International law against "slandering religion"?

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Should there be an international law against slandering religion?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,363182,00.html

Idealistically, I say yes.
But being practical, I have to say no,
because the question would always hang in the air: How would such a law limit free speech?

Establishing such a law is apparently the principle motive in Jordan's recent "summoning" of
a Danish cartoonist and 10 Danish editors who reprinted his cartoon.
Jordan actually is demanding that these 11 Danish citizens
appear in court in Jordan, on one very legally absurd premise:
That they violated a Jordon law -- while in Denmark.

Hmmm, last I checked, citizens of a certain country, while being within that country, are
not accountable for other countrys' laws! To say this situation is laughable is too obvious.

No. "Slander" would be too difficult to define, and even "religion" encompasses such a broad range of things.

Actually, after thinking some more, I'd say that a law like that would effectively make parody and satire illegal. Which is just as bad, if not worse.

Last edited by burnse22 on 04 Jun 2008, 4:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

of course...because you're a nazi.

what you'd want is for it to be international law that everyone abides by your religion.


making laws to respect religion is stupid because protecting religion is protecting willful ignorance and stupidity and a regressive part of human nature.

In keeping with my somewhat libertarian leanings, I certainly am against such a notion. And from a practical level, where's the line? To most of us sane individuals, there's a difference between printing "F**k Mohammad," which is undoubtedly slander, and drawing him as a cartoon. And yet people will thirst for your blood over both.

I say yes.

But how would one define these so called blasphemy laws? How can one protect the right to criticize and not have it become slander? If I were to say "Jesus is a fraud" would I be charged with blasphemy? Equally, if I said "In my beliefs, Jesus is a false-prophet" would I also be charged with blasphemy?

I believe these laws are effective in preventing (or at least makes a person think before acting) the bigotry that is rampant, either by the non-religious and the religious.


One challenge, how would one deal with cults? As even the name implies an insult in todays meaning of the word.

This isn't actually about blasphemy though isn't it?

Blasphemy would be denying a religion's beliefs, for example saying that Allah does not exist, while slander would be actively insulting a religion's beliefs, like saying that Islam is a horrible practice that encourages murder.

The two do overlap, but there is a difference

f**k mohammed. f**k allah. f**k jesus christ. f**k yahweh. f**k jehova.

know why? cause it doesn't matter. slander laws are supposed to protect real people from being lied about. fictional characters don't enjoy such rights. just ask JK rowling what she thinks of all the harry potter fanfics...particularly the more "adult" ones. they're slander against characters but they're fictional characters.


you can't protect ideas from slander either.

It's still considered a blasphemy law.

Quite the moderate intellectual you are.

How can you have a blanket blasphemy law, then, if all religions believe in different things?

Just yesterday, I wrote that religion should not be the law of the land.
So, no, I don't think you can sell that I believe that it should be.

(Oh darn, I fed another troll! Gotta stop doing that...)

I think if you had a law forbidding slander of religion then you would need one to protect science aswell.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy

simple read with information of countries that have such laws in place.

Yes but these laws are in relation to the countries own religion, the US laws are about Christianity and the Pakistani laws are about Islam. So how can there exist a common law between these two countries if they both believe their own beliefs to be the only true beliefs? Doesn't Christainity and Islam each consider the other to be blasphemous?

Check. Mate.

Such laws are arbitrary and subjective, and therefore impossible enforce fairly... we already spend too much time wrapping the world in bubblewrap. Tear down the walls and learn to coexist.


M.