Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called “cursed,: came with the note, “It’s Tahir Ali MP.” The link goes to Mr. Ali calling for blasphemy laws protecting all religious texts, including of course the Qur’an.
Jesus’s logic gets Mo all balled up, and in the end Mo gets to the real point of Ali’s proposal
I’ve just read up a little about this MP and he’s a disgrace, though not I suspect unique among the cadre of Muslim Labour MPs. What was most worrying about his PMQ proposal was the weakness of Starmer’s response, assuming the Spectator’s summary is accurate: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/watch-labour-mp-calls-for-blasphemy-law/
For the record, here is the Hansard transcript. It is pretty depressing that the PM couldn’t bring himself to support free speech before all else:
Tahir Ali (Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley)(Lab):
Q12. November marks Islamophobia Awareness Month. Last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution condemning the desecration of religious texts, including the Koran, despite opposition from the previous Government. Acts of such mindless desecration only serve to fuel division and hatred within our society. Will the Prime Minister commit to introducing measures to prohibit the desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions? (901500)
The Prime Minister:
I agree that desecration is awful and should be condemned across the House. We are, as I said before, committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division, including Islamophobia in all its forms.
I wonder if Starmer has a position on Islamofascism.
Funnily enough, I grew up in that ward.
The correct answer to the question asked was “no, we won’t be seeking to restrict free speech in this way”. I honestly don’t know why Starmer had a problem with that.
You can’t pledge to stamp out “Islamophobia in all its forms” and uphold “freedom of speech” in the same mind. Because some free speech just is Islamophobia: any effective published warning is likely to arouse rational fear in the warned and anger in those warned about. What it’s for is the former. The latter is a case of, if the shoe fits… So you have to ask why Mr. Starmer can’t come down on the side of freedom to warn about Islam.
He wasn’t asked to stamp out Islamophobia – at least not by this MP, but he was asked to bring in a law to protect religious texts and to protect the Abrahamic prophets.
He answered the wrong question.
One man’s piety is another man’s blasphemy.
I would guess the UK MP who brought up the subject had had a delegation of religious leaders at his door pressing him to do it. Well it is an MPs job to represent the views of their constituents. Is there a polite way to encourage others to analyze their religion for truth and accuracy ?
It is possible that the anti blasphemy texts in scriptures were an attempt by the priests who wrote them to maintain their power, privilege and wealth etc. Interesting that out of all the Bible stories; that one of the few instances where people were miraculously struck down on the spot were Ananias and Sapphira for the unforgiveable sin of withholding money from the collection plate. (Acts 5 v 1-11). Tyrants can live to old age but woe betide those who are stingy towards the church. Also interesting that the Wikipedia article about this doesn’t even list this possible interpretation of the story. As revealed in the Holy book of Brian a real G_d would have no difficulty in dropping a massive boulder on whoever he considered to have uttered blasphemy and therefore only one religion would exist by now.
Why don’t people shout: Quit calling criticism hate speech or a phobia! Disagreement is not hate! Stop trying to erase my speech with your bogus cries of persecution!
Perhaps a reasonable fear of the howling mob?
One of the useful things about reading religious scripture is the challenge of the question, “Can we think and act better than those who wrote the scriptures ?”. Have these ideas been superseded ? Well how do you define better ? Progressive ? More caring, kinder, more fact based, delivering improved standards of living in food, health care etc ? There are strands of progressive Christianity that try to sweep the barbaric aspects of the old texts under the carpet and focus on love and kindness. These might be vaguely supported by passages like John 14 v 12 “Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing. He will do even greater things than these. ” If Jesus was the Word of God then can we write greater ideas / words ? Well for instance study of geology and the fossil record shows the great age of planet Earth and study of astronomy shows our Sun to be at the centre of our solar system (contra the impression given by the Bible ). So these examples show how we can write greater words than Christ. I think you’ll struggle to find much criticism by Jesus of the Old Testament writings. If Jesus really did self analysis then wouldn’t he say, “only believe the bits i say which are true and disbelieve the rest” 1 Thessalonians 5v21 has Paul say, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test all things” What evidence do you have to support these claims ? John 4v24 makes Jesus say, “But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth” then the Samaritan woman says “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.” but there is no record of Jesus clarifying anything there. Romans 7v6 makes Paul say, ” we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.” possibly because new Greek converts didn’t fancy sticking strictly to Jewish customs.
Recently a minister asked me if I had shut the door on Christianity and i said yes but i really meant that my interpretation of the scriptures had changed and that if there was anything of value in there then i still respected those parts but i see most of it as pious fiction and my working hypothesis is that there is no supernatural realm. I have a complex and nuanced response to the complex conglomeration of Bible tales. The New Testament is a story about Jesus being crucified for blasphemy against Judaism but Christianity has become a major world religion; so the death of Jesus obviously didn’t work. People know what modern scientific theories are and what old time religion thought and they pull the idea out of the hat which suits their circumstances, opportunistically. Trying not to fall out with family members.