Blasphemy?

Doug writes:

The shocking murder of a teacher in Paris has brought thousands of people onto the streets to support freedom of speech. The brutal killing is another example of terrorism fuelled by religious extremism, like the Manchester Arena bombing which is also in the news. How do we cope with this?

Samuel Paty was killed for doing his job, which was caring for, educating, young children and speaking about freedom and equality. Frankly this hits home to me particularly because two of our sons are teachers, but we know that these atrocities can happen to anyone.

The attacker was only 18 years old, and lived miles away but he read social media outpourings about this situation. Why would he decide that he should act on it? There are those whose beliefs go into areas of judgment and vengeance in a way that most of us would never countenance.

The cartoons which seem to have brought about this and earlier attacks were published by a satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo. Retribution followed. Yet it is one thing to feel hurt at what someone has said or written, it is totally another to kill them. And to retaliate in the name of a compassionate, merciful God should be unthinkable.

I sometimes wonder whether the idea of blasphemy is meaningful. If a person does not believe in (your) god, then how can they be said to be offending the deity? They don’t know what they are talking about. If someone is unkind to you or me, calling us nasty names, it may feel hurtful but as they don’t even know you their judgment is meaningless. But for a believer to be insulting to the god which they really believe in and feel they understand, that might be authentic blasphemy. And for the believer to kill someone who has spoken in a challenging way, to do it in the name of the god they claim to believe in so strongly when all people are children of God, isn’t that the ultimate blasphemy?