Slashdot Mirror
In Greece, 10 Months In Prison For "Blasphemous" Facebook Page
First time accepted submitter etash writes "A bit more than a year ago a man was arrested in Greece for satirizing a dead monk, after the far-right party golden dawn, petitioned for his arrest. A couple of days ago he was given a ten-month sentence. What actually enraged the religious Greek blogosphere was not the satire. He wrote a fictitious story about a miracle done in the past by this specific monk. The story was then sent to [a religious blog] and then in a matter of days it was copy pasted and presented as true by most of the religious and far-right blogs and news sites. The final act of the dramedy took place when he came out and revealed that the story was not real; he intended to show the absurdity and the lack of reliability of these sites."
This is just more proof that religion is just evil. It is a means of controlling what you believe. This is why the religious right in the USA is determined to get creation in the schools. So they can indoctrinate children before they learn critical thinking and realize that it is just a means of controlling them.
This is nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with politics and Golden Dawn. The Euro has pushed Greece to the edge, and GD are seeking to exploit the ferment. It's a damn shame, and IMHO the sooner the whole experiment is declared a failure the better, especially for nation states such as Greece. Spain, Portugal, Italy and even France face similar difficulties, on a sliding scale.
Really? To me, it runs just below the surface.
Abortion, still pursued with varying vengeance at the state and federal level to deny access to it across the US
ACA has all kinds of religious exemptions written into it
In court you swear to a particular diety.
Education, a bunch of states, some of which influence purchases across the US, keeps having trouble with this separation, slipping in and out of teaching a specific religion
Hell, I'm still not sure why here in Canada we publicly fund a parallel Catholic school system along with our public schools.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
What separation ?
Your presidential oath is finished by a beautiful "So help me God", as is the citizenship oath, and every coin and bank note feature a the famous "In god we trust". So I really don't know what you are talking about...
Denying the Holocaust is illegal here in Germany not because of opinion but because it is a false statement, clearly and irrefutably documented.
Careful with that there.... some future benevolent leader may get elected and questioning their authority maybe considered illegal due to a clearly and irrefutably documented "election process." Stipulations in Freedom of Speech rarely turn out well. Freedom of any and all speech should be a fundamental human right.
There are plenty of neo-Nazis here in the good ol' US of A. The difference is that we have freedom of expression, where if a handful of skinheads goosesteps up and down the street yelling "Sieg heil!", there are a hundred non-skinheads who yell "go home you morons" at them.
The rest of us watch them on the TV, and either abhor, admire, or ignore the actions of one side or the other.
It's important that these idiots be allowed to express their stupid opinions. The basic idea is that it helps avoid creating the "poor suppressed martyrs" who use that to draw other people who feel outcast into their secret clubs.
Does this strategy work? Well, the neo-Nazis here are very marginalized.
John
"Thou shalt remain ignorant of anything not printed in this book" is a tenet of most religions, and is dogmatically followed by the fervent believers.
I'm going to quibble over this point. It is not a tenet of most religions. It is a tenet of a few religions, and some of them have been very loud.
(They've also made good villains with which to smear other religionists. You've been suckered.)
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Does this strategy work? Well, the neo-Nazis here are very marginalized.
Excellent post and as far as I'm aware you're quite right, Neo-Nazism simply hasn't become a real problem in Western democracies. That's despite the full availability of some of the most emotive and powerful imagery ever employed (such as Hitler's speeches, the Swastika, etc.) which is all still here and just as potent even after all these years.
Free speech for these people and other groups like them is a critical safety valve for society. It also allows the public to judge the words and deeds of said groups for themselves without '3am disappearances' hiding the true extent of a movement.
Yet despite this I've had some (quite heated) arguments with otherwise normal people who would have the Neo-Nazis thrown in prison if they could. Why is this concept of freedom of speech so hard for some people to grasp, even as they enjoy the benefits of a free society?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Including Atheist fundamentalism, apparently...
What book would that be then?
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