3 Years In Prison For Insulting the Catholic church

[commonsense822]

Mary was the world's best liar, Joseph was the world's dumbest husband.

Well, it was a stormy period with Roman soliders around. Jews accepted the son of an unmarried jewish girl as a jew. It must not have been very uncommon in those days. And Joseph evidently was not too disturbed by that.

Good point. Mary would never be able to admit to being raped or even willingly having sex with a Roman soldier. She would have been killed by her own people.

Yeah I gotta say, that's not a bad possibility.  Never thought of that....

[Brian37]

"blasphemy law," which prohibits "deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs.

It's funny how stating a fact is insulting to religion...

"Blasphemy laws are the first sign of tyranny" Lord Acton

[TheDevoutPasta]

What is up with dripping statues anyway? You'd think people would know by now that it's just water seeping through a wall :roll: And why would god manifest himself by dripping? Seriously?

in my confirmation class someone took a picture of a chicken they had, inside it was a small cross made out of peas, whole church went fucking crazy because it was a "sign from god." Yes, The almighty omnipotent God showed himself in the peas.

[St Giordano Bruno]

Blasphemy laws are the worst possible violation in freedom of speech IMHO

[Cockroach]

You know, if they were so confident in their Church, they wouldn't need to imprison anyone.
Why is it that they need to imprison people if what they believe is true and and they could just present fac-..........oh right

[Aupmanyav]

India does not have any 'blasphemy laws'. Our laws are for peace among people, we have 15% muslims and some 5% christians. We do not want people at each other's throat. Freedom of Expression is guaranteed by Indian Constitution with these possible restrictions:

"Grounds Of Restrictions:

3) Public Order: This ground was added by the Constitution (First Amendment) Act. 'Public order' is an expression of wide connotation and signifies "that state of tranquility which prevails among the members of political society as a result of internal regulations enforced by the Government which they have established."

Public order is something more than ordinary maintenance of law and order. 'Public order' is synonymous with public peace, safety and tranquility. The test for determining whether an act affects law and order or public order is to see whether the act leads to the disturbances of the current of life of the community so as to amount to a disturbance of the public order or whether it affects merely an individual being the tranquility of the society undisturbed.
Anything that disturbs public tranquility or public peace disturbs public order. Thus communal disturbances and strikes promoted with the sole object of causing unrest among workmen are offences against public order. Public order thus implies absence of violence and an orderly state of affairs in which citizens can peacefully pursue their normal avocation of life. Public order also includes public safety. Thus creating internal disorder or rebellion would affect public order and public safety. But mere criticism of government does not necessarily disturb public order. In its external aspect 'public safety' means protection of the country from foreign aggression. Under public order the State would be entitled to prevent propaganda for a state of war with India.

 The words 'in the interest of public order' includes not only such utterances as are directly intended to lead to disorder but also those that have the tendency to lead to disorder. Thus a law punishing utterances made with the deliberate intention to hurt the religious feelings of any class of persons is valid because it imposes a restriction on the right of free speech in the interest of public order since such speech or writing has the tendency to create public disorder even if in some case those activities may not actually lead to a breach of peace. But there must be reasonable and proper nexus or relationship between the restrictions and the achievements of public order."
http://www.goforthelaw.com/articles/fro ... icle16.htm

[Plu]

I don't know about you, but what you just described... are blasphemy laws.

"a law punishing utterances made with the deliberate intention to hurt the religious feelings of any class of persons" is a blasphemy law. No matter how you try to put it.

[BarkAtTheMoon]

And that public order exception completely undercuts freedom of expression if it can include something as simple as stating something bad about a religion. A group that disagrees with any speech can make a ruckus and use that clause to shut it down unless it's more explicitely defined, like only applying to directly inciting violence, yelling fire in a crowded theater, libel/slander, and speech that leads directly to physical harm.

[Jason78]

This from the country that bought you the Delhi gang rape bus.

[Jason78]

India does not have any 'blasphemy laws'.

Except for...

a law punishing utterances made with the deliberate intention to hurt the religious feelings of any class of persons

[Brian37]

Blasphemy laws are the worst possible violation in freedom of speech IMHO

Yep. And North Korea has them too, you cant blaspheme the state.

[The Non Prophet]

Fuck it, just give those blasphemers life because they're going to hell anyway, get em used to it early ;)

[ApostateLois]

I don't know about you, but what you just described... are blasphemy laws.

"a law punishing utterances made with the deliberate intention to hurt the religious feelings of any class of persons" is a blasphemy law. No matter how you try to put it.

 And they are stupid and primitive, no matter how anyone puts it.

This from the country that bought you the Delhi gang rape bus.

Gang rape is okay. Witnesses to it will claim they didn't want to get involved, or they thought the girl deserved it, and the rapists often will get away with their crime despite any laws regarding "public peace, safety and tranquility."  But just tell them that their gods are worthless figments of their imagination, or their church is run by pedophiles, or any other insult, and suddenly they are all too happy to get involved. Three years for hurting someone's feelings?? Really? How is that fair or just in this world?

[GurrenLagann]

Supressing free speech in practically all cases is not a slippery slope.... it's a greased precipice. And can you really think of someone you know or have heard of with deciding what speech is not allowed? I doubt it.

To quote Hitch (who might have been loosely quoting someone else, I can't recall):

One of the vices of those who would repress the opinions of others is that they make themselves prisoners of their own opinion, because they deny themselves the rights and the means of changing them.

[FrankDK]

The anti-blasphemy law prohibits "deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs."  This means that the original claim, that the crucifix was miraculous, and indeed, any statement that a god or gods exist, offend the religious beliefs (i.e., none) held by atheists.  If someone says, "Jesus died for your sins," that outrages and insults me and my beliefs.

Sounds like an opportunity for a counter-suit.

Frank