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Is sacrilege fair game?

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  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    auspicious wrote: »
    Practicing is the operative word missing from the initial quote.

    Well maybe if they practice perhaps as often as once a week, they'll get good at it :pac:

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,331 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    The only modification I would make to a thread started in my name would be to ask why the "or" in the topic title. Is it necessarily mutually exclusive? Is sacrilege itself not fair game at times, if not even positively warranted?
    Hark ... tis the sound of Boris / Dominic /Phil and all the rest who fudge around wafer thin (excuse the pun) technicalities.

    Calling something a "technicality" is just a label you fling to avoid actually replying to, or rebutting, what was said. That is more a politician move than anything I have ever made. So perhaps check the mirror before flinging accusations of this sort.
    You know the purpose and meaning of the Eucharist. And you trampled on it. No great crime, we all do such things, being sinners and all.

    Exactly. There was no crime. No legal one and no moral one. At least OUTSIDE the system of your clubhouse rules. Rules which I am not beholden to. The concept of "Sin" is nothing more than "violations of the ethics of my clubhouse".

    It is just a fancy word to apply to your particular hobby's rules. Many clubs with club houses have rules of this sort, they just do not need to label those rules with fancy terms. For example the fishing club I am in consider it highly bad form to use certain types of "lure" when fishing.

    If any club house hold open public events and they hand out free things at that event, they have no pedestal form which to admonish people for what they do with that stuff later. Especially if they make no move whatsoever, not even as simple as a pamphlet in the foyer, explaining expectations. Let alone maybe mentioning it in the schools they control while marching kids off to partake.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,331 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    However, going to the trouble of dishonestly acquiring Eucharist to "experiment" upon and destroy is a number of degrees above "disrespect" or disagreement. It is not just being "disrespectful" to something you are confronted with, but rather going out of your way to be so, which is altogether different.

    For the most part it was no trouble at all, and I did not go out of my way at all.

    For example when I acquired them at weddings I was there by invitation.

    Or when I acquired them during a mass I did not want to be at, it was because the school I attended went out of THEIR way to force me to go to that mass.... and to force me to go up and take a cracker.... all under the threat of extra homework, detention, or getting my parents down to the school.

    Actions which now-a-days might even be newsworthy given some of the stories that were in the paper in recent years about religion being forced on students in schools. And in fact one of the reasons why Atheist Ireland have formed an alliance with the Amadi Muslims of Ireland and the Evangelical Society of Ireland.... because the common ground on the mistreatment of kids in this regard transcends religious barriers.

    Not eating a dry tasteless cracker FREELY given to me, and keeping it for myself, was entirely my right and my own autonomy. Especially as it was on some of those occasions given to me by a priest who knew damn well I was an atheist and knew damn well I had refused confirmation and was so about as much a lapsed Catholic as it was possible to be at that age/stage of my life.

    But sure, the "crime" here is my treatment of a cracker I guess. Not the religion being forced on a helpless child. Also context is useful here as another user already pointed out on this thread already. Much (not all) of what I acquired and wrote (the link that triggered you was from about 10 years ago) back at that time was done in the context of the Blasphemy Laws becoming a focal point of discourse in Ireland. A time when the government were trying to rammify such a concept in law, and Atheist Ireland were releasing lists of blasphemous quotes to test/highlight the law, and foreign bloggers were making posts like this one.
    Anyway, I had said I was finished with this thread

    No worries. Tongue in cheek some years ago I invented something called "Nozzerrahhtoo's first law of internet posting". Despite being a joke it has proved true a lot more than it proved false. Basically the law states that the probability of a user posting again in a discussion goes UP in proportion to the number of times they indicate they will not be.

    As such, despite being a joke, it brings me a little tickle of joy/amusement when someone proves it for me. Especially multiple times on one thread. So thanks for that :)
    How about asking if it was OK for ISIS to destroy various religious sites?

    A useful distinction. If they had been GIVEN FREELY that religious site and THEN they decided to destroy it.... well then sure no problem there. It might sadden us of course, for good reason, but we would have no pedastal from which to really admonish them for their actions.

    The fact that people go and destroy the property of others however is a problem. Both a legal and ethical one at times. And you would never find me doing any such thing anywhere ever.

    The distinction between that and me doing whatever the hell I want with property that was freely given to me... is one you should dwell on for some time.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,685 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    if i eat beef, am i being disrespectful to those for whom cattle are sacred?
    if i do so, i do so knowing that some people regard what i am doing as disrespectful (though i do not know if it's considered 'sacrilege'). i coudl just order the fish instead?

    though to a catholic, eating the body of your own god is probably more acceptable than to many other religions.

    I think the two factors to consider here are intent and context. So for example, if I order a Royale with cheese in Burger King in Dublin, I have no intent to offend those for whom cattle are sacred. Eating beef in Ireland is also entirely normal and thus can't be considered sacrilege in this context.

    Now look at the funnies page on this forum, which clearly takes this píss out of many things more religious types would hold sacred and as such could be considered sacrilege in terms of intent. At the same time, if those religious types are browsing the humour section of an atheist forum they should expect this type of thing. Much like the priest getting offended by the lewd pictures in Playboy, they are very clearly not the intended audience.

    Compare that to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting Mohammed. By placing these pictures on the front cover of a magazine that will visible on magazine stands and in shops in an area with a large Muslim population, the intent is clearly to disrespect what Islam holds sacred.

    54bbf3e66da811e20b6393fd?width=600&format=jpeg&auto=webp

    This is intentionally sacrilegious and inflammatory, where the humour is primarily a device to highlight an argument. That argument, as I read it, is that one group's religious beliefs cannot be used to censor others beyond what is acceptable in law. See https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2017/01/charlie-hebdo-two-years-on/ for more. While I agree entirely with the argument I have issues with the way it can be delivered, most notably in providing a platform for promoting racism and discrimination under the guise of free speech. Aggressively inflammatory material intended to offend specific groups carries with it the likelihood of polarising society which ultimately favours extremists on both sides.

    HebdoCoverBurkini.png

    As such I'd question with wisdom and intent of placing this material on the front cover of magazine displayed publicly and wonder where the balance lies between freedom of speech and incitement to hatred.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    The only modification I would make to a thread started in my name would be to ask why the "or" in the topic title. Is it necessarily mutually exclusive? Is sacrilege itself not fair game at times, if not even positively warranted?



    Mod - in the interest's of fairness as this thread does list you as OP and it was a post by you who kicked it all off I have amended the thread title.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    smacl wrote: »
    Compare that to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons depicting Mohammed.

    It depicts a man in islamic dress, I'm pretty sure Mohammed did not have access to a printed and bound copy of the koran, in French. I thought the text "The koran is sh!t" would be more of an issue? (The context is "Massacre in Egypt" text in the box, and "it can't stop bullets".)
    By placing these pictures on the front cover of a magazine that will visible on magazine stands and in shops in an area with a large Muslim population, the intent is clearly to disrespect what Islam holds sacred.

    So what. We should disrespect everything 'held sacred' because it's nonsense, and used as an excuse to oppress people.

    And those covers are funny. "The reform of islam - Muslims, loosen up!" Well just how loosened up could they get!

    They've gone a lot further in relation to the pope.

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 15,685 Mod ✭✭✭✭smacl


    We should disrespect everything 'held sacred' because it's nonsense, and used as an excuse to oppress people

    Strange sentiment. Advocating that we should disrespect things that other's hold sacred is itself a form of oppression in my opinion. Once the group you're targeting also tends predominantly to be from a specific racial minority you also have to be very careful that your defense of free speech isn't pandering to those with a racist agenda.


  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    Maybe disrespect is the wrong word, I mean not pander to, and not be afraid to be accused of disrespect for pointing out unpalatable truths.

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Maybe disrespect is the wrong word, I mean not pander to, and not be afraid to be accused of disrespect for pointing out unpalatable truths.

    So someone slashes up the Mona Lisa. A sacred item in the minds of art appreciation and folk of culture. Fair game?


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    smacl wrote: »
    Strange sentiment. Advocating that we should disrespect things that other's hold sacred is itself a form of oppression in my opinion. Once the group you're targeting also tends predominantly to be from a specific racial minority you also have to be very careful that your defense of free speech isn't pandering to those with a racist agenda.

    Can not a minority be racist of a majority (this Irishman is getting close to that point re Americans) I don't see why minority in itself has anything to do with it.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    smacl wrote: »
    Much like the priest getting offended by the lewd pictures in Playboy, they are very clearly not the intended audience.

    You reading this Nozz? Intended audience. You sidling up to the altar and stuffing your pockets with wafers is like a priest taking a crafty peek into Playboy!


  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    So someone slashes up the Mona Lisa. A sacred item in the minds of art appreciation and folk of culture. Fair game?

    Remind me again of a religious group which worships the Mona Lisa, and a religious group which wants to slash it?

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,331 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    So someone slashes up the Mona Lisa. A sacred item in the minds of art appreciation and folk of culture. Fair game?

    If you gave it to them free of charge and without any conditions you made obvious to them at the time, then sure it is. It would be sad of course, but it would certainly be allowed.

    Now if it was NOT their property and they went in and destroyed it.... that's something else.
    You reading this Nozz? Intended audience. You sidling up to the altar and stuffing your pockets with wafers is

    ... is something that never happened. And is thus irrelevant.


  • Registered Users Posts: 34,283 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    So someone slashes up the Mona Lisa. A sacred item in the minds of art appreciation and folk of culture. Fair game?

    No, because it is in a one off, irreplaceable piece of art.

    If someone slashes up a copy of the Mona Lisa, a print, nobody would care. It can be easily reproduced. The image itself is not sacred - people make parodies of it all the time.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,230 ✭✭✭jaxxx


    Remind me again of a religious group which worships the Mona Lisa, and a religious group which wants to slash it?


    Probably the Scientologists.


    Oh wait, you said religious group not cult. My bad!


    Although they're all much of a muchness really.. .. the only difference is time!


  • Registered Users Posts: 34,283 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    One easy way of working out if you are in a cult or not - are you free to leave without repercussions?

    If being shunned by your family is held over you as a threat against leaving, like the Jehovah's Witnesses or you are pursued and have a smear campaign against you like the Scientologists, chances are you are in a cult.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,939 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    On balance I am inclined to agree more with the thrust of John Hutton's posts than Nozz's, which is a first. Saying it is ok to disrespect things that other people hold sacred - based on specific beliefs (transubstantiation for example) that do not affect you - simply because they (or people who represent them) have done other things that do affect you is a bit, well, petulant.

    Doing 'scientific' tests on something that does not claim to be physical is irrelevant and unnecessary. https://www.nwcatholic.org/spirituality/ask-father/how-can-i-explain-transubstantiation.html

    It is arguable that since transubstantiation works based on belief, so it should be possible to believe that if the wafer is misdirected the transubstantiation ceases to happen. Then everyone is happy. It is my belief (I use that word deliberately) that the person doing the misdirecting loses something of their own integrity? self-worth? by doing it. The communicant is unaffected by the action and need feel nothing other than maybe some contempt for the misdirector involving themself in something that does not affect or concern them or anyone outside the belief group.

    This still leaves me free to be of the opinion - ie, know - that the whole thing is arrant, but in this specific case harmless, nonsense. Its only when people feel free to extrapolate rights to force other people to recognise this belief that the damage starts.

    Jesus said to the disciples that they should spread the word of his teachings, but people might not want to hear them - “And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” This was intended as a threat, but actually cuts both ways, people also have a right not to listen or believe, in which case the threat is also irrelevant - belief cannot and should not be imposed.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,331 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    looksee wrote: »
    Doing 'scientific' tests on something that does not claim to be physical is irrelevant and unnecessary.

    The object itself makes no claims at all. It is a cracker. It tends not to talk. If it did then we would have been having an entire different discussion :)

    No I made it pretty clear in my essay I think (it was written 10 years ago now so forgive my memory) that I was addressing my discussion solely to one of the main three subsets of Catholics I had personally encountered in my life.

    I know what the church claims about the crackers. I however have met three main subset of catholic believers on the topic:

    1) People who believe an actual physical change occurs.
    2) People who believe a spiritual (conveniently) undetectable change occurs.
    3) People who believe the tradition is symbolic only and the cracker is just a cracker really.

    As you correctly point out it would be entirely ridiculous, even "petulant".... but certainly "pointless" to directly anything I did or wrote at groups 2 and 3 or at the church itself. So I never did.

    It was for group 1 only.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,810 ✭✭✭Hector Savage


    o1s1n wrote: »
    One easy way of working out if you are in a cult or not - are you free to leave without repercussions?

    If being shunned by your family is held over you as a threat against leaving, like the Jehovah's Witnesses or you are pursued and have a smear campaign against you like the Scientologists, chances are you are in a cult.

    Don't forget Islam, it's not exactly easy to leave either ....


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    Don't forget Islam, it's not exactly to leave either ....

    Technically the RCC won't let anyone leave and for centuries tended to torture and execute anyone who tried.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,810 ✭✭✭Hector Savage


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    Technically the RCC won't let anyone leave and for centuries tended to torture and execute anyone who tried.

    OK, are you saying it's easier to leave Islam than the RCC ???


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    OK, are you saying it's easier to leave Islam than the RCC ???

    I am saying exactly what I said.
    Technically the RCC does not permit people to leave. It used to up intil a few years ago but then changed the rules.
    It used to kill people who tried. It is no longer allowed to do so by the Civil Authorities.

    People are quite free to consider themselves not members of the RCC but technically they will still be listed as such in official records.

    Islam is, in many regards, where Christianity was a few hundred years ago (although never had the equivalent to a centralised authority such as Roman Catholicism had/has) and in it's more fervent regions takes a sometimes fatally dim view of people leaving (although I don't think they have quite gotten to the Auto de Fé/Inquisition stage anywhere - perhaps I am wrong) despite this people can and do 'leave'. I, personally, know many 'ex' Muslims - mainly Turks and Lebanese and no, they do not all live in the 'West'. The most 'anti' Islam as a religion person I know is Turkish and from a very conservative Muslim family. He, his wife, and adult daughter (I have know her since she was a baby) are all Atheists.

    In fact - even in traditional Muslim countries/regions people are 'leaving Islam'
    And it is not just an American or Western phenomenon. Even deeply conservative countries with strict anti-apostasy regimes like Pakistan, Iran and Sudan have been hit by desertions. The Saudis were taken aback when the American journal, The New Republic, revealed the scale of Muslim conversion to atheism in their country, and more widely in the Muslim world. The numbers were eye-popping, ranging from hundreds to thousands in some countries.

    https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/why-are-young-muslims-leaving-islam/cid/1704203

    It is not that long ago here in Ireland that people who denounced Christianity were shunned, lost their livelihood, families, forced to emigrate, and although Ireland did not witness the mass murder of those who 'left Catholicism', England did - Mary Tudor had 300 people executed, mainly by being burned alive.

    There really is no outrage perpetuated in the name of Islam that hasn't equally been perpetuated in the name of Christianity at some point.

    As far as I am concerned they are "same meat different gravy".


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,810 ✭✭✭Hector Savage


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  • Registered Users Posts: 33,650 ✭✭✭✭Hotblack Desiato
    Restaurant at the End of the Universe


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    People are quite free to consider themselves not members of the RCC but technically they will still be listed as such in official records.

    Yet they acknowlege the decision of those who leave in countries which have a church tax - because the civil authorities would end church tax if they didn't, and it's a massive money-spinner for them.

    Not exactly the first time the RCC has been caught being entirely hypocritical, however.

    Islam is, in many regards, where Christianity was a few hundred years ago

    Well, it is a few hundred years newer. Stil very much in the 'difficult adolescent' phase :pac:

    It took a while but I don't mind. How does my body look in this light?



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,386 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    Islam is, in many regards, where Christianity was a few hundred years ago (although never had the equivalent to a centralised authority such as Roman Catholicism had/has)
    Not centralized in terms of a single fixed center, but the Sunni and Shiite threads of Islam do have fairly consistent views of what differentiates them and these haven't changed much since the days when Ali and Abu first failed to see eye to squinting eye.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    robindch wrote: »
    Not centralized in terms of a single fixed center, but the Sunni and Shiite threads of Islam do have fairly consistent views of what differentiates them and these haven't changed much since the days when Ali and Abu first failed to see eye to squinting eye.

    I meant in the administrative sense - there is no Muslim "Vatican". The RCC piggybacked on to an already centralised, but collapsing, Empire and made sure that all the roads that led to Rome led out as well carrying their rules. They were poised to fill the vacuum left by the fall of civil powers.
    Yes, a series of happy 'accidents' that took out rivals to Rome helped too.
    The world might have been a very different place if Christianity had looked to Alexandria or Constantinople - arguably we may not have seen Christianity spread so easily through Europe via Roman administrative centres.

    Conversely, Islam sought to build empires as it spread. The two went hand in hand so they were, in a sense, making it up as they went along and that schism was there, as you said, from the very beginning.

    The RCC had Europe to itself for 1000 years before any schismatic movement really threatened it's monopoly. And it was also prior to that schism that European embarked on the first phase of Imperialism so Sword and Cross went hand in hand to 'new' worlds.
    Ironically, the schism that happened soon after fueled European Imperialism as the two factions fought each other for global power.

    While Constantinople was trying to survive Muslim onslaughts, Alexandra had already fallen - Islam itself was divided.

    Rome was unrivalled in a Europe that ultimately began to look west - albeit with hope of finding East and had a system in place that allowed it to ruthlessly destroy any internal opposition for hundreds of years.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,549 ✭✭✭karlitob


    But this is more like deciding to go to a forbidden sacred mountain on private property where only members of a religion, who own the land, are allowed to go and climb it BECAUSE people view it as sacred. Not because I like mountaineering. And to be allowed to climb it I had to enter onto private property under false pretenses, pretending to be of the religion. And then for good measure bring a bomb with me to blow up the mountain. And then write about it to really rub it in, and mention I have a few more sacred mountains I might blow up (

    Jaysus - it all goes to pot when humans decide that a cracker is divine and a mountain is heaven sent.

    Thank god, there is no god.


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