Of all the many wild 'n' wacky notions entertained and promoted by orgainsed religions, few can be as amusingly bonkos as the idea that (human) earthly adherents of a deity have a responsibility to protect their God from "offensive" criticism, satire, or name-calling. God may be infinitely wise, loving, and compassionate but He¹ gets a right hump when the ingrates he created in his image start taking the piss out of him. If I were omnipotent and omniscient I'd like to think I'd be a bit more thick-skinned.²

Luckily for him, many of his earthbound flunkies dedicate their wretched lives (in this vale of tears) to stopping any of this nasty criticism from floating into his ethereal earholes. Sometimes, alas, portions of the slagging do make it across the void separating the earthly and the divine and God goes totally mental. He gives us AIDS. He causes hurricanes. He makes our lives miserable – opening giant cans of whupass until we learn our lessons and re-meek & un-deprave ourselves.

Lesson to be learned? Here's a guy you don't want to offend. He's like a drunken Godzilla with nappy rash and a mouth full of bombs. He's mad, bad and dangerous to upset (and there's no escaping his gaze). He makes Galactus look like a total pussy.

Let's be grateful then that the previously dormant & slumbering prohibition on blasphemy in our constitution is currently being reignited and made "operable" by Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern. As it stands, blasphemy (as an offence) is impossible to define. This lack of definition has rendered it fuzzy and amorphous – extending an open invitation to demented God-haters to "blaspheme" with impunity. You think the recent May downpours are evidence of climate change and global warming? Think again, unbelievers! The showers are actually Our Lord simultaneously weeping wounded tears and slashing enraged jets of holy piss down on our constantly blaspheming heads.

Once the legal fuzziness has been removed (by the giant Fuzz-Buster of state) we'll see the shape and outline of blasphemy clearly once more. Even more impressively, we should soon (DPP willing) be able to fling cough-softening fines around and licence the Guards to boot in doors and seize inflammatory material – hopefully before God has a chance to flick through it and go ballistic.

The benefits of a less tetchy and irritable God are obvious. The weather would improve (we might finally get a summer). "Natural" disasters would all but disappear. Outbreaks of frog & locust plagues would be significantly reduced. Anti-social teens loitering on street corners would be replaced by caroling angels and chortling nekkid cherubs. It would be a fine world. A better world.

Why would anyone, other than creepy avant-gardey weirdo artists, want to scupper such a future?

1. Surely a "He" in this case. [back]
2. I speak throughout of Christian things, as that's what I know (and all I know well). [back]

A NEW crime of blasphemous libel is to be proposed by the Minister for Justice in an amendment to the Defamation Bill.

After heaving your jaw off the floor, restoring your popped-out eyes to their parent sockets, and unscrambling your brain matrix, you proceed (with growing horror and dread) to read more.

Sound familiar? I hope so. "Picturegate" now appears to have been merely a censorious aperitif for the four-course, slap up meal of governmental cuntitude to come. The throbbing in my temples either indicates the early stages of swine flu, or I'm choking on my own rage. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Here's more:

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern proposes to insert a new section into the Defamation Bill, stating: “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000."

“Blasphemous matter" is defined as matter “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage."

So many questions.

a) What's the difference (legally speaking) between regular (common or garden) abuse and gross abuse? Does the latter involve mickies? Or poo?

b) Aren't the people most likely to be outraged by such "matter" of a type that wander about in an almost perpetual state of outrage anyway? In other words, is a small bit more outrage likely to make any appreciable difference in their lives? And, doesn't semi-permanent outrage actually shore up their sense of self-righteousness (in the face of a world of godless scum)? Blasphemy might actually be doing them good.

c) Isn't one of the (important & legitimate) functions of art & satire to poke "matters held sacred" with a barbed stick? Precisely because such matters are sacred?

d) Isn't it a typically Irish "out" that you're invited to try and duck the charge by saying any offence caused was unintentional? "Eh…sorry 'bout that lads. I didn't mean to upset anyone with my Blu-Tak sculpture of the Virgin Mary puking into a urinal. I'd meant to depict her saving some lovely babies from a fire. I'd drink on me when I made it and…eh…it went a bit wrong".

In the UK you can (as far as I know) argue that yes, the offence caused was intentional, but that the existence/creation of the "matter" constitutes a "public good" (it serves some interest of science, art, learning etc). No such option here – where many of our influential dullards can't even begin to imagine what possible benefit "aberrant", subversive, fringe, obscene, or absurd thoughts could have for a society where a middle-of-the-road (“Ah now!") consensus on almost everything is assumed (or yearned for).

The rage (or swine flu) is growing stronger by the minute, but so is my tiredness (I wrote this “last night" if you see what I mean). Off to bed with me. Send Suzy some of your most blasphemous, durtiest poems (the secret ones you hide in that box under the bed). I smell another postcard project in all this.

Related Post: Pissing on Bishops: 21st Century Obscenity & the State of the Nation.