Tom Morris



2009.09.30

  No. 998 

International Blasphemy Day 2009-09-30T10:52:36ZPermalink

I'm a bit busy to go around blaspheming the good Lord today, so I'll just link to some pages that should wind up those who care about those things, and amuse those who don't.

The Love That Dares Speak Its Name by James Kirkup.

Piss Christ.

LOLTheist.

The Folsom Street Fair ad featuring the gay BDSM version of the Last Supper.

PZ's Great Desecration.

Bill 'Douchebag' Donohue of the Catholic League (or the Bill Donohue Self-Promotion League) says of Blasphemy Day: So who have they chosen to mock? You guessed it -- Christians. Just for him, here is the Mohammed image gallery, a nice picture of Mohammed in Lego form, a nice depiction of Mohammed, some more depictions of Mohammed and the infamous Danish cartoons satirising Mohammed.

Douchebag Donohue gets it wrong: blasphemy is a celebration of free speech. Free speech doesn't operate on a quota system. You don't need to make sure that everyone gets a fair shot. It's about freedom. But still, when it comes to religion, everyone always wants to claim that they are being singled out. So, let's be clear: three of my links are about Jesus, one of them is about the Holy Eucharist, five are depictions of the Prophet Muhammed, one contains a desecration of the Qu'ran, and one contains parodies of all the major religions. As I said, I'm a bit busy. I'd love to spend all day finding unique and interesting ways to blaspheme Shintoism, Hinduism, Scientology and whatever else.

But that's not the point. The point is just this: if I were to make the same kind of criticisms of a political, economic, philosophical, psychological or any other system of thought or belief, it would be utterly uncontroversial. Religion isn't special and shouldn't get a special pardon from the same standard of criticism the rest of the world has to put up with. A politician has to be able to cope with the fact that nasty caricatures are going to appear in newspapers. Religious leaders, and religions as social institutions, are not immune.

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Tom Morris 9f4907d871750fd4c9b9bad7086701b51d6abd10 bd9f81a05283ed85e699175ed057b4a497f20b77 802c68123e12bf69d99a25a87cef360f18813fe4
Currently in: East Sussex, England
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I am a , an , like to code in and (and Java, but let’s not talk about that), and noodle about with and the .

I have an MA in philosophy from Heythrop College, University of London. My philosophical interests are in analytic metaphysics, ontology, modality, the work of , , , and . I have a strange, unfulfilled interest in . I’ve been influenced by Gadamer, by , , and .

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