I didn't say anyone *shouldn't* be insulted by anything. Nor did I specify anything that people should get offended by.

I just pointed out there's no reason why they *should* be insulted by the mocking of an idea. Mocking an idea is not some inherently insulting thing. There is no reason why we automatically have to avoid mocking an idea because someone chooses to feel insulted when we do.

I'm explaining my opinion very poorly...

It's like when you said "Why do they deserve to be so blatantly insulted again?" This is not the case. People are drawing a man called Muhammad. Perhaps also expressing a negative opinion of said man. There is no reason why anybody absolutely should be insulted by this. People DO feel insulted by this, but this is their choice.

Nor is any ill will being shown towards those who feel insulted. People are just mocking an idea, criticizing a public figure, and others choose to get their panties in a twist about it.

Two options are available:
a) Everybody tip toes around said individuals, making sure not to do any activity that would be disliked.
b) Everybody continues on as normal, and said individuals grow the hell up and learn to accept differences of opinion.
c) Said individuals behead everybody with an axe. (Optional 3rd choice, I guess!)

It seems to be taken as a given that depicting the prophet is insulting to all Muslims. Perhaps I am just being ignorant/naive, but I am not a member of the Muslim faith and as such I do not follow its directives. I have never been to Mecca and I don't plan on making a pilgrimage there, even though I am fit and able. I do not plan on fasting for Ramadan this year, either. I absolutely love eating bacon and do so at least a couple of times a week. Do I risk offending millions of Muslims by my actions? Why is it different if I decide that the rule about depicting the prophet doesn't apply to me?*

It wasn't the Danish guys or the South Park guys or these Facebook group followers who escalated this into the mammoth issue it has become.

edit: *My tone here isn't incredulous, I suspect there is a reason for this that I don't know about. I also suspect that this reason makes Islam look pretty bad.

Not a single thing here I disagree with. My only point was that the vast majority of Muslims had nothing to do with it escalating to this point. So what really gets accomplished by insulting them all over again?

Just as guilty in a general sense, just as all students, parents and teachers are enablers of bullies, but the parents, friends, teachers of the bullies are guiltier in specific cases. Curtailment of free speech on pain of death isn't a religion-wide issue even though curtailment of free speech is.
My comment was The 'agree with' was referring to the severity of the offense and the necessity for strict curtailment of free speech not that they're necessarily in agreement with hiring hit men to punish me, although you will read some 'blame the victim' comments. They in a role similar to 'friends of the bully' and they can do more to about it than a catholic can so they bear more responsibility. Catholics are more like 'kids in other classes' or whatever it is to be further down the chain of influence.

Are you similarly against, say, gay pride parades or other in-your-face type protests to various violations of others rights?

It's difficult for everyone, because we basically agree on most points.

Again, I don't see this as an issue about sensitivity. If someone were handing out drawings of your mother having sex with a Saint Bernard, it's not my place to tell you how to feel about that. Maybe you'd take offense. Maybe you wouldn't. But it's not for me to say, "Hey, chill. It's just a pic. If you find it insulting then that's your choice". In other words, you have the "right" to feel however you want! Maybe you don't even have a choice yourself about how you would feel about it.

What I'm saying is that it seems perfectly reasonable (to me) for Muslims to be offended over having something they hold so sacred mocked. Just as it would seem reasonable for you or I to become insulted over having a loved one mocked. But that shouldn't be what's at issue here.

The question (as I see it), are the rights that others have to express their opinions and ideas even if they ARE offensive to some, and/or what rights those offended have in response. Obviously, issuing fatwas and other threats of violence is not something we should tolerate. And I blame the two faced, spineless media outlets more than anyone for allowing such threats to succeed.

Again, we agree more than we disagree here. I just don't see how a strategy of re-insulting people (most of whom had nothing to do with this in the first place) is a productive solution to the problem.

Sorry. I don't see the connection. I'm not against protests at all. And I'm all for sticking up for people's rights. I'm not familiar with gay pride parades. Do they go out of their way to insult people? If so, then I don't think it's a productive way to get their point across. If the purpose is simply to demonstrate and stand up for their rights (which is what I thought the objective of these parades were), then I think it's a great thing to do.

It's not about producing a solution to the problem, its about freedom of speech. If they don't like it, they can block Facebook in the country.

The bolded is where the disagreement lies. "nothing" is a huge overstatement. Their support of curtailment of others free speech is a big issue, the death threats are just the tipping point.

LA is boycotting Arizona, yet a lot of innocent arizonians are going to be hurt by that. Stores get boycotted for handling one product, so all the other suppliers are punished. I asked about gay-pride parades because in-your-face type protests are effective, even if they are broadbrush. This one isn't mistargeted as you are claiming, you're just sloughing off what the target is and focusing on the tipping point rather than the issue.

You'll have to dumb down for me luckyme. You are sometimes too deep for me to follow. I don't see the connection with this either. Any religious moderate is an enabler by the acknowledgment that faith is a virtue. Parents and teachers of children who are not bullies do not proclaim bullying has virtuous any value. You're completely losing me here.


Well, you'll have to show me where the majority of moderate Muslims are calling for the curtailment of free speech. They do not like these cartoons and find them repulsive, I'm sure. But I am not aware of any movement where they are calling for a halt to free speech. Especially not American Muslims or those who don't live in oppressed countries like Afghanistan. Ant they certainly aren't calling for violence like their fundamentalist counterparts.

Seriously? You haven't heard of the blasphemy law issues in parts of europe?

looks like 88,088 people just made "the list"

Gee. You don't think Gerry Falwell's of the world are insulted/offended, and deliberately, by gay pride parades? You don't think "up-yours" is a major factor in them.
I don't see a difference between - 'I'm gay and I'm here, wahooo, wahooo, and your being bothered by that is your problem you bigoted slop'. and
- 'I don't give a rats ass about your stupid rules, follow them all you want but get off my case and stay out of my laws'.

Lestat I drew you a graff.

Analogies are not congruent, they are shape/direction-pointing. Here it is the weakening of responsibility as you fan out from those with large ability to influence and thus less blame/credit for the existence of certain practices.

"faith is a virtue" is a level below what's at issue here and isn't a factor at the level being addressed. You could have the same problem with curtailment of free speech brought on by non-faith based groups.
The issue here is - You can have customs and practices that you adhere to but you don't have the right to make me adhere to them. Moderate muslims do support curtailment of free speech, so do christians but usually not as strongly.
'Why' they want to curtail my free speech is a shrug at this level. Just don't friggin do it.
I'd shift Vantek's graph about 1 1/2 columns to the right. Most christians think it's wrong to ridicule their beliefs and the blasphemy laws were passed by christians.

I think we do disagree. I disagree that this action is insulting to all Muslims. I don't have a Muslim to hand as a counter-example, but I would guess some (most) just shrug it off. "Distasteful? Yes. Offensive in principle? Yes. Am I offended? Nah, not really." is my imagined moderate Muslim response. I mean, they don't have to look at it.

Just what it achieves is another matter entirely.

If moderate muslims truly were innocent, they should be equally outraged by the death threats and oppression of freedom of spreech. They should be equally vocal about how people should have the right to draw mohammad cartoons.

In reality, even if they put on a face of passionless criticism towards the extremists, they probably get some satisfaction out of the intimidation tactics. In reality, everything is on a bell curve. If the fringe lunatics are more prominent among muslims than other religions, then unless there is a very clear single source for all of these fringe lunatics, it must mean that the whole bell curve is shifted towards darkness for muslims. Evidence according to my knowledge is sadly supportive of this hypothesis.

The problem I see with it is that it may sway some of the on the fence between hating the western world secretly and taking up arms to fight the oppression to jump into the fight.

Especially when the media outlets in the middle east and other predominantly islamic countries put their slant on it.

I don't think it should be disallowed, but then again I wouldn't do it and I wouldn't expect my friends to do this sort of stuff either.

It's one of those situations where there are several different possible reasons for doing it. The 'safe', publicly expressible reasons are 'Affirmation of free speech', 'A show of defiance against those who use violence', etc. No doubt many people will be participating for those reasons, and no doubt some will be participating just because they think it's funny, some because they think it's clever, some because they have a specific beef with Islam, and so on. You won't generally hear those reasons given, though.

I'm kind of on the fence here. On balance I suppose I have to say I don't object to it, mostly because the objection and reactions from the extremists seem disproportionate (or... extreme, perhaps ). I find the whole thing puzzling. I'm probably going to sound like an amateur stand-up here, but what exactly is 'a drawing of Mohammed'? No cameras back then, right? No-one knows what the guy looked like. So is it simply the act of labeling something as being a depiction of Mohammed that's offensive?





Is that blasphemous? Fatwa-worthy? It's all the fault of the theologians, if you ask me. If they'd had the Jesuits on the case, there'd be four separate copper-bottom proofs that it wasn't actually possible to draw Mohammed, making it a purely theoretical sin.

I don't really care about the re-insulting of people.

It is a good strategy imo. If loads of people draw Muhammad regularly, it's very hard to strike out at any one person. There are 8k pictures on that group - are they going to behead 8k people? By doing it, you sort of desensitize Muslims to it. It becomes something they simply have to get used to, because the worst thing they can offer (violent threats) no longer works.

If people didn't do something like this, well then nobody is drawing Muhammad due to violent threats. It becomes even more of a taboo and extremists think they can use violence to get what they want.

Nice graph,bro

Which they might be more likely to do if they weren't being intentionally baited into anger by people who want to draw Mohammad. The problem I see with this (and generally with attacking moderates aggressively) is that you're much more likely to pusht hem to side with extremists when they might not otherwise do so.

theres no such thing as a freedom to not be offended.

secondly, the things which this group has decided to be offended by are incredibly tame.

what if a group of people found any and all depictions of jesus offensive, and went around threatening and occasionally committing violence against those who made such depictions? should we bend over backwards to avoid offending this group? i say no, and its not even close.

plenty of things offend me in this world. and everyone gets offended by various things. the moral obligation in this situation is not to make sure nobody ever offends anybody else, but rather to make sure we do not tolerate those who choose to intimidate with violence those who offend us.

This is a major point imo. I am not for some form of government controlling something like this facebook thing, but I do think that it is utterly absurd that people participate in this. Especially when there could be ramifications to this stunt. Certainly Mulsims resorting to violence is terrible, but why are people trying to egg them on? Is there some sort of reason that people need to draw pictures of Mohammad?

This is just a classic example of people being childish that could possibly end very badly.

Where do we stop to make sure we don't offend muslims? Do we tear down the early Renaissance church with an image of Muhammad? Do we hide all historical paintings of him in major art museums? Do we ban Dante's Inferno?