Ask Wednesday: If the god of Abraham was a human invention, then what is blasphemy?

Stephen Fry's answer

By Morris Dean

Stephen Fry may be familiar to you as Bertie Wooster's butler Jeeves, from the BBC dramatizations of some stories by P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and Wooster, in which Bertie was played by none other than Hugh Laurie, perhaps most famous in the United States as Dr. Gregory House.

Some people are even funnier

In my post, "People are funny" (November 23), I described two features of Islam, fundamentalist Christianity, and Fox News [sic] devotion that makes their respective people more pliable than others.
    Thomas L. Friedman, in today's piece, "America vs. The Narrative," in The New York Times, discusses some further problems with what he calls "The Narrative" of Muslims (Arab Muslims in particular):

Many Arab Muslims know that what ails their societies is more than the West, and that The Narrative is just an escape from looking honestly at themselves. But none of their leaders dare or care [sic] to open that discussion. In his Cairo speech last June, President Obama effectively built a connection with the Muslim mainstream. Maybe he could spark the debate by asking that same audience this question:

Whenever something like Fort Hood happens you say, "This is not Islam." I believe that. But you keep telling us what Islam isn't. You need to tell us what it is and show us how its positive interpretations are being promoted in your schools and mosques. If this is not Islam, then why is it that a million Muslims will pour into the streets to protest Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, but not one will take to the streets to protest Muslim suicide bombers who blow up other Muslims, real people, created in the image of God? You need to explain that to us—and to yourselves.

I am grateful that Mr. Friedman mentions the Danish cartoons in the statement he offers President Obama. But a more pointed contrast to a million Muslims protesting the cartoons would be some Muslims protesting the behavior the cartoons caricatured.
    Oh, right, Friedman refers to one of those behaviors.

People are funny

In a conversation at work this morning, someone uttered the truism that "People are funny," then added:

They're even funnier than we are!

We all laughed, I appreciated the reminder that we, too, are "funny."
    In various ways and to one degree or another, we, too, are "pliable"; my wife, for example, can readily twist me around her proverbial little finger. So what about Muslims, whom I referred to on Saturday? Why single them out for their allegedly greater pliability?
    The self-questioning is prompted by a friend whose intellectual acuity I admire (and ignore to my loss of gain). He commented on Saturday's post that "The...relative pliability of Muslims [is something] we could discuss further, but probably without benefit," by which I took him to mean that I might be merely stating my prejudice and have no data (especially scientific) to prove my statement.
    I admit that he's right. If there are any data to support the contention, I haven't seen them. My observation derived entirely from news and articles and books about the world scene over the past few years, especially after September 11, 2001.
    Note that I added two other groups to keep the Muslims company. Even though my friend ignored the fundamentalist Christians and the devotees of Fox News [sic], I'd like to give a couple of reasons for singling these three groups out, not, of course, that every individual in them is equally pliable. These reasons aren't data in any numerical sense, but maybe they can raise the level of discussion a little higher than just my personal prejudice.
    All three groups are heavily invested in their "scriptures." We know what those are for the Muslims and the Christians. For the Fox devotees it's the words that are spewed out of the mouths of people like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. For their devoted followers, whatever these rousers say is "fair and balanced" in the same way that the Qu'ran and the Bible are the "word of God"—because they say they are.
    The status of these scriptures with the respective group members makes the members particularly vulnerable to being manipulated. The Muslim activists had but to quote the pertinent passages from the Qur'an about what to do to blasphemers to get the masses to sharpen their beheading tools and take to the street looking for infidels¹.
    The preacher cites Leviticus 18:22² in urging his parishioners to oppose gays and gay marriage (or even civil union). They show up at the polls like a phalanx to vote that one issue, everything else be damned.
    Sean and Glenn say to get out to the town meetings and protest those wicked socialist ideas about health care and, voilà, out come the tea-baggers, some of them even wearing handguns.
    Another armament for manipulating members of these groups is the subtle, even subliminal power of Islam, literal-Bible Christianity, and fair-and-balanced Fox propaganda to induce trance states. I believe that the aura these cast over adherents derives from their focused exclusivity.
    Followers of Islam tend to over-invest in its teachings, which doesn't surprise us, given that its text demands adherents' complete subservience; nothing else matters.
    Similarly for Bible-believing Christians. Christ taught followers to forsake the world entirely; gain the world, lose your soul.
    People who get all of their "news" from Fox tend to discount everything else. To be that oblivious to objective information, you have to be in a hypnotic state.
    Engage the appropriate lever and you have near-complete control over the entranced Muslim, fundamentalist Christian, or Fox devotee.

My acute friend also challenged my statement that "the cartoons did no such thing as 'set off violent protests'; they'd have gone unnoticed but for some Muslim activists' picking them up and rubbing then in the faces of their impressionable brethren."
    He wrote:

My recollection is that the cartoons did indeed set off violent protests.

    I've spent some time googling to try to find the article that I read (or think that I read) a year or two ago that described events after the original publication of the Danish cartoons, how the "activist Muslims" I referred to had even added a couple of additional cartoons to the mix before proceeding to rouse the rabble. Alas, I so far haven't found such an article. Which of course makes me feel a bit uneasy. So, if you can find it, please do let me know.

My friend also questioned whether the story about Muslim nations seeking a blasphemy ban "has any legs":

At this point, I'm more interested in the reporting than the story itself. The reporting seems to have originated with the Associated Press. Few other news sources have picked it up. It's not on the NY Times site, the CBS site, or the CNN site. I'm wondering if interest in the ban is only in Algeria and Pakistan, thereby minimally supporting the claim that Muslim nations (plural) are behind it. And within those nations, are we talking about government leaders or leaders of large groups? Best to wait and see if this story has any legs.

See what I mean by my friend's acuity? It didn't occur to me to see who else might be reporting "the ban." But I subsequently googled on it and indeed every one of the six or eight sites I found had either picked up the Associated Press piece wholesale or worked excerpts verbatim into their own report. Even The New York Times just ran the AP piece as-is (on November 19).
    Indeed, the story doesn't seem to have any legs yet. It may never have any. The AP reporter (Frank Jordans) may have been doing about the same thing I was, using Pakistan and Algeria's latest anti-blasphemy action as yet another occasion of many to show Muslims in a bad light. I'm now wondering what other sorts of things he has written about Muslims or Islam. Just the way my friend might.
_______________

1. Sura 10—Yunus (MAKKA): Verse 70

   A little enjoyment in this world! and then to Us will be their return. Then shall We make them taste the severest Penalty for their blasphemies.

   Sura 9—Al-Tawba (MADINA): Verse 74

   They swear by Allah that they said nothing (evil), but indeed they uttered blasphemy...Allah will punish them with a grievous penalty in this life and in the Hereafter: they shall have none on earth to protect or help them.

2. "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination."

"Muslim nations seek blasphemy ban"

Thus ran a headline this morning on the back page of our local newspaper. The piece comes from the Associated Press, from which I take this excerpt:

Four years after cartoons of the prophet Muhammad set off violent protests across the Muslim world, Islamic nations are mounting a campaign for an international treaty to protect religious symbols and beliefs from mockery—essentially a ban on blasphemy that would put them on a collision course with free speech laws in the West.

The cartoons referred to were originally published in Denmark, on September 30, 2005. And, of course, the cartoons did no such thing as "set off violent protests"; they'd have gone unnoticed but for some Muslim activists' picking them up and rubbing then in the faces of their impressionable brethren. Have you ever heard of anyone as pliable as a Muslim?

Maybe a fundamentalist Christian, or a devotee of Fox News [sic]?

    Ah, right.
    The idea of a "blasphemy ban" would be laughable to a rational person except for the tendency among Muslims to threaten or murder people they consider "blasphemers." Are you, for example, a "blasphemer"? Have you ever uttered the sentence, "God does not exist"? To some Muslims at least, uttering even such a plain statement of fact (or at least opinion) is a "blasphemy," meaning (according to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary):

a. the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God,
b. the act of claiming the attributes of deity, or
c. irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable.

I note that the first definition seems to grant the existence of God. Would it be blasphemous to criticize the definition for that? I'm sure some Muslims would think so.
    The ban is being sought through the U.N. General Assembly:

If ratified in countries that enshrine freedom of expression as a fundamental right, such a treaty would require them to limit free speech if it risks seriously offending religious believers....

"Algeria and Pakistan have taken the lead in lobbying...."
    Well, such a ban has no chance of succeeding, but people unfortunate enough to have been born in a Muslim country, or dumb enough to move to one by choice, had better keep their heads down and their free thoughts to themselves.

We are all atheists...

Hot Tip: Costco now has...

...the just-published trade paperback edition of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion, for $9.99. I picked up my copy this morning and just finished reading its ten-page "preface to the paperback edition," which has left me revved up and excited to read this "entertaining, wildly informative, splendidly written polemic" a third time!

The book's catchy fold-out front cover features (besides the quotation above from the Sunday Times of London) a quotation from the author:

We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

As I recall, Dawkins put this another way in the book. Something like, Going from polytheism to monotheism was an advance, and so is subtracting one god more.

There's a bumper sticker I haven't seen yet that states (the new preface tells us):

Blasphemy is a victimless crime.

Reminds me of what I sometimes think when told I'm being prayed for:

There's no one listening.

Of course, for all the readers this blog has [that is, doesn't have] I might as well think a similar thing whenever I click the "Publish Post" button...But if even a few visitors to Moristotle are encouraged to come out of the closet and stop hiding their disbelief....

Out of the closet? That's another reference to Dawkins's new preface, which lists some of the objections to his book that start with "I'm an atheist, BUT...":

You are only preaching to the choir. What's the point?
"Converts' Corner" on RichardDawkins.net gives the lie to this premise, but even taking it at face value there are good answers [sic]. One is that the non-believing choir is a lot bigger than many people think, especially in America. But, again especially in America, it is largely a closet choir, and it desperately needs encouragement to come out. Judging by the thanks I received all over North America on my book tour, the encouragement that people like Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and me are able to give is greatly appreciated.

Read the book! Read the book!