I’d be very disappointed in myself if the best Glorious Cause I could come up with was the “right” to blasphemy. But in Europe an Austrian woman has been found guilty of the new criminal offense of mocking Muhammad (details in video, above).
Europeans, though, still have the “right” to mock Christians and Christianity with impunity. Does this strike you as, like, a double standard?
I’d also be very disappointed in myself if the best thing I could think of doing with my freedom was to mock someone else’s religion. True, I frequently mock the Far Left’s pseudo-religion of secular humanism. Just can’t seem to resist it.
The fact that I’m a Christian really sort of indicates that I don’t believe in Islam and don’t accept its teachings as true. I couldn’t be a Christian, otherwise. But I don’t see how that gives me any warrant to insult Muslims, Hindus, or any others who sincerely believe in their respective religions and try to live in peace. I can pray for their conversion. I can try to answer their questions, respectfully and honestly, when they have questions for me. I can try to live in such a way that it won’t inspire them to despise Christianity because they despise me. I don’t always do all of these things well, but I can try.
Besides which, Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and His apostles, set an example which I am obliged to follow as best as I can. Did Peter or Paul ever mock Greeks and Romans for being pagans? Not in any Bible I’ve ever read.
Yes, I know Elijah mocked the priests and so-called prophets of Baal. But who of us has Elijah’s authority?
When the Lord commanded us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, He didn’t add, “But only if they’re Christians.”
I think this goes back to “Love your enemies.” Too many Christians think love is a feeling, emotion, or a warm fuzzy toward someone, when in Biblical reality, love is an action. Christian love is acting towards others according to righteousness. It is loving others according to God’s law, for love is the fulfilling of the law. We are not to slander others, steal from them, or act contrary to God’s law toward them. It would be weird to have warm fuzzy feelings for rapists and murderers. We are not to speak evil of any one – something I am not very good at. There is great satisfaction in calling fools “idiots.”
England abolished their blasphemy laws against Christ in 2008.
Their definition of mocking is usually just pointing out the truth.
We Christians get mocked and insulted all the time, and the big shots applaud those who do it.
What separates christianity (sheep) from islam (goats) even further is, ironically, the unity that false christians seek with “chrISLAM.”
Unfortunately, some of the criteria used for such accusations seems a bit lite to me. I agree, no one should mock the beliefs of another, even if we are not onboard with these beliefs, but in some cases, the mere accusation is taken as fact, with no actual indication of an event having taken place.
Since my last comment was erased, I’ll try again: What’s called “mockery” when it comes to Islam is very often a simple statement that one doesn’t believe in Islam or Mohammed, or an attempt to have a rational discussion about why one believes something else, or even a quotation from the Koran or hadith about what Muslims do believe, if it’s something that Muslims don’t want made public (e.g., the fact that over 100 suras in the Koran demand war against unbelievers or that Mohammed married Aisha when she was 6 years old and consummated the marriage when she was 9).