What's the difference between blasphemy and heresy?

Blasphemy


Definition:

  • (n.) An indignity offered to God in words, writing, or signs; impiously irreverent words or signs addressed to, or used in reference to, God; speaking evil of God; also, the act of claiming the attributes or prerogatives of deity.
  • (n.) Figuratively, of things held in high honor: Calumny; abuse; vilification.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Fears over violence in Jakarta as hardline Islamists protest governor’s ‘blasphemy’ Read more The governorship of the capital is a powerful position and was a stepping stone for Joko Widodo to the presidency two years ago.
  • (2) His controversial 1988 book The Satanic Verses, which provoked a religious opinion or fatwa, from the Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the author's killing as punishment for blasphemy, is still banned in India.
  • (3) But this was, after all, the late 20th century and the rather antiquated British blasphemy laws were something of an irrelevance.
  • (4) To people who have faith that the world can heal itself through the unfettered interaction of economically rational individuals, and that, if capitalism were allowed to operate freely, there would be no more slumps and bubbles because the invisible hand of the market would guide everything to its rightful price, the seasonal rush must seem like an orgy of blasphemy.
  • (5) Chanting “God is greatest”, many in Friday’s protest waved placards calling for Purnama, popularly known as Ahok, to be jailed for blasphemy.
  • (6) During the original trial, much emphasis was placed on the blasphemy of the women doing their dance right in front of the altar.
  • (7) The government also blocked about a dozen websites and blogs to stem the furore over blasphemy, as well as stepping up security for the bloggers.
  • (8) They have pandered to fundamentalism over the blasphemy law rather than facing it down.
  • (9) I have lost two brothers in this war, I swear by the great honour of the southern revolution.” “That’s blasphemy – you should only swear by God,” said the jihadi.
  • (10) At the same time, Christian lobbyists, spotting broadcasters' ring-fencing of the prophet, have increased their own blasphemy-policing.
  • (11) Paris was the place to be, the political atmosphere suited a cartoonist’s work – cartoons fitted with the slogans and graffiti of the time, its poetry.” Willem joined Hara Kiri , Charlie Hebdo ’s precursor, setting himself immediately to work on blasphemy, vicious political satire and “things some people might regard as pornographic”.
  • (12) And in 2013, a lecturer called Junaid Hafeez was jailed after students accused him of committing blasphemy on his Facebook page in an affair which also led to his lawyer being shot dead.
  • (13) As a former Christian and theology graduate, I felt reasonably well qualified to argue my point about blasphemy, but sex is a whole other area – what is acceptable here is a rather more nebulous concept, of course, and there is little objective legislation to help us in matters of taste.
  • (14) Acquittals in blasphemy cases in the Indonesian courts are rare, but Ahok has vowed to continue his campaign and to contest the election.
  • (15) Not even the Spanish Inquisition entailed such delicate, hair-trigger recriminations for blasphemy as the one that set off this MSNBC host yesterday on his little patriotism enforcement crusade.
  • (16) Hundreds camped out until around four in the morning beside the parliament building, demanding Purnama be charged with blasphemy.
  • (17) There is some frankly rather inappropriate cheering at this shout-out to our most potent secular blasphemy, but not, I note, from the two serious young black men sitting next to me.
  • (18) Blasphemy might be an extremely serious offence in the receiving state; other states do not even criminalise it.
  • (19) Today's statement by foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu denounced Liu as a criminal and said his award was a "blasphemy to the peace prize".
  • (20) That was until July 1977, when Mary Whitehouse, self-appointed guardian of national morals, won a blasphemy libel case against Gay News for publishing a poem about a Roman centurion's homoerotic leanings towards the crucified Christ.

Heresy


Definition:

  • (n.) An opinion held in opposition to the established or commonly received doctrine, and tending to promote a division or party, as in politics, literature, philosophy, etc.; -- usually, but not necessarily, said in reproach.
  • (n.) Religious opinion opposed to the authorized doctrinal standards of any particular church, especially when tending to promote schism or separation; lack of orthodox or sound belief; rejection of, or erroneous belief in regard to, some fundamental religious doctrine or truth; heterodoxy.
  • (n.) An offense against Christianity, consisting in a denial of some essential doctrine, which denial is publicly avowed, and obstinately maintained.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Top Gear presenter Clarkson, who has been repeatedly criticised for making offensive comments, had condemned Sky for the decision, describing it as "heresy by thought".
  • (2) At which point – obviously – you reach the stubborn limits of the debate: from even the most supposedly imaginative Labour people as much as any Tories, such heresies would presumably be greeted with sneering derision.
  • (3) Was this, in fact, a persecuted truth, and our own way of life the heresy?
  • (4) But such an idea is not part of "sex education" and remains a heresy for those of faith, though the secular belief in this idea too is fairly devout.
  • (5) They are engaged in a collective act of over-compensation, frantically mouthing the prayers of the new religion now that the old one has been banished as heresy.
  • (6) But support for Farc, and playing footsie with President Fidel Castro, verges on utter heresy.
  • (7) He even continued to believe in the ultimate heresy – that incomes policy could be an effective non-monetarist means of controlling inflation.
  • (8) Within this apocalyptic tradition, Cohn identified the Flagellants who massacred the Jews of Frankfurt in 1349; the widespread heresy of the Free Spirit; the 16th-century Anabaptist theocracy of Münster (though some have criticised Cohn's account of this extraordinary event as lurid); the Bohemian Hussites; the instigators of the German peasants' war; and the Ranters of the English civil war.
  • (9) Galileo spent the latter part of his life under house arrest courtesy of the Vatican's inquisition for his heresy in insisting the Earth revolved around the sun.
  • (10) What’s much more questionable is the way the same vengeful attitude is extended to anyone who ever portrayed the last two years of Labour politics in terms of doubt, concern and malaise, and who are being similarly instructed to say sorry for their alleged heresy or be escorted from the building.
  • (11) To extremists, Timbuktu’s ancient form of Islam - in which superstition and magic cohabit with the teachings of the Qur’an - is heresy.
  • (12) About 50 other people carried posters reading "Heresy arises from words wrongly used" and "Allah is only for us".
  • (13) Yet insofar as science and the professions demand a conformity to basic concepts of ideology and practice, certain types of dissent may best be described as heresy.
  • (14) It will be argued that freedom of movement is a holy principle and that what we are suggesting is heresy,” he said.
  • (15) To call JP Morgan a glorified utility is something of a heresy in financial circles.
  • (16) It had even led him to consider what for most Irish football fans is the ultimate heresy.
  • (17) Whereas any contemplation suggesting routinization in a plastic surgery endeavor may engender abhorrence or bespeak heresy, some generalizations are essential at least as a foundation from which a logical divergence may proceed.
  • (18) Meanwhile, our French-speaking cousins in Cote D'Ivoire, Senegal and Mali would see the use of okra or nuts as heresy.
  • (19) The biggest danger to the European Union comes not from those who advocate change, but from those who denounce new thinking as heresy.
  • (20) In this paper, heretical movements are discussed, and heresy is defined [8.