From Winky to Mohammed: Free Speech and Comments on a Fabricated (un)Holiday

[MicroBalrog]

You mean Eric Rudolph? He set his bombs off in the late '90s, over 10 years ago. That you have to go back a decade or more to find a Christian equivalent to the daily - make that multiple daily - outrages committed in that same time frame by Moslem fanatics is very illuminating.

You don't. An abortion clinic was firebombed in Australia in 2009. In the same year a person drove an SUV into a Planned Parenthood office in Minnesota. George Tiller was also shot in the same year. A "christian" organization planning to murder police officers was stopped by the FBI this year.

There's also a 'Christian' terrorist group in India that does things like forced conversions and uses rape as a weapon.

[BrokenPaw]

You mean Eric Rudolph? He set his bombs off in the late '90s, over 10 years ago. That you have to go back a decade or more to find a Christian equivalent to the daily - make that multiple daily - outrages committed in that same time frame by Moslem fanatics is very illuminating.

Ok, so back in the late 90s, when Rudolph was in the middle of doing his thing, was Christianity a reprehensible faith, co-equal with Islam, since both of them had lunatics committing atrocities in their names at the same time?

You've gone ahead and missed the point entirely:  You.  Cannot.  Blame.  Every.  Adherent.  Of.  A.  Religion.  For.  The.  Actions.  Of.  A.  Radical.  Minority.  Who.  Claim.  To.  Follow.  That.  Religion.

Oh, and in light of MB's post:  Your premise is a shambles, Hank.

[HankB]

Oh, and in light of MB's post:  Your premise is a shambles, Hank.

OK, I stand corrected . . . rather than Moslems committing atrocities at 10,000 times the rate of Christians, they're only doing so at 1,000 times the rate.  You're right, premise is a shambles. 

And it's funny how a teeny, weenie, itsy bitsy radical minority has control of entire countries . . .

[MicroBalrog]

OK, I stand corrected . . . rather than Moslems committing atrocities at 10,000 times the rate of Christians, they're only doing so at 1,000 times the rate.  You're right, premise is a shambles. 

And it's funny how a teeny, weenie, itsy bitsy radical minority has control of entire countries . . .

What countries do Radical Islamics of the Kill-All-Americans type have control of? Apart from Iran that is.

[BrokenPaw]

OK, I stand corrected . . . rather than Moslems committing atrocities at 10,000 times the rate of Christians, they're only doing so at 1,000 times the rate.  You're right, premise is a shambles. 

The point was not that the rate per capita is the same.  The point was that every religion has its nutters and psychopaths.  The fact that there are more of them in Islam right now than in any other major religion does not change the fact that most muslims are not like that.

There was a time when Christians had their little foray into theological imperialism.  Should we condemn all Christians, before, then, and now?  Or should we get the hell over painting millions of people with a brush that has been dipped in blood by only a few?

And it's funny how a teeny, weenie, itsy bitsy radical minority has control of entire countries . . .

Yeah, we've never seen any sort of historical record of small-but-motivated groups taking over entire countries.  Think how different the world would be if, for instance, the billion-or-so Chinese hadn't insisted that the communist party take over.   Or if the Russian farmers hadn't essentially forced the Bolsheviks into power.  Or if the American Indians hadn't practically held down the vastly-outnumbered european settlers and told them, at arrow-point, "Please, please overrun this entire continent."

[Balog]

In a general-populace forum like this one?  No, I don't believe that's necessary; they have to deal with the fact that others do not believe as they do and do not follow the same laws.

But there's a huge difference between "not censoring yourself" and "setting out intentionally to offend".  The everyone-draw-mohammed day is more akin to saying, "We know that Jews believe it's wrong to say the name of God, so everyone say it really loud."

Actually, the point of the exercise was that some Muslims felt the need to murder people who did not follow their laws, and that free speech would not be allowed to be restricted in fear of those people. It was not "We don't like Muslims, let's piss 'em off" it was "Some Muslims try to oppress free speech, so screw them."

Yeah, we've never seen any sort of historical record of small-but-motivated groups taking over entire countries.

And yet you say the small but motivated groups of Muslims somehow don't count because they aren't in the majority everywhere?

[MicroBalrog]

There was a time when Christians had their little foray into theological imperialism

Some still do. Don't forget the Russian Orthodox Church.

[Balog]

i didn't say every Christan believes it, but it is there. link

I can post a link to a person who thinks the Bible says that Satan is an alien from Mars in a bitchin' space ship. Some nut on teh intarwebz saying something doesn't make it a valid position.

[MicroBalrog]

I can post a link to a person who thinks the Bible says that Satan is an alien from Mars in a bitchin' space ship. Some nut on teh intarwebz saying something doesn't make it a valid position.

You know of course that there was a time this was a widely-held position, to the point that people deliberately destroyed Catholic relics and churches as 'graven' images.

[Balog]

You know of course that there was a time this was a widely-held position, to the point that people deliberately destroyed Catholic relics and churches as 'graven' images.

That had more to do with Catholic practices than his contention. I am unaware of any wide spread or commonly held belief amongst Christians that any depiction of Christ is sinful, merely that venerating or placing religious significance on them is.

[BrokenPaw]

Actually, the point of the exercise was that some Muslims felt the need to murder people who did not follow their laws, and that free speech would not be allowed to be restricted in fear of those people. It was not "We don't like Muslims, let's piss 'em off" it was "Some Muslims try to oppress free speech, so screw them."

I see your point.  However, taking an action that is offensive to an entire religion, in order to make a point to the relatively small number of members of that religion who are being a problem, is counterproductive.

And yet you say the small but motivated groups of Muslims somehow don't count because they aren't in the majority everywhere?

No, I'm not saying they don't count.  I'm saying that just because a small group has wrested control in an area (or a nation, or a religion) does not mean that everyone in that area, nation, or religion supports that small group, and should not therefore necessarily be treated the same way that we would treat the members of that group.

Another example:  There is currently a whole lot of uproar about pedophilia among the Catholic Priesthood.  Relatively small number of men, in charge of and speaking for a billion or more people around the world.  If we discover that 10 of them (or a hundred, or even a thousand) are, in fact, pedophiles, do we condemn members of the catholic faith the world over for harboring and supporting pedophiles?  No, we do not.

Even on matters of faith and canon, there are Catholics who disagree with the priesthood and the Holy See.  Even within the priesthood, there are factions that have disparate views, and some who do not even follow accepted Church law.  Given that, it's dangerous to say things like "All Catholics are..." , just as it is dangerous to say "All Muslims are...". 

The bad seed in any group is the one that gets attention.  All I am arguing is that the bad seed, even if it claims otherwise, does not and cannot speak for everyone in the group, and it is disingenuous of us to think that they do.

[Balog]

I see your point.  However, taking an action that is offensive to an entire religion, in order to make a point to the relatively small number of members of that religion who are being a problem, is counterproductive.

I'm not saying this event was necessarily a great idea. Merely responding to the rather hysterical accusations that doing it was evil.

Even on matters of faith and canon, there are Catholics who disagree with the priesthood and the Holy See.  Even within the priesthood, there are factions that have disparate views, and some who do not even follow accepted Church law.  Given that, it's dangerous to say things like "All Catholics are..." , just as it is dangerous to say "All Muslims are...".

I agree, which I why I try to say "Roman Catholic doctrine is..." or "Islam teaches..."

[BrokenPaw]

I'm not saying this event was necessarily a great idea. Merely responding to the rather hysterical accusations that doing it was evil.

Oh, I don't think it's evil.  I think it's wrongheaded and counterproductive, but I don't think it's evil.

FWIW, the original cartoonist whose drawings started all of this has denounced the event, because even he thinks it's wrongheaded and stupid.  I don't have a cite handy, but I can dig one up if someone requires it.

I agree, which I why I try to say "Roman Catholic doctrine is..." or "Islam teaches..."

Then I think you and I shan't have to come to fisticuffs over this, after all.   

[Balog]

Oh, I don't think it's evil.  I think it's wrongheaded and counterproductive, but I don't think it's evil.

Yeah, Mabs said that. I just got to arguing with you coincedentally.

FWIW, the original cartoonist whose drawings started all of this has denounced the event, because even he thinks it's wrongheaded and stupid.  I don't have a cite handy, but I can dig one up if someone requires it.

Wasn't the original cartoonist murdered?

Then I think you and I shan't have to come to fisticuffs over this, after all.   

Awww, and here I had my slapping glove all ready to challenge you to a duel. /pouts /kicks rocks 

[BrokenPaw]

Yeah, Mabs said that. I just got to arguing with you coincedentally.

You and I seem to do that from time to time.  We'd better be careful.  People might start to talk.

Wasn't the original cartoonist murdered?

The artist I was referring to was the one who apparently was the specific inspiration for Draw Mohammed Day.  Article here.

Awww, and here I had my slapping glove all ready to challenge you to a duel. /pouts /kicks rocks 

I'm sure the opportunity will present itself again on some other hot-button issue. 

[MicroBalrog]

Norris said the campaign had grown much bigger than she initially intended, and that her cartoon was being used in ways she couldn't control. "I just want to go back to my quiet life", she told the writer of a blog about comics at The Washington Post.[16]  Wellington announced on April 26 that he, too, was dropping out of the movement. "I am aghast that so many people are posting deeply offensive pictures of the Prophet," he wrote.[26][3]  "Y'all go ahead if that's your bag, but count me out."[3][26]  Norris acknowledged, "I said that I wanted to counter fear and then I got afraid."[2][27]  On April 29, Norris suggested that "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day" be called off: "Let's call off 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day' by changing it to 'Everybody Draw Al Gore Day' instead. Enough Mohammed drawings have already been made to get the point across. At this juncture, such drawings are only hurtful to more liberal and moderate Muslims who have not done anything to endanger our first amendment rights."[28]  On May 1, Norris posted a marked up version of her original cartoon, apologizing to Muslims.[4]

[makattak]

"I said that I wanted to counter fear and then I got afraid."

[HankB]

The point was not that the rate per capita is the same.  The point was that every religion has its nutters and psychopaths. 

Agreed that every religion has its nutters and psychopaths. But when one appears to have multiple orders of magnitude more than all the rest put together, maybe it's time to be open to the idea that something other than natural statistical variation is at at work. And the type of nutter matters - Rev. Phelps & his ilk are despicable - truly despicable. But until they start strapping on suicide belts or hijacking airliners, they're not a menace.

What countries do Radical Islamics of the Kill-All-Americans type have control of? Apart from Iran that is.

Radical Islam is not limited to "Kill-All-Americans" but includes "Kill Other Islamic Sects", "Kill Nonbelievers", "Subjugate Women", and a whole host of other unsavory goals. To be sure, they differ in degree, but there are a whole host of nasty countries that are effectively Islamic theocracies.

Afghanistan, until the US military moved in. And the Taliban are still trying to restore their rule.
Egypt is moderate, of course . . . unless you try to do something insanely provocative like open a church there.
Iran was already mentioned.
Iraq's Baath party supported terrorism, and their sect of Islam dominated the entire government by design, until we stomped them.
Libya still clandestinely supports terrorism (look at how they greeted the Lockerbie bomber recently) but Khadaffi is running a little scared since we almost got him a while back.
Pakistan, our staunch ally, hasn't closed down the Madrassas yet. People are frequently killed for apostasy, and they've got major internal problems.
Saudi Arabia is still trying to spread Wahabism and funds "Kill 'em all" imams at various madrassas worldwide, but they're not rabid Islamic fanatics. In fact, to test this, why don't we send a female missionary there, have her wear a rosary around her neck, show up at the Riyadh airport without a hijab and try to rent a car. (She can read aloud from a Bible while waiting for them to bring the car around for her.) See how she interacts with the mutaween welcome wagon.
Syria - hmmm, wonder how many churches and synagogues are operating there? Kind of quiet as far as world news is concerned lately, other than reports of them supplying Hamas (or was it Hezbollah?) with SCUDS . . . but of course that has nothing to do with Islamic hatred of Jews, it's purely secular.
Sudan has Darfour . . . though I'll grant that conflict isn't entirely religious.
Turkey has . . . uhhh . . . OK, they're civilized. Work with a Turk, have met his family. Wife doesn't wear a burka, and he's teaching his daughter to drive. Good people, but Turks are considered bad Moslems by others.

Anyway, I can see we're just going to go 'round and 'round with this, and opinion is split. Maybe this thread has run its course and we should agree to disagree . . . I'm moving on.

[MicroBalrog]

Your analysis has skipped out some of the world's biggest Muslim countries.

Indonesia: 229 million population, of whom 86% are Muslim. Maintains freedom of religion, comparatively fair elections, and a relatively independent judiciary, as well as term limits on the executive. Has assisted the United States during the Cold War, receives civilian assistance and military aid from the United States.

Malaysia: 27 million population. Freedom of religion.

Also:

You realize that Syria has both a Christian and a Druze community, and that the Syrian government has a predilection to throw radical Muslims into shallow graves, right? THey've exterminated entire towns worth of radical screaming beards in the past. Not that I support that.

[Perd Hapley]

THey've exterminated entire towns worth of radical screaming beards in the past. Not that I support that.

See, that proves you're a non-Mohammed-drawing terrorist-lover!!  

Let's get serious about this, folks. If you see someone NOT drawing Mohammed, call the Feds.  It's your patriotic duty. 

[Iapetus]

One thing to bear in mind, is that the acceptability or otherwise of depicting Muhammad has been debated among Muslims for a long time, with the prevailing view differing in different times and places.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depictions_of_Muhammad



If someone was to draw a deliberately rude picture of Muhammad (e.g. one based on a racist caricature, or one showing him commiting an obscene act, etc), that I would say that was being deliberately being offensive/provocative to Muslims.

However, if someone merely dwars a picture of Muhammad, without making it inherently offensive, then all they are doing is not following someone else's religion.  (Or even following their own religion, if e.g. they belong to one of the sects of Islam that thinks drawing Muhammad is A-OK).

And to be honest, if someone gets offended by people not following thier religion, then that's tough.  Pretty much everything that the worst Muslims are doing now was once commonplace in Christianity at one time or another, whether it be making images* or anything else, and the reason it no longer is is because people were willing to defy it (seriously offending people in the process, and often risking death for doing so).

As an earlier poster said, it would be unreasonably provocative to go onto a Jewish forum and use the name of God; but you cannot expect everyone to follow that rule in general life (and we would have no Monty Python if we did.  Likewise, it would be rude to stick pictures of Muhammad through Muslim's letterboxes.  But you cannot expect or insist that non-Muslims in a non-Muslim country follow a Muslim religious rule, and those who think they should deserve to be offended.

I've frequently heard people here stress the importance of exercising your rights to make it clear that those rights exist and are normal.  I don't see why this should be any different.

Furthermore, I don't see why religion should get any special favours.  If someone has a non-religious reason for not liking you drawing a picture, then too bad for them.  If they have a religious reason for not liking you drawing the same picture, it shouldn't make any difference.



*

Exodus 20:4-6 -- Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth below, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

I don't know the exact Koranic equivilent, but that is basically the principle behind the Islamic prohibition on drawing Muhammad (and the reason that most Islamic art is based on caligraphy and geometric patterns, and very rarely shows any living creature at all). 

The Eastern Orthodox church made and makes very beautiful icons for use in religious ceremonies, excused in their minds on the basis that they are painted, not graven.  But they went through a major period of icon-destroying (the original iconoclasm) in the 8th and 9th centuries, with people who who resisted it being killed.  (This all started because the Byzantians were losing a war with the Muslims, and the Emperor assumed this was because the Muslims were obeying the prohibition on making images while the Byzantians were not).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclasm

During the Reformation in Europe there was also a major bout of iconoclasm, where the Protestants destroyed much of the artwork and statuary in churches and elsewhere.  (Many older English churches still have statues with the faces smashed.

And then there was the "Commonwealth", the period just after the English Civil War, where our experiment with republicanism went badly, and we ended up with a theocratic dictatorship that banned or destroyed a lot of art that was deemed blasphemous or seditious by the Puritans.

[HankB]

Your analysis has skipped out some of the world's biggest Muslim countries.

Indonesia: 229 million population, of whom 86% are Muslim. Maintains freedom of religion, comparatively fair elections, and a relatively independent judiciary, as well as term limits on the executive. Has assisted the United States during the Cold War, receives civilian assistance and military aid from the United States.

Just a little update on part of Indonesia . . . looks like the crazy part of Islam (The mere existence of "Islamic Police" is evidence of crazies having way too much power) is trying to impose strict Sharia in West Aceh . . . but I'll concede they are getting some pushback from the rest.

MEULABOH (Indonesia) - ISLAMIC police in Indonesia's Aceh province have been issued with 20,000 long skirts and ordered to cover up women deemed to have broken Muslim dress codes, an official said on Tuesday.  . . .  The 'Islamic police' do not have the power to arrest women for violations of the dress codes but they regularly stop them and demand they change their clothing. The force can however arrest people for other religious offences such as gambling, adultery and drinking alcohol, for which the punishment is caning. Last year the outgoing provincial parliament passed a bill allowing adulterers and homosexuals to be put to death by stoning, but it has not been signed into law by Governor Irwandi Yusuf.

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/SEAsia/Story/STIStory_531136.html

[Hawkmoon]

I like the boycott approach.

I think ALL loyal Muslims should boycott the decadent western countries.

[Tuco]

"I said that I wanted to counter fear and then I got afraid."

See.

Look.

Terrorism works.