Right, because offending a religion is reason enough to become an outcast. What is this, the digital dark ages? Religion should be a force to unite people in something positive, not a way for a bunch of sub-groups to tell others how to live their lives.

Offense is in the eye of the beholder, what offends me is that there are people that would jail others based on insulting religions. And I say that as an atheist, my choice on that front already offends some religious people, go figure.

If you subscribe to a religion then you should live by its rules, those rules should not be part of the rules that run a country but they should allow the religious community to determine who is part of the 'in-group' and who is not.

And they should leave everybody else alone.

As someone raised where I was raised, I agree with you.

As someone firmly rooted in reality - I can't. When we participate in a community (be it religious or otherwise, be it of our own informed choice or not) we are bound by the rules of that community. When we knowingly break the rules of that community, we implicitly accept the potential consequences.

No matter how petty or offensive it seems that insulting a religion is grounds for imprisonment -- within the context of that community this is not something up for debate.

You say that the religion's rules "should not be" part of the rules that run a country. Maybe to your view and mine, this is true - but to the view of a sufficient number of people who actually make up that community, this is not true.

If enough people question it, then the rules of the community will change. But unfortunately, such change will require a critical mass of people breaking those rules - and being willing accept the consequences.

And unfortunately, it's that simple.

I recognize the fact that there are countries with quite a few frustrated people that would like nothing better than to be able to control the rest of their fellow human beings and to tell them how to live and that in such countries one could easily get in trouble with the law for behavior that is perfectly ordinary elsewhere.

My way of dealing with that is to refuse to do business with places that are set up like that. It seems to be the easiest way to deal with this problem, then I don't need to wonder what to say/do/not say/not do in order to avoid giving offense to someone with an ax to grind.

There are countries where it is illegal to write certain words, paint pictures, teach women, get an education, complain that you've been raped and so on. The list is long and makes for very sad reading because it shows us how far we as humanity still have to go to get to a more enlightened level. Some people would happily revert to the stone age if that meant that their bearded invisible friend gets to call the shots.

In the end, it's all just little people wrecking it for the rest of us, and this makes me slightly sad that I'm an atheist and not a Roman Catholic because then I'd be confident that all these little men (the pope included) would one day burn in hell.

I agree that we live in a very sad world, but your remark is also very sad that you believe forcing other people to your view is also correct same as a religious person. Not to Believe is as religious as someone believing in something, just like not to take a decision is also a decision.

Change has to come from within and cannot be forced because we believe it is right or wrong else we create resistance to change, which perpetuates the injustice which we want to remove.

Freedom and Slavery are one and the same thing, it is the level of restrictions which defines whether you are in a Slave environment or Free Environment and it is also complicated by the fact that one person's view of slavery/freedom is different from another person's view.

Avoiding to deal with it does not make the problem go away, it still exists and when intelligent people do this, it will still exist for ever.

It is never little people wrecking it for the rest of us, it is us, the little people wrecking for everyone in the name of dogmas without understanding the consequences of our own actions.

I take issue with your statement that "not to believe is as religious as someone believing in something".

Being atheist myself, this is inaccurate. I consider the existence or non-existence of a deity to be a non-issue, so it is not that I am actively refuting something that is disputed.

The best way to understand this is to look at the "cosmic teapot" anecdote (or the "flying spaghetti monster" to be more current). It is impossible to disprove that there is a giant teapot floating in orbit near Mars which is impervious to all forms of human detection. Does this mean that you or I are members of an anti-teapot religious group? Of course not - the question of whether or not the teapot exists simply has no relevance for us and is therefore ignored.

Refusing to do business with certain countries is not the same as forcing others to believe as I do.

someone who has just been convicted for offending another religion inside their own country is talking about enlightenment. im loving this.

You suffer from serious reading comprehension failure.

you just offended a religion. how different are you from the OP?

> you just offended a religion.

I did? Oh my.

this is freedom of speech. blunt offense and apathy.

I guess the most striking difference is that jacquesm hasn't been convicted of anything.

you had no reason to offend another religion. you take religion lightly. you should be educated on other cultures. it is not smart to see people dying for their religion all around the world, and then go around offending them claiming that it is your digital right. that is extremely apathetic. im against you being jailed, but i am with you being outcast from society until you appreciate other people's cultures. You don't seem to deny offending another religion, so i assume you have been rightly convicted.

I appreciate plenty of cultures, indeed I've tried to learn languages to better understand them, but I'm sure that doesn't mean I have to agree with them.

Assuming I have some criticisms of the application of Islamic laws, why must I ask your permission to express them, and to hold political opinions in general? I'm sure that some of my opinions would be held offensive by someone, does that mean I have "offended a religion/culture"?

if you merely criticized religious laws, then i apologize and take back all what i said and believe the you have been not rightly convicted. if you have been convicted however because you insulted that religion (insensitive photograph, your words nit mine) then you should be outcast like a drunk bee.

> your words nit[sic] mine

This was my first comment on this thread, and I'm not the one who submitted it. Read the usernames attached to the posts.

> if...you insulted that religion

As I said, it depends on my opinions and the definition of insulting - people might be insulted by what I say, I don't know until I've said it, do I.

In Liberal Theory (On Liberty, JS Mill) it is said that freedom of thought (believing something) and freedom of expression (expressing that belief, whether in a wordy article on political theory or a catchy, easy to understand cartoon) are so close as to be indistinguishable; since one cannot really claim to believe something if one cannot express it. You are trying to distinguish between the two; I don't think that's philosophically valid.

Additionally, you seem to be saying that you think it should be against the law to be rude. I will no doubt offend you if I say "how very English that sounds".

i think the human brain is more powerful than what you or what you state believe. humans can easily distinguish between freedom of expression and an offense.

> humans can easily distinguish between freedom of expression and an offense.

Offense is interpretation. This is fundamental to Liberal Theory.

In some cultures, some things are considered racist, in others they are not. see: "Black Person Toothpaste" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie (In China, a popular brand of toothpaste. In the UK, US, and I'd hope much of Europe, the name and the packaging would be considered extremely offensive[1].)

If "humans" don't agree on what's offensive (as I have proved with the toothpaste example), then something isn't "offensive" in and of itself; offense is an opinion about the object ("We think this opinion is offensive"). You can hardly convict someone of "causing our people to interpret something as offensive".

[1] although perhaps not in Italy... http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/jul/30/italy...

'Religion' cannot be offended. People can.

And if they are so easily offended, this is not OP's fault.

What if his culture is anti-religious? Aren't you being offensive by saying he should appreciate religious cultures?

there is respect even between enemies. if his religion is anti religious, then he should respect them even more because they are his opponents. taking your enemies lightly is reckless.

That's one of the stupidest things I've ever read.

its interesting that you find this stupid, but not the fact that his religion is anti-relgious. you're really smart.

this is not about religion. this is about the idiots who think the religion is untouchable. how come a religion is getting offended by a picture. can a picture make you think that your religion is less valuable after you see it? imagine that i'm worshiping to cream cheese and you laugh on that. so now i have enough reason to jail you, even better, kill you. because cream cheese said so.

so you're saying a rude picture is not offensive? how can i argue with you?

Dear Moubarak, thank you for expressing your opinion. THIS is the beauty of something called freedom of speech: I don't like what you're saying, I think it's even offending to me, however, you have the right to say this. You don't get jailed and you don't get outcasted.

Based on this comment as well as several others, you appear to be under the impression that jacquesm is the OP. That is not the case, and I'm not sure how you made that mistake.

This is exactly the kind of emotional ranting, that has created a negative opinion against Muslims.

Assuming he/she is 100% wrong in what he/she did, why should the punishment be more than the crime? Why outcast? Isn't doing the sentence enough? And if it's not enough, then the damn law needs fixing.

i said not jail, but outcast, until he learns to respect other cultures. then he is welcome again. that is 100 times better than jail.

Well that attitude offends my religion. By your own logic you should be arrested, thrown in jail and outcast from society.

yes if you can prove i offended your religion then i should be outcast. when did i exclude myself?

I am a secular humanist. As part of my faith, I believe that human beings have an inalienable right to freedom of speech without fear of persecution. I find your advocation of outcasting from society those who say things that you find offensive as offensive as you would find a Quran being flushed down a toilet. There's the door.

the Quran is nothing but paper. flushing it down the toilet however is not like flushing a piece of paper. flushing a holy book down the toilet is a message of enmity. why do you speak so illogically.

So you've offended my religion. Should you be outcast or not? Try to stay focused here, it's not hard.

you have only showed that your values are different. you ave not shown that i flushed your values in the toilet, nor published insensitive photos of your values (like the OP did). do you need help defining the work insult?

Clearly I did need help defining the word insult, thanks for clearing that up for me. When you get offended it's an insult but when I get offended by your wrecklessness and apathy, that's just our values being different. All makes sense now.

fyi, me and my 59836 friends believes that the computer keyboards are our gods. and our religion says that if a person from another religion touches a keyboard he should be outcasted.

i respect your god more than you do, because i think before i type.

if you'd capable to think you must have seen there is something wrong with your religion by now. have you ever read your holly book, did you notice hundreds of mistakes in it? marriage with a 9 years old is ok but posting a picture of yourself while eating some food needs outcast. what you believe in your sick mind is your own business. don't try to spread this illness here and get the fuck out of my sight.

as a side note, i born as a muslim and read the kuran several times. don't try to teach me islam here. if a person doesn't believe to allah, it's his own problem. who are you to decide that. are you allah?

lol. marrying a 9 year old? that's sick. is that what you got reading the quran? are you sure you weren't reading playboy?

since your nickname is moubarek I bet you know who is muhammad. aisha was just six years old when she was betrothed to muhammad, and only nine when the marriage was consummated. It's sahih hadiths. Suit yourself here: Sahih Bukhari volume 5, book 58, number 234

please send me the playboy version of yours which states that he slept with a nine year old. this doesnt state he slept with her nor is it a reference from any holy book. i hope you also understand that this has no place here on HN. if you like please go ahead and use my email from my profile.

are you aware of that you offended muslims by calling Sahih al-Bukhari's book so muhammad's and his entourage's words as playboy magazine?

http://www.sahih-bukhari.com/Pages/Bukhari_5_58.php I hope you know how to scroll down.

btw why are you so obsessive about playboy? In my country we say, man's thoughts are revealed in his speech. No body said they slept. When you first heard marriage, it was sick enough. Now you saw the truth and trying to cover it with "yeah, but they didn't sleep together, it's not written anywhere" . yes i'm talking only about the written part. why he married with a child? go to the nearest mosque and ask your imam. maybe he will tell you.

And I totally agree with you. HN is not the place that you can bullshit freely. Outcast yourself please.

I see no evidence of that. In fact, I see the exact opposite.

This is HN. It is a community based around tech startups and the culture of Silicon Valley. This means it is not a deeply Muslim community, and what might be unacceptable in any deeply religious community is normal here. I hope you don't go because you have been very civil and I think a healthy community has diverse members, but if anyone is an outcast here it is you.

who said it is a muslim community. im just saying HN should not be refuge for immoral people who insult other people's cultures. speaking of tech startups and silicon valley, a muslim guy invented algorithms. the word algorithm is a transliteration of his name. his first name is Mohamed. without him, HN nor silicon valley would exist today. in that sense, the OP made an insult to the Tech world as a whole.

It seems like you're desperately trying to inject religion into an argument where it's wholly irrelevant. Take this at face value: HN is about tech. Religion is not tech, therefore it's not at the forefront of discussion (with the exception of this trainwreck of a tangent).

Someone is facing legal action for posting pictures and need help with their startup. The context of their conviction isn't relevant for the discussion. Similarly; Al-Khwarithmi's religion is not relevant to us whatsoever. They're really interesting tech stories with human-interest stores intermingled - it's not difficult at all to focus just on the tech aspect.

I'm confused by your last point too - we aren't here to sit and discuss some kind of homogenous technocratic dogma. It's a poor example in any case - tech seems to prompt the some of most fervent rounds mud-slinging of all topics up for discussion on the internet.

did you read the description? not so secular isn't it? so if the description is not secular, how am i desperately injecting religion? what kind of filtering did you use when you read the description? im very curious.

From the title:

> Ask HN: I might be going to prison soon, how to save my one-man SaaS startup?

That's what the discussion should be about. Perhaps OP shouldn't have mentioned his "crime", but the fact that it's religious has no bearing on how he handles running a startup from jail.

so you simply filtered the entire description. fair enough.

its simply what the original discussion was about. the specific reason he is being jailed could be 1st degree murder for all the difference it makes. He wasn't asking help to get out of jail.

that is what i meant. it just happens that the OP is convicted against religion. if it was 1st degree murder id say the same, dont support him on HN. your point of view is clear and straight forward that regardless of the crime, HN is a place where such people can be supported.

> who said it is a muslim community

I interpreted your position as applying muslim community standards in what is not a muslim community. This is a very liberal community in which insulting religions for humorous effect is perfectly ok.

> not be refuge for immoral people who insult other people's cultures

"there seems a clear correlation between intelligence and willingness to consider shocking ideas". "In any competitive field, you can win big by seeing things that others daren't" http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

or see for example (http://xkcd.com/137/)

This community willingly asks questions that would be considered 'immoral' elsewhere.

> a muslim guy invented algorithms

Irrelevant. Alan Turing was gay and Ada Lovelace was female.

the OP didn't insult gay people nor females, that's why those are irrelevant.

Indeed. and he didn't insult the inventor of algorithms either. Look, not all jokes involving females are insulting Ada Lovelace. Not all jokes about gay people are insults of Alan Turing. Not all jokes about a specific practice of muslims are insults to Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī.

If the OP was facing jail for insulting gay people or "females" (I "love" the implicit denigration of women as lesser you're performing here) in in the US, there would be a _huge_ fund out to defend them, outpoor of money and support, and organizations like ACLU coming to his aid. There would be a bi-partisan outrage against this. We would all say that we disagree with what he said and consider it stupid/immature/offensive but that he had every legal right to say it. To use a real example, see the case of weev: his personality and actions were extremely offensive and poisonous but currently he is in prison on trumped charge of computer trespass due to a stupid law (CFAA). Yet, most are rallying behind him despite having been very familiar with results of his denigration of others (e.g., Kathy Sierra).

Here's a new word for you: liberty. It doesn't mean "only liberty to do things that _I_ like", it means tolerating when others do things I don't like, as long these don't constitute (in words of US Supreme Court) a "clear and present danger" to me or others. I don't have a right to post a list of mosques in my area and encourage others to attack their members (if I do so I should very much be arrested, thrown in jail, and forced to pay restitution if any vandalism, property damage, or violence has occurred); I do have a right to say that prohibition of pork both in Islam and my religion (Judaism) is outdated and silly (it made sense when there was no refrigeration and eating pork in a hot climate meant a risk of trichinosis, but it makes no sense now), you have a right to disagree and continue to not eat pork.

There is nothing inherently Western about this idea too. If you don't treat the concept as binary but as a continuum, it's clear that during the Middle Ages parts of Islamic world were more free than most parts of the Western world. There are many Western detractors of the idea of liberty, there are many Eastern (including Islamic) defenders of the concept (see http://www.nocompulsioninislam.com/nocompulsion.html for examples from your own culture, see Mencious and Laozi for examples from Chinese culture).

Being offended does not constitute "clear and present danger". I personally find the literal text of Torah, New Testament, and Koran to be extremely offensive -- but I understand that they are not meant to be taken literally (but frequently are with disastrous results), were written a in different time and in different circumstances, and will do all I can to prevent those texts from being censored.

I find your post offensive. Please outcast yourself.

how did i insult you? i'd like to know before outcasting myself.

You insulted me as well; I actually got slightly annoyed reading your outcasting post. Something which rarely happens to me on HN. You should respect each other's religion as long as this religion doesn't interfere with the basic structure and functioning of society.

Now you were talking generally, not Malaysian only, which means that your 'rules' interfere with my freedom of speech (which is normal in my society) and that supersedes your religion, whatever it is.

Now as I am a social beast, I personally know many (devout) religious people, muslims, buddhists, catholics, christians and besides my high school religion teacher and in some fanatical news on the tv I haven't heard many people talk like you. Most people I know who are religious, believe in good for all and turning the other cheek. I am an atheist, but sometimes I wish I could believe something like that. If I would tell my good friend Muhammed (who is a hardworking plumber in my village) about this Malaysian guy, he would pray Allah for his release and fulfilling life. He would not feel any 'offensive' thing here. That's how it's supposed to be imho.

you know nothing about those religions, because non of them promote jail. they all outcast the criminals. please dont have strong opinions about something you know nothing about.

Don't put words in my mouth please; I can't seem to find where I mentioned 'jail'? I am saying that none of the religious people I know would call this person 'criminal', would ask for him to be 'outcast' or any other 'punishment' for this freedom of speech 'incident'.

you are putting words into your religious friend's mouths. this is ridiculous. who am i arguing with.

I personally find deeply offensive any religion whose followers' responses to insults are violence, or threats of violence.

You insulted him by showing apathy towards his religiously held beliefs for a just law and proportionate punishment for the crime and his dislike for mob justice as you proposed in your earlier post.

----

icebraining, I couldn't have used better words than those.

hasty generalizations, high school stuff. you should learn how to argue.

HN has an incredibly liberal slant, see the front page since Edward Snowden started leaking documents. I don't think the the "average" opinion would be that someone isn't welcome here because they pissed someone off. Look at all the snark that gets thrown around.

offending a religion for no reason is not equal to pissing someone off. i doubt you will be responsible for any judgement with that level of intellect.

Offending a religion is just pissing a bunch of people off. So instead of one person that needs to grow up its a whole bunch of them.

Difference in degree, not in kind.

your value of a bunch of people is amazing.

You really should learn how free and open societies work. Here's Hans Teeuwen, dutch comedian, explaining it to a few of your fellow muslims: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNBnZsbAWGo

(English subtitles are available, click on 'captions' option.)

free and open, thats comedy by itself. you are the comedian sir.

Offence is taken, not given. Religious people choose to take offence. They literally don't have to take offence if they don't want to. In doing so, they validate who ever they chose to be offended by, which ironically weakens their religion and themselves personally.

a synonym to offense is attack. an attack is taken not given doesnt make sense.