Blasphemy

I was thinking the other day that blasphemy is one of the most powerful and empowering things imaginable.

Think about it. Blasphemy is, for lack of a better word, "thoughtcrime". One is forbidden to think, say or express something that is offensive about a "sacred" item or concept.

To do so is to needle the ultimate powers of the universe.

Or so we are told by other people. If something is "sacred" it is sacred to someone. If I don't find it sacred I am not beholden to respecting it or worrying that saying sacrilegious things about it.

I am an atheist (now) and a ong-time sufferer of OCD. During my days as a believer I often feared that I might think or say something blasphemous. Offend God, whatever.

But it was an imaginary fear. I had no evidence that God existed, but I was told by other people not to say or think blasphemous stuff. It was quite scary to imagine the possible bad that could befall one who broke this mandate.

One of the ways I try to deal with OCD is to push through the fear, to habituate to those stimuli that are particularly painful. Of course it's not always possible. When it comes to religion the hardest part for me was to suggest that there may not even be a God. Surely a blasphemous thought. Certainly an "evil" thought!

Still, even today, years after my "deconversion" I still find blasphemous thoughts hard to get through. So well-ingrained is the opprobrium of that. I have a tough time saying anything particularly harsh about religion to my religious friends for fear of hurting them. And to what end? To make myself feel "strong" that I can say blasphemous things knowing no lightning will come strike me?

The worst part of religious thought for me is that so many of the "best" threats religion carries is the "unknown distant future". Teach a child that they can do something horrible that will not result in any known punishment until some secret time and secret place that no one will ever see (after death).

Maybe training children up to have these kinds of fears is the ultimate blasphemy. If nothing is sacred there would be no blasphemy, but aren't "thoughts" sacred things that no one else should be able to stall or halt or control in you? Isn't that the ultimate desecration of the most holy we have? Our own thoughts controlled by others?