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About this quote

What does it mean?
Blasphemy is a relative concept depending on location.
In plain terms
What counts as blasphemy changes by country.
What can you take from it?
Religious offenses are defined by local norms.

Where it applies

  • travel
  • legal systems
  • interfaith

Putting it to work

  • understanding culture
  • challenging laws

Questions to consider

  • Is blasphemy real or invented?
  • How do laws reflect culture?

Another view

It may overlook universal moral claims.

More from Robert G. Ingersoll

  1. How has the church in every age, when in authority, defended itself? Always by a statute against blasphemy, against argument, against free speech. And there ne…

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  2. These heroes are dead. They died for liberty-they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag they rendered stainless,…

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  3. It seems to me that if there is some infinite being who wants us to think alike he would have made us alike.

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