By UNIFI Director of Finance Seth Coster
We've heard a lot about the importance of blasphemy in preserving freedom of speech. I agree with this whole-heartedly. After all, nobody has the right to not be offended. And for that purpose, I support a lot of things that go against the norm. Public nudity? Bring it on! Why should someone be arrested for streaking across a soccer field? If people don't like it, they can look away (or cry themselves to sleep).
We've been throwing the idea of offense around for a long time as a culture, but what does it really mean? Public figures bend over backwards to avoid saying anything that would offend anyone, but why? What really happens in your brain when you are offended by something? There are typically two approaches to take if someone says something potentially offensive. You can laugh because of how absurd or untrue the offense is, or you can get offended. How do you decide how to react? Are you offended when something hits too close to home or when it makes you look at something from an uncomfortable angle? Listen, people, I just ask the questions. I don't answer them. I'm a free thinker, damnit!
So we don't know why people get offended for all the things that they do. And in all likelihood, they don't even know why they are offended, because they haven't thought about it. That's what people do: they avoid thinking about stuff. So what are the benefits of blasphemy? What do we gain by going out of our way to offend people?
In a nutshell, it's fun. Yes, it's also potentially life-threatening. But so is sky diving, and I know a guy who makes a pretty good living doing that! With blasphemy, though, rather than dying from a high-velocity meeting between the ground and your face, your death will involve being beaten by a mob of adults who have built their lives around wishing the world was a mystical fairy land created by a magical sky daddy. Hey, we all die some day. But with blasphemy, now you're in the driver's seat! Take charge of your own death! Enrage that mob!
I find blasphemy fun because it forces people who would otherwise be unengaged to participate in the discussion. According to a survey that doesn't exist, about 75% of people in the world are incredibly boring, timid, and live their lives based upon the expectations of others, going out of their way to avoid stepping on toes at all costs. People hate confrontation, and they most definitely hate having their ideas challenged. Or worse, publicly mocked. As we discussed earlier in the text, people will do anything to avoid thinking about stuff. So how can you get these boring crybabies in on the action? With blasphemy, that's how! What Christian wouldn't intervene and start an argument if she walked past a group of heathens playing Pin Jesus on the Cross or Eucharist Pong? That's a game I made up by combining beer pong with Eucharists. I'm not sure about the rules, but it sounds awesome.
Blasphemy allows us to ridicule things that are inherently ridiculous. Nothing about religion commands respect. Let's take Christianity as an example. A magical invisible man created the universe and then made a guy out of dirt! Then, he made a woman out of a rib! But then a mean, nasty talking snake convinced the woman to eat an apple that the magical sky man had created specifically for the purpose of not being eaten! Then, the magical sky man killed everything on the earth with water! Including fish! And at some point, a guy lived inside of a whale for a while. Then, the magical sky man raped a virgin and fathered himself, and then he turned water into wine and got nailed to some wood. There was also something in there about socialism and how it's good for society. The end!
If you can't see the ridiculousness in this story, then you are probably someone who has built your life around it. Stop and think for a second about this. It's dumb. I support blasphemy because it allows us to look at something and call it like it is. And yeah, it's pretty fun, too.
