Would [a cartoon of] Jesus with an Uzi be amusing?

It's sad to see how loose a grasp some people have on the concept of freedom of expression.

This is a pretty ill-written article, with points all over the place that are self-contradictory. If anyone skims it and doesn't take anything else away from it, make sure you read this part:

n the Muslim world, however, just printing an image of Muhammad -- no matter how witty or artsy -- is being interpreted as heresy.

"I had no idea that some Americans did not even know this," Tuffaha says. "One guy called in a local radio show. He didn't have a clue."

Ignorance may be to blame for why some people don't get why Muslims are mad about a cartoon attack that strikes at the spiritual core of their religion.

I know I've seen an assault rifle toting Jesus on South Park, and it was funny. I thought it was ridiculous when Christians recently attacked NBC for offensive programming, and I think it is ridiculous that Muslims are protesting newspapers now. People who get offended over things like this are petty little children.

The article perpetuates not having a clue. The reason for not depicting Muhammad was to avoid worship. (I understand it's also a recent development, hardly at "the spiritual core of their religion.") Unlike Christ's role in the Christian faith, Muhammad is not the object of worship in Islam. Thus the analogy to Christ holds no water. And even beyond that, only one of those two figures engaged in military action of any sort; the other died peacefully when wrongfully charged.

That said, as I've said elsewhere, the cartoons were/are stupid. The press needs to think a little more clearly about the nature of their responsibility.

Well, the teachings of Christ are not to retaliate an insult with violence.

Matthew 26:48-56 (NIV)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

48Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: "The one I kiss is the man; arrest him." 49Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, "Greetings, Rabbi!" and kissed him.

50Jesus replied, "Friend, do what you came for."[a]

Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. 51With that, one of Jesus' companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

52"Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?"

55At that time Jesus said to the crowd, "Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. 56But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled." Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.

I'm not positive what the Qur'an would say about this.

Quite a subpar article, I must say.

Jesus with an Uzi is inaccurate. His teachings were of peace.

Muslim clerics' failure to distance themselves from fanatics, makes them complicit.

Jesus with an Uzi is inaccurate. His teachings were of peace.

The same can be said of Muhammad with a bomb-turban.

The author says:

Kill these cartoons.

Don't kill the necessary dialogue, based on mutual respect, about religions in the world.

It seems to me that these cartoons are sparking just that kind of dialogue . Maybe that's the point.

What about pro-lifers blowing up those getting an abortion? Oh wait that wasn't a cartoon, it was real.

Before you bash my liberal views, you should know I am a practising catholic, I teach CCD and have done and continue to do missionary work.

Religious intolerance has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

I am sick of the exploitation of Islam, and those who blame the clerics! Why would I have to apologize on behalf of the fanatics! Did you apologize on behalf of white people after the Scott Peterson trial? Did you apologize for Hitler? How about the A-Bomb. Terrorists have nothing to do with Islam. Real Muslims would never bomb a mosque, let alone kill innocents.

The cartoons were not created in the name of freedom of speech, they were created in order to piss off people, and when I turn on BBC World News, I can say "Great Job, Denmark, you did it". The Denmark Govt still refuses to apologizes on behalf of that stupid newspaper. Good idea, keep it that way, keep your hands out of it. The longer you do, the longer the stupid fanatics are going to add this as another reason to exploit people to do something crazy.

Can't we please all get along? The World Cup is only a few months away damnit! :D

Zaki: Why should the Denmark government apologize? It wasn't something produced by the state, the newspaper should apologize for offending people, and guess what? They did!

The newspaper Jyllands-Posten itself was surprised by the strong reaction to their cartoons and even apologized publically for any offense they may have caused.

I'm not a normal reader of the Daily Kos (I try to stay away from any blatantly biased media outlets), but one of their recent articles does not seem biased and is very well written. Check out http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/2/5/13149/60748. It explains that all these protests come months after the initial publication of the cartoons. Also, it was the Saudi government who incited the protests to try and divert attention away from the stampedes during the Hajj that killed over 350 people and which could have been prevented by better planning on part of the Saudis. Nobody that I talk to knows that the cartoons were published way back in September of last year. All anyone sees of this in the U.S. is crazed muslims protesting some little cartoons. If people knew the whole story, then perhaps discrimination against muslims might even go down.

Ignorance breeds intolerance.

Freedom of expression means that you are free to express whatever you want however you want to. Sometimes people choose to say really mean and horrible things, and freely I express my distaste for the mean and horrible things they said. Let me repeat that. Freely I express my distaste for the mean and horrible things that other people say.

They say bad things about my God and I can retaliate by saying bad things about their God. For those that do not believe in a God, replace the word God in the previous sentence with the word "Momma", also, for no reason in particular other than to make funny, replace the words "say bad things about" with "talk @!$%# on". Reread as, "They can talk @!$%# on my momma and I can retaliate by talkin' @!$%# on their momma".

Seriously I know some of you remember this little game. You're out on the playground and for no apparent reason someone had to say somethin' about your mother. So you say something about their mother. This continues until one pushes the other and then there's a fight.

Is nobody in this world mature enough to turn the other cheek.

I have seen a cartoon of Jesus on the Cross with a fag hanging out of his lips. Having a timeout for a cigarette, so to speak. With the trying time he's just been having, I really don't blame him. Now, I am a catholic, but I really laughed my head off when I saw it. I thought it was very funny. The incongruity of it was superb. Very simple and yet with a knock-out punch. I was not insulted at all. Why should I be? I know what I believe in my heart, and nothing can shake my faith in what Jesus did and said in spite of any disrespect shown by non-believers. You can put him in bed fornicating with a whore if you like. If it's done with taste and in a funny way, I'll laugh with you. You see, faith and religion is a personal approach for me. It is not a knee-jerk reaction based on tribal affiliations and loyalties. I am a christian because I AM a christian. I don't feel insecure, uncertain, or inadequate about it. I don't require the whole of my tribe to believe in it in order that I will feel secure and certain about my beliefs.

Why do you think real christians walked to their deaths in the den of lions in the old days? In their hearts, soon to be torn out of their breasts and chewed to pieces by the starved lions, they were steadfast and secure in their faith. Do you think poking fun at them and showing disrespect would have insulted them? Well?

"Freedom of the press is the defense when you want to do something inflammatory against Muslims," she believes.

No. Freedom of the press is the defense when someone gets inflamed about something you said. Not just for things said against Muslims, but things said. If I showed someone a picture of a caterpillar trying to have relations with a french fry and a woman said I offended her belief that the potato is most chaste of any vegetable. I would use freedom of speech as my defense.

I feel too many folks across the spectrum of debate keep forgetting something simple: basic respect for other people, their faith, their centuries-long traditions.

I feel to many folks across the spectrum of debate keep forgetting something simpler: some people are dicks (male reproductive organs). And even dicks (male reproductive organs) get free speech.

sorry bout the double post meant to hit spell check.

The real question should be "have you seen a picture of Jesus with an Uzi in a newspaper". I'm betting none of you have seen that. At least not in a respectable newspaper.

Look around, there are many many dipictions of Muhammed be it paintings, drawings, or whatever. Even in Google searches you can find them.

Now they have one picture depicting Muhammed in a manner in which most people in the free world view the Muslim religion and hell breaks loose.

I received this in an email today and felt that it clarified things somewhat. It was published in a South African newspaper by a guy called Paul Vallely...

"Images of the Prophet Mohamed have long been discouraged in Islam. The West has little understanding of why this should be so - nor of the intensity of the feelings aroused by non-believers' attitudes to the founder of Islam.

To historians, Mohamed was a prophet and religious reformer who united the scattered Arabian tribes in the 7th century, founding what went on to become one of the world's five great religions. To Muslims, he was the last in a line of figures which included Abraham, Moses and Jesus, but which found its supreme fulfilment in Mohamed.

They believe that he was visited by the Angel Gabriel who commanded him to memorise and recite the verses sent by God which became the Koran - and that he completed and perfected the teaching of God throughout history.

Because Muslims believe that Mohamed was the messenger of Allah, they extrapolate that all his actions were willed by God. A singular love and veneration thus attaches to the person of Mohamed himself. When speaking or writing, his name is always preceded by the title "Prophet" and followed by the phrase: "Peace be upon him", often abbreviated in English as PBUH.

Attempts to depict him in illustration were therefore an attempt to depict the sublime - and so forbidden.
More than that, to reject and criticise Mohamed is to reject and criticise Allah himself. Criticism of the Prophet is therefore equated with blasphemy, which is punishable by death in some Muslim states. When Salman Rushdie, in his novel The Satanic Verses, depicted Mohamed as a cynical schemer and his wives as prostitutes, the outcome was - to those with any understanding of Islam - predictable.

But understanding of Islam is sorely lacking in the West. The culture gap has its roots in the fact that Christianity - like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism - is essentially an iconographic religion. In its early years, the Christian world took the statues of the old gods and goddesses of Greece and morphed them into images of the Virgin Mary and the saints, which were venerated in all the churches. Muslims, like Jews, take a polar opposite view. Islam and Judaism are religions of the word, not the image.

Islam has traditionally prohibited images of humans and animals altogether - which is why much Islamic art is made up of decorative calligraphy or abstract arabesque patterns. Throughout history Muslims have cast out, destroyed or denounced all images, whether carved or painted, as idolatry. Despite that prohibition, hundreds of images of Mohamed have been created over the centuries. Medieval Christian artists created paintings and illuminated manuscripts depicting Mohamed, usually with his face in full view. Muslim artists from the same era depicted Mohamed too, but usually left his face blank or veiled.

Sixteenth-century Persian and Ottoman art frequently represented the Prophet, albeit with his face either veiled, or emanating radiance. One 16th-century Turkish painting, in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, shows Mohamed in very long sleeves so as to avoid showing even his hands.

The ban is not absolute. Today, iconic pictures of Mohamed are sold openly on the street in Iran. The creation, sale or owning of such images is illegal, but the regime turns a blind eye (Muslims in Iran are Shia not Sunni).

Two things are different today. The cartoons published first in Denmark and now more widely across Europe set out not to depict but to ridicule the Prophet. And they do so in a climate in which Muslims across the globe feel alienated, threatened and routinely despised by the world's great powers. The combination of this with Islam's traditional unhappiness at depictions of any human form, let alone of their most venerated one, was bound to be explosive.

LOL they got all upset about some cartoon of Mohammed. OMG what if they saw Southpark?! :P

R.

C.A. Cook writes:

Jesus with an Uzi is inaccurate. His teachings were of peace.

Matthew:
10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

No doubt there are quotes of him spreading peace, but this wasn't one of them.

I think Christ with an uzi would be hilarious. If there were guns back then, Christ would have ran around with a red headband on and given rambo some competition. These cartoons are aimed to humor/piss people off. For all of you people b**ching about it, you are just proving to the companies that their cartoons are working. Nice way to contradict your ideas.

How do I vote it down? The article refers to the "double standard" issue which was shot down earlier. It is also terribly written, and the points risen are not very original or new.

Would Christian groups consider it not-amusing? Probably.

Would Christian groups march to protest? Maybe.

Would they carry signs saying "Nuke Nuke Denmark" and "Freedom Go to Hell" and "Slay those who insult Jesus"? I'd bet against it.

The true subject of these Muslim protests is not the cartoons, it is the society which allows the cartoons to be printed. At least the Christians

oops, silly me wrong button; I was saying... At least the Christians generally don't aim half so much at the Freedom of the Press as they do at the publishers themselves. Admittedly, some don't appreciate it, and some wouldn't mind seeing it go, but...