westyfield

What is this exactly? Don't want to google it in case it is offensive. (makes me sound very sensitive )

Dunno if anyone here is British but a few years ago there was a performance called 'Jerry Springer: The Opera'. In that, there was lots of swearing, blaspheming (sp?) and offence against Jesus, God and Christianity in general. Lots of Christians got very upset about this, and protested peacefully against it. Now I wonder what would have happened if it had been against Islam instead...

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ScratchMonkey

Dogma is a great Kevin Smith movie. It's quite offensive to the narrow minded. Perhaps not quite as much as Life of Brian, though. (They'd make a great double-feature.)

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MDFubar

Nice thread. Keep in mind that the things certain people believe to be bad or derogatory may not be the beielf of others. You(no one in particular) are taught that predjudice is bad, accept all religions, turn the other cheek, etc. Other are taught that if someone offends thier god, justice must be done, certain races are bad, certain religions are evil, etc.
Just because you believe that something is not moral does not make it so. You are thinking on your beliefs and how you where educated. Yes, most people believe that genicide is bad(myself included), but some are brought up that is is the only way to cleanse the world.
If you where raised to think that certain races where bad, you would not know any better. You should not, in my opinion, condem people for what they do not know. Knowledge and behavior is learned, it is a matter of who the teacher is.
Have you learned the Islam religion, Hindu, Christian, or any other? I have not and therefore do not fully understand why they believe what they believe, other then the fact that that was what they learned.
The biggest thing that everyone learns from example is FEAR. Fear what you do not understand, fear what you can not accept, fear others who oopose you, fear this that or the other. Fear brings reactions, Hilter told his people to fear the Jews for they where going to take over the world. From this fear, they attacked anyone who was against the party. Hilter was a great salesperson, a very evil person in my opinion. Imagine what he could have done had he gone the other way.
Disclaimer: I in no way look up to this man, my Grandparents spent most of WWII in a concentration camp.
Islam has an issue with Christianity.........hmmmm. Read about the crusades, but read it from a different cultures point of view. Some historic accounts will tell you that the knights fighting in the crusades killed men, women, and children that did not conform. Why? Kill the men so they can not fight, kill the women so they can not ahve children to avenge the killings, and kill the children so they will not grow up and avenge the deaths.
Without evil, there is no good...and vice versa.

One last note, it is easier to be evil than to be good.

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"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
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Eroak

First, I'm not going to say what way is right or what way should be. But there is one fact that humans need to belong to something. Be it religion or some right-wing extreamist party. No way is right or wrong, but it's how act upon it that makes it right or wrong. Think what you want, I could care less. But if you start killing people for wearing blue coats, then theres a problem

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Tarenth

For the record? Christian extremist terrorism exsists quite frequently in the USA. We just don't hear about it much because we've learned to live with it.

Bombing Abortion clinics
Shooting doctors working of genetic improvements of crops
Setting fire to shelters that put stray animals to death (yes, I know of the irony here but extremist religion turns minds to mush)

It all happens and we just don't think about it anymore. I will say that Christian terrorists do have something over Muslim terrorists. They go right for the 'source' of what they think is wrong instead of the straw puppet and try to make changes. They're also very timid and will only blow something up if they know they can get away with it and not paint their religion in too bad a light. The bombing of the Olympics by the Christian Coalition who later proclaimed it was a 'lone wolf' action is one example. They also don't act overtly but with the excuse of 'christian values'.

I think the only Christian figure not portrayed would be 'god' because you only use symbolism to show the presence. Jesus has no stigma against visual representation like the Muslim prophet does. As such its kinda hard to think of a cartoon that would be offensive in the same vein to Christians as the cartoon (which I never saw) was to Muslims. It wasn't the offense to their religion that was the problem, it was the violation of the tenent against visual representation.


On DOGMA:
It was a comdey that poked fun at churchs and their relation to religion. The premise was that a newly opening church was proclaiming that all who passed through their gates would be forgiven of their sins. Angels thrown out of the heavens then wanted to pass through the gates to be forgiven and thus prove god wrong. A basic premise is 'god is never wrong' and an act of forgiveness on one so spurned through a third party acting on behalf of god would show that god was mistaken in throwing them out. This would've cause the 'end of the world' for if god was wrong once then god could be wrong again.

It was offensive because it portrayed god (as a woman no less), the decendant of the zions of Mary and Joseph (Jesus' sisters and brothers), angels, muses, devils, and demons. Also it made fun of churches and the Christian religion and their blind faith.

I thought it was amusing. ^_^

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Sir-Nerd

I know the phrase "one man's terrorists is another man's freedom fighter." I know that people think that they are on the good side. I'm always trying to see both sides but i realized that people are extremely easy to mold.

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Icehawk217

And thats why jihads and genocide and stuff occurs in this world.

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ScratchMonkey

I think what MDFubar is saying is that "good" and "evil" are slippery, subjective terms, and that we need to both understand the context in which they're used, and try to understand those we consider "evil".

In western civilization there is a degree of separation between morality (good/evil) and law, where law is designed to facilitate peaceful coexistence, not morality. But there remain those who think that peaceful coexistence is evil and must be violently opposed, and hence break the laws the rest have established. Or they try to impose laws that enforce their own morality rather than protecting coexistence.

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Kebab-Kastike

About that cartoonists picture of profet muhammed, it's really an issue with islamic culture. It's tabu for them to show pictures of their holy men, unlike in christian cluture.
I also belive that Islam has all the right to hate christians. Just thinking about how many people lost their lives in holy wars. Sure islam had their jihads too.
We're all bad
Muslims are really friendly people, and I have met many in nothern Africa during some of my holidays. It's just the extrimists who arent really that many amongst muslims who have this hatered.
Think of it like this, if mormons were the extrimists why would people hate all the christians.

You know all this stuff but I had to say it anyway.

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ScratchMonkey

The extremists throw bombs. The not-so-extreme vote for measures that repress those they disapprove of, letting their government implement their fear and hatred of that which their religion teaches them is "evil". Consider the wars on drugs, sex, music, movies, TV, comic books, and video games. These are all based on intolerance, not peaceful coexistence.

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stickyjeans69

As a matter of fact, the Original Belief of muslims is that ANY group who follows God, christians, catholics, Muslims. are all under the same group. they follow the same basic belief and when Muhamad Conquered a new territory he would destroy any Idol's that where worshipped in place of god and teach the muslim religion. he also let Christian faiths continue their system of worship because of the extreme similarities between the two religions. you may call Muhamad one of the kindest Conquerers ever, as he never took slaves etc, tought the word of god and never destroyed a religion that was on the same track as his own (christianity). personally i think its kinda interesting...............

PS........ I'm Christian

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MDFubar

Yeah, pretty much. everything that you think you know, has been learned from someone else. I think that hate is a very strong word and I do wish that people would find a better way to deal with things. Hate spurs more hate.

I agree with being strongly against the actions, but the people are only doing what they know Take something as simple as the english language........Tomato is pronounced differently depending on where you learned to speak. Niether is wrong, just different. Very low-scale in comparision to terrorism.

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"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
- General George Patton Jr

War.mongeR1

Hey. Whens the last time an abortion clinics been bombed? These things do NOT happen frequently. This argument is commonly used on the left, but is completely unfounded. Whereas there are Muslim caused bombings almost on a daily basis in many places around the world.

According to wikipedia, Islamic Terrorism?:
March 11, 2004 - Madrid Bombing - 191 killed, 2,050 wounded
July 7, 2005 - London Subway Bombing - 52 killed, 700 injured
9/11 - World Trade Center - Nearly 3,000 killed

In 2006 alone there were nearly 6,600 attacks that took around 13,000 lives.

Sorry, but Christian terrorism is practically non-existent when compared to Islamic related terrorism. Abortion bombings and the like are vastly condemned by the Christian community, whereas Muslims rarely speak out against this worldwide violence. Seriously, the 2 just don't compare. Doesn't make those extreme Christians any better, but it's very very rare. Besides, you don't ever hear any MAJOR Christian leaders calling out for violence or Jihads to take those places out or to convert Muslims by using violence. Do you?

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MDFubar

Although you do not hear it now, it has been done:

Pope Urban II (1088-1099, see art below) was responsible for assisting Emperor Alexus I (1081-1118) of Constantinople in launching the first crusade. He made one of the most influential speeches in the Middle Ages, calling on Christian princes in Europe to go on a crusade to rescue the Holy Land from the Turks. In the speech given at the Council of Clermont in France, on November 27, 1095, he combined the ideas of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with that of waging a holy war against infidels.


Once again, condeming the people and an entire religion for the actions of few. This is what I was talking about, and it is prevailing all over the world.

Oh yeah, over 1 million killed in the crusades by Christians.

In addition, just becasue you do not "hear" about it doesn't mean it isn't happening. Please tell me that you do not think the only news occuring is the new you see. The news reports only what they want you to know, nothing more and nothing less. They do not report news, they make occurences into news.

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"No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
- General George Patton Jr

brain21

I have a sudden urge for a DDoS attack...BUT I DONT KNOW HOW! So...slight problem in my plans.

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