My interest in this chapter has been to attempt to gain some kind of insight into what is ‘wrong’ with the seemingly innocent acts of depicting images without following the rules of their depiction, as in the image of a Madonna with a piano accordion, and of viewing depictions of gods and indigenous sacred objects within a museum context. I have attempted to provide as sympathetic account of these claims and of the religious symbols involved as possible. Because I am an atheist, I have not been concerned with an assessment of the truth or adequacy of these ideas, but with their explication, in an attempt to understand a different perspective. Nor has my objective been to provide a moral argument in support of or against claims that these acts are actually wrong. My objective has been to explore whether there is, as my initial intuition suggested, some similarity between seemingly very different acts, and blasphemy.

My conclusion is that the claims that objects should not be displayed in museums and that certain images are inappropriate are connected through the idea that neither act displays an appropriate act of homage or respect to what is represented by the object or symbol. This feature of homage is also central to the concept of blasphemy, if blasphemy is defined as showing contempt for God and religious matters through one’s words, thoughts and actions. There is, of course, a difference between the acts of showing contempt of other people’s beliefs or of particular beliefs and values, as may occur in intentional blasphemy, withholding acknowledgment (for example, refusing to applaud a performance), and failing to acknowledge because you do not ‘understand’ what something is. In this third case, absolutely ‘nothing goes on’ in our heads when we do not genuflect or acknowledge a religious meaning. There is no cognitive process. Just as a parrot may blaspheme without intent, a person may blaspheme without any recognition of value. Just as there are people who would kill a parrot for blaspheming, there are people who would stick pins into the image of their mother, and who cannot understand the perspective of people who would refuse to do this to an image of their mother. Their mistake is to treat images as ‘mere’ symbols.