Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Rolepgeek]

Well, yes, Ranger, you would have the single most uncharitable view possible.

On the other hand, people have had to be reminded not to play Pokemon Go in the Holocaust Memorial Center.

This seems like the old maxim readily applies: never contribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[Jimmy]

So here we have a public athiest filming himself catching pokemon inside a church. Was there a special reason he felt the need to go inside the church to find his pokemon in the first place, much less film himself doing so? Something tells me he was doing it deliberately to provoke a reaction from a religious group he opposes, a reaction he successfully achieved.

Sure, the act of catching pokemon isn't illegal. Neither is cooking a bacon sandwich, but nobody would view it as respectful to make one inside a mosque and film yourself doing so.

So the question isn't whether it was in poor taste (it definitely was), it's whether the crime fits the punishment.

For example, suppose I'm caught using my phone in a cinema. It's likely the crime of using it to carry on a noisy conversation will carry a far lighter punishment than using it to film the movie. The first is a case of being a nuisance, the second is a deliberate attempt to knowingly break the law.

He doesn't deserve jail time, but a decent amount of punishment in the form of a fine or community service for being a disrespectful asshole would probably not go amiss. Just because you don't agree with Christian beliefs, it doesn't give you a right to make a mockery of their place of faith.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Blasphemy is not a crime.

[Jimmy]

Correction: Blasphemy is a victimless crime.

Depending on where you live in the world, blasphemy is a crime by the law of the land. See how far you get insulting Allah or Mohammad in Saudi Arabia. Whether it's fair or not is up to the lawmakers to decide. In the english language article, Ruslan Sokolovsky was mentioned as being charged with offending religious sensitivities, which is probably a real law that carries real consequences, though I'm certainly no expert on the Russian legal system.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The assertion of criminality arises from the desire to codify right and wrong behaviors (both morally and pragmatically). Something that is not wrong and is not criminality in this sense cannot be truly made crime by the will of the state. It is rather the state that is criminal in these circumstances.

To make the will of legislators the be-all-end-all of criminality is just a secular version of divine command theory. You wouldn't respond like that if, for example, a country made it illegal to not rape people.

[saigo]

Correction: Blasphemy is a victimless crime.

There might be a few divine entities who disagree with you.

[Rolepgeek]

The assertion of criminality arises from the desire to codify right and wrong behaviors (both morally and pragmatically). Something that is not wrong and is not criminality in this sense cannot be truly made crime by the will of the state. It is rather the state that is criminal in these circumstances.

To make the will of legislators the be-all-end-all of criminality is just a secular version of divine command theory. You wouldn't respond like that if, for example, a country made it illegal to not rape people.

Yes, because being respectful to someone's religious beliefs is equivalent to rape.

It is rude and could be deemed harassment to do something like this in a church when you quite obviously know it's not welcome. Churches are not, in fact, publicly owned, as far as I am aware, for instance.

Five years for a crime of this nature is a bit much. A week or so might be appropriate to say 'hey seriously knock it off dickhead', or a fine or something.

But if you are trying to say that criminality arises from morality, then we run into the issue of morality being highly subjective, and subjective criminal law is...unstable, to say the least.

[Jimmy]

Again, I refer to my bacon sandwich hypothetical. It's not the act itself that's criminal, but the intent behind it. Ruslan Sokolovsky deliberately set out to offend Russian Christians by his actions inside their place of worship. What's next? If he dropped his pants and took a dump on the floor, would you say that he shouldn't be punished because pooping isn't a crime?

There's a time and place for certain acts, and the inside of a church is definitely different to other public places. If you can't show respect for other people's belief, don't go inside.

[Rolepgeek]

Again, I refer to my bacon sandwich hypothetical. It's not the act itself that's criminal, but the intent behind it. Ruslan Sokolovsky deliberately set out to offend Russian Christians by his actions inside their place of worship. What's next? If he dropped his pants and took a dump on the floor, would you say that he shouldn't be punished because pooping isn't a crime?

There's a time and place for certain acts, and the inside of a church is definitely different to other public places. If you can't show respect for other people's belief, don't go inside.

Again, though, it's not equivalent. It's not criminal, in this case; being a nuisance isn't a crime unless you're a public nuisance. Freedom of speech means freedom to be annoying. But if it's actually harassment, or trying to provoke a reaction, and you get one, you don't really get to whine about it.

[Jimmy]

Correction: Blasphemy is a victimless crime.

There might be a few divine entities who disagree with you.

If Zeus is offended by my words, may he smite me with his lightning.

Again, I refer to my bacon sandwich hypothetical. It's not the act itself that's criminal, but the intent behind it. Ruslan Sokolovsky deliberately set out to offend Russian Christians by his actions inside their place of worship. What's next? If he dropped his pants and took a dump on the floor, would you say that he shouldn't be punished because pooping isn't a crime?

There's a time and place for certain acts, and the inside of a church is definitely different to other public places. If you can't show respect for other people's belief, don't go inside.

Again, though, it's not equivalent. It's not criminal, in this case; being a nuisance isn't a crime unless you're a public nuisance. Freedom of speech means freedom to be annoying. But if it's actually harassment, or trying to provoke a reaction, and you get one, you don't really get to whine about it.

I think if it was a ten year old child goofing around with his mom's mobile phone, nobody would blink an eye. The act itself isn't criminal, but that's not what's at issue. Ruslan Sokolovsky is a self-professed athiest who decided when he woke up that day to go down to the church and film himself catching pokemon. Why?

It's pretty obvious he wanted to show that: (a) he enjoys catching pokemon and (b) he doesn't respect churches. He could have just made a Youtube video where he talks about how much he likes one set of fictional characters and dislikes another, but instead he went to the effort of going inside their house and deliberately thumbing his nose at them. That crosses the line between freedom of speech and setting out to deliberately offend a specific religious group.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yes, because being respectful to someone's religious beliefs is equivalent to rape.

The purpose of this hyperbole is to highlight the silliness of responding "the state says it's illegal therefore it's crime", when that is clearly not how anybody conceives of criminality. It's the kind of argument exclusively used in response to situations where you want to use the opportunity of an oppressive law that happens to agree with your stance.

It is rude and could be deemed harassment to do something like this in a church when you quite obviously know it's not welcome. Churches are not, in fact, publicly owned, as far as I am aware, for instance.

It may be rude (he didn't so much as speak to anybody), it's definitely not harassment. You can't harass a church, you can only harass a person. You can harass many people at once, such as by running around an office building screaming racial obscenities at the employees, but you're not harassing the company. Harassment has an inherently personal and disruptive element that this clearly does not fulfill.

Five years for a crime of this nature is a bit much. A week or so might be appropriate to say 'hey seriously knock it off dickhead', or a fine or something.

Highlighting the ridiculous actions of the Russian state and church collaboration (the whole point was to prove nobody would actually object to him playing Pokemon Go in person, only after the fact) = being a dickhead, got it.

But if you are trying to say that criminality arises from morality, then we run into the issue of morality being highly subjective, and subjective criminal law is...unstable, to say the least.

Welcome to all criminal law? I also said it arises from pragmatic concerns, to account for the possible nonexistence of morality and more civil laws, but all matters related to human concerns are inherently subjective. Again, you are only thinking of the things you disagree with and dismissing the ones you do agree with. "Torturing criminals to death is wrong" is no more subjective than "letting your plants overwhelm your neighbor's yard is wrong". Subjectivity is not weakness.

Again, I refer to my bacon sandwich hypothetical. It's not the act itself that's criminal, but the intent behind it.

Intent does not matter in crime. It is at most a mitigating or aggravating factor. If I don't intend to kill you and only to wound you, but I shoot you with an assault rifle because I'm an idiot who doesn't know how deadly guns are, and you miraculously survive that, the charge is attempted murder. If you die, it's murder. The intention is irrelevant; the action is what matters.

Ruslan Sokolovsky deliberately set out to offend Russian Christians by his actions inside their place of worship.

Even if he did, so fucking what? Maybe they should suck it up. The whole point of this was to prove that the nature of their offense stems from a dreamland conception of sanctity that they can't even recognize unless he out and shows them a video of it being "violated" even when he was surrounded by other people at the time.

There's a time and place for certain acts, and the inside of a church is definitely different to other public places. If you can't show respect for other people's belief, don't go inside.

Respect of course meaning, "do what I say you must do".

Freedom of speech means freedom to be annoying. But if it's actually harassment, or trying to provoke a reaction, and you get one, you don't really get to whine about it.

It's pretty obvious he wanted to show that: (a) he enjoys catching pokemon and (b) he doesn't respect churches. He could have just made a Youtube video where he talks about how much he likes one set of fictional characters and dislikes another, but instead he went to the effort of going inside their house and deliberately thumbing his nose at them. That crosses the line between freedom of speech and setting out to deliberately offend a specific religious group.

In other words, neither of you think people should have freedom of speech. FoS is inherently about speech deemed offensive by others. That's literally the only thing it can be about. Do you think this was codified in response to people being concerned that backing up the dominant forces of society or telling people what the powerful want them to hear would get them in trouble? In that case, every society to ever exist has freedom of speech. You're only protecting freedom of speech when you protect things you disagree with, or think are massively offensive, or whip people up into mobs demanding "reaction".

Otherwise, you're "protecting" something that needs no protection, because it is already approved of by society.

Thank god the legal precedent in America doesn't see criticism of religion that way, I'd spend my whole fucking life in prison for the things I've said on the internet alone.

[martinuzz]

I don't think the Bible says it's blasphemy or even an insult to catch a Pokemon in a church.
<reads bible> .. nope. not a single mention of Pokemon in there.

And I disagree completely. Pussy Riot is much more awesome. They were in the Netherlands this summer, participating in a motorcross event in a pink tank, in support of Amnesty Interntional's fight for Ilja Dadin.
http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/boulevard/entertainment/pussy-riot-actief-op-zwarte-cross

[Rolepgeek]

The purpose of this hyperbole is to highlight the silliness of responding "the state says it's illegal therefore it's crime", when that is clearly not how anybody conceives of criminality. It's the kind of argument exclusively used in response to situations where you want to use the opportunity of an oppressive law that happens to agree with your stance.

And yet that is literally the definition of crimes. It is circumstances where you are breaking a law that the state sets forth. It's called 'civil disobedience' when you do so because you think a law is unjust. There is a difference between criminality and malicious intent. If you intentionally break a law, you are committing a crime, by definition. That is not the same thing as it being wrong to do so.

It may be rude (he didn't so much as speak to anybody), it's definitely not harassment. You can't harass a church, you can only harass a person. You can harass many people at once, such as by running around an office building screaming racial obscenities at the employees, but you're not harassing the company. Harassment has an inherently personal and disruptive element that this clearly does not fulfill.

I dunno about that, you can be sued for corporate harassment if you bother them about stuff too often if it's seen as being without legitimate cause. But harassment may be the wrong word. Not sure what I'm thinking of, here.

Highlighting the ridiculous actions of the Russian state and church collaboration (the whole point was to prove nobody would actually object to him playing Pokemon Go in person, only after the fact) = being a dickhead, got it.

Yeah, putting it in a way that's favorable sure does make it easy to make it look like you're obviously right, doesn't it? And yeah, the whole point of his sort of stuff is to be a dick to people in power, afaict.

Welcome to all criminal law? I also said it arises from pragmatic concerns, to account for the possible nonexistence of morality and more civil laws, but all matters related to human concerns are inherently subjective. Again, you are only thinking of the things you disagree with and dismissing the ones you do agree with. "Torturing criminals to death is wrong" is no more subjective than "letting your plants overwhelm your neighbor's yard is wrong". Subjectivity is not weakness.

How so? I never mentioned either of those things. I was pointing out that saying 'it's not morally wrong (to me) so it can't be criminal' doesn't work as an argument here. Subjectivity is weakness in terms of systems that have to apply to millions of people with their own subjective views, because it means there's little effective means of resolving it to everyone's satisfaction. It may be irresolvable, but it is still a weakness.

Freedom of speech means freedom to be annoying. But if it's actually harassment, or trying to provoke a reaction, and you get one, you don't really get to whine about it.

In other words, neither of you think people should have freedom of speech. FoS is inherently about speech deemed offensive by others. That's literally the only thing it can be about. Do you think this was codified in response to people being concerned that backing up the dominant forces of society or telling people what the powerful want them to hear would get them in trouble? In that case, every society to ever exist has freedom of speech. You're only protecting freedom of speech when you protect things you disagree with, or think are massively offensive, or whip people up into mobs demanding "reaction".

Otherwise, you're "protecting" something that needs no protection, because it is already approved of by society.

Thank god the legal precedent in America doesn't see criticism of religion that way, I'd spend my whole fucking life in prison for the things I've said on the internet alone.

In other words, I do, in fact, believe in freedom of speech. Full stop. But society also agrees that certain types of speech are not allowed. Like hate speech. This is not hate speech. Harassment is also not allowed. But my specific point was about backlash from the church. If you're trying to get someone angry, and they get angry, and you ask 'U mad, bro?', you're being a troll. And yeah, Freedom of Speech protects trolls. My whole purpose here was to defend the basic principle of 'this guy was a dick but he doesn't deserve to go to prison'. Apologies if the Devil's Advocate in me made that unclear.

I don't think the Bible says it's blasphemy or even an insult to catch a Pokemon in a church.
<reads bible> .. nope. not a single mention of Pokemon in there.

It's consorting with Demons, you see

[Jimmy]

-snip-

Not gonna start another quote pyramid here in case I offend Ra or other Egyptian deities, but to answer the point of intent, it has a huge impact on the crime. In your specific example, for instance, if you didn't follow correct safety protocols when handling a firearm, you'd be charged with manslaughter, not murder. Whether it's involuntary would likely depend on the circumstances (did you deliberately neglect to follow safety procedure, were you in a compromised state, etc.) and would probably go to a jury to decide based on the evidence. There's a huge difference between leaving your gun loaded and having it accidentally discharge versus walking up to your boss and shooting him in the head.

Freedom of speech doesn't mean you get to say or do anything you want anywhere you want. For example, in the USA you can't walk inside a court room and film yourself catching pokemon. It does mean you can make a video of yourself saying you really don't like churches, but it doesn't mean you can go inside a church and deliberately set out to offend people whose beliefs don't match yours by acting disrespectfully. There would also be consequences if you decided to coat your boots in mud and walk through a Buddhist temple in order to show you don't respect their beliefs or place of worship. At the end of the day, it's about consequences for being a great big douche.

[Dorsidwarf]

I think this argument was started by someone pointing out the ridiculousness of a government that banned religion for 80 years giving someone a 5 year prison sentence for minor disrespect to a place of worship only 25 years later.