Blasphemy Day

Wednesday was Blasphemy Day, and the Center for Enquiry is having a contest.

I will not be entering. Well, actually it's too late now. But still. Why? Nothing to say.

Don't get me wrong. I'm quite prepared to blaspheme. Although I maintain a discipline on this blog of not swearing, I do that as one way of requiring articulation and substantive thought. If you can't say it without swearing (given time and space to reflect on the point you wish to make), you probably have nothing useful to say. In person, I lazily revert to various forms of profanity more than I consider optimal.

Nor do I regard religious opinions as beyond mockery; I can perfectly understand the urge to cross the lines of religious condemnation, if only to demonstrate that no thunderbolt is forthcoming. I ask only that such mockery display some wit - ideally enough to stick in the heads of believers and make them uneasy - and hopefully as little hostility as possible.

More importantly, I hold opinions that a great many people would consider blasphemous and for which I could no doubt have been tortured to death in times past. The Pope is not God's representative on earth; there are no witches; there is no transubstantiation; the Old Testament is a disgraceful book; the Koran was written by an ordinary man; the book of Mormon was deliberately invented by a scoundrel.

But in all these things I want there to be a point. Let us not offend for no good reason; let us cross these lines because we would have done it even without a complaint of blasphemy, or to show how silly the complaint is, or to stick up for people who's only crime is to disagree on something that affects no-one else.

So, lacking some really good jape, or a point that has not been made a thousand times before, I won't be entering. But I do hope to see some well thought out entries, rather than mere invective and mindless cursing. And whether it's enlightening or not, I'm 100% behind their right to hold such a contest. The right to say what you think is incredibly important.