The turban bomb was in bad taste, and merits a letter to the editor, not violence which serves only to argue the cartoonist may have had a legit point after all.

A cartoon has caused riots and destruction.

Satire is truly dead. How can anyone make something "funnier" than reality?

Ronson
A cartoon has caused riots and destruction.

Satire is truly dead. How can anyone make something "funnier" than reality?

Tom Lehrer saw it coming before most of us. That's why we don't hear much from him these days. Pity, he was a really funny and brilliant humorist in the 50's and 60's and still is.

hypocrites.

dont they bash jews, christians, america, and all the "infidels".

kYuPoL
hypocrites.

dont they bash jews, christians, america, and all the "infidels".

Welcome to the wonderfull world of orgonized religion. Everyone gets bashed.

Though most of the Muslums I know have always been pretty cool with other religions.

lostpriestess

kYuPoL
hypocrites.

dont they bash jews, christians, america, and all the "infidels".

Welcome to the wonderfull world of orgonized religion. Everyone gets bashed.

Though most of the Muslums I know have always been pretty cool with other religions.

Most of these religions preach kindness, love, care, understanding, etc... on one hand...

but on the other hand, they preach the superiority of their own religion over everyone else.

From an uber-catholic diehard background, I've seen the height of religious intolerance and bigotry. In one of the philosophy classes I attended (at an opus-dei run school), the professor made a diagram about the "hierarchy of religions".

1) Catholic - the true religion

2) Protestants, Baptists, and other "secondary" Christians. - Since they originally followed the "true religion", but deleted parts of the bible, they come in second.

3) Muslims and Jews - since they are monotheistic but dont follow "the true bible and the true word of God".

4) Polygamous religions - at least they have a concept of "god", though not the "one true god".

5) Spirit worshippers, Native indians, Buddhists, etc... - ghosts, nature, etc... are NOT gods.

6) Agnostics - doubt the existence of God but still have a chance of converting to the "true religion".

7) Atheists - For obvious reasons, these people have no god that is why they are at the bottom of the ladder. They should burn in hell!

HELLO?!? I THOUGHT GOD LOOKS AT ALL PEOPLE WITH LOVING EYES AND AS HIS CHILDREN?!? WHY NEED A NAZI-STYLE HIERARCHY?!?


While they preach love, kindness, etc... on one hand, they force their doctrine down your throat just because your parents are Catholic and Catholic parents believe that they have an accounting for the faith of their children.

I go to church in order to please my parents and to stop the division of the family. Because if I dont, they will recruit the entire family to hate me. My brothers, cousins, everyone of their friends will hate me. What a way of forcing shit on you.


That is one of the reasons why I feel betrayed by the religion I once served with doglike-suicidebomber-level loyalty.

Bible in one hand, gun//sword//hate on the other. What kind of hypocricy is that?

Phantom_Penguin

lostpriestess

kYuPoL
hypocrites.

dont they bash jews, christians, america, and all the "infidels".

Welcome to the wonderfull world of orgonized religion. Everyone gets bashed.

Though most of the Muslums I know have always been pretty cool with other religions.

Not all muslims hate everyone. Those are extremists, kind of like christian extremists at waco texas.

Iam a muslim. I dont hate jews, christians, or anybody. Unless they are fanatics, i hate fanatics from every branch of life.

Maybe if I wasnt raised as a fanatic, I'd still be Catholic then...

Phantom_Penguin
...Unless they are fanatics, i hate fanatics from every branch of life.

Hear hear! :smt038

You could invert that list on the basis of logic and reason.

1. Atheists strictly adhere to only that which can be known and proven to be true.

2. Agnostics adhere to what can be proven to be true, but remain open to the possibility of mumbo jumbo being real too.

3. Buddhists, nature worshippers, shamanism - adhere to what can be proven to be true and extrapolate from very real things, their 'mumbo jumbo'.

4. Polytheistic religions believe there are many diverse gods controlling the diverse phenomena observable in reality. This keeps their gods coherant and without contradiction. Observable reality dictates the God commonly.

5. Muslims, Jews and Bible Based Christians : These faiths represent people for whom a book is assumed sacred and thereby considered MORE REAL than observable reality.

6. Catholics and small cults: Discount observable reality and suggest they have a sacred book and a single God, but in fact lie to themselves. Catholics represent a polytheistic religion with three mains Gods (God, Jesus and mary), a host of demigods (the Saints), promote idolatry in Church (Statues of the Saints equpipped with coin op machines) and feature a great deal of dogma not to be found in sacred scripture (the confessional).

Buddhism, by the way - certain flavors of it could be colored as "atheism".

mykill
Buddhism, by the way - certain flavors of it could be colored as "atheism".

And certain flavours are very much like your version of Catholicism there too ^_^

It's just as Misterspook says:

but its hard to say that one experience or one perspective can speak for the entire religion.

mykill
The turban bomb was in bad taste, and merits a letter to the editor, not violence which serves only to argue the cartoonist may have had a legit point after all.

I am so dissapointed in you. It almost breaks my heart. The turban wasn't the bomb, the prophet wasn't the bomb and Islam certainly wasn't the bomb. I'm not going any further than that though. It's a very clever work and people should give it more consideration.

Or maybe I'm seeing something that isn't there at all.

mykill
6. Catholics and small cults: Discount observable reality and suggest they have a sacred book and a single God, but in fact lie to themselves. Catholics represent a polytheistic religion with three mains Gods (God, Jesus and mary), a host of demigods (the Saints), promote idolatry in Church (Statues of the Saints equpipped with coin op machines) and feature a great deal of dogma not to be found in sacred scripture (the confessional).

That's actually rather interesting. I know that during my time in the Catholic education system, Jesus and Mary were never considered as Gods. (And why is Mary the only one born free from Original Sin?) That begs the question of what they were then if not Gods. I think the assumption is that being the son of God or the mother of Jesus is completely different then actually being God. I would not consider saints as demigods though.

But I digress and I would like to third MisterSpook on the idea that it's hard for one experience or one perspective to speak for an entire religion.

.: Black Kitty :.

No, Buddhists represent a range and one extreme of which can be compared to Bible believing Christians (Pure Land Buddhism). Buddhism features many inspired 'sutras' - but none are held with the esteem of a Bible or Koran.

Catholicism flirts with defying the definition of religion proscribed in their very own holy book. Buddhist scripture is mystical and doesn't proscribe worship, as such, at all - so contradiction in form of worship simply isn't possible.

6. Catholics and small cults: Discount observable reality and suggest they have a sacred book and a single God, but in fact lie to themselves. Catholics represent a polytheistic religion with three mains Gods (God, Jesus and mary), a host of demigods (the Saints), promote idolatry in Church (Statues of the Saints equpipped with coin op machines) and feature a great deal of dogma not to be found in sacred scripture (the confessional).

Correction: Its 3 persons in 1 god. (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) God is known by 3 different names. Not 3 different individuals.

Saints are venerated. Catholics ask saints to pray for them. In other words, saints are there to increase the power of their prayers. But they're not gods.

Mary is like the "ultimate saint". Pray to her, and more than 90% chance of your prayer getting answered. She is NOT worshipped as a goddess or something like that.



And Ive heard that in Islamic law, it is a big sin to draw mohammad. Even if you draw a realistic painting of mohammad and portray him as a glorious macho emperor, you are still committing a sin.

MisterSpook
As for the whole cartoon biz. Apparently, there is no sacred teaching in Islam that forsakes depicting Muhammad. As you can see in one of the links of this thread, there a numerous paintings of the Prophet made during the Persia during the 15th century. The Holy Book of Quran also specifically states that the whole world will not accept the teachings of Islam, but it is for God to change others... not for mortal agents. When you scrutinize the motives of the protesters, this whole thing is clearly being blown up for political reasons and the cartoonists and papers have done nothing wrong in reprinting the cartoon.

Duh? Yeah, so the whole thing is just complete nonsense and they should just stop doing it right away because they're just being silly eh?
You tell em MisterSpook! :smt023

Weeeeeeeeeelllllll, in this big wide world we live in, in these particular times, if you mess with the Muslim faith then this kind of thing will happen. People aren't overreacting, they're just reacting.

Look at it in a historical perspective... the long view is always good in these situations. WW1 was a time of great tensions in Europe, it only needed some stupid acts to set things into motion. Arch-Duke Ferdinand was assassinated and then things were off! Several million dead later... and it was over.
You can look at any situation when there was a great amount of killing, war and strife and find the tense time beforehand when it only took some stupid acts to make things worse and some dense people who helped it along by going around saying "Well really, I have no idea why you're offended!".
I'm sure Marie Antoinette was thinking that for a while and I’m sure the British had no idea what problem the American colonies had with tea for a while either…

There seems to be a great deal of ignorance here about the real situation in most of the rest of the world. Let’s just hope it finally settles down and the whole blows over! I really like the Scandinavian countries. And it’s not fair that the US is now being blamed for this cartoon thing when it’s actually been extremely responsible for once!
But fairness doesn't stop you being killed...

-edit-I don't mean to be rude by saying that. But the situation is fairly serious.

What the muslims are missing:

It is the visual representation of the Prophet that is taboo.

The word Muhummad itself has cause no anger or killings.

The word muhummad , itself is an abstracted visual symbol representing the prophet.

Therefore, all people that have written the name "Muhummad" should be killed by having their eyes and brains eaten out by fire ants.

And a great big Monty Python foot should stamp down out of a cloud and squish All of us!

Look, that's just more silliness. Images of the bloke drive people to riot and kill, and they're not really being displayed for any purpose.
However, images of the torture of prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo bay are also stirring up the same people to riot, and deaths result, but in that case there's a bloody GOOD reason for showing the images! The interesting part is that THOSE images really do get censored and hidden. Many of THOSE pictures just sneak out the back way. Where's the uproar about freedom of speech about that sort of thing? Even if the display of them directly results in violence? That’s the argument governments and newspapers use to suppress them.

Yes, sorry Mecha, your suspicious are correct: I’ve measured the naivety levels and found them unsafe…
Religion, any religion is only about peace and fellowship with members of the same religion. That’s just how things work out I’m afraid. You deal gingerly and diplomatically with the rest.
Many Muslims aren’t offended and many would prefer a quick end to the trouble, especially Muslim governments, but it’s just not to be. The political climate is against them.

There’s no nonsense here, it’s serious business unfortunately. The fact is that part of the world is a bomb waiting to go off and these morons in the European press are jumping around throwing lit matches at them. That’d be defensible if there was a good reason for it (Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo photos), but all we have is pointless provocation.

You can blame and reproach the angry Muslims all you like, but it’s utterly pointless and banal. They’re already mad enough, for enough very good reasons, it doesn’t take much to push them over the top. The trick is not to set them off.

It’s also a good idea to put things into perspective. There may be protests and riots, but no Muslim country is invading or attacking anyone over this or anything else, (are their any Muslims countries currently at war? I just don’t know). The same can’t be said for the west.

I'm sorry, there is no excuse for loss of life related to a cartoon. Period.

Every evil thing in this world exist because of some other evil thing - such is the nature of evil things.

The evil act isn't less evil because you have an explanation, it's still evil. There's no murderer or rapist alive that doesn't have a story and an explanation of how they came to commit such acts - it doesn't excuse the act.

The worst possible light to take the Muhhumad cartoons in, is to find them offensive and bigoted.

If I tell you "FUCK YOU!" - It's also offensive and especially personal. Does this give you the right to kill me? Would it give someone else that right if they had hard circumstances?

No.

Should that Danish newspaper have published those cartoons? At this point that isssue is non sequitor compared to the reality that is the loss of life related to the protests. The cartoons killed no one, the complaining however, did.

Had the Danish newspaper been catholic and abused all the major world religions equally, it would never have been news. On the other hand, it's not deathly taboo to poke fun at Christians, Jews, Buddhists or even Hindus. And the point of the exercise was to resist taboo.

And while we're talking reality. Inside most Islamic nations, members of any other faith are explicitly and legally second class citizens (unless they are Yzedi - those they are kill ). So the entire act of feeling offended suggests glass houses and throwing stones to me.

If you are a believer in any religion - all the other religions become nothing more than unreal superstition. Unless you're one of those freaks that think all the religions are true, but those weirdos are few in number.

Every religion EXCEPT fundamentalist Islam has accepted the idea that others in the world do not, will not, nor ever will respect them - and they accept the fact. Is it wrong to point a finger at Islam?

mykill
I'm sorry, there is no excuse for loss of life related to a cartoon. Period.

Look Mykill, if you live in the same fantasy world as the Danish newspaper editors that's great, but in this real world in which I find myself living, ill thought out actions can have unintended consequences.

You can make a direct correlation between a cartoon and a death for comedic or tragic effect, but we could only wish life were that uncomplex. At the moment you could almost be said to be exhibiting the same blindness that led to the events of the 11th of September.

Our way is not the only one in this world; we had better recognise just how diverse this planet is or before we know it something even worse will happen. There’s no right of wrong to it, that’s just life within a community of several billion diverse people.

Religion doesn't really make people do bad things; religion is just something to rally around, like the flag of a country. Point a finger and you'll miss the real target. The problem with those people is a few hundred years of oppression that they believe continues today. The weight of history is a heavy one! Unlike many Westerners they don’t believe the world was created anew in 1945, for others history started a bit earlier...

Disclaimer for the dim: the events of the 11th of September were bad and there’s no excuse for them. The only thing that may have had a chance at preventing them was a deeper awareness and less naivety about what was happening in that part of the world.

Why? Because we like things simple, that's why: both the religious and the people who blame religion.

We have MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY more lives needlessly lost through the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. And those events could be looked on as the true causes of such tensions.
But we like to fool ourselves that it's not really something complex and nasty like invasion, death, destruction, massive corruption, and occupation that causes people to be angry. It makes us feel better if we can explain it in a way that makes them and their religion look stupid. If we can make them seem dumber and more evil than us...

I think that actually makes us the stupid, evil ones.
We'll keep on trampling all cultures on this planet, colonising them, forcing our language, popular culture, politics, our Christian religion, clothing, economics, and anything else we can think of, all because they are less worthy and more stupid than us, with crazy, dumb religions. That’s how we’ll keep on justifying our place at the top of the heap, with them at the bottom.
That’s empire for you.

If you're talking about lives lost and cartoons, you're talking about the context in which such a situation occurs.
If you simply think it's some imbecilic equation like: "crazy Muslims kill because of anger over simple cartoon" -then you shouldn't be discussing this in a debate forum.

If you don't put the event in the total context then you won't understand it properly. If you don't want to understand it properly then you're just using the episode to criticise another people. That's just bigoted.

…Some people like things put simply, so here it is:
There’s a lot more to this than cartoons. They haven’t caused violence and anger, they’ve just helped to keep it going.

ozoneocean
…Some people like things put simply, so here it is:
There’s a lot more to this than cartoons. They haven’t caused violence and anger, they’ve just helped to keep it going.

:P
You should try fencing, you'd be a champ. No one can miss the point more effectively. :D

Let's try again, still keeping it very simple:
There’s a lot of anger in those parts of the world for too many good reasons to count. The cartoons are not the cause of any deaths: If cartoons were the only problem the world would be a strikingly different place my friend. We already have a bad situation, the thoughtless and culturally insensitive publication of the images simply serves to keep it going, further inflaming tensions with the West.

Something more complicated, here’s a very good analogous situation:
When trying to discover what drove someone to suicide, people often fall into the trap of searching for simple, direct causes: He killed himself because his girlfriend left him; she slashed her wrists because she was abused as a child; he hanged himself because he found he had aids; she took too many sleeping pills because her baby died; he shot himself because a politician said something slanderous about him…

The truth isn’t simple.
Why do people create these simple equations:
1). It makes it easier for them to understand complicated, dark situations that they either can’t be bothered to really explore, or are too painful for them to try.
2). They create the simple equation to put spin on the situation so that it furthers their agenda.

Point number 2 is exactly what happens with “Muslims kill over anger over simple cartoon”. It’s a lie designed to spread ignorance and hate against Muslim people. There are plenty of Muslim people using exactly the same tactic to stir up tensions on their side. If you’re using it as an argument you’re exactly the same kind of person.

Fair enough Mecha, you're coming late to the debate.
With little info to go on it would seem incongruous that there would be riots and goods boycotts of Danish products several thousand Kilometres away from Denmark because of this episode.

Again, that’s not the full story… I’ll try and be brief with what I know:
A Person in Denmark wanted to make a picture book featuring images of Mohammed, but no illustrator would draw them for fear of Muslim reaction. So somehow this got to a Danish newspaper and they called on people to submit cartoons featuring Mohammed, just to show they could publish whatever the fuck they like really: their laws, their country, won’t be dictated to by the sensitivities of others etc… Whatever.
So that of course caused a bit of a stir within their community and Denmark in general. Muslim groups complained, apologies were given and the whole thing was sorted out. Finished!
Over and ended…

But a month or so later, a Norwegian newspaper decided to re-publish the images simply because of the fuss that had occurred in Denmark, just to highlight how they shouldn’t be dictated to and probably to show how backward they thought the Muslims were being. This was the real start of the trouble! Because of the Norwegian re-publishing the images were spread on the net and around the world. Of course all the blame still went to the original Danish newspaper and Denmark though…

But it got worse. Seeing the trouble that was caused and wishing to show they stood with Denmark despite the growing Muslim anger, papers throughout Europe re-published the images yet more times; further putting the scrutiny on Denmark! The images have been published around the world, as far as New Zealand, all flying in the face of growing Muslim unrest.

-So it isn’t a story of some humble Danish cartoonist against the Muslim world. Hopefully people see that, it’s just a situation that got out of control because of pig ignorance, stubbornness, insensitivity, and blatant stupidity by all parties involved.

...Well I was more concerned with looking at the issue fairly. Laws in individual countries are rather tricky things; since it really doesn't mater so much what a law says but on how the law has recently been interpreted, and of course that changes all the time. You not only have to have specialist knowledge, you also have to be up to date constantly.
And then again Afghanistan has recently been invaded and is in reality nothing but an occupied country… And before that the only unified governments it’s had have been the extremely conservative Taliban who outlawed pretty much all forms of expression, and the communist government that was really quite liberal. Other than that it’s always been controlled by lots of different tribal groups, each with their own very old fashioned styles of law.

There are many countries that make up what we call “the middle East” though… you’re better of asking someone at the U.N. I think they provide those sorts of services.

Why do you want to know anyway?

"Freedom of expression" is only a principal. Some countries have laws set up to protect it, their laws only apply within their own borders. To apply laws outside of your borders requires one of two things: international treaties or force of arms. The second one sort of invalidates the idea of “law”…