Beyond Belief on RTE1 discussing blasphemy laws, 11.15 pm tonight Tue 16 Oct

Michael Nugent

Beyond Belief on RTE1 television will be discussing blasphemy laws, at 11.15 pm tonight Tuesday 16 Oct, presented by Mick Peelo.

I will be on the panel, along with comedian Abie Philbin Bowman, North Dublin Muslim Kamel Ghanem, Kathleen Patious of Catholic Comment and media lawyer Andrea Martin.

The discussion covers Irish and international blasphemy laws, whether or why religion deserves protection, and the riots and murders in Islamic countries in response to cartoons and Youtube videos.

As an aside, it’s the first time that Abie or I have done a show like this in which we have had two atheists on the panel.

krudler

Has anyone ever been prosecuted by those laws here? Its insane that a civilised country has a blasphemy law in 2012

Corkfeen

krudler wrote: »

Has anyone ever been prosecuted by those laws here? Its insane that a civilised country has a blasphemy law in 2012

Nope but if I recall correctly Pakistan approved of it and possibly utilised similar wording to our own. :eek:

PopePalpatine

I watched it, and I thought that the Muslim guy was talking sh*te. We don't offer "protection" against mockery to political views, why should religion get a special privilige?

robindch

PopePalpatine wrote: »

[...] why should religion get a special privilige?

As a meme in good standing, religion must evolve a demand to live in a criticism-free zone in order to avoid dying out.

Galvasean

PopePalpatine wrote: »

We don't offer "protection" against mockery to political views, why should religion get a special privilige?

Because they don't live in this thing we call 'reality' and are therefore not subject to the rules of such?

fisgon

Just saw the end of it. Found Albie Philbin Bowman, as usual, to be random and silly and incapable of making much sense. The bit about Mohammed being a feminist was just idiocy.
The Muslim guy claimed that no-one should ridicule his religion (not sure how he feels about ridiculing other religions - magic Mormon underpants for example), but then utterly failed to give a coherent reason why. Par for the course, of course, the religious are incapable of giving a rational justification for why they should have special treatment, beyond "because we said so".
I wonder if anyone else saw the whole show?
(Oh yeah, I wish just once someone would challenge a Muslim on that whole "Mohammed was a perfect person" shtick. He married a pre-teen, had many wives, and was involved in spreading his religion at the point of a sword. Perfect person, sure.)

Michael Nugent

The programme is now online on RTE Player at this link:

Beyond Belief: Mick Peelo and guests explore the internationally contentious issue of blasphemy

krudler

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I watched it, and I thought that the Muslim guy was talking sh*te. We don't offer "protection" against mockery to political views, why should religion get a special privilige?

I never understand this protection of beliefs either, believing in something gives you NO spcial treatment over anyone else, and if you think it does should your beliefs be challenged then, are they really that strong to begin with?

Michael OBrien

Michael Nugent wrote: »

Beyond Belief on RTE1 television will be discussing blasphemy laws, at 11.15 pm tonight Tuesday 16 Oct, presented by Mick Peelo.

I will be on the panel, along with comedian Abie Philbin Bowman, North Dublin Muslim Kamel Ghanem, Kathleen Patious of Catholic Comment and media lawyer Andrea Martin.

The discussion covers Irish and international blasphemy laws, whether or why religion deserves protection, and the riots and murders in Islamic countries in response to cartoons and Youtube videos.

As an aside, it’s the first time that Abie or I have done a show like this in which we have had two atheists on the panel.

Just watched it, think you did a good job, if you were allowed to finish some points. The last point was essential and showed up the muslim's stance perfectly.

"do you respect OTHER prophets, like David Icke and the guy from waco?" (paraphrazing)
Answer from muslim?
"We only believe in OUR prophets, (add names here) and that is the only ones we respect" (paraphrazing)
So much for his entire tirade about respecting beliefs of others. All he wanted was people to respect MUSLIM beliefs and to hell (literally in Islam) to everyone else.

He used the slippery slope fallacy in regard to what would happen if you don't respect religion (See in caps ISLAM ONLY here). Oh he "does not 'support' the riots, buuuuuut thats what happens when people insult muslims, what do you expect?" (again paraphrazing)
Kamel pretends muslims are entitled to be violent in their defence, because they are being 'picked on' by the whole world (conspiracy fallacy).
What was funny is that the atheist comedian that spoke up for the peaceful muslims, not Kamel. I respected Bowman for that. Even andrea brought up that other religions can be defensive without murder and arson being the normal resort to criticism or ridicule. Kamel brushed that aside too.

What is amazing is you CANNOT respect all religions, it a paradoxical state of mind. They all dispute each other on fundamental areas. Islam is blasphemous to christians, christianity is blasphemous to jews, christianity is blasphemous to Islam (and they love to mock it on YT), etc. And ALL three mock the living daylights out of all other religions and think atheists are damned or insane. Legislation for such paradoxical unsupportable beliefs would mean EVERYONE is guilty, OR NOONE.

That was why there is no blasphemy law in the USA, because the founders knew what would happen and that was also why there is a wall of separation between church and state. If ONE religion is protected, then its either tyranny or absurdity. Its not possible to protect ALL religions or beliefs from ridicule because simply BELIEVING in one religion requires you disbelieve others as wrong which means you either have NO expression of beliefs anywhere or people are jailed/fined/stoned to death.

Overall this (beyond belief) show is weak sauce. The last episode was the most interesting.
I saw the others and the divide between secular and religious views is clear, secular views can provide clear reasons for their arguments, religious give emotional pleading, or lie outright.

Canis Lupus

Had to stop watching. The muslim rep kept wrecking my head with his nonsense.

Lucy8080

Should we respect all atheists?

Knasher

What are you asking Lucy? You should respect all atheists in the same sense that you should respect anybody i.e. their human rights. If you are asking should you respect all atheists ideas, which is essentially what the theists were asking for, then I'd say certainly not. Ideas should stand or fall based on the weight of evidence supporting them, nothing more.

Zillah

Lucy8080 wrote: »

Should we respect all atheists?

No. I'm sure some of them are worthy of your contempt.

Michael OBrien

Lucy8080 wrote: »

Should we respect all atheists?

As human beings, yes. Their ideas, just because they are atheist, of course not. We have a massive diversity of thought, and some VERY sound ideas, and some very silly ones. To distinguish what is a sound and useful idea from a crappy one use critical thinking. Unlike theism, atheism is a blank slate, a basic starting point, or as some like to call it a null position on one topic.
Where you go from there requires care and attention. If people worried less about atheism and more about the validity of the ACTUAL beliefs atheists have, atheists (and theists) would be better served.