What are your thoughts on "Draw Muhammed Day"?

I think it’s awesome, why should we cower and limit our rights so some fundamentalists can feel better. Fuck…...them…..

Personally, I find it disrespectful to insult anyone’s higher power. If other’s want to do it, it is their right, but I won’t do it.

I have to admit, I feel it’s a bit childish but then again so is issuing a threat over a cartoon.

I feel it’s rude. I wouldn’t like National Piss On The Cross Day or National Burn A Yarmulke Day either.

It reeks of being mean just to be mean, to me. I don’t agree with people receiving death threats for art- of any kind- yet I fail to see how this will do anything. So by being jackasses, they’re going to ‘teach’ people to be more understanding and stop sending threats? Wot? It seems more like throwing fuel on the fire.

It’s about freedom of speech. We cannot allow terrorist to intimidate us. We shall not live in fear!!

A Crowning Moment of Awesome.

Yes, it’s disrespectful. Yes, it’s puerile. Yes, it’s rude.
Yes, they had it coming.

And it’s a general rule of the internet that if you’re this easily offended, you’re going to get offended, very hard. Especially if you’re such a jerk about it.

@mimibandida I agree that we can’t allow terrorist to intimidate us, but there are people that aren’t terrorist that also follow Muhammed. I wouldn’t let an extremist in any religion intimidate me, but I wouldn’t purposefully disrespect the rest of the people in that religion just because of the actions of their extremist.

@Seaofclouds
I understand that sentiment.

But this is an issue that has to be resolved even for the moderate Muslims. If you want to live in a multi-cultural culture, you’ll have to come to terms with the fact that other people are going to do things that your religion forbids, such as drawing blasphemy. In exchange, you are allowed to do things other people’s religions forbid. That’s perfectly fair.

@Fyrius I agree that we all have to realize that people are going to do things we don’t agree with. I just don’t feel that because we legally can do it, that we should do it.

Nah, far better make a cassius clay model instead.Far more aesthetically pleasing.

Let us make a “piss-on-and-burn-a-wooden-Jesus day”. Because of the crusades.

I’m not a spiritual or religious person, but I fully respect other people’s beliefs. “Draw Muhammed Day” is atrociously tasteless and deliberately mean-spirited. People need to stop confusing Islam with terrorism. If you want to practice your own faith, openly and in peace, be tolerant of other religions.

@ragingloli
Let’s throw in a “wipe your bum with toilet paper with Richard Dawkins’ face printed on” day to even the balance a bit.

You know, I think that would be a genuinely good way to vent inter-cultural frustrations.

Personally I find it disrespectful of someone’s religious beliefs. Why would you want to upset someone by blatantly insulting their faith? Live and let live.

Just like Boobquake, I think this, too, is a dumb response to a dumb offense – two wrongs don’t make a right.

Muhammad was a violent cult-leader pedophile (apparently, judging from his marriage to a 9-year old). He doesn’t deserve respect.

Neither do Moses, Jesus, or L. Ron Hubbard, for that matter.

It’s a shame their followers think otherwise. But the idea that we shouln’t mock or criticize something because lots of people worship it is… creepy.

As it turns out, God punished Boobquake with the giant BP oil spill.

@Qingu It’s not about respecting the person they worship, it’s about respecting the people themselves. It’s not just about religions either, it’s any group.

@Qingu Ah, I see

@Seaofclouds, perhaps they should grow thicker skins. Especially considering their holy book contains much more “insulting” lines about non-believers (i.e. we are lying fools who deserve to have hot oil poured down our throats for eternity.)

That’s certainly “insulting”—should we not allow the Quran in non-Muslim countries? The double standard is ridiculous.

@Qingu But the only people that believe their “insulting” lines about non-believers are the believers. I’m not saying to stomp on anyone’s freedom. I’m just saying that I will not purposefully disrespect someone just because I legally can. To me, there’s no reason to be mean just because I can.

I don’t think it’s “mean” to mock or criticize an ancient historical figure. Especially one who deserves every bit of mockery and criticism.

Let alone drawing an ancient historical figure.

I don’t agree that the point of Draw Muhammad Day is to be mean or disrespectful. It’s about standing up to censorship. Because that’s exactly what the Muslims in question are calling for—censorship.

@Qingu I just don’t see how it’s an effective way to stand up to censorship.

Negative reinforcement and safety in numbers.

Violent cultists are actively threatening anyone who draws Muhammad. (The people who drew the Danish cartoons are currently living in hiding, probably will have to for the rest of their lives.) Having everyone draw Muhammad, as a response to this intimidation, serves as negative reinforcement—it shows attempts at censorship as not only futile but backfiring.

It also spreads out the number of targets. If everyone draws Muhammad, then it’s difficult to target a ringleader. Like how Spartacus’ friends all claimed to be Spartacus at the end of the movie, Spartacus I.

@Qingu Hmm, okay. I see some point in it, from how you describe it…but can’t get over the feeling that dumb-ass people on FB will be drawing not because they disagree with censorship but because they’re just anti-Muslim as per usual.

I’m sure there will be some of those, unfortch.

Though, I’d actually distinguish between people who are “anti-Muslim” for legitimate reasons and those who are just bigots or who don’t like Islam because it rivals their equally silly and immoral cult of preference.

@Qingu Exactly, as long as we both agree that that distinction is necessary.

I guess you could say “anti-Islam” for the former, “anti-Muslim” for the latter.

@Qingu That’s a good distinction.

It gives more fuel to the anti-American’s who can use it for propaganda. The people who do it are playing right into the hands of the terrorists.

I think it’s hilarious, however, I will not be participating as I can’t draw for shit.

I love it, and to be honest it’s not like any other religion; The catholics don’t threaten to kill people for having Jesus Christ regularly appear on South Park. Fuck islams all day baby

Can I draw a bear suit? Or a van?

@worriedguy lmfao

@Qingu I just stumbled on this and thought of our conversation here – I also like that shirt.

Here’s how I will draw it.

My thoughts: “FUCK YEAH! It’s about time!”

I’m really so sad and So pissed off to know that there are people who don’t give a shit about other people’s feelings and don’t show any kind of respect :(((((((((((((((((((.I’m Muslim by the way and I’m so proud of it.

it really drives me crazy!!!!why you make fun of our religion? it hurts so much.

If you have so much compassion for women and their oppression and for people who are being killed mercilessly, GO use your freedom of speech on those issues. We’ll join you. THIS is an unacceptable way to practice freedom of speech. You’re doing NOTHING but creating hatred and its not like we don’t have enough of that!!

there is a big difference between freedom of speech and hurting people feelings by disrespecting their religion.

Religion is something very private and very sacred .please Don’t make fun of it!!!!!!

just keep in mind ’‘what you do will come back to you’’!!

@LiLian Yeah that was sweet and everything, but not practical.

This is from Quingu (sp): Violent cultists are actively threatening anyone who draws Muhammad. (The people who drew the Danish cartoons are currently living in hiding, probably will have to for the rest of their lives.) Having everyone draw Muhammad, as a response to this intimidation, serves as negative reinforcement—it shows attempts at censorship as not only futile but backfiring.

It also spreads out the number of targets. If everyone draws Muhammad, then it’s difficult to target a ringleader. Like how Spartacus’ friends all claimed to be Spartacus at the end of the movie, Spartacus I.

@YARNLADY
Do elaborate. What do you mean?

@LiLian
Cry me a river.

They’re just drawings. It’s not even “draw an insulting picture of Muhammad” day. If people drawing pictures is the greatest disrespect and intolerance you’ve ever had to put up with, you should count yourself lucky to have such a privileged position where everyone goes so much easier on you than on everyone else.

There are still people to whom “being disrespected” means being sought out and murdered for who they are or what they believe. Homosexuals in Muslim countries come to mind. So do non-believers or people with different religions in so many theocracies.
And you’re crying bloody murder about something this trivial?

People make fun of Christians all the time. People laugh at Scientologists all the time. People have been saying Mormons are nutters since that religion was founded. People have been calling atheists godless sinners with no conscience since the dawn of civilisation.
And oh, horror of horrors, transgression of transgressions, on the twentieth of May 2010, for one day, people worked up the nerve to draw pictures of a Muslim prophet. Why, they’re worse than Hitler.

Cry me a river.

Bad idea and counterproductive.

@Blackberry So they deserve to live in fear.who told them to draw these insulting pics????
look Muslims are just offended by the drawings but they are not against freedom of speech and censorship and that shit.people talk reasonably please!!!!

I cannot speak for everyone, but personally, when someone intentionally insults my religion,I cannot stand and watch them do so. though some say it wasn’t “meant” to insult and so on, but in reality that was what happened.

And how are anyone’s freedoms being infringed if they don’t draw nasty pics of someone they don’t even respect?
I don’t think even if this “freedom” is taken away, they’re losing anything, because it was meant to insult and hurt in the first place, not to be nice and expressive!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Cooldil17, actually, Catholics have threatened and killed plenty of people. For example, during the 80’s, many Catholics violently protested openings of Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ.” To say nothing of the Church’s appalling history of crusades and inquisitions, which is orders of magnitude worse than anything modern Muslims are doing now. Speaking of double standards.

@LiLian, freedom of speech means people have the right to offend you. You also have the freedom to offend me! Like I said, a lot of the stuff in the Quran is pretty damned offensive to non-believers. And yet you don’t see us calling to ban the Quran.

@LiLian Freedom of speech and expression includes what you find offensive. You don’t get to pick and choose just because you don’t like it.

Also, @LiLian, what do you mean by “they deserve to live in fear”?

@Fyrius one should understand that we Muslim respect Muhammed in the highest possible manner by saying peace be upon him whenever his name is spoken / heard. This is because Angel Gabriel taught us to do so… When the Muslims do respect Muhammed in such a highest possible manners, how can we allow any one to draw his pictures / caricatures for fun… Honestly these people intention is to hurt the feelings of Muslims in the name of freedom of expression….!!
Freedom of expression does not allow anyone to go beyond the limits…

@LiLian
“So they deserve to live in fear.who told them to draw these insulting pics????”
At this point I really hope you’re a troll and not actually that misguided. Especially if right after that you go on to say
“Muslims are just offended by the drawings but they are not against freedom of speech and censorship and that shit.”

If you don’t accept the freedom of speech of people who say things you don’t want to hear, you don’t accept it at all.

@LiLian It’s okay to believe what you believe. It’s not okay to threaten others’ lives for not following what you believe. You can think of them as misguided, as people who don’t understand you but you don’t have to support those who (on the Muslim side) take it too far – the way I understand, if you called the prophet in such esteem, then don’t draw his image. But when you’ve got a show like South Park whose point is to make fun and be offensive, is a death threat really the way to go?

@LiLian, the “limits” of freedom of expression are not defined by the Quran or your religion.

you drive me crazy people!!! i wanna just ask you question ’‘what’s use it to you???????????’’
why do you make Muslims hate you?
would you be happy if we draw insulting pics of Jesus?
but Muslims would NEVER do that because we respect other people’s beliefs
if you really (western people) consider yourselves “Civilized“so act like ones!!!!!!

@Lilian Did you know that if you were raised by an american suburban family, or by buddhist monks in Tibet, you would not give a shit about muhammed? You don’t even realize you are a parrot of your upbringing, worshipping a human with two lungs just like you….But I’ve had enough, this isn’t going anywhere.

@LiLian, the Quran is not respectful of our beliefs. It says we are lying fools who deserve to be tortured forever in hell. It says it’s better to not even associate with us if we refuse to convert.

How on earth is that respectful?

And how would you feel if I said “the Quran is offensive, therefore Muslims deserve to be threatened over it.”

@LiLian “how can we allow any one to draw his pictures / caricatures for fun” the same way they accept your right to believe as you so choose.

@LiLian Multiple explanation points and question marks don’t get your point across any better. No one is trying to ‘make Muslims hate them’ – people who support this FB group are responding to an action that some Muslims took to defend what they think is punishable by death (which is nowhere written in the Qu’ran or spoke for in the Hadith…there is nowhere that is said ‘kill those who draw Muhammed’). And you can really only speak for yourself, you can’t say ‘All Muslims would never disrespect other religions’ because as @Qingu can recite to you, there are plenty of negative views some Muslims hold on ‘infidels’ so to speak that are much worse than simple disrespect.

@LiLian
“Freedom of expression does not allow anyone to go beyond the limits…”
They’re going beyond “the limits”, now? And whose limits would that be?
I’ll tell you the answer to that. It’s the limits you are trying to instate. There are no laws that say you’re not allowed to insult people, let alone laws that say you’re allowed to insult everyone except the Muslims. There shouldn’t be laws like that, either.

“i wanna just ask you question ’‘what’s use it to you???????????’’”
It’s to make a statement. To be precise, the statement that if the Muslims aren’t going to grow the fuck up any time soon, that’s their problem, not that of the rest of the world.

“would you be happy if we draw insulting pics of Jesus?
but Muslims would NEVER do that because we respect other people’s beliefs”
You’ve got to be joking. All Muslims are the great paragon of respecting other people’s beliefs, now? Tell that to Theo van Gogh.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir believe me.there are Muslim people who are ready to sacrifice their lives to defend their religion!!
call them extremists or terrorists or whatever.but everyone draws these pics make terrorists out of these people.so don’t cry or complain if these people make any terrorist acts,you drive them to do so.So.endure the circumstances!!!

@LiLian no, they chose to do so. And holding up extremists in defense of pretty much anything is not a particularly productive way of garnering good will and understanding.

@LiLian You don’t have to convince me – I hear and see proof of that every day. What their reaction is is wrong – the burden of ‘acting civilized’ is not on the people who want to draw Muhammed – the burden of not becoming murderers is on the people who can’t control their rage or don’t really get what religion is really about. It’s like saying ‘well what do you want, she wore the short skirt, she deserved to get gangraped’ – it’s illogical and sad.

@LiLian, the thing about it is, from my perspective, killing people over drawings doesn’t look like “defending religion.”

It means your religion is so fragile and pathetic that the only way to preserve it is by threatening and killing people.

I’m truly sorry to see that you support such barbaric behavior. I hope you’ll stick around and reconsider your position.

@Qingu i said that there are Muslim people who can go to the extreme to even killing!
because they consider these pics very INSULTING.
but we can’t blame them because the people who draw these pics drive them to do so.

@LiLian, So if you insulted me (for example, by quoting the Quran verse that says I deserve to be tortured in hell) and then I killed you for it… it would be your fault, not mine?

@LiLian they choose to do what they do. How, exactly, are they not responsible for their actions?

@LiLian Just like @wonderingwhy said, nobody is forced to kill themselves or other beings. I consider the words faggot or nigger to be VERY insulting yet when they were hurled at my friends, I didn’t kill the people who uttered them. I am against the death penalty as well so I don’t believe that even murder deserves murder – how can I justify murder by anger? I can’t and neither should you be able to do so.

@Qingu first,although it is mentioned in Qur’an that non-believers will go to hell but it didn’t mentioned who.are they Christians or Jews or atheist.God only knows.

I’d appreciate it if you would actually answer my question.

@LiLian
I suggest you shut up for a second and think about what you’re saying. Really, a second should be enough.

Because what you’re saying now is that Muslims are violent psychopaths who get an uncontrollable urge to kill whenever people aren’t nice enough to them.
Should we put you all in padded cells, then? That’s what we do with everyone else who can’t help themselves killing people.

@Fyrius please remain calm. :)

Everyone should be aware of what this article contains:

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

Some of supplemental hadiths deal with the issue. So why the provocations? We should have freedom of speech, yes, and have the right to draw whatever we want. But voluntarily we can decide not to. Because we know certain pictures hurt the feelings of millions of people. Plus it helps the recruiting efforts of radical groups.

Likewise should no one in Iran burn the American flag. According to the laws in Iran this is allowed. But people should decide not to do this.

@mattbrowne, you are ignoring the fact that many Muslims, including our own Flutherite LiLian here, actually support violence against people who “hurt their feelings.”

Again, the point with some duechy exceptions, obviously of drawing Muhammad isn’t to hurt people’s feelings. It’s to show that we aren’t afraid and won’t be censored by intimidation, and that attempts to do so will only backfire.

@LiLian – Supporting physical violence against people who hurt the feelings Muslims is unacceptable. And a violation of the Qur’an. The only violence condoned by the Qur’an is a situation of self defense when being faced with physical violence from an attacker.

@wonderingwhy because you give them the very reason to do so.and some Muslims are extremists and they thought that this is only way to stop people from insulting their religions.i’m not talking about all Muslims here but just some of them who you call ’‘terrorists’’ and if you think about it.here’s what you do
you draw these pics and then they become so angry and you call it’’ freedom of expression’’
and western people told every muslim ’‘we have the right of freedom,we can do whatever we want.with the hell to other people’’ UGHHHHHHH
and you expect that this person who thinks in a totally different way and for him,Religion is so sacred,that should never be violated in any way to accept this excuse ’‘freedom’’!
and you ask him to calm down and just forget about it because ’‘it’s just drawings’’ not a big deal.No it’s a big deal .respect my religion and i will respect you!

@mattbrowne, that’s not remotely true.

I’m not an expert. But this man is:

Imam Sheikh Tahir ul-Qadri issued a fatwa against all terrorists. The imam is 59-year-old scholar, who has written more than 400 books on Islamic jurisprudence, told fellow Muslims: “Terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses of ifs and buts. The world needs an absolute, unconditional, unqualified and total condemnation of terrorism”.

He also denounced those who try to justify suicide bombings by claiming Muslims who carry out such operations are martyrs destined for paradise. “They can’t claim that their suicide bombings are martyrdom operations and that they become the heroes of the Muslim umma [Islamic community],” he said. “No, they become the heroes of hellfire and they are leading towards hellfire. There is no place for any martyrdom and their act is never, ever to be considered jihad [holy struggle].”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/sheikh-issues-fatwa-against-all-terrorists-1915000.html

@mattbrowne yeah i agree with you but i’m not supporting violence in any way. i just try to tell people how these drawings can lead to something awful not just hurting people’s feelings but they misunderstand me.

Quoting a Canadian Islamic scholar is not representative of global Islam, and certainly doesn’t support your assertion that the Quran doesn’t order killings. It does, just like the Bible, which you also tend to sweep under the rug in favor of particularly liberal/secular interpretations.

@LiLian – Yes, expressing these feelings is perfectly okay. I think a lot of people are not aware what this really means to many Muslims. It’s a good thing to raise awareness.

@LiLian, you are supporting violence if you think a murderer shouldn’t be blamed for his actions.

And you never answered my question. If you insulted me by quoting from the Quran, and I killed you, who is to blame?

@Qingu – It might be not representative, but it shows that these voices do exist. Do you have a quote of ordering killings (similar to what we find in the book of deuteronomy)?

The Muslims I know told me that the only violence condoned by the Qur’an is a situation of self defense when being faced with physical violence from an attacker.

I’ve read the whole Bible but not the Qur’an. Just excerpts.

@mattbrowne, the Quran is significantly more liberal than the Bible, but it does proscribe capital punishment for murder, adultery, and “mischief in the land,” which is usually interpreted to mean treason or apostasy.
http://islam.about.com/cs/law/a/c_punishment.htm

There is also verse 2:191, “Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. (But if they desist in their unbelief, then don’t kill them.)”

After the Danish Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons were published there were hundreds of demonstrations with millions of Muslims worldwide.

An elderly nun called Sister Leonella working at a hospital in Somalia helping wounded Muslims was murdered by radical Muslims. Now we all know these radicals are a minority. But I was really disappointed about one thing:

Where were all the moderate Muslims organizing demonstrations against these kind of murders? Drawing an insulting picture (which no one should do) is one thing, but killing an innocent human being is another. Where is the public outcry in Muslim countries about these killings?

Some context for that verse: the early Muslims and the early Caliphate, I think, were somewhat similar to a more enlightened Roman Empire. Islamic civilization went a long way towards stopping tribal feuds and uniting lands, but it was also an expansionist Empire that conquered neighboring places through violence.

Muslims will argue that the early Islamic conquerers brought peace and improved society, which may be a fair argument; they also did not engage in genocide (mostly, with few exceptions). But they still conquered through violence and treated non-Muslims as second class citizens (dhimmis). The Quran verse supports this worldview.

@Qingu we can’t blame him for just one reason.he is defending his religion from his point of view and he thinks that he is doing the right thing because it’s for him the only way to make people stop doing so but for sure it’s not the right way.
but you can’t blame him because he thinks in that way and believes that his religion should not be insulted.if you told him ’‘sorry,it’s freedom of speech’’ .he won’t considered it so.because Religion for Muslims is something so Sacred ,something shouldn’t be violated.

and by the way i answered you ’.i don’t know who will go to hell or heaven.are they Christians or Jews ? God only knows.i’m not God.
it doesn’t harm you in any way because you are free to believe what you want but without insulting other people’s beliefs.Qu’ran just mentioned non-believers will go to hell.but God only knows who gonna go to hell even some Muslims could go to hell.

@mattbrowne yeah that’s totally true.people who committed suicide in Islam by doing terrorist acts are non-believers and Islam is not supporting doing so.

@Qingu – How many times did Jesus ask people to use violence? He is part of the Bible too. And Jesus is a prophet for Muslims too.

What if I found the Quran’s statements to be very insulting to my religion?

And killing you was my way of “defending my religion”?

Would I be to blame, then? Or would you?

By the way, that’s not a meaningless hypothetical. There are many evangelical Christians in America who find the Quran extremely offensive to their religion… and therefore support things like dropping bombs on Muslim villages because “they had it coming.”

I take it you think Muslim villagers are to blame, not the evangelical Air Force pilots who murdered them?

@LiLian – The moderate Muslims need to raise their voices. They should try to calm down their more angry fellow Muslims being outraged by these pictures. Starting to kill people because of pictures is evil.

By the way, insults only work if you allow the other person to let the insult reach you. Suppose someone told me Jesus is an asshole. How would I react? I know it’s not true. And it doesn’t change my faith. I would just feel pity for the person who is so angry.

@mattbrowne, Jesus gets retconned as an Islamic prophet in the Quran. He is quoted, in the Quran, as saying that Christianity is bullshit. What he says in the Bible is not really applicable.

Also, Jesus did condone and participate in violence, according to the Bible, but that’s neither here nor there.

@LiLian then perhaps they should learn to better manage their emotions and apply a bit more logic to their actions, and practice a fair bit more tolerance. Being angry and offended is no justification for violence. Using their logic I could just as easily say their beliefs offend me, therefore they must stop believing. It doesn’t work that way.

You say I expect the person who thinks “who thinks in a totally different way and for him,Religion is so sacred,that should never be violated in any way to accept this excuse ’‘freedom’’!” guess what, that goes both ways. I can just as easily say “freedom is so sacred, that it should never be violated in any way, how can I accept this excuse ‘religion’”.

And that last line, “respect my religion and i will respect you!”, there’s the difference. I don’t need to respect your religion/beliefs. BUT, and this is the important part, no matter how much I disagree with you or support you I will always respect and argue for your freedom to believe as you so choose. And I don’t need your respect to offer that to you, I do so freely with no strings attached. Can you say the same?

@Qingu – Too many things are offensive to evangelical Christians in America. Homosexuality. Modern art. Science. You name it. I feel pity for them. Many are the victims of brainwashing and they lost the ability of applying critical thinking. But they don’t speak for all 2 billion Christians. Many educated Christians in Europe foster interfaith dialog. We need all our religions to evolve. Outdated dogmas need to be removed or changed. We need appreciation and better understanding. Not bombs. Or the killing of nuns because of pictures.

Here’s an interesting European initiative Muslims also participate in

http://www.weltethos.org/dat-english/index.htm

Your selective quoting from both the Bible and the Qur’an @Qingu seems to foster furter dissent between religions. What are you trying to accomplish here? More war? Isn’t leaving out other important quotes intellectually dishonest?

@Qingu NEVER just tell me any statement in Qur’an that is insulting to your religions.God didn’t say in Qu’ran that Christians will go to hell and by the way Qur’an mentions Jesus 25 in a very respectful way.

we can’t blame him for just one reason.he is defending his religion from his point of view and he thinks that he is doing the right thing because it’s for him the only way to make people stop doing so but for sure it’s not the right way.

He is still responsible for his actions. He chooses what he believes, he chooses to defend his religion, he chooses the methods of that defense. To say that “for him the only way to make people stop…” is a disservice to him, he has a choice – always – he can think and reason even if he chooses not to. I don’t deny he may believe he is doing the right thing, but he is also responsible for justifying it.

@wonderingwhy – I agree with your earlier statement. As I said insults only work if you allow the other person to let the insult reach you. Intellectual Muslims should not be outraged by insulting pictures. The pictures are still the wrong thing to do in my opinion. But an angry reaction doesn’t accomplish anything. We all should be outraged by denying Palestinians the right to have a country where they can live in peace. This really matters. Finding solutions for these problems.

’‘practice a fair bit more tolerance’’ so why don’t you practice a fair bit more ’‘respect’’ instead !
for some people,it’s a justification!
no you can’t make them stop believing but you can respect them and they will stop offending you,it’s so simple,right?
so you consider ’‘freedom’’ as insulting people’s beliefs.and then you say it’s sacred.how come?
and religion is not an excuse.it’s a strong belief and you can’t change beliefs so easily
no i can’t say the same,just respect my beliefs and with the hell to freedom.
and by the way i want to ask you a question? if these drawings was of Moses for example,do you think that Israel would consider it freedom or would they dare to draw them in the first place?

@LiLian, I don’t think you’re understanding my point.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t think the Quran is offensive. Many Christians think it’s offensive. It quotes Jesus as saying he is not the son of God. To a deeply religious Christian, that is a horrible blasphemy—just as bad as drawing a picture of Muhammad, if not worse.

Similarly, I don’t think it’s offensive to draw pictures of Muhammad.

My point is this. You think it’s okay to kill someone if they offend your religion. But unless you’re okay with Christians, or atheists, or whoever killing Muslims who offend them, you’re a hypocrite. Is that clear?

@LiLian, Moses was one of the most despicable human beings in history. I would gladly draw an insulting picture of Moses.

That said, if a religious Jew killed me because he was offended by such a picture—that religious Jew would be immoral. I find it absolutely appalling that you are incapable of saying the same thing about a Muslim killer.

Also, if you believe “the hell with freedom,” perhaps you should move to a country whose laws and society you agree with.

I mean, I would say “to hell with the Quran,” which is why I wouldn’t want to live in a place like Saudi Arabia where the Quran is the constitution.

If you don’t believe in the value of freedom of expression and would rather live in a society ruled by Islamic law, why don’t you move to such a place?

@qinq look….....about ’‘Jesus’’ and the Christians’ beliefs ,i can’t argue about that
because it’s a matter of belief and if Christians find it offending then they don’t believe in

’‘freedom of belief’’ not expression!

No i don’t think that! i really feel that i waste my time in this discussion because i keep repeating what i said.i said for the last time that it’s not okay to do so and even Islam doesn’t support terrorism in any way but i say that you drive some people to do so by the so-called ’‘freedom’’.you misunderstand freedom,that’s my answer!

i said ’‘to hell with freedom’’,if it means insulting and disrespect!
i don’t want this kind of freedom that leads to hatred and killing.i just wanna respect and peace,is that clear?
Thanks God i don’t live in a western country and i live in an Islamic country which values respect more than freedom of expression :)

Ah ha!!! I dare say we’ve found a sliver of common ground.

i said ’‘to hell with freedom’’,if it means insulting and disrespect!i don’t want this kind of freedom that leads to hatred and killing.i just wanna respect and peace,is that clear?

I feel we are both searching for the same thing, but from different places and by differing means. I believe the freedom to hurl insults and be disrespectful is absolutely necessary to gaining that respect and peace of which you speak.

Sounds strange, but here’s why (and I believe @mattbrowne mentioned this or similar to it somewhere way up there). I’d rather that the freedom to do such things be firmly in place and find that the individual chooses not to do take such actions. Because at that moment you know they have, through reason, chosen to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing. I feel such reasoning is much more powerful and lasting than fear of reprisal.

@LiLian, well, I’m glad you live in a society whose laws you support. Don’t know where you live exactly, but I imagine they’ve censored Facebook, so you won’t have to worry about being insulted in your walled-off world.

@LiLian he won’t considered it so.because Religion for Muslims is something so Sacred ,something shouldn’t be violated.

May i voice the question that so many people are thinking at very this moment? Yes i may.

“SO CUNTFLIPPING WHAT?”

So if you think something really shouldn’t be done, and you really believe this, so much so that you think this belief is sacred, then you’re above the law of a country that’s been so patient that it hasn’t kicked you out on the spot because you openly menaced people? So above the law that you SHOULDN’T BE BLAMED FOR KILLING PEOPLE?

Are you condoning the crusades, the nazis and stalin too, by any chance? (Yeah, i know, Godwin’s law, but it is appropriate in this instance)

Freedom of speech is too fucking good for you people.

Really, if it wasn’t that disallowing freedom of speech would lower us to your level, it would be a fitting punishment.

I don’t give a flying fuck what people believe, nobody has the right not to be offended.

If i had it i’d bitch-slap every single man that makes his wife go around in a bee-keeper suit because he’s jealous that somebody might ogle her and have a wank thinking about her. I don’t. Because i respect your freedom to exercise your religion. I don’t respect the religion, mind you, but i don’t go around bitch slapping people.

You, on the other hand, say that “we shouldn’t blame them because they’ve been provoked”

Oh really? Ok, guys, new rule: from now on, you’ve been warned, if i see some poor fucker wearing a backwards baseball cap i will bash his head in with a hammer because backwards baseball hats deeply offend my imaginary friend. And my imaginary friend is best buds with thor, so you don’t fuck with him.

And since i openly stated this, i will treat every instance of people wearing baseball hats backwards as an open provocation. I am now allowed to assault people with hammers, provided they wear a baseball hat backwards. Neat, huh?

Grow the fuck up. Not liking something doesn’t make it illegal. If it did italy would be completely islam-free and atheist-free. And the western world would probably be islam-free too seeing the great effort to be a pain in the ass that’s been a pride of the muslim world since 2001.

And yeah, until the so called “moderate” muslims start speaking against the extremists OPENLY and VIGOROUSLY, i am going to lump them with the extremists and the terrorists.

Where there’s no voice of dissent either there’s no dissent or the dissenters are a bunch of fucking pussies.

look guys,i really feel that you don’t get anything i said !
so do whatever you want and we will do whatever we want
Don’t get me wrong and say that i support killing ’‘Hell No! it’s forbidden in our religion to kill or even threaten the safety of other people’’
but if you gave yourselves the ’‘freedom of expression’’ so you too ,gave us the freedom of defending our religion (i don’t mean killing here but even if we censored facebook and demanded to remove these drawings that insult our religion,it will be our right.
it’s fair enough,isn’t it?

@LiLian Sure, assuming you do that in your own countries (and that’s for sure, since we won’t let you do it here) and let anybody who disagrees bypass the ban. Which you don’t.

So far the concept is “you live here you do what we say, if you don’t like it, tough shit” I just love how you (you @LiLian) apparently like to live in a country where you’re mandated to agree with the government.

@LiLian – I really think it’s great for a Muslim like yourself who does not live in the US, Canada, the UK or some other European country (which makes up about 99% of all Fluther users) to find this forum and choose to participate. It’s wonderful to have you as part of our community. I’d like to stress that you should feel welcome. Part of western culture is having lively debates sometimes. It’s one of the main reasons we were able to invent machines like the car, the computer or sent people to the moon. In fact, in the past the Muslim world was very much like this. It was the time of great scientists and philosophers like Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, Omar Khayyam, Al Battani, Al Faribi, Ibn al Haitham, Abu Bekr Muhammad al-Razi, Al Massudi and Abu Ali al Husein ibn Sina. All these great people were active between around 800 and 1200 CE. They loved critical thinking, they loved research and they loved debates. And they had far more freedom of speech and pluralism than their successors centuries later. Saudi-Arabia today is more oppressive than it was 800 years ago.

You are mistaken that respect isn’t a value that the western world cares about. The majority of people, or at least educated people, value respect. I think the difference is that if some people show disrespectful behavior others might get upset about it, but usually no one gets killed. Unless you are part of an inner city gang or the mafia where some honor killings might occur.

As @wonderingwhy said, we’d rather make sure that the freedom to do such things be firmly in place and find that the individual chooses not to take such actions. I’m a Christian, but I appreciate Islam. I also appreciate atheism. I don’t engage in actions that hurt other people’s feelings. If others want to draw these pictures I ask them to reconsider, but if I can’t convince them, I can live with it. Drawing pictures does not create physical harm and I’d like to convince Muslims to not make such a big deal out of it. A picture can’t insult you if you don’t allow the insult to reach you. To me getting totally upset about it is a sign of weakness. It’s a sign that some Muslims are no so sure about their faith. If they were sure about it, a few people creating some paintings could not shatter their faith. These great scientists I mentioned above had the greatness to show composure and imperturbability. Check the history. They already had discussions about the existence of God, the Greek gods, superstition and a god of the gaps.

Again, my friend, it’s great to have you. Stick around. Try to understand how we think. And we try to understand how you think. Lively debates are a sign of respect and everyone is a worthy participant. Otherwise people would not take the time to reply to your comments.

@mattbrowne thank you for your concern
i really feel totally out of place and misunderstood here
i don’t deny that there are respectful people but they are very few
i can’t talk with people who disrespect my religion and even worse they make fun of it
call me old-fashioned or narrow-minded but i will always hold something aganist them
and btw the first rule in any discussion is respect
but if you read their answers above,you will see how they didn’t show any kind of respect except few people including you
when there is no respect,it will be a fighting talk!

i like to discuss stuff with people and see how they think but as i told you there should be mutual respect
i know that these scientists liked to debate and search for the essence of things but in their times,there was respect
these people were muslims and they enlighten europe and the whole world

you misunderstand me,it’s not about how sure we are of our faith or how strong it is
you can’t imagine how these drawings are hurtful to our feelings as muslims
to see people make fun of our prophet by drawing funny and insulting drawings of him.
just imagine if that happen to ’‘Jesus’’ and we were the ones who did that,you would burn from inside because you love him and respect him and you will not bear to watch people making fun of him,that’s how we feel!
got it?
and God will ask us at the day of judegment ’‘what did you do to defend the prophet Muahmmed (peace be upon him)?
and how the prophet will look at us if he knows that we did nothing?
you konw,i believe in God’s revenge and it will happen sooner or later but we can’t stay passive and don’t care about what happens
and it’s not just one person who is doing that,you make an event of it ’‘a special day to draw him’’!! by organized group of people
if i talked a hundred years about what prophet Muahmmed means to us,these people who insult us wouldn’t understand!!
can i ask you a favor?
please go and ask the clergy in your church ’‘is it okay to make fun of other people’s beliefes’’?
and please tell me what he will say honestly
i’m sure that if ’‘Jesus’’ were among us now,he would never say to you ’‘you are to free offend people by disrespecting their beliefs’’
by the way,we resepect Jesus and believes in him too
check this

http://www.oxfordislamicstudies.com/article/opr/t125/e1196

actually,i was thinking of deleting my account because there is no point in being here,talking in vain.btw i’m not part of any gang or anything like that!
i just wanna say something to the people who mock prophet Muahmmed without any knowledge
go and read his history first to know how great he was.

@LiLian Many of us are quite knowledgeable about Islam, its history, its hold on different regions, etc. and we continue to have certain issues about certain aspects – it’s called being a rational being. Obviously, I’m biased as I’m an atheist and don’t believe in organized religion but it’s simply good sense to not think anything written is 100% true.

@LiLian, I’m quite familiar with Muhammad. As I argued, I don’t believe Muhammad deserves much respect. I don’t have a lot of respect for many famous people in history.

I’m happy to debate this with you—respectfully. But let’s be clear here. When you say “respect” is necessary for a discussion, what you really mean is “in order to have a discussion with me, you can’t criticize my beliefs.”

That’s not how it works. Frankly, if your beliefs are that important to you, I’d think you wouldn’t be so scared of others challenging them. In any case, the ball’s in your court.

@LiLian just imagine if that happen to ’‘Jesus’’ and we were the ones who did that

I’m an atheist, so i don’t care, but may i remind you that religion is one of the foremost objects of ridicule and satire in the western world? George Carlin was considered the second best living stand-up comedian (second only to woody allen who will hold that first place until he dies, sure enough) and he devoted the closing piece of most of his shows to ridiculing religion. So, no, we wouldn’t burn, we’d have a laugh. Because we’re not nimrods and we realize that disrespect doesn’t make anything less valuable assuming it is in the first place and that other people’s opinions don’t change the facts.

That said here’s my biggest hangup with this whole thing:

You say you want respect. Fine. Let’s have a serious, rational debate, no insults or profanity. That still wouldn’t be enough because apparently disagreeing with you (you think mohamed is great and shouldn’t be made fun of, i disagree) is enough for you to call disrespect.

If that’s the case then i agree, it IS pointless to have a debate because accepting such debate would be conceding a victory from the very start.

You say that drawing mohamed is an insult and hurts your feelings, fine.
Let’s have a discussion on why this should be cared about by the whole western world that not only isn’t islamic, but doesn’t care even of its own religion(s) when it comes to satire.

Furthermore let’s discuss what you meant by “So they [the danish cartoonists] deserve to live in fear.” and how the fact that “it was meant to insult and hurt in the first place, not to be nice and expressive” should change anything. Am i supposed to disagree with something by being nice and expressive? Am i authorized to kill on sight anyone who insults me? Because THAT is what happend the last time someone (Theo Van Gogh) didn’t go in hiding.

What you fail to understand is that everyone’s tastes are worth the same, and most of the time this worth is “jack shit”.

If you happen to prefer one religion above the other or think one subject is more worthy than another it doesn’t mean the whole world is supposed to thread lightly because you say so. No matter how much that is important to you. And i’d like to stress that part.

If we went along with that concept we’d all have to stand aside and let creationists spew their bullshit all over the place, even thought the facts contradict them, because it’d hurt their feelings.

In order for the truth to be told you have to accept that insults can pass too, because a) truth is rarely easy and never nice and b) truth can be insulting to some.

In the dark ages Giordano Bruno was burned alive for telling the truth about the fact that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa, because it disagreed with the bible. Now we realize that the bible is mostly horse shit, at least as long as you take it literally, and this realization came precisely because people were allowed to dissent no matter who this pissed off.

This freedom of speech that we defended with draw mohamed day, and that we will keep defending until we have air in our lungs and blood in our veins, is what allowed OUR civilization to reach the moon, to create the medicines that at least once in your life probably saved you quite a lot of pain or even your life, the technology to build the cars you use, the lightbulbs that light your home, the fridge that keeps your food cold and unspoiled and to create the very PC and internet connection you’re using to say that it should all go to hell because your feelings are hurt.

You prefer “respect” (and i put it in quote marks, because lying to people is not respect and pretending that i consider mohamed or your religion deserving of any consideration would be a lie of gigantic proportions) to freedom of speech and information? fine, then give back all our civilization gave you and stop using it, close the borders and live in isolation, if you do that i assure you we’ll have no qualms with your religion whatsoever.

@LiLian – You would make me very happy, if you don’t delete your Fluther account. Having US-only, or Christian-only, or Muslim-only, or atheist-only, or creationist-only, or climate-change-denier-only Internet forums doesn’t accomplish much. People merely reinforce their existing beliefs, foster ingroup-outgroup relationship thinking and promote outgroup homogeneity bias. Such forums contribute little in terms of world peace and mutual understanding and appreciation. Drill baby drill. Right on.

Many American atheists (not all) for example think that Christians are basically an ignorant superstitious bunch of fools who think our planet is 6000 years old and Noah loaded his ship with dinosaurs and tigers trying to escape the great flood. Why? Because their neighborhoods seem to be full of noisy adherents of the religious right. Moderate Christians don’t make that much noise. They exist but get overlooked. Some atheists are surprised to learn for example that a Catholic priest first proposed the big bang theory.

Fluther is a forum where believers and atheists can meet and have great debates. I learned a great deal for sure. Many atheists criticize the behavior of religious people or they criticize parts of our holy books. They never pick positive quotes. Do I feel insulted? No, I don’t. Do I think some of their writing is disrespectful? Sometimes, yes. Do I get upset about it? No, I don’t. What if they insulted Jesus? I don’t let the insult reach me.

Are atheists the only ones showing disrespect sometimes? Of course not. Disrespect is everywhere. Look at all the Christian clerics who hate gay people. There are also hundreds of Muslim clerics and millions of Muslims worldwide who call Christians infidels, nonbelievers. It’s hard to top this kind of disrespect. Are there any moderate Muslims organizing demonstrations to counter such tendencies of intolerance? Hardly. Even most moderate Muslims seem to be more concerned about the Ummah than becoming seriously engaged in interfaith dialog. They stick to themselves. You are a wonderful exception! When a couple gets married and one is Muslim and one is Christian, all children have to become Muslim. There are virtually no exceptions. Isn’t this disrespect? To me this is clearly disrespect. What about the Muslim who wants to convert to Christianity or wants to become an atheist? In some countries this is punishable by death. Now where is the respect for making individual choices?

My point is, respect and disrespect exists everywhere. People are flawed. Societies are flawed.

I support the principle reject the sin, but not the sinner. Give people a second chance. But do tell them about your feelings. You have every right to tell other users on Fluther how you feel about certain comments or activities such as drawing pictures of prophet Muhammad. We should make every effort to understand your feelings. But other users also have the right to tell you how they feel about certain comments or activities such as restricting the freedom of speech or justifying serious violence because of insults.

We have to learn how these different views can co-exist. One powerful mechanism is trying to challenge our assumptions. You assumed that the people drawing these pictures want to insult your religion. But when you ask them, you’ll find out that’s the wrong assumption. These people want to defend the principle of free speech.

Now my approach in this particular case is the following: in principle we have the right to express ourselves, but we choose not to exercise this right in this particular case. So, no pictures of Muhammad.

@mattbrowne You are the voice of reason – I appreciate your answers very much

@Simone_De_Beauvoir what do you mean by ’‘being rational’’?
what you do and call it ’‘freedom of expression’’ is irrationality!

@Qingu
you see you said ’‘believe’’ and everyone is free to believe what he wants
it doesn’t hurt our feelings to ’‘believe’’ that he doesn’t deserve respect but to insult what i believe in is a different matter
i like your choice of the word ’‘criticize’’.I’m not against intellectual debate that makes sense.you can criticize my religion and i can criticize yours
but not just drawing insulting pics and then say ’‘i criticize your religion’’.by doing this,you just offend and provokes me and create hatred

@Thammuz yeah if you make fun of him,i call it disrespect!
if it’s okay for Christians to see their religion insulted and laugh at it
WE CAN“T DO THAT! we are not like them.
i tried to tell you by reason why these drawings are insulting to us and what it could lead to
but you don’t understand.i tried to explain to you how we feel but you still don’t understand.i really feel that i’m talking to stupid people freedom of expression LOL

i really feel sorry for him,it’s a terrible crime.
our religion says that if you tortured an animal,you will go to hell
do you think that this religion support killing or violence??
and Muslims who do that are just Muslims by name and i apologize for saying that but i was so angry,that’s all.
do you say this example to imply that all religions are bullshit or what?

This freedom of speech that we defended with draw Mohamed day, and that we will keep defending until we have air in our lungs and blood in our veins, is what allowed OUR civilization to reach the moon, to create the medicines that at least once in your life probably saved you quite a lot of pain or even your life, the technology to build the cars you use, the lightbulbs that light your home, the fridge that keeps your food cold and unspoiled and to create the very PC and internet connection you’re using to say that it should all go to hell because your feelings are hurt.

so you reach this technology by insulting each other,not by science,researches and logical and intellectual thinking.that’s so funny!
you talk like we owe you something and consequently we have accept whatever you do without any objection
because you are our masters and we are the slaves! that’s hilarious!
go back to history,Europe was living in the dark ages,in complete ignorance while Muslims civilization at this time was at its height (its Golden age)
Muslim scientists enlighten Europe and all their works were translated into other languages
take a look at this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
you see now ,you owe us a lot too
and what about the Muslim scientists that live in Europe now and you benefit from their science?
did you hear about Dr.Ahmed zewail,Mohamed el baradei and many other Muslim scientists who contribute to make the technology that you are so proud of!!
and as Derrida said (french philosopher):’‘western European societies proclaim themselves as the ’‘centers’’ of civilization…...to compare all other cultures to what western Europe had accomplished’’
and as we say in Arabic ’’وشهد شاهد من أهلها”
did these scientists need freedom of expression to reach that technology? YES
do they need to insult others to reach it?Hell NO!
if you still don’t understand,bring me a 10 years old kid and he will understand!

@mattbrowne okay i won’t.i totally agree with you we should debate and know how each side thinks.

Disrespect is everywhere.
of course i know it’s everywhere and we can’t top it but when it comes to people’s beliefs,you should not insult or make fun of what they believe in
and if you don’t care about people’s feelings,it would be better to go to live in the jungle with animals but not with human beings.
I’m totally against people who call others ’‘nonbelievers’’ because God only knows who are the nonbelievers!
When a couple gets married and one is Muslim and one is Christian, all children have to become Muslim. There are virtually no exceptions.
Islam is a religion from God and He will not make a religion according to people’s desires
that’s the rules of Islam and we will not change it to match people’s desires and what they think it should be

i just wanna tell these people who insist on insulting our prophet by these drawings
i hope y’all enjoy your alleged ’‘freedom of expression’’ and we will wait and see what this freedom lead us to!!

Proselytizing is much too powerful :(

When I first asked this question, I was entirely undecided. It isn’t fair at all to act out against an entire culture for the actions of a misguided fraction. Although I can’t understand the intense insult Islam find in pictures of Muhammed, I can respect it.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I could not condone censorship through violence, no matter how grievous the insult. That’s just what it is: an insult. No one is hurt, no one is injured, hell, no one is forced to even look at it.

It’s 2010, we no longer duel in the streets because one cowboy insulted the other’s horse. If you’re honestly that insulted, boycott the offender. Write a letter to the artists, the newspaper, the company, whoever, just keep the response in the intellectual arena. Nobody wants to play basketball with the guy who pulls a knife when he starts to lose.

@LiLian I was honestly hoping for a balanced debate for this question in hindsight that may be a bit much to ask from the internet. I understand it can be an emotional issue, but almost every one of your responses is a whirlwind of foot-stomping, name calling, preaching and self contradiction with a heavy dose of condoning violence. You have honestly contributed very little to this discussion while simultaneously derailing it.

You have successfully done more damage to your own standpoint than any other poster.

I had emailed a friend of mine who is practicing Islam about her opinion on Draw Muhammed day, and I thought that in an attempt to keep things balanced, I’d like to post it here (obviously paraphrased)

“The big deal about drawing Muhammed (or Allah) isn’t so much that it is seen as an insult, it is because when you do so you are essentially creating something like an icon, something that could divert your worship and prayers from Allah and to the painting instead. It can distract you while praying, because instead of concentrating on your prayers and devotion, you instead focus on the image. You know when your friend sends you a nasty picture they found on the internet, and you can’t unsee it for days? It’s just like that, except the picture you can’t unsee is now a wedge between Allah and yourself.”

She also explained:

“The anger comes from the fact that someone is purposely attempting to drive you away from Allah, whether or not they realize it. It would be like having someone being able to simply walk up and remove your eyes and ears simply because they felt like it, completely cutting you off from the rest of the world for their own temporary amusement.”

I thought I should mention that I still hold to my original standpoint, but she did clarify quite a bit for me. What really gets me is that maybe, just maybe, if someone had mentioned this to the cartoonists, or South Park, or anyone else for that matter instead of making threats, then maybe the images would not have been published out of respect instead of fear.

@LiLian i tried to tell you by reason why these drawings are insulting to us and what it could lead to but you don’t understand.

I do understand. Doesn’t make you right. You’re saying that since something is insulting to some of your people then we shouldn’t react because we were warned of the consequences. Which i need not say is bullshit, do i?

do you say this example to imply that all religions are bullshit or what?

Take a guess.

did these scientists need freedom of expression to reach that technology? YES. Do they need to insult others to reach it? Hell NO!

Are you fucking serious? What the fuck do you think “freedom of expression” means? It means we’re free to say WHATEVER THE FUCK WE WANT. INCLUDING INSULTS. Insulting is not needed to ensure scientific progress but it is a direct consequence of freedom of expression which instead is needed!

If you forbid one kind of free speech, then you can make the case for whatever the fuck you want, falling right back to Giordano Bruno, which you have ignored in my earlier post, who was BURNED ALIVE for stating something that, while true, contradicted the bible. Because you could say whatever you wanted EXCEPT contradicting the holy roman catholic church.

Do you see what i mean or am i talking to a brick wall here? Freedom of speech ALSO includes the freedom to insult eachother, either all is free to talk about in any way or nothing really is.

And about the Islamic Golden Age: I know about it, i also know that we currently use arabic numbers, which you could have mentioned just as easily, so? i never said you did NOTHING for us, and i only mentioned objects and technologies invented in the western world. I know medicine existed in the muslim world too, before you mention it. Modern medicine, penicillin, vaccinations and such, however, came from europe.

As for muslim scientists: they’re not the ones sending death threats, they’re not the ones rioting in the streets and we can do without those who are.

From here onwards it’s really a wall of text, i’m sorry but the discussion is engaging

I might have given you the impression (i almost certainly did) that i merge the whole muslim world into one big cathegory, and on some level i do, but i also know that, like every group, there are quite a lot of exceptions. I know that not all muslims are terrorist misogynist nutjobs. There are some and then there are many that aren’t.

There also are many (and i know at least one) that don’t give a shit wheter you draw muhammad or not, and that the most they would do if you ever made fun of their religion is calling you a dick. Which i have been called. Because these people respect freedom of expression and use it as well, i said what i thought (aka: “your religion is bullshit”) and i have been, practically, called a dick in return. No harm done, no hard feelings, at least on my part.

And this is how CIVIL conversation goes. If we’re not entitled to state our mind, however its contents may be offending to some, then why should you be? If we don’t have the right why should we let you have it? if you can silence us why shouldn’t we be allowed to silence you as well?

Besides disrespect is important. Disrespect shakes your reality and forces you to watch things from another perspective, allowing you to rethink your position and grow up, even at the cost of hurting your feelings in the process. The ones that get outraged at disrespect are those who are perfectly knowing that their conception of the subject is flawed and that they’ve nothing to hide behind, except the fact that they can dismiss criticism as being insulting, and this nonwithstanding don’t want to change their mind accordingly because they’d have to admit to themselves that to some extent they were wrong. I should know, i was like that.

With the outraged reaction to draw muhammad day you proved our point. You proved that you can’t take provocation and you can’t accept that some people may do things you don’t like. Draw muhammad day has been organised precisely to prove that if it was for you we’d not be allowed to freely express ourselves, we were right.

And, just to dig in the past, what about The Satanic Verses? Let’s talk abot that, shall we? A novelist recieving a fatwa, “non binding opinion of a reliegious leader”, that “good muslims should kill him or help others kill him” for a work of fiction, wow.

Oh and “Muslims who do that are just Muslims by name” is one of the oldest logical fallacies in the book. It’s called a No True Scotsman fallacy. It means that you define a “true” muslim not by the definition but by what you want muslims to be so that you can defend the cathegory itself.

I have no qualms with people who don’t kill, send death threats, riot or otherwise break the law, be them muslims or anything else. And i have no qualms with them making fun or speak ill of me or anything i hold dear, they have the right to do that, just as i do.

@LiLian, satire, cartoons, and mockery are all forms of criticism. In fact, the Quran engages in mockery of unbelievers; Allah is also said to mock unbelievers in hell.

Like I said: you should really grow thicker skin. There’s a saying “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” If your religion is that important to you, and so obviously true to you, why on earth would you need to “defend” it from a silly cartoon?

There’s also a saying on the internet for this sort of situation: haters gonna hate.

@RocketSquid ’‘I was honestly hoping for a balanced debate for this question in hindsight that may be a bit much to ask from the internet. I understand it can be an emotional issue, but almost every one of your responses is a whirlwind of foot-stomping, name calling, preaching and self contradiction with a heavy dose of condoning violence. You have honestly contributed very little to this discussion while simultaneously derailing it.

You have successfully done more damage to your own standpoint than any other poster.’’

really so sorry for bothering you
enough is enough
i will delete my account.Thanks

In before misguided collect-them-all pseudo-egalitarians begging @LiLian to stay.

@LiLian
If that’s what you want.
Sayonara to you, then. Have a nice life. Stay in school, eat your greens, don’t do drugs or fundamentalism, dissent is your friend.

@Fyrius I’m gonna back you up on this one – anybody who lets one bad apple out of all the other great answers chase them away isn’t much of a jelly

@YARNLADY Who is the bad apple?

@RocketSquid You have a confirmed Jelly kill. MURDERER!!!!! :)

@mowens I see you answered your own question

Let freedom ring.

Muhammed….http://wuzzadem.typepad.com/wuz/favorites/stick_figure.gif

Jesus….........http://wuzzadem.typepad.com/wuz/favorites/stick_figure.gif

L. Ron Hubbard…..http://wuzzadem.typepad.com/wuz/favorites/stick_figure.gif

Me, typical Atheist….http://wuzzadem.typepad.com/wuz/favorites/stick_figure.gif

@mowens Hey hey hey, she pulled the trigger on that one. I didn’t mock her beliefs, her opinion or even her personally. I merely stated my displeasure with her turning this question from getting to know everyone’s opinion on the matter into a battle with everyone else over what she decided is and isn’t free speech. If she decided an over-dramatic forum hari-kari was the best way to make a point, so be it.

This perturbed me because I was honestly hoping to get a little more insight into the event from people who are more knowledgeable in the subject than I am. Thanks to her nonsensical tirade, anyone with an opinion against Draw Muhammed Day was probably scared off thinking they may be lumped in with her. Her first post was fine, but I think her second with “just keep in mind ’‘what you do will come back to you’’!!” is what set everything off and was completely unnecessary.

Although “Jelly Assassin” does have a cool ring to it.

@Silhouette
You drew Jesus and Muhammad looking exactly like yourself!
BLASPHEMEEE

@RocketSquid
Did you mean: hara-kiri?

@Fyrius, Fuck em. lol

@YARNLADY I dont think RocketSquid is at fault at all..

Honestly guys, she couldn’t take it, if she didn’t leave now she would’ve left some other time.

@Thammuz Indeed.

Oh, dear. Our collective western intellectual superiority has clearly shown everyone how to win this argument. Mission accomplished. More than half a dozen people against one deeply religious Muslim. Yes, we know how to do things. She pulled the trigger, but our triggers were faster. And yet…

All these powerful “you statements”. I really get very uneasy feelings when reading sentences like “you have honestly contributed very little to this discussion while simultaneously derailing it” or “you have successfully done more damage to your own standpoint than any other poster.” Well, to be honest, I find this level of debate quite disappointing. I thought we could build bridges.

Making people lose their face in front of others is a sure-fire recipe for killing dialog and turning anger into hatred.

I don’t agree with many things @LiLian said, but I get this feeling that this dialog failed because it was about people from two different planets who just met each other and they do not seem ready for each other. Like Captain Kirk’s crew and the Klingons. Different mindsets. Different notions of honor and respect. Leading to war. Now what exactly helped them to make peace eventually? Perhaps we should ask the Trekkies.

I’m pretty sure the approach was different from what just happened in this thread.

@mattbrowne- Well said. I couldn’t agree more.

@mattbrowne Personally i don’t feel bad about what just happend. It’s not like she was going to build any kind of dialogue, as you can plainly see by the abundance of statements like “you can’t understand” “you’ll never understand” etc etc.

She was here to make her outraged statement and feel good about herself because she stood up to a bunch of internet people, at least that’s pretty much how it looked to me.

She didn’t try to rebut rationally, she didn’t try expand or reply to specific arguments when challanged to do so, she even had the balls to preach respect while condoning death threats.

Doesn’t seem much of a loss to me, someday a more dialogue prone muslim will come along.

@mattbrowne
Actually I think the reason why @LiLian‘s arrival turned this thread to rubbish had relatively little to do with her being Muslim and our being not-Muslim, and more with her being egocentric and melodramatically self-pitying – traits you’ll surely find in any religion or culture. With a more sensible and mature Muslim we could surely have had a more open-minded and bridge-building dialogue.

I’m sorry for being so harsh on her. But I don’t think we should talk about scaring away someone like her as if Fluther has mistreated the spokesperson for all Muslim culture and disrespected all Muslims by extension. She wasn’t an elected ambassador, just a random twit who happened to be Muslim.

I also don’t think there’s a larger culture gap between any of us and Islam than between us among each other.

@mattbrowne I’d agree with you if it wasn’t for the fact that I had spoken to another muslim who was able to calmly and intelligently explain why there is a big problem with Drawing Muhammed. I had no problem with her beliefs, I had no problem with her stance, it was utter inability to make a decent point that I had a problem with. If it truly was all about my “superior western intellect” than I wouldn’t have bothered to ask fluther in the first place.

Well, it might still be worth asking ourselves what we could have done differently. @Thammuz, all rational statements are based on emotions as well. Whatever a human being does or says is based on emotions. Ask any neuroscientist. In her case, the emotions were very strong. How good were we trying to understand the fact that her emotions were so intense? One of the best contribution was @RocketSquid‘s

“You know when your friend sends you a nasty picture they found on the Internet, and you can’t unsee it for days? It’s just like that, except the picture you can’t unsee is now a wedge between Allah and yourself.”

part.

I regret very much that she left despite the fact that she failed to calmly and intelligently explain why there is a big problem. And I wonder whether she was the only egocentric one in this thread.

Yes, let’s think about how we could all have bent over backwards to grant her whatever special treatment she needed to be convinced to stay. How about this: we could have started every reply to her with “of course we’re all very happy you’re willing to honour us with your invaluable presence, but…”

Matt, I have to wonder whether you’d be just as sad if anyone who isn’t a Muslim would have behaved like this and then dramatically buggered off to make us feel bad.

@mattbrowne Yeah, OR we could have expected the same standard of rationality and logic we expect from anybody else.

If a Ku Klux Klan member behaved as she did, you wouldn’t give two shits if he left. And you’d be right not to.

Some people have what it takes to face a discussion without having to put fences all around their beliefs beforehand, others don’t. Personally, i value those who do.

@Fyrius – Well, I’m both an idealists and a realist. It’s not about bending backwards. It’s about getting through. It’s about different mindsets and cultures. I care about people. I doesn’t matter to me whether someone is a deeply religious Muslim or a liberal Hindu or young earth creationist or an aggressive atheist or an agnostic or a new age freak believing in astrology or in the prophecies of Mayan calendars.

I think that both atheism-theism dialog and interfaith dialog holds one of the most important keys to shaping humanity’s future in the twenty-first century. What we need most is appreciation and understanding. We should value what we have in common and respect what makes us different.

@Thammuz – The Ku Klux Klan is a hate group promoting white supremacy and nationalism and has a well-established record of using terrorism.

In her first post she was mainly talking about her feelings like “I’m really so sad”, “it really drives me crazy”, “why do you make fun of our religion”, “it hurts so much”, “religion is something very private and very sacred. Please, don’t make fun of it”.

This doesn’t sound like KKK.

And her next comment about “what you do will come back to you” also expresses her concern that radical Muslims might use violence. I really think it’s her wish to find ways to get away from violence. Just think about what happened after the Danish cartoons.

She asked “why do you make Muslims hate you?”

It seems to me that (most) deeply religious Muslims are not yet capable of reaching an intellectual level abandoning hatred and becoming immune to serious insults. I tried to point this out, but I also failed.

We should be aware of that and it is therefore unwise to use phrases like “Muhammad was a violent cult-leader pedophile”. Think of how parents deal with a situation when a child is extremely angry.

@mattbrowne Yeah, and she also said the danish cartoonists deserve to live in fear.
And I don’t know about you, but i don’t say somebody “deserves” something as an objctive statement, by “deserve” i mean that i think the consequences are fitting reward/punishment for the previous actions and that i support such conseuences.

You think I give a fuck if her feelings are hurt? Most muslims may be able to overcome their childish protectiveness towards their beliefs, she apparently isn’t. End of story.

And while we’re here, what’s wrong with calling things what they are? i don’t know about the “violent” part, but he sure was a cult leader and a paedophile if you pay any attention to the definitions. If the truth hurts your feelings it doen’t make it any less true.

@Thammuz – Her comment about the danish cartoonists deserving to live in fear is totally unacceptable. But still a long way from being a member of the KKK hanging black people on trees.

@mattbrowne
You’re still talking about her as if she were an accurate representative of all Muslims. I think they deserve more credit than that.
I mentioned I think nobody really had much of a problem with the fact that she’s a Muslim, and more with the fact that she’s an egocentric whiner. Is inter-whininess dialogue also part of the key to the future, or can we still speak our minds with people like that?

Politician’s talk aside, you haven’t answered my question. If she’d been, say, a Mormon, would you give two ducks that she’s gone now?

And if you think she mentioned what terrorists might do because she’s a concerned person who didn’t want anyone to get hurt, then I think you’re reading goodwill into her that wasn’t actually there. She clearly took the suicide bombers’ side and used them as a threat to make us stop hurting her precious feelings or else.

@mattbrowne I’m not comparing her to a KKK member, what i’m saying is that hadn’t she been a muslim but any other kind of nutball nobody would’ve given a shit wether she left or not.

If the same behaviour was to come form a republican fucktard, a neo-nazi, a holocaust denialist, a stalinist, a snake handler or a penguin fondler we wouldn’t even be talking about this, yet we’re here arguing if we were pc enough to her because she’s a muslim.

She deserves a free pass because she’s part of a very loud group of religious nutbags? I call bullshit, everyone gets the same treatement, nobody’s forced to stay.

@Fyrius – If she were a Mormon, trying to make us understand about her feelings, I’d regret her departure as well. Again, taking the suicide bombers’ side and use them as a threat to make us stop hurting her feelings is utterly wrong and should be opposed strongly.

But how can we oppose something if we just talk to the clear-headed Muslims who are able to calmly and intelligently provide explanations? What’s going on inside the heads of these millions of demonstrators when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons. Why were they so extremely angry? Why did @LiLian say that the support of ‘Draw Muhammad Day’ drives her crazy, begging us not to make fun of Islam (as she perceived it)? She is not a representative of all Muslims of course, but my guess is several hundred million Muslims out of the total 1.7 billion have similar thoughts and feelings. We need a better understanding. We need to think hard how we can change their minds. How we can build bridges. How we can challenge our own assumptions as well.

@Thammuz – Who said anything about a free pass?

We need more initiatives like this

http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/05/27/us-representative-to-the-muslim-world-talks-respec/

“In an effort to improve relations between Islam and the West, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named Farah Anwar Pandith as the first ever Special Representative to Muslim Communities. Among Pandith’s priorities are concentrating on the future of Islam rather than the past; reaching out to the new generation of Muslims through 21st century technology; acknowledging that Islam is very diverse; and encouraging an open dialogue between the U.S. and grassroots Muslim groups. Pandith acknowledged that both Americans and Muslims of the world are lacking mutual understanding, and she hopes to bridge that gap by educating people on both sides.”

Who knew about the notion of a picture you can’t unsee driving a wedge between Allah and devout Muslims?

@mattbrowne
I figured you’d be that consistent. That’s to your credit.

As for the one-sidedness of only talking to sensible Muslims: yes, I suppose that would make Fluther systematically miss out on the input of the hysterical sign waver Muslims. But no, I don’t think that would be a loss to lament.

Maybe with “building bridges” you were thinking of coaxing the hysterical sign waver Muslims to be a bit less hysterical and lay off the sign waving for a few days, and I could agree that that would be a good agenda, but if it has to be attained by bending over backwards to grant them excessive lenience they don’t deserve, I’d object to that means on grounds of dignity.
It wouldn’t be respectful to their dignity, either. It would be condescending. If you take them seriously, you treat them the same way you’d treat any sane adult.

This coming from someone who has been gone easy on throughout his childhood and always found it condescending.

@Fyrius – I was trying to take her extremely strong emotions seriously. She really felt that this whole thing was driving her crazy. I don’t think she made this up. I tried to point out that we can look at the issue from different angles. I tried to point out that she can do something about her emotions. I tried to point out that we do not live in a “perfect” world with just one view point.

Is this really bending over backwards? Condescending? Before she left I never used the terms immature or childish, even though I thought some of her behavior clearly falls into this category.

And I think Fluther is also meant to help people grow up. There are a lot of immature folks whatever their age.

@mattbrowne How else would you define tolerating a behaviour in someone that we wouldn’t tolerate in someone else?

Again, i would have had no problem less problems with her had she actually tried to explain why her feelings should matter more than everybody else’s right to have their own opinions and talk about them out loud. That at least would have made it an entertaining waste of my time.

Seeing how not only she was quite obviously not going to budge, except for some half assed attempt at backpedalling, but she clearly couldn’t care less about actually proving her points instead of just asserting them i don’t think we missed much in losing her.

I rehiterate: i have no problem with muslims that i don’t already have with any other religious person to begin with, just as i have no problem with muslim fucktards that i don’t have with other brands of fucktards.

I still have problems with them, and i will treat them equally bad as if they were christians hindus or whatever, if i think they don’t deserve any serious minded dialogue.

The day a level-headed dialogue oriented muslim will come along i will be the first to be happy to have somebody new to debate with.

As for your remark on immaturity: yes, she is. Most of us are. For starters we actually debate on the internet and, as the saying goes, “wether you win or lose you’re still a retard”.

Still, i don’t think accomodating her behaviour would have helped her grow up anymore than telling a compulsive penguin fondler that there’s nothing wrong with what he does BUT we still think he should really stop it.
You have to choose a side in this kind of statement, you can’t just pick both, otherwise you’re sending mixed messages, and we all know that helps nobody.

@Thammuz
“For starters we actually debate on the internet and, as the saying goes, “wether you win or lose you’re still a retard”.”
I’ve always resented that saying. I think debating is one of the most intelligent things you can do with the internet. In terms of retardation, it sure beats the donuts out of playing games on facebook, twittering about what you’re having for dinner, doing a quiz about which Inu-Yasha character you are or captioning photos with denigrating statements about how stupid other people on the internet are.
I suspect it was invented by the sort of small-minded, anti-intellectual tosser who can’t keep up with internet debates and instead decides to pretend they’re all stupid anyway. The same goes for “every time you drag real physics into a discussion about a fantasy comic, god kills a catgirl.”

Far be it from me to call myself a paragon of maturity, but that has nothing to do with the fact that I debate people on the internet.

What you’re saying sounds very reasonable. My intuition tells me that the chances of building a better world in the future are greater when people like @LiLian stay in forums like Fluther. It’s not the open-minded liberal Muslims we got to convince. They already are. It’s the tough ones, the deeply religious ones, full of very strong emotions and irrationality.

@Fyrius i obviously don’t agree with the saying, otherwise i wouldn’t be here.

Still we have to admit that, 90% of the time, debating on the internet is as pointless as it gets, expecialy because most of the time debates don’t convince the debatants but convince the audience, which is kinda lacking in serious debates like these.

@mattbrowne It may be me being cynical but i will quote Gregory House on this one:

“Rational arguments don’t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there wouldn’t be religious people.”

And i’m quite positive that someone who gladly puts her precious little feelings before someone else’s life is pretty damn beyond redemption.

@mattbrowne
Like I said, I’m not cinvinced @LiLian‘s particular brand of unreasonable had much to do with her religion. You get people like that anywhere.

In a way I think you’re right about your resolve to focus on the more difficult cases. But talking sense into deeply religious people full of strong emotions and irrationality? I’d wish you the best of luck, because your saintly patience alone isn’t going to be enough.
In fact I’d wager even saintly patience, perfect reasoning, overwhelming evidence and rocksolid arguments combined still won’t leave a trace of a scratch on the resolute wrongness of the really irrational people. At most you might have a shot by using dirty tricks to exploit their epistemological mistakes to manipulate their minds into the position you prefer, but then you’d be kind of disregarding the respect agenda point, and you wouldn’t exactly make them more reasonable either.

Of course you’re welcome to see if you can get them to listen, though.

Yes, I know it’s not enough. But it would be a start.

These days everybody seems to be insulted by something. Since it is becoming increasingly tough to avoid insulting somebody, the choices wind up being – do nothing at all, or do something and be insulting. I certainly would not expect a devout Muslim to draw Muhammed, just as I would not expect an orthodox Jew to celebrate Christmas. Plus, I would never propose that they be forced to do so in order to please my sensibilities. But what people do on their own time is nobody else’s business, whether that is drawing Muhammed or eating pork ribs.