Blasphemy ~

My goodness. What a question! The problem, of course, is what do you believe? For that which is blasphemous to your ears may be blessing to another's. For me, I do believe that there is only one Creator. That pretty much means that anything that calls the Creator less than holy or true would be a form of blasphemy.

Taking God's given names and using them in a casual manner or a curse or in a negative fashion would also be blasphemy. I follow an indigenous path, so believe in the Wakan Tanka of the Lakota Souix. To call that one anything but holy would, to me, be blasphemous. But, the Christians that are all around me in my family would consider my very belief system to be blasphemy to them and the sacredness of their beliefs. For most folks, actually, there is a point at which their belief system is holy and all others are blasphemy. That is why we have such an oxymoron as a Holy War.

If you truly believe that God is love, and that all who know God love, then there is no such thing as a Holy War, yet the Crusades, fought between Christians and Muslims was filled with hateful and deceitful actions which go directly against all that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, was ever given to hold dear. Therefore, to me, a Holy War is blasphemy. Killing others is not Holy. Taking up arms against another human being is not holy. Calling these actions holy is blasphemy.

Do I believe that it may be necessary at times to take up arms against my "brother" to survive? Unfortunately, yes. But I will never hold such conflict as holy. It is anything but, and my heart quails at the entire concept of doing anything against my brother other than to love him. There are, however, brothers that one must "love" from a distance.

There are some for whom the concept that prevails in Buddhism of enlightenment, rather than godhood is blasphemy, there are others for whom anything but a "sanctified altar inside a church is blasphemy, and there are those for whom woship indoors is blasphemous, for God or the Gods are in nature, and cannot be worshipped in the artificiality of a building of brick and mortar. So, wherever your heart is, that is where sacredness is for you, and wherever you are that you cannot feel the presence of God, that is unholy for you and you are approaching blasphemy to call on the Holy Presence in such a place.