[punky]

Originally Posted by Mr Angry

Hardly the best "sample" of society to get a reasoned or well formulated interpretation of how practitioners of another religion might feel insulted by a lampooning of their God. Not a dig at christians, simply an observation that a more culturally diverse sample base would most probably have resulted in a different outcome.

I never said it was a MORI poll. I just said what I know. You're welcome to put as much, or as little store by it as you wish, but don't mock me because of it.

Other than that, good post.

nyone who can interpret them as a criticism is simply fooling themselves and excusing irresponsible actions on the part of (sales led) media outlets. There is nothing critique based about them, nor has anyone involved in their creation cited "criticism" as the basis for their creation. They were designed to cause offence / poke fun and that is exactly what they did - in spades.

Stepping away from the cartoons. Put them into words. Mohammed represents Islam, the bomb represents terrorism, and the combination of Mohammed and the bomb represents the link between the two. The picture merely says that Islam has a problem with terrorism. Hardly a startling revelation when we have videos of people being beheaded, 9/11 and bombings. Muslims are saying its incitement to religious hatred. Why? Many people, including Islam, have said that Islam suffers from a minority who commite terrorism under the banner of Islam. You put it into a picture, and suddenly there are riots all over the world.

They wern't designed to cause offence, but they were commissioned after an Islamic children's author who wrote works based on Mohammed couldn't get illustrations of Mohammed for fear of violent reprisals. The cartoons were commissioned to remind Muslims that freedom of speech protects valid criticism or anything, be it Islam, Christian, or even Bush/Blair, and that people should never be forced, under threat of violence to exercise their legally protected right.

---------- Post added at 01:03 ---------- Previous post was at 00:56 ----------

Originally Posted by Incognitas

Valid criticism is perfectly acceptable but when your valid criticism actually offends against someone's deep seated beliefs then you just have to accept that they are going to be rather upset.

We aren't offending deep seated beliefs though. Pictures of Mohammed are prohibited under Islamic law. Muslims are offended because non-Muslims are failing to adhere to Islamic law.

I perfectly accept that criticism could lead to people being upset. You have the right to call me ignorant. I have the right to be upset, or not upset. However, you shouldn't be too afraid to use that right because you think i'll come and stab you.

I'm not trying to criticise Islam, which is how I think I am starting to come across. I have the utmost respect for Islam as well as everyone elses religion, as I wish people would have respect for mine. However, I see a world where people are too afraid to use their human rights because of fear of violent reprisals, and I find that extremely worrying.