I'll admit the idea sounds a little silly. Why would there be an International Blasphemy Day? And just what, exactly, are you supposed to do in recognition? Are you supposed run up and down the street, shouting, "Fuck you, {insert god of choice}!"
I suppose you could, if you really wanted to. And that's the point. Do that in some places and they'll haul you into court. Insulting God is still illegal in several states, even though those statutes are no longer enforceable. But if anti-blasphemy laws in the United States are now just relics, sitting on the books only because no one has bothered to formally repeal them, that's not the case in a number of countries, where conviction on blasphemy charges can carry the death sentence.
Can anyone, in good conscience, believe it's a good idea to execute someone for being disrespectful to an imaginary being? Are Thor and Odin real? Only if you're talking about comic book/movie characters. Were they ever real? Same answer. Scandinavians used to worship them, but that didn't make them any less imaginary. The fact that billions of Christians worship their god, and over a billion Muslims worship theirs, says only that there are a lot of people who'll believe the most ridiculous fantasies if those fantasies are a part of their culture.
In and of itself, worshiping a deity is no more problematic than any other delusion. The majority of people who believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost/Spirit are essentially good people, and manage to remain compassionate, sympathetic, and helpful despite the actual teachings of their religion, which are parochial and rather hateful. Christians may think Jesus is a cool guy, but if you actually look at what he had to say, you're going to have to conclude that he wouldn't care very much about them because they're obviously not Jewish. Pay attention when you read. He had no time for anyone who wasn't Jewish, and if a non-Jew asked for help, his disciples usually had to talk him into giving it, and he gave it grudgingly.
He didn't enter public life with the goal of starting a new religion. His goal was to reform an existing one, and actually along stricter, not more lenient lines. His views on divorce agreed with the School of Shammai, who was ridiculously strict about everything, while mainstream Judaism mostly adopted the School of Hillel, who generally sought the less stringent opinion (which was still pretty strict by modern standards).
The obvious fact about all gods is that they tend to be rather ignorant. If we look at the Judeo/Christian/Islamic God, who is at least supposed to be the same for all, we discover that while he created the universe, he doesn't have any idea how it works. If people are designed, we need to fire the designer, because he made a right mess of it. This should hardly surprise us. Since God is imaginary, invented by humans, it's only natural that he doesn't know any more about the universe than those who invented him. In fact, a god invented today would likely be a lot more believable, because today he'd come with a far better understanding of the universe, and would no doubt invoke evolution instead of special creation.
Ancient Jews came up with something that, in operation, is essentially the Big Bang theory, a couple thousand years ago. The problem was, they had no way to carry the idea through to its logical conclusion, so they simply decided that this was how God had created everything, and at the same time added that this explained why God often seemed remote, because the physical universe existed within an empty part of his otherwise universal spiritual being, adding great distances to the problem of communication.
When people sit down and try to figure things out, it's not unusual for them to intuit the correct answer. It's also not unusual for them to then muck it up by adding a religious element whenever they get stuck. "And then a miracle happens," as the cartoon put it. Not that miracles happen. Miracles are just unusual, but still natural, events that happen at a fortuitous time. Most would go unremarked in a different situation. Hume got that one right. You can only legitimately claim a miracle if every alternative outcome would be even more miraculous. Spontaneous remission of aggressive cancer is more common that most people think. It's entirely possible that the "cure" was nothing more than the patient starting to eat better and in the process kicking his immune system up a notch to where it could overpower the cancer.
We need a day when we can point this out. God gets a tremendous amount of respect, despite there being essentially zero actual evidence that he exists. Muslim countries frequently impose long prison sentences, or even death, for blasphemy. A disgustingly high percentage of American Christians would like nothing better than to be able to do the same thing.
The America in Returning has restored blasphemy laws, even as the rest of the world has managed to progress beyond that. One really can't over emphasize the importance of a secular education. Christians want Christianity taught in public schools as if its myths were actual events, while secularists are really fine with teaching Christianity as long as it's part of comparative religion course, and its myths are given no more credence than those of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, or Scandinavians.
God is a pretty nasty character anyway. The Christian God is, without doubt, even worse than the Jewish version, who was himself essentially a selfish, petty, omnipotent, genocidal two-year-old. The Christian version did seem to give up the genocide, but he replaced it with Hell, which as a concept is even worse (though, as a reality, not so much given that genocide happens and Hell isn't a real place, except maybe in Michigan). You can spend as much time as you want searching the Old Testament for Hell, but you won't find it. Sheol isn't hell, it's just an underground place for the dead. Very likely, it's just an alternate word for bor, or pit, which in Old Testament context doesn't mean hell, but simply means a hole in the ground. In other words, a grave. Jewish thoughts on an afterlife are rather nebulous, ranging from reincarnation, to resurrection at the coming of the Messiah, to living forever in Heaven, to no afterlife at all. Jewish scriptures leave all of that up in the air. It wasn't until the Babylonian exile, with its exposure to Zoroastrian beliefs, that the One God of early Israel was split into a god and a devil, and the idea of an immortal soul really started to take hold.
In Jesus' time, the main difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees was that the former believed there was an afterlife and the latter didn't. I'm sorry if this annoys you, but that makes Jesus a Pharisee. Well, I'm technically still a Republican, but that doesn't stop me from going after the lot currently running the GOP, which, in my opinion, aren't really Republicans anyway. You knew the party was going to hell as soon as David Duke made his first run as a Republican and not nearly enough people objected to the idea.
There's a degree of irony in poll results that say people don't trust atheists, despite atheists being, statistically, considerable more honest than religious people. Seventy out of 100 Federal prisoners are Christians; one out of 400 are atheists. If the tendency toward criminality were the same with both groups, that second number should be closer to 10%, not a quarter percent. Perhaps, as some Christians like to suggest, this is because atheists are simply smarter and don't get caught as often. They even say this with conviction, apparently not noticing that what they're really saying is that Christians aren't even smart enough to be good criminals.
Or, perhaps, it's because atheists are simply more aware of their responsibility for their own actions. An atheist can't blame a devil for his actions. He can only blame himself. And he also lacks the Christian's get out of jail free card, the ability to repent at the last moment and enjoy a blissful afterlife. Atheists just figure there won't be an afterlife, so the one they're living is what matters. This is real; that's an unlikely fairy tale.
The Gehunite space travelers in Returning take a very practical view of religions. They have them, but virtually no one believes in actual gods, and their religious observance is mostly just a matter of performing some ritual on the holidays and then having a big meal. Sort of like Passover, but without actually believing the story and minus the constipation (eat matzohs for a week, you'll see what I mean). They find Christian ritual either quaint but meaningless, or, as when the concept of communion is related, actually barbaric. (It is, after all, a symbolic cannibal feast.)
I actually like the concept. You get to keep the holidays, but throw away the nonsense. The greatest appeal of religion in modern times may be the way it functions as a social hub. If you take the mythology seriously, it can cause a great deal of trouble. If you just want to get together every week with a bunch of friends, that's cool.
Well, the day is close to over. Some places it already is. So I guess it's time to wind this up and get back to writing that private eye story.
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