Re: Everybody Draw Muhammed Day
Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:33 am
I was gonna watch that southpark episode, they certainly interfered with my ability to do that.
Proudly ignored since 1867
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The thing is that cultural attitudes towards Christianity and Islam's respective prophets are different. In Christianity, depicting Jesus in any manner is perfectly ok as far as I know, though people are offended when the depiction is derogatory. Thus we have thousands of years of depictions ranging from paintings and murals to garden statues, decals, and bobble-heads. In Islam an important principle is the prohibition of any depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in any manner, no matte how positive. This is a pretty key part of Muslim teachings towards him. Thus any drawing that is derogatory in nature is far more offensive and inflammatory than a similar drawing of Jesus, whose image has so saturated the public consciousness.*Snarky00 wrote:The problem I have with that is that it seems to be perfectly acceptable to mess with things that other people consider sacred. Jesus is a recurring character on Family Guy and Southpark. The American flag is sacred to many people but we legally protect the right for people to burn it. ect ect
Every time this issue comes up I can't help but notice that Muslims aren't looking to be treated equally, they are looking for special treatment which is not okay. Is this purposefully inflammatory? Sure. The point is that it equalizes Muhammed by bringing him down to the level of other religious figures and freankly that is exactly where he belongs. Maybe the end result is that we stop hearing about it every single time someone draws Muhammed because the threats stop and becomes a non-issue for Muslims which is exactly what I'm looking for.
For me this doesn't go for just Muslims. If something is sacred to someone, I don't see why people can't respect that. We live in a free society and people should be allowed to say and draw and write whatever they want, but I still think if you insist on desecrating someone else thinks is sacred you're being a bit of a dick.Snarky00 wrote: Every time this issue comes up I can't help but notice that Muslims aren't looking to be treated equally, they are looking for special treatment which is not okay. Is this purposefully inflammatory? Sure. The point is that it equalizes Muhammed by bringing him down to the level of other religious figures and freankly that is exactly where he belongs. Maybe the end result is that we stop hearing about it every single time someone draws Muhammed because the threats stop and becomes a non-issue for Muslims which is exactly what I'm looking for.
This isn't exactly true. The ten commandments, which are central to both Islam and Christianity forbid the worship of false idols, which is usually interpreted to include iconography. Roman Catholicism permits the worship of holy relics and icons of Jesus, whereas many protestant sects do not (in keeping with the ten commandments and older traditions* regarding iconography). Some sects do not even allow crosses. So, in fact, there are plenty of people who find depictions of Jesus in poor taste, they're just significantly less vocal about it. The vast majority of protestant sects have way stricter rules than Roman Catholicism about this.Euclidthewheat wrote:The thing is that cultural attitudes towards Christianity and Islam's respective prophets are different. In Christianity, depicting Jesus in any manner is perfectly ok as far as I know, though people are offended when the depiction is derogatory. Thus we have thousands of years of depictions ranging from paintings and murals to garden statues, decals, and bobble-heads. In Islam an important principle is the prohibition of any depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in any manner, no matte how positive. This is a pretty key part of Muslim teachings towards him. Thus any drawing that is derogatory in nature is far more offensive and inflammatory than a similar drawing of Jesus, whose image has so saturated the public consciousness.
This basically summarises my stance. You're free to be a dick, but have no illusions about what you're doing.smiley_cow wrote:We live in a free society and people should be allowed to say and draw and write whatever they want, but I still think if you insist on desecrating someone else thinks is sacred you're being a bit of a dick.
I think it's just the Sunnis who don't like people to depict Muhammad, which I think is because they're worried pictures may encourage idolatry. Not all Islamic traditions are that strict though, for example Shias have been known to actually use illustrations of the Prophet in books and such, so they've got a bit more of a relaxed view.Cirtur wrote:What I don't understand is the reasoning behind not drawing Muhammed i.e. Islam canon says he was a guy and guys have faces ERGO he had a face. If there was a photograph from that time, would we be banned from seeing it?
oh man i want to see a version of the Odd Couple where Felix and Oscar are a pair of inept fairy godparentsFrostbite wrote:It's like the Fairly Odd Couple. But with more anger.