Blasphemy Rights Day 2024 | Free Inquiry (original) (raw)

I hope you haven’t forgotten. September 30 is International Blasphemy Rights Day (“BRD” for short).

When the Center for Inquiry (CFI) launched BRD in 2009, the primary goal was to draw attention to the continuing harsh suppression of religious dissent. In too many countries, those who question majority religious beliefs, or even utter an ambiguous phrase that is interpreted as critical of these beliefs, face state-sanctioned punishment or mob violence. That was true in 2009 and, depressingly, it continues to be true today. Pakistan, nominally an ally of the United States, is one of the worst offenders. Hundreds of people are arrested each year in Pakistan on blasphemy-related charges, and the number of accusations has increased recently. The State Department has reported that blasphemy accusations jumped from 171 to 329 between 2022 and 2023. Although few cases result in convictions, those arrested suffer ostracism, mob-related beatings, and extra-judicial killings. Just this month, two accused blasphemers were killed by police officers, in other words, by the very people who are supposed to protect them.

And Pakistan does not stand alone. Matters are worse in Iran. Dissidents who express “enmity against God” are frequently arrested and punished, and Iran occasionally executes people for “insulting the Prophet,” including two individuals in 2023.

But we in the West can congratulate ourselves on the freedom of speech we allow regarding religion, right?

Um, not exactly. Sure, in most Western countries, blasphemy laws are no longer on the books, but although legal constraints may have been removed, social constraints remain. There is still the widespread sentiment that one should not criticize religious beliefs. In fact, in recent years there has been increasing acceptance of the notion that “offending” others by critiquing their religious beliefs is taboo. Depending on your employer, it could cost you your job.

We should reject the notion that speech about religious claims must be circumscribed in ways in which other forms of expression, such as speech about political claims, are not. Think about this: politicians make claims about economic and social facts to persuade us that certain states of affairs exist (e.g., we have “a robust economy” or “the worst economy since the Depression”). We can and do openly criticize these claims if we think them false. Moreover, we routinely ridicule claims that we find especially unsupported. Consider the justifiable lampooning of Donald Trump’s claims regarding pet-eating migrants.

Those who adhere to religious beliefs also make claims about reality and many do so to persuade us of the truth of these claims. Significantly, those who advance these claims do not always confine the implications of these claims to the realm of the supernatural. To the contrary, they use their religious claims as a vehicle to impose their political, legal, and moral views on the rest of us. This is obviously true in many Muslim majority countries, but with the rise of Christian nationalism, it’s also true to some extent here in the United States. So why the hell should we refrain from criticizing religious beliefs when these beliefs are the basis for efforts to shape our societies in ways we find unacceptable?

If the Qur’an is a compilation of self-serving, inconsistent, implausible, and not particularly edifying ramblings of a guy seeking to establish a cult (kind of an early, and much more successful, version of Dianetics), then efforts to mold societies to conform to its “teachings” are, to put it mildly, ill-advised. Similarly, the doctrine of the Trinity is a self-evident absurdity, being utterly incapable of coherent formulation. (I’d compare the Trinity to a three-headed dog, but that’s unfair. One can conceive of a three-headed dog.) Given that this core doctrine of Christianity is literally nonsense, adherence to Christian doctrines cannot provide a justification for any public policy.

So, we should not refrain from criticizing religion out of a misplaced concern of offending others. Dubious political claims do not get a pass, and neither should the very dubious claims of religion.

Happy Blasphemy Rights Day everybody!

Ronald A. Lindsay

Ronald A. Lindsay is the former president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, recent interim general counsel for CFI, and editor of Free Inquiry magazine.