Similarly, if you are agnostic or atheist, you simply lead your life the way you please. NO problem there.
However we are NOT dealing with just any atheists but atheists who speak against God. Naturally it goes against overwhelming majority population of the globe and they react to it. If atheists are happy with their "Life choices", I have nothing against them.
HOWEVER if they rant against God and be disrespectful to religion and religious people, they should be ready to discuss it.
There is a problem though. When Pratibha Basu is heavily critical of Yudhisthira, a holy and highly revered character from the Mahabharata, would you sue her
>>>>>>>>>>> Sorry I am not familiar with works of "Pratibha Basu, so I cannot give you an educated answer.
However generally speaking. One can surely ask question. I can ask a Hindu, why he/she pray to a snake? You can ask me, why do I pray to an unseen God (Since I have not seen Him)? I mean these are very good thought provoking questions.
You can ask a Muslim why men are allowed to marry more than one woman?
However distorting character of religious figures or even political figures is criminal (As per our existing laws). For example, few weeks ago someone made a disrespectful comment about late president Zillur Rahman. So I protested. Since I know about this man enough to speak on his behalf (His family is socially known to my parents for many decades).
There were many comments/distortions about Islam and Islamic history in this forum. I tried my best (Spent many hours) to clarify Islamic point of view with authentic data and links to sources of those information.
Therefore, I am very comfortable talking about ideas and debate about. I do NOT approve personal attacks or hate speech against any religion.
My point is that we not only don't need a blasphemy law, we also must not punish them under any other prevailing laws
>>>>>>>>>> Unfortunately blasphemy laws are misused by politicians to punish political opponents. That is NOT the intention of such laws.
If you analyze history of Islam, you will discover that, people verbally, physically, socially abused and persecuted our last prophet Muhammad (PBUH) when he stayed in Mecca. He never replied to such abuse. Because it was personal.
Once he became a head of state, any such acts became an action against a state as well. As Muslims it became our duty to protect our head of state. Once there was a lady port who wrote poetry about killing our prophet (PBUH). So she was punished.
It is NO different than how any modern country would protect their head of state. When Obama was a lawyer in Chicago inner city, you could have an heated argument with him and make fun of him. But today he is a head of state and if you make any threat against him, you will (At least) end up in jail for it.
For all practical purpose today blasphemy laws are not needed to "Protect" any religion BUT to keep our country stable. When one person make idiotic comments about any religious figures, it can create instability, violence in response. So such laws keep one country stable.
Having said that, like any law it can be misused by autocratic dictatorial leadership. If that happens, you should blame those anti-democratic dictatorial leaders not the law itself.
Shalom!
From: Sukhamaya Bain <subain1@yahoo.com>
To: mukto-mona <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr 12, 2013 7:11 am
Subject: Re: Save Bangladesh and its women from the upcoming crisis (Re: [mukto-mona] Fw: [notun_bangladesh] হেফাজতের হুমকির পর ॥ নারী কি বন্দী হবে?)
To: "mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com" <mukto-mona@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 5:21 PM
Subject: Re: Save Bangladesh and its women from the upcoming crisis (Re: [mukto-mona] Fw: [notun_bangladesh] হেফাজতের হুমকির পর ॥ নারী কি বন্দী হবে?)
That should be the real spirit of a free thinker. I completely agree with you that nasty comments against any thing or anybody is distasteful and should be avoided in a serious discussion. We expect civility from everybody.
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Saturday, April 13, 2013
Re: Save Bangladesh and its women from the upcoming crisis (Re: [mukto-mona] Fw: [notun_bangladesh] হেফাজতের হুমকির পর ॥ নারী কি বন্দী হবে?)
"Slander and libel do not apply to divine figures." Precisely, assuming there is such a thing as 'divine figures'.
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Actually if you (Or anyone) does not have faith in any "Divine figures", there is no reason to talk about it. For example, there are a lot of debates in America about rights of gay people. If someone does not care about gays (positively or negatively) they do not talk about it. If people are AGAINST it, they protest it. If someone supports it, they speak out supporting gays.
-----Original Message-----
"Slander and libel do not apply to divine figures." Precisely, assuming there is such a thing as 'divine figures'.
From: Subimal Chakrabarty <subimal@yahoo.com>
Mr. Rahman
I appreciate your outlook. If I am not wrong, you support critiquing a religion (ref. your first sentence).
There is a problem though. When Pratibha Basu is heavily critical of Yudhisthira, a holy and highly revered character from the Mahabharata, would you sue her? I remember Sunil Ganguly was sued for a comment on the idol of goddess Saraswati. The court did not accept the case. I don't think Sunil's comment made the Hindus less religious although his comment obviously hurt the feelings of the religious Hindus. Such comments are also thought provoking for those who tend to be open minded. The same argument applies to Pratibha Basu's criticism of Dharmaputra Yudhisthira. These sorts of counter currents should be allowed for the progress of the society.
My point is that we not only don't need a blasphemy law, we also must not punish them under any other prevailing laws. This also means that I do not completely agree to what Hasina has said on this issue.
You can defame a person and thereby cause personal loss including financial loss to him in different ways. But you cannot do it to divine things or divine authorities although it can hurt the feelings of the believers. You do not need any law to protect the omnipotent divine power which is supposed to know how to protect itself. Believers should simply ignore or counterargue. Slander and libel do not apply to divine figures.
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