In this outstandingly godless and desacralized world of ours, blasphemy, I think, is no longer worthy of intellectual discussion. "God is dead", as was over a century ago, quite convincibly stated by Friedrich Nietzsche. Nominalism, congruous with secularism or nonreligiosity as it most certainly is, seems to have become the final (/last) word of philosophy - if not the the point where all philosophy comes to an end. Blasphemy means, or has previously meant, impious utterance or action concerning God or things sacred.
It is in history and not in the present world that examples of blasphemy as well as those of heresy are to be sought. In the sphere of religion, heresy (from Gr. haíresis, wrong choice) means an opinion at variance with or contrary to the doctrine of the orthodox church.
In his monumental work in four volumes Henry Charles Lea discusses the heyday and decline of the Spanish Inquisition. From the early modern era he provides stimulating specimina of more or less spontaneous sayings, for which some unfortunate people, by the mighty and energetic Holy Office or Inquisition, were prosecuted. Lea names such actually dangerous, and, to my mind, innovative sayings as "God cannot do me more harm" (meaning that God is not omnipotent since he is incapable of doing me more harm), and, "in this world you will not see me suffer". The latter expression implies the most unclean disbelief in the Final Judgment, or, in Latin, "Dies irae", the Day of Wrath (see Lea, iv, 332).
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti