Quite frankly, I think that the muslim population should be ashamed of themselves.

Not only does this show EXTREME weakness within their population (letting extremist groups act as such), but it also shows total lack of understanding of other religions, cultures, and so forth.  That, and it also shows lack of overall civility, as they have to resort to such barbarous acts as this just to protect their culture.  If they were TRULY faithful to their God/Prophet, they'd show it by being more civilized and not killing themselves everytime they get pissed off at something in a rather futile attempt at martyrdom.

*Checks over shoulder for Al-Quieda, Coast is clear*

Xer0 \^/

As a Christian, I've observed the double standard in play for a while now; mocking Jesus and God is openly acceptable and entirely defended by Free Speech advocates, however any form of ridicule of, in this case, Islam isn't tolerated.  We're treading into dangerous waters here, and soon we're going to have a Free Speech battle on our hands. 
The thing that I like about South Park's depictions is that nothing is sacred; Jesus, The Prophet Muhammed, Bishnu, Santa - they're all open to ridicule and are all openly mocked.  They're not singling out one particular faith or peoples - they're giving everyone a serve.  For me, that makes it ok - they're not descriminating.  Is it in bad taste? Sure, some of South Park's jokes I feel are borderline obscene, however I just change the channel rather than kick up a storm.
As people bow to censorship, as in this case, we'll soon have Informally Imposed Censorship; instead of it being illegal to, for example, depict the Prophet Muhammed it'll be inforced at a Industry level voluntarily - books will be censored by the publishers or editors, for example, to avoid controversey.

Censorship is a bit of a big issue at the moment, a lot of people are talking about in different forms.  Australia's Communications Minister has been pushing for a nation wide, mandatory internet filter to block web sites that the Government deems appropriate to be blocked, and it won't annouce what sites are going to be blocked.  This is all under the guise of 'saftey for children on the internet' of course, and luckily from what I've heard from many people, no one is in support of it.  I find it interesting in modern times that Freedom of Speech is facing such adversity.  Have people begun to push the boundaries of Free Speech so much that we need to reel them in a little bit?  Or are people simply afraid of the non-descript 'Terrorists' coming to get us if we don't?

It might be more out of fear than political correctness. At least one Danish embassy was destroyed after those Mohammad cartoons become well know, and the artist responsible for them has had several assassination attempts on him, including from one American apparently. Who can guarantee some nutjob won't attempt to bomb Comedy Central's offices for it? Regardless I think there is going to be more and more round about depictions of Mohammad until the wider Muslim world can learn to accept criticism to a more reasonable degree (though I doubt many of them watch South Park anyways).

Thanks for the feedback.

In my opinion, the world is really headed for a shitstorm between the Western and Muslim worlds. The West's face of tolerance is starting to break. People are showing backbone by not bowing down to extremist groups by banning Muslim things like face veils. If these laws pass, we'll be seeing cars burn in the street, and people decide that they have had enough of the shit of the Muslims, pull on ski masks, and grab guns and start attacking Muslims. I am in no way in favor of this violence, but it could happen.

Muslims believe that their religion is above all others, meaning that they are absolutely superior over all people and no one can criticize them. And for those saying "Oh, it's just a tiny fraction of muslims doing this." How are millions of Muslims rioting, engaging in terrorist attacks with broad Muslim support, killing non-muslims, and other idiotic acts. Plus, the more Muslims do this stuff, the more will join their ranks.

Jews and Christians make fun of themselves all the time. There are the few uptight jerks, but no one listens to them. Christianity and Judaism (as well as every other religion except Islam) all know how to take criticism. Everyone is pretty much moderate or secular. The silence from the "moderate muslim" community is deafening, making extremists the main source for muslims these days.

I've seen the most disgusting depictions of Jews and Christians, and stupid Youtube videos of Jesus dancing in the street. We don't 

Oh yeah, Christianity the bastion of tolerance, rofl.

Compared to Islam, you bet your ass it is.

Be careful there, it sounds a lot like you're attacking Muslims
Seriously though, to be fair, all religions proclaim that their faith is the one true faith and that all others are falsem, so it's unfair to attack Islam over that.  The problems we have are a result of Islamic Clerics twisting the words of their Holy Book to teach their young, impressonable followers that heathens should be put to death and that suicide grants them a place in Heaven.  Having studied several religions, I can safely say that this is not what the Islamic faith teaches at all - suicide is as much a sin as it is in Christianity, and in both faiths it's clearly stated that only the saved and true believers deserve death.  Why?  Because it's desired that all people go to Heaven, its the ultimate goal - albeit an unattainable goal - and you can only be 'saved' or become a true believer if you're alive, so the longer some is alive the more chances they have of being saved and thus going to Heaven.  By killing a non-believer, you're condemning them and sending them to hell for eternity.  There is no escape clause for this in Islam, not even in a 'Holy War' - which is actually a war of the spirit not a physical one.  Like I said, the words have been twisted to meet the political agendas of a few men with influence. 


Let's not single out Muslims here, they're not the cause of all the worlds ills.  I know quite a few uptight Christians who refuse to laugh at jokes about Jesus.  Personally, I think God and Jesus - or whatever name you know them by - have a sense of humour and would gladly laugh a long as it's actually funny and not just insulting, as so many supposed 'jokes' are these days.  The line comes when these supposed Muslim activists aren't defending other religions.  If someone made a law out-lawing Islam, I'd protest it, march against it and do my best to prevent it from happening.  Why?  Because if they can outlaw someone elses religion, they can outlaw my religion.  If these vocal Muslims were fighting for universal respect for all religions, and did it without violence, I'd agree with their message.  However, the most vocal Muslims aren't doing this - they want the entire world to respect their religion, and allow them to spread their message, and they couldn't give two hoots about anyone else.  Double standards don't fly in my little world.


Please explain the rationale behind this comment.  Please keep in mind that I'm refering to the religion of Christianity, as opposed to, say, priests or bishops commanding people to blantely ignore the principles of their religion and commit mass murder in the supposed name of God, such as during the medieval Crusades or the Salom Witch Trials.
Christianity preeches a message of absolute compasion and tolerance for your fellow man.  It also teaches that if someone attacks you you have the right to defend yourself, however you are never to attack another person.  How is this intolerant?  Or are you simply speaking about things you know nothing about?

Want to bet?

One of my favourite television shows is "Father Ted". Here in Ireland, "Father Ted" is _the_ television show. Although it ran only for three years (as most sitcoms of that type do here) in the mid-90s, it is still quoted and referred to.

And it makes fun of Christianity and Catholicism.

Try something like that in a Muslim country or even in a western country targeting Islam rather than Catholicism and you won't live long.

I know it is easy to say that Christians are intolerant. But would you bet your life on that "knowledge"? Would you rather be known to Muslims as a fan of "Imam Omar", a hypothetical show that makes fun of Islam, or to Christians as a fan of "Father Ted"? How far do you trust your own beliefs?

(And no, I am not a Christian.)

 

I noticed the same and I agree.

The Muslim world has to grow up and understand that they are not the kings of the world.

 

To Etrius:

As a Muslim born and raised in the UK and former serving soldier in the British army, I've had the benefit of having insight into both western culture and my own identity as a Muslim,and i'm happy that there is a balance between the two (to use a sci-fi analogy its like spock finding a balance between his logic and his human side)

I find many of your comments to be valid but some. I've been watching south park, family guy and other programmes were they take the piss out of everyone and i laugh as much as the next guy.

I'm not a a theologian but having many freinds from different cultures and religons I have found one common ground that is all religion is down to ones interpretaion. I choose to interpret the good parts such as tolerence, kindness and treating your fellow man as you would like to be treated, and to protect and defend what is yours (another commonality between all faiths) the actions of a few narrow minded individuals both muslims and non Muslims has created a bad image which genuinely upsets me but I see it as one persons opinion, and I just get on with my life.

It's not the faiths but a small minority of people that cause the root problems in all faiths they can be priests,imams or normal folks such as me and you. In regards to the shit storm you mention its been going on for over a thousand years and sadly its not going to stop any time soon. Both sides are to blame and as for your comment about Muslims think that their faith is better or superior to everyone else's that is incorrect. I respectfuly ask you how much do you know about Islam as a faith? (not including what you learn or have seen on the news which we all agree is a wealth of unbiased objective fact )

 

To Xer07

I respectfully ask you,do you believe that all 1 billion Muslims including myself who do what ever they can to make life not just for themselves but for others harmonious and respectful through peaceful means be ashamed of them selves based on the acts of a few mindless zealots?just so you know not all Muslims are mad and hell bent on destruction, as for the weakness you talk about i suggest you take a walk down a street in Basra and speak with a few locals who lost everything at the hands of these zealots and yet continue to carry on and defy them and then come back here and back up your claim of Muslims showing weakness.

 

To ZehDon

Thank you for your comments, its good to know that there are still some open minded and objective individuals around.

Your all infidels 

Religion shouldn't matter in today's society. Religion should play a major part of an individuals mind, but as scoiety as a whole, it shouldent really matter, however, If Islam can disrespect other religions, then why should they have immunity over it? At the end of the day, we ALL have the same GOD, and we should unite under common ground.

However if Islam like to keep grudges over something like a South Park episode? How about us Sikhs keep grudges about what happened when the Mugohol Empire ruled us? when they forced us to convert, raped and convert our women, murdering our children? how about that? or how about when India was split up during the partition? when Muslims came to rape and convert our women? where the fathers and brothers had to kill there own sisters and mothers, because if they didnt, they would have murdered the men of the village, and then rape there daughters, sisters and mothers?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WQtUYv1_-s

Moaning over a simple south park episode is just plain silly. My grandparents suffered such a hard time back then, and they do not respect the Islam religion, but I do not, I haven't been through something like that, so I do not understand the emotions they went through.

People can take the Mick out of Christianity, Catholics and Sikhism and Buddhist, yes they may be quite annoyed, but you know what? they wouldn't EVER threat to murder another persons life. I do respect Islam, but when they threaten to kill other peoples lives, I do not find that nice, as a religion, love and happiness should be spread, not hate.

by the way, father Ted was funny.

No, they don't, and no, it isn't.

Ironically, Islam isn't even the most extreme example.

Islam teaches that Islam is the true faith but that Judaism and Christianity are also true to an extend and Muslims as well as good Jews and good Christians will go to heaven.

Christianity teaches that only Christianity is the true faith and that one must accept Jesus as the saviour to go to heaven. (This does not mean that Christians are intolerant towards other religions.) Some sects of Christianity teach that Jews alone have a separate path to G-d.

Judaism teaches that Jews have to follow certain law to go to the next world while non-Jews do not. But Judaism does emphatically NOT proclaim that Judaism is the one true faith. In fact Judaism does not concern itself with the question of which religion non-Jews should follow as long as they don't pray to idols (i.e. physical objects).

Buddhism doesn't see itself as the one true faith.

Hinduism makes no such claim either.

Zoroastrianism (the religion of King Cyrus) is even mentioned in the Bible as another true religion.

Nor did most of the pre-Christian and pre-Islamic pagan religions make such claims. People usually accepted that every city had its own god.

The Israelites were one of these peoples and their god was the god worshipped by the people who lived in and around Jerusalem. What made the Israelites special was their belief that their god was also the creator of the world and that others, like Christians and Muslims later claimed that the god of Israel was indeed the god for everyone.

The Bible mentions a few of these other gods and even the Israelites until 2100 or so years ago still worshipped G-d and "Asherath". Prophets in the Bible decry such practices and archaeologists have found shrines to Asherath and other gods and goddesses in Israel.

In the Semitic pantheon Asherath was the wife of El, the creator god, and mother of most of the other gods. Marduk was the city god of Babylon and a son of El. Melqart ("King of the City") was the city god of Tyre. All of these gods were originally Sumerian.

"El" as a word means "supernatural" (or something like that) and it is hence where the Hebrew words for "G-d" derive (Eloah and the more polite Elohim) and the Arabic Al-Ilah (-> Allah) with "al" being the definite article ("the god"). (Note that vowels would not normally be written and hence all these words look pretty much the same.)

It is a typical assumption of people coming from a Christian background that religions are usually about proclaiming themselves the one true faith, whereas that is really only true for Christianity (and Islam to a lesser degree).

So, no, all religions do not proclaim that their faith is the one true faith.

And no, it is not unfair to attack Islam (or Christianity) over this particularly unpleasant attribute which Islam (and Christianity) has and other religions do not.

 

 

I actually did this.

Well, not in Basra, but further north in Kirkuk.

Iraqi Muslims are fighting terrorists every day and they are plain amazing!

 

 

Chancellor:  Sorry, I was referring to the population of Muslims overall. That was my bad for being stereotypical.    I was saying that THOSE particular muslims should be ashamed of themselves, not only for being barbaric, but also for disgracing those around them by acting as such.  I'm aware that not all muslims are terrorists; my uncle is one, but IMO, The Middle East is sorta condemning itself to be isolated from the rest of the world.  Once the oil there is gone, the world will stop caring, and all this should stop...

Xer0 \^/

P.S. OK, I'm up until 1:00 in the morning, and RIGHT after I go to bed do ppl start posting.

its interesting you should say that. sometimes i encounter christians online that try and say that christians who act against their supposed teachings aren't really christians at all, haha.



christianity preaches all kinds of things. you can find whatever validation you're looking for in almost any religion. good people might pay attention to good will and redemption, and bad people might pay attention to judgement and punishment. christianity doesn't exist without man, religion can only be defined by the acts and beliefs of its followers.

i only posted originally because it was funny to see christians have to reference islam in order to look more tolerant