Blasphemy Day International

Blasphemy Day International is coming up on September 30th. As many of you know this day celebrating free speech first started because of the Islamo-mad reaction to a bunch of comics.

As many nations in the Muslim world implode into a new era of chaos they are making demands on the rest of us. And this isn't surprising either. Just like viruses go about infecting healthy cells, virulent memes go about infecting and affecting healthy societies. This is their nature. It's like being in a romantic relationship with a crazy person (which I am sad to say I have extensive first hand knowledge of). The wacky one has a gravitational field of insanity that pulls you into a mind nullifying event horizon and into a singularity of anti-skepticism.


Witness the opening of the United Nations.

Please allow me to boil down President Obama's point.

Here are a bunch of activities for Blasphemy Day International that the Center for Inquiry suggests:

Blasphemy Game Night: Host a social game night with the games "Blasphemy: The Race to the Cross" and "Playing Gods: The Board Game of Divine Domination"; or, you can create your own Blasphemy Pictionary and Blasphemy Charades.

Screening of Monty Python's Life of Brian, an irreverent film that has been banned in some areas for its blasphemous content.

Deity Drawing Contest: This is well-suited to tabling in a public area. Provide basic drawing supplies (crayons, pencils, paper) for a contest where the best drawing of a deity wins a prize! Drawings can, of course, be of deities like the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Zeus, or Cthulu. Make sure to collect names and contact information for each submission so that the winner can be contacted.

The Boston Area Atheists Meetup Group is running a demonstration in support of free speech.

Members of the Boston Atheists have planned a modest demonstration, to recognition of Blasphemy Day, and as an affirmation of our shared belief in the foundational important of free speech and the right to dissent in a healthy civic society. Boston Atheists director Zachary Bos will be emceeing a lineup of speakers -- Raja Bhattacharyy, Aly Aly, Garga Chaterjee, and Najat Kessler -- who will each talk about their feelings toward and understand of the interrelated core values of freedom of expression and freedom of thought. We will be distributing free expression cupcakes (!), and inviting passerby to add their thoughts -- whatever they may be! -- to a Blasphemy Book we'll keep and use on the same occasion in future years.

Though the event seems a bit tame for my own tastes (I think blaspemy -- a lot of blasphemy -- is integral to celebrating this day) , I'm going to make a good faith effort to show up. If I make it I'll video it and put it up here.

Next year I'm going to do a marathon of blasphemy.

PS - Muslim scholars: Do you think burning a picture of the Qur'an is as bad as burning the actual book?

This is Purgatory.