OT: Muhammed-caricatyres and freedom of speach - Page 2

Renegade 13 · #1 February 7th, 2006, 12:08 AM

Quote:

PvK said:
Humans are a pathetic lot.

Well...that's a rather blanketing statement.

The average individual person can be intelligent, moral and calm. It's the average group of people that's usually moronic, immoral and chaotic.

EDIT: OK, the average individual can be moronic too...at least some of the spelling and grammar errors I made in this post certainly were!

Fixed now. /EDIT

Atrocities · #2 February 6th, 2006, 06:16 PM

I wonder about a few things. From what I have seen, most people are not at all offended by the actions or politics of those who kidnap and then behead people in the name of radicalized Islam, yet they become livid pi**ed off over a cartoon? WTF? They expect the rest of the world to take them seriously under this juxtaposition? I think not.

Endoperez · #3 February 6th, 2006, 08:23 PM

The original article, and few of the actual comics published, are surprisingly accurate. As far as I understand, the pictures were meant to show the drawers' thoughts on islam, or Muhammed. As an example, one of the pictures shows Muhammed, with a crescent-shaped halo... that, to our direction, looks like devil's horns. One of the pictures has a comic artist looking over his shoulder, afraid. One actually has an auhority figure calming down sword-and-bomb zealots with "Relax guys, it's just a drawing by some Dane there somewhere".

With few of the pictures, like the head-with-fuse, I could understand this, somewhat... I just think the other pictures should be shown as well. They didn't think it would cause such a fuss. Reading the Wikipedia article, Denmark has quite loose laws in many other ways, as well.

PvK · #4 February 7th, 2006, 02:14 AM

Perhaps. Humans are certainly more dangerous in groups.

Kamog · #5 February 7th, 2006, 03:18 AM

I looked at those cartoons and I have no idea what most of them are supposed to mean or what the point of them are.

You can see the pictures that caused all this trouble here.

narf poit chez BOOM · #6 February 7th, 2006, 04:02 AM

We are fortunate to have had a number of civil rights movements in the area over a period of centuries.

dogscoff · #7 February 7th, 2006, 09:15 AM

Quote:

"Islamic law, based on clerics' interpretation of the Quran and the sayings of the prophet, forbids depictions of the Prophet Muhammad and other major religious figures � even positive ones � to prevent idolatry."

And that's fine. It's their religion, and they are free to live by the rule quoted above if that's what they want.

The problem arises when people (in this case, muslims) start trying to impose their religious laws on people who do not follow their faith: If I was a muslim, then I would abstain from depicting mohammed, because that's what muslims do (or don't do=-) However, I am not a muslim, and as such I can draw him if I want to. No muslim can demand that I comply with their rules any more than I can demand that they comply with rules specific to christianity or anything else.

Now, a non-muslim might choose not to depict mohammed out of respect to islamic people, and I would very much respect that decision, but that would be a matter of courtesy, not obligation.

AMF · #8 February 7th, 2006, 09:35 AM

Quote:

dogscoff said:
And that's fine. It's their religion, and they are free to live by the rule quoted above if that's what they want.

The problem arises when people (in this case, muslims) start trying to impose their religious laws on people who do not follow their faith: If I was a muslim, then I would abstain from depicting mohammed, because that's what muslims do (or don't do=-) However, I am not a muslim, and as such I can draw him if I want to. No muslim can demand that I comply with their rules any more than I can demand that they comply with rules specific to christianity or anything else.

Now, a non-muslim might choose not to depict mohammed out of respect to islamic people, and I would very much respect that decision, but that would be a matter of courtesy, not obligation.

Yeah, that's exactly the point, eh? Fundamentalists everywhere seem to feel the burning need to regulate other people's lives for them.

Don't like abortion? Don't have one.
Don't like gay marriage? Don't do it.
Don't like other people's cartoons? Don't buy their newspaper.

etc...

Renegade 13 · #9 February 9th, 2006, 11:10 PM

Thing is, when a European Muslim organization went to the Middle East and drew attention to the whole thing, they included 3 cartoons in addition to those published in Europe. These 3 were NOT published anywhere, but were included, presumably to inflame those people in the middle East. Those 3 included: 1) The picture Baron described. 2) A picture of a Muslim bent over praying, and a dog...doing what they do. 3) I'm not sure what this one was, but it was similarly offensive.

As you can see, it's no surprise the Muslim world became inflamed.

PvK · #10 February 10th, 2006, 04:48 PM

There's a difference between the religion and the most moronic and violent people from the same culture. The West has violent morons too, and the Islamic militants are incited by people they trust telling them how intollerant and terrible the Westerners are.

All it takes is one incited moron with a destructive plan to have a chance to ruin or end other people's lives and get on the TV.

Then all it takes is a moron politician to use this as an excuse to erode civil rights a bit more and create some more security pork-barrel projects.

PvK