Hector Avalos: Blaspheme or else …

The one thought on the minds of many commentators after the Charlie Hebdo massacre on Jan. 7 was how far behind Islam is in allowing blasphemous expression as compared to “western” countries.
As the world knows by now, a dozen persons were massacred at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the French weekly satirical magazine, by two Islamic jihadists shouting “Allahu akbar” (“God is Great”). The presumed reason is that the terrorists were angry at the blasphemous cartoons of Muhammad that Charlie Hebdo published.
Bill Maher, the atheist humorist, believes Islam is entrenched in the Middle Ages and has not advanced as far as Christianity in terms of allowing freedom of expression. Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, believes that Islam needs the equivalent of the Protestant Reformation, while others deem Islam to be inherently incorrigible.
Many of these commentators overlook how much of the Muslim jihadist view of blasphemy derives directly or indirectly from the Bible, the foundational text of Christianity. Yvonne Sherwood’s Biblical Blaspheming: Trials of the Sacred for a Secular Age (2012) discusses some aspects of the long reach of biblical blasphemy laws in western culture.
For example, Leviticus 24:14 states: “He who blasphemes the name of the LORD shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him; the sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the Name, shall be put to death” (Revised Standard Version).
In other words, not only should fellow Hebrews be stoned, but also foreigners, if they blaspheme against the Hebrew god. Killing non-Muslims as well as Muslims for blaspheming bears a similar mentality. Bears mauled 42 children or youths to death after insulting the prophet Elisha in 2 Kings 2:23-24. Their crime was to call him “baldy.”
Although Jesus enumerates many actions as sinful, he only describes one as being unforgivable in Mark 3:29: “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”
These views persist, even if in diluted form, in western countries. Consider Article 40 of the 1937 Constitution of Ireland still technically in force: “The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.”
The Council of Europe, which includes France as a member, also retains a significant loophole for freedom of expression in Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights: “Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
In other words, if cartoons of Muhammad are a threat to public safety in a European country with a sizable Muslim population that may be offended, then limits can apply. So are “western” ideas really that much more advanced after the Protestant reformation of 500 years ago?
In fact, some 365 years after the start of the Protestant Reformation, George Foote found himself as a defendant in British court for publishing in 1882 a cartoon showing God’s clothed but ample posterior in the Christmas edition of the Freethinker, a periodical that often featured “Comic Bible” cartoons.
As late as 1921, John William Gott was sentenced to prison in England for publishing pamphlets depicting Jesus entering Jerusalem as a circus clown. These people were not killed. Yet, these cases demonstrate that the freedom to blaspheme in “western” countries is not as “advanced” as some may think.
Those espousing a thoroughly secular and pluralistic society argue that blaspheming is not only necessary but also inevitable because what one religion holds true will inevitably be blasphemous to another.
According to The Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). So, the very presence of other gods in our culture may be blasphemous for those who worship Yahweh alone.
That is why the International Humanist and Ethical Union champions the abolition of all blasphemy laws.
For most secularists/pluralists, you must blaspheme — or else your freedom of expression will inevitably be hostage to one religion or another.

http://amestrib.com/opinion/hector-avalos-blaspheme-or-else