My irony meter must be broken

[jurph]

In response to a Dutch newspaper printing a caricature of Muhammed with a bomb for a turban (indicating that Muslims are particularly prone to violence), Muslims worldwide have threatened to

Comments

[accelon]

It's unfortunate. I think that most peaceful Muslims just roll their eyes. Violent acts by the minority, of course, attract more attention from the media.

Oh well.

The under-educated, who don't think for themselves and follow the commands of some religious "authority" (some Sheikh about 1400 years behind the times) are largely responsible for this kind of nonsense. Proportionally, relatively few Muslims in the world support this kind of tomfoolery.

There's a more ancient tradition of "ijtihad", which is a philosophy of interpreting the scriptures on one's own. This was largely outlawed (implicitly) after the first few hundred years, and then an extremist school of Islam, Wahhabism, took root in many of the Arabian countries.

Stupidity ensued.

[jurph]

Well, my wife made a great point last night, which is that chronologically, Islam is as old today as Christianity was during the Crusades, give or take. So when Christianity was about 1400 years old, we were pretty much at the lowest, most fundamentalist and ignorant time period for our religion.

Who will be the King James of Islam? Who will be their Martin Luther? Will we see a Muslim Reformation, where backward/superstitious/fundamentalist ideas are scrapped in favor of a true Religion of Peace? I think it would be great to see a resurgence of ijtihad... and while we're at it, it would be great if American Christians could learn to accept a non-literalist interpretation of scripture.

I think Osama is only slightly worse than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell -- if there is a Hell, those sons of bitches are going there. If there is no Hell, then I'll make sure to introduce Pat to Osama in the afterlife and have a good laugh at the looks on their faces.

[fergusmacairt]

I think Osama is only slightly worse than Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell

Ideologically, maybe. Big picture? Not even close. Regardless of their ideological similarities, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell (scumbags though they are) are not out actively developing plans to kill as many people as possible or overtly calling for the murder of all unbelievers. That's a pretty big difference in my book.

Let me make it abundantly clear that I don't like either of those guys in the least. I just see a pretty major distinction between them and OBL.

[jurph]

Point conceded - I was mostly going for the damage they've done to their religion's credibility. Nonetheless, Robertson and Falwell are still all talk whereas Osama definitely walks the walk. Robertson does occasionally attribute others' misfortunes (Ariel Sharon, tsunami victims, Katrina victims) to their failure to worship His God, which is execrable, but there's still a thick black line between that and ordering the 9-11 attacks (and the Cole and the first WTC...).

[jurph]

http://wcbstv.com/local/local_story_033162841.html

And notice that nobody is threatening to blow up this art museum. Personally, I think the artist is a media-whoring putz, and that the "message" of this particular work of art is "If you shock people you will get free publicity." Including Christ in your art with something controversial has been done (see "Piss Christ") and I think it's essentially the same as trolling.

DNFTT, people.

[eeblet]

Check out the wikipedia article. I hadn't heard about the context of the cartoon yet -- it was on a page full of cartoons of Mohammed! It was either an exercise in free speech, or a spitting upon one of the important practices of Muslims, or both. Either way, what Muslims are responding to is not the accusation of violence so much as the purposeful violation of their No Idolatry rule. The pageful of cartoons really complicates the issue for me....

and even further reading reveals...

[eeblet]

I really shouldn't write about things i haven't researched. Or at least stolen research from friends. The whole thing is just ridiculous, although not even remotely simple. Check out my friend osirusbrisbane's posts on the topic.