"only to find ourselves giving all of it away to make Muslims happy"
There reason for Westerners treating Muslims more cautiously is that because Muslims, in contrast to Christians and other religious groups take our religion seriously and follow the religion closely (I am talking of course about the size of the hardcore compared to the size of Christian hardcore).
That's the real reasons Islam is treated seriously, not some PC crap or "specialness" of Islam in the eyes of the Westerners.
And every dead Theo van Gogh has much more effect on the Western world than 1000 of Streisand effects.
In shaa'a Allah, I will live and see the day international news media will parade a dead bloody corpse of Lars Vilks.
Christians have killed more people and more groups in the name of religion than anybody else. To say that Christians don't take religion seriously is to ignore all the wars, all the domestic terrorism, all that?
Stop attacking Islam the religion and attack the extremists who hijacked it. To attack the entire religion is to attack the individuals within it who are freedom fighters.
We understand the other point of view. The point is in a free society, you do not have the right to not be offended.
so, the other point of view does not matter.
Every fairy tale god has taken its share of criticism, and ridicule throught out history, and in our so called free society, we are supposed to value the idea of freedom of expression.
Instead here we are selling out our constitution, our struggle from historical oppression of thought and ideas.... only to find ourselves giving all of it away to make Muslims happy? Fuck them and their selfishness. We make fun of Jesus Christ every fucking day here in America, in music, arts etc. We also praise him every day in music and arts... and the same for Muhammad. If they dont like it... They can stay out of our way of life. They can STOP watching and listening to our are. And they can stay the fuck off our websites.
Its all nice to "think of their side of things"... but their side of things beats women, forces them to wear burkas, and kills anyone who questions their god. WE already thought about their side of things... and it's fucking stupid.
Here we are giving in to it?
Fuck us. We're pathetic cowards.
Is that a fact? You say in free society we do not have the right to be offended but that does not seem to be true in practice in any society. In every society there are taboos. In the west our taboos are based around sex. In the Muslim societies it's based around images of the prophet.
Go for it. I'm not going to call for your death, or demand pictures of it be taken down off the internet. That's the whole point of free speech. One must tolerate the offensive along with what they view as benign.
Would you still be logically and rationally consistent with your stance?
The only difference between fundamentalist Christians and Muslims is opportunity. Christians only don't do those things because they don't have the power, while the Muslims in the Middle East do. I have no doubts that if Christian fundamentalists ran the west things would be very much the same as the Middle East, with the minor difference of s/Muhammad/Jesus.
That aside, I love how so many "multicultural" people get all up in arms over everything Christians do, but when Muslims or some other group of non-westerners does something they're so ready to excuse it with "tolerance" for their differences from us. Either you're tolerant of both or tolerant of neither; anything else is a massive contradiction.
Those aren't multicultural people, they are irrational people. All religious fundamentalism is wrong because it promotes ignorance.
When you tell people to accept some rules from a book or Prophet written thousands of years ago without any room for interpretation, you end up having to give up the theory of Evolution, and many other scientific views. This leads to a backlash against science which is completely unacceptable.
Fundamentalism is a problem everywhere and we have to accept that most Muslims and most Christians are not fundamentalists. Most Muslims believe in science, and do not want Jihad, but when you attack their religion directly by going after their prophet even these Muslims can be drawn into a Jihad.
If you don't want a Jihad, stop treating it like a crusade. Pakistan's extremists who happen to be Muslims are the problem. ISLAM IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
Not every Muslim, not most Muslims, but certain Muslims. And when we decide to do an action it should be focused on those certain Muslims.
I think the situation with Facebook making fun of Muhammad affects virtually all Muslims rather than just the certain Muslims it is intended to affect. This could have unintended consequences.
No, not me; because fundamentalism == "a belief in a strict adherence to a set of basic principles", and depending on what the principles are, I might either applaud or abhor any given kind of fundamentalism.
For example, I don't like the principle that you shouldn't have any principles (or that actually adhering to them is a bit too much) -> therefore I don't like anti-fundamentalist fundamentalists =P
Fundamentalism is ALWAYS stupid. There is never one set of principles which apply to all situations regardless of calculation, logic, or reason. Fundamentalism of the religious kind is generally a source of problems for humanity.
The ability to weigh the pros and cons of each individual action is what determines rightness and wrongness.
We just became a little more Islamic fundamentalist by giving into their way of life, rather than standing up for freedom.
Facebook, you suck.
I'm so tired of people bending over for Muslims and their way of life. Muslims will NEVER give us an inch, so we we give up our freedom? What a shit deal.
Facebook isn't known for being freedom promoting to begin with. It reduces privacy, it's ALWAYS been like this. If you want to fight the terrorists then target the terrorists directly, no more of this inane and in my opinion useless ridicule on facebook. That does not really attack the problem directly. I suppose it could serve useful if its put up just to measure the reaction but the problem is not Islam, or Muslims. People who blame the religion are part of the problem.
The problem is extremism. To believe that we should attack Islam is a flawed strategy. Attack extremism. There are better ways than this facebook protest even if you have the right intentions.
way to cave face book. please move your hq to islamabad.
If Facebook would cave if cartoon images of child pornography were posted, they should cave in this instance. Or they should never cave in any instance. But to only cave to the US government on taboo images is to send precisely the wrong message to the Muslim world. We have to respect all taboos or none for the behavior to be rational and logical. You cannot continue the policy of American exceptionalism where we hold everyone else to impossibly high moral standards unless we are willing to follow the same standards we want to set.
It's something we should probably have greater debate over but I don't think it's in this instance for facebook not to cave. The point is for people in Pakistan to like using facebook, not to use facebook as a weapon against Islam.
Muslims aren't like China. In the USA we have our Muslims and we have their Muslims. I'm saying we should respect OUR Muslims, not theirs. It's disrespectful to our Muslims to humiliate Islam as a religion.
The state has the capability to sponsor white supremacists covertly. There is no way to know if these white supremacists are government sponsored or not. A good example would be to look at Hal Turner. There is just no way to know.
While we suspect that foreign governments sponsor terrorist organizations, foreign governments can sponsor white supremacist organizations as well or it could be the local government, there is no way to know.
These religious fundamentalists are just as dangerous. There have been domestic terrorist attacks launched by them and they are a terrorist group. The reason they aren't as big of a threat as Muslim terrorists in Europe is because the USA has one of the best domestic security organizations in the world. Our FBI and Homeland security has prevented many different attacks including one nazi who was trying to build a dirty bomb in his basement who was killed by his wife, and including the sniper who shot Larry Flint.
Do you research, there are domestic terrorist organizations and they are not harmless by accident or by lack of evil intent. They truly intend to do harm and merely have been stopped from doing it via the FBI.
Out of respect for the peaceful Muslims who aren't violent it's beneficial to respect Islam
I have no respect for Islam any longer. There have been enough Muslim attacks on our freedom, and looking closer at what they believe in only fills me with disgust and repulsion. And besides, the so called "peaceful" Muslims support the extremists by heart and wallet, they are just to cowardly to do anything themselves. After all, it's inherent in Islam, the religion of barbarism.
Us vs Them? Islam isn't them. The extremists are them, and those extremists may be Christians as well.
But religious freedom is a human right. They have a taboo and it involves images of Muhammad. Out of respect for the peaceful Muslims who aren't violent it's beneficial to respect Islam.
Freedom of religion is a human right, but respect of your religion is not. As an atheist, I can tell you that much of what is said by preachers in the street is disrespectful of atheists. I find the belief that I will be tortured for all eternity very disrespectful. But I don't demand them to respect me, just like Catholics cannot demand I respect their holy crackers. Neither can Muslims demand that the image of Muhammad be sacrosanct. This is just how it works is a free society.
In a multicultural society, there is good reason to behave respectfully to beliefs you do not share. But when such things are backed up with violence, then it crosses a line, and this is about making it very clear that such things will not be tolerated.
It's not like the majority of Muslims are violent so why blame the entire religion
Nobody is blaming the entire religion. Put it this way - if some atheists beheaded someone for saying "atheism is crap" or something similar - I would be the first to hold this banner. I would look down on anyone who felt it was more important to preserve "respect for atheism", then to reprint or otherwise display such as statement. In fact I would feel that this very act was doing more for this cause. Otherwise there is something very wrong with your priorities.
It wasn't the atheists that I was being critical of. I'm critical of Christians who think Christianity and their culture is better than Islam. If you are an atheist who attacks all religious equally then you are justified in attacking Islam too.
I'm not advocating multiculturalism, I'm saying that Muslims have a right to maintain their cultural integrity. I'm not saying that they have a right to go and try to convert people. I'm not saying they have a right to try and change other peoples culture. I'm saying if they want to wear a Burka in certain designated environments, or in their local town, they should be able to. I'm not saying they should be able to wear a Burka on a plane, or go to the airport looking like this anymore than I would say you should work for IBM without wearing a business suit or that you shuold be in the military without the necessary haircut.
This isn't about ridicule just for fun. This is one group of people demanding special treatment (i.e. no drawing of Muhammad etc.) on the basis of their beliefs and threatening (and carrying out - so its not an empty threat) violence against any who dont give them this special treatment. This is simply not acceptable. And this ridicule serves as a way of showing that we are united in this perspective. If this offends someone more than murdering someone in the street then they have their priorities way wrong and I dont have much sympathy for them.
TL;DR: We aren't the students picking on the weird kid, we are the students uniting against a bully who wants to do things his way.
Violence is unacceptable. Crime is unacceptable. But religious freedom is a human right. They have a taboo and it involves images of Muhammad. Out of respect for the peaceful Muslims who aren't violent it's beneficial to respect Islam. It's not like the majority of Muslims are violent so why blame the entire religion?
It's more like: What is the result when there's a ridiculous bully who talks big and roughs everyone up, and you laugh in his face defusing his power?
That NEVER works. First of all Islam itself is not the bully. The religion is the anti-bully. The bully is the fundamentalist militant islam and the states that back it. You cannot beat this state funded militant islam by ridicule because they'll take your ridicule and use it to brainwash their followers even more.
We are dealing with cults here. You cannot beat a cult by ridicule. The result of constant ridicule is that you'll make some of the members suicidal. Those suicidal members will be ready to die killing you because you ridiculed the prophet and the religion they live for.
Basically if you diminish islam you will be diminishing the reason some of these people have to live. You have to understand that some of them are going to be willing to die for islam and no amount of ridicule is going to change that. The better approach is to modernize islam in the ways and pace they can accept and then deal with the few who don't want to modernize in a more targeted sophisticated way.
But to publically ridicule is about as stupid as ridiculing a potential school shooting. You know the kid is unstable, you know he might have access to a gun, but you insist on ridiculing him every day until he can't take it?
Do you think our greed is good bigger is better sexist racist homophobic culture is any better?
Yes. Was that supposed to be a hard question? Are you seriously claiming that sexism in the US is remotely comparable to the pervasive misogyny of fundamentalist Islam? Or that occasional anti-gay slurs are comparable to government-supported stoning of homosexuals?
The USA has it's own problems. We have racism, we have Nazi's running around beating people up. We have plenty of problems and to pretend like we don't is to not look in the mirror. I'm not really comparing fundamentalist islam because I don't believe fundamentalist islam is the dominant form of Islam and I think you know it's not.
In general you have fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, and they are a problem. I can agree with you that they are a problem to be solved but you don't solve this problem by ridicule. You don't solve this problem by bombing and killing them while you ridicule them. This is no smarter than Bush calling them evil and declaring a crusade. This is no wiser than the Pope attacking Islam.
Sometimes it's better to focus on the good points in a culture, form alliances with the best and let the best of all cultures attack the worst of all cultures. You cannot defeat an ideology by ridicule, in fact ridicule has the effect of promoting the ideology because all you are doing is making them more isolated, so that they trust you less and despise you more.
If you don't like Religion in general then you have the right to attack Islam along with Christian, Judaism, Buddhism or whatever. My problem is only with people who claim their culture and religion is better than another culture and religion as if it's a fact or a given. That is one of the main problems that everyone has with Americans and the west in general.
There is no need to act superior culturally along with having superior military, all the money, etc. There has to be some level of respect for other people, you can't just ridicule them 24/7 while you bomb them to death and expect to make friends. Thats like being the school yard bully who picks on all the little kids on top of claiming you are better than them.
The religious female slave/chattel thing doesn't even have to enter into it. Burkas should be banned for the same reason as any face hiding clothing is banned - public safety.
I agree it doesn't have to enter into it, but why shouldn't it?
If we have a security reason to ban Burkas then by all means ban Burkas. But I don't think we should be critical of Islam as a religion. we can be critical of how women are being treated, I'm all for promoting womens liberation. I'm saying we should not attack the integrity of the Islamic religion. It's wrong to attack an entire religion like that.
I've defended Christianity in the past when atheists like Bill Maher have attacked it. It's wrong to attack any of the major religions directly.
The religious female slave/chattel thing doesn't even have to enter into it. Burkas should be banned for the same reason as any face hiding clothing is banned - public safety. It's harder to sneak guns and suicide vests around if you can't be wearing your Burka which somehow is allowable for the cowardly jihadist religious minded when it suits them crowd. Same as ski masks aren't allowed in the normal course of events except on ski slopes. Simple as can be.
Then ban it on airplanes or in certain public places. Don't ban it in the entire country. That is just intolerant. I'm not promoting burkas but to ban it completely? Once again what does that accomplish?
If you think it will keep terrorists out, the terrorists are smart enough to wear suits and dress like we do. They aren't idiots.
If the goal is to promote freedom of expression then you have to team up with progressive Muslims and fight for freedom of expression GLOBALLY. You cannot do that if you go after their most sacred taboo, how exactly do you expect to win support?
This would be like Islamic clerics deciding to choose to complain about the USA's child porn laws, or complain about the pedophile priests in the Vatican. This doesn't really reduce tensions, it increases tensions, and thats the opposite effect you would want for diplomacy or for accomplishing military objectives.
I just don't see how it's a good idea to increase tensions for no real reason. If there is some legit logical reason other than "Our God is bigger than theirs" and "Our culture is better" then I'd like to hear it. But if thats the only excuse for ridiculing them, then it's clearly stupid.
If we made a website declaring Jesus Christ was a homosexual, wouldn't this anger Christians in this country and don't you think that certain individuals would want the website banned?
That is an inaccurate comparison. Muslims are not having fits about Muhammad being portrayed as a homosexual. Muslims having fits about Muhammad being portrayed at all. Why not compare apples to apples?
Consider the show "South Park" Jesus is a regular character. Are Christians up-in-arms about it?
And frankly, I am very certain that you would not see several days of rioting, with several people killed, if Jesus was portrayed as a homosexual.
Our taboo is cartoon images of child pornography. Most everyone considers it to be gross and for this reason alone it's banned. How is that any different? If somebody posted a computer generated image of child pornography of facebook then facebook would be banned by the federal government.
How is it any different logically? It's not. It's still the same behavior just a different taboo.
Oh shut up. Thats liberal nonsense.. and believe me.. I'm a liberal.
You're not dealing with reality.
In American culture we criticism Christians and Jesus all the time. We've been doing it for decades in the arts. Ever hear of a great man named George Carlin?
I mean what fucking planet do you live on? Are you an American? Do you even fucking know our culture? South Park which was recently threatened with death by Muslims (Terrorists) over a Muhammad cartoon. South Park only exists as a TV show because they originally made an underground animation that depicted Jesus fighting Santa Claus, and ridiculed "Kyle" for being Jewish... and "Cartman" for being fat.
Hell we have a LONG history of mocking things in criticism, because we have a history of free expression. If Muslims cant deal with that... then in great American fashion, I will speak for America and say "Go Fuck Yourself"
Sinead O'Conner. Look her up.
Jesus FUCKING CHRIST... I hate people who stand up for fucking the muslims who have no tolerance of others. Why are you so willing to give up your beleifs for theirs? They will NEVER meet you half way, so you give them exactly what they want? You fucking coward.
Stand up for OUR ideals....not their ass backwards intolerant ways.
We may be intolerant and not perfect in our own ways.. but it is an evolution of OUR culture.... which is light years a head of theirs, especially when you realize how slow we as a culture were able to evolve ourselves. What we're seeing is how far they are behind and their intolerance is not our fucking problem.
So because I'm not Christian I have to be a liberal? I guess thats how you make your political calculation? Thats good to know. Now we know that the Christian fundamentalists control the Republican party, and because of this I will not be voting for them.
My opposition to the strategy of ridicule and irritation is that it does not serve any military, or diplomatic objectives. It's just plain stupid to go and ridicule some people who are already suffering and dealing with having bombs dropped on them, now you want to make fun of their God and call them uneducated uncouth barbarians? How does that make us look?
When Americans say Jesus had a wife, that Jesus had kids, that the dead sea scrolls tell the true story, then the church gets up and arms and wants to band the Davinci Code. When the subject of child pornography is brought up all logic is thrown out the window, suddenly censorship of stuff like cartoon images is okay, suddenly even fake child pornography has to be banned, but of course it's still legal to read stories about child rape because text can't be banned, at least not yet, but wait Americans never try to ban anything right?
What about in Europe where hate groups cannot even make websites without being banned. That means their freedom of religion is being diminished along with their freedom of speech. I don't really have to agree with any of these groups of individuals to know when they are being censored, or that their liberty is being diminished.
We cannot claim that it's wrong for Islam to ban cartoon images of the prophet when we condone banning cartoon images of child porn. Either we believe in freedom of expression or we don't, there cannot be these little exceptions in our culture but then we expect other cultures to not have little exceptiosn of their own?
Australia has outright censorship of websites on a massive level. Most European countries ban websites too. The USA is on a child pornography witch hunt and the websites along with the evidence is banned. So lets accept that no country has absolute freedom of speech or expression except maybe Japan and look at how the western countries are complaining about them?
I just think it's very hypocritical that in one article you see western society condemning Japan for not banning something, then in the very next article condemning the entire Muslim world for banning something. I don't think this is accomplishing anything at all. Unless you can list the objectives you and others who agree with your views are accomplishing how can I possibly take you seriously?
Really bothers me that you're at +4 right now. Is everyone's brain dead this weekend?
It's the enemy-of-my-enemy effect, combined with taking cultural relativism to an idiotic extreme. US conservatives don't like Muslims (often because they unquestioningly obey the *wrong* holy book), so many liberals feel compelled to defend them. This despite the fact that fundamentalist Islam is one of the most illiberal misogynistic anti-gay cultures in the world. Yes, even worse than Utah.
I'm not defending fundamentalism. I'm defending religious freedom. I don't like the Christian or Muslim fundies, they are both equally crazy in my opinion. But this isn't about fundies, this is about insulting Islam as a religious institution by going and vandalizing their sacred prophet.
This is provoking a reaction and actually serves to further radicalize the moderates and mainstream Muslims. It's just not accomplishing or helping anything.
If we made a website declaring Jesus Christ was a homosexual, wouldn't this anger Christians in this country and don't you think that certain individuals would want the website banned?
For one, most of them really wouldn't be bothered to the point of calling for a ban, and you're not going to see Christian leaders calling for the death of the webmaster, even Pat Robertson isn't that crazy.
The Catholic church does not like any website, book, or expression which contradicts their official story of Christ.
Slashdot Mirror
"only to find ourselves giving all of it away to make Muslims happy"
There reason for Westerners treating Muslims more cautiously is that because Muslims, in contrast to Christians and other religious groups take our religion seriously and follow the religion closely (I am talking of course about the size of the hardcore compared to the size of Christian hardcore).
That's the real reasons Islam is treated seriously, not some PC crap or "specialness" of Islam in the eyes of the Westerners.
And every dead Theo van Gogh has much more effect on the Western world than 1000 of Streisand effects.
In shaa'a Allah, I will live and see the day international news media will parade a dead bloody corpse of Lars Vilks.
Christians have killed more people and more groups in the name of religion than anybody else. To say that Christians don't take religion seriously is to ignore all the wars, all the domestic terrorism, all that?
Stop attacking Islam the religion and attack the extremists who hijacked it. To attack the entire religion is to attack the individuals within it who are freedom fighters.
We understand the other point of view. The point is in a free society, you do not have the right to not be offended.
so, the other point of view does not matter.
Every fairy tale god has taken its share of criticism, and ridicule throught out history, and in our so called free society, we are supposed to value the idea of freedom of expression.
Instead here we are selling out our constitution, our struggle from historical oppression of thought and ideas.... only to find ourselves giving all of it away to make Muslims happy? Fuck them and their selfishness. We make fun of Jesus Christ every fucking day here in America, in music, arts etc. We also praise him every day in music and arts... and the same for Muhammad. If they dont like it... They can stay out of our way of life. They can STOP watching and listening to our are. And they can stay the fuck off our websites.
Its all nice to "think of their side of things"... but their side of things beats women, forces them to wear burkas, and kills anyone who questions their god. WE already thought about their side of things... and it's fucking stupid.
Here we are giving in to it?
Fuck us. We're pathetic cowards.
Is that a fact? You say in free society we do not have the right to be offended but that does not seem to be true in practice in any society. In every society there are taboos. In the west our taboos are based around sex. In the Muslim societies it's based around images of the prophet.
Go for it. I'm not going to call for your death, or demand pictures of it be taken down off the internet. That's the whole point of free speech. One must tolerate the offensive along with what they view as benign.
Would you still be logically and rationally consistent with your stance?
The only difference between fundamentalist Christians and Muslims is opportunity. Christians only don't do those things because they don't have the power, while the Muslims in the Middle East do. I have no doubts that if Christian fundamentalists ran the west things would be very much the same as the Middle East, with the minor difference of s/Muhammad/Jesus.
That aside, I love how so many "multicultural" people get all up in arms over everything Christians do, but when Muslims or some other group of non-westerners does something they're so ready to excuse it with "tolerance" for their differences from us. Either you're tolerant of both or tolerant of neither; anything else is a massive contradiction.
Those aren't multicultural people, they are irrational people. All religious fundamentalism is wrong because it promotes ignorance.
When you tell people to accept some rules from a book or Prophet written thousands of years ago without any room for interpretation, you end up having to give up the theory of Evolution, and many other scientific views. This leads to a backlash against science which is completely unacceptable.
Fundamentalism is a problem everywhere and we have to accept that most Muslims and most Christians are not fundamentalists. Most Muslims believe in science, and do not want Jihad, but when you attack their religion directly by going after their prophet even these Muslims can be drawn into a Jihad.
If you don't want a Jihad, stop treating it like a crusade. Pakistan's extremists who happen to be Muslims are the problem. ISLAM IS NOT THE PROBLEM.
Not every Muslim, not most Muslims, but certain Muslims. And when we decide to do an action it should be focused on those certain Muslims.
I think the situation with Facebook making fun of Muhammad affects virtually all Muslims rather than just the certain Muslims it is intended to affect. This could have unintended consequences.
The fact that the death penalty still exists ought to prove your argument wrong.
No, not me; because fundamentalism == "a belief in a strict adherence to a set of basic principles", and depending on what the principles are, I might either applaud or abhor any given kind of fundamentalism.
For example, I don't like the principle that you shouldn't have any principles (or that actually adhering to them is a bit too much) -> therefore I don't like anti-fundamentalist fundamentalists =P
Fundamentalism is ALWAYS stupid. There is never one set of principles which apply to all situations regardless of calculation, logic, or reason. Fundamentalism of the religious kind is generally a source of problems for humanity.
The ability to weigh the pros and cons of each individual action is what determines rightness and wrongness.
Exactly.
We just became a little more Islamic fundamentalist by giving into their way of life, rather than standing up for freedom.
Facebook, you suck.
I'm so tired of people bending over for Muslims and their way of life. Muslims will NEVER give us an inch, so we we give up our freedom? What a shit deal.
Facebook isn't known for being freedom promoting to begin with. It reduces privacy, it's ALWAYS been like this. If you want to fight the terrorists then target the terrorists directly, no more of this inane and in my opinion useless ridicule on facebook. That does not really attack the problem directly. I suppose it could serve useful if its put up just to measure the reaction but the problem is not Islam, or Muslims. People who blame the religion are part of the problem.
The problem is extremism. To believe that we should attack Islam is a flawed strategy. Attack extremism. There are better ways than this facebook protest even if you have the right intentions.
way to cave face book. please move your hq to islamabad.
If Facebook would cave if cartoon images of child pornography were posted, they should cave in this instance. Or they should never cave in any instance. But to only cave to the US government on taboo images is to send precisely the wrong message to the Muslim world. We have to respect all taboos or none for the behavior to be rational and logical. You cannot continue the policy of American exceptionalism where we hold everyone else to impossibly high moral standards unless we are willing to follow the same standards we want to set.
It's something we should probably have greater debate over but I don't think it's in this instance for facebook not to cave. The point is for people in Pakistan to like using facebook, not to use facebook as a weapon against Islam.
Muslims aren't like China. In the USA we have our Muslims and we have their Muslims. I'm saying we should respect OUR Muslims, not theirs. It's disrespectful to our Muslims to humiliate Islam as a religion.
The state has the capability to sponsor white supremacists covertly. There is no way to know if these white supremacists are government sponsored or not. A good example would be to look at Hal Turner. There is just no way to know.
While we suspect that foreign governments sponsor terrorist organizations, foreign governments can sponsor white supremacist organizations as well or it could be the local government, there is no way to know.
These religious fundamentalists are just as dangerous. There have been domestic terrorist attacks launched by them and they are a terrorist group. The reason they aren't as big of a threat as Muslim terrorists in Europe is because the USA has one of the best domestic security organizations in the world. Our FBI and Homeland security has prevented many different attacks including one nazi who was trying to build a dirty bomb in his basement who was killed by his wife, and including the sniper who shot Larry Flint.
Do you research, there are domestic terrorist organizations and they are not harmless by accident or by lack of evil intent. They truly intend to do harm and merely have been stopped from doing it via the FBI.
Out of respect for the peaceful Muslims who aren't violent it's beneficial to respect Islam
I have no respect for Islam any longer. There have been enough Muslim attacks on our freedom, and looking closer at what they believe in only fills me with disgust and repulsion. And besides, the so called "peaceful" Muslims support the extremists by heart and wallet, they are just to cowardly to do anything themselves. After all, it's inherent in Islam, the religion of barbarism.
Us vs Them? Islam isn't them. The extremists are them, and those extremists may be Christians as well.
But religious freedom is a human right. They have a taboo and it involves images of Muhammad. Out of respect for the peaceful Muslims who aren't violent it's beneficial to respect Islam.
Freedom of religion is a human right, but respect of your religion is not. As an atheist, I can tell you that much of what is said by preachers in the street is disrespectful of atheists. I find the belief that I will be tortured for all eternity very disrespectful. But I don't demand them to respect me, just like Catholics cannot demand I respect their holy crackers. Neither can Muslims demand that the image of Muhammad be sacrosanct. This is just how it works is a free society.
In a multicultural society, there is good reason to behave respectfully to beliefs you do not share. But when such things are backed up with violence, then it crosses a line, and this is about making it very clear that such things will not be tolerated.
It's not like the majority of Muslims are violent so why blame the entire religion
Nobody is blaming the entire religion. Put it this way - if some atheists beheaded someone for saying "atheism is crap" or something similar - I would be the first to hold this banner. I would look down on anyone who felt it was more important to preserve "respect for atheism", then to reprint or otherwise display such as statement. In fact I would feel that this very act was doing more for this cause. Otherwise there is something very wrong with your priorities.
It wasn't the atheists that I was being critical of. I'm critical of Christians who think Christianity and their culture is better than Islam. If you are an atheist who attacks all religious equally then you are justified in attacking Islam too.
I'm not advocating multiculturalism, I'm saying that Muslims have a right to maintain their cultural integrity. I'm not saying that they have a right to go and try to convert people. I'm not saying they have a right to try and change other peoples culture. I'm saying if they want to wear a Burka in certain designated environments, or in their local town, they should be able to. I'm not saying they should be able to wear a Burka on a plane, or go to the airport looking like this anymore than I would say you should work for IBM without wearing a business suit or that you shuold be in the military without the necessary haircut.
This isn't about ridicule just for fun. This is one group of people demanding special treatment (i.e. no drawing of Muhammad etc.) on the basis of their beliefs and threatening (and carrying out - so its not an empty threat) violence against any who dont give them this special treatment. This is simply not acceptable. And this ridicule serves as a way of showing that we are united in this perspective. If this offends someone more than murdering someone in the street then they have their priorities way wrong and I dont have much sympathy for them.
TL;DR: We aren't the students picking on the weird kid, we are the students uniting against a bully who wants to do things his way.
Violence is unacceptable. Crime is unacceptable. But religious freedom is a human right. They have a taboo and it involves images of Muhammad. Out of respect for the peaceful Muslims who aren't violent it's beneficial to respect Islam. It's not like the majority of Muslims are violent so why blame the entire religion?
It's more like:
What is the result when there's a ridiculous bully who talks big and roughs everyone up, and you laugh in his face defusing his power?
That NEVER works. First of all Islam itself is not the bully. The religion is the anti-bully. The bully is the fundamentalist militant islam and the states that back it. You cannot beat this state funded militant islam by ridicule because they'll take your ridicule and use it to brainwash their followers even more.
We are dealing with cults here. You cannot beat a cult by ridicule. The result of constant ridicule is that you'll make some of the members suicidal. Those suicidal members will be ready to die killing you because you ridiculed the prophet and the religion they live for.
Basically if you diminish islam you will be diminishing the reason some of these people have to live. You have to understand that some of them are going to be willing to die for islam and no amount of ridicule is going to change that. The better approach is to modernize islam in the ways and pace they can accept and then deal with the few who don't want to modernize in a more targeted sophisticated way.
But to publically ridicule is about as stupid as ridiculing a potential school shooting. You know the kid is unstable, you know he might have access to a gun, but you insist on ridiculing him every day until he can't take it?
Yes. Was that supposed to be a hard question? Are you seriously claiming that sexism in the US is remotely comparable to the pervasive misogyny of fundamentalist Islam? Or that occasional anti-gay slurs are comparable to government-supported stoning of homosexuals?
The USA has it's own problems. We have racism, we have Nazi's running around beating people up. We have plenty of problems and to pretend like we don't is to not look in the mirror. I'm not really comparing fundamentalist islam because I don't believe fundamentalist islam is the dominant form of Islam and I think you know it's not.
In general you have fundamentalist Islamic terrorists, and they are a problem. I can agree with you that they are a problem to be solved but you don't solve this problem by ridicule. You don't solve this problem by bombing and killing them while you ridicule them. This is no smarter than Bush calling them evil and declaring a crusade. This is no wiser than the Pope attacking Islam.
Sometimes it's better to focus on the good points in a culture, form alliances with the best and let the best of all cultures attack the worst of all cultures. You cannot defeat an ideology by ridicule, in fact ridicule has the effect of promoting the ideology because all you are doing is making them more isolated, so that they trust you less and despise you more.
If you don't like Religion in general then you have the right to attack Islam along with Christian, Judaism, Buddhism or whatever. My problem is only with people who claim their culture and religion is better than another culture and religion as if it's a fact or a given. That is one of the main problems that everyone has with Americans and the west in general.
There is no need to act superior culturally along with having superior military, all the money, etc. There has to be some level of respect for other people, you can't just ridicule them 24/7 while you bomb them to death and expect to make friends. Thats like being the school yard bully who picks on all the little kids on top of claiming you are better than them.
The religious female slave/chattel thing doesn't even have to enter into it. Burkas should be banned for the same reason as any face hiding clothing is banned - public safety.
I agree it doesn't have to enter into it, but why shouldn't it?
If we have a security reason to ban Burkas then by all means ban Burkas. But I don't think we should be critical of Islam as a religion. we can be critical of how women are being treated, I'm all for promoting womens liberation. I'm saying we should not attack the integrity of the Islamic religion. It's wrong to attack an entire religion like that.
I've defended Christianity in the past when atheists like Bill Maher have attacked it. It's wrong to attack any of the major religions directly.
The religious female slave/chattel thing doesn't even have to enter into it. Burkas should be banned for the same reason as any face hiding clothing is banned - public safety. It's harder to sneak guns and suicide vests around if you can't be wearing your Burka which somehow is allowable for the cowardly jihadist religious minded when it suits them crowd. Same as ski masks aren't allowed in the normal course of events except on ski slopes. Simple as can be.
Then ban it on airplanes or in certain public places. Don't ban it in the entire country. That is just intolerant. I'm not promoting burkas but to ban it completely? Once again what does that accomplish?
If you think it will keep terrorists out, the terrorists are smart enough to wear suits and dress like we do. They aren't idiots.
If the goal is to promote freedom of expression then you have to team up with progressive Muslims and fight for freedom of expression GLOBALLY. You cannot do that if you go after their most sacred taboo, how exactly do you expect to win support?
This would be like Islamic clerics deciding to choose to complain about the USA's child porn laws, or complain about the pedophile priests in the Vatican. This doesn't really reduce tensions, it increases tensions, and thats the opposite effect you would want for diplomacy or for accomplishing military objectives.
I just don't see how it's a good idea to increase tensions for no real reason. If there is some legit logical reason other than "Our God is bigger than theirs" and "Our culture is better" then I'd like to hear it. But if thats the only excuse for ridiculing them, then it's clearly stupid.
If we made a website declaring Jesus Christ was a homosexual, wouldn't this anger Christians in this country and don't you think that certain individuals would want the website banned?
That is an inaccurate comparison. Muslims are not having fits about Muhammad being portrayed as a homosexual. Muslims having fits about Muhammad being portrayed at all. Why not compare apples to apples?
Consider the show "South Park" Jesus is a regular character. Are Christians up-in-arms about it?
And frankly, I am very certain that you would not see several days of rioting, with several people killed, if Jesus was portrayed as a homosexual.
Our taboo is cartoon images of child pornography. Most everyone considers it to be gross and for this reason alone it's banned. How is that any different? If somebody posted a computer generated image of child pornography of facebook then facebook would be banned by the federal government.
How is it any different logically? It's not. It's still the same behavior just a different taboo.
Oh shut up. Thats liberal nonsense.. and believe me.. I'm a liberal.
You're not dealing with reality.
In American culture we criticism Christians and Jesus all the time. We've been doing it for decades in the arts. Ever hear of a great man named George Carlin?
I mean what fucking planet do you live on? Are you an American? Do you even fucking know our culture? South Park which was recently threatened with death by Muslims (Terrorists) over a Muhammad cartoon. South Park only exists as a TV show because they originally made an underground animation that depicted Jesus fighting Santa Claus, and ridiculed "Kyle" for being Jewish... and "Cartman" for being fat.
Hell we have a LONG history of mocking things in criticism, because we have a history of free expression. If Muslims cant deal with that... then in great American fashion, I will speak for America and say "Go Fuck Yourself"
Sinead O'Conner. Look her up.
Jesus FUCKING CHRIST... I hate people who stand up for fucking the muslims who have no tolerance of others. Why are you so willing to give up your beleifs for theirs? They will NEVER meet you half way, so you give them exactly what they want? You fucking coward.
Stand up for OUR ideals... .not their ass backwards intolerant ways.
We may be intolerant and not perfect in our own ways.. but it is an evolution of OUR culture.... which is light years a head of theirs, especially when you realize how slow we as a culture were able to evolve ourselves. What we're seeing is how far they are behind and their intolerance is not our fucking problem.
So because I'm not Christian I have to be a liberal? I guess thats how you make your political calculation? Thats good to know. Now we know that the Christian fundamentalists control the Republican party, and because of this I will not be voting for them.
My opposition to the strategy of ridicule and irritation is that it does not serve any military, or diplomatic objectives. It's just plain stupid to go and ridicule some people who are already suffering and dealing with having bombs dropped on them, now you want to make fun of their God and call them uneducated uncouth barbarians? How does that make us look?
When Americans say Jesus had a wife, that Jesus had kids, that the dead sea scrolls tell the true story, then the church gets up and arms and wants to band the Davinci Code. When the subject of child pornography is brought up all logic is thrown out the window, suddenly censorship of stuff like cartoon images is okay, suddenly even fake child pornography has to be banned, but of course it's still legal to read stories about child rape because text can't be banned, at least not yet, but wait Americans never try to ban anything right?
What about in Europe where hate groups cannot even make websites without being banned. That means their freedom of religion is being diminished along with their freedom of speech. I don't really have to agree with any of these groups of individuals to know when they are being censored, or that their liberty is being diminished.
We cannot claim that it's wrong for Islam to ban cartoon images of the prophet when we condone banning cartoon images of child porn. Either we believe in freedom of expression or we don't, there cannot be these little exceptions in our culture but then we expect other cultures to not have little exceptiosn of their own?
Australia has outright censorship of websites on a massive level. Most European countries ban websites too. The USA is on a child pornography witch hunt and the websites along with the evidence is banned. So lets accept that no country has absolute freedom of speech or expression except maybe Japan and look at how the western countries are complaining about them?
I just think it's very hypocritical that in one article you see western society condemning Japan for not banning something, then in the very next article condemning the entire Muslim world for banning something. I don't think this is accomplishing anything at all. Unless you can list the objectives you and others who agree with your views are accomplishing how can I possibly take you seriously?
It's the enemy-of-my-enemy effect, combined with taking cultural relativism to an idiotic extreme. US conservatives don't like Muslims (often because they unquestioningly obey the *wrong* holy book), so many liberals feel compelled to defend them. This despite the fact that fundamentalist Islam is one of the most illiberal misogynistic anti-gay cultures in the world. Yes, even worse than Utah.
I'm not defending fundamentalism. I'm defending religious freedom. I don't like the Christian or Muslim fundies, they are both equally crazy in my opinion. But this isn't about fundies, this is about insulting Islam as a religious institution by going and vandalizing their sacred prophet.
This is provoking a reaction and actually serves to further radicalize the moderates and mainstream Muslims. It's just not accomplishing or helping anything.
A site which said Hitler were the savior would probably be banned quick, at least in European countries.
If we made a website declaring Jesus Christ was a homosexual, wouldn't this anger Christians in this country and don't you think that certain individuals would want the website banned?
For one, most of them really wouldn't be bothered to the point of calling for a ban, and you're not going to see Christian leaders calling for the death of the webmaster, even Pat Robertson isn't that crazy.
The Catholic church does not like any website, book, or expression which contradicts their official story of Christ.