Muslims all over the world are angered by the cartoons that insulted their prophet and religion.  The drawings are condemned as blasphemous.  I do not doubt the genuine feelings of rage behind the protests.  From a Confucian or Taoist perspective, however, there really would be no controversy because there is no blasphemy in the conventional meaning of that term.

    The first definition for "Blasphemy" in the OED is: "Profane speaking of God or sacred things; impious irreverence."  Since neither Confucianism nor Taoism posit a singular, omnipotent God figure in the manner of the monotheistic religions, on the face of it there can be no blasphemy.  If we push the matter a bit further, especially for Confucianism, things get a bit more complicated but, even then, I don’t think there is blasphemy in the conventional sense.

UPDATE: Shortly after I posted this, I thought of a case of something close to blasphemy for a Confucian.

    Let’s consider Taoism, the easier case, first.  There is no God for Taoists, just Way.  And Way is all encompassing, including both good and evil.  If "blasphemy" implies evil – its second OED definition is: "Slander, evil speaking, defamation" – then, it is not something external to Way.  If it is within Way (as everything is), it will "move as one and the same" (Chuang Tzu) with everything else in Way.  Taoists might want to eschew "blasphemy" for whatever reasons – it could upset their surroundings in unnecessary and avoidable ways – and that would be fine.  But if someone did utter a blasphemous statement (whatever that might be) there would be no special concern given to it.  I am thinking here of this excerpt from passage 62 of the Tao Te Ching:

Way is the mystery of these ten thousand things.
It’s a good person’s treasure
and an evil person’s refuge.
Its beautiful words are bought and sold
and its noble deeds are gifts enriching people.
It never abandons even the evil among us.   

    If Way never abandons the evil among us, blasphemy, or something approaching it without reference to God, would seem to be tolerable.

     Confucianism is a more complex case.  In his marvelous little book, Confucianism: The Secular as Sacred, Herbert Finagrette argues that Confucius requires us to invest our daily social duties with a reverence like that we might assume when approaching the sacred (for more on Finagrette read this earlier post).  If we accept that interpretation,then something like "blasphemy" might occur when we fail to fulfill our social duties.  I think this is especially true for certain major responsibilities, like carrying out proper mourning rituals after a parent dies.  Confucius and  Mencius took mourning very seriously and were in constant battles with Mohists over maintaining those rituals.

     But this application of "blasphemy" to Confucianism breaks down after a point.  Think about it.  Our social duties are not simply a matter of major life-thresholds, like birth and marriage and death.  Confucius meant us to be reverent about our everyday responsibilities, even relatively mundane tasks like how we greeted one another.  And if we take that imperative to live up to our duties in our routine daily actions, then there myriad opportunities for something like blasphemy.  Blasphemy would then be fairly common because Confucius recognized how difficult it is to attain Humanity (which, for these purposes, might be considered something close to perfect fulfillment of daily duties).   He did not see himself as perfectly reverent.  Humans fail at times.  Blasphemy, then, would be fairly common; so common as to lose any special significance.

    In the end, then, I think "blasphemy" is not a good way to describe our failing to live up to our Confucian duties. 

    To put a sharp point on it: there is no blasphemy for Confucians and Taoists.

UPDATE: Let me take that sharp point off the Confucian argument.  If a son were to publicly curse or harm his father, that would be close to blasphemy for a Confucian, in the traditional interpretation of Confucianism.  And I think that is supported by the Analects.  If somebody else, a stranger, cursed my father publicly, that would not be blasphemy. It is only when a son, himself, does the cursing, that the transgression might approach blasphemy. Would this also apply to daughters?  Yes. Children generally against parents?  Yes.  What if parents disregarded their duties to children?  That might be a bit harder.  In the end, I think we could come up with a limited number of actions within a Confucian world view, beyond simply failing in our daily duties, that might be close to the dictionary meaning of blasphemy.