Sticks & Stones: Part 1, The Social Cost of Blasphemy

Last week it was my privilege to present research with ten amazing students at the annual Southwestern Psychological Association conference. The students presented three papers in a symposium entitled Sticks and Stones: The Psychology of Insult. What I'd like to do in the next few posts is walk through some of the more interesting aspects of this research.

The first paper I'd like to discuss was entitled Defending God's Honor: The Relationship Between Religiosity and Blasphemy Sensitivity. The student authors were Mary Walrath, Elena Kua, Nathan Sharp and Anne Weaver. The symposium theme was insult psychology and this particular paper examined feeling insulted on behalf of God, usually in the face of a stimulus that is considered to be blasphemous.

Blasphemy is generally defined as "irreverent behavior toward anything held sacred." In the face of this irreverent behavior certain religious persons or populations respond in extreme ways. In short, reactions toward the blasphemous have a social cost. Often a high social cost. The students walked through four recent examples.

The first example is Westboro Baptist Church whose website is www.godhatesfags.com:





The "Pray for More Dead Soldiers" and "God Blew Up the Shuttle" might need some explaining. Members of Westboro believe that God is judging America for her tolerance of the gay community (among other things). Thus, American deaths from things like the Shuttle explosion or military casualties are symptoms of God's judgment upon America.

Relevant to our research, Westboro justifies its hate speech by positioning itself as the defender of God's Honor in the face of a blaspheming nation.

A second example from Christianity was the outrage generated by Andres Serrano's Piss Christ:



Piss Christ is a picture of a crucifix submerged in a jar of the artist's urine. When displayed publicly in 1989 a storm kicked up, public and Congressional. The debate around Piss Christ centered on the proper role of art and the use of public funding to support art such as Piss Christ. Regardless, the public outrage surrounding Piss Christ (and work like it) swirls around the notion of blasphemy, the proper treatment of the sacred.

Turning to Islamic outrage, the attacks of 9/11, the defining event of the first part of the 21st Century, was crucially linked to the blasphemies Osama Bin Laden and his followers perceived in American culture:





For example, in 2002 Bin Laden wrote in a "Letter to America": "You are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind: You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator." In short, America offends the Honor of God.

A final example cited by the students was the outrage in 2005 generated in the worldwide Islamic community by the publication of political cartoons in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten:



As you can see, many of these cartoons depicted the prophet Muhammad in an unflattering manner. The worldwide protests produced more than 100 deaths. Again, the central issue is blasphemy.

These four examples were presented by the students to illustrate the social costs of defending God's Honor. Blasphemy impacts everyone. Blasphemy, and responses to it, is a prime mover in human affairs. Depressingly so. Consequently, the goal of the research was to try to begin to systematically explore what we called blasphemy sensitivity. Who is most likely to be offended by blasphemous stimuli?

More on that question in the next post. In the meantime, be careful who you say "Oh my God" around...