given how the Emo look has purportedly been received in a number of countries, that’s an understatement.
I don’t think there’s a ‘them’. In India, where we have a size-able muslim population, the word is used in the way I indicated
Great point.
AllahU Akhbar. “God is great.” So yeah, they’re really really really sure that God is great. Wow.
Lots older public schools still have madrassah in their name and the word in Urdu still means school, although it has supplanted in recent years by the English term school.
In Pakistan, I mean.
Not if you read the posts closely. You’re claiming five times a day is horrible brainwashing and once a day is no biggie. The intent is the same and I don’t believe the effect is any different.
Not necessarily. Almost all madaras even “Deeni Madaras” religious schools have to teach whatever curriculum the provincial government sets. They might have a larger emphasis on religious instruction than regular schools, but they have to teach what everybody else does.
Where it can get confusing is when you have institutions or entities which offer only religious instruction, however these are only part time, their students attend regular school otherwise. These are not madaras.
Madaras=Plural of Madrassah.
I meant postsecondary schools, since you don’t joint the priesthood as a child. My fault for not clarifying.
My thoughts exactly!!! Awesome post!
Well Islam does not have a priesthood. At least not formally.
makes a nice battle cry too. A very versatile phrase.
It’s not remotely as good or scary as “Onward Christian Soldiers!”
It appears a whole lot of Muslims don’t need any lessons from us. Thousands of Libyan protesters stormed and took over several Islamic fundamentalist militia headquarters, including one blamed for the attack on the embassy that killed the American ambassador.
What’s scary about it. When was the last time it was uttered in an attack? Because Allahu Akhbar is a phrase that often precedes violence.
To get back to the main question of the OP - the OP should realize that many countries that have free speech, also have anti-blasphemy laws. And these are not countries you would associate with a theocracy.
Australia, Denmark, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Poland, Spain, and a whole host of countries which have the concept of free speech also prohibit hateful speech. Blasphemy is covered either in the constitution (e.g. Ireland) or the criminal code.
Egypt also has an anti-blasphemy law.
Free speech almost always has some criminal or constitutional limitations. Some of the limitations can take the form of anti-hate or anti-blasphemy laws.
The other thing is people need to get some perspective. In reading many of these comments that refer to barbarians and savages, I have to remind myself I really am on the SDMB, and not reading YouTube comments.
It’s been widely reported that the militias that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and the three other Americans didn’t do it as a result of the videos.
It’s also been reported that Libyans found him still alive and rushed him to a hospital (while saying Allahu Akbar - it’s a saying that people say daily, and can be associated with anything), and although 2,000 or so Libyans have protested in the streets regarding the video, 30,000 Libyans have protested against the militia killing, and regained
As an analogy, there were about 2,000 Occupy Wall Street protesters in the last few weeks, and a couple thousand Chick-Fil-A anti-homosexual protesters. Should people in other countries look at that, and determine the majority of Americans believe the way the Chick-Fil-A owner does or support the Occupy Wall Street movement?
In my opinion, a minority of Christian wackos created a video that riled up a minority of Moslem wackos, who used it as a means to help bolster their own political and social aims.
Well said, eelghat, but no one should tear things up and kill people because they don’t like what people say.
It is difficult not to associate religious intolerance with ignorance, be it fundamentalist Christians or Muslims.
There are limitations on speech everywhere, but anti-blasphemy laws are also deeply wrongheaded: no idea or belief should be above criticism. Anyway, I continue to think the OP’s idea has merit. It really would help if more of the Islamic-world public demanded these kinds of protections and understood that just because an American says something, it doesn’t mean America says something. It would also be one step toward encouraging free discussion of Islam instead of allowing Khomeini-style whackos to dominate the conversation.
Carnivorous plant I agree with you, Marley23 let’s play this out…
U.S. Educator: “Films like the one that was released are not released by the US government, and are protected under the First Amendment as freedom of expression and are not prohibited”.
Anti-film protestors: You should criminalize blasphemy, or religious insults. Look at all the other countries that have done so. Blasphemy law - Wikipedia. These countries have freedom of expression, but not to the extent of spewing religious hatred."
And now you’re at an impasse, because when most people talk about education, they mean informing through facts and reasoned analysis, but whether freedom of expression should include hateful or blasphemous expression is an opinion - you’re going to change few opinions through education because in the end it’s an opinion.
You can educate someone that dragging a US flag on the ground is freedom of expression, but look at all the people in the US that get their knickers in a bind if the flag is mis-handled and say that mis-handling, burning, etc. should be criminalized First Amendment be damned. Even things that are provable (e.g. evolution over intelligent design) goes nowhere if you try and discuss it with a person who can point to sacred scripture that says the world is only a few thousand years old.
A protest leader in Bangladesh, Mohammed Turi, was quoted as saying “We are pained by this deliberate insult against our religion under the pretext of freedom of expression”. So he gets the freedom of expression part, but he doesn’t believe blasphemy should be protected.
I just don’t think that education will change someone’s opinion that religious hatred shouldn’t be criminalized. The protestors probably believe it should be a criminal offense, which is an opinion, and all you have to counter with is a different opinion.
This thread sort of plays into my thread here.
Here we are intensely debating an issue that has everything to do with Muslims, but with precious little input from Muslims themselves. It’s frustrating.
An interesting assumption… In fact I very strongly believe more than one Moslem Has posted in this thread. What did you think a Moslem post would say? “Good riddance the ambassador is dead! - Death to Americans! - Allahu Akbar!”?
If this thread was about Christian bombing of abortion clinics, and nobody said, “Doctors that perform abortions should die!” Would you come to the assumption no Christians had posted?
Why would this be any different?