Maybe its because you get so many outspoken Christians saying such stupid things so often. Sadly this is also a Christian country. Making fun of a majority is easy. Most who do it are either Christians themselves or were at some time.
Then you have the Islamic extremists and the others quietly practicing their religion. Last time I was in LA the local mosques were all graffitied over with racist epithets. Maybe I just see parodying Islam as a way to spur more of that behavior among the racist and ignorant. During the election and even still on Fox News they equate being Muslim with something negative. If more folks in this country were educated then parody would be fine.
I'm also going to more extremes in this thread because it's too easy for someone to quote Team America and laugh. I love parody. I love making fun of stupid people. I just think one needs to consider both sides and put yourself in others shoes.
Just asked concerning empathy. Forget it. I'll just draw the lot of you giving Matt and Trey blowjobs for May 20.
(And for the record I didn't see the South Park episode so not sure what they did. Don't believe I ever saw an entire episode before either. The voices are too annoying to sit through half an hour. I saw BASEketball...that was mildly enjoyable at age 13.)
The show makes fun of everybody equally. That's the best part of the show - it challenges everybody, regardless of who they are. Muhammad is hardly alone in this episode; he's part of the Super Best Friends. They’re a brawny team of crime-fighting deities that also includes Buddha, Jesus, Joseph Smith, Krishna, and Sea Man. Two opposing camps, Tom Cruise and Gingers, want to clone Muhammad's power to not be mocked so they take South Park hostage until they deliver him.
The bottom line, though, is that it wasn't making fun of Muhammad at all. It's the offended Muslims that are the butt of the joke. There is no ban on the image of Mohammed, and the only the power he has to not be mocked is power that we as people give him. You can go to museums with images depicting the Prophet Muhammad all over.
Should Christians kill Dan Brown for writing the Da Vinci Code? No, but if it was about Islam it's suddenly worthy of controversy and offense? Absolutely not. And South Park underscored that point - a double standard exists. They challenged the Islamic taboo and might have succeeded with something had they not been censored.
Apparently the writers behind The Simpsons agree with South Park.
Out of curiosity, anyone here actually have any Muslim friends?
I do. I also have Muslim non-friends, as I roomed with someone who was Muslim and found the experience to be jarring. It was a socially jarring experience more than anything, although my roommate was a pretty devout Muslim...I'm not saying there is any correlation, but a lot of his social behavior would not fly in normal social settings. Fortunately, he put himself in very selective social settings among fellow Muslims and friends who shared his social quirks.
WHAT SOCIAL QUIRKS DARE I SPEAK OF???!?!?!
Well for one, he had an incredibly condescending attitude towards women. Just the way he treated me alone vs. me and my girlfriend or my girlfriend was astounding. I realize he is first generation American as his parents were fresh off the boat, and he is hardcore Muslim, but regardless.
I've also seen separation of church and state stretched the most on behalf of Muslims. We had Muslim clubs in high school, and that was fine as there were other religious clubs. But since Muslims need to pray several times a day, and the prayer process is quite extensive, they had their own section segmented off in the school library where they could pray. So basically, US tax dollars went to funding a Muslim prayer room in my high school. I'm not okay with that. Also, they could leave class to go pray. And again, I personally have no problem with that, but to what extent do people start abusing that privilege to skip class, or when do we start accommodating the needs of other religions? I found the whole issue incredibly mind-boggling. It's actually a funny story, anecdotal as it is, because it shows how bending over to accommodate the religious needs of a group stretches and challenges the very things our Founding Fathers fought against when they established the US Constitution and separation of church and state.
There were other things, but since I'm moving forward in a highly anecdotal direction I will stop now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Teuthida
Maybe its because you get so many outspoken Christians saying such stupid things so often. Sadly this is also a Christian country. Making fun of a majority is easy. Most who do it are either Christians themselves or were at some time.
There's like 1.5 billion people that practice Islam, making it the second largest practiced religion behind Christianity. And your statement is full of assumptions and "so whats?"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Teuthida
I love parody. I love making fun of stupid people. I just think one needs to consider both sides and put yourself in others shoes.
I realize not all Muslims are like my roommate. In fact 99% of them are not! Most of them are like your typical Christians...they have a sense of humor, they are normal social people. Like I said, I have Muslim friends. I have Hindu friends. I have Jewish friends. I even have a few Buddhist friends. The fact is I choose my friends based on things like their personality and common interests, and if we butt heads on religion it is over a beer or in the context of *gasp* a joke. Because normal, socially acclimated people can take a joke.
I'm just saying, like whacky Christians, one or two bad apples can really stink up the barrel.
I do. I also have Muslim non-friends, as I roomed with someone who was Muslim and found the experience to be jarring. It was a socially jarring experience more than anything, although my roommate was a pretty devout Muslim...I'm not saying there is any correlation, but a lot of his social behavior would not fly in normal social settings. Fortunately, he put himself in very selective social settings among fellow Muslims and friends who shared his social quirks.
WHAT SOCIAL QUIRKS DARE I SPEAK OF???!?!?!
Well for one, he had an incredibly condescending attitude towards women. Just the way he treated me alone vs. me and my girlfriend or my girlfriend was astounding. I realize he is first generation American as his parents were fresh off the boat, and he is hardcore Muslim, but regardless.
There were other things, but since I'm moving forward in a highly anecdotal direction I will stop now.
Cool story bro. (Whee, I can do that too.)
Quote:
There's like 1.5 billion people that practice Islam, making it the second largest practiced religion behind Christianity. And your statement is full of assumptions and "so whats?"
We're talking about the U.S. That's 0.6% as of 2008. Compared to 76% practicing Christians.
Westboro Church is covered under the First Admendment. Doesn't make what they say right. You're allowed to bear arms as well. Does that make bringing assault rifles to a health care debate justifiable? There are rights and then there's using your brain.
And AGAIN, I didn't see the South Park ep and could have been fine. I just didn't like where the Draw Mohammed Day thing might end up. Seems like an excuse for racist ignorant people to let loose.
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Re: No mohammed discussion?
I failed to contextualize the presentation thing I posted.
That pretty much just serves as a historical explanation for the aversion to images but most Muslims aren't that hard-line about it. A majority of Muslims are actually forward thinking progressive people.
Still, what Matt and Trey are doing is sort of silly. Of course they should have the right to say whatever they feel they should say. But they've done the Muhammed thing already. Now it just feels like they're trying to get under people's skin rather than put out a relevant message like they did with the Cartoon Wars Muhammed episodes.
Out of curiosity, anyone here actually have any Muslim friends?
I have a few.
One of them in particular (Who I actually asked about this) is a really 'normal' Canadian guy. Plays music, loves the Beatles, Broken Bells, Indie music. Went to University, has a very good job. Completely socially normal, doesn't treat women differently etc. He's just a guy who happens to be Muslim.
He said the reason he doesn't like it [not that he is threatening violence] is because there is already enough ignorance towards Islam, and Muslims. It would be different if the masses were educated and poking fun for the sake of poking fun, rather than the fact they are Muslims. He doesn't think Mohammad should ever be depicted because that could not only open the door to more ignorance, but could lead the way to commercialization of a prophet, which he doesn't agree with. He said no prophet/divine-anything should ever be commercialized. He fears Mohammad could in the future become a commercial mule, much like what Jesus is now. He compared the level of ignorance to 'Hug a Nigger' day. He said "While the day doesn't exist at all, if it were to - I don't think it would be a 'whatever, man - we have free speech' attitude towards it."
__________________ Fingerbang:
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To me, South Park and other cartoons and the controversies they have created have done more to spread knowledge about Muslims and their feelings on depicting Mohammad than anything else before. If the point is to remove ignorance, creating something that makes people talk about what they're ignorant of generally educates them about it.
It's like when a Christian group protests some fairly obscure movie, and instead of leaving it in obscurity, it just causes more people to see it and talk about it and form their own opinions on it.
To me, South Park and other cartoons and the controversies they have created have done more to spread knowledge about Muslims and their feelings on depicting Mohammad than anything else before. If the point is to remove ignorance, creating something that makes people talk about what they're ignorant of generally educates them about it.
It's like when a Christian group protests some fairly obscure movie, and instead of leaving it in obscurity, it just causes more people to see it and talk about it and form their own opinions on it.
I think that's the issue...education is the first step to, well...educating people. I know education has not kept me in the Catholic Church as a devout Christian.
Sorry to come back to this but I should have looked into this group more. It's laughable. It's a group of 5-10 people and it's public knowledge who they are and where they protest.
The leader is a white guy (who used to be Jewish) from Queens.
Quote:
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, stated regarding the Revolution Muslim group, "[It is] an extreme fringe group that has absolutely no credibility within the Muslim community. In fact, most Muslims suspect they were set up only to make Muslims look bad. We just have very deep suspicions. They say such outrageous, irresponsible things that it almost seems like they're doing it to smear Islam."
Universities need to be watched very closely by security intelligence. Here is an clip from an interaction between David Horowitz (not a fan, BTW) and a Muslim student from UCSD. The exchange all seems very reasonable until the very end, and the answer she gives is chilling.
This is not some poor Arab pulled off the streets and brainwashed by a terrorist organization. This is an educated and intelligent American citizen. We need to be very careful about danger in our own back yard.
To be somewhat fair, that is a loaded question. Can't you be for some of what Hamas does, and against other parts of it? (See: the U.K.'s and Australia's stance on Hamas.)
To be fair again, all she had to say was that she was against that statement about rounding up Jews, but for their humanitarian efforts. From her answer, she sure makes it sound like she's ok with rounding up Jews (or whatever that quote from the Hamas leader was about).
The last question that was asked was specifically about rounding up Jews to be sent to Israel for genocide. It had nothing to do with humanitarian efforts or political topics. In fact, it was the political question she refused to answer. The question she answered only had to do with supporting genocide. Up until that point I thought she had some reasonable points.
Re: No mohammed discussion?
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