In the news this week ...

Aasia Bibi

It is shocking that someone can be executed for "insulting the Prophet". The story about the case in the Guardian shows a photograph of people protesting against blasphemy, but I have seen photographs of people protesting in favour of her execution. Should inciting people to support the execution of people who are accused of insulting the Phrophet not be a criminal offence?

Interesting that although no one has been executed in Pakistan for blasphemy, people accused of blasphemy have been murdered by religious extremists after being acquitted. A High Court judge who acquitted someone was also murdered.

Christians Eh!!, why do these pesky liberalists and secularists get in their way when we know the real threat is from the homosexual agenda. It's really strange, when I was growing up I was told that god was a god of love, can anyone point me to major religion that loves anyone but itself.

Dave, you're an awful dose, you know that. You really think Westboro is representative of Christianity.

mccamleyc said

"Dave, you're an awful dose, you know that. You really think Westboro is representative of Christianity. "

Not representative of christians in that only the Westboro lunatics picket funerals etc. And not representative of all christians in holding very unpleasant anti-gay views, but certainly representative of plenty of them. Including those who hold to what is more or less the party line of the Catholic church.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/go/blogs/ni/2010/12/in_the_news_this_week_5.html/ext/_auto/-/https://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1207/1224284926553.html

Yet another Catholic serial paedophile priest convicted of serious sex crimes. Why aren't these child molesters chemically castrated?

The harm caused by so many "men of God" is enormous, but when a molester is convicted in the courts the compensation payments made to victims seem very small. Of course financial compensation will not put right the wrongs of a serial paedophile priest like Walsh, but large compensation payments to victims would make the Vatican more inclined to improve the Church's recruitment procedures.

MCC,

I am suggesting it no more than this article suggests that all muslims believe execution is fine for blasphemy.

There are christians (and not just a few) who believe in execution for things which go against their belief just as there are muslims.

I think what is happening in Pakistan to this lady is inhuman but my purpose in holding a miiror to christianity is to show that similar views exist there and if there were any christian theocracies some of them would be in danger of allowing the same type of inhimanity.

If Uganda was a christian theocracy how many abominations would you think they would have the death penalty for, and remember these people were wound up by far right christians from the US unable to get their extremism legislated for there.

What is the common denominator between Uganda and Lithuania (another place cracking down on homosexuals) ? answer Scott Lively - Christian.

Representative - maybe not in numbers but in regard to influence and publicity - definitely.

Some 'religion' news I've just seen today:

Koran-protest pastor Terry Jones may be banned from UK.

Here's a bit about a man getting arrested for throwing a business card into the bin of someone who happened to be named Mohammed.

https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h-2yz1TcDuf0s3vyzLFN-4Tky7Lw?docId=CNG.9eab6633bebd069b5f0a3ec51e79b6e5.221

Freedom of religion necessarily entails the freedom to regard religion, whether in the general or in the particular, as a load of twaddle. If that offends some spittle-flecked apologists, ministers, mullahs or whatever, then that's too bad. In the UK we are relatively free; as the above stories show, in medieval citadels of ignorance, people have a lot less freedom and are actively being oppressed.