Why can’t people ever get that religion is a matter of opinion, and that it’s ok for others to hold a different opinion? And also that deeply holding a belief doesn’t make it free from scrutiny or ridicule?
After all, Christianity’s entire shtick is that those who do not believe as they do are going to spend an eternity roasting in fire. That seems a hell of a lot more offensive than simply calling that belief erroneous. Yet atheists do not go around attempting to get Christians imprisoned for holding such depraved beliefs.
A Russian atheist faces one year in jail after simply declaring online that ‘there is no God’. Victor Krasnov faces one year in jail under a controversial 2013 law passed in the highly religious country.
According to the Guardian:
The charges centre on an internet exchange that Krasnov was involved in in 2014 on a humorous local website in his hometown of Stavropol.
“If I say that the collection of Jewish fairytales entitled the Bible is complete bullshit, that is that. At least for me,” Krasnov wrote, adding later “there is no God!”
One of the young people involved in the dispute with Krasnov then lodged a complaint against him accusing him of “offending the sentiments of Orthodox believers”.
Krasnov, whose case began last month, spent one month in a psychiatric ward last year undergoing psychiatric examinations before he was finally deemed to be sane. Krasnov’s lawyer insisted to AFP that his client was “simply an atheist” and that he had taken aim at both “Halloween and Yiddish holidays” in the same exchange.
It was Varys, I think, who said in Game of Thrones that when someone is making allegations against you, cutting out his tongue only convinces others of the truth of his words.
Religious people should ask themselves why they so often have to resort to coercing others to follow their beliefs, using violence or otherwise threats of eternal damnation.