Blasphemer Jailed!
June 14, 2012 by Rupert Young
Filed under News
The Indonesian civil servant Alexander Aan has been jailed for blasphemy. Along with Atheist Alliance International Atheism UK condemns this outrage. Read more details about the case and how to take action here.
The Bangkok Post reported that the judge at Aan’s trial said ”What he did has caused anxiety to the community and tarnished Islam.” Apart from wondering how such anxiety and tarnishment can be measured how in any sane society can that warrant a jail sentence of any length whatsoever?
Is the Islamic god so feeble, and vindictive, that it needs to be protected from a few words and pictures?
How on earth does blasphemy cause anxiety to a community? How do you work out just how much anxiety has been caused and how do you decide what punishment it requires? How does insulting a dead person unsettle a community? How does saying that a non existent being doesn’t exist become blasphemy?
What a sick bunch of morons.
I’m afraid I must be controversial here. Firstly we must accept that these people are not morons. They are in all probability intelligent people who have simply been raised under strong influence of a belief system which is very different ours. Simply branding them as morons makes you sound like an ignoramus who does not understand the nature of the problem you are objecting to.
The system in which these people operate is abhorrent to me as I’m sure it is to everyone else here.
We live in a multicultural world. Some parts of the are fanatical about their beliefs. It will take centuries to dismantle these religious constructs. How many centuries has it taken for the western sword to reach the point we are now where Aheism is now accepted as a reasonable view? The Islamic world is way way behind the western world in terms of tolerance.
If a person from a third world country where killing people was a normal daily activity were to move to the uk, we would expect them to abide by our laws, respect our standards of behavior and ultimately accept our morals. The converse is also true we’re you or I as atheists to wake up one day in an Islamic country. We would have to accept their laws and abide by them.
The fact that we have different laws, different belief systems is just the reality of the world we live in. Only through education, tolerance understanding and persuasion will we ever have any chance of altering they mind set of these people.
Their laws may well seem completely bonkers to us. But to people who have lived their whole lives within such a system, these laws are rational and appropriate. We have to understand their views and their influences before we can ever have any hope of changing them.
Hans, it would appear that you are asking me to become an accommodationist. Sorry, but no. Their belief systems are moronic, followers of moronic belief systems are morons.
HI Graham,
I don’t know about that. I don’t agree with their belief systems. But I can make that determination because I have been brought up in a part of the world where a person may think about what they actually believe and arrive at a conclusion that they are comfortable with.
This happens because the various faiths, and I include Atheism in that collective, tolerate each others existence and accept that people come from all kinds of different backgrounds with all kinds of different belief systems.
If you or I had been bought up within a belief system where we had to pray mecca 5 times a day and unquestioningly accept the religious teachings of the state, then we would consider ourselves entirely right to follow such a system religiously (pun intended) and would consider people who didn’t to be bonkers, infidels or whatever.
Are you suggesting that there are no muslim Doctors, or Scientists, or Judges or Lawyers, or Chemists or Mathematicians? People with such professions are intelligent, articulate and thoughtful. They are certainly not morons. However their minds have been trained to believe certain aspects of their faith. And this is a very difficult training to change.
To simply brand them all as Morons is to totally misunderstand what it is we are up against.
A devout Catholic (hypothetically, please don’t take offence) would argue that you moronically follow the Athiest belief system and are therefore a Moron. This would be a perfectly reasonable view from someone who has spent their entire existence being conditioned in the ways and teachings of the catholic faith.
Neither position is helpful, nor serves to help change the mind of the other.
If the Atheist movement is to have any hope of changing behaviour then it must first understand its adversary. Then try to teach it the errors of its ways.
Recommend Skeptoid, “episode 160 – Sarah Palin is not stupid”. http://www.skeptoid.com
I repeat what I said before.
ok, but this does feel rather like debating with a creationist!
We have to accept that these people do exist in the world. And that they have just as much right to be there and follow whatever doctrine they choose to, as you or i do.
Our challenge is to teach them that there is a more honest and truthful way to live which does not require the worship of made up supernatural gods.
This will never be achieved by simply branding them as morons. To have any useful effect you need to engage with them and teach them. This may, and probably will, take generations and centuries. But simply to dismiss them as Morons will achieve nothing useful.
We could protest about Alexander Aan jail term for blasphemy to:
Indonesian Ambassador and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to the Court of St James
H.E. Yuri Octavian Thamrin
38 Grosvenor Square
London W1K 2HW
Tel. (020) 7499 7661 Fax. (020)7491 4993
email: kbri@btconnect.com
source: http://atheistalliance.org/media/website/indonesian_contact.pdf
I agree with Hans to a point, outright hostility would only provoke one response from the deeply entrenched religiosity, and I am sure you are aware of what that would be. However, the days of “touchy feely, nicely nicely” are gone and to allow them to simply ignore us is not an option. With regards to the doctors, scientists etc.. they do not simply believe because of indoctrination, but because it is a life threatening choice to disavow the God of those nations, Apostasy is punishable by death in the Islamic Qur-an, and is carried out. As logical people they will make the same rational choice as you or I would make and “go with the flow”, if it meant staying alive but having to put up with daft ceremonies, ceremonies it is.
While not going as far as GMR does and calling them morons, though I do admit to sometimes being tempted, perhaps by the devil. It is apparent that most lay populations of highly religious countries cannot be considered smart, reasonable or logical. This is because when “offended” they take it upon themselves to right the wrongs with intimidation, violence and vandalism. This is irrationality at its finest. I distinctly remember a BBC news cast of a middle east Islamic rally a few years ago and it showed one man beating an air conditioning unit “to death” with a big stick. I found this hilarious and unsettling in equal measure as this is the common mentality any reasonable person is faced with when thinking of posing logical arguments against the established religion.
The late brave Christopher Hitchens said that he felt it more and more likely the world is going to be plunged into global war because of religious zealots. I tend to agree, you need only look at America, let alone the Middle East, and it’s evangelical army of nut cases clamouring for a United States of Christ to see the truth in this statement.
I do object to you referring to Atheism as a “faith”, not so, we use facts and reason to attribute truth to our views and do not in any way simply say “I think it is like this and that’s it” without proof. Faith does not require proof, that’s why Atheists have a problem with it and the religious who band it around like it means something.
Hi virtus83,
Thank you for your post. I think broadly speaking we agree most things discussed so I won’t dwell on the minor details. There is one point I would like to explore further if I may, and this is your objection to my referral to Atheism as a faith. I shall set out my position below whilst responding to your comments….
According to Dictionary.com, Faith has 5different definitions…
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another’s ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
I would assert that definitions 1. And 4. Above might be justifiably applied to Atheists.
As an Atheist I believe that there is no god, at least not the benevolent supernatural god of the bible and other similar religious texts. I cannot prove this point. There is no evidence to support this position other than a lack of evidence for the existence of the same. Therefore I choose to believe this. And I have faith in this position.
As a scientist I (and currently nobody else can either) say how, or why the big bang occurred. A massive explosion happened 14.5 billion years ago. We don’t know why. Therefore as a rational minded person I must remain agnostic about the cause, until we establish it. I cannot make the leap of logic to say it must have been caused by a supernatural, or at least superior being. But equally I cannot rule out the the possibility. So given all the available evidence, I choose to take a position and I have a reasonable degree of faith in the correctness of my choice. I do not know. I choose to believe.
Further, many of the premises that underpin Atheism come from advanced science. The functioning of the brain, the workings of the universe. These are things that I have no hope of ever observing or testing for myself. So I believe what the scientist tell me. I have faith in them to deliver their best explanations for the things we are told occur in the universe. Have you ever a seen or touched a black hole? I have seen pictures of what scientist tell me probably is a black hole. So even the evidence of which you speak is provided by others in whom you have put your faith.
So as a group of like minded people, atheists must rely on the faithful delivery of evidence from others in order to provide the building blocks of their system of belief. And they choose then to believe it.
Many thanks for reading and for your comments.
Graham,
Your views do neither yourself nor Atheism any favours.
Firstly it just cannot be true that whole communities are composed of morons. (Moron – a person with a mental age between 8 and 12.) In saying so you mean to be offensive and, though an atheist and not Indonesian, I am offended. In making obviously false claims in such language you discredit your position and that of the wider humanist and atheist community.
Secondly, by describing the attitudes of the religious as stupid you block off your own ability to understand why they sometimes behave in such appalling ways. You also encourage others to stop at outrage – rather than to seek understanding. (Understanding is NOT approval.) We are a minority and our strength – the reason that our values have become so widely accepted in the West – is that we appeal to reason and evidence as well as to compassion.
Religion is a a very widespread set of human phenomena. It was almost certainly functional for most of human history. We are all descended from hundreds of generations of believers. It is worth understanding why these things are true – the better to combat the bigots.
Recommend Skeptoid, “episode 160 – Sarah Palin is not stupid”. http://www.skeptoid.com
@David Flint: So you’re offended, so what? You don’t have a right not to be offended. I’m not trying to convert anyone, I leave that to religiots. Religion is a moronic institution, if you follow and support moronic ideas, you are a moron in my view. You have a different opinion, good for you.
All of this aside, the most important thing about this post is to click the link and actually DO something.
GMR – if you want to write to the Indonesian Authorites and call them morons – fine, do it.
Chris – if you want to organise a protest, great let’s do it!
I’m writing to them to state that blaphemy is something that should not be a crime and it is a crime against humanity to prosecute and jail someone for it.
David – what are you going to do about this?
The key for me is DO SOMETHING to show our displeasure and our distain for what has happened.
Thanks Zippy, in my usual absent mindedness I didn’t realise there was a link! I shall correct this immediately.
Hans, I see your point and the definitions are clearly accurate but, in my experience the use of words such as “faith” and “belief”, have been so completely high jacked by the religious that any meaning other than in relation to Gods, spirits etc…is almost completely lost to us that use them in their proper context. It’s just my preference not to use them when referring to what I understand and how I fit into the “grand scheme” of things.
You could argue that our “faith” in science is remarkably more powerful than the religious version as science is constantly yielding results and answers while the theist’s are woefully short of anything close to vindication. Perhaps if we build a “Church of Atheia” and have Sunday updates on new science progress and human development we can beat them at their own game??
Cheers Hans!
@zippy:I have already contacted the Indonesian authorities to let them know of my displeasure. Should I ever receive a reply I’ll post it here.
In the great words of Christopher Hitchins:
“It is important to mock the irrational faith of people otherwise they will never know how ridiculous their beliefs are!”
I paraphrase from his last interview with Paxman.
Believing there is no god is totally different from the leap of faith required to believe, without any empirical evidence, a god exists. Equally believing in empirically proven science requires no leap of faith.
cheers …………… Paul
“Believing there is no god is totally different from the leap of faith required to believe, without any empirical evidence, a god exists.”
How? There is no empirical evidence that god does not exist. So we adopt a faith based position which we agree most with. As Atheists we are as certain that god does not exist as a theist is certain that he does.
Not only can it not be proven that God does not exist, there is no other proven explanation how the universe came into existence. So the God hypotheses is just as valid as the no god hypotheses. At least until some evidence to the contrary can be found.
Both positions are based on faith in our chosen view.
Hans,
But I do know how the universe came into existence!
It was created when a giant alien cockroach from the seventh dimension, called Desmond, farted out the big bang as she died in an inter-reality war.
Do you think this is a valid answer to existence? Of course it isn’t and neither is the God hypothesis. See my other response, http://www.atheismuk.com/forum/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=86, on the inherent invalidity of some assertions.
As Paul says, the no god hypothesis is not equivalent, as it is based on what we know about the world (that there is nothing in favour of the god hypothesis). A faith-based assertion is founded in ignorance. That is, something is positively asserted in the absence of knowledge.
I/we do not claim to know how the universe came into existence so it is not a faith-based position. But I do claim that the God hypothesis is not valid.
So, in my opinion, the question is not whether or not God exists but on how do we challenge religious faith, and its consequnces, given that it is meaningless nonsense based on ignorance that has devastating affects on much of humanity.
Rupert
@rupert. Good answer!
@ Paul, Hans and Rupert.
Your on the right track Rupert. The big problem is that we (atheists), cannot absolutely prove that God does not exist because it is impossible to test a non entity or inaccessible phenomenon, a fact the religious love to ignore! The real point that we should be making very loud and clear to the God pushers is this by physicist Victor.J.Stenger:
“In ‘God the Failed Hypothesis’, I made a unique argument. Scientists and others had written scores of books showing that there is no evidence for the existence of God. They were always countered by the truism ‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’. But I pointed out that absence of evidence THAT SHOULD BE THERE is valid evidence of absence. I demonstrated that the absence of evidence that should be there is now sufficient to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the God worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims does not exist.”
All the facts and proof science uses must comply with reality or it simply becomes a lie, religion allows the lie to be used instead of reality because it fits neatly into their agenda. If something they tell us should be there, like Bethlehem or the records of Caesar Augustus on the greatest religious event in Roman history, but is completely absent then either reality is inconsistent or, SOMEBODY LIED!
Thanks
Zippy, good to see you yesterday at the LAAG meeting, and I have emailed the Indonesian Embassy on behalf of our group, as well as posting a link on site:
http://www.meetup.com/London-Atheist-Activist-Group-informal-friendly/messages/boards/thread/24547542/0/#77249902