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Denmark reinstates blasphemy law, criminalizing the burning of holy books (www.friendlyatheist.com)

submitted 10 months ago by darth_tiktaalik@lemmy.ml to c/atheism@lemmy.ml

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[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

In practical terms, it will be forbidden to burn, tear or otherwise defile holy texts publicly or in videos intended to be disseminated widely.

You can still do it all you want, but if you're doing it to get a rise out of people, it's different.

The entire reason they're bringing this back is harassment of refugees after all. That's why you never hear about them burning Catholic Bibles, even though that actually is a world wide multi billion dollar organization that coordinates as a single entity to hide all the fucked up shit their employees do.

I might not believe in any religion, but I also don't see how anyone thinks being intentionally antagonistic towards a group of people because they believe in something.

Like, are you spending this month outside of elementary schools screaming at the kids that Santa isn't real?

[–] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I am an atheist but I am not anti-religious. I see no reason to antagonize people over their religion.

While this law wouldn't fly in America, I can respect why other countries wouldn't want groups antagonizing each other.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world -2 points 10 months ago

Man, I thought when I blocked r/conservative I was done with you..

Guess I am going to have to start blocking you and all your alts now too

[–] Nacktmull@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Lifelong Atheist here. This sucks but let's not forget why this is happening and who is responsible for it. A small group of racists has continuously and systematically abused freedom of expression to incite intercultural hate in Denmark and around the world. Those right wing edgelords made public Quran burning a weekly event until the government simply had no other choice than adjusting the law to stop those provocateurs from inciting hate and violence, before worse things happened (which was obviously the goal of the neo-nazis, so they could then blame Muslims for it).

Atheists who spread hate against religious communities are no better than religious fundamentalists spreading hate against Atheists.

[–] toastus@feddit.de 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

We come from such similar mental places but still I have to disagree hard.

the government simply had no other choice

There is always a choice.

A rather obvious one here would have been to have the law be formulated against inciting hate and/or violence in general.
It is completely unnecessary to have this law revolve around religious texts just because the concrete reason happens to be connected to religious texts.

Atheists who spread hate against religious communities are no better than religious fundamentalists spreading hate against Atheists.

Like you said yourself, noone is burning books in the name of Atheism.

I have not yet seen a single argument that could convince me that religious texts are any more worthy of legal protection than other pieces of culture that specific subgroups of society hold dear to their hearts.
How is burning a rainbow flag or even a shirt of a rivaling football club less inciting hatred than burning a Quran?

[–] Adalast@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

How about a ban on mass book burning in general? In the US there have been several mass burnings of LGBTQIA+ books, books featuring strong minority characters, and textbooks that actually include depictions of reality. I know we can't ban all book burning in the US due to the First Amendment, but mass burning is not about expression, it is about suppression.

[–] Nacktmull@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Apologies for my suboptimal choice of words. What I meant was that the danish government had no choice than to somehow change the framework which made those constant provocations legal. I did not mean to say this was the only or best way to do it and I would also have preferred them doing it differently. For example as it is in Germany, where generally any form of public incitement is illegal, instead of particularly protecting religious texts.

[–] dime@beehaw.org 6 points 10 months ago

Up to 2 years in prison for burning a book (whether it be the Bible or Quran) that has been used as a weapon to subjugate women and persecute gay people. Interesting. Is there also a prison sentence for using a holy book to subjugate women or persecute gay people in Denmark?

Interesting priorities…there’s a reason people burn holy books