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Is The Apple Logo Blasphemous? Depends Upon Your Definition of Blasphemy

This article is more than 10 years old.

Just as there's almost nothing that isn't attractive to some person, somewhere, it appears that there's almost nothing that isn't blasphemous to someone, somewhere. That group of possibly blasphemous things including the Apple logo. Perhaps this is some general theory, of which the internet's Rule 34* is only a specific case? In this case it's a sect of ultra-Orthodox believers in Russia that are claiming that the Apple logo is indeed blasphemous:

Radical orthodox Christians from Russia remove Apple logotype from the company's products and put a cross sign instead of them. The orthodox find the half-bitten apple logotype anti-Christian and insulting their belief, something that may potentially cause serious problems for Apple's products in the country.

Interfax news-agency reports about "several" cases, where the radical orthodox, including priests, swapped the Apple logo for an image of the cross, the symbol of Jesus Christ. According to the ultra-radical orthodox activists, the bitten apple symbolizes the original sin of Adam and Eve and is generally anti-Christian. It is unknown whether the radical orthodox consider the logotype as insulting, but it looks like they do.

This isn't a particular problem of course, people are free to believe what they wish and as long as they leave the rest of us alone then good luck to them. However, this does get very slightly more complicated. For one of the results of the Pussy Riot controversy is that the Duma, the Russian Parliament, is considering laws to make offending religious feelings a criminal offence. The question, obviously, will be whose religious feelings? How large a group will have to be offended? My understanding of Russia is not what it once was (back when I lived there for example) but I would expect the law to really say that offending the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church will be an offence and offending anyone else won't be. But that does assume that they write the law that way.

It's always possible that they'll write it much more broadly and that any small group will be able to claim that pretty much anything at all is blasphemous according to their specific religious beliefs. Even the Apple logo.

*Rule 34: if you can imagine it there is pornography of it, somewhere.