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Katrin:
You suspect a long list of things. I suspect I won't get an answer to my questions. I'll add some new ones

Go ahead and ask. Until you clarify what you are referring to here :

A few years ago Islamophobes invented the slogan that there was a right to hurt someone's religious feelings.

... which I made a carefully qualified assumption about, I'm not able to answer any of them. (The last two questions frankly don't deserve answers; in particular, unlike you apparently, I don't believe in guilt by association.)

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 08:48:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I can think of no reason why you can't answer my questions without first knowing the origin of the awful notion I cited. I remember the phrase from a particularly disgusting piece by Henryk Broder and the background was the Danish cartoons. I have since heard the phrase again, and not only by outright right-wing extremists. Apparently you agree on the latter point when your assumption locates it at what you call a left paper. Do you agree with the notion too? That there is a right to hurt people's religious feelings?

Will you now invent a new subterfuge for not answering my questions, I wonder?

by Katrin on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 09:22:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Katrin, we have had this discussion before. I am reluctant to replay it again, because I am quite sure that your feelings would get hurt. My answer, of course, is yes. (Any other answer, of course, would be evidence of religious privilege. But we've been there.)

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 09:36:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Do you have a right to hurt my feelings by saying
You ally yourself to racists and Islamophobes

? Of course you do. (and yes, it hurts.) You would like to use your religion as a shield, to forbid me from formulating such a shameful, hurtful lying insult against you or your god?

And why should I accord you that (religious) privilege? In the name of your god?

(I was going to add a rhetorical suggestion of what you should do with your god, but I changed my mind ;)

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 09:46:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Do you object to the word "ally" in your ugly language that, remember, I struggle with, or do you object to the notion that you have the same demands as them, a ban on Muslim veils?

If I haven't made clear enough that I am aware that your reasons for advocating the same measure are different from their reasons, I am sorry. You do advocate the same thing though, and that was my point.

As to your last sentence: it would leave me cold. Fire away if it makes you feel better.

by Katrin on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 09:54:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Don't play games. You know what an ally is.

Your diary itself is framed in insulting, inflammatory language which I have carefully avoided analysing or responding to. But your final provocation -- asking innocently if I think it's OK to insult religions -- made me crack.

I apologise to anyone else still reading this rubbish.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 10:13:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Eurogreen, I am sorry (I really am!) but I have no idea what has happened. And I meant my words exactly as I have explained, not as you obviously read them.
by Katrin on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 10:25:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
So, when you wrote

A few years ago Islamophobes invented the slogan that there was a right to hurt someone's religious feelings.

... who were you talking about? Salman Rushdie, perhaps?

You see, I object strongly to the notion of such a right having been "invented", a few years ago, by islamophobes. One might ascribe this to ignorance and parochialism on your part (perhaps it's against the law to hurt someone's religious feelings in Germany?)... But no, because we have discussed this very issue before, more than once.

So I don't see any alternative to reading it as a deliberate attempt to inflame the debate.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 10:41:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
eurogreen:
... who were you talking about? Salman Rushdie, perhaps?

As I said, Broder and his ilk. And more important than the question by whom it was invented or introduced or whatever: debating along the line whether such a right exists or not deflects from the question what it should be good for.

by Katrin on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 10:51:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, the reference to Rushdie was ironic, but he came before your friend Broder. And as you may recall, he nearly died at the hands of those who considered there is no such right.

And where ideas come from is very important indeed. The idea that the right to criticize religions might have been invented by the islamophobic right is just grotesque.

As for what a right is good for : what are human rights for, after all? They are to be used as the human sees fit.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 11:14:36 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The idea that the right to criticize religions might have been invented by the islamophobic right is just grotesque.
Yeah, all those proto-Nazi 18th century philosophers...

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 11:23:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"your friend Broder": I find that worse than "ally oneself with". And if for a native speaker it is not, I can't know.

"the right to criticize religions" is not what we have been talking about. It is different from a (disputed) right to hurt person's religious feelings.

eurogreen:

what are human rights for, after all?

A foundation for freedom, justice and peace in the world. That's the underlying goal, as quoted from the UN Declaration of Human Rights. All laws and rules have such goals, and these should be open and transparent. Their debate is directly related to the ethical concepts in a society, and these latter are often (but not always) informed by religious values.

by Katrin on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 11:34:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"the right to criticize religions" is not what we have been talking about. It is different from a (disputed) right to hurt person's religious feelings.

But my dear, you have demonstrated over and over again that the two are inseparable!

If I criticize religion (ANY religion), your feelings get hurt. I have no control, nor any responsibility, over how you receive my exercise of the right to criticize religion. If you wish to censor my right to speak about religion in such a way as to avoid any offense, then my freedom to criticise religion no longer exists.

Here's a thought experiment for you : Salman Rushdie, who is of Islamic heritage, used that heritage in a novel. It appeared in a pirate edition in Iran, where it apparently hurt some people's religious feelings. This resulted in a death sentence, etc...

Should Rushdie have been subjected to censorship? Should novels be read before publication by jury of a priest, a pastor, a rabbi and an imam? If not, what mechanism do you propose to prevent people's religious feelings from getting hurt?

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 11:45:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
eurogreen:
If I criticize religion (ANY religion), your feelings get hurt.

Nope. That's probably the reason why we haven't understood each other's messages. I don't know how criticism of religion can make sense--it is there and you believe or not, but such criticism doesn't hurt. What Rushdie did, was criticising behaviour and social attitudes, by the way. Not because he wants to parade the backward natives, but in order to take part in a discourse he has a place in. Perfectly legitimate. That is different from the anti-immigrant discourse of European Islamophobes.

Find out what you criticise. A religion, or religion as such? Religious communities and organisations? The power exercised by religious organisations or institutions? Religious mores? Behaviour of believers? Religious feelings of persons?

Huge differences.

Exercising power, rules and mores, behaviour are open for criticism, and here public debate is necessary. Beliefs in my opinion cannot be discussed, but attempts don't hurt, they are just boring. The feelings of persons are to be respected.

by Katrin on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 12:34:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Find out what you criticise. A religion, or religion as such? Religious communities and organisations? The power exercised by religious organisations or institutions? Religious mores? Behaviour of believers? Religious feelings of persons?

Huge differences.


The obligation to maintain that distinction cuts both ways. When religious adherents conflate criticism of religious power structures and authority figures with criticism of their religious community, their religion, or religion in general, then such distinctions get really blurry, really fast.

My very clear impression is that secularists are not the greater offenders against clarity in this distinction.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 03:53:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Katrin:
Find out what you criticise. A religion, or religion as such? Religious communities and organisations? The power exercised by religious organisations or institutions? Religious mores? Behaviour of believers? Religious feelings of persons?

OK... for a few days I was under the false impression that you wanted laws or regulations against hurting people's religious feelings. If we're talking about rules of discussion, I'll try to clarify mine.

Criticising a religion, or religion as such, is out of bounds for me : something I hope I don't do. Religious communities and organisations : I reserve the right to criticise their practices and influence, the way they are organised or funded etc, to the same degree as I would criticize any other constituted body, no more, no less. Religious mores, I reserve the right to criticise, insofar as they impinge on others. Religious feelings of persons are none of my business, and not very interesting to me.

Behaviour of believers, or as I would prefer to call it, religious praxis, is of interest to me, and not exempt from criticism. When religiously-motivated or -justified behaviours are strongly at variance with societal norms, then this will inevitably be a subject for debate. Is it is a legitimate subject for debate? If it has negative effects on people -- outside the religious group, or within it -- then yes.

Random example : in my home country, I remember a controversy concerning Jehovah's Witnesses who refused blood transfusions for their children.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Feb 10th, 2014 at 04:59:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Criticising a religion, or religion as such, is out of bounds for me
Wait, we can criticise (say) Austrian Economics on logical or epistemological grounds as a system of thought, but "a religion" is out of bounds?

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Feb 10th, 2014 at 05:58:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I agree with a lot of this.

"When religiously-motivated or -justified behaviours are strongly at variance with societal norms, then this will inevitably be a subject for debate. Is it is a legitimate subject for debate?"

Of course it is. If you criticise the behaviour of a persecuted minority, you must tread carefully though.  And you cannot violate their human rights (I know that you don't see bans on headscarves as such, but you will at least concede that your view is controversial, right?) and start a nice unprejudiced talk about their religious praxis at the same time. You will have to decide which you want. With strong Islamophobian movements around you can't have a discourse with Muslims without rejecting the Islamophobian attempts and actively defending the Muslims' rights.

"Random example : in my home country, I remember a controversy concerning Jehovah's Witnesses who refused blood transfusions for their children"

Which is a matter of weighing different, conflicting rights against each other, not a matter of making a minority rightless.

by Katrin on Mon Feb 10th, 2014 at 08:44:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
With strong Islamophobian movements around you can't have a discourse with Muslims without rejecting the Islamophobian attempts and actively defending the Muslims' rights.

That cuts both ways: With strong fundamentalist and anti-secular movements around, you cannot have a discourse with secularists without rejecting fundamentalism and defending secular society.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Fri Feb 14th, 2014 at 09:43:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
JakeS:
That cuts both ways: With strong fundamentalist and anti-secular movements around, you cannot have a discourse with secularists without rejecting fundamentalism and defending secular society

You don't happen to claim that there are any fundamentalist and anti-secular movements around whose strength can in any way be compared with the Islamophobian movements all over Europe, do you? Muslims are assaulted, their Mosques are vandalised, and there are wide-spread campaigns for various legislation taking away more of their rights. The latter item gets support from people who should know better, which is my point.  

by Katrin on Sat Feb 15th, 2014 at 10:23:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You don't happen to claim that there are any fundamentalist and anti-secular movements around whose strength can in any way be compared with the Islamophobian movements all over Europe, do you?

I abso-fucking-lutely do.

When the Pope no longer has preaching rights in parliament; when the Russian patriarch no longer peddles partisan propaganda from the pulpit; when the League of Polish Families is no longer represented in parliament; when the Opus Dei no longer runs banks representing a gross asset portfolio comparable to the annual outlays of a small sovereign, then I might begin to take the notion seriously that anti-secularists should be given a free pass in the interest of making common cause against racists pretending to be anti-Islamists.

But until then, I'm taking the view that having a discriminated-against skin color is not a valid excuse for supporting religious privilege.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Feb 15th, 2014 at 01:07:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Is that fundamentalism for you or unwholesome influence of large organisations?

And I want no fucking violence and harassment, and we are only at the beginning of that. You and Eurogreen are playing with matches and there are explosives all around you.

by Katrin on Sat Feb 15th, 2014 at 03:06:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Says the lady who is on record defending the Russian Orthodox patriarch from having his religious feelings hurt by the people he's busy directing his followers to throw broken bottles at...

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sat Feb 15th, 2014 at 05:39:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Salman Rushdie, who is of Islamic heritage, used that heritage in a novel. It appeared in a pirate edition in Iran, where it apparently hurt some people's religious feelings.

The way I know it, it was more personal: while the campaign against Rushdie was based on the parts of the book that re-told Mohammed's life according to the Quran within the nightmares of an apostate, Khomeini could find something much closer to home in another nightmare about an exiled Muslim high priest re-taking his country (which was much more unflattering than Muhammed's portrayal).

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Feb 10th, 2014 at 07:01:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"the right to criticize religions" is not what we have been talking about. It is different from a (disputed) right to hurt person's religious feelings.

Not in any practical realpolitik sense.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 03:50:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Katrin:
Do you agree with the notion too? That there is a right to hurt people's religious feelings?

eurogreen:

(Any other answer, of course, would be evidence of religious privilege. But we've been there.)

Only if there is a general right to insult. Of which I am not to sure.

First, if the right to insult means anything in practise, the right is related to actions of the state. I see a couple of different reactions from the state to insults.

So first, some speech is punished by the state. This includes some insults, for example slander and hate speech.

Second, most speech is allowed by the state, though you are not particularly protected if other take offense, other then that those can be punished for illegal actions. This includes some insults, for example yelling "your team lost because it was bad" at soccer fans or yelling "you are going home alone because you are ugly" at people existing a drinking establishment at closing time.

Third, some speech is protected by the state. For example political manifestations by parties accepted by the state can get police protection in order to be able to perform their speeches.

Fourth, there appears to be demand for some speech to get a free pass from legal consequences of what is said. The state generally does not enforce that.

Now, far as I can see, the demand by rightwingers of a right to hurt muslems religious feelings tends to be cathegory four. If the boycott against Denmark was horrible and motivated reprintings in full, then it is cathegory four.

I - and it appears the UK - would myself place Rushdie at cathegory three. He made much more then a provocation, even if it provoked.

Most provocations against muslems I would place in cathegory two, though it appears the states often disagrees with me. If your aim is to provoke and people get mad at you, though luck. Yes, the police should act to prevent crime, so report threats to them. But don't be surprised if police resources does not stretch very far.

Some provocations against muslems are also clearly hate crimes and should be treated as such.

I guess this is my longwinded way of saying that if the "right to hurt people's religious feelings" should be the same as the "right to hurt soccer fans feelings". In effect, the state won't stop you from getting people mad and should prosecute crimes against you that results from you getting people mad. Doesn't stop it from being stupid though. Claiming wider protection for religious feelings is a claim of religious priviledge, but claiming wider rights to hurt feelings because they are religious claims an anti-religious priviledge.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 04:16:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]
This had very practical consequences in the UK until fairly recently, and still does in some countries (Ireland?) which have blasphemy laws.

British law was unusually tolerant:

The dictum "if the decencies of controversy are observed, even the fundamentals of religion may be attacked without the writer being guilty of blasphemy" was followed in R v Boulter (1908) 72 JP 188.
In the case of Bowman v Secular Society [1917] AC 406, Lord Sumner, echoing Hale's remarks in Taylor, summarized the position using the Latin phrase, deorum injuriae diis curae, "offences to the gods are dealt with by the gods": blasphemy is an offence against the (Christian) state, and is prohibited because it tends to subvert (Christian) society; offence to God as such is outside the reach of the law.

But then there was a famous trial in 1977, in which the judge decided that blasphemy wasn't bad because it was insulting, but because "The offence belongs to a group of criminal offences designed to safeguard the internal tranquillity of the kingdom."

Or in other words, it could be held to be criminal if 'liable to cause a breach of the peace.'

Practical law seems some way ahead of the debate here.

But there's been no serious interest in pursuing blasphemy cases since, and there's no general principle that religious feelings deserve more respect than any other feelings - that idea hasn't really been taken seriously for at least two hundred years in the UK.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 04:29:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
i remember in india a sign in the chai shop with NO DISCUSSION OF RELIGION OR POLITICS written on it.

guess they were tired of cleaning up the broken glass

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 05:31:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]
deorum injuriae diis curae

Sounds like a sig line to me.

With an optional "Cavete ad iram deorum", or something.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Feb 10th, 2014 at 03:48:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The insulters of soccer fan feelings would get to feel the reaction themselves. In the case of the religious feelings insulters, most likely someone else would be victim of the reaction. I am not thinking about how to prevent or prosecute at the moment, I simply want to reject the notion when it is used argumentatively: no there can't be a right to hurt any person's feelings. A society granting such a anti-social "right" is not desirable.  
by Katrin on Fri Feb 7th, 2014 at 06:41:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
An additional dimension of distinction is whether the insult felt was an insult intended.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Mon Feb 10th, 2014 at 06:51:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"I'm sorry my insult offended you in unintended ways"

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Feb 10th, 2014 at 07:15:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]
But a strong tenet of Western(TM) jurisprudence is that while intent can influence the severity of a crime, it is generally considered problematic to classify something as a crime solely on the basis of intent.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Feb 10th, 2014 at 04:09:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It appears both you and Migeru are thinking of the distinction between voluntary manslaughter and murder. However, I was more thinking of the distinction between excusable homicide and murder: a religious person may perceive something as an insult to her religion even if it wasn't meant to be insulting her religion (Rushdie's case or, I believe, Pussy Riot's case) or even an insult at all (almost anything attacked as attack on Christmas).

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Wed Feb 12th, 2014 at 07:53:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm not familiar with "justifiable homicide" as a legal distinction. It exists as a political distinction, but jurisprudence does not, and can not, map directly to political legitimacy.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Wed Feb 12th, 2014 at 07:15:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Not "justifiable homicide" but "excusable homicide". The former is something borderline like self-defense, the latter includes accidental homicide like a train driver hitting a suicide jumper (and the latter's relatives suing with the mistaken assumption that the driver could have braked in time).

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 02:59:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]
But in that case intent does not matter: If I use proportionate force to repel a clear and present danger, the intent to kill does not matter to the legality. Of course if I apply force with the intent to kill, I am much less likely to apply proportional force, but what I will go behind bars for is the disproportionate use of force, not the intent to kill per se.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Thu Feb 13th, 2014 at 12:57:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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