What's there with the blasphemy case in Ireland, by the way? Guess, it's not only Russia, where religious folks enforce their fantasies on others. I've just been warned for supposed trolling, after sincerely commenting on the nature of religion in some other topic here, btw.
Religion is infantile, dumb, archaic, pushy, obsessive, repressive, harmful, it is a sister of war and many other forms of unnecessary violence. There's no place for it in the future, and there must be no option for its expansion in the present, but that is exactly what is happening in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Destroying clericalism, clearing the minds of people from this viral thing called religion, liberating land and resources from it was one of the greatest achievements of the socialism in Russia. Now, religion is back, and it is as bad as in the West or even worse.
Creationism, telegony, abstinence until marriage, you name it. People, women especially, seriously talk about the next life or reincarnation, not like being philosophical or something, but really taking that as a fact of the physical world and life, taking this and such things into account in their life plan and in interaction with other people. They deny evolution. E.g., I was scolded by a woman for telling that humans evolved from apes, many times. Scolded for telling that humans evolved from apes and not created by God, Carl!
Temples are multiplying like mushrooms after a rain.
Some laws already have been giving religious folks more rights than the rest. Like that which concernes me directly: it is forbidden for me to be loud in certain hours or be excessively loud in general, but a temple next to my home can be loud whenever they want. Its bells are louder than my speakers, on the usual volume. And they force me to wake up and they force me to focus on their existence. It is forbidden to advertise with loudspeakers and things like that on the streets, but the church is special, it can advertise itself every hour jingling bells as loudly as it wants too.
And now there's this law, which makes it even clearer. If you think about it, it is either religious feelings can be hurt, but the feelings of an atheist, of a rational, sensible person can not (atheist, with feelings, huh?), or you have less rights, if you are an atheist, and risk to be punished for expressing it. Welcome to a secular state!
And whom do you thank for that law? P*ssy riot and other stupid liberals, their provocations is a good ground and an excuse here.
I don't care about that kid and his Pokemons, because he is the one who done a stupid thing and gone to a place, he should not have, unless it was deliberate offense or he is one of the religious folks (which are bad guys for me). But I care about myself and my sleep, and that not only I have no legal way to force that temple near my home to reduce the noise and hours when they produce it, but now with that feelings law I could be seriously punished for any informal way, like turning on speakers loudly near the temple, I could even use Jesus quotations for that or Christian rock at least, but their feelings would be hurt and thus I arrested anyway, I am sure.
I've sympathized with the other dude, though. A gaming blogger, who was harrassed for a joke about Koran. He didn't visit any temple, he was together with his audience, in "his own temple", you could put it that way. And the humour of the joke was focused on something else, not religion. Anyway, he was harrassed, they made a case against him, Muslim folks threaten to kill him, and all that, but how about a case against those who threaten to kill him? And in case of any case, who will be there in court, deciding? A god-fearing virgin which believes in telegony, next life and karma, and has hard time with actual reality?
I've always taken Western media use of the term "Kremlin" to mean something
less specific than an actual building. Statements attributed to the Kremlin
are, to me at least, somewhat comparable to:
"White House officials said..."
or
"Westminster was abuzz with..."
or
"Capitol Hill insiders are nervous about..."
In a serious statement about politics, "Kremlin" as a figure of speech is a good way to sound specific, while being totally unspecific, vague or speculative.
