Thursday, September 25, 2008

Blasphemy in Islam and Christinity

The Bible says "Blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven". I assume the Spirit refers to is God. The Bible, however never specifies what constitute Blasphemy. So I looked up the word in the dictionary. It says profanity and contempt towards God. Again this is not clear enough. What kind of utterance constitute profanity and what kind of act constitute contempt. I gave up but I concluded the two words means disrespect towards God like somebody in the West who said God is dead. That is disrespect alright.

Islam also believes blasphemy against God will not be forgiven. In this ,Islam is rather straight forward.
Its blasphemy if a person says there is another god besides the One he is worshiping. It also includes ascribing divinity to person or object. It also includes giving God a human attributes like having a wife for example. Punishment is severe. One will never be accepted by God any more. No amount of pleading and repentance would be of any use.

Both Islam and Christianity believe that blasphemy cannot be forgiven but they differ on what
constitute blasphemy and the punishment for it

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