Ireland's Blasphemy Law Goes Into Effect

stereoroid writes "As of January 1, it is a crime in Ireland to commit Blasphemy. The law was changed in July 2009 to fill a gap in the Irish Constitution, which states that it is a crime but does not define what it is, an omission highlighted in a Supreme Court decision in 1999. To mark the occasion, Atheist Ireland published a list of 25 blasphemous quotations on the blasphemy.ie website, from such controversial figures as Bjork, Frank Zappa, Richard Dawkins, Randy Newman, and Pope Benedict XVI. (The last-mentioned was quoting a 14th Century Byzantine Emperor, but that's no excuse.)"

Comments

Re:Atheists Unite... as a religion

[vadim_t]

Atheism states that there is no higher power in the world. That there is no god, gods or any higher form of life. And such gods cannot exist based on a few arguments.

That would be strong atheism - actually stating "there is no god". There exist other positions.

One is weak atheism - "I don't believe in a god". This would mean that though a deity can conceivably exist, I don't currently believe in any.

Another is agnosticism - "It's not possible to know if there is a god or not". I consider this to be a strange position to hold, as there are many things that are unknownable. For instance, unvisible pink unicorns as well as pretty much every deity. It seems to me that it'd be a colossal waste of time to think about the countless entities which can't be proven not to exist, when one can simply take the position of "I'll believe in it when it shows up".

And yet another one is ignosticism - "I don't know what you mean when you say 'god'". This would be a variety of weak atheism in that it doesn't recognize a deity either.

As such, its a natural conclusion based on scientific evidence that if there was no god, gods or higher forms of life other than man, that the existence of man is to benefit the species of man. To carry on the normal functions of life, to help others of the same species, to then die. Those are the logical conclusions.

While strong atheism does have some of the characteristics of religious belief, it still prescribes nothing. Nowhere does it say that there's a purpose "to benefit the species of man".

There exist nihilists, who probably wouldn't agree. For a stronger example, see the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, who believe that the planet would be better off without us, and choose not to breed. This would go rather counter to the "benefit man" idea, and I don't think there's any religion that accepts such a philosophy.