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 Dropbear Victim wrote:
At the rate we're going, Christianity and Atheists will go the way of the Pagans.

Ahah no.

 CptJake wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The USA had blasphemy laws as recently as 2010.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_law_in_the_United_States

Not at the Federal level, which the law in the article is the equivalent of for the Danish.

Indeed. We only have federal laws in Denmark since we don't have semi-autonomous states like the US.

So I guess we just call them laws here - kinda like a Mexican Standoff happening in Mexico.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dropbear Victim wrote:
The amount of appeasement Islam gets is pathetic. At the rate we're going, Christianity and Atheists will go the way of the Pagans.

I too enjoy a good slippery slope fallacy.

I prefer the Slip & Slide fallacy.

Any examples around of similar anti-whatever other religion one could think of actions going unprosecuted in Denmark?

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Blasphemy is a crime without a victim (unless you consider God to be the victim, but I am pretty sure He doesn't need us to defend Him).

Aye, good point there. I'd even call blasphemy laws blasphemous - lowly mortal law implying that a divine being is somehow too weak to retaliate if necessary? That's frankly insulting, or so I'd see it if I was a divine being...

But we have had those laws on the books even up here in the Nordic countries. The Finnish one based on Swedish law of 1734 originally stipulated the death penalty, but after 1823 such wasn't carried out even if it was on the books until 1899. These days it's not a blasphemy law anymore but "disturbing religious peace" can still get you fines or up to six months in jail. One of the things you can get in trouble for is still public blasphemy, the rest things like disturbing a religious event or burial service. Of note is that the blasphemy clause usually hasn't been used alone but as part of other lawsuits - libel, slander, hate crime, copyright violation(?)...

 Dropbear Victim wrote:
The amount of appeasement Islam gets is pathetic. At the rate we're going, Christianity and Atheists will go the way of the Pagans.

If only they could find a safe space.....

Relapse wrote:
Any examples around of similar anti-whatever other religion one could think of actions going unprosecuted in Denmark?

From the article in the OP:

Only four blasphemy prosecutions have ever been attempted in the country.

The last was in 1971, when two Denmark Radio producers were acquitted after airing a song mocking Christianity.
Two people were previously fined in 1946 after acting out a “baptism” at a ball in Copenhagen, while four others were sentenced for putting up anti-Semitic posters and leaflets in 1938.

At least a dozen other cases have been considered but not charged, including in 2006 when prosecutors decided to stop an investigation into the Jyllands-Posten newspaper over a controversial set of caricatures under the headline “The Face of Mohamed”.

Again, this total fething asshat has only been charged and the prosecution is only seeking a fine. If convicted, he will likely turn the fine into a moneymaker via kickstarter.

Relapse wrote:
Any examples around of similar anti-whatever other religion one could think of actions going unprosecuted in Denmark?

I can't mention any specific incidents out of hand beyond those mentioned in the article. We (used to) have a pretty relaxed attitude towards religion i Denmark.
We have regularly made fun of Christian priests, falling numbers in churches, Jesus, Hare Krishna monks, the Queen, the police, the weather....pretty much anything.
Muslims?.....not so much. A number of them (but certainly not all of them) seems to have yet to adopt our self-deprecating sense of humour.

None of which has lead to anybody talking about blasphemy laws.
Those things hasn't had the nature of being anti-religious though, but rather just making fun off religion.

We are quite a few atheists (a bit over 60% last time I checked), religion doesn't play a part in politics and our politicians aren't asked about their religious views.
We have a religious political party, but they haven't gotten enough votes to get into parliament on a regular basis and not since 2005.
We had a politician express some Christian creationist concepts.....and he was mercilessly mocked by everybody.
We have a state religion (Evangelical Lutheran), but it is much more of a cultural thing than a strictly religious one. Lots of people in church at Christmas....empty on Sundays.
We do not have prayer in school. We are taught about Christianity in school (in Religion classes), but from a critical point of view with textual analysis and discussion (with preaching or proselytising being expressly forbidden). Later on we are taught about other religions.

I know you didn't ask for a lot of that information, but I thought I would set the scene a bit.


...

I guess the important thing is, how will this impact my cream cheese Danish?

Hopefully this will involve some sort of ritualized execution for upsetting a cosmic entity; preferably in ornate, menacing costumes. Otherwise they need to seriously rethink their blasphemy legislation. Being soft on blasphemers is a great way to get a plague/smited/etc. Can we assume that the State Cult is on it or are they leaving it up to the masses to provide suitable flensing?

It's absolutely disgusting that the blasphemy law is still on the stature books. Way to stand up for free speech Denmark.

Then things escalated when they put the offender in a cart and rode him to a stake in the town square!

 Breotan wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The USA had blasphemy laws as recently as 2010.

It doesn't matter. Those laws were effectively declared unconstitutional in 1952 when the NY State law was thrown out. I expect there are many unconstitutional laws on the books that need to be boomed by various State Legislatures.

Its mostly because removing a law requires most of the State Congress to overwhemingly vote. While Deciding not to enforce a law is way easier.

 Easy E wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dropbear Victim wrote:
The amount of appeasement Islam gets is pathetic. At the rate we're going, Christianity and Atheists will go the way of the Pagans.

I too enjoy a good slippery slope fallacy.

I prefer the Slip & Slide fallacy.

i resemble that remark

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It's letting fear of terrorism guide our justice system instead of the rule of law.

This is so true. There's a saying I've heard that I may be slightly misquoting but it goes something like this: "No nation ever won a war by making itself less offensive to its enemies."

As to the original topic, it's really sad how anti-Islam stuff gets cracked down on hard, but anti-Christian stuff is ignored. It should go both ways; either both should be tolerated, or neither should. It's just like what I've heard about schools here in the US. Prayer (in the Christian sense) has been banned in schools for years, as has biblical teaching other than in a "history of religion" context, yet in some schools they have to give Muslim students time out of class to go make their prayers to Allah. That, right there, is discrimination. If they want to ban religion from schools, it should apply to all religions equally, not allow certain religions to get privileges while others don't.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
Prayer (in the Christian sense) has been banned in schools for years, as has biblical teaching other than in a "history of religion" context, yet in some schools they have to give Muslim students time out of class to go make their prayers to Allah.

It isn't discrimination at all, because prayer is not banned*. What is banned is school-endorsed prayer. The school can not have a teacher lead students in prayer, advocate prayer, state that a particular religion is correct, etc. And they aren't doing it in this case. They are simply allowing students to go off and pray on their own, much like Christian students are allowed to organize religious groups and pray together. The reason they are given time out of class is that Islam, unlike Christianity, requires prayers at specific times of day. If Christianity (or any other religion) had a similar time-specific requirement then those students would be legally justified in asking for similar accommodations.

*After all, imagine how many prayers are said before exams...

 ZergSmasher wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
It's letting fear of terrorism guide our justice system instead of the rule of law.

This is so true. There's a saying I've heard that I may be slightly misquoting but it goes something like this: "No nation ever won a war by making itself less offensive to its enemies."

As to the original topic, it's really sad how anti-Islam stuff gets cracked down on hard, but anti-Christian stuff is ignored. It should go both ways; either both should be tolerated, or neither should. It's just like what I've heard about schools here in the US. Prayer (in the Christian sense) has been banned in schools for years, as has biblical teaching other than in a "history of religion" context, yet in some schools they have to give Muslim students time out of class to go make their prayers to Allah. That, right there, is discrimination. If they want to ban religion from schools, it should apply to all religions equally, not allow certain religions to get privileges while others don't.

No it isn't. There is a clear operational and legal difference between the school authorities sponsoring or enforcing public Christian prayer ceremonies, or OTOH students who might happen to be muslim being allowed to follow their private religious prayer times.

 Peregrine wrote:
The reason they are given time out of class is that Islam, unlike Christianity, requires prayers at specific times of day. If Christianity (or any other religion) had a similar time-specific requirement then those students would be legally justified in asking for similar accommodations.

That's bs. The state should never, ever acknowledge religious laws. Religious laws are made up laws (well, like all laws) that can be made up by anybody. State laws work because only the legislative branch of the government can make them up, and there are clear rules for doing so. So unless one creates a bunch (how many?) of alternate judiciary government that have the legitimacy to pass up religious laws, acknowledging religious laws in actual state laws is just opening the door to either discrimination against certain religions, or giving literally everyone the right to write his own set of rules.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
The reason they are given time out of class is that Islam, unlike Christianity, requires prayers at specific times of day. If Christianity (or any other religion) had a similar time-specific requirement then those students would be legally justified in asking for similar accommodations.

That's bs. The state should never, ever acknowledge religious laws. Religious laws are made up laws (well, like all laws) that can be made up by anybody. State laws work because only the legislative branch of the government can make them up, and there are clear rules for doing so. So unless one creates a bunch (how many?) of alternate judiciary government that have the legitimacy to pass up religious laws, acknowledging religious laws in actual state laws is just opening the door to either discrimination against certain religions, or giving literally everyone the right to write his own set of rules.

You're missing the point, I think. The school is accommodating the kids specific needs, just like school cafeterias provide kosher meals.

I received special accommodation during high school as I was taking a carpentry course. They bused us to site 3 days a week and allowed us to work our other courses around this.

No he disagrees with your point. He's arguing the state should never provide a religious accommodation.

 Frazzled wrote:
No he disagrees with your point. He's arguing the state should never provide a religious accommodation.

Never one that would not be provided if it was not for religious reasons anyway.

W hat about my personal example? Or how about the school football team getting special accommodation for away games?

 feeder wrote:
W hat about my personal example? Or how about the school football team getting special accommodation for away games?

Carpentry course, still academics or job certification, not religion based. Football team accommodations (not sure what you mean here) but regardless, a school sanctioned athletic event, yes? So again, not religion based.

However, prayer, regardless of the religion, is a personal religious matter and should never be endorsed in any way, shape or form by the school. And that would include allowing a student a special time out of class to pray. The act of permitting someone to miss class to pray is an endorsement of that religion, unless they also give that same time to all students for prayer, meditation or whatever so as to not endorse one religion over any other religion or non-religion even.

I completely disagree. I think it is entirely right that schools and companies should make reasonable accommodation of people's religious beliefs. It will be impossible for people of religion to integrate into wider society if society rejects their relatively trivial needs for prayer time, kosher/vegan meals, etc.

One problem of course is that public school, at least in the US, is a requirement. Absent accommodation you are violating several amendments of the Constitution, both pre and post ACW.

If you don't accommodate, the courts will accommodate for you.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I completely disagree. I think it is entirely right that schools and companies should make reasonable accommodation of people's religious beliefs. It will be impossible for people of religion to integrate into wider society if society rejects their relatively trivial needs for prayer time, kosher/vegan meals, etc.

The dietary requirements I support. The rest of it, no, as (in the US) a public school is not allowed to endorse or support any religion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:
One problem of course is that public school, at least in the US, is a requirement. Absent accommodation you are violating several amendments of the Constitution, both pre and post ACW.

If you don't accommodate, the courts will accommodate for you.

Public school is not a requirement. Otherwise thousands of children being home schooled or attending private schools (to include religious private schools where all these prayer issues become a non-issue) are in some deep doo-doo...

To not be enrolled there has to be an exemption, else the CPS come callin.

Yeah, I agree, Companies and School should not be giving extra breaks just because someones religion says so,
Wear symbols, Sure, Wear Tradition clothe, FINE,
giving them extra breaks where those with no religion get their GOVT mandated 1-2 aint fair.

I'm inclined to agree, because people start taking the piss.

Just as the state should aim for secularism, so should the state schools.

And again, nobody in a supposedly free society should be punished for insulting a religion. Religions are (man made) ideas, and like all ideas they should be completely open to scrutiny and ridicule. Anyone should be free to burn any book they like...so long as they have the owners permission of course.

 feeder wrote:
W hat about my personal example? Or how about the school football team getting special accommodation for away games?

Well, completely disagree with Kosher food because this directly funding religion, only a rabbi can make food kosher. Stuff like always having meals without pork is okay, and frankly, I think there should always be a vegetarian meal every day.
(Of course all of this is only if its a subsidized cafeteria…)
Carpentry courses? Well, education is directly part of the school's objective, it seems quite natural to organize some courses around other courses.
For the football team, it definitely depends on whether this is a very exceptional thing or a regular one…
If it's one big match, well, the student is going to miss class anyway, it's not like that doesn't happen. But if it's a regular “I don't go to this course because it's training time”, then hell no.