What Blasphemy Laws Say About Religions - By Bob Johnson

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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About the best thing one might say about this author is that he is ignorant. Completely, totally ignorant. He believes every fable, half-truth, and legend ever told by religion haters about religion in general and Christianity in particular. He embraces the revisionist history of those who are hostile to religion, ignorant of the achievements of religion, and even hate the ennobling ideas carried by religion. 

So he cites for his evidence historical fiction, rewritten history, and vague fables of an imagined time when religion ruled the world, and from which reason and logic rescued us.

And without any sense of understanding the irony of his position, he thinks that blasphemy laws are wrong and dangerous because they prevent the free exchange of ideas. Aside from the fact that blasphemy has nothing at all to do with with exchanging ideas, the Left is not in the least interested in the free exchange of ideas. They never have been. 

The Left will silence, vilify, shout down, mock, and legislate the silence of anyone and everyone who doesn't agree with them. 

It is on one hand disturbing that the author believes so much that simply isn't so, but on the other it is more disturbing that he is so willing to comment pen to paper to join in the anti-halleluiah chorus. In fact, he doesn't really care about blasphemy at all. His sole purpose to write is to articulate his hate of Christians and Christianity.

Lastly, he will close with some utopian blather about how great everything will be once religion is eliminated.

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Aneeqa Ateeq is a 26-year-old woman in Pakistan. She was recently sentenced to death by hanging after she was found guilty of blasphemy against Islam. She allegedly committed cybercrime and blasphemy by "sending blasphemous caricatures of holy prophets, making remarks about 'holy personages' on WhatsApp and using her Facebook account to transmit blasphemous material to other accounts. In doing so, she 'deliberately and intentionally defiles sacred righteous personalities and insulted the religious beliefs of Muslims', according to the charge sheet."

Blasphemy is defined in the Cambridge English Dictionary as "something that you say or do that shows you do not respect God or a religion."

When put into practice, blasphemy laws silence any objective open debate about what the religion claims and teaches. It guarantees the clergy their job-security and their power over their fellow human beings. We often hear that blasphemy laws are being misused. Blasphemy laws in and of themselves are wrong and harmful to people and society regardless of how they are used. They should not exist.

The fact that all of the "revealed" religions have blasphemy rules and laws (Christianity does not.)

makes it evident that all of the "revealed" religions* teach nonsense that cannot be rationally defended in a free exchange of ideas, (The Left is not interested in the free exchange of ideas. 

Apparently the author does not know that the Left has its own blasphemy laws, called speech codes. They outlaw free speech, deeming some speech hate-speech. They silence, attack, and impugn anyone who deviates from approved speech, going so far as to censor speakers on college campuses. 

And they require speech, like preferred pronouns. 

The author is most certainly being ironic.)

so they must resort to silencing people through violence and threats of Hell. Most people will be silenced from objectively speaking about the teachings of a "revealed" religion which violates our innate God-given reason, through intimidation/fear of being arrested, executed and burning in Hell. This not only helps the "revealed" religion to maintain its place of authority and power, it overall cripples attempts for people and society to make progress. (The author continues to be ironic...)

This can be seen in the fall of Rome (Now the author moves to ignorance. Rome did not fall because of blasphemy laws.)

and the rise of Christianity and the ensuing dark ages in Europe. (The dark ages were not caused by Christianity or blasphemy laws. In fact, there were no "dark ages." If the readers is interested, here are some scholarly articles that debunk these persistent myths.)

Christianity was as bad, or possibly worse, than Islam is at using fear, cruelty and violence to enforce its blasphemy laws. (Again, false. Virtually no one has experienced any of this at the hands of supposed Christians.)

The only reason Christianity is not imprisoning, torturing and killing people for blasphemy today (A preposterous assertion. A few states still have blasphemy laws even today. No one has been prosecuted for almost 100 years, and those few who were prosecuted got charged with a misdemeanor.

The author has yet to identify anyone in America who has suffered from the accusation of blasphemy. He does not tell us anything about anyone who actually was imprisoned, tortured, or killed by "Christianity" for blasphemy. 

The reason? They didn't happen. There is no example in American history of someone being abused by a charge of blasphemy.

The author is also strangely silent on Christians charged with blasphemy.)

is because it had its wings clipped by the European Enlightenment, the American Revolution and the establishment of the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution. (Unable to cite a single incidence of someone being tortured or killed as a result of blasphemy, the author now asserts that this mythical abuse was stopped by forces and trends that never addressed the issue of blasphemy. 

And, he leaves out the Declaration, likely on purpose, for it appeals to nature's God and a firm reliance on Providence. Unfortunately for the author, the founders were motivated by the principles of religion.)

The American Founder and Deist, Thomas Paine, (A favorite of the Godless Left. The sole reason he's quoted here is that he is useful to the author. George Washington, a committed Christian, would not have advanced the fable the author wants to promulgate, so naturally he is not quoted.)

made this evident when he wrote in The Age of Reason:

"Soon after I had published the pamphlet "Common Sense," in America, I saw the exceeding probability that a revolution in the system of government would be followed by a revolution in the system of religion. The adulterous connection of church and state, wherever it had taken place, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, had so effectually prohibited by pains and penalties, every discussion upon established creeds, and upon first principles of religion, that until the system of government should be changed, those subjects could not be brought fairly and openly before the world; but that whenever this should be done, a revolution in the system of religion would follow. Human inventions and priestcraft would be detected; and man would return to the pure, unmixed and unadulterated belief of one God, and no more."

(Interesting that this Paine quote negates the author...)

Regarding the nonsense taught and promoted by all of the "revealed" religions, (Ah, we finally get to the real reason the author wrote his article. Unfortunately, all he can manage to do is make the lame "look at all the contradictions" argument, accompanied by a "miracles are dumb" rejoinder. This may be one of the lamest criticisms of Christianity we've ever seen.)

I could list page after page of examples, such as God taking a rib from Adam and using it to make the first woman (Genesis 2:21-22), and a man and a talking donkey having a conversation (Numbers 22:28-30), and dead people coming out of their graves in cemeteries around Jerusalem on a Friday when Jesus allegedly died on a cross, hanging out at their graves until Sunday morning when Jesus, too, came back to life, at which time the zombies went into the city of Jerusalem and "appeared unto many" (Matthew 27:52-53 and here's a page from the World Union of Deists about this biblical nonsense), (The link is to the author's own article!)

and talking ants in the Quran (27:18), and a man who had his head cut off struggling to breath (Book of Mormon, Ether 15:30-31).

One of the charges against Aneeqa Ateeq is that she "insulted the religious beliefs of Muslims." (Notice how the author interweaves actually suffering of blasphemy perpetrated by an unrelated religion, Islam, in order to attempt to poison the well against Christianity?)

(This reminds me of Thomas Paine's important observation, "He who dares not offend cannot be honest.") (Indeed, that is what the Left is forcing dissenters into, a place where they cannot be honest.)

And the above definition of blasphemy includes not showing respect to a religion. Why would any thinking person who values their gift from God of innate reason and who values truth over falsehoods show respect to religions that not only promote belief in such falsehoods and nonsense as listed above, but who promotes cruelty and religious violence and who portray The Supreme Intelligence/God as an entity we should fear because God can both kill us and burn us in Hell, as the Christian Bible claims Jesus taught (Luke 12:5)?? (Now the author "demonstrates" his theological bonafides [i.e., he doesn't have any.])

The solution to the problem of blasphemy laws is simple. (Having not demonstrated that there is a problem in the US with blasphemy laws, most likely because there are no blasphemy laws in operation here... The author now undertakes to provide a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.)

We need to do away with the "revealed" religions (Ah yes. Here it is. Let's enhance the idea of freedom of expression by eliminating the expression of religious ideas. The author's irony is now complete in its idiocy.)

which have the blasphemy laws by reaching people with the fact that God did not give them the religion they belong to, (A universal declarative statement, made in complete ignorance.)

The Supreme Intelligence/God gave them their innate reason. (The author seems found of making undocumented, unprovable claims.  Sort of like the religionists he criticizes.)

An important way of doing this is to take this advice from Thomas Paine found in The Age of Reason, The Complete Edition. Paine advised:

"Nonsense ought to be treated as nonsense, wherever it be found; and had this been done in the rational manner it ought to be done, instead of intimating and mincing the matter, as has been too much the case, the nonsense and false doctrine of the Bible, with all the aid that priestcraft can give, could never have stood their ground against the divine reason that God has given to man."

We will make a much better world through the Deism Revolution in Religion. (Yes, of course. Everywhere Christianity has been wiped out has resulted in utopia. Yes, we have example after example sprinkled throughout history. 

Darn, we're trying to think of one right now, but we can't. Maybe the author can help us out and supply one.)

We will replace ideas such as God being cruel to the point of burning people in Hell for eternity and calls for religious violence with Deistic ideas such as Thomas Paine expressed in The Age of Reason when he wrote, "I detest everything that is cruel." (Imagine no religion. It's easy if you try.)

What a sea change in thinking that will bring to our world. (How wonderful it will be!)

Since our actions are based on our thoughts and beliefs, Deistic thinking and beliefs will translate into kind and caring actions on the part of people to one another and to our planet. (It will be paradise on earth!!!)

*Revealed Religion: An organized system of belief in and worship of God based on the belief that God communicated/communicates with certain individual founders/members of the particular revealed religion. As mentioned above, by believing in any of the revealed religions a believer is not putting their trust in God, but in the person/people making the claim of receiving the divine revelation.