Posted on 02/06/2006 9:29:24 AM PST by Pokey78
THE trouble with the West is that we have forgotten that some things are sacred.
We find it so difficult to comprehend the reaction of the Muslim world to that ham-fisted Danish cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist because our churches stand empty, our faith is weak and our God has left the building.
The idea that this is still a Christian country is laughable. We may haul in the local vicar for weddings and funerals, but that's about it. We worship our idols -celebrity and money, the sex lives of the rich and famous - but the Good Book is about as relevant to most of our lives as the ration book.
Christianity is widely mocked. The feeble humour of the Jerry Springer opera whipped up some half-hearted controversy, but nobody really cared beyond a few Bible-bashers considered to be humourless spoilsports.
Once this was a Christian country, back when we were all singing two hymns a day at school and fretting about burning in hell for our sins.
When I was a child, we could all chant the Lord's Prayer by heart. Do the Vicky Pollards of today know the Lord's Prayer? Can't see it, myself. So I feel an instinctive sympathy for Muslims who still hold to the belief that there is such a thing as blasphemy.
The Muslim community say that those puerile Danish cartoons should not have been printed, and they are right. It would not have been censorship or the curtailment of free speech to not print (and reprint) the offending cartoon. It would have been basic human decency. It would have been cultural restraint at a time when tension between the West and the Muslim world is higher than it has been for centuries.
I have read a number of commentators say that they would "defend to the death" the right of some crappy little Danish paper to print their nasty little cartoons.
But if I am going to die for a cause, then it is going to be a better one than the right of some Scandy cartoonist to print offensive rubbish.
If we are going to argue with Muslims, then let it be about something worthwhile.
The attitude of Islam to women. The attitude of Islam to gays. The attitude of Islam to Israel, which is routinely threatened with extermination by everyone from Hamas to the leader of Iran to mad mullahs with spit on their beards in Finsbury Park.
Printing that cartoon was supremely stupid. Muslims have a right to live their lives without seeing their religion vilified in a way that is designed to cause hurt, anger and offence.
What Muslims should never have the right to do is what they did on the streets of London on Friday. Around 500 demonstrators marched from the Regent's Park mosque to the Danish embassy, carrying the most sickening placards I have ever seen in my life.
On the streets of the city where Londoners were murdered and maimed on July 7, the pinhead protesters carried slogans boasting: "Europe, you'll come crawling when mujahideen come roaring" and "Behead those who insult Islam". On the same streets where four terrorists committed mass murder, a placard gloated: "Europe you will pay - fantastic 4 are on their way".
A toddler, 20-month-old Farisa Jihad, was dressed by some moronic adult in a hat that sneered: "I love Al-Qaida".
And they got away with it. Nobody was arrested for these sickening incitements to murder. Nobody was charged for spewing slogans of hate that gloated about the dead and broken bodies of July 7.
And that offends me. That offends me to the core of my being.
Responsible Muslim leaders have already condemned the appalling placards. But it happened. And I can't think of any thing more likely to create real loathing for Muslims. I can't think of anything more likely to make the BNP a real force in British politics.
I can't think of anything more likely to make the average British citizen - whatever his colour - ask: Whose country is it anyway?
MUSLIMS deserve the respect accorded to all our people. They take their religion infinitely more seriously than we do, and we should understand that. And if they want to burn down a few empty Scandinavian embassies in Syria because of crass depictions of the Prophet Mohammed, then personally I couldn't care less.
But when someone starts carrying placards in my city gloating about 9/11 and 7/7, when men with big mouths start promising death and destruction, when you tell us that we will be massacred if we offend you, then our tolerance is pushed to breaking-point. Muslims deserve to have their faith respected.
But if they want a Muslim country, then perhaps they should go and live in one.
With freedom comes responsibility. Past American generations understood that. YOU apparently do not.
Two points:
1) You can't speak out at all about Jesus in a muslim country. They don't give any other religion any "respect" at all.
2) A religion that condones rape, murder, lying and tyranny should not be respected. ALL religions are not equally worthy of respect.
Muslims themselves do NOT make representations of Mohammed, precisely because they do not want that representation denigrated. The publisher of the cartoon well knew it and knew it would be offensive. In a case like this it was disrespectful, irresponsilbe and stupid to publish those cartoons, as the fact that Muslims would have taken it as an offense couldn't have been clearer.
And yes, we don't want a society where everyone is walking on eggshells NOT to offend someone, but this case does not fit into that scenario. The publishers clearly knew the Muslims would be offended, just like the artist who put the crucifix in urine knew Christians would be offended.
"Printing that cartoon was supremely stupid. Muslims have a right to live their lives without seeing their religion vilified in a way that is designed to cause hurt, anger and offence."
They've got the right to not be offended?!?
Muslims have a right to live their lives without seeing their religion "vilified" if they live in a muslim country that doesn't permit freedom of expression. On the other hand, if they want to live in the civilized world, they're going to have to deal with the fact that we can actually form our own opinions and express them.
Not that I disagree with you, but I am just curious about something. Doesn't the Old Testament do the same thing, with its "chosen people" and ethnic cleansing of the native tribes after the Jews leave Egypt?
Jews learn from these Old Testament passages. They are to instruct not to emulate. There is no central personality the Old Testament though you could say five men are very important to it
Islam is Muhammadanism because he is only person who counts in the Koran and Hadith. Muhammad is central to Islam. Muhammad is called the perfect man. The most perfect man that ever lived and that all Muslims must emulate his life. Go read up on the evil life of conquest and Jihad that Muhammad lead.
Muslims are going nuts over cartoons because Muhammad is the perfect man - so they claim
Herein is the danger when religion is relegated to a psychological crutch to help people deal with reality, instead of a way to comprehend reality.
Once religion is in the eye of the beholder, then how do you deal with the difficult issues that come up? Here in the U.S., Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. But what IS a religion? When one group claimed that doing drugs was a religious exercise, the courts disagreed. But on what basis? And if Islam wants to claim that murdering people is a religious exercise (and I'm not claiming they do - but if they do) then how do we tell them it's not? How can we distinguish between religious activities without declaring that some religions are - well - wrong?
If religion is just the way you deal with a harsh world, then we really have no way to claim one is right and another wrong. However, if religion is an effort to understand the real nature of G-d, then there is a way.
Unfortunately, it starts with deciding that G-d exists, which many would probably claim violates the first ammendment.
Shalom.
The Old Testament doesn't say anything of the sort. INfact the Old Testament embraces the teaching to those that want to be in the "fold" and not to shun them.
The Cleansing is to those that have dishonored God and made a Mockery to Him.
BTW, Islam wasn't around in the Old Testament times... Nor was it around New Testament times... The Beduins (Arabs) Worshipped the same God, the God of Moses and the Father of Ishmael and Isaac, Abraham/Abram. Ishmael is the beginning of the Arab Nation, Isaac is the beginning of the Israeli nation. Both sons didn't fight each other and embraced each other at the death of Abraham. Moses (hebrew) married Zepporah (Arab Beduin - and daughter of a Beduin Priest) - NO, Islam is a cult, created to destroy the Jews and to take over Jerusalem, only to be given to the true creator of the cult. Not Muhammed - he was just a pawn to the big chess game.
First, you have to believe in absolutes. If Hitler was wrong, so is the teaching of Islam.
If Hitler was right, we have no right to say anything about Islam.
Truth is truth, it is the same for everyone for all places and all time.
Above all, God is Truth!
I believe that was Martin Niemoller.
Shalom.
It was also stupid. Would any of us know what any of those cartoons look like if Islam had just shrugged its collective shoulders and moved on?
Nope.
Never argue with a fool. He will just bring you down to his level and then defeat you with his greater experience.
Shalom.
I think you might do well to define what you mean by wrong.
Do you mean impolite? Thoughtless? Heartless? UnChristian?
Shalom.
How many years and 9-11s does it take before reporters decide to actually take the time and learn about islam and why it is the driving force to the madness in the isalmic world.
No, they have no such right. Islam is bullshit. And they have no right to impose respect for bullshit on any of us. If they did, I'd start my new religion, the "you can call anybody else's bullshit, bullshit" religion, and you'd have to respect it by never calling it into question.
With freedom comes the responsibility to have a skin thick enough ignore mere jibes.
Not precisely. The Canaanites were not destroyed because they were not Jews but because their sin had reached its full measure - that is, they had become so vile they were a cancer to the rest of humanity (Gen 15:16). Many other peoples were allowed to live and are still allowed to live. G-d does not call for their destruction. But, like Soddom and Gomhorra, or all the peoples who lived in the time of Noah, sometimes they become so evil that destroying them is the only answer.
Shalom.
Or in this case, "Never Wrestle With a Pig."
And the inability to grasp that will doom the West.
Shalom.
First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me. - Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
Best Regards
Sergio
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