I don't know enough about Stephen Fry's latest PR gimmick to have an opinion on it and I don't much care. The guy is an idiot and a bigot.
Update: Yeah, I read that story. That interview that Carl Stern did with Rabbi Heschel had the right answer, that God even in Genesis, as people were such a disappointment, God didn't prevent them from acting freely. Blaming God for what people do is stupid. I mean, God's not to blame for your stupidity, that's your choice.
Update 2: The version of the story I read said the Rabbi acted as judge, not the plaintiff. Maybe you didn't read that, just as you never read anything you can skim.
Update 3: If you're going to put words in my mouth would you at least get them from someone who isn't as stupid as you?
Update 4: I loathed Jeff Sessions before you ever heard of him, jackass.
And yet this Rabbi put God on trial. And won.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.democraticunderground.com/121869340
I'm sure that Rabbi who sued God was just a publicity hound.
ReplyDeleteSo you believe he WAS just a publicity seeker. Got it.
ReplyDeleteWhat Fry said has been said before, and by theologians ultimately quashed by the Roman Church (the only church in town at the time) and so labeled "heresy" and "blasphemy," and to all of which I'd say: "So what?"
ReplyDeleteFry isn't even interesting enough to come up with his own material. And Ireland has a blasphemy law, who knew? Passed in 2009, apparently. Okay, so there's a criminal investigation, or even there may be one. Again, so what?
OK, you saying that was enough to make me look it up. "So what?" is the most cogent response to it. It's a typical Stephen Fry PR move. I would challenge him to commit a heresy that would get him in trouble in Brit land, like dissing Darwin.
DeleteI haven't seen him for a number of years, he'd be perfect to play Colonel Blimp, these days.
I'm pretty amused to find out that Ireland has a heresy law. I'll bet it doesn't make it past an appeal, if even that far. I suspect it will get as much of a reaction as P.Z.'s phony desecration stunt.
I'll be pedantic enough to point out Ireland doesn't have a 1st Amendment, either. Nor a 5th, which means Fry could be required to testify at trial. The burden of proof is different under such a system; a slight one, but an important one.
DeleteThere's also no tradition of separation of church and state, so the heresy charge could be important, and not as 'medieval' as it sounds to American ears. There's also the question of the elements of the crime. Rather like the recent case of the woman who laughed at Sessions, but the jurors made it clear they convicted her for the noise she made when the officer came over to silence her, and they only did that because the charge they were given by the judge gave them no room to acquit; or at least, that's how they saw it.
So much depends on what happens at trial, and so much of that depends on things non-lawyers don't even know to pay attention to. Of course, that's assuming Fry is even charged. But I am curious what the punishment for "heresy" is.
In Fry's case I'd make it ten days of being ignored.
DeleteYou do realize that an American woman is about to go to jail for laughing at Jeff Sessions, right?
ReplyDeleteAh, well, found a new article on it, with a bit more information:
ReplyDelete“I told the Garda I wanted to report Fry for uttering blasphemy and RTE for publishing/broadcasting it and that I believed these were criminal offenses under the Defamation Act 2009,” the person told the news site. “I simply believed that the comments made by Fry on RTE were criminal blasphemy and that I was doing my civic duty by reporting a crime.”
Local authorities told the Independent that they are investigating the complaint but that charges are unlikely."
Of course, quite a few countries have blasphemy laws, including many European ones: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/29/which-countries-still-outlaw-apostasy-and-blasphemy/
So it goes.
So, as usual as his tooth grows longer the Simels grows wronger.
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