You and your wretched cartoon god - By Mark Morford

[madokie]

I can only bow to the late, acerbically great Chris Hitchens, who beat me (and most everyone else) to this point, the one about mocking religions, nearly 10 years ago and in a far more hyper-articulate, ferociously jaundiced manner, as was his way.

Hitchens would be apoplectic, I imagine, over the savage attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper in Paris, which killed 12 and instantly re-ignited the blundering debate about religious tolerance, freedom and the rough intersection of satire and religious extremism.

But one thing seems slightly different, this time. So far, the reaction from editors and newspapers worldwide has been, if not openly derisive of extremism, not as panicked (and immediately censoring) as Hitchens wrote about in 2006. And in fact, many outlets are openly running Hebdo’s Allah cartoons (though of course, many are not, and are acting very tentative indeed, and every major US television news network has cowered, as always). Will the heavens crumble?
Jesus can take a joke. He has to - just look at the Tea Party.

Contrary to common wisdom, cartoon depictions of Allah aren’t explicitly forbidden by the Quran, and most Muslims, even most fundamentalists, don’t care about them in the slightest. (For more about what Muslims really believe about cartoon depictions of Mohammed, check out this Think Progress summation).

Jesus can take a joke. He has to – just look at the Tea Party.


http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/01/07/you-and-your-wretched-god/

[icymist]

1. K&R

From the article:
<snip>
If your great and powerful religion – presumably a well established, deeply devout, time-honored vehicle of fervent moral goodness, one that’s directed by an all-seeing, all-knowing supreme deity of love who inhabits and animates all of time and space at once, if your grand creation cannot tolerate a joke, cannot stand to be criticized, is too weak to abide even the most silly or disrespectful of left-wing jabs from a single tiny human, your religion is no religion at all, and should perhaps consider another line of work.

[madokie]

2. So many times

religion and crazy walk hand in hand

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

4. It woud be judged so all the time if you apply the same standards of crazy applied to

those who claim similarly unsubstantiated beliefs in any realm besides religion.

[oberliner]

3. This author has no idea what he is talking about

"Contrary to common wisdom, cartoon depictions of Allah aren’t explicitly forbidden by the Quran, and most Muslims, even most fundamentalists, don’t care about them in the slightest. (For more about what Muslims really believe about cartoon depictions of Mohammed, check out this Think Progress summation)."

This paragraph is not only false but also contradictory (if you read the links).

[blackspade]

5. How so?

Both links support this assertion.

[oberliner]

7. From the second link

"But while the Qur’an doesn’t strictly forbid it, creating an image of the prophet is arguably condemned in various iterations of the hadith — i.e., collections of the teachings, actions, and sayings of Muhammad that many Muslims use an interpretive guide for Islamic life. Many modern Sunni Muslims, who represent the largest single branch of Islam, are sympathetic to this belief."

Whereas the paragraph says: "most Muslims, even most fundamentalists, don’t care about them in the slightest."

Do you not see that as a contradiction?

In any case, I don't think the survey data backs up his claim that "most Muslims, even most fundamentalists, don’t care about them in the slightest." In fact, I am pretty sure it is contradicted.

[MohRokTah]

8. You're wrong.

Most Muslims don't. It's a very narrow interpretation of the Sunni Hadith put forward by the Wahabists. That is a small minority of Islam.

[oberliner]

9. Do you have evidence to support that?

Here's the evidence I am using:

78% of Muslims thought that the publishers of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed should be prosecuted, 68% thought those who insulted Islam should be prosecuted and 62% of people disagree that freedom of speech should be allowed even if it insults and offends religious groups.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/291

And that is in Britain.

If you can provide some survey data that supports the claim that cartoon images of Mohammed don't bother most Muslims in the slightest, I would be interested to see it.

[cwydro]

11. It bothers me that Muslims consider women second class citizens.

Too bad if a silly cartoon offends their delicate sensibilities.

[MohRokTah]

13. Well, now you are talking about two different things.

Your statistics are straight up opinion. I was speaking in terms of actual articles of faith. The two are different. Opinion is affected by numerous things and when you have a very loud minority screaming about this sort of thing, opinion is affected even if it is not a part of the actual articles of faith practiced.

You can find similar disparities between opinion and actual articles of faith within the US Christian community, too. Just look at Christian opinions around Christmas traditions and what is actually constituted within articles of faith, for example. Many Christians will express opinions that coincide with very fundamentalist beliefs in the US even when those beliefs have absolutely nothing to do with the brand of Christianity practiced. This is because of the very loud nature of the fundamentalists.

[oberliner]

14. No, I'm not

I'm talking about this quote from the article in the OP:

"Contrary to common wisdom, cartoon depictions of Allah aren’t explicitly forbidden by the Quran, and most Muslims, even most fundamentalists, don’t care about them in the slightest."

That is the claim that I am disputing.

[longship]

6. Regardless, whether it is or not is irrelevant.

Charlie Hebdo is in no way forbidden to publish Mohammed cartoons, no matter what Islam's prohibitions are. If religion cannot take a joke, fuck 'em, the humorless idiots.

[cwydro]

10. Kick

and rec.

[dissentient]

12. Wow, I think the phrase, "your wretched cartoon god" says it all

No doubt there will be somebody along claiming that this is hate speech though.