Muslim anger at Mohammed Cartoon & Freedom of speech

[rccar328]

I wonder how much of the protesting is over the 12 published cartoons, how much of it is over the 3 fake ones, and how much of it is just general anti-American/anti-Western protesting...

 

Looking over the cartoons that were published, I don't see anything worth rioting or killing anyone over, whether someone's offended by them or not...frankly, even the 3 fakes aren't worth all of the protest that's gone on. Worth getting pissed over? Yeah. But not riots and murder.

[SkinWalker]

The Danish Cartoon Debacle is evidence of the irrationality of religion.

 

If religious beliefs affect society, others in that society have the right to criticize religious beliefs. Even if it means using lampoon, satire, humor, etc.

 

People will claim to have the right to speak against the politics of others, but then say "we should respect the beliefs of others." I say those beliefs should be as open to criticism and ridicule as anyone's political position, particularly when those beliefs affect the rest of a given society.

 

It was religion that brought down the WTC. Not Islam. Religion. It was religion that brought down the Murrah building in OKC. It was religion that was responsible for attrocities in several African nations. It was religion that was partially responsible for our response to 9/11.

 

Religion is fine if it works for you, but when it starts to affect the rest of society, it deserves criticism and ridicule just like any other position. If it can logically answer to those criticisms, fine. But when it responds with crusades, jihads, bombings (suicide or air campaigns), assassinations, fatwas (I'm including Pat Robinson's stupidity here), riots, etc. then religion just demonstrates further that it has no business trying to press its agenda on society.

 

Personally, I think we ought to organize a bunch of young people in the United States to burn the Jordanian/Iranian/Syrian/Saudi flags outside their respective embassies. Throw in some korans and bibles as well.

[rccar328]

Personally, I think we ought to organize a bunch of young people in the United States to burn the Jordanian/Iranian/Syrian/Saudi flags outside their respective embassies. Throw in some korans and bibles as well.

Yeah, that'd be great - a bunch of anti-religion wackos out there making fools of themselves. I'll look for you on the 6:00 news.

 

And the idea that religion is okay until it starts effecting society is just plain stupid. Yeah, jihads and crusades and terrorism are when religion goes too far. Yeah, Pat Robertson is a moron. But in a lot of ways, the moral values of religion can help keep societies in order...and yeah, there are lots of examples where religions go over the line in enforcing morality...but there are just as many or more cases where religious morality saved & improved lives - those stories just don't make the news.

 

Frankly, I find your anti-religious bigotry offensive (but yeah, you still have the right to spout your nonsense)...maybe I'll go out and burn some copies of the Humanist Manifesto and Darwin's The Origin of Species while you're out there burning Korans & Bibles...and maybe I'll throw in some Harry Potter books, just for good measure.

[TK-8252]

But in a lot of ways, the moral values of religion can help keep societies in order...

 

Moral values like what? Stone rape victims to death? Eye for an eye? Burn scientists at the stake for saying that the earth is round?

 

Okay, I was kidding there. I know what you're referring to. Love thy neighbor, honor your father and mother, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, turn the other cheek, etc. But these are not religious values. They are human values. They are values that people have not for religious reasons but for reasons of respect for human life and dignity.

 

If you need the threat of eternal damnation for you to refrain from raping, murdering, stealing, etc., then you are not a good person. A good person respects others not because they don't want to go to hell, but because they do the right thing, no matter if they will be punished for doing wrong or not.

[SkinWalker]

maybe I'll go out and burn some copies of the Humanist Manifesto and Darwin's The Origin of Species while you're out there burning Korans & Bibles...and maybe I'll throw in some Harry Potter books, just for good measure.

 

Its just paper.

 

Lets face it: religion is broke; it's a failed experiment. The majority of the world is religious (Americans mostly christian) and crime is out of control; the rate of adultry is insane; etc.

 

Its time the reasoned minority began speaking out against the unreasonable majority.

[Samuel Dravis]

Lets face it: religion is broke; it's a failed experiment.

I disagree. Some people use it to justify their own ends, but they are not the religion.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

That shouldn't exist. They have nothing to be sorry for. I've never defended the insanity of christian radicals and I condemn them freely; they don't represent me in any way. Why should they say sorry for them? Their radicals are supposedly just as far from them as mine are from me. No one should apologize for extremists. They're responsible for their own actions.

Exactly. That was my biggest irritation after the London bombings - that Mosque leaders in Norway were considered obliged to apologize on behalf of the terrorists and declare themselves peaceful. But I liked the site as it reminds the morons that most Muslims actually are quite nice people.

 

There's something called restraint and civility in the world too. As far as I can tell, there's a lot more people disrespecting that rule than there were involved in creating the pics. People have died because of the lack of restraint these people are demonstrating. Is that acceptable?

Nope. Never said otherwise.

 

It's just paper.

Not nearly.

 

If you need the threat of eternal damnation for you to refrain from raping, murdering, stealing, etc., then you are not a good person. A good person respects others not because they don't want to go to hell, but because they do the right thing, no matter if they will be punished for doing wrong or not.

[Hugs TK]

 

Religion is fine if it works for you, but when it starts to affect the rest of society, it deserves criticism and ridicule just like any other position.

"Yesh". A Buddhist encouraging meditation is the same as an atheist doing it, freedom of speech-wise. I agree:).

[Aristotélēsticus]

I haven't read all the posts here but I'll try not to repeat some opinions.

 

First off all, I am a Moslem, and no we are not terrorists, there are almost 74 sects in Islam and some of these sects (and they are few) have some bad idea that was influenced by politics, before I began to discuss this matter first I'll tell you about some definitions that are misunderstood:

 

Jihad: is a popular metaphor now, and is has been used by the terrorist as a reason to unleash war, so what is Jihad? It is an order by god who told Mohammad to fight back his enemies to survive, is you know some info about Muhammad, you will know that in the first days of Islam, Moslems suffered a lot just like Christians in the roman empire and when the suffering gets more violence god ordered Muhammad to fight back, so Jihad is an order in a limit period of time not as prayer for example, however some scholars suggested that the term "Jihad" means to fight against your own desires to be pure, in the Koran god said:

"he who kills one life kill the world entire and he who saves one life save the world entire". So what I wanted to say is that we are peaceful, but there are some bad people in our communities just like every religion.

 

About drawing Muhammad, it is not mentioned in the Koran but Moslems said that one should not do this because of respecting his figure and that allowing people to draw him will open the gate to those who wanted to attack him, shia (a Moslem sect) draw his cousin (Ali ibn abi taleb) and his grandchildren but not Muhammad and that's a prove of my theory, and I believe that some of you have stated that there are some ancient drawings for him, however, it is not likely to draw him in Islam.

 

Now back to the topic, the two sides were wrong, the Danish journal for printing these images and the mob for burning the embassy, but you should know one thing, and that thing is that not all the communities have the same values, what might be considered important in your community might not be that important in others, not just that, they might consider it even offensive.

 

As I said before, I am Moslem and Syrian, and I know that not just Moslems walked in the protests, some of my Christian friends also marched with Moslems in Syria, and the main headline of the protest was "say no for offending sacred figures", not just Islamic ones also Christian and Jewish and every other religion, I did not attend this protest actually, but my friend said that it started peacefully but then some stupid mobs attacks the police and burned the embassy.

 

Anyway, click on this link

[txa1265]

Now back to the topic, the two sides were wrong, the Danish journal for printing these images and the mob for burning the embassy, but you should know one thing, and that thing is that not all the communities have the same values, what might be considered important in your community might not be that important in others, not just that, they might consider it even offensive.

 

I am assuming based on the rest of your reasonable post that you are not drawing moral equivalence between journalists posting a small political cartoon and the violence, destruction, death threats and death, right?

 

Mike

[SkinWalker]

About drawing Muhammad, it is not mentioned in the Koran but Moslems said that one should not do this because of respecting his figure and that allowing people to draw him will open the gate to those who wanted to attack him, shia (a Moslem sect) draw his cousin (Ali ibn abi taleb) and his grandchildren but not Muhammad and that's a prove of my theory, and I believe that some of you have stated that there are some ancient drawings for him, however, it is not likely to draw him in Islam.

 

Muslims didn't draw him. Danes did. They did it in the tradition of their culture, which is to speak out and criticize other societal entities through illustration and even satire and parody. If Muslims don't like it, they simply need not look at the publications that ran the cartoons.

 

Now back to the topic, the two sides were wrong, the Danish journal for printing these images and the mob for burning the embassy,

 

I fail to see where it has been qualified that the Danes were wrong. They did nothing illegal. Indeed, the majority of the Moslems who reacted without reasoned thought did so without seeing the cartoons themselves! They merely heard about them and formed opinions without data.

 

There is a side that was wrong. It was the side of the argument that broke the laws of its governments.

 

Moreover, the expectation of the Moslem world (or, if you prefer, the protesting portion of the Moslem world) that images of their prophet isn't to be made or seen doesn't logically follow. Not when Muslem traditions of representation exist in earlier centuries and back to the time Muhammad was alleged to have existed. And Not when there are many Islamic publications that have long since characterized Judaic and Christian religions in negative depictions. There is no evidence that Muhammad (assuming he even existed) was opposed to images of the human form. It was, after all, Muhammad that was alleged to have instructed that the portraits of Jesus and Mary not be destroyed along with the idols at Mecca.

 

The Danish cartoonists were making a very valid point: the majority of the Western world views Islam as a violent religion. The reactions of the nutters in Islam who attacked people and buildings and rioted because of cartoons they never even saw serves to demonstrate that point.

 

If Muslims want to protest the actions of others, that's within their rights. But it is also within the rights of non-Muslims (and non-religious) to protest the sometimes violent and nearly always irrational religious nutters of the world.

 

There are those for whom it is one's duty to offend.

[Aristotélēsticus]

If Muslims don't like it, they simply need not look at the publications that ran the cartoons.

 

As I said before, you cannot assume that all the people in the world share the same values, portraying Jesus and even mocking about him is normal in your society, but not in ours, the Christians in the middle east also feel offended when they saw a picture mocking about Jesus, so it is an east value, and doesn’t have anything to do with Moslems, so you cant just say that they don’t have to look at these pics especially that a lot of European journals reprinted it and after the Danish prime minister refusal to meet the ambassadors of Islamic government, all of that made the people gone mad.

 

about this "political" cartoon you've posted, its obvious that the mocking here is about Sharon, the prime minister of Israel, they did not mock of Moses, they do not mock of Judasim, it was pure politics and you can find this pictures in Israel too, the deference here is that teh Danish has mocked of a whole religion, which is not good not just ethically, also it was foolishness to do so, and out of the subject, Arabs are semitics so you cant just accuse them of anti-simitism coz in this way you are accuse them of attacking themselves.

 

 

If Muslims want to protest the actions of others, that's within their rights. But it is also within the rights of non-Muslims (and non-religious) to protest the sometimes violent and nearly always irrational religious nutters of the world.

 

i am with you in this point, everyone has the right to protest, non-Moslems have the right to protest the terrorists but not against a whole religion coz doing so will be a foolish assuming that all the followers of this religion is bad and it's not true for there are bad guys and good guys in every house in the world.

 

i dont know if you opened the link above and read the article for you may find some answers there, however, at last i want to say that i believe that you are free (just like anyone in the world) but your freedom has limits and its limits ends when the others freedom begins.

[Aristotélēsticus]

I am assuming based on the rest of your reasonable post that you are not drawing moral equivalence between journalists posting a small political cartoon and the violence, destruction, death threats and death, right?

 

Mike

 

what i can say is that there are evil in both sides, some wanted to enflame the situation by reprinting the cartoons inorder to view moslems as terrorsts and on the other side there are some who took the advantage of this cartoons to prove thier theory which is based on violence and destruction, and unfortunatly they succeded and we are now in a big problem, thats why we need mutual understanding and we should not be arrogant about our point of views, we should hear the others.

[Nancy Allen``]

So the Muslims want to kill the Danish cartoonists for their portrayal of the Prophet Mohammed, then they hold competitions for cartoons of the Jewish holocaust. How fair is that? They believe murder is justified for something they believe is offensive and then turn around and make fun of something that would be offensive to a lot of people. Are these really the sort of people we want to be paying any attention to?

[Aristotélēsticus]

So the Muslims want to kill the Danish cartoonists for their portrayal of the Prophet Mohammed, then they hold competitions for cartoons of the Jewish holocaust. How fair is that? They believe murder is justified for something they believe is offensive and then turn around and make fun of something that would be offensive to a lot of people. Are these really the sort of people we want to be paying any attention to?

 

you are doing the same now, ignoring eachothers is not the solution, we have to be wise, first of all not all muslems claimed that they want to kill the danish, second the competition you are talking about was a reaction for the ignorance they've endured by the danish press and government, they've justified thier offensive cartoons using the freedom of speach, so part of the muslems decided to use the same justification against them, i am not saying that i am with this compitition but thats how the things goes when we continue to ignore eachothers feelings and acting like fools.

[txa1265]

ignoring eachothers is not the solution,

I agree, but political cartoons have a purpose - to incite thoughtful discussion. In this case, the cartoons came about because death threats had been made to people considering illustrating a book, and indeed a playright had been killed, Salmon Rusdie had to go into hiding. So the cartoons say 'the muslim world claims the peace of mohammed yet is the source of the vast majority or terrorist activity throughout the world' - discuss.

 

The discussion, rather than thoughtfully figuring out how they can change world opinions, the reactions have been along the lines of 'you are wrong, we are not violent, now shut up before we kill you, and we'll burn down your embassy as a warning'

 

You cannot openly negotiate with someone whose finger is on the trigger of a machine gun - they have to realize that the situation is inherently dangerous so long as they are pointing that gun at you. Once they put the gun down, discussion can ensue. Continuing to hold a gun to someone's head while saying 'you should choose nicer words' is not discussion.

 

Mike

[Aristotélēsticus]

I respect your opinion but now you are negotiating with me and we are not fighting, so the possibility of negotiation is available, what is not available now is open minded people to discuss, as I said before you must know that we don’t share the same values and we cant change that, but we can respect that deference, what did you said about Salmon Rusdie, he published a book that claimed things that Moslems believed to be untrue, I am not telling you that you have to accept their judgment, just try to understand it, Dan Brown almost did the same in the da vinci code, but this is acceptable in your societies, well when the book was published in our countries most of the people did not accept his ideas for it attacks the whole Christianity thing, and that upsets the Moslems and the Christians here.

 

In the protest Moslems failed to prove their true identity, that’s for sure, but you cant judge all of them because of the mob, the US government is threatening Syria almost everyday but we still defer between the government and the people and even when the people stand with their government we know that there are others who did not approve its action, what I meant to say is that there are always someone to negotiate with even if you did not see him.

[SkinWalker]

As I said before, you cannot assume that all the people in the world share the same values,

 

I don't make that assumption at all. But I will gladly point out that the cartoons in question were published not in Muslim society, but in Western society. And that is the real problem that exists between the Muslim culture and Western culture: Muslims want the freedoms and opportunities that exist in the West and immigrate to nations like Denmark, France, etc.; but when they get there, they reject the cultural characteristics of those societies that make them free and opportunistic.

 

This, my friend, is what the authors of the cartoons were attmempting to illustrate along with the point that the West perceives Islam as a violent religion. The irony is, that the unreasoned responses of violence by the Islamic peoples of various nations proves that point.

 

...portraying Jesus and even mocking about him is normal in your society, but not in ours,

 

Again, no one was mocked "in your society." It was done in a Western society. If Muslims want to immigrate there, they must accept the culture they adopt and work to change it only if they are, in turn, accepted by that culture. The barbaric actions of Muslim extremists has worked to reinforce stereotypes and generalizations about Islam, which are more and more each day looking to be valid characteristics.

 

...about this "political" cartoon you've posted, its obvious that the mocking here is about Sharon, the prime minister of Israel, they did not mock of Moses, they do not mock of Judasim,

 

My point stands. The cartoon is "political." As are the Danish cartoons in question. That the political joke of the illustrations was some alleged cult prophet means little. They are political cartoons of satirical nature. Satire is a Western tradition that is older than Islam.

 

The Muslim response is not only wrong, its barbaric. Moreover, the Western world is now more sure than ever that Islam is, in general, a religious cult that advocates violence as a means to and end.

 

Religion -be it Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, etc- affects society. It is the duty of the freethinkers of a given society to speak out against religion to keep it in check. Throughout history and in modernity, whenever and whereever religion is allowed to dominate a culture, progress is impeded.

[Nancy Allen``]

you are doing the same now, ignoring eachothers is not the solution, we have to be wise, first of all not all muslems claimed that they want to kill the danish, second the competition you are talking about was a reaction for the ignorance they've endured by the danish press and government, they've justified thier offensive cartoons using the freedom of speach, so part of the muslems decided to use the same justification against them, i am not saying that i am with this compitition but thats how the things goes when we continue to ignore eachothers feelings and acting like fools.

 

Of course it's not all Muslim people, the same as it is with how not all Muslims are terrorists, hate America, who basically hold the views that militant Islam do. And it's very sad how this vocal minority portray the whole of the Muslim world as such. However as it has been argued throughout the thread, these people have sent death threats, they actually killed someone over it I believe, they attack the Danish embassy. I'm not being racist when I say this, but they remind me of the sand people. Any attempt to negotiate peace has failed, and even if by some miricle that is possible they look for an excuse for violence. But on the other hand were there Jedi how would they be able to broker peace, or at least a resolution to this problem, and the problems in the Middle East as a whole? That may be going off the rails a little but whether or not you want to view things through a Star Wars lens, how might we be able to negotiate with those who by all accounts and purposes are not interested in negotiation?

[Aristotélēsticus]

ok, now the whole thread is against me

 

@Nancy Allen``: you said that you dont generalize then you do, what i meant to say is that i dont wanted to to negotiate with Osama Ben Laden and his likes, i said negotiate with someone who's like me maybe, i can assure you and i know that you know that there are alot of good muslems around the world and believe me they are ready to negotiate, try to look at the opposit side, muslems also say the same about you, they say that you dont respect them and you always misunderstand them, so the problem is mutual and we have to make it right together, again you are mistaken between the people who use thier religion to affect others to serve thier evil purpose (which was in all of the religions) and those who believe that thier religion is a thing between them and thier god only and others has nothing to do with it, some islamic figuers succeded in calming the things when they said no to these violent actions, i remember that "Hasan Nasr-allah" said that "one should not obey god from which he disobey him" refering to the fact that you must not said that you are muslem them cause damage to people.

 

@SkinWalker: i can see that you are anti-religion, but its your openion and you are free, in the other hand you must not forget that religions as a whole are a message of peace, it is the corrupted people who gave it this bad image, otherwise you wouldn't find two persons who belong to teh same religion but one of them is evil and the other is good, the religion is one but people defers.

 

you've said that the cartoons were published in a westren society, but you are ignoring an important attribute of our age, globalization, right now societies doesn't exist phsichally, there are no pure society, people are mixing and societies are getting more complicated with alot of religions and ethics within it...i am with you that those who immagrated have to cope with the other societies and some of them have done that for along time, but everything has limits and at the end they are humans and have feelings and they cant just stand and do nothing while others are humilating them.

 

i've said this thousands of time and i'll repeat myself, the mob proved to the west that they are evil, but again you have to know thier feelings before you judge them, there are sometimes when we lost our temper because of somthing silly and we might do somthing really bad, so what if someone aimed to the dearest thing you have???? yes that is how muslems think of thier prophet and whether you like it or not, its thier way, and if the danish paper did that to prove a theory then thier intention was evil because it caused evil and it was based on a bad point of view, you cannot deny that if they did not publish this cartoons protests wouldnt do what they've done.

 

bwt, your words is offensive, i hope that you could avoid that because we are here to talk not to accuse eachothers, you did not draw a thing and i did not protest and threatened you, other wise i'll burn your embassy

[Nancy Allen``]

When I say they are not interested in negotiation, I refer to militant Islam. Al Qaeda and the terrorist cells who believe that negotiation would lead to supression and them falling under the heel of the evil empire. It is these people that are not only threaten the world through their terrorist acts, they also threaten the Muslim people they claim to be fighting for, that is when they claim to fight for Islam and not just those who are willing to take up arms against the defenceless (I was going to say innocent but I'm not sure if there is such a thing from their point of view). Is that generalising militant Islam and Middle Eastern terrorists? Probably, but so far I have not seen any attempt by them to broker peace or otherwise show that they are anything other than people dedicated to killing, whether it be through their drugs which is used for profit and to destroy it's enemies from within, inciting racial hatred through their acts or their direct actions such as when they hijacked those planes and flew them into the buildings just a couple of years ago.

 

And just going back to the original discussion, it is rather telling how all this time Islamic extremists have apparently been opposed to freedom of speech (this can be backed up by punishment to those who speak out against Islam and issues such as subjucation of women, fear of Piglet, ect) and then use it to justify their actions.

[Kurgan]

I would object to Skinwalker's use of "cult" to define a world religion of 1.3 billion people all over the world. He knows full well that the term "cult" can be defined (according to the dictionary) as any religious group or practice, but the PRIMARY definition in the dictionary and the way most people use it is:

 

A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.

The followers of such a religion or sect.

 

So it's generally used as a perjorative term. Academics prefer the term "New Religious Movements" (NRM) or "sect" to reference non-majority or heterodox groups. Skin believes that all religions are false, so to him all religions are cults, by definition 1. I only call him on this now because he did it before. No fair sneaking that in again!

 

I'm sure he would object to me referring to say, freethinkers as "cultists" but that also fits one of the dictionary definitions.

[SkinWalker]

bwt, your words is offensive, i hope that you could avoid that because we are here to talk not to accuse eachothers, you did not draw a thing and i did not protest and threatened you, other wise i'll burn your embassy

 

I reviewed my post, and was unable to find a specific point that was directed to you personally. If you find criticisms of religion offensive, you may need to unplug your computers and televisions if you want to avoid it. I don't subscribe to the point of view that the beliefs of others deserve to be respected if their beliefs have a significant and potentially deleterious effect on society. Indeed, I find the superstitions of religion offensive as I do the opinions of those that would choose tyranny in lieu of freedom when it comes to freedom of speech. Yet I would never "accuse" you of offending me personally for holding those opinions as it is the opinions themselves that are offensive -your right to have them and share them, however disagreeable, I will defend to the end.

[Aristotélēsticus]

@Nancy Allen``: i've said before that i dont want to to negotiate with Al-Qaeda, actually they are killing our people here too and we are in a war with them, and sice you do think that none can negotiate with these people but there are others whom we can negotiate with, then we have an agreement here.

 

@SkinWalker: thank you for your good soul, your words were not directed to me and i know that, but again you are talking in general about islam and thats what i meant, you are saying that criticisms of religion is normal and everywhere, and i am with you, but here we are discussing this matter to find an agreement not to accuse religion of our falts, so its pointless, however, back to the topic now.

[toms]

you've said that the cartoons were published in a westren society, but you are ignoring an important attribute of our age, globalization, right now societies doesn't exist phsichally, there are no pure society, people are mixing and societies are getting more complicated with alot of religions and ethics within it...i am with you that those who immagrated have to cope with the other societies and some of them have done that for along time, but everything has limits and at the end they are humans and have feelings and they cant just stand and do nothing while others are humilating them.

 

But conversely, in a global, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society its almost impossible to say anything meanigful without offending SOMEONE. Society would degenerate into a mass of inoffensive, dull mediocrity.

 

That doesn't mean you should go out of your way to offend people.. conversely people should try to be more open minded and thick skinned when it comes to perceived insults.

 

I don't read/watch the muslim press or al jazeria (?), and i don't attend mosques or muslim schools, but i'd be willing to bet that they have said offensive things about other countries, leaders, religions at one point or another.

 

I think this is a pretty even and interesting issue, with rights and wrongs on both sides. But i do feel that by continually allowing themselves to be provoked into disproportionate responses the muslim world is doing itself no favours.

The only people who gave a reasonably proportionate response were the editors of a jordainian newspaper... i think they are now in jail.

 

fun response: http://drawn.ca/2006/02/14/israeli-anti-semitic-cartoon-contest/

[SkinWalker]

More stupidity

 

"Two died in the northwestern city of Peshawar after police tried to quell around 50,000 demonstrators who torched a KFC outlet and trashed a Norwegian mobile phone company's offices.

 

Around 500 protesters set fire to 16 buses at a bus terminal owned by a South Korean company."

 

Islam is a generally violent religion. This much is clear.