Blaspheming is about challenging the suppressive nature of blasphemy codes

Blasphemy often gets framed as causing offence and hurting people's feelings. Seen in these terms, things like drawing certain cartoons seems to be going out of one's way to cause harm. Defending such acts seems to be defending something that's intentionally causing offence and hurting people's feelings.

But blasphemy codes are means of maintaining power and control within a society. They're a way of suppressing alternative and dissenting viewpoints.

Whenever religions have had the power to do so within a society, they've always (or nearly always) tried to suppress alternative and dissenting viewpoints. Blasphemy codes are a major part of how they have done this.

In some societies, the religions have lost a lot of their power and are no longer able to suppress viewpoints like they used to. In other societies, they still wield this sort of power.

The ruling powers in the society can wield blasphemy codes to suppress. Also, the people in the society can wield those powers, against minority groups, such as people of other religions or atheists. Blasphemy codes also provide a convenient excuse for punishing people, by making trumped-up charges of blasphemy.

People get brought up to believe that utterances outside of certain bounds should make them feel deeply offended and angry, and that if someone says such utterances this means they should be severely punished. These people have been brainwashed into responding this way.

It is a great thing when a society has moved beyond blasphemy codes, and where its citizens are afforded greater freedom of thought and speech. Yet certain religions wish to impose their blasphemy codes upon all societies -- with the threat of violent reprisal for any violation of those codes.

This creates a conflict. Which is more important? Freedom of thought and speech, or the power of blasphemy codes? For the reasons given above, I think that blasphemy codes are morally bad things, and freedom of thought and speech are morally good things. I think it is a bad thing to tacitly validate and condone blasphemy codes, by accepting that everyone should be beholden to them. Thus, when religion has made the opening move of saying "you must follow our blasphemy code", we should support people's freedom to respond with a violation of that code.