Nchriste (talk) 00:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Good points. I suggest editing the article accordingly. Wëäŝëïöïď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 00:22, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I consider Nazi destruction and desecration of synagogues the most extreme blasphemy ever committed. Pbrower2a (talk) 02:44, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

Question

my friends say that blasphemy is offensive to religious people . I don't agree that it is but is there some grain of truth in this idea and should we add something about it in the article? Comradegreen (talk) 19:05, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

If someone is more than nominally religious there’s a good chance they’ll be offended by blasphemy, so it’s offensive. I’d say it’s so obvious it doesn’t merit a mention unless part of a wider point. Christopher (talk) 19:20, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry I wrote that wrong.Their argument is that blasphemy is a violation of human rights and therefore there should be a law against it Comradegreen (talk) 19:27, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

That’s blatant bullshit but without knowing their reasoning (if any) behind it there isn’t really much I can say about it. Christopher (talk) 19:34, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

How does it violate their human rights? Nobody has a right to not be offended. That would be really absurd.Hubert (talk) 07:56, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

Another question

Does blasphemy come under the deity equivalent of 'human rights'?

Are there any examples in the historical period of deities of all varieties taking offence at blasphemy (whether of their own followers or those of other faiths or none)? (And would 'not having take action against numerous examples of blasphemy' count against deitykind if they singly or collectively decided to restart the process?) Anna Livia (talk) 18:42, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure "taking offense" is a fair parallel to the rather important concept of human rights. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 18:48, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

More as an interesting thought experiment, Anna Livia (talk) 16:18, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, but that's my reaction to the thought experiment. That it isn't a good comparison. If gods actually existed and we actually discussed whether they had some kind of rights, my egalitarian nature would make me say "yeah the exact same rights as the rest of us, they don't get more because they're more powerful" ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 16:28, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

And are there any examples of 'god or gods' reacting to blasphemy (rather than self-appointed delegates of the same)? Anna Livia (talk) 16:36, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

I mean, god isn't real, so no? But if you mean stories about gods? Yeah, greek myth is full of them. Arachne claimed to be better at weaving than Athena, and was punished for it. Aphrodite punished a whole town of women for refusing to worship her by making them all smell bad. Odysseus kills sacred cattle of Poseidon and pretty much everything bad that happens to him is, according to the story, the wrath of Poseidon. What are you looking for here? ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 16:48, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

How many cases in the historical rather than the mythological period have there been of 'god or gods' smiting persons for uttering blasphemous statements? (Assuming the persons involved are not in the middle of a field in a thunderstorm with lightning strikes and similar 'asking for trouble situations.') Anna Livia (talk) 22:56, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Oh, none that I'm aware of. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 23:06, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Therefore blasphemy needs to be redefined: the entities most offended by it are not the subject of the offence, and the subjects of the offence take no action; but an offence can be committed. Anna Livia (talk) 17:01, 11 July 2019 (UTC)