My father had books by Ingersoll.  Takes me back.

Go for it!   Just be sure not to blaspheme a certain religion that I won't mention, some of whose members get violent when insulted.

Freedom of speech, I am all in favour.

I think I may blaspheme by saying that Jesus was not the one and only son of God. And, in for a penny, in for a pound, I'll even add that there is no such person as the one and only son of God anywhere in the Universe. Never has, never will be. It's a church made dogma created from a misinterpreted quote from the Bible.

Here is a link that makes blaspheming so easy!   You can't make this stuff up.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,789175,00.html

(Be sure to note that the Russian Orthodox Church accuses "Mother Fotina" of witchcraft.  If Witch sees that he will be so mad!)

I am God, Jesus was a sinner, the apostles were dopes, and the bible is full of corruption.

No, no, not sure, yes.

Actually, the old Blasphemy Challenge referred to Mark 3:29 - "Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin."

I think that's still the benchmark by which all acts of blasphemy should be measured.  It's spelled out so clearly, which means it is very deep "mythos", and I'm reading it incorrectly, I'm sure.

Still, just as it's important for people to draw Muhammad and demonstrate that they are not bound by Islamic law and will not be intimidated, I think it's important to point out that the whole "Holy Spirit" thing is a complete fabrication and devoid of any reason to believe.  It is important to break Mark 3:29 and show that nothing bad happens, and there is no reason to fear this stupid book.

I have taken joy it the freedom of blaspheming, knowing there's nothing to fear. My belief in the earth as sacred was a blasphemy, my denial that Jesus was the savior was blasphemy, my seeing the divine in man and woman was blasphemy. Goddamit!

Coke does not add life!

You're referring to Christianity of course.

But according to Christianity  Blasphemy as I understand it is not taking Gods name in vein it is attributing the works of the Holy Spirit to satan

Depends on which Christian you're asking.

Basically, blasphemy is saying you serve God when in fact you serve anything but God. This falls under the commandment which warns against taking God's name in vain.
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Technically, only those who speak in God's name can be found out as blasphemers.
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Ergo... Atheists and such may disparage and mock but they do not thereby blaspheme.
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But by all means have fun!

I was thinking along the same lines 

wether they belive in God or not, my opinion is using these cuz words gives one an ugly perception on ones character

Indeed.

We teach our children not to say things that would be overtly blasphemous to other religions, in private or public. In part out of respect for other people's beliefs, in part because we believe we worship the same God they do, just by a different name.

^^ It holds different values, has different qualities, has a different story...but it's the same god!  For reals!

 By that standard, Witch, can't anything be equated to anything else at all?

Well.... no.

My comment expressed a belief, and a belief which applies only to my perception of God, and how I teach my children. To claim that belief would automatically carry over to apples vs oranges really isn't very reasonable, IMHO.

I did say "by that standard".  Obviously you don't actually use that standard in other contexts, which was sort of my point.  If two gods can be equated despite being vastly different in all sorts of ways, then why can't other things be equated despite being vastly different in all sorts of ways?

Basically, what is special about god-beliefs that calls for a different standard?  Generally, when the description of X is mostly different from the description of Y, it's reasonable to think of them as two different things.  Why do gods work differently in that respect?

I don't think God is vastly different. I think the differences we see in the perceptions of God among various religions is a human construct.

As one who agrees, and many others do, I think you are creating a blasphmeme

P.S: Hope you saw the documentary on PBS on Swedenborg ... learned a lot I didn't know from his books...

They have different attributes.  They have different values.  They have different back-stories.  Some even have "me-and-only-me-not-the-other-gods" injunctions in their religious texts.

This all brings up the question of what a "different god" would be, to you.  What would qualify as a "different god"?  Would anything?

Because if not, then the supposed sameness of gods is a statement about your own personality rather than about the god(s) in question.  It reflects purely on you, is about you.

Then why do it? If you do not believe in God, why try to make His last name damnit? Why not use other religious figures as well?

The relevant Priesthoods claim they have different values. Some Priesthoods claim the  "me-and-only-me-not-the-other-gods" injunctions are from God, but really, If I wanted to make sure my job was secure, and the money kept going into the "correct" coffer, I'd be tempted to make up that injunction and claim God said it too. I suspect the whole "my way or Hell's highway" has always had more to do with income and power than "Divine revelation". IN essence though, the exclusivist religions, when taken into account individually, are a minority. Most religions in the word are not monotheistic, or pseudo-monotheistic in the case of Christianity.
 

As far as attributes and stories go... I'm a polytheist. I have no problem at all with the different manifestations of God having different attributes and different mythologies. I believe God shows to people whatever face they are comfortable and able to use to relate to the Divine.
 

Take my Wife as an example. To me, she is Lover and life-companion. My name for her is "Beloved". To our Children, she is "Mother" an entirely different relationship, with entirely different attributes and entirely different storyline. To her clients, she is "Doula", again entirely different relationship and attributes. To otehrs she is "teacher", "Priestess", or "Witch". All fundamentally different relationships, with different purposes and different attributes and faces... yet she is still teh same woman.
 

Such is how I see God.

We don't seem to have a problem as humans realizing that humans may present fundamentally different faces to different people, but somehow we tend to think God is quite limited and powerless to do the same. I'm not sure why that is.

I thought I was pretty clear that these were my beliefs. I certainly don't expect you to follow them. Of course they reflect me. They are my beliefs, and they reflect my relationship with God. Your relationship, assuming you have that belief,  might be different... indeed probably will be different. My beliefs don't conflict with that possibility. Your results may vary.

Perhaps one seeks freedom from the bonds one knows.

Would "Buddhadammit" have the same impact on a soul yearning for freedom, that grew up in North America?

Oops, the video was in the bless you/sneezing topic.

double post

Gee, Blaspheming is complicated...

I brought up such political exclusivism only to add to my point, which stands with or without it.  Though, Islam is pretty exclusivist.  Anything based on the Abrahamic holy texts have a root of exclusivism to them, there to fall back on when one needs to demonize the outsider.  This is a tangent...

So you believe in a single god who wishes to be thought of as different, individual beings.  Do you believe this being is aware of its divisive effects on society, or are they accidental?

If she told a different back-story about herself to different clients, and only one of those back-stories was correct, then the false ones would, in effect, not be about her.  They could be correctly labelled "lies".  A story she tells to her child about herself might similarly be a lie.  It depends, I suppose, on how many different people she wishes to seem to be to how many other people.  If she met someone on the bus, and spun a false story about herself - one that conflicts with her real life and her real attributes - then that person, though they might have met her, would not know her.  They would know a different woman, an imaginary one.

The key is whether the stories compliment, or conflict with, one another.  If my mother tells me about her live with my dad, and tells another about her job as a teacher, then those are indeed two aspects of the same person, as you've described with your wife.  They do not conflict.  If she tells me about her job as a teacher, and some other guy about her job as a lawyer, then the guy has not been told about her.  He's been told about someone else, likely someone imaginary.  Since accounts of Godly attributes diverge more than they converge, it is much more reasonable to put them in the second category.

Because you don't accurately describe the differences between these "faces".  Which brings me to your non-answer to my question...

This is not at all what I was talking about.  Of course they are your beliefs.  What I am saying is that depending on your answer to my question, your beliefs may not be about some God, but rather about yourself.  You chose not to answer that question.  Why?

I will quote my unanswered question back at you, since your post above does not address it:

If you simply define all god-ideas as being a part of the same being no matter what, regardless of what reality may hold, then all you're doing is stating your own standard.  And stating your own standard is making a statement about yourself.  It is in no way making a statement about "God".

I'm afraid it seems as though you want me to answer for my beliefs, based on your criteria Azdgari. I am under no compunction to do so. You also seem to be consistently appealing to the "differences" between the perceptions of the Divine held by different religions, as though those differences were created by the Divine, rather than by the priesthood of those religions. Again, I am under no compunction to answer by your criteria. You are also ignoring the fact that only a minority of religions have an exclusivist bent. Most of the world's religions, both extant and historical, would see no particular problem with my view.
 

It's not a particular "standard" of mine, it's a belief. Nothing more, nothing less. If you choose to disagree with that... fill your boots.
 

If you choose to purport that it says nothing about God and everything about me... again... fill your boots. I respectfully disagree with you. Considering I am more of an expert on what I think and believe than you'll ever be... well you'll forgive me for giving your opinion on my beliefs all the consideration it deserves.

It's been very nice sparring with you though. I hope I didn't disappoint you by not making any claims of truth you could trap me with.

Yeah it was that obvious ;)

For that matter, you are under no obligation to respond at all.  We are not even under any obligation to treat each other civilly.  If you wish to bow out of a discussion, it is 100% your prerogative to do so.

Actually you were the one who did that, not me.  You described the "differences" we see as being "different faces" (so to speak) being deliberately shown to different people by the divine.  Did you not mean what you said?

Which, as I pointed out, is not really germane to my point.  Though at the same time, your belief (as described so far by you) does exclude the beliefs of others from validity, for all are considered to believe in faint shadows of the divine, rather than in the real thing that's common to all.

Standards are just a type of applied belief.

I only wish for you to take personal responsibility for your chosen beliefs.  If they are not dependent on external factors, then they are dependent on internal ones - on your thoughts.  That's just how it works.  It has nothing to do with the other details of your beliefs, which as you point out, you know far better than I do.

That you were working from that assumption explains a great deal about why you gave the responses you did.  You misunderstand my intentions.  I don't want to trap you into an objective truth-claim, such that I can try to refute it.  I want you to take responsibility for your subjective beliefs, since those are necessarily your own creation (regardless of what material you drew from to create them).

My Grandfather would  say "Judas Priest!" --but rarely. My older sister was persistently annoying my grandmother who said, finally. :Damn!" I tell you, time stopped. The planet became quiet,

about 1938...

 I don't swear much,

I figure, swearing is verbally hitting someone with a shovel. My precise rapier wit, my command of language quickly is brought to bear, pedantry to some but a  thin deadly sword   of but few words which brings argument to instant close. Generally followed by the whimpering of whomever .

Sometimes a shovel is better.  

Every belief is subjective, yours and mine included.

I do take responsibility for my beliefs, as evidenced by my taking responsibility for my beliefs, explicitly, in every reply.

What I havn't done is abide by your subjective formulation of cherry-picked criteria for my responsibility.

When I say "subjective beliefs", I mean ones that arise due to personal, subjective preference.  All beliefs are of course subjective in the sense of being held by human minds, but many of those are held because of external forces (i.e. the belief that one owes money for one's utilities arising from having read the bill in the mail) rather than by personal preference.

The ones that are held by personal preference end up being a statement purely about those personal preferences - ergo, about the one holding them.  Framing them in other terms is dishonest.

In your opinion....

In the same way that "lying is dishonest" is also my opinion, sure.

Lying is a conscious act. One cannot lie without realizing it. One can be completely, 100% wrong about something, but if one honestly believes that to be true, it's not a lie.
 

In much the same way, you telling me I'm being dishonest for not acquiescing to your criteria, is spurious at best. Even IF I were 100% wrong, I still would not be lying. I would, in that analogy, be mistaken.
 

So, no, it's not like "lying is dishonest" is also your opinion. The one is a given, in that lying is dishonest by default. The other is only dishonest if I don't actually believe what I purport to believe.
 

Since I am the sole and final arbiter of what I believe and do not believe, you have little or no reasonable basis at all for leveling a charge of dishonesty in my direction. At best you could accuse me of being mistaken, but then that would require substantiation on your part.

I'm not accusing you of lying.  At no point did I accuse you of lying.  Nor do I claim to, or need to, know your beliefs better than you do in order to support my point - which is about how beliefs necessarily must have arisen from personal attributes (deliberately left vague, as these vary greatly) if they did not arise from external, empirical constraints.

People should feel free to blaspheme whatever they want.   You can blaspheme Christianity and I won't complain.

For all religions!