Philosophy Now Forum

Blasphemy laws are used to persecute minorities and settle personal vendettas. A 14-year-old Christian girl with Downs Syndrome in Pakistan faces life imprinsonment on trumped-up charges of burning pages of the Quran.

bobevenson wrote:Blasphemy laws are used to persecute minorities and settle personal vendettas. A 14-year-old Christian girl with Downs Syndrome in Pakistan faces life imprinsonment on trumped-up charges of burning pages of the Quran.

Your argument is irrational, as always. If the charges are trumped up, and a majority wants to falsify a claim against a minority, then even if the blasphemy laws were done away with, the person could be prosecuted for some other trumped-up charge. It would have been better to argue that blasphemy laws should be done away with because they are a bad idea, for any number of demonstrable reasons.

I don't like Blasphemy laws either, in principle, but I think people shouldn't in any way make unnecessary provocations when the demand is very low. Like the drawings of Muhammed the Prophet, I find that unnecessary and don't see why anybody would need to draw that. Or the burning of the Quran just for public provocation, I don't see the use of that either. It's just destructive, and produces no value for anyone. It's the kind of liberty which remains last on the list of things we should have the freedom to do, and as I think that of course one day it should not be a problem, today it is a prevalent problem, but not much worth for anyone, and therefore priority should be made on other forms of freedom much more meaningful and much more valuable to all, and which are underprioritized today compared with their value.

You are wrong, not enough flags are being burned, not enough religious documents are being burned, and not enough obscene pictures of Mohammed are being drawn to demonstrate once and for all that freedom of speech will not be compromised!