Religion in relation to hate speech law

Today, there is a legal push to criminalise certain kinds of statements that are perceived as hate.  Hate speech laws are seen as a threat to freedom of speech for they often go beyond just criminalising speech that incites to violence.  Incitement to violence is covered in all legal systems so hate crime legislation is indeed a threat.

One way to look at it is that there is more to violence than just hitting somebody or throwing a can of paint at their car.

Religion for example can do a lot of damage to a person in a more subtle fashion.

Christianity opposes sin and that is the reason the religion says it exists.  God loves sinners and hates sins.  This unconditional love of his is not cheap passive love but is working on and with you to change into a better person.  It is simple if God alone truly loves you then sin is the worst evil for it shuts him out.

Love the sinner and hate the sin implies that there is no point in banning hate legally or socially. If somebody acts hatefully towards you and says they love you, you end up compelled to assume they do love you but it only looks like hate for they are doing the right thing but going the wrong away about it. The hate gets classed as a mistake and will dress itself up as that for hate has to avoid diagnosis to thrive.

If you get in trouble with the law for hate speech, it is almost certain that it is not because you admitted hating. What you did was you said things that amounted to saying you hated. If you accuse someone of terrible things that makes them seem very dangerous and cause people to fear them greatly, then that is incitement to hatred.

Christianity accuses sinners of colluding with the most evil being in the universe, Satan, who Jesus said was a murderer, liar and completely malicious. The Bible warns of Satan's remarkable influence over the world and his great powers. If that is not hate speech against sinners what is?

Religion itself admits that religion is a dangerous thing. Roman Catholicism says that is one reason why it is so important to be in the one true Church. But, however, that faith is harmful itself. One notorious side-effect of religion is hate.

You can sue the Church for emotional distress. You would need to prove that the Roman Catholic Church intended to cause such distress. This is easily proven. Even if the Church does not abuse you, if you read the Bible which the Church says is infallible and you suffer trauma through perusing its teachings the Church is still accountable. When you believe the Bible doctrine that people who teach different beliefs from the orthodox beliefs are leading their followers to everlasting Hell you will be traumatised and tormented by hatred. The Church commands that you hate the sin which is a very stressful doctrine. Jesus said that even if you do all God asks you must still think of yourself as worthless. He said that we must start with love of God. That is the greatest commandment he said. So starting with love of your baby is condemned. Teachings like that are warped and unnatural. There are many harmful teachings in the Church.

The idea of God and Jesus being the Son of God are treasonous. An all-good God would naturally have to come before all things and if the law ignores him or violates his rules the law would need to be opposed and Christians should endeavour to rip it down and replace it with rule by Christianity. If Christianity is the one true faith and best for us all it has the right to run the country because it is the best and because it is God's representative.

Religion feigns horror when somebody shoots abortion doctors dead thinking this is saving the lives of babies. But its doctrine that some lives may be sacrificed for the preservation of more lives implies that this is right. Religion condemns the killings of the doctors insincerely. Its other teachings prove this. The state that allows abortion should see religion for what it is. A secular state by being secular is suggesting that human thinking as opposed to divine or religious thinking is most important. This in fact is a declaration that religion is considered to be unnecessary and possibly harmful. Thus the courts as being among the arms of secularism should start being willing to declare religious beliefs to be false.

Christianity teaches that sin deserves to be hated. To say you love the sinner and hate their sin is simply to say that the sin deserves to be punished and hated but the sinner doesn't which makes no sense. The rule is not practical, it is unhelpful, and it is dishonest. It is bad enough for unbelievers and atheists to accept the rule but for god believers to attribute the rule to God and say God keeps it is extreme blasphemy. It is like saying that it is not a sin to drink the blood of babies and then to allege that God wants it drunk. They say there is no love of neighbour unless you love God above all things first. They ridicule God and disguise it as reverence so belief in God makes them hate sinners more not less.

If sin deserves to be hated then the person committing it deserves to be hated. It is only people that can deserve things. To say sin deserves to be hated is to urge people to hate the sinner. Criminal law needs to recognise that Christianity, Judaism and Islam are inciting to hatred and violence and deal with them accordingly.

Jesus' teaching that we must love enemies and hate their sins means that we are to pretend that when we hate people that it is their sins and not them that we hate and when we find we hate them we are to feel guilty and seek repentance. That teaching is not guidance, it is continual mental and spiritual torment.

Compassion means you suffer in sympathy with those who suffer. Compassion for someone that was inflicting the suffering on themselves would be ridiculous. It would be insulting them by inferring they are insane or something. Or it would be false compassion. Or both. Christianity teaches that if you commit the sin of homosexuality and never ask for pardon from God, you will be damned forever to the sufferings of Hell should you die and it is all your own fault. It is important that the state realises that such teachings are not compassionate and indeed cannot be. They are vindictive. They are incitements to hatred no matter how much the believers pretend that they love the people they condemn as sinners in danger of Hell. Legal proceedings must be initiated.

We regard the killer of prostitutes as warped even if he does it to clean up the streets and to save lives of men catching venereal disease. He will go to jail longer if he killed them reluctantly and apologetically than he would if he were overcome by hatred and eradicated them. It is important to remind the courts that if a smiling and seemingly kindly religion does harm through its doctrine that does not indicate that the religion never meant to do harm. The father that beats up his tenacious daughter to stop her going with a man who will probably make her pregnant is still committing an offence despite claiming to be doing it in love.

What the father does is to be condemned. The father is more justified in what he does than the Church is. The father knows his daughter's welfare is in danger. But the Church hurts people over ideas that there is absolutely no evidence for. Or ideas it doesn't offer strong enough evidence for. You need absolute proof that eternal torment exists before you can risk disturbing a child by telling him or her that it exists. Otherwise all you are doing is child abuse. The Church has to approve of such abuse for its New Testament has Jesus teaching the doctrine openly when children were about. The apostles did the same. The Church believes a child can go to Hell at seven years of age so it claims a moral obligation to warn the child.

Teachings such as that gay people are not good role models for children and so should not be employed as teachers need to be stamped out by law.

The priest who tells children that bringing a bad name on the Church is a grave sin for people need the Church to go to Heaven and scandal turns them away from her seems to be saying something good. If he says that to the children to deter them from revealing that he has been sexually molesting them it still seems to be a good thing to say. It is like a good thing, a truth, that he is taking advantage of.

There are many examples of the Church using doctrine and its teaching to hurt people and doing this without the smiles and the sweetness. An example would be when the priests order that a person who has changed religion must be excluded from their family. Or when Pius IX kidnapped a Jewish boy who he later adopted for he was baptised and so obligated to be raised in the Catholic Church.

What about free speech? Has the Church the right to tell your beloved father and mother they will go to Hell forever unless they repent of their sin of living together without being married to each other? Yes - legally though not ethically. But you could sue the Church for saying such a thing about you without proof - it is very serious slander to say you are living such a bad life that you should be tormented forever. Free speech implies that you wish to consent and bear any legal difficulties your exercise of free speech will cause. If you go to court for something you say, that does not mean that what you said was forbidden or illegal. It only means that somebody was hurt by it and seeks damages. Speech that incites to hatred should be considered to be under civil law, not criminal law.

Christianity says that atheists have no real reason to believe in right and wrong if they say there is no God. Atheists object that they do not need to believe in God to be good. Some Christians will agree. They say, "Atheists can be good. Many atheists are more moral than some Christians. But it is atheism that is immoral not atheists. It is atheism that denies morality not atheists." This is rubbish. A doctrine cannot be immoral. Immorality describes people not ideas. If adultery is immoral and the adulterer is not then it is wrong to even call him or her an adulterer or to say he or she is guilty of adultery. Christianity is only trying to cover up its hatred of atheists and to make it more insidious and subtle. It promotes it by dressing it up as good.