I am so tired of this

[Leto729]

http://www.midco.net/news/read.php?ps=1012&id=14860163&_LT=HOME_LARSDCCLM_UNEWS

I tired about drawing of Muhammad that is a problem to criticize a drawing of a person. They do it with Jesus why not Muhammad?

[Callaway]

It is against their religion to have images of their Prophet Mohammed at all, because they think it would encourage idolatry.  I can see why they find some of these pictures offensive, especially the one of Mohammed with a turban shaped like a bomb or the one of him holding the scimitar with the women, which I attached.  Here are some of the caricatures that caused the uproar:

http://www.aina.org/releases/20060201143237.htm


To get an idea of how they feel seeing caricatures of their Prophet, try to imagine that someone depicted Jesus as Satan, like this:



Does this upset you at all?

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Peter]

People depict Jesus all sorts of ways, and nobody gives a crap except a few conservative Christians, and all they do is sign some petitions and start a website about how much it hurts their feelings.  It's nothing to do with a prohibition against making images of the prophet either; there are plenty of historical depictions of him by Islamic artists that the Muslims don't get upset about; it's just a case of being pissy and intolerant, and having a fucked-up honour culture that demands blood for pretty much any affront, from showing the prophet being raped by a pig to their daughter getting knocked up out of wedlock.  The 'prohibition against pictures of the prophet' is really just some guidelines some imams wrote about the safest way to avoid breaking any of the actual rules, just like the Jewish Talmud is a book of guidelines written by Rabbis about how best to follow the Torah.

If the life of Brian had been the life of Omar, people would very likely have died, but as it was, there were just a few groups that got their panties in a twist and it soon settled down.

[McGiver]

i hate when people depict david koresh in a negative light.

[Scrapheap]

i hate when people depict david koresh in a negative light.

I thought I was the only one !! 

[Scrapheap]

http://www.midco.net/news/read.php?ps=1012&id=14860163&_LT=HOME_LARSDCCLM_UNEWS

I tired about drawing of Muhammad that is a problem to criticize a drawing of a person. They do it with Jesus why not Muhammad?

A large minority of Muslims make Jim Jones' followers look like cub scouts. 

[duncvis]

The screaming fundies don't appear to realise how much their oversensitive dummy throwing makes them look like complete fucktards, mediaeval fanatics howling for blood. What kind of society bends to the wishes of such people?

[odeon]

It's a cultural thing, I think, and while a rational mind in a society that encourages that kind of rationality would simply dismiss the relevance of a caricature of a religious figure, we are not talking about that kind of society. That doesn't make the people in that society stupid, any more the presence of large numbers of reality soaps would actually drop the collective IQ in ours. It simply makes them subject to their own kind of brainwash.

The real point here is not the caricatures; it's the way they are used to insult Muslim societies. That scheme is succeeding. Remember that it took quite some time for anyone to react over those caricatures.

[Scrapheap]

Remember that it took quite some time for anyone to react over those caricatures.

That's one of the few things you could say in their favor.

[Peter]

The real point here is not the caricatures; it's the way they are used to insult Muslim societies. That scheme is succeeding.

The 'scheme' wasn't to insult Muslim societies; it was to test if they really were as violent and over-sensitive as some people thought, or if Islam truly was a religion of peace as the Muslims kept proclaiming, and it did wonderfully at it's goal of getting Muslim societies to show their true colours.

Remember that it took quite some time for anyone to react over those caricatures.

Only because few Muslim fanatics read obscure Danish newspapers, I suspect.

[odeon]

The real point here is not the caricatures; it's the way they are used to insult Muslim societies. That scheme is succeeding.

The 'scheme' wasn't to insult Muslim societies; it was to test if they really were as violent and over-sensitive as some people thought, or if Islam truly was a religion of peace as the Muslims kept proclaiming, and it did wonderfully at it's goal of getting Muslim societies to show their true colours.

The majority of the Muslims still don't know those caricatures even exist so what they succeeded with was drawing out the fanatics. Takes one to know one, see.

Remember that it took quite some time for anyone to react over those caricatures.

Only because few Muslim fanatics read obscure Danish newspapers, I suspect.

Yes, partly. But mostly because some helpful souls pointed the caricatures out in less-than-ideal settings.

[Peter]

The real point here is not the caricatures; it's the way they are used to insult Muslim societies. That scheme is succeeding.

The 'scheme' wasn't to insult Muslim societies; it was to test if they really were as violent and over-sensitive as some people thought, or if Islam truly was a religion of peace as the Muslims kept proclaiming, and it did wonderfully at it's goal of getting Muslim societies to show their true colours.

The majority of the Muslims still don't know those caricatures even exist so what they succeeded with was drawing out the fanatics. Takes one to know one, see.

With the result that the rest of us now know that the fanatics are perfectly happy to burn down embassies and murder people over something as silly as cartoons, and that the so-called 'moderates' are perfectly happy to sit back and stay quiet while they do it, all the while blithering on about how Islam is a religion of peace, and that we're just being prejudiced and xenophobic for fearing them.  A lot of people who thought the 'Muslims are dangerous' thing was all hype and fearmongering changed their minds when they saw pictures like these:




What other groups would react that way to having themselves or their symbols made fun of?  Are there Hindu fanatics who'd bomb us if we made fun of Ganesh?  I think we can safely answer 'no' to that.  Are there Atheist fanatics who'd kill in the name of Darwin?  The very thought is laughable.  Are there Christian fanatics who'll murder us if we we make fun of Jesus?  Nope, but there are plenty of Muslim fanatics who'll happily behead you for mocking Muhammed. 

Remember that it took quite some time for anyone to react over those caricatures.

Only because few Muslim fanatics read obscure Danish newspapers, I suspect.

Yes, partly. But mostly because some helpful souls pointed the caricatures out in less-than-ideal settings.

Yes, a group of imams toured the Islamic world to whip up a frenzy about it.  What's your point?  The next time something similar happens, another group is going to use it to fan the flames of fanaticism again, and the Muslims seem constantly primed and ready to cry for blood over whatever excuse for violence comes along.  It sounds like you're saying the powder keg only exploded last time because someone tossed a match onto it.

[odeon]

Peter,

It isn't merely a question of some innocent cartoons. There is a strong tradition among Muslims to not allow depictions of the Prophet, at all, and even those fractions that do allow it stress the importance of the depictions to be respectful. Wikipedia is your friend.

As for the more moderate among Muslims sitting back quietly while letting the fanatics, rule, that particular accusation often pops up when the rational among us try to introduce nuances into any discussion about Islam, be it terrorism, 9/11, or the Jyllands-Posten cartoons.

The accusation just isn't true.

I'll admit that it's a nice device to use those pictures to give your argument some emotional weight, but it won't make the accusation true.

Have you bothered to look? Have you bothered to read any of the Muslim blogs or websites covering this issue? Have you made a single Google search on the subject, or attempted to locate a Muslim's side of the whole controversy? I have, and have more than once linked to some of them. You can either search my old posts or do a Google search, if you are interested in a more balanced view of the situation.

I, however, cannot be arsed. I know cheap rhetorics when I see it, and that's about all you have.

I suppose you're a bit too young to remember the controversy with Monty Python's Life of Brian (a film that was banned in Norway, of all places, because of the way it made fun of the life of Christ) but do you remember the book The Last Temptation of Christ or Martin Scorsese's film adaptation? Both the book and the film caused demonstrations all over the Christian world, some of them very violent, and both book and film were banned more than once.

The reason why I mention these is because they show that there are equally touchy subjects among Christians, but also because while fanatic Christians made most of the noise, nobody accused the moderate Christians of agreeing with the nutcases by not opening their mouths.

[Peter]

Peter,

It isn't merely a question of some innocent cartoons. There is a strong tradition among Muslims to not allow depictions of the Prophet, at all, and even those fractions that do allow it stress the importance of the depictions to be respectful. Wikipedia is your friend.

I know all about the Muslim prohibitions against depictions of Muhammed, and all this demonstrates is that there are large numbers of Muslim fanatics who'll use violence and intimidation to impose their own religious values on us.

As for the more moderate among Muslims sitting back quietly while letting the fanatics, rule, that particular accusation often pops up when the rational among us try to introduce nuances into any discussion about Islam, be it terrorism, 9/11, or the Jyllands-Posten cartoons.

The accusation just isn't true.

I'll admit that it's a nice device to use those pictures to give your argument some emotional weight, but it won't make the accusation true.

Have you bothered to look? Have you bothered to read any of the Muslim blogs or websites covering this issue? Have you made a single Google search on the subject, or attempted to locate a Muslim's side of the whole controversy? I have, and have more than once linked to some of them. You can either search my old posts or do a Google search, if you are interested in a more balanced view of the situation.

I, however, cannot be arsed. I know cheap rhetorics when I see it, and that's about all you have.

Yes, I have bothered to look, and I know cheap apologetics when I see it:

Yakoub: "There is an intellectual blindness and willful ignorance at the heart of the decision by many European newspaper editors to publish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad (aws) in the name of freedom of speech. This kind of ‘freedom’ is in no way different from the freedom exercised by tabloid journalists who camp out on ordinary people's doorsteps, or whip up public frenzy over paedophiles until - inevitably - some poor old perv is murdered and a couple of dupes end up doing 25 for being guilty of allowing their violent mendacity to be manipulated by those who should know better [...] Freedom of speech is, fundamentally, the right to speak truth to power. Thankfully, the UK is not such a bad place to be if you are a European Muslim, but elsewhere on this supposedly enlightened continent, being Muslim is too often an excuse to be shat upon from a great height. Muslims are not in a position of power here, or anywhere. I wonder what would happen if some brave hack decided to publish a cartoon of the Queen giving Prince Charles a blow job?"

Which basically translates as "It's not our fault if you provoke us and we kill you.".

And here's the publisher of the Yemen Observer describing the religious fervour that swept the country and lead to the Yemen Observer being shut down after it republished the cartoons:

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2006/03/tolerance-on-trial-why-we-reprinted.php

To give credit though, there are plenty of Muslim blogs that are along the lines of "No, this just makes us look bad.", but it doesn't exactly seem like a massive public outcry.

I suppose you're a bit too young to remember the controversy with Monty Python's Life of Brian (a film that was banned in Norway, of all places, because of the way it made fun of the life of Christ) but do you remember the book The Last Temptation of Christ or Martin Scorsese's film adaptation? Both the book and the film caused demonstrations all over the Christian world, some of them very violent, and both book and film were banned more than once.

Yes, I am too young to remember those things, but I can certainly research them.  What violent protests did "The Last Temptation of Christ" result in?  And how is the banning of the films and the book comparable to the current Muslim reaction to the cartoons?  The bannings happened in an era when a great many books and films were banned for all sorts of reasons, and if you go far enough back, to the witch burnings for instance, then there really isn't much difference between historic Western culture and contemporary Muslim culture.

Danish cartoons: Jyllands-Posten publishes article with illustrations of Mohammed, most innocuous, a few defamatory. Violent protests break out in many parts of the world. Vandalism and killings ensue. Many protesters call for the deaths of the cartoonists. A few governments call for the Danish government to take actions against Jyllands-Posten. Many stage boycotts against products sold by Danish firms that have nothing to do with the cartoons. An American magazine chooses to put one of the defamatory pictures on the cover of its current issue. Two book chains normally sell the magazine in question, but decline to stock the current issue, citing not any threatened boycott but fear of the sometimes-deadly violence of the cartoonoclasts.

Last Temptation of Christ: Martin Scorsese directs a film that defames Jesus Christ. Two notable criticisms are the film Jesus' denial of His omniscience ("God only talks to me a little at a time and tells me as much as I need to know") and sinlessness ("I'm a liar. A hypocrite. I'm afraid of everything. I never tell the truth") - quotes from IMDb. Many Christians engage in the time-honored American tradition of spirited but peaceful protest. Wikipedia has to go all the way across the Atlantic to find an example of protest violence, involving the time-honored French tradition of a molotov cocktail. Some call for boycotts against participating theaters and MCA, which distributed the film; no calls for boycotts against innocent bystanders uninvolved with the film.

Yep, the two are just aliike.

The reason why I mention these is because they show that there are equally touchy subjects among Christians, but also because while fanatic Christians made most of the noise, nobody accused the moderate Christians of agreeing with the nutcases by not opening their mouths.

The moderate Christians didn't need to open their mouths because all the fanatic Christians were doing was holding peaceful protests and letting us know how they felt about it.  If the fanatic Christians had set fire to buildings and issued death threats, then you might have a point, but as it is, you have nothing.

[odeon]

Go back to research, Peter. There were plenty of death threats when the Scorsese movie was released.

I suppose there's very little I can say or do to change your current modus operandi, however. People like you need to believe in a clearly defined evil, and Islam fits that bill. You're not alone, though, so don't worry; a lot of the Western world's following that same path. The world needs a scapegoat so what's more perfect than a bunch of dark-skinned weirdos turning to Mecca five times a day and refusing to accept that their God is routinely insulted in most ways imaginable by the same folks that bomb them, sanction their supplies, and steal their oil.

But I'm sure you aren't part of that silent majority that passively watches when OTHER injustices are committed, right?