Here are the opening speeches from the Atheist Ireland AGM on Saturday, which focus on the blasphemy law now passed by the Oireachtas.
Introduction and opening speech by Senator Ivana Bacik
July 14, 2009
Speeches from Atheist Ireland AGM
June 17, 2009
Speeches from Limerick Meeting
Here are the speeches from the recent Limerick meeting against the proposed Irish blasphemy law, courtesy of Limerick Blogger.
Michael Nugent, Atheist Ireland, and Larry Maher, Midwest Humanists
Blasphemy is a Victimless Crime from Limerick Blogger on Vimeo.
June 12, 2009
Speeches from Dublin Meeting
Here are the speeches from the recent Dublin meeting against the proposed Irish blasphemy law, along with discussion from the floor and responses from the panelists. There are nine videos, covering 80 minutes of the meeting. Thanks to Paul for filming and uploading them.
Introduction by Michael Nugent, writer and chair of Atheist Ireland
(10 mins: introducing the blasphemy law and the Church of Dermotology)
Robbie Bonham, comedian and cartoonist, on artistic expression
(10 mins: includes end of Michael Nugent speech; Robbie Bonham introduced at 0:55)
May 26, 2009
Join the Church of Dermotology
On Wednesday 20 May 2009, speaking at a parliamentary Justice Committee debating his new blasphemy law, Dermot Ahern joked that people were making blasphemous comments about him, and he compared his own purity to that of the baby Jesus.
In response, on Monday 25 May 2009, at a crowded public meeting in Wynns Hotel in Dublin, campaigners against the blasphemy law have founded the Church of Dermotology, to worship Dermot Ahern and his proposed blasphemy law.
Please join at the Church’s Facebook Group Page and our Facebook Fan Page. Please also invite all of your friends to join what will surely become the world’s fastest-growing religion.
May 10, 2009
Jerry Springer the Opera – Satan and Jesus
Publishing or performing this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed.
May 9, 2009
We Must Not Incentivize Religious Outrage
Six months after the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed twelve cartoons of Muhammad in 2005, orchestrated Islamic outrage led to over a hundred people being killed and Danish embassies attacked in Syria, Lebanon and Iran.
The proposed Irish blasphemy law uses religious outrage as one of the triggers for determining whether material is blasphemous. This incentivizes religious outrage, and makes it more likely to happen.
Bloody Cartoons is a BBC documentary in which Danish director Karsten Kjaer examines the controversy and its impact on free speech in a democracy. It is filmed in Europe and the Middle east. Watch this important documentary, and campaign against the Irish blasphemy law.
Continue for parts 2 to 5 of the documentary…
May 8, 2009
Is God the Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction?
Publishing or saying this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthristy ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, 2006
Jesus Christ! The Musical – Jesus Will Survive
Publishing this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed.
May 7, 2009
In the News – Thursday May 7
- Blasphemy law only panders to the deranged instincts of an intolerant immigrant minority
(opinion piece by Kevin Myers in the Irish Independent)
Muslims and Public Religious Outrage
Publishing or saying this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed:
“Religious ‘outrage’ is an almost unknown phenomenon in our culture: but it is so common on the Islamic street that one often wonders: do Muslims know any other public mood? And whereas I can ask this question today, might it not be blasphemous under Dermot Ahern’s new law? For some Muslims might hold that it is grossly abusive or insulting to things they hold sacred, to dispute their right to endless public anger.”
Kevin Myers, Irish Independent, May 7 2009
Sarah Silverman – My Boyfriend is Catholic
Publishing or saying this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed.
May 6, 2009
George Bernard Shaw – Immorality Needs Protection
In 1909, George Bernard Shaw had a play (The Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet ) banned for blasphemy. In a masterstroke of unwitting satire, the parliamentary committee examining the matter also suppressed the statement that Shaw gave them in his defence.
- Shaw said he deliberately wrote immoral and heretical plays, in order to challenge the public to reconsider its morals. He defined immorality as whatever is contrary to established manners and customs. He argued that it is immorality that needs protection, and morality that needs restraint.
- He cited examples of classic literature and role models that were once considered immoral and heretical. He noted that old immoralities such as Christianity and Islam are constantly promoted into becoming new moralities.
- He argued that no nation can prosper or even continue to exist without heretics and advocates of shockingly immoral doctrines, and that toleration and liberty have no sense or use except as toleration of opinions that are considered damnable, and liberty to do what seems wrong.
Read on for relevant extracts from Shaw’s powerful statement, plus a link to the full text of the statement and the play, and Shaw’s analysis of the controversy.
Monty Python – Every Sperm is Sacred
Publishing or performing this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed.
May 5, 2009
Blasphemy Laws Protect Bigots, Not Religions
“A hundred years ago this month, Bernard Shaw’s little play The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet was refused a licence for performance by the English censors… How brilliant of Dermot Ahern to mark this important event in Irish intellectual life by reminding us of the absurdity of blasphemy laws.
Does he really think that it should be a crime to offend members of the Jedi church (from census returns that includes 70,000 people in Australia; 50,000 in New Zealand; 390,000 in the UK) by saying that a light sabre makes you look like a dork? Of course not.
With one satiric touch he has honoured the memory of Shaw, Yeats and Gregory and reminded us that blasphemy laws exist to protect, not religions, but bigots. For his next trick, he will mark the Darwin bicentenary by threatening to make creationism compulsory.”
Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times, May 5 2009
May 4, 2009
An Insane God who Requires Blood and Misery
Publishing or saying this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed:
“But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy — he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered.
He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty. The babies were innocent, the beasts were innocent, many of the men, many of the women, many of the boys, many of the girls were innocent, yet they had to suffer with the guilty. What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.”
Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth, 1909
May 3, 2009
Is Islam a Separate Religion At All?
Publishing or saying this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed:
“There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require…
Islam in its origins is just as shady and approximate as those from which it took its borrowings. It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or “surrender” as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”
Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great, 2007
Bill Maher on Religion
Publishing or saying this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed.
May 2, 2009
Pope John Paul II Opposed Pakistan’s Blasphemy Laws
The following is an extract from a speech by Pope John Paul II in May 2003, addressing the new Ambassador to the Holy See from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
“Your Excellency, I am pleased to acknowledge the considerable political reforms which have recently been implemented in Pakistan for the improvement of civic life… Nevertheless it must also be noted that the grievances which continue to be felt particularly among the Christian minority in your country detract from the overall well-being of the nation. The grave difficulties that the Blasphemy Laws cause and the incidents of violence and vandalism against Christians and their properties have been well documented.”
Pope John Paul was right about this. And blasphemy laws are as wrong in Ireland in 2009 as they were in Pakistan in 2003.
May 1, 2009
Transubstantiation and Desert Superstitions
Publishing or saying this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed:
“(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”
Ian O’Doherty, Irish Independent, March 6 2009
George Carlin – Religion is Bullshit
Publishing or saying this could be illegal in Ireland if the new blasphemy law is passed.