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[Silas Vitalia]

What Kala said.

Also, I will not sign the petition, for the reasons explained in the other thread. I think it will be completely counter productive to the goal it seeks to achieve.

Vikarion I've often disagreed with so very many things you've written but that might be your best post ever.

Super double plus good, and I'm with you on that.

Despite much of the unpleasantness that can come with freedom of speech, I absolutely cherish the right to both offend and to be offended by others.  Both are necessary in a free society in my opinion.

As long as it is done with respect and the form, yes. I'm uneasy with the explicit goal being to offend and being offended. The goal should be to point what's your opinion on a sensible matter and why you believe you are right and the other party wrong, not to just curbstomp his feelings and his faith. It solves nothing.

I think that's a common issue with modern western society (especially english/international communities, but not only) that add the emphasis on overly informal relationships, absolutely everywhere, to the point we never know when people are being familiar or not. It has its pros like promoting friendly attitudes, calling everyone by their first names, and that kind of stuff, but it also make people very keen to speak to everyone like they are their buddies, taking huge liberties in how they address even strangers. Especially on the internet, where the culture is mostly anti conformist.

That defamation laws things mostly boils down to what is the intent behind, as Esna pointed out above. And the form, how it was said and done. That's nothing specific to religion eventually.

I'll disagree with you (Politely! Civilly! )

The problem with starting to restrict speech and one group determining what is 'sensible' is that depends entirely on which group is in power and what their tolerance for such things are. 

When we have carte blanche to say as we please no one group gets to control the content or the flavor of the communication. Sometimes that's bad for you, but when a group that doesn't like you or what you want is in power, it's great for you.  The wheel turns. 

Censorship in any form is a tried and true method of controlling thoughts and actions.  Just look at places like Thailand where they have Lèse majesté and you can be thrown in prison for speaking badly about some asshole King?  Awful!

[Lyn Farel]

What Kala said.

Also, I will not sign the petition, for the reasons explained in the other thread. I think it will be completely counter productive to the goal it seeks to achieve.

Vikarion I've often disagreed with so very many things you've written but that might be your best post ever.

Super double plus good, and I'm with you on that.

Despite much of the unpleasantness that can come with freedom of speech, I absolutely cherish the right to both offend and to be offended by others.  Both are necessary in a free society in my opinion.

As long as it is done with respect and the form, yes. I'm uneasy with the explicit goal being to offend and being offended. The goal should be to point what's your opinion on a sensible matter and why you believe you are right and the other party wrong, not to just curbstomp his feelings and his faith. It solves nothing.

I think that's a common issue with modern western society (especially english/international communities, but not only) that add the emphasis on overly informal relationships, absolutely everywhere, to the point we never know when people are being familiar or not. It has its pros like promoting friendly attitudes, calling everyone by their first names, and that kind of stuff, but it also make people very keen to speak to everyone like they are their buddies, taking huge liberties in how they address even strangers. Especially on the internet, where the culture is mostly anti conformist.

That defamation laws things mostly boils down to what is the intent behind, as Esna pointed out above. And the form, how it was said and done. That's nothing specific to religion eventually.

I'll disagree with you (Politely! Civilly! )

The problem with starting to restrict speech and one group determining what is 'sensible' is that depends entirely on which group is in power and what their tolerance for such things are. 

When we have carte blanche to say as we please no one group gets to control the content or the flavor of the communication. Sometimes that's bad for you, but when a group that doesn't like you or what you want is in power, it's great for you.  The wheel turns. 

Censorship in any form is a tried and true method of controlling thoughts and actions.  Just look at places like Thailand where they have Lèse majesté and you can be thrown in prison for speaking badly about some asshole King?  Awful!

I completely agree with that even if I believe that people are too stupid to behave correctly all the time.

No, my point is not aimed at laws to restrict free speech or free opinion, to the contrary (not a coincidence after all that I voted Pirat the last EU elections).

My point was more about formalism and basic notions of respect. I believe that is completely different and that you can perfectly have free speech and be able to say whatever you want as long as you do it politely. Which is not always easy, granted.

I believe if those things were created in the first place, it was not only to give more power to autocrats. They also can be a tool to prevent people to offend each other all the time. Your own answer is a perfect example of why it can work.

Edit : oh sure, it will certainly not fix every problem at all, and it might even be a source of hypocrisy and false smiles, but at least, it's already something else than living in a world of dogs.

[Shiori]

Censorship in any form is a tried and true method of controlling thoughts and actions.  Just look at places like Thailand where they have Lèse majesté and you can be thrown in prison for speaking badly about some asshole King?  Awful!

Yeah! And also such backward hellholes as Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Norway..

[Tiberious Thessalonia]

Canada!

[Silas Vitalia]

Censorship in any form is a tried and true method of controlling thoughts and actions.  Just look at places like Thailand where they have Lèse majesté and you can be thrown in prison for speaking badly about some asshole King?  Awful!

Yeah! And also such backward hellholes as Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Norway..

I have strong issues with hereditary leadership and inherited hereditary power in most forms, so I'd also say 'asshole king' for any Monarch, even if they are these days perfectly normal and kind people. 

This is also a problem in the States don't get me wrong, the children of politicians become politicians and have their own dynasties.  The same asshole comment would apply to any Clinton or Bush or Kennedy family member seeking additional leadership positions through inherited dynastic connections rather then their own suitability.

It's very unfortunate as we lost a lot/killed a hell of a lot of people to be rid of that form of government

[Lyn Farel]

even if they are these days perfectly normal and kind people. 

The spanish princess that is 12y old iirc, earns 8000 € per month. 

[Silas Vitalia]

even if they are these days perfectly normal and kind people. 

The spanish princess that is 12y old iirc, earns 8000 € per month. 

Well look, all that stolen Aztec gold has to go -somewhere-.

Off topic though.

Re: petition not signing it.  When the thought police eventually come for us they'll probably do the first round of detentions based on internet petitions

[Shiori]

The older and more bitter I get, the more I like the idea of having someone involved in government with a planning horizon beyond the next election cycle. Or, as seems to be more and more often the case, the next fiscal year or quarterly earnings report.

[Silas Vitalia]

The older and more bitter I get, the more I like the idea of having someone involved in government with a planning horizon beyond the next election cycle. Or, as seems to be more and more often the case, the next fiscal year or quarterly earnings report.

We should probably admit that is one of the nicer things about quasi-totalitarian states.   The Chinese at least don't have to worry about elections and can effectively plan long-reaching public works and economics goals.  Of course in such closed systems corruption and nepotism usually derails the project in the end, but it still has to be nice to be like "ok this is what we are doing for the next ten years, thankfully no voters to kick us out!"

[orange]

There are people in government who develop planning horizons beyond the next election cycle.  They are bureaucrats.  They are not elected and (cynical) work to ensure their job is safe regardless of the results of the next election cycle or (optimistic) work to keep critical programs alive despite the machinations of near-sighted politicians.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

The problem with starting to restrict speech and one group determining what is 'sensible' is that depends entirely on which group is in power and what their tolerance for such things are. 

When we have carte blanche to say as we please no one group gets to control the content or the flavor of the communication. Sometimes that's bad for you, but when a group that doesn't like you or what you want is in power, it's great for you.  The wheel turns.

Ofc, when we have the carte blance to say as we please, including abusive use of language, then the group that is loudest and has the majority of voices will control the content and flavor of the communication. Power structures always emerge in communication between people and if you don't regulate them by reason, they will be established by bullying if nothing else.

So, no, it's not great for 'you' if there are no reasonable rules to curb verbal bullying and such and you're in the group that's not in 'power'.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Nicoletta, let's take a specific example.

Do you think the below statement slanders and defames modern polytheistic Hellenismos?

They are a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past.

I think it does and that it was the Father's intent to defame/slander Hellenismos.  I think Father Kollas should at least be tried for violating Articles 198 and 199 of the Greek Penal Code (Greek Blasphemy Laws).  (Note: Greece does not treat all religions equal in the eyes of the law.)

Or should Father Kollas be permitted to speak his mind (and presumably speak for the community of Greek Orthodox priests) with regards to neopolytheism?

While this seems to include offenses against Article 199 and (less so imho) 198, the statement seems more directed against the practitioners of Hellenismos - making the case imho even more clear cut - and thus the main thing would be putting him on trial according to Article 361.

But, yah. He should be permitted to speak his mind about reconstructionist polytheism, but not through resorting to verbal abuse of it's practioners or the world view itself.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Now, does it fulfil the requirements to the P's for it to be defamation/slander?

I dunno, do you think it does?
It fits the formula you gave, but I think it would be incredibly difficult to establish if that was defamation/slander, personally.

I qualified that P needs to be such that it is injurious to the reputation of said concept of God.

OK, I think I see.  I was getting stuck on the proving falsehood point on defamation/slander - as with a God you can't see, proof is going to be hard to come across either way.  But by saying "the Christian concept of God is" rather than "God is" there's also the implication of "Christians worship this God" which is demonstrably provable.

(You could say God is an elephant and it can't be disproved, but if you said Christians worship an elephant that could be disproved).

Exactly. If you were on the other hand referring to Hindus, you might be kind'a right. Ganesha can be understood to be an elephant - at least in part, after all.

If you don't seek to educate yourself what the Christian perpective is, but insist that your interpretation of the bible shows clearly that God is P, therfore the Christian God must be P, as there can't be another interpretation of the bible... well...

Ok, but lots of people are wilfully ignorant - not just about religion! And there's people all over the internet insisting there can't possibly be any other interpretation than theirs  (and that is the main reason that people are WRONG on the internet). But does that make it slander or defamation?

(I realize that sounds a lot like I'm saying 'ignorance is an excuse' which isn't what I'm trying to get at - I'm trying to get at how you'd establish it was specifically slander/defamation rather than ignorance).

"The Christian idea of God is misogynistic and patriarchal." and Christian X said: "That's not true, that's slander!" And you respond with: "Well, what I meant is, I think 'The Christian idea of God is misogynistic and patriarchal.', for reasons a, b, c." than it is clear that you didn't intend to defame the Christian concept of God.

Sure, and having reasons and an argument is going to counter the 'unfounded' part of slander/defamation.  That makes sense to me.

On the other hand, if you say: "No, that's the truth and you're dumb for not seeing that!" It's quite clear that your intentions are not benign at all.

Is it?  A lot of people genuinely believe they are right and others are dumb for not agreeing with them - and can't seem to back up their views or feel the need to. I get how not having an argument covers unfounded, but not bad intentions in necessarily meaning they're deliberately misrepresenting someone's beliefs to damage their reputation.

I think there are mainly three criteria which have to be fulfilled to speak of defamation (which are the same for defamation of world views as for persons, thus I copy/pasta'd the following together from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation and http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/defamation-law-made-simple-29718.html):

• published
• false
• injurious

"Published" means that a third party heard or saw the statement -- that is, someone other than the person who made the statement or the person the statement was about. "Published" doesn't necessarily mean that the statement was printed in a book -- it just needs to have been made public through television, radio, speeches, gossip, or even loud conversation. Of course, it could also have been written in magazines, books, newspapers, leaflets, or on picket signs.

"False" means simply that the statement needs to be false and is kind of a prerequisite for the statement to be considered injurious, in so far as it means that it neeeds to be the statement that is injurious and not the fact it describes. Even terribly mean or disparaging things are not defamatory if the shoe fits. Most opinions don't count as defamation because they can't be proved to be objectively false. For instance, when a reviewer says, "That was the worst book I've read all year," she's not defaming the author, because the statement can't be proven to be false.

The statement must be "injurious." Since the whole point of defamation law is to take care of injuries to reputation, those suing for defamation must show how their reputations were hurt by the false statement -- for example, the person lost work; was shunned by neighbors, friends, or family members; or was harassed by the press.

Now, how about the cases we spoke about, where someone unkowingly makes a wrong statement? Or where a third party is there, that doesn't care for what is said in the defamatory statement or believes what is said in it anyway?

Statements made in good faith and reasonable belief that they were true, that is without "actual malice", are generally treated the same as true statements; however, this depends on:

• the reasonableness of the belief. The degree of care expected will vary with the nature of the defendant: an ordinary person might safely rely on a single newspaper report, while the newspaper would be expected to carefully check multiple sources. He should not have reason to doubt the truth of the statement given the statement itself.
• the statement was made in good faith. That is, the person who made the statement did not know it wasn't true and didn't neglect his obligation to be reasonably sure about the truth of the statement. Good faith and reasonable belief can't be claimed by someone who didn't care whether what he said was true or not and was reckless with the truth - for example, when someone has doubts about the truth of a statement but does not bother to check further before publishing it.

Also innocent dissemination is a defense available when a defendant had no actual knowledge of the defamatory statement or no reason to believe the statement was defamatory. The defense can be defeated if the lack of knowledge was due to negligence. Thus, a delivery service cannot be held liable for delivering a sealed defamatory letter.

And lastly, of course defamation depends on the possibility of injury: If there is third-party communication, but the third-party hearing the defamatory statement does not believe the statement, or does not care, then there is no injury, and therefore, no recourse.

I don't think it suffices that the offendant didn't intend injury: If someone thinks that "The Christian God is P" and issues that statement publicly*, thus injuring the reputation of that concept and thus indirectly all Christians in their right to freedom of belief, he can't clam that he didn't know that there would be an injury or that his intent was only to wake the Christians from what he holds to be delusions.

If his belief "The Christian God is P" is injurious and false and there would have been reason to doubt his belief but he didn't or he neglected his responsibility to inform himself about whether his belief was true or not, should be held accountable for defamation regardless of whether he held his belief to be true or not.

The same is true for the case of Father Eustathios Kollas. His intentions might be bening (he might really think what he's saying is true and he might want to safe if not the practitioners of Hellenismos then at least others from falling to what he deems to be a terrible mistake), but he is arguably still defaming those people that practice Hellenismos and the world view in itself.

It's a general problem with laws though that they are general rules, that need to be fitted on individual cases. That's what the judges and courts are there for, no?

Absolutely. 
Though this perhaps seems more nebulous and subjective than most laws to me though, tbh. Stuff people say, unless obviously abusive, seems by definition open to interpretation. vov

I think that is quite the optimistic outlook on laws.

* P.S.: And issues it as stating a fact rather than his belief

[Nicoletta Mithra]

And most blasphemy pretty easily falls under the "it's true" umbrella. For example, I can say that the God of the Bible seems to be a pretty murderous asshole with a penchant for racism, sexism, and sadism. Is this blasphemy? Yes. Is it true? Well, according to the Bible, God flooded the earth and decreed death for several hundred offenses, including violating the Sabbath by picking up sticks on it (Exodus/Numbers). He also had one chosen people, and referred to every other ethnic group on the face of the earth as "dogs" (Gospel of Matthew, I believe). He had an immense number of laws directed at controlling and even oppressing women, all the way through the New Testament, from the death penalty for being raped in a city and not being heard to scream, to having to marry your rapist (if you weren't betrothed), to not being allowed to speak in church. Oh, and he will torture you after death if you don't love Him with all your heart and seek forgiveness for even thinking about something wrong (again, Gospel of Matthew).

That's blasphemy, but it's all true. If that is an attack on those who cling to the Bible as a textbook for belief, well then - and I say this as someone who once did also so believe - good. If your beliefs can be truthfully explained with the effect of making you feel offended, devalued, and violated, the problem with is not the person criticizing you - it's you.

That's not true. First, you can't demonstrate that the storiesn of the bible actually show thatb historically God is responsible for all that. Second, you can't demonstrate that if you take the bible as a work of fiction, that your accusations truthfully reflect the god of the story, as it isn't telling the story out of his perspective or the perspective of an all-knowing third person. And then all that depends on the interpretation of the story as well. With your interpretation taking those stories out of the historical context and their 'Sitz im Leben' of those who told those stories, edited and wrote them down and the reasons why they did so.

Many of the stories of the Old Testament were meant to be read in a specific exegetical tradition. Many of them were never meant to be read by the general public. Reading the old testament outside of this intended frame will of course give you some interpretation, but not the intended one.

So, what you give here is only one of many possible interpretations. But interpretations are not simply 'true'. They are 'true' given the framework you produce them with. They are in so far opinions given, some more educated, some less so. Given the standards of scientific historical criticism your very literalist interpretation is quite simplistic and not very valuable.

Given that you profess to be so interested in scientific truth, you should maybe familiarize yourself with the application of archaeology, literary criticism, history, philology, and social sciences in modern academic biblical studies and the interpretations that flow from that, rather than making sweeping general statements of truth.

That said, as you only give an interpretation of the bible here, your turth claim is quite limited, as it's in principle an opinion. Expression of mere opinions isn't prohibited by modern blasphemy laws, though.

Without people blaspheming God, I never would have woken up to the falsehood of my own fundamentally held beliefs - and yes, they brought me a lot of security and peace. But I was not better off believing a lie. It really is better to have one's own beliefs criticized, examined, and scoured, by rigorous examination, by insult, by satire, by contempt. Sure, it hurts. So does surgery and dentistry.

I'm not quite sure how insult and contempt do examine or in any constructive way criticize beliefs. Anyhow, in modern blasphemy laws you can issue insulting and contemptuous statements, if they are stating opinions. It's in your responsibility to make that clear.

I don't see blasphemy laws as protecting my dignity. I see them as a condescension, as a statement that I must be protected from painful criticism, and as a threat, as an attempt to control what I am allowed to hear. I'd rather live in a society with a minimum of that, thanks, and I don't think that it's a human right to impose that sort of control on either my tongue or my ears.

But no modern blasphemy law takes the right from you to expose yourself to blasphemy. You're quite free to do so, especially in private. Actually, if someone tells you so between you and him, it's not subject to those laws - regardless of whether you want to hear it or not - as they only legislate against public blasphemy. Even if you're a third party, if you consent to hearing it, the party issuing the blasphemic statement can't be held accountable by law, unless there were other parties involved that did not.

I think there's a misunderstanding at work here in regard to what modern blasphemy laws legislate against.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Lots of good responses here so far. However, I'd still love to know what many of you think signing the petition itself, yes or no, and if you think it might achieve anything of note. Orange don't seem to think so, but I remain carefully optimistic that it might.

Well, given what I wrote, it should be clear that I'm on the 'No' side here.
Not only am I in favour of reasonable 'blasphemy laws', but also I think that the additions are superfluous as they may change the text in words, but not in spirit.