SMBC Comics Forum

I was gonna watch that southpark episode, they certainly interfered with my ability to do that.

If I wanted to draw Muhammed, I wouldn't want anyone interfering with it. That's why I was extremely bothered by the reaction to the Danish comic. This just seems like harrassing someone for their religion. I'm all for Jesus and Muhammed on South Park and I don't care if they look silly while doing it, because that's freedom of speech. This is freedom of speech, but I just don't see the point other than being inflammatory. Not to say that you can't draw Muhammed if you want for a message, because that's freedom of speech; but then I'd expect to be criticised for it, because that's freedom of speech.

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.

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.*

I'm sort of divided on this one. I am in support of free speech and I think people should be able to draw and say what they want. If you want to draw a guy and write "Prophet Muhammad" underneath, knock yourself out. On the other hand, waving things like this into the faces of people who are already angry and who have significant backing behind them is just a terrible idea. In addition, I don't really see what this accomplishes. It seems like it's a pointless gesture that will only make the free speech side look bad, and will further aggravate tensions in places that really don't need to be aggravated. I guess I disapprove.

*I think so. But then again, I'm an SMBC fan and live in the city home to a highly popular annual Sexy Jesus contest**, so perhaps I'm not the best source.
**Someone I know won last year.

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.

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.

The danish comic, even if it wasn't of Mohammad, was extremely offensive anyways. The turban being a bomb? It's seriously not different from Peter Pan's indians singing about why their skin is red, or black people dancing around eating watermelon singing about why they love working in the field, or yellow asain people that don't make any l or r sounds but instead spit jibberish. IT'S STILL WRONG.

Anyways, the artist that made the viral comic and the dude that founded the facebook page both have officially taken removed themselves from the movement. Apparently they are surprised by the hurtful stuff people are making. Yeah, I believe it.

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 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.

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.

This basically summarises my stance. You're free to be a dick, but have no illusions about what you're doing.

*Most of the earliest Christian art has been destroyed, and there are a number of documented periods of destruction of icons.

The reason we stress it is because we've seen Christians take Jesus and worship him as a god. If not for such a strong stance we would have the same thing. I must say I haven't seen any real muslim outrage against south park, only extremists. It's only being played up because of the whole Middle East conflict.

Jesus is considered to be their embodiment of god. I think a more apt comparison would be if Christians worshiped Moses as a god instead of treating him favorably as a prophet. I am kind of curious why Muslims stress the importance of Muhammad seemingly more then they stress the importance of Allah. Maybe that is just the american media's portrayal.

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?

What you don't know is he looked like the elephant man, thus the embarrassment.

He had a scar across his head which spelled poo.

I mean in Arabia that doesn't mean anything.

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?

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.

No wonder they are always fighting.

It's like the Fairly Odd Couple. But with more anger.

Frostbite wrote:It's like the Fairly Odd Couple. But with more anger.

oh man i want to see a version of the Odd Couple where Felix and Oscar are a pair of inept fairy godparents