Are Muslims overly sensitive about the Prophet Mohammad?

[Alaa]

That is the lie that you have been told, it doesn't make it so.

Then why are you supporting them endlessly for something they were promised in their religion and disregard the value we hold for this land in our religion?

 

[Incorruptible]

That is the lie that you have been told, it doesn't make it so.

The US knew about the extermination camps and the persecution of the Jews in WWII. When did we finally get involved? After WE were attacked.

This country was isolationist. The world brought us into the big clusterfuck that is our current foreign policy.

No it was non-interventionist. The US needs to mind its own business and stop being the policeman of the world. We only enter these wars for the MIC

 

[OCGuy]

Then why are you supporting them endlessly for something they were promised in their religion and disregard the value we hold for this land in our religion?

We support several Islamic countries as well. Most of them are selfish reasons, but then again, most international actions by everyone are done for selfish reasons.

Do we help stop the attempted genocide of Muslims in Bosnia?

Did we stop the murder, rape, and pilliage of Kuwait? Yes it was for our own interest, but did the Kuwaitis care? We didnt come in and take the Kuwaiti oil, we pay for it.

Are we doing our best to help the Afghans by creating an army to defend from the beloved patriot-backed Taliban, and extreme fundamentalist law (she: beheading for dancing). Aren't we leaving?

There is no natural love for Jews or a natural hate for Muslims in this country.

Hell the US populace usually has its collective head so deep in the sand, or next Iphone, or whatever, that most didn't even know who AQ was until 9/11. This is after the first WTC bombing, USS Cole, the embassy bombings in Africa, Bill Clinton sending Cruise Missles into Afghanistan, etc.

 

[Screech]

Seriously, you think anyone in this world would want 15 random people to get beheaded?

As stated above, I realize you aren't serious here. But this is why I asked you what you want done; to ban people from saying something, you have to back up that ban with the threat of force, and then the use of that force when the law is broken. What is the right punishment for the crime of making you feel insulted?

Any answer other than "nothing" will look really, really silly. Especially when I could then say that your answer is insulting to me and that, therefore, I want you to have to pay the same penalty to me.

As a corollary, bfdd is someone who I would likely respect as, from what I have seen in this thread, he has shown himself to post rational things with a logical thought structure, speaking in the defense of freedom of speech, while being careful to realize that the US has been involved in way too much shit in other parts of the world, as opposed to those who just scream USA!! USA!! USA!! I would likely agree with you (alaa) that Israel has done some really ridiculous shit and that we (the US) should stop helping them out so much, although our reasons for being of that position are likely markedly different. I just think it is a waste of money when Israel can kick the arab armies' asses all day without our help, and they are known to have a nuclear deterrent, so its not like they are gonna be overrun.......as someone who was banned at one point would say, 'everyone knows this'.

 

[Alaa]

As stated above, I realize you aren't serious here. But this is why I asked you what you want done; to ban people from saying something, you have to back up that ban with the threat of force, and then the use of that force when the law is broken. What is the right punishment for the crime of making you feel insulted?

Any answer other than "nothing" will look really, really silly. Especially when I could then say that your answer is insulting to me and that, therefore, I want you to have to pay the same penalty to me.

How exactly would anything I say be insulting to you in the same way that this movie insults our prophet with fallacies?

 

[bfdd]

How exactly would anything I say be insulting to you in the same way that this movie insults our prophet with fallacies?

What do you mean? Do you mean I can't possibly be as insulted by infringements or hating on my ideal of free speech as you are with insults to your prophet? Do you not see how insulting and condescending that is? Why are those beliefs you hold of any more value?

BTW I am incredibly offended that some would get violent over insults to their religion and religious figures. More offended than you could even imagine.

 

[Screech]

How exactly would anything I say be insulting to you in the same way that this movie insults our prophet with fallacies?

"Being insulted" is not a logical paradigm (apparently). It is emotional. I could argue that your inability to comprehend freedom of speech insults me in the same way that someone else's free speech insults you, and as being insulted is apparently something you lack the ability to counteract on your own, I can claim the same weakness for myself. And by claiming that for myself, I can claim the same necessity of banning whatever has insulted me.

Now obviously, I am being a bit silly here, but I am trying to get you to understand why we have freedom of speech in the first place. Once you start banning it, it is a very, very, very slippery slope toward banning anything that someone doesn't like.

edit: dammit, bfdd beat me to it (again)

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

It didn't take that long for Western Europe. I think within 100 years we'll see theism in the minority as science is able to answer more and more of peoples' questions about the universe.

We could greatly accelerate the process by simply making it illegal for people to indoctrinate children under the age of 15 or so. Make churches like strip clubs, you have to be old enough to enter and risk having your mind corrupted. :biggrin:

It's an interesting theory, but here's how I think it will shake out. Religions will be replaced by cults of personalities, and opposing political factions. In our nation as religion wanes the latter grows. We are social creatures with a pecking order. Most people want to believe in something, follow some idea, refuse criticism of it, and ultimately may kill to defend it. We are followers and will allow ourselves to be used, whether by gods, or our earthly masters. We are also consummate predators. Killing is just another way to pass the time for some.

 

[Alaa]

What do you mean? Do you mean I can't possibly be as insulted by infringements or hating on my ideal of free speech as you are with insults to your prophet? Do you not see how insulting and condescending that is? Why are those beliefs you hold of any more value?

BTW I am incredibly offended that some would get violent over insults to their religion and religious figures. More offended than you could even imagine.

Regarding violence, you can review everything I said already.

Secondly, Are you saying that insulting is part of free speech and we should all insult each other and no one should be offended? And if I do feel offended then it is my fault and I should be punished?

 

[OCGuy]

Secondly, Are you saying that insulting is part of free speech and we should all insult each other and no one should be offended? And if I do feel offended then it is my fault and I should be punished?

No if you feel insulted realize that it is a personal issue and keep it to yourself.

If you feel the need to insult back, that is perfectly acceptable. Violence is not.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

How exactly would anything I say be insulting to you in the same way that this movie insults our prophet with fallacies?

IMO there is no equivalent and cannot be. We aren't obliged to act as we do by the same cultural, political, religious and historic factors. Our cultures are fundamentally incompatible. I actually don't mind that if those who hold a belief practice and hold others who believe the same to some standard. It's when those rules are applied to others that I won't tolerate. While a lot of people in the US do not approve of the nature of the film and it's intentions, we accept the right to have it done. We also have the right to call him an idiot and ridicule him. Kill him? No.

If someone did that I would not accept it as legitimate, however we're talking people who had nothing to do with it being killed out of revenge. Does your religion say that anger over blasphemy extends to those who did not commit the wrong? Is the taking of what is therefore an innocent life less of a crime than not to because that person happens to be from the same nation as the one who offended?

That's what Americans and much of the western world greatly dislike. It's not your religion or how you practice it, but that some are willing to seemingly violate what most religions consider an outlandish offense against their god by murder. That in turn causes a great distrust. What happens when someone else makes a movie or does something else to offend? Who of us will die? Why does the culture tacitly approve of such actions?

We'll never be compatible, but hopefully we can coexist, because if we can't then no slaughter in the history of the world will compare.

I don't want to see that, but I can easily imagine it happening if attacks on those not responsible continue.

 

[Screech]

Regarding violence, you can review everything I said already.

You seem to be arguing that you do not support violence; however, your position that people should not be free to say insulting things about Mohammed necessarily includes the ideas that they should be punished for such things, as this is the way that free speech is banned. Essentially, you yourself do not want to go killing people, but you want the government to dish out punishment on your behalf, while refusing to state what it is, exactly, that you want the government to do to such people. At some point, the government will have to use force, or the threat of force, to prevent such speech. That is what I would have a problem with. You stating that you do not like the video is fine; we would probably have a similar opinion of it.

Secondly, Are you saying that insulting is part of free speech and we should all insult each other and no one should be offended? And if I do feel offended then it is my fault and I should be punished?

Of COURSE free speech includes insulting speech! If free speech only included speech that we all agreed with, it wouldn't be very free. That doesn't mean that we should all insult each other all the time, of course, and people are free to be offended all they want. They are NOT free to ban someone from saying something just because it offends them. Put simply:

I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

 

[Alaa]

"Being insulted" is not a logical paradigm (apparently). It is emotional. I could argue that your inability to comprehend freedom of speech insults me in the same way that someone else's free speech insults you, and as being insulted is apparently something you lack the ability to counteract on your own, I can claim the same weakness for myself. And by claiming that for myself, I can claim the same necessity of banning whatever has insulted me.

Now obviously, I am being a bit silly here, but I am trying to get you to understand why we have freedom of speech in the first place. Once you start banning it, it is a very, very, very slippery slope toward banning anything that someone doesn't like.

edit: dammit, bfdd beat me to it (again)

I understand your point but I am not talking about the emotional part I am talking about downright obvious insults like calling someone a fraud. The movie represents exactly what I am talking about. It portrayed our prophet in ways which are not based on facts or history but only hatred.

 

[bfdd]

Regarding violence, you can review everything I said already.

Secondly, Are you saying that insulting is part of free speech and we should all insult each other and no one should be offended? And if I do feel offended then it is my fault and I should be punished?

Yes insults are part of free speech, just like starving is part of living. It sucks, we don't want it to happen, but it does and we as individuals can work towards making it suck a little less. I'd also like to state that you should NOT be punished for being offended, but being offended is completely YOUR responsibility and is YOUR "fault" so to speak. You could choose to brush off the words, make them meaningless, yet you choose to assign value to them and once that occurs you allow yourself to be offended.

We have a saying we teach children here in the USA, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

Also, Alaa we have laws against libel and slander here in the USA. Since the Prophet cannot defend himself, sucks for him. What you can do though as a good disciple and pupil of his teachings is to know what he and your God say is truth and to know that such blasphemers speak non-sense, no different than a crazy person, so don't let it weigh on you. Brush it off like it was nothing more than dust. For isn't that what it truly means to be faithful?

 

[Screech]

IMO there is no equivalent and cannot be. We aren't obliged to act as we do by the same cultural, political, religious and historic factors. Our cultures are fundamentally incompatible. I actually don't mind that if those who hold a belief practice and hold others who believe the same to some standard. It's when those rules are applied to others that I won't tolerate. While a lot of people in the US do not approve of the nature of the film and it's intentions, we accept the right to have it done. We also have the right to call him an idiot and ridicule him. Kill him? No.

Basically, this. alaa, I would not expect you to keep Kosher. Some people follow those rules; others do not. Conservative jews generally do not expect the people around them to keep Kosher; those are rules they have chosen to follow, and generally speaking do not force on everyone else. Similarly, I would hope you realize that in the rules that you follow, you choose not to speak ill of Mohammed; that is fine. Not everyone has to follow those rules.

 

[Screech]

I understand your point but I am not talking about the emotional part I am talking about downright obvious insults like calling someone a fraud. The movie represents exactly what I am talking about. It portrayed our prophet in ways which are not based on facts or history but only hatred.

Then make a better movie showing how this one is wrong. Banning it is not the right way to go. Don't like the movie? Don't watch it. That's pretty easy.

The funniest part of all of this is that nobody would have ever heard of this stupid movie if there weren't a bunch of riots that happened because of it. Congratulations, now everyone will hear about this movie. I guess that's one way to make a movie go viral....

Again, if there is actual slander in the movie against a living person, they can bring the issue to court. If not, then the movie is, in terms of movie classification, historical fiction (like pretty much every religion ever).

 

[Alaa]

You seem to be arguing that you do not support violence; however, your position that people should not be free to say insulting things about Mohammed necessarily includes the ideas that they should be punished for such things, as this is the way that free speech is banned. Essentially, you yourself do not want to go killing people, but you want the government to dish out punishment on your behalf, while refusing to state what it is, exactly, that you want the government to do to such people. At some point, the government will have to use force, or the threat of force, to prevent such speech. That is what I would have a problem with. You stating that you do not like the video is fine; we would probably have a similar opinion of it.

Same with anything in law.

Of COURSE free speech includes insulting speech! If free speech only included speech that we all agreed with, it wouldn't be very free. That doesn't mean that we should all insult each other all the time, of course, and people are free to be offended all they want. They are NOT free to ban someone from saying something just because it offends them. Put simply:

I always disagree with people but I never feel insulted! There is a red line that no one should cross when it comes to freedom of speech. No one should call others frauds, idiots, or calling names because they disagree. You actually mentioned a law that prohibits these acts on a certain level but they are not welcome at all for me.

 

[Alaa]

IMO there is no equivalent and cannot be. We aren't obliged to act as we do by the same cultural, political, religious and historic factors. Our cultures are fundamentally incompatible. I actually don't mind that if those who hold a belief practice and hold others who believe the same to some standard. It's when those rules are applied to others that I won't tolerate. While a lot of people in the US do not approve of the nature of the film and it's intentions, we accept the right to have it done. We also have the right to call him an idiot and ridicule him. Kill him? No.

If someone did that I would not accept it as legitimate, however we're talking people who had nothing to do with it being killed out of revenge. Does your religion say that anger over blasphemy extends to those who did not commit the wrong? Is the taking of what is therefore an innocent life less of a crime than not to because that person happens to be from the same nation as the one who offended?

That's what Americans and much of the western world greatly dislike. It's not your religion or how you practice it, but that some are willing to seemingly violate what most religions consider an outlandish offense against their god by murder. That in turn causes a great distrust. What happens when someone else makes a movie or does something else to offend? Who of us will die? Why does the culture tacitly approve of such actions?

We'll never be compatible, but hopefully we can coexist, because if we can't then no slaughter in the history of the world will compare.

I don't want to see that, but I can easily imagine it happening if attacks on those not responsible continue.

It's disrupting really that you people think of what I said as serious talk just because I am from the ME.

 

[Alaa]

Yes insults are part of free speech, just like starving is part of living. It sucks, we don't want it to happen, but it does and we as individuals can work towards making it suck a little less. I'd also like to state that you should NOT be punished for being offended, but being offended is completely YOUR responsibility and is YOUR "fault" so to speak. You could choose to brush off the words, make them meaningless, yet you choose to assign value to them and once that occurs you allow yourself to be offended.

We have a saying we teach children here in the USA, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

Also, Alaa we have laws against libel and slander here in the USA. Since the Prophet cannot defend himself, sucks for him. What you can do though as a good disciple and pupil of his teachings is to know what he and your God say is truth and to know that such blasphemers speak non-sense, no different than a crazy person, so don't let it weigh on you. Brush it off like it was nothing more than dust. For isn't that what it truly means to be faithful?

True, but Islam is not an absent religion. It gets involved with what happens. More importantly, your rules are not absolutes for us.

 

[Screech]

Same with anything in law.

Which, again, is why I am asking you what you think should be done. You are again trying to say you don't support any violence against the filmmakers but you wish violence to be done against them (by the government ) on your behalf.

I always disagree with people but I never feel insulted! There is a red line that no one should cross when it comes to freedom of speech. No one should call others frauds, idiots, or calling names because they disagree. You actually mentioned a law that prohibits these acts on a certain level but they are not welcome at all for me.

I try to follow such rules myself. However, calling someone an idiot is generally fair comment.....especially if that person is being an idiot. I'm pretty sure I called G W Bush an idiot quite a few times

 

[bfdd]

True, but Islam is not an absent religion. It gets involved with what happens. More importantly, your rules are not absolutes for us.

BOOOM! You just answered your own questions towards us. I was seriously waiting for you to say this. Read what you just wrote a bunch of times and if you still don't understand why we can be the way we are, you'll probably never understand.

 

[Alaa]

BOOOM! You just answered your own questions towards us. I was seriously waiting for you to say this. Read what you just wrote a bunch of times and if you still don't understand why we can be the way we are, you'll probably never understand.

I understand that we have our vision and we draw more red lines than you do but we probably have the same target?

 

[Alaa]

Which, again, is why I am asking you what you think should be done. You are again trying to say you don't support any violence against the filmmakers but you wish violence to be done against them (by the government ) on your behalf.

Again, same for any crime! I don't support violence generally but I don't mind punishing someone who chose to commit a crime. This is how things go.

 

[cybrsage]

It depends on whether the free speech is meant to intimidate others. If it is, then it is illegal and not protected, in the US at least.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

It's disrupting really that you people think of what I said as serious talk just because I am from the ME.

I'm trying to understand what it is that you are saying. That you are from the ME makes no difference to me in terms of evaluating your worth as a person. I'm trying to know what your thoughts and ideas are and from that I'll draw some conclusions about them. Assume I am neither your friend nor your enemy because that's not how I think. I'm acquiring knowledge and perspective for myself to have a better understanding. That does not invalidate my stated opinion, however I am not so foolish as to fear other opinions and consider them.