Saturday, January 26, 2008
Mohamed Bashing?
I'm not an expert on religion at all - but I do know that around the world when Mohamed is disparaged or even drawn in a political cartoon, there tends to be serious repercussions. However, is this response true in other faiths? If I draw a cartoon making fun of Vishnu, do Hindu's come looking for me? I know when people speak ill of Jesus it bothers me, but not to the point of jihad. So what's the deal? If Mohamed sacred to the point of killing other human beings? What about Alla? What about the other prophets in Islam? Is it just the one guy, or all guys are untouchable when it comes to humor? The Simpson's make fun of all faiths - except Islam. The same with South Park. Is it because if they cross the line and depict Mohamed in a negative or humorous light a jihad will be declared on them and their families? Can we have firm political discussions about faith without it leading to violence? For example, if I believe that Christianity is the true faith, and have this discussion with a Muslim, is he expected to get violent if I think Mohamed was just a guy vs something more? Man, getting clarity on this would help go a long way to preventing my Brother the Atheist from getting killed for things he's putting in his book about Islam and Mohamed...
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1 comment:
That's a tough call.
The three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) all share in common the rule against making a graven image, the Judeo-Christian second commandment: "You shall not make a graven image for the purpose of praying to them." Some of the more fundamental sects ignore the second half of that law and just say, "No graven images." (The Taliban tried to destroy all films in the Afghanistan film archive, but the archivists hid the films.) It's funny to me that they apply this rule to imagery of Mohammed, but they don't have a problem carrying around giant photos of Ayatollahs in parades and political rallies. Even Mohammed forbade the destruction of the idols of the Virgin Mary and Jesus when he destroyed the rest of the idols in the Q'uba in Mecca. So, I would argue that if the cartoon or the quote was NOT meant as an insult, but as a harmless joke, it should be ignored, forgiven, and not considered deserving a jihadist/fatwa reaction.
In other words, don't kill me.
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