Shootings in Paris

[Anonymous]

If you are offended by something written or drawn ...don't read it or look at it.


End of offence. It cannot harm you.

Sticks and stones.

It's madness to murder anyone for this...............I don't get it.

No one had heard of Charlie Hebdo until this.

The publication has been in the news for some time.

Did you mean you hadn't heard of it until this had happened?.

 

[Damocles]

To many it's not so much what Mohammed is portrayed as that is the problem, it is that Mohammed is being portrayed at all.

You can't really compare Mohammed to Christ because they are different figures. In Christianity, Jesus was literally God. In Islam, Mohammed is NOT God but is a prophet from God.

Pictures and idols and the like of Mohammed were considered blasphemous at the time as they were concentrating on deifying the messenger rather than the message. Sort of stealing the credit from God and giving it to some bloke. It is this that the orthodox Muslims have a problem with - the idea of Mohammed as a symbol for their religion instead of Allah

 

[west didsblue]

This was not the work of so called islamic terrorist,its just another false flag setup very brilliantly ,knowingly the fact that muslims have protested and found such content offensive in the past ,some of you still might think its the first time such images were drawn, but its not ,it have happened in the past and muslims protested which they were quiet entiltled to but not even one media report suggested oh this happened in the past,there was no one killed then?why now ?

 

[Metal Biker]

To many it's not so much what Mohammed is portrayed as that is the problem, it is that Mohammed is being portrayed at all.

You can't really compare Mohammed to Christ because they are different figures. In Christianity, Jesus was literally God. In Islam, Mohammed is NOT God but is a prophet from God.

Pictures and idols and the like of Mohammed were considered blasphemous at the time as they were concentrating on deifying the messenger rather than the message. Sort of stealing the credit from God and giving it to some bloke. It is this that the orthodox Muslims have a problem with - the idea of Mohammed as a symbol for their religion instead of Allah

Doesn't that mean that parodying Muhammad doesn't mean people are mocking Allah or the religion itself but more in the same sense that Joseph Smith is often ridiculed about Mormonism? (dum dum dum dum dum!)
I could understand that, since Allah is so integral to Islam that mocking Allah by drawing pictures of a less than sensitive nature would be seen as disrespectful. But why get so pent up over a guy who is clearly not the focal point of the religion like Jesus is seen in regards to the Christian faith.

Muslims see that Muhammad is the prophet who received the final word of God, but also respect that Jesus was a prophet who received the word of God yet I cannot recall an occasion where Muslims have been so vociferous in their condemnation about numerous pictures mocking or depicting Jesus. If the Christian God is the same as Allah, then why be so upset when one prophet of the same God is mocked by western society and not the other?

 

[foxy]

To many it's not so much what Mohammed is portrayed as that is the problem, it is that Mohammed is being portrayed at all.

You can't really compare Mohammed to Christ because they are different figures. In Christianity, Jesus was literally God. In Islam, Mohammed is NOT God but is a prophet from God.

Pictures and idols and the like of Mohammed were considered blasphemous at the time as they were concentrating on deifying the messenger rather than the message. Sort of stealing the credit from God and giving it to some bloke. It is this that the orthodox Muslims have a problem with - the idea of Mohammed as a symbol for their religion instead of Allah

Doesn't that mean that parodying Muhammad doesn't mean people are mocking Allah or the religion itself but more in the same sense that Joseph Smith is often ridiculed about Mormonism? (dum dum dum dum dum!)
I could understand that, since Allah is so integral to Islam that mocking Allah by drawing pictures of a less than sensitive nature would be seen as disrespectful. But why get so pent up over a guy who is clearly not the focal point of the religion like Jesus is seen in regards to the Christian faith.

Muslims see that Muhammad is the prophet who received the final word of God, but also respect that Jesus was a prophet who received the word of God yet I cannot recall an occasion where Muslims have been so vociferous in their condemnation about numerous pictures mocking or depicting Jesus. If the Christian God is the same as Allah, then why be so upset when one prophet of the same God is mocked by western society and not the other?

Probably because they think their beliefs are superior to others. An interesting insight from Damocles, I understand why it is deemed to be offensive but still, as a whole why should we be so sensitive towards depicting Mohammed or misinterpreting who he was?

Factually, science has proven that God didn't send any messenger. It was most likely a cult, like Jesus, Mo a wise man who taught the people how to be moral and keep order and for this to remain, prophets exaggerated the truth to make these fables sound more interesting to the common man. Even probably half of the Catholics would accept this view which suggests how silly extremism is, and not only for Muslims but for Conservative Catholics and other faiths.

So based on what is Scientific proof which is hard to disprove, why should we be so sensitive towards what is an ancient legend?

 

[Damocles]

Muslims see that Muhammad is the prophet who received the final word of God, but also respect that Jesus was a prophet who received the word of God yet I cannot recall an occasion where Muslims have been so vociferous in their condemnation about numerous pictures mocking or depicting Jesus. If the Christian God is the same as Allah, then why be so upset when one prophet of the same God is mocked by western society and not the other?

It seems to be a levels of offense thing. The order kind of goes depictions of Mohammed (my autocorrect keeps getting this wrong) is offensive to all, God offensive to many and Jesus to some others too. The really crazy ones don't respond to Jesus

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Yes blasphemy is against the law in most if not all Muslim states as it's seen as an attack on their core beliefs and they protect those beliefs very zealously and that's the culture they're used to. You can't expect them to switch off from that when they leave for an environment that is predominantly non-Muslim.

Why not? There are numerous cultural norms that we 'switch off' when we move to the Middle East; it's what decent people do.

Exactly. Even if some things aren't against the law there are cultural norms so strongly ingrained in some parts of the world that it's inconceivable that you would deliberately flout them because you have respect for those views, even when they aren't backed by legislation.

In some cases, people who live under those norms cast them off when they're in a less restrictive environment but many take them with wherever they go. So we should be careful to respect those that are generally held to be inviolable as long as it doesn't impact on our own lives and actions. If someone tries to force us to dress in certain ways, to stop eating certain foods or drink alcohol or stop having sex with people we're nor married to, then this affects us as we do these things regularly and are used to doing them. That's our cultural norm. Some people may not like that and try to protect their families from it but they know they can't stop it. I suspect that the majority of non-Muslims, me included, don't want to publish cartoons featuring Mohammed, so it doesn't bother me if people object to this vehemently.

Let's look at it another way. If I invite a Muslim friend for a meal, I wouldn't give them pork or bacon and if I offered them meat then I would make sure it's halal and they knew it was. I could just say "It's my house so you'll eat what you're given" but I wouldn't. In fact, I'd probably go to a lot of trouble to find out what was and wasn't acceptable to them. Or to take a non-religious example, if I'm a smoker and go to someone's house who I know is a non-smoker then I wouldn't just light up without going outside or asking if it's OK.

There's no reason why I can't do either of those things, there are no rules in the UK about offering food to your guests or smoking in private premises but I know it would probably be offensive to the other person. Of course, if my deliberate intention was to be insulting or offensive to my guest or host then I might well do it, knowing the reaction I'd get.

So if I know that a significant minority of the community will find representations of a religious figure for the purpose of poking fun at that religion to be insulting then as a decent person I might think twice about it.

 

[M18CTID]

I'm not sure why people are arguing about this. PB and Metal Biker are both posters that I have a huge amount of time for on here but I think there's been a misunderstanding somewhere. From what I can see, every poster on this thread has condemned the attacks in Paris last week. Every poster also believes in the right to free speech as well.

The problem that PB and others have highlighted is that this is a powder keg of a subject and it might have been more sensible for the cartoonists to steer away from it. Granted that goes against the idea of free speech but we saw the furore in 2005 when the Danish cartoons were published and it doesn't take a genius to work out from the reaction back then that there are some utter lunatics out there that would be prepared to carry out those threats to kill if another publication ever decided to go down that route. It's beyond belief of the vast majority of right thinking people, me included, that someone would even contemplate doing such a thing over what in our eyes is merely a cartoon poking fun at a religious figure but you only have to look at the behaviour of some of these nutters towards others of the same religion to realise that there is just no reasoning with them.

None of the above is excusing what happened and as for understanding why they did it, personally I'll never be able to comprehend why someone would go to those lengths.

 

[Anonymous]

To many it's not so much what Mohammed is portrayed as that is the problem, it is that Mohammed is being portrayed at all.

You can't really compare Mohammed to Christ because they are different figures. In Christianity, Jesus was literally God. In Islam, Mohammed is NOT God but is a prophet from God.

Pictures and idols and the like of Mohammed were considered blasphemous at the time as they were concentrating on deifying the messenger rather than the message. Sort of stealing the credit from God and giving it to some bloke. It is this that the orthodox Muslims have a problem with - the idea of Mohammed as a symbol for their religion instead of Allah

Doesn't that mean that parodying Muhammad doesn't mean people are mocking Allah or the religion itself but more in the same sense that Joseph Smith is often ridiculed about Mormonism? (dum dum dum dum dum!)
I could understand that, since Allah is so integral to Islam that mocking Allah by drawing pictures of a less than sensitive nature would be seen as disrespectful. But why get so pent up over a guy who is clearly not the focal point of the religion like Jesus is seen in regards to the Christian faith.

Muslims see that Muhammad is the prophet who received the final word of God, but also respect that Jesus was a prophet who received the word of God yet I cannot recall an occasion where Muslims have been so vociferous in their condemnation about numerous pictures mocking or depicting Jesus. If the Christian God is the same as Allah, then why be so upset when one prophet of the same God is mocked by western society and not the other?

Probably because they think their beliefs are superior to others. An interesting insight from Damocles, I understand why it is deemed to be offensive but still, as a whole why should we be so sensitive towards depicting Mohammed or misinterpreting who he was?

Factually, science has proven that God didn't send any messenger. It was most likely a cult, like Jesus, Mo a wise man who taught the people how to be moral and keep order and for this to remain, prophets exaggerated the truth to make these fables sound more interesting to the common man. Even probably half of the Catholics would accept this view which suggests how silly extremism is, and not only for Muslims but for Conservative Catholics and other faiths.

So based on what is Scientific proof which is hard to disprove, why should we be so sensitive towards what is an ancient legend?

Irony alert!.

 

[foxy]

Doesn't that mean that parodying Muhammad doesn't mean people are mocking Allah or the religion itself but more in the same sense that Joseph Smith is often ridiculed about Mormonism? (dum dum dum dum dum!)
I could understand that, since Allah is so integral to Islam that mocking Allah by drawing pictures of a less than sensitive nature would be seen as disrespectful. But why get so pent up over a guy who is clearly not the focal point of the religion like Jesus is seen in regards to the Christian faith.

Muslims see that Muhammad is the prophet who received the final word of God, but also respect that Jesus was a prophet who received the word of God yet I cannot recall an occasion where Muslims have been so vociferous in their condemnation about numerous pictures mocking or depicting Jesus. If the Christian God is the same as Allah, then why be so upset when one prophet of the same God is mocked by western society and not the other?

Probably because they think their beliefs are superior to others. An interesting insight from Damocles, I understand why it is deemed to be offensive but still, as a whole why should we be so sensitive towards depicting Mohammed or misinterpreting who he was?

Factually, science has proven that God didn't send any messenger. It was most likely a cult, like Jesus, Mo a wise man who taught the people how to be moral and keep order and for this to remain, prophets exaggerated the truth to make these fables sound more interesting to the common man. Even probably half of the Catholics would accept this view which suggests how silly extremism is, and not only for Muslims but for Conservative Catholics and other faiths.

So based on what is Scientific proof which is hard to disprove, why should we be so sensitive towards what is an ancient legend?

Irony alert!.

Not really.

I've not suggest my views are superior, I've put my view forward as strongly as I can but it remains as equal as any other person's view over all. But if somebody was to point out floors in my beliefs, mocks or criticizes my view then I won't take offence because it's 2015.