Neoblasphemy laws
Gee…that there Archbishop of Canterbury really doesn’t grasp the principle of free speech, does he. Or he does but he doesn’t agree with it and is surprisingly unbashful about saying so.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has called for new laws to protect religious sensibilities that would punish “thoughtless and cruel” styles of speaking…The Archbishop…said it should not just be a few forms of extreme behaviour that were deemed unacceptable, leaving everything else as fair game. “The legal provision should keep before our eyes the general risks of debasing public controversy by thoughtless and, even if unintentionally, cruel styles of speaking and acting,” he said.
In other words the legal provision should frighten us out of saying certain things. Yes, that sounds like a good idea; much like Turkey, or Syria, or Afghanistan.
Dr Williams said: “It is clear that the old blasphemy law is unworkable and that its assumptions are not those of contemporary lawmakers and citizens overall. But as we think about the adequacy of what is coming to replace it, we should not, I believe, miss the opportunity of asking the larger questions about what is just and good for individuals and groups in our society who hold religious beliefs.”
Okay, ask the questions. Go right ahead. But the new laws? Not a good idea.
So, Dr. W doesn’t want to hear “thoughtless and, even if unintentionally, cruel styles of speaking and acting”, eh?
“Dear Archbishop, go fuck yourself sideways with a wooden spoon!”
will that do?
:-)
(Sorry, I know, completely childish and entirely obvious gag, but someone had to do it…)
“thoughtless and cruel” styles of speaking…”
They should first look to their own as they preach thoughtlessly, unstylishly & cruelly each Sunday from their pulpits.
As for acting cruelly? Sure, they would not have a clue as to the meaning of these type of actions.
That was neither thoughtless nor unintentionally cruel, Andy. Case dismissed.
“thoughtless and cruel” styles of speaking…” Revisited.
Touché! Verpiss dich! Pog Mo Thoin! Foc il leat! Andate tutti a ‘fanculo! fous le camp!
I had to follow suit before the bill comes out.
What a sigh of relief! :-)!
I have to endorse the sentiment expresed by Andy on this one.
And I have to agree wholeheartedly with Richard. Mark it in the annals of B&W.
;-)
G
Praise the lord G! how is the disertation going?
Mock him we may (and should) but this is the demented twerp whom the government of the UK is going to consult over the abolishion of the blasphemy law. All it will take is for some drivelling simpleton (i.e. the Cabinet) to agree with Williams’s views and we are all shafted.
I’m asking the questions, but I think I’m getting different answers from the satanic-looking archbish.
Most of them revolve around removing religious privilege and protecting freedom of speech for starters.
>All it will take is for some drivelling simpleton (i.e. the Cabinet) to agree with Williams’s views and we are all shafted.< Though I’m not particularly impressed with them in political terms, my sense of the new influx to the Cabinet under Gordon Brown is that a goodly number will have no truck with such nonsense, e.g. the Miliband bros, Ed Balls, Alan Johnson, Hilary Benn, Hazel Blears, possibly Harriet Harman, Peter Hain (oops, sorry Peter). Yes, I know there are a few religious types among them, but I suspect most are more sympathetic to the British norm of “not doing religion”. Anyway, we shall see.
He seems to confuse atheism and secularism, so he believes that removing religion from government means that atheism is now “the man” and any religious belief is therefore a noble resistance to power. He also uses the holocaust to strengthen the supposed moral authority of his ideas, which ironically I find offensive – though I wouldn’t want this squalid rhetorical move to be illegal.
Trackback
http://australianatheist.blogspot.com/2008/01/conversational-cruelty.html
We wise B&W-ers are not, of course, the kind to rush to judgement on the basis of limited information but now that Ophelia has put the whole text of the Archbishop’s speech on her site I hope it is not remiss of me to suggest that it’s considerably more thoughtful and subtle than the headlines make out.
Which makes it all the more curious that he comes to a conclusion totally at odds with the drift of his earlier arguments.
I am struggling, really struggling, to grasp what Williams means. The nearest I can get to, is something on these lines:
If I am at the bedside of a dying mother of a wastrel son, who deludes herself that he is a great guy, I will not argue with her about him.
Likewise, if I meet someone who sincerely believes that the Koran is a perfect book, I should not point out the numerous inconsistencies, absurdities and horrors in it.
If that is what he is saying, I think it is childish nonsense.
Worse, he seems to muddle it with something on the lines: Once you start pointing out the numerous absurdities and cruelties of orthodox Jewish law and practice, you will easily slip into murdering Jews.
Unfortunately, the fact that he drivels on at such inordinate pseudo-scholarly length, is a deterrent to a sufficiently pungent refutation. Let’s hope A C Grayling is working on it, assuming OB can’t be bovvered.
One utterly extraordinary claim deserves to be clobbered hard:
As things stand, the right to religious freedom, that is, to adopt and practice whatever religious system you choose, is axiomatic in all Western conceptions of human rights, and is indeed given a very clearly privileged place in European Human Rights legislation as trumping other considerations in situations of conflicts of right.
So, if I claim a religious right to three 10-year-old wives, that trumps young girls’ right not to be raped?
“it’s considerably more thoughtful and subtle than the headlines make out.”
It is…but it’s so, er, subtle that it ends up being (I think) evasive, or stealthy. Or maybe it starts out being that. I think he wrote it in such an endlessly circling qualified subjunctive way that the reader or listener loses track of what the hell he’s saying. If he did that on purpose, then the ending becomes less surprising.
“the fact that he drivels on at such inordinate pseudo-scholarly length, is a deterrent to a sufficiently pungent refutation.”
Just so. Basic archepiscopal ass-covering. I wanted to take the damn thing on yesterday but hell and damnation it’s so long and so muffled…it outlasted me.
The bit about religious practice is of course (as always) crucial. It all depends on what is meant by ‘practice’. People love to sing arias to freedom of religious belief and practice, but in fact of course complete freedom of religious practice is a horrendous idea.
>I hope it is not remiss of me to suggest that it’s considerably more thoughtful and subtle than the headlines make out.< I have to say that that was my impression, too. >Which makes it all the more curious that he comes to a conclusion totally at odds with the drift of his earlier arguments.< I find it hard to discern that he actually comes to *any* clearly stated conclusion, e.g., whereas he says
“The law cannot and should not prohibit argument, which involves criticism, and even, as I noted earlier, angry criticism at times”, he also writes, “the legal provision should keep before our eyes the general risks of debasing public controversy by thoughtless and (even if unintentionally) cruel styles of speaking and acting.”
What on earth “keep before our eyes” means is between the Archbishop and his maker. But I suggest we can take *some* comfort from the fact that the recent attempt to restrict robust criticism of religious belief fell at the first hurdle, having come under fire from a range of people from secularists to comedians.
>I think he wrote it in such an endlessly circling qualified subjunctive way that the reader or listener loses track of what the hell he’s saying…
>Basic archepiscopal ass-covering.
To be fair to the Archbishop, everything I’ve ever heard him say points to the fact that he is an inveterate waffler.
Heh! Okay, I take it back then; it wasn’t deliberate stealth, it was characteristic waffling.
Sophistry in its purest form.
Re my saying the Archbishop is an inveterate waffler, here is his response to the BBC’s John Humphrys asking him if he believes there is a God or knows there is a God.
> I don’t know that there is God or a God in the simple sense that I can tick that off as an item I’m familiar with. Believing is a matter of being committed to the reality of God. The knowledge that comes, that grows if you like through a relationship. I believe I commit myself, I accept what God gives me, I try to accept what God gives me. Grow in that relationship and you grow in a kind of certainty or anchorage in the belief. Knowledge well yes of a certain kind yes, but not acquaintance with a particular fact or a particular state of affairs, it’s the knowledge that comes from relation and takes time.< I rest my case. http://tinyurl.com/32m4a2
Arrrrgh.
And that’s how it’s done. Disavow anything too unmistakably concrete and deniable, but waffle on about all sorts of intangibles that can’t really be denied. Okay if the Archbish says he commits himself, who am I to say he doesn’t?
And yet of course as Edmund pointed out – the Archbish does believe (as he’s required to) in the 39 Articles – that is, he does say he does.
I notice that the comments following the Times article are almost universally mocking or condemnatory.
‘unintentionally cruel?’
Allen and OB are busted for a start, as I have private knowledge that His Grace’s beloved hamster Waffle passed away last month and your thoughtless remarks have brought the pain back afresh. How could you?
Oh dear, poor Waffle.
Correction: it was the Nicene Creed, not the 39 Articles. But anyway, Edmund’s article is all about this habit of the Archbishop’s.
“I have private knowledge”
There must have been a lot of waffling going on to be privy to that knowledge?
Oh dear, poor Waffle. Again!
“Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq”
Student activists struggling for freedom, equality and social justice need our immediate solidarity!
I have just signed petition @ B&W News.
BTW, is there by any chance snow in Great Britain? There is presently a gust of westerly wind (at approximately 130 kilometres per hour) here in Dublin. It is to the bone perishing.
MTOL – there is indeed snow in Great Britain, at least in my part of it (Edinburgh). I was walking west today straight into a gale of sleet and sloppy snow and a chill which flayed my face off.
You see, proper British people would far rather discuss the weather than religion.
We have snow in Northumberland; wet, wind driven snow. Unfortunately my dog is of a hardy breed that still insists on three good walks a day, howling sleety gales notwithstanding.
Damn right, KB
Mention the weather you have three comments in five minutes.
Nothing original really to say about the article, but as for the weather, there’s no snow here in Bristol, which is upsetting me as I have a childish affection for it. It barely snows here and it never settles, so I’ve not seen a proper snowfall for a couple of years.
Well, thanks lads/lassie for the British weather forecaste. I suggest all of you up North make some snow-balls and hurl them in the direction of your nearest holy shrine. But for Betsy sake, please do not, during this activity be found by anyone waffling obscenities. Remember, blasphemy is a mortal sin and you could end up in jail.
You could find yourself at the mercy of an unfriendly juror!!
Yes, there is also snow here in Eire. The winds are fierce and add tremendously to the chill factor.
I am dreading going out into the night.
If anyone was thinking of forming a “B&W Choral Union”, to serenade the ArchBish at a public function (if at all possible), might I suggest an acapella rendering of South Park’s jaw-droppingly crude “Uncle Fucka” as being entirely appropriate?
He wouldn’t have to be obfuscatory with that…it even gets the point across about how we feel regarding religious censorship :-)
All together now..”Shut your fucking face, Uncle fucka! You’re a boner-biting bastard Uncle fucka! etc,etc”
A bit too subtle and understated for me, Andy.
Besides if we did that the Archbish would write a 50,000 word speech saying that while on the one hand inasmuch as because, on the other hand howsomever notwithstanding albeit nevertheless, and we’d be right back where we started.
K.B.It may be a little understated but I would gladly take singing lessons so that I could be in the choir! there is nothing like the prospect of even more speech laws to make my blood boil, God I wish we had a first amendment!
“The legal provision should keep before our eyes the general risks of debasing public controversy by thoughtless and, even if unintentionally, cruel styles of speaking and acting,” he said.”
“Lovely. Pass a law against offending people, “even if unintentionally.” Can’t see how that idea could possibly go wrong.” See: Instapundit @ volokh.com/posts/1201654063.shtml
Right, Richard, (wannabe tenor) – I too am available (Soprano) for B&W Choral Union rehearsals. We could do with drowning out that Jellicle Andy chap. He sure does come on a wee bit too strong with his blasphemous tribal language.! Do you not agree?
There is more than one way to skin a cat.
Yeah, just screech like Mephistopheles. & all hell shall let loose.
“A young man, a student of journalism, is sentenced to death by an Islamic court for downloading a report from the internet.”
Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, my thoughts go out to you. I do hope there will be intervention in time to save you from this dreadful fate. It is mindboggling to say the least.
What next! Gosh I do hope all @ B&W will sign the urgent petition over @ B&W News section.
No snow here, just a lovely clear blue sky above endless traffic and smog.
I am an experienced guitarist by the way, and can accompany choral performances if required, especially if they’re Dylan, Leonard Cohen or JJ Cale ‘hymns’…
Andy G – goodness gracious ! Catchy tune though that one…
Whatever happened to Leonard Cohen I used to like his stuff?
Leonard Cohen is still alive and performing Richard – a friend of mine heard him live a few months ago.
Jennifer Warnes’ Famous Blue Raincoat is full of good interpretations Richard.