"Such a law," says Sir James Stephen, "would never work." You
cannot really distinguish between substance and style; you must
either forbid or permit all attacks on Christianity. Great
religious and political changes are never made by calm and
moderate language. Was any form of Christianity ever substituted
either for Paganism or any other form of Christianity without heat,
exaggeration, and fierce invective? Saint Augustine ridiculed one
of the Roman gods in grossly indecent language. Men cannot discuss
doctrines like eternal punishment as they do questions in philology.
And "to say that you may discuss the truth of religion, but that you
may not hold up its doctrines to contempt, ridicule, or indignation,
is either to take away with one hand what you concede with the other,
or to confine the discussion to a small and in many ways uninfluential
class of persons." Besides, Sir James Stephen says,
"There is one reflection which seems to me to prove with
conclusive force that the law upon this subject can be
explained and justified only on what I regard as its true
principle--the principle of persecution. It is that if the
law were really impartial, and punished blasphemy only because
it offends the feelings of believers, it ought also to punish
such preaching as offends the feelings of unbelievers. All
the more earnest and enthusiastic forms of religion are extremely
offensive to those who do not believe them.
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