That is something we tell children to prevent fighting.
Mature adults realize that indeed names CAN and do hurt us.
Mature adults realize that indeed names CAN and do hurt us.
The West should be free to Critcize Islam?
- Thread starter Sassylassie
- Start date
Re: RE: The West should be free to Critcize Islam?
You mean emotionally? So what? A good drama movie can do that.
fuzzylogix said:
You mean emotionally? So what? A good drama movie can do that.
I guess if we publish cartoons or make disparaging remarks about Mohammed,we should accept the death penalty. Publish a cartoon=burn a church,Read a statement from the 13th century=shoot a nun in the back. Islam is nothing if not fair.
So again the REAL question is, is Islam such a BETTER religion or society that is can criticize but cannot BE criticized..sounds to me like THEY are the ones trying to rule the world...could just be me though....
Researcher87 said:
Ok, I really pray that is not how you THINK it went, because if so..I suggest you pick up your nearest QURAN and READ IT!!! It specifically says that if an "infidel" or "non-muslim" does not convert, they are to be KILLED!! WHOA! And to think we called them animals! :roll: ...blowing up children and all....shame on us!!!! :roll:
Now of course I know what the average minded person is going to say....Christians had the crusades in which they killed millions..TRUE!..ONLY DIFFERENCE IS: the BIBLE DIDNT TELL THEM TO DO THAT!!! They acted on their OWN accord and were WRONG!!!! THe Quran CLEARLY teaches these people NON-TOLERANCE and to murder and they are doing it!! The God I believe exists, doesn't condone that....sorry...
WE SHOULD ALL PUT PEACE BEFORE FAITH
The Mirror
18 September 2006
"Don't blame me - I'm only C of E!" (Church of England)
Tony Parsons on Pope Bendict XVI and his upsetting the Muslims
WHEN I was a lad and the Vietnam War was the cause of widespread anti-Americanism, you'd often see Canadians sporting red maple leafs on their rucksacks to avoid being mistaken for Yanks.
More recently, Sikhs and Hindus who do not wish to be the victims of Osama-under-the-bed paranoia have been seen wearing T-shirts that proclaim: "Don't Panic, I'm Not Islamic," and, "Don't Freak, I'm A Sikh."
Now that the Pope (leader of the Catholics, not us Protestants) is the burning effigy of the week in the Muslim world, I am tempted to get a car sticker that says: "Don't Blame Me, I'm C of E."
I think the Pope's remarks about the prophet Mohammed were ill-advised, clumsy and offensive (mind you, I also think that Christian churches being attacked in retaliation is offensive, but let that pass for a moment).
In his blundering way, the Pope was attempting to make the reasonable point that there can be no place for violence in religion. He quoted a 14th-century Christian emperor who said Mohammed brought "things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
Crucially, and stupidly, the Pope did not distance himself from the quote. So the thoughts of a figure so obscure that, if he had not died 600 years ago he could be a guest on Love Island came out as more or less the Pope's own.
Cue burning effigies, assaults on Christian churches in Palestine and Iraq, screaming mobs shaking their fists and much chanting of "Death to America, death to Israel", even though there are very few Catholics in Israel.
The Pope apologised, and made another sincere apology yesterday and he will no doubt apologise again. It will never be enough.
His Holiness was right - those who love their god should not also love violence. But he was barmy to start dissing Mohammed, especially when he is about to do a tour of Turkey, especially at a moment in history when we need to be building bridges between religions, not firebombing them.
Benedict XVI made his point so incredibly badly that the Muslim world has erupted yet again into hysterical violence, ironically this time because it objects to being called, er, violent.
The sad upshot of this controversy will be more anti-Muslim sentiment in the world. I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me that Muslims are "too touchy".
Sometimes I wonder how many people in this country actually know any Muslims. The Muslims of my acquaintance are no touchier than anyone else. The Muslims I know are decent, humorous, lovely people. But right now they are getting a truly rotten press, and in all honesty it is not hard to see why.
The Islamic world seems remarkably quick to get out in the streets and burn things and scream death threats and promise destruction.
Are they touchier than the rest of us? Yes, when it comes to respect for their faith. Yesterday the Pope called for a "frank and sincere dialogue" between religions. That is surely impossible when Muslims are so quick off the mark to take offence.
Here is the great divide between our communities. In our formally Christian but now largely secular society, you can mock the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost until the sacred cows come home.
With Islam, you do not have the same freedom of speech. Salman Rushdie, Danish cartoonists and now the Pope have all acted as though Islam can be treated with the same casual disregard as every other religion. They have all discovered that not to be the case.
Some Muslims encourage prejudice against them. It is hardly the most pleasant sight in the world when you see some screaming, bearded loon in Pakistan or Palestine or Iraq or Iran or Egypt foaming at the mouth while he burns a book, a flag, a cartoon or an effigy. Calm down, calm down. But the Islamic world comes across as fanatical, intolerant and bug-eyed simply because they place their faith above everything.
We either start accepting and respecting that or the rift between us will grow ever wider and ever deeper. The Pope should have kept his mouth shut or expressed himself more clearly.
Equally, the leaders of the Muslim community should wise up to the fact that the West is getting tired of Muslim mobs howling death threats.
For every time it happens, it reinforces the stereotype of the mouth-foaming, fist-shaking, west-loathing Islamic fanatic.
In his ham-fisted way, the Pope tried to make a self-evidently true point - religion should not be used to justify violence.
Frankly I am sick of religious nutters killing people to gain brownie points in paradise. We have had 2,000 years of it now.
But as it almost says on my car - hey, don't kill me, I'm only C of E!
mirror.co.uk
The Mirror
18 September 2006
"Don't blame me - I'm only C of E!" (Church of England)
Tony Parsons on Pope Bendict XVI and his upsetting the Muslims
WHEN I was a lad and the Vietnam War was the cause of widespread anti-Americanism, you'd often see Canadians sporting red maple leafs on their rucksacks to avoid being mistaken for Yanks.
More recently, Sikhs and Hindus who do not wish to be the victims of Osama-under-the-bed paranoia have been seen wearing T-shirts that proclaim: "Don't Panic, I'm Not Islamic," and, "Don't Freak, I'm A Sikh."
Now that the Pope (leader of the Catholics, not us Protestants) is the burning effigy of the week in the Muslim world, I am tempted to get a car sticker that says: "Don't Blame Me, I'm C of E."
I think the Pope's remarks about the prophet Mohammed were ill-advised, clumsy and offensive (mind you, I also think that Christian churches being attacked in retaliation is offensive, but let that pass for a moment).
In his blundering way, the Pope was attempting to make the reasonable point that there can be no place for violence in religion. He quoted a 14th-century Christian emperor who said Mohammed brought "things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".
Crucially, and stupidly, the Pope did not distance himself from the quote. So the thoughts of a figure so obscure that, if he had not died 600 years ago he could be a guest on Love Island came out as more or less the Pope's own.
Cue burning effigies, assaults on Christian churches in Palestine and Iraq, screaming mobs shaking their fists and much chanting of "Death to America, death to Israel", even though there are very few Catholics in Israel.
The Pope apologised, and made another sincere apology yesterday and he will no doubt apologise again. It will never be enough.
His Holiness was right - those who love their god should not also love violence. But he was barmy to start dissing Mohammed, especially when he is about to do a tour of Turkey, especially at a moment in history when we need to be building bridges between religions, not firebombing them.
Benedict XVI made his point so incredibly badly that the Muslim world has erupted yet again into hysterical violence, ironically this time because it objects to being called, er, violent.
The sad upshot of this controversy will be more anti-Muslim sentiment in the world. I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me that Muslims are "too touchy".
Sometimes I wonder how many people in this country actually know any Muslims. The Muslims of my acquaintance are no touchier than anyone else. The Muslims I know are decent, humorous, lovely people. But right now they are getting a truly rotten press, and in all honesty it is not hard to see why.
The Islamic world seems remarkably quick to get out in the streets and burn things and scream death threats and promise destruction.
Are they touchier than the rest of us? Yes, when it comes to respect for their faith. Yesterday the Pope called for a "frank and sincere dialogue" between religions. That is surely impossible when Muslims are so quick off the mark to take offence.
Here is the great divide between our communities. In our formally Christian but now largely secular society, you can mock the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost until the sacred cows come home.
With Islam, you do not have the same freedom of speech. Salman Rushdie, Danish cartoonists and now the Pope have all acted as though Islam can be treated with the same casual disregard as every other religion. They have all discovered that not to be the case.
Some Muslims encourage prejudice against them. It is hardly the most pleasant sight in the world when you see some screaming, bearded loon in Pakistan or Palestine or Iraq or Iran or Egypt foaming at the mouth while he burns a book, a flag, a cartoon or an effigy. Calm down, calm down. But the Islamic world comes across as fanatical, intolerant and bug-eyed simply because they place their faith above everything.
We either start accepting and respecting that or the rift between us will grow ever wider and ever deeper. The Pope should have kept his mouth shut or expressed himself more clearly.
Equally, the leaders of the Muslim community should wise up to the fact that the West is getting tired of Muslim mobs howling death threats.
For every time it happens, it reinforces the stereotype of the mouth-foaming, fist-shaking, west-loathing Islamic fanatic.
In his ham-fisted way, the Pope tried to make a self-evidently true point - religion should not be used to justify violence.
Frankly I am sick of religious nutters killing people to gain brownie points in paradise. We have had 2,000 years of it now.
But as it almost says on my car - hey, don't kill me, I'm only C of E!
mirror.co.uk
You all have made some very good points,but what about the story going around that the BBC misquoted the Pope's words and broadcast them extremely fast to the Middle East? Personally, Ithink the Old Dude hit it right on the mark.
Well, we're tired of all the overly sensitive duckermutters. If you're an adult, you act like one. Muslim countries are led by bearded dinosaurs who get some weird kick out of all the pots they can stir. Their populations protest at the drop of a hat and every cleric that needs a haircut can declare a fatwa. It is a cartoon culture. They need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world. And if they drop any bombs along the way make them eat them.
Anybody actually read what the Pope said? He was quoting a 14th century Byzantine Emperor as part of a somewhat more subtle argument involving certain ideas from ancient Greek philosophy and less enlightened times than our own. The Muslim response looks to me to have been carefully and deliberately orchestrated for political purposes and entirely ignored what the Pope was talking about.
There's a mosque in Rome. How long do you think a cathedral would stay standing in Mecca? There's a nasty double standard here. Much of the Muslim world demands rights and respect for its faith outside its territories that it's not willing to grant to other faiths, inside or outside its territories. Not acceptable.
Certainly anybody should be free to criticize Islam without fear of fatal reprisals, to any extent desired, and if that offends some Muslims, too bad, they have to learn to deal with it like civilized people instead of behaving like ignorant bumpkins.
There's a mosque in Rome. How long do you think a cathedral would stay standing in Mecca? There's a nasty double standard here. Much of the Muslim world demands rights and respect for its faith outside its territories that it's not willing to grant to other faiths, inside or outside its territories. Not acceptable.
Certainly anybody should be free to criticize Islam without fear of fatal reprisals, to any extent desired, and if that offends some Muslims, too bad, they have to learn to deal with it like civilized people instead of behaving like ignorant bumpkins.
Eh, Islamic society is about a century behind us, they act as we once did.
If we really wanted them to stop we'd just go back to a version of the old ways.
We draw a cartoon of Muhammed and you protest and attack some embassies..launch a suicide bomb or two? ok, thats fine.
You make a speech saying the west is immoral and corrupt? We protest, burn some mosques and carpet bomb a few muslim holy cities.
Its what we used to do, and because being industrialized we were so much better at it, it got out of hand and we agreed that we would ALL stop this kind of stupid behaviour.
Now the Islamic worlds seems to have forgotten that our international laws, geneva convention, our preference of avoiding asymetric warfare and civilian casualties was put in there to protect them from us, not to handicap them.
If we really wanted them to stop we'd just go back to a version of the old ways.
We draw a cartoon of Muhammed and you protest and attack some embassies..launch a suicide bomb or two? ok, thats fine.
You make a speech saying the west is immoral and corrupt? We protest, burn some mosques and carpet bomb a few muslim holy cities.
Its what we used to do, and because being industrialized we were so much better at it, it got out of hand and we agreed that we would ALL stop this kind of stupid behaviour.
Now the Islamic worlds seems to have forgotten that our international laws, geneva convention, our preference of avoiding asymetric warfare and civilian casualties was put in there to protect them from us, not to handicap them.
Re: RE: The West should be free to Critcize Islam?
More like six centuries I'd say, but you're essentially correct.Zzarchov said:
Dexter you hit the nail on the head with this paragraph: Anybody actually read what the Pope said? He was quoting a 14th century Byzantine Emperor as part of a somewhat more subtle argument involving certain ideas from ancient Greek philosophy and less enlightened times than our own. The Muslim response looks to me to have been carefully and deliberately orchestrated for political purposes and entirely ignored what the Pope was talking about.
I read an article a couple of days ago that stated bluntly that three days after his speech/lecture his quote was blitz all over the world via internet to Muslims. Who sent the quote of the Pope? MSM! The article further elaborated that MSM is creating these situations by finding little tid-bits to upset the Radicals then Blitz the info over the net and then publish stories about Muslim rage. MSM, is creating/fabricating the News and then reporting it. The Media is using both the West and the Muslims to sell more papers and keep the rage buring to sell more papers. It should be criminal. It was a great article, I'm still trying to hunt a copy down to post. Very inlighting.
Dexter wrote: Certainly anybody should be free to criticize Islam without fear of fatal reprisals, to any extent desired, and if that offends some Muslims, too bad, they have to learn to deal with it like civilized people instead of behaving like ignorant bumpkins.
Yep what he said, except I prefer Savages-to bumkins.
I read an article a couple of days ago that stated bluntly that three days after his speech/lecture his quote was blitz all over the world via internet to Muslims. Who sent the quote of the Pope? MSM! The article further elaborated that MSM is creating these situations by finding little tid-bits to upset the Radicals then Blitz the info over the net and then publish stories about Muslim rage. MSM, is creating/fabricating the News and then reporting it. The Media is using both the West and the Muslims to sell more papers and keep the rage buring to sell more papers. It should be criminal. It was a great article, I'm still trying to hunt a copy down to post. Very inlighting.
Dexter wrote: Certainly anybody should be free to criticize Islam without fear of fatal reprisals, to any extent desired, and if that offends some Muslims, too bad, they have to learn to deal with it like civilized people instead of behaving like ignorant bumpkins.
Yep what he said, except I prefer Savages-to bumkins.
The west should be free? the west is free. That's the point. We can do what we want, criticize who we want.
Mabey some nun will be slaughtered if we say what we think... So what. We have our freedoms, they have theirs. These freedoms sometimes overlap, sometimes they conflict, sometimes they cancel eachother out.
Being responsible for our words is the price of the freedoms we enjoy. I have the freedom to say what I will, if another free individual punches my lights out for exercising my free speech that doesn't mean I don't have freedoms, it just means I have suffered from exercising my freedoms. If I stop excercising my free speech because of someone elses violence I have given up freedom, it hasn't been taken away.
Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.
Mabey some nun will be slaughtered if we say what we think... So what. We have our freedoms, they have theirs. These freedoms sometimes overlap, sometimes they conflict, sometimes they cancel eachother out.
Being responsible for our words is the price of the freedoms we enjoy. I have the freedom to say what I will, if another free individual punches my lights out for exercising my free speech that doesn't mean I don't have freedoms, it just means I have suffered from exercising my freedoms. If I stop excercising my free speech because of someone elses violence I have given up freedom, it hasn't been taken away.
Freedom and responsibility go hand in hand.
Why the hell should I or anyone else care whether or not anyone has or does not have the right to criticize Islam?
The Congress has passed legislation that would suspend habeas corpus and other constitutionally guaranteed rights to anyone who gives even an appearance of being "terrorist". For all we know, the law might be used against anyone who dares to criticize Bush for his crimes both at home and abroad. As someone who cherishes the freedoms our Founders gave us, this is a far greater matter for me and others to be concerned with.
The Congress has passed legislation that would suspend habeas corpus and other constitutionally guaranteed rights to anyone who gives even an appearance of being "terrorist". For all we know, the law might be used against anyone who dares to criticize Bush for his crimes both at home and abroad. As someone who cherishes the freedoms our Founders gave us, this is a far greater matter for me and others to be concerned with.
You are correct, sir. And not only COULD those laws be used against people criticising Bush, they ARE being used.
Doesn't the Islamic religion disparage against anyone who is not muslim? Doesn't it criticize non-believers? Doesn't it use the word "infidels"? hmmm
As an atheist, I can't sympathize with offense taken on either side of the religious cube because every religion bashes the other.
So should all us Infidels who have been disparaged rise up and throw rocks and set mosques on fire to protest the disparaging remarks of muslims against the non-believers... well, if we followed their example...
As an atheist, I can't sympathize with offense taken on either side of the religious cube because every religion bashes the other.
So should all us Infidels who have been disparaged rise up and throw rocks and set mosques on fire to protest the disparaging remarks of muslims against the non-believers... well, if we followed their example...