May 20 - Draw Mohammed Day

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I think I lost the thread of this debate. Originally I was arguing against those saying it is immoral to offend people but they are much less interested in discussing how they feel about the morality of mocking other religions and ideas, or the history satire, parody and comedy has had in shaping culture, or the fact that progress is all ages and countries has literally offended huge numbers of people.

Instead I am arguing with people I mostly agree with. I am sure this drawing day will be silly.

Maleficence said:
Bad is not the same thing as intentionally hateful and offensive.
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Ah, there we go.

Please, tell me if Candide is hateful. I think you're reading a lot into this stuff and deliberately playing victim.
 
Good job guys, exercise your right to be an asshole just to upset people....you guys are so hardcore and brave I commend all who participate
 
Maleficence said:
Are you saying the only way to reinforce free speech in this instance is to dedicate a day to offending muslims?

There's literally not a single other thing you can think of to reinforce free speech?
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Precisely, you wouldn't have that many in this thread complaining if most of the images were just simple depictions of Muhammed.
Now that would be a much more effective attempt at reinforcing free speech while at the same time showing yourself to be above drawing inane and disgusting images that look like they are fueled by hate and disdain for Muslims in general.
 
jakonovski said:
There are three sides to this discussion. You're part of the third side I've been fortunate enough to avoid so far: bigots.
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Is this your way of avoiding the issue I presented? Calling me a bigot for questioning the worship of a pedophile? I'm offended. Deeply offended. But you know what? I respect your right to offend me. I'm all for religious tolerance and the freedom of belief, but that liberty isn't something that should be applied selectively. The same Muslims that are getting all bent out of shape about cartoons undoubtedly break numerous tenets of their religions on a daily basis. It's impossible for them not to, because their holy book, in addition to most others, is filled with contradicting passages. The idea that I have to follow the decrees of someone else's book, beyond innate maxims such as don't go around raping and killing people, is patently fucking absurd and you should be ashamed for supporting it.
 
jay said:
I think I lost the thread of this debate. Originally I was arguing against those saying it is immoral to offend people but they are much less interested in discussing how they feel about the morality of mocking other religions and ideas, or the history satire, parody and comedy has had in shaping culture, or the fact that progress is all ages and countries has literally offended huge numbers of people.

Instead I am arguing with people I mostly agree with. I am sure this drawing day will be silly.
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It's immoral to offend people for the sake of offending people. If you do indeed have a greater justification then offending people may be justified. However this needs to be reflected in the way you offend. If people do genuinely just drawy "unoffensive" depictions, then that's fine, but if they seem to be mocking because they can, than that's different.

This is an excellent opportunity for people defending their freedom to show the fanatics out there that "even if you threaten us, we don't hate you", unfortunately I know people better than that, and it will descend into immature offensive images being produced, which will reinforce the anger felt by the fanatics, and possibly bolster their cause.
 
SimpleDesign said:
So Muslims wouldn't be offended by simple depictions of Muhammad?
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Some would be perhaps, but you know full well that "simple depictions" are not what's going to happen, and so a much larger number will be offended.
 
Jtones said:
This is kinda childish imo. "Let's annoy Muslims some more-day!"
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we do it to christians everyday with family guy, harry potter, and whatever desecrates christianity.
 
I don't pretend to understand the nuances of Islam, but if it's true what someone mentioned earlier in the thread about Mohammad prohibiting graven images of himself because he did not want himself to be worshiped over Allah, then is it not a bit ironic that so many fanatical Muslims can be seen to be practically worshiping him now in their efforts to squelch such images?
 
Maleficence said:
It's immoral to offend people for the sake of offending people. If you do indeed have a greater justification then offending people may be justified. However this needs to be reflected in the way you offend. If people do genuinely just drawy "unoffensive" depictions, then that's fine, but if they seem to be mocking because they can, than that's different.

This is an excellent opportunity for people defending their freedom to show the fanatics out there that "even if you threaten us, we don't hate you", unfortunately I know people better than that, and it will descend into immature offensive images being produced, which will reinforce the anger felt by the fanatics, and possibly bolster their cause.
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:lol who's the arbiter? you?
 
Maleficence said:
He didn't want him worshipped himself, so fearing idolatry in the future he basically said to draw him, would be against his wishes. He basically didn't want what happened to Christ to happen to him.
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Well yeah that, and he didn't his followers possibly arrested for kiddie porn over a thousand years later if he's depicted with one of his wives.
 
God damn LIBERALS can't decide how far their free speech should go!

Is that an argument for cultural relativism I see approaching?

If so, I'm going to have to have a little discussion..
 
There are SO. MANY. double standards in this thread.
If it was international "Draw a Jesus Day" would so many people be defending it? No.
If it was international "Draw a Pope Day"? Every single person here would be cheering.
Current pope sucks, yes. Hard, yes. He protects pedophiles, yes (though Mohammed.... well, ya know). But he is a religious figure, currently highest in command in catholic church; but nobody cares if he's insulted. I won't be defending him, because he is a terrible pope.
But for christ's sake.... you can draw any single religious figure even shitting on each other or snorting coke and NOBODY CARES. Draw Mohammed even simply standing and all hell breaks loose.
 
To me, this exercise is not a vote on freedom of speech, but a vote on "Haha, fuck you Muslims!".

I'm not particularly bothered by the content of it and I'm sure there will be some pretty disgusting things in there. Well that's not entirely true. I'm bothered by the fact that the disgusting stuff will further isolate the fringe Muslims (even moderate ones). Next thing you know, some Mullah McTerrorist in Peshawar is using the images you created to recruit suicide bombers against the west. The fence sitters are pushed to the extreme. Trust me, its not hard for an authoritative figure to convince the ignorant masses. What I'm bothered by more though, is the anti-Islam effort that is being waged across the gamut of western countries. These things will only further the Islamophobia and bring general distaste and distrust of Muslims. Next thing you know, your new neighbor is a Muslim and you start uttering yourselves some stuff you normally otherwise wouldn't utter. This is hardly a matter of Free speech, since you can get your point across in a much better fashion.

A line has to be drawn where the freedom of speech ends and personal freedom from religious intolerance begins. Now before I'm strawmanned by pics of beheadthosewhoinsultIslam.jpg, know that I believe people should be able to say whatever the fuck they want, even lies. But there has to be a responsibility on the part of authors. That responsibility is to not promote religious intolerance, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism and other anti-isms.
 
CassSept said:
though Mohammed.... well, ya know.
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Let me get this out of the way first. There is no proof he actually did this. It's like taking legends as the truth.

The Qu'ran mentioned none of this.
 
Jexhius said:
God damn LIBERALS can't decide how far their free speech should go!

Is that an argument for cultural relativism I see approaching?
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I thought cultural relativism meant everyone else is right but you are always wrong.
 
Another question is why do the people against this even care? Why do muslims get offended by non-muslims not following their religion for this one specific thing? Where is the outrage at say people drinking alcohol, which is also against Islam.
 
2San said:
Let me get this out of the way first. There is no proof he actually did this. It's like taking legends as the truth.

The Qu'ran mentioned none of this.
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Oh the delicious irony.
 
SimpleDesign said:
So Muslims wouldn't be offended by simple depictions of Muhammad?
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Sure they would, but you'd be taken a lot more serious by people who are not Muslims as it wouldn't look like you were drawing pictures merely to spite Muslims. I will not support this because I don't want to be bunched together with the unavoidable shitty and disgusting pictures so many will draw.

or as rusty nails put it:

RustyNails said:
To me, this exercise is not a vote on freedom of speech, but a vote on "Haha, fuck you Muslims!".
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gerg said:
Hmm... that seems like a valid enterprise.

Even, then, however, I don't think that the current method is the best way to accomplish it.
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And that's a good discussion to be had; I'm not sure it's the best method either, in fact, I really have not fully decided how I feel about the whole thing.
But when you (not you in particular, the theoretical you) frame it as "hate Islam day", you really kill any chance of coherent discussion.
Maleficence said:
I understand the motivation behind the "day", what I also understand is that the motivation by people who actually create images will not be as just.
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I'm sure this will attract a bunch of racist and Islam haters, but -
  1. You can't judge a group or a movement by extreme idiots who associate itself with it.
  2. Those idiots are already bigots, this day will not change them one way or the other, they will not show more respect without it, and in general, such fools are best ignored.
 
damisa said:
Another question is why do the people against this even care? Why do muslims get offended by non-muslims not following their religion for this one specific thing? Where is the outrage at say people drinking alcohol, which is also against Islam.
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Most of the time they're busy protesting Landover Baptist's site because they're outraged at the immorality going on what with people mocking religion.

Chichikov said:
I'm sure this will attract a bunch of racist and Islam haters, but -
  1. You can't judge a group or a movement by extreme idiots who associate itself with it.
  2. Those idiots are already bigots, this day will not change them one way or the other, they will not show more respect without it, and in general, such fools are best ignored.
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You must have missed my lesson on cultural relativism. If you defend the drawings then everyone of those people is a hateful racist. If you dislike violent reactions from Muslims then only a tiny minority are reacting that way.
 
damisa said:
Another question is why do the people against this even care? Why do muslims get offended by non-muslims not following their religion for this one specific thing? Where is the outrage at say people drinking alcohol, which is also against Islam.
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Wow, because no one is drinking alcohol for the sake of making fun of Islam.
Snaku said:
Oh the delicious irony.
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What's ironic about it? I follow Islam from the Qu'ran, most people know the majority of the Hadith is filled with crazy. :O
 
Shanadeus said:
Sure they would, but you'd be taken a lot more serious by people who are not Muslims as it wouldn't look like you were drawing pictures merely to spite Muslims. I will not support this because I don't want to be bunched together with the unavoidable shitty and disgusting pictures so many will draw.
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What if the majority of pictures are tastefully done?
 
CassSept said:
Draw Mohammed even simply standing and all hell breaks loose.
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This, sir, is a lie. There have been countless pictures of Muhammad drawn throughout history. There's even a sculpture of Muhammad in the U.S Supreme Court in D.C. Here's one from couple of hundred years ago.

0_01.jpg
 
so if I don't think Maleficence should get to decide whether or not something was a "good" depiction of Muhammad or a "bad" depiction of Muhammad.. I'm a cultural relativist?

ok..
 
ITT: Complete and utter ignorance (or disregard) of the beliefs of many.

For those who do not understand why Muslims are offended by images of Mohammad (you could wiki it like I did) but I'll give you a gist: It promotes idolatry. This may come as a shock that this is a concern, but it's pretty much to avoid the Christian situation where you have depictions of Christ everywhere and people worshiping him directly. The more you know! (Additionally, for more information, the Islam faith considers Christ a prophet of god and nothing more.)

That said, not even all Muslims care about depictions at all, that tends to be the MO of the more backwater and/or traditionalist sects who have nothing more important in their lives than their religion. I can't imagine why they'd be so offended! :lol
 
demon said:
That word is directly tied to centuries of hatred and oppression towards black people. It isn't considered offensive for some arbitrary reason like a simple picture of Muhammad.

Nice try, though. (not really)
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:lol

When you are raised in a religious family and surrounded deeply religious culture then simple thing like a drawing of a Muhammad can become extremly offensive to a person. Even equally offensive as the n-word. Me going to America and buring US flag would probably got me beaten pretty fast because it would be offensive to some people... Of course it would be also illegal so I would be arrested too.
 
damisa said:
Another question is why do the people against this even care? Why do muslims get offended by non-muslims not following their religion for this one specific thing? Where is the outrage at say people drinking alcohol, which is also against Islam.
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Shit, I know I said I was going to bed, but this raises a question. Why are Muslims offended by this, when the rule was put in place to prevent idolatrous worship of Muhammed, which presumably is not a big problem amongst non-Muslims?
Comic said:
ITT: Complete and utter ignorance (or disregard) of the beliefs of many.

For those who do not understand why Muslims are offended by images of Mohammad (you could wiki it like I did) but I'll give you a gist: It promotes idolatry. This may come as a shock that this is a concern, but it's pretty much to avoid the Christian situation where you have depictions of Christ everywhere and people worshiping him directly. The more you know! (Additionally, for more information, the Islam faith considers Christ a prophet of god and nothing more.)

That said, not even all Muslims care about depictions at all, that tends to be the MO of the more backwater and/or traditionalist sects who have nothing more important in their lives than their religion. I can't imagine why they'd be so offended! :lol
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Again, not what Christians do (at least in the sense of worshipping Christ as a man).
 
Maleficence said:
You and PoliceCop would make a great couple.
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That would probably make us gay and going by Islamic teachings we should be put to death. But that's not bigoted at all. A god said it was okay. Perhaps those who take issue with what I said should address it directly instead of alternating between calling me a bigot and a homo.
 
Chichikov said:
And that's a good discussion to be had; I'm not sure it's the best method either, in fact, I really have not fully decided how I feel about the whole thing.
But when you (not you in particular, the theoretical you) frame it as "hate Islam day", you really kill any chance of coherent discussion.

I'm sure this will attract a bunch of racist and Islam haters, but -
  1. You can't judge a group or a movement by extreme idiots who associate itself with it.
  2. Those idiots are already bigots, this day will not change them one way or the other, they will not show more respect without it, and in general, such fools are best ignored.
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Thinking about the situation, I think I'd be happy in saying that I prefer no negative consequences over some amount of positive consequences.

blame space said:
so if I don't think Maleficence should get to decide whether or not something was a "good" depiction of Muhammad or a "bad" depiction of Muhammad.. I'm a cultural relativist?

ok..
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Yeah, I may have jumped the gun there. Sorry. :lol

But your original post was slightly vague in that regard.
 
RustyNails said:
To me, this exercise is not a vote on freedom of speech, but a vote on "Haha, fuck you Muslims!".

I'm not particularly bothered by the content of it and I'm sure there will be some pretty disgusting things in there. Well that's not entirely true. I'm bothered by the fact that the disgusting stuff will further isolate the fringe Muslims (even moderate ones). Next thing you know, some Mullah McTerrorist in Peshawar is using the images you created to recruit suicide bombers against the west. The fence sitters are pushed to the extreme. Trust me, its not hard for an authoritative figure to convince the ignorant masses. What I'm bothered by more though, is the anti-Islam effort that is being waged across the gamut of western countries. These things will only further the Islamophobia and bring general distaste and distrust of Muslims. Next thing you know, your new neighbor is a Muslim and you start uttering yourselves some stuff you normally otherwise wouldn't utter. This is hardly a matter of Free speech, since you can get your point across in a much better fashion.

A line has to be drawn where the freedom of speech ends and personal freedom from religious intolerance begins. Now before I'm strawmanned by pics of beheadthosewhoinsultIslam.jpg, know that I believe people should be able to say whatever the fuck they want, even lies. But there has to be a responsibility on the part of authors. That responsibility is to not promote religious intolerance, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism and other anti-isms.
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This is not religious intolerance.
No one is infringing on your right to practice Islam, at least not by this silly thing.
And you do understand that such responses only increase the anti-Islamic prejudice in the west, right?
 
PoliceCop said:
That would probably make us gay and going by Islamic teachings we should be put to death. But that's not bigoted at all. A god said it was okay. Perhaps those who take issue with what I said should address it directly instead of alternating between calling me a bigot and a homo.
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Nope. That's not true, though it is a major sin. It isn't man who exacts judgment in this case.
 
blame space said:
so if I don't think Maleficence should get to decide whether or not something was a "good" depiction of Muhammad or a "bad" depiction of Muhammad.. I'm a cultural relativist?

ok..
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To answer your question, each individual as the arbiter. You decide whether something is in good taste or not.
 
RustyNails said:
This, sir, is a lie. There have been countless pictures of Muhammad drawn throughout history. There's even a sculpture of Muhammad in the U.S Supreme Court in D.C. Here's one from couple of hundred years ago.

http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/islamic_mo_full/0_01.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]
I know about this but I'm not talking about hundred-years-old sculptures but the recent years (especially since the caricatures in the danish newspaper)
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CiSTM said:
:lol

When you are raised in a religious family and surrounded deeply religious culture then simple thing like a drawing of a Muhammad can become extremly offensive to a person. Even equally offensive as the n-word.
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Then its their own fault for not using the brain in their nut and not realising that someone doodling a man on a piece of paper isn't really that big of a deal.

People deconvert all the time because of stupid shit like this.



btw i'm not talking about drawing mohammed with dicks coming out his ears or stupid shit like that. i don't find that funny or effective.
 
idahoblue said:
Again, not what Christians do (at least in the sense of worshipping Christ as a man).
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Of course, Christian belief has reason enough to do it, but when your belief directly contradicts it and portrays another belief as false idolatry... well. You don't consider someone else's faith to be more true than your own. (I'm pretty sure that's how religion works, at least. Wars have been fought over such things!)
 
Chichikov said:
This is not religious intolerance.
No one is infringing on your right to practice Islam, at least not by this silly thing.
And you do understand that such responses only increase the anti-Islamic prejudice in the west, right?
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The original idea may not itself be an example of religious intolerance, but I think it's fair to say that, either indirectly or otherwise, it promotes it. (This seems to lead back into the discussion of whether the good intentions prevail over the reality of the situation.)
 
Comic said:
Of course, Christian belief has reason enough to do it, but when your belief directly contradicts it and portrays another belief as false idolatry... well. You don't consider someone else's faith to be more true than your own. (I'm pretty sure that's how religion works, at least. Wars have been fought over such things!)
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This is true, but to say that having pictures of Jesus means Christians worship idols is disingenuous at best, at deceptive at worst.
 
2San said:
Nope. That's not true, though it is a major sin. It isn't man who exacts judgment in this case.
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You'd know your religion better than I would, and I don't know your particular stance on the text, but the Hadith says to kill me if I'm gay. The idea that one of your religious texts is somehow more reliable than another is kind of silly to me, as a none believer.
 
RustyNails said:
To me, this exercise is not a vote on freedom of speech, but a vote on "Haha, fuck you Muslims!".
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How did you arrive at that conclusion? Again, the country's most visible satirists, who take on every sacred cow we have, said this one thing is off-limits because they are afraid they will be killed after receiving death threats.

In what world is that not a infringement on free speech? And if people resolve to comment on that subject as a form of protest, how does that not demonstrate solidarity for freedom of speech? Somebody explain this to me. Even trying to play devil's advocate for the sake of argument I can't come up with anything.
 
idahoblue said:
This is true, but to say that having pictures of Jesus means Christians worship idols is disingenuous at best, at deceptive at worst.
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But that's how it is seen. I don't think anything said could really change how any traditionally religious devout see other faiths. It's particularly bad in areas like Saudi Arabia, from what I've heard.

Intolerance for everyone! :D
 
gerg said:
The original idea may not itself be an example of religious intolerance, but I think it's fair to say that, either indirectly or otherwise, it promotes it.
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I have to disagree.
By that measuring stick, every sinful behavior in the public space is religious intolerance.
Should I not display pork to not offend Jews and Muslims?
Should I censor The Last Crusade to remove the Tetragrammaton from it?

This is a really dangerous path, and the main reason why people get so worked out about this episode.
 
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