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What actually constitutes blasphemy?

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mrshat Sun 20-Jan-13 16:40:43

I think Lilygran explained it beautifully and I'm RC. Not sure what Papal infallibility has to do with it tho'. The teaching is, the Pope's infallibility only refers to matter of 'faith and morals' - is that any help? confused

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Lilygran Sun 20-Jan-13 16:01:23

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1942668/Blasphemy-laws-are-lifted.html

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Lilygran Sun 20-Jan-13 15:45:12

Scrawling obscenities on a religious item or building or using them for unintended and/or unsavoury purposes would be sacrilege. In Christianity, taking the name of The Lord (your) God in vain would be blasphemy. So would representations of eg Christ or the Virgin in obscene situations or poses. And I think most faiths would consider the same applied to equivalences. I'm not RC so I'll leave the detail of Papal infallibility to them as knows. But I believe it is very circumscribed and certainly doesn't apply to everything every Pope says. The Russians were very cross about Pussy Riot performing a rude turn in a church, weren't they?

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j07 Sun 20-Jan-13 15:21:08

Why have I wasted so much Gransnet space there? confused #howdidthathappen

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j07 Sun 20-Jan-13 15:19:36

I suppose sacrilege is different. That implies things like weeing on a memorial stone etc. Blasphemy is more written or spoken. The altar thing would be sacrilege.

Personally, when I use the phrase "Oh God!" something in the back of my mind tells me I am referring to Thor, just to be on the safe side.

Spitting out the wafer thing is sacrilege. Whiuch church wouldn't make any difference.

I sup[pose the Pope would have his reasons. I dunno. [shrug]




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absent Sun 20-Jan-13 15:15:24

have not gave a blasphemy law. Sorry.

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absent Sun 20-Jan-13 15:14:40

Talking within a Christian context, is blasphemy the same as sacrilege? Does it apply only to God (tripartite or otherwise) or would it be blasphemous, say, to scrawl obscenities but without any reference to God over an altar? Does it apply to other biblical figures such as the Virgin Mary or Saint Paul. Presumably it would be blasphemous to spit out the communion wafer and stamp on it in a Catholic church, but would it be so in an Anglican church? Do we still gave a blasphemy law in their country? Why isn't it blasphemous for the pope to downgrade a saint? Surely he can't claim infallibility when he is undoing something done by a previous (infallible) pope?

I have never really thought about this before and have no idea why it has come into my head today, but I should really like to know.

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