I don't know if you guys have heard or read about the caricatures of the islamic prophet Mohammed, published in an independent Danish newspaper (Jyllandsposten).
But the Arab world is now boycotting Danish, and for some reason, Swedish goods.

I can understand that arabs and muslims take their religion seriously and that they may look upon these caricatures as blasphemous and disrespectful. But come on!

Today the Danish and the Swedish(!) embassies in Damascus were set in flames. Arabs in the Middle-East are also demanding that Swedish Aid-organisations and volunteer workers leave Palestina. And they are "threatening" to attack us.

How come these people takes their religion so bloody seriously??
Are the terrorist organisations just waiting for an excuse to pick a fight with any western country??

Plus; Sweden has absolutely NOTHING to do with these caricatures. Still they're burning down our embassy.

What do you guys think?

I think that Muslims living in the West should realize that, with the freedom to practice any religion, there comes the price that no institution is beyond satire.

If you are privilged enough to live in a liberal democracy in Europe or the US, you have to accept the quid pro quo that other people are free to offend your beliefs.

If you are a Muslim who believes that the authors of this cartoon should be executed - any many English Muslims do - they should give consideration to relocating to a more appropriate home: a fundamentalist second-world Islamic state.

Stupidity. They are stupid people. I hate religion for this very reason. If a simple joke cannot be tolerated, what the hell would their heaven be like? Damn.

Billy Joel put it best:

"I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints".

The Doc

BINGO!


Don Cardi

Did you see the incident that happened in LA a few months ago? Some guys went into a convenience store that sold beer and ransacked it and said something to the clerk about selling liquor to their brothers. I think they were some kind of followers of Farakkahan or some such nonsense. If Muslins are supposed to be so peace loving, why are they going around burning and killing in the name of peace? What's next? Will they go around burning restuarants that sell pork barbeque sandwiches or somthing nonsensical like that?

Funny it should be Denmark and Sweden, two of the least offensive countries on the planet.

Religious fanatics are religious fanatics. Remember all the to do about the crucifix in the jar of urine a few years back? People were in an uproar. Only difference is the fundie Christians were busy organizing boycottrs, etc., which is their right, not burning down places (although there are those wackos who kill abortion doctors). The Muslims live in an entirely different millieu and they have no concept of liberal democracy (by liberal I do not mean the political ideology I mean the concepts of free speech, tolerance of diffeerent points of view, and the idea that disputes are settled peacfully). Until they get to that point, and I do not see it coming any time soon, things are going to get worse not better.

We need some statesmen.

They came pretty close. A few months back there was a story posted on here about a Bank, I believe over in the U.K. that ceased giving out piggy banks to children because they felt that Muslim's were getting offended!

Here, I just found the link :
http://www.gangsterbb.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=008981
The extremist Muslins are getting way out of control. And as DonT said, unfortunately it's only going to get worse.


Don Cardi

Its one thing to be offended religious wise, but come on. I hope everyone would agree with me that we have a sense of humor, right?

I mean we in the West are probably used to political cartoons that make jokes out of Christianity, from Pat Robertson asking God to "smite those that wronged him" of which then HE was zapped( ) to those Jesus Fish car stickers with "DARWIN" spelled insider, etc. We take it in stride, and usually its good points.

I think its ironic how in much of the Arab press, its usually common to see Anti-semitic cartoons that range from Jews being vampires to zombies to demons, etc., but do I see any of them threatening violence or burnding down buildings as a result?

Besides, why attack Sweden? I mean, its like those people are trying to alienate everyone around them, even traditional sympathetic nations, like France.

They are burning cars there because they think the French are responsible for them being poor.

At least the Swedes and the Danes won't go around burning mosques or Korans.

I completely agree with Don Larzano, The Good Doctor, DonFerro55 and dontomasso on this one. Although the caricatures/cartoons may have been in bad taste there is absolutely no excuse for the behaviour of a very small percentage of Muslims around the world from Palestine to Syria to Pakistan to the United Kingdom to wherever. I, personally was not offended by the cartoons http://www.brusseslsjournal.com/node/698 too much at all and actually thought that some of them were quite funny. I believe that freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of belief/religion, and all the other essential freedoms make Canada, The United States of America, The United Kingdom and other modern democracies across the Globe the best places in which to live. I also believe that these freedoms are not at all in conflict with Islam however they are in direct conflict with the idiotic behaviour of a very small percentage of Muslims who claim to speak for all of those who are members of the Faith. These idiotic morons will eventually be weeded out by natural selection and the world will then be able to breathe a huge sigh of relief.

As to whether the cartoons were offensive, although I was not personally offended obviously there were some who were but this does not excuse their behaviour whatsoever. In fact, in journalism, if you do not offend some people some times you are really doing shitty journalism. I'm not saying that these cartoons are the peak of eloquent journalism and that the Danes who made them deserve international journalistic awards for them or anything like that, but I think you get my point though.

Although their website has not been updated yet http://www.muslimcanadiancongress.org/ several members of The Muslim Canadian Congress have spoken out against the stupidity of the slow witted simpletons who are committing these moronic acts. Although I do not agree with all the political views of the leader of this organization (Mr. Tarek Fatah) I do believe that he and his group are most certainly on the right track. If you want to see what Muslims have to say about various issues and current events go to this site and that of Irshad Manji's http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/ and many others that are out there if you are willing to look, for the real deal.

Ahh, I think I'm gonna go eat some Danish liquorice, Danish beef hash, Danish roast pork with crackling, and Danish egg cake and wash it all down with a big bottle of Akavit with a Carlsberg or Tuborg chaser, then I'm gonna go on this site http://www.meetmeinto.com/search_results.asp?city=&sex=female&age_min=18&age_max =&body_type=&hair_colour=&nationality=Denmark&status=&sexuality=&pictures=Yes&Su bmit2=Submit and find me a nice Danish-Canadian chick!

I was just watching the news and I hear they're burning churches somewhere in the middle east(the Muslims, I mean). Apparently nothing is sacred to those people except forcing their views on others.

You missed out Denmarks most famous bacon!!! And you can never go wrong with Carslberg. Seriously a gift from the gods.

Muslims pissed off because of some cartoon

Haven't got a clue if this may be somehow related to the caricatures thing, but yesterday afternoon don Andrea Santoro, an Italian priest working in Turkey, was shot while he was in his church, apparently by a fanatic muslim youngster. I do hope this is just an isolated case of intolerance having nothing to do with the current tension in the Mediterranean area. With Turkey wanting to join the European Union, this sort of episodes are at least puzzling.... :rolleyes:

I have a question for the Muslim world: if they hate Christians and the West so much, why are there so many still living there? Getting privileges from European countries? I mean just in France, Germany, and England there are already plenty, and they surely get decent Medical, education, housing from the Government.

Muslims in general do not hate Christians or the western world. Far from it, so you shouldn't really be addressing your question to the "Muslim World."

AAMOF, I think it's fairly safe to say that the vast majority of those Muslims who choose to live in the western world do so because they embrace the idea of freedom and much prefer living in a democracy to a theocracy.

It's really just a relatively small group of fanatics and extremists who hate Christians and the west.

I'm far from being a scholar in comparative religion, so I can't say that every religion in the world has fanatics and extremists, but they certainly exist in Judiasm, Chritianity, and Hinduism, three of the world's major religions.

I'd rather stress the fact that in Western countries they are given a chance to escape hunger.

You're right. Maybe my question shouldn't be addressed to the Muslim world, but to that supposedly 'tiny' portion of Muslim fanatics who would give their lives basically to anything on this earth that is related to their religion or offends it.

But I wanted to know, since when does the Islamic law apply to non-Muslim Danish cartoonists?

Believe it or not, I really have seen Cartoons with Jesus on it, but I didn't go in front of the British Embassy burning flags nor it brought any reason for me to feel so terrorized.

And now they request to ban all made-in-Denmark products, Iran to review all economic relations with countries where the cartoons had been published.

I seriously wonder when will the Western World start rounding up the leaders of all these mixed up Islamic "groups", and start bringing charges.

I don't believe there's anything "tiny" about this faction (another point on which I disagree with our prez who says there are just a 'few radical extremists'). No, I don't buy everything I see on the news, but you must admit there are a LOT of Muslims up in arms and ALL OVER the planet. "Few?" "Tiny" I don't think so.

BTW, there are "radicals" in every sort of politcal/religious/cultural/social group...not just Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Hindus.

I think it depends on whether or not you're talking absolute numbers, or percentages.

The percentage of Muslim extremists who are willing to commit terrorists acts, as a percentage of all of the world's Muslims, probably is quite tiny.

But if there are what, 300 million(?) Muslims in the world, a mere one quarter of one per cent would be 750,000, which is a rather significant "absolute" number.

I think that it is much more than 1/4 of 1 percent. I think it's more like 5 percent.


DS

The estimates on the number of Muslims in the world are between 1.1 billion and just over 1.5 billion people. Incidentally, there are nearly 1 million Canadian Muslims and between 5 to 10 million American Muslims and I believe close to 40 million European Muslims.