India has 960 million Hindus. A small percentage has militant tendencies (mainly to counter militant Islam).
This is bound to have repercussions here in India. We have our own fox news channels here.
There is no Hindu temple with statues depicting Gods having sex, to the best of my knowledge.
Even Shiv Linga is interpreted to have altogether different meaning.
http://hinduism.about.com/od/lordshiva/a/What-Is-Shiva-Linga.htm.
There is a temple in south India with phallus as the deity, but no God is depicted as having sex with other Gods.
I am a Christian by faith, but with a good knowledge of Hinduism, thanks to my upbringing.
Oooh yeah!
Two factors I would like to point out:
(1) Islam forbids visual depiction of Mohammad or of God. I saw a Muslim-produced movie about the massacre of Ali (grandson of Mohammed): no faces were shown of any of the principle characters, they were all blurred. The uproar is not just “making fun” of their central religious (human) figure, but in depicting him at all.
Although Judaism has a rule against graven images, Jews have been living as a small (usually persecuted) minority in Christian lands for 1900 years or so, and have learned to shrug their shoulders at it. We wiggle around “don’t worship images” as different from “don’t make images.” Islam has no such distinction. In a Christian church, there is often a large statue or painting of Jesus (in one form or other) at the central focus point (above the altar or whatever.) In a synagogue or mosque, there would be no direct representation of religious figures. In fact, in a mosque, the central focus is an empty opening (as a reminder of an invisible God.)
(2) People who have been living in an area with no freedom of speech, just don’t UNDERSTAND what freedom of speech means. I was in Bahrain at the time of the Danish cartoon uproar, six or seven years ago. The individuals I talked to all had the same line: those cartoons appeared in the Danish newspaper, so the Danish government must have approved them. The idea that a newspaper would publish something that had not been heavily censored by the government was totally beyond their understanding. When I tried to explain it, I might have been talking about mxpltyk. They just had no comprehension of the concept of “freedom of speech,” of publications that do not have government approval.
Please note: I do not condone violence, I am a strong supporter of freedom of speech. But I think we condemn these outrageous attacks without understanding their basis.
**bold **mine
South Park addressed the problem in an offensive song during its Christmas special several years ago. No riots that I recall.
I’m aware of both points. Am I allowed to point out that all this makes them is a bunch of primitive screwheads easily whipped up into a frenzied mob?
I’m aware of both points. Am I allowed to point out that all this makes them is a bunch of primitive screwheads easily whipped up into a frenzied mob?
ETA: or at least hugely contributes to this, in combination with low levels of education and a medieval religious mindset.
Just to be clear this has hardly been universal in Islam either. Though images where his face are obscured by a veil or fire ( or both ) are probably a little more common.
Are Indians known for becoming violent when their gods are portrayed offensively? Because extremist Muslims are known for becoming violent in these circumstances.
I know we can all point to the fact that every group has its crazies, but we can’t make our decisions in life based on that, right? I mean, some crazy maniac believes that portraying blacks and whites having sex is wrong. Does that mean no one can portray that then? So that we don’t ‘tempt fate’?
As usual, the Onion nails it.
The simple fact is, Muslims only do so fairly rarely either. If they rioted every time someone portrayed Islam or Mohammad or God badly (much less at all), they’d starve to death because they’d have no time to do anything but riot. This is about rabble rousing religious leaders whipping up hatred against unbelievers; rabble rousers who have demonstrated a complete willingness to fabricate “offensive” imagery if none actually exists.
And the fact of the matter, there has been plenty of outrage against images offensive to Christians; you don’t see out of control riots like this because the governments in most christian dominated countries are stronger than the religious leadership and won’t let them get out of hand like this. There’s plenty of Christians who would cheerfully vandalize and murder over such imagery if they could get away with it.
Check it out…I have a major bone to pick with Christianity. I really do. But this just doesn’t seem fair. As a friend of mine pointed out to me once…Christians really do have a different outlook on this type of thing. Their very teachings teach them to turn the other cheek. I’m not saying that they all do that, but I think it is a bit silly to pretend that they are as likely to riot about those images as extremist Muslims are…they just aren’t…not even the fundies are as likely to.
Oh, please; that’s utterly meaningless. Christianity got to where it is today because it is a nasty religion; one naturally inclined to hatred, tyranny, aggression and slaughter. It destroyed and enslaved entire civilizations and populations to slaughter its way to prominence; by being intolerant and brutal and bloodthirsty in a way that makes the intolerant modern Muslims who are being complained about here look like fluffy bunnies. A meaningless little slogan that nobody follows doesn’t change that.
And this is the main reason why I keep ending up defending Islam despite despising it like every other religion; because the real subtext of all this criticism of Islam is usually “but of course the True Faith, Christianity is far superior”.
I am in 100% agreement here. It’s only in the last few hundred years that Christianity has reached its level of meekness. I hope Islam can reach the same level in the next few hundred years. Otherwise, there’s no distinction between the two really.
Ugh. Now I feel like I’m defending christianity, which I am loathe to do. My post mentioned that “turn the other cheek” thing to make the point that the TEACHINGS on this particular matter is different than Islam. No matter how fucked up Christianity is, and IMHO it is, they are simply not as likely to respond to cartoons depicting their characters in the same way Muslims are, and it’s just silly to pretend otherwise. I regret even bringing up the cheek turning, but a cool head can concede that even the pretense of being more tolerable in some situations may influence some followers to be less likely to riot than if their holy text said, “kill all your enemies and never show mercy if you love Jesus!”
Again, I agree with you about Christianity being jacked up… I think it discredits you at act as if Christianity and Islam is the same in this situation.
Here’s a fairly good collection of Islamic images of Mohammed: Mohammed Image Archive - Islamic Depictions of Mohammed in Full
A teaching that virtually no one follows or pays attention to simply doesn’t matter.
I regret that I even brought that up. You are correct that I haven’t made a good point by using that example. Now; can you admit that Christians aren’t likely to start rioting about pictures of Jesus getting jacked off by Ganesha?
They might, but an economic/political attempt to destroy the Onion would be more likely.
Boo! Boo, hiss. Your post earlier in this thread made it sound like the Onion is playing with fire, just daring christians to get murderous about that cartoon. Now you are acting as if your concern was all white collar and corporate.
Oooh, I’m so mad at you. Because you are cheating. I always like how you stick it to religion on this board, but this time you are cheating and I’m just downright pouty about it.
If you’re into furry herms ala’ Doug Winger, that’s actually a pretty sexy Ganesha.
BTW: that’s not the Gautama Buddha, that’s Budai, widely and ignorantly taken for the buddha by westerners.