I know its not a greaat analogy but if I quoted the Ku Klux Klan’s comments about the less than human nature of the negro to make an otherwise unrelated comment about race relations or if I quoted Hitler’s comments about the scourge of European Jewry and how all the troubles and misery of Post WWI Germany are the result of the greed and avarice of the manipulative Jews to make an otherwise unrelated comment about the middle east. People might get really pissed off.
The POPE never takes off the pope hat, you can’t say “well I was speaking as an academic, not as the pope of tyhe largest organized religion in the world”
The quoted language was offensive and a pope should know better than to say something like that.
He apologized but you just can’t unring that bell just by saying “I’m very sorry that people were offended by what I said” At the very least, you have to say you are actually sorry for having said what you said; it would help if make some ststements saying that you really don’t think that Mohammed advocated peaceful conversions when he was weak and then advocated violent conversions when he was strong enough to coerce people to imply that Mohhamed was an opportunistic two faced hypocritical proslytizer; you might want to say that you don’t agree with the person you quoted (how often do you quote people you disagree with?) and go into specifics about why you don’t think that Islam is an inherently violent religion; you should be contrite about how insensitive and offensive you were and allay the concern that you have a narrow uninclusive world view.
Dob FFS don’t even think about burning an effigy of mohammed.
Holy batshit man, they saw their arses over some cartoons, can you imagine how ‘outraged’ they’d be if you even burned a drawing of m/med much less an effigy.
Much as I despise fundies, picketing a movie theater is a far bit away from burning things down. My town has lots of Muslims. When the cartoons came out, several published guest columns in the local paper about why they were offensive. They were outraged, but they expressed their outrage in a legitimate and peaceful way.
The real question is, how come the governments of some Islamic countries seem to tacitly approve this kind of shit, and who is organizing it?
Indeed; it was the request to blindly follow her & her ideological peers that killed me. Never mind if it’s right or wrong – just do it! And do it for Jesus’ sake! If she had felt more strongly about it, would she have been requesting that my class join her in burning down the theater regardless of our personal beliefs? Simply because it was the “right” thing to do? That sort of blind devotion is dangerous to begin with, and when you have a charismatic leader with a taste for destruction in front of an already-willing crowd, things can get real ugly, real quick.
same reason governments everywhere love it when the population get their panties in a bunch about something happening in foreign parts. Public anger and frustration is directed elsewhere, and they can play the ‘we may be bad people but at least we’re your kind of people’ card.
the same people who organise public insanity in your neck of the woods - attention whores, interest groups, politician types who want to court popularity, and batshit crazy true believers.
Why don’t people see the difference between modern Christians and these muslims?
The fact is that most Christians live pretty good lives, with jobs, housing, food on the table.
They don’t have many reasons to march down the street burning down mosques do they?
Compare that to the living conditions of these people and maybe you will start to see the difference.
Most extremist muslims live in countries that are seen as almost third world countries (and they are definitely seen as third rate citizens by the rest of the world), they hardly have any freedom or access to impartial press.
Of course the religion is being abused by hate mongers, but the point is that there is enough frustration among these people so they are swept up in this movement.
Comparing US Christians with for example Iraq muslims is completely ridiculous.
I don’t know about Denmark but I do know of the ghettos in France.
These people don’t get a decent education, and have almost 0% chance of getting gainful employment.
There is a reason they are outraged, and it is not just caused by religion.
Sorry, no one is organizing this sort of insanity in my neck of the woods. Like I said, the reaction to the cartoons was a strong (and well written) letter to the paper. No b ody rioted, nobody defaced the shul, and no one feared walking in the heavily Muslim district not far from where I live. So let’s not claim that all places and people are equally bad. Because that’s bullshit.
Quelle surprise - it is, after all, very much out of the ordinary in the western world, and for all I know, in the third world too. But if you are claiming that in your neck of the woods there are never any groups of idiots working themseles up into a hysterical frenzy over some issue, then I want to know where you live, so I can move there.
No extremist politicians, no single-issue pressure groups, no people chaining themselves to railings or burning down property for some ill-defined cause they barely understand? Sounds like utopia.
Just off the top of my head, here is a great example of people being dumb fucks in a totally non-Islamic way as a result of the media fanning up a frenzy. If people in the UK can’t tell the difference between a paediatrician and a paedophile, it doesn’t surprise me that others are capable of working themselves into a frenzy over cartoons they’ve never seen or speeches in a language they don’t understand.
People are people, meaning you can expect earwax-melting stupidity and easily provoked knee-jerk reactions all over the world.