Will no-one rid me of this troublesome priest?

Yet again we have the religious zealots and catholic crackpots taking over civil society to spread their preposterous beliefs and protect their absurdities from public critical scutiny. So the Republic of Ireland has just brought in (01/01/10 – or, in analog, 22) its new Blasphemy Law. Not everyone is happy about that, including Atheist Ireland which has published a list of 25 so-called “blasphemies”.

According to Atheist Ireland, “the new law defines blasphemy as publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted.”

So the law means that Irish catholics can’t upset adherents of the profit even if what they says is true, nor muslims besmirch the name of the pope. Damn! And no-one can speak out against the Flying Spaghetti Monster (may his noodley appendage be upon you) whose religion is the fastest growing in the world. RAmen.

So leave us just “blaspheme” against as many as we can before the Irish Disease reaches our shores.

via Pharyngula to Blasphemy.ie to Tom Lehrer to Marty Feldman. Don’t you love the internet?

Here are some excerpts from the quotes on the Blasphemy website:

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”

23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

Apparently it will be illegal to claim that the profit exhorted his troops to spread his teachings at the point of the sword. Even the papa Benedict XVI himself would be jailed in Ireland for quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor in 2006:

“Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage…Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”.

Does that sound intolerant to you, not to mention self-contradictory? If you say I’m violent I’ll kill you?

As Zola said,

“Civilisation will not attain perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.”

Allez à Barker (Translated from the French: “Go to school [literally, Barker College, Sydney]“)

Happy New Year (dog willing).

[tags]religion, god, Jahweh, Jehovah, Allah, atheism, atheist, blasphemy, Pharyngula, pope, catholic, transubstantiation, Tom Lehrer, Lehrer, Feldman, Marty Feldman, George Carlin, P Z Myers, Richard Dawkins, Ian O’Doherty, Pope Benedict, Vatican, Vatican Rag, bible, Quran, Torah, Old testament, Zola, priest, priesthood, church, islam, christianity, FSM, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Buddhism, values, religious values, Australian religious values, Irish religious values, belief, beliefs, islam, muslim, profit, prophet[/tags]