ReligiousFreaks.com has a new feature where you can ask a muslim various questions about their religion. Interesting stuff, but the guy answering is a moderate, so expect moderation. Except when it comes to jews, naturally.
September 30, 2006
Ask a muslim
August 12, 2006
Second to last
Science blog pharyngula has yet another disturbing post regarding attitudes about evolution. The results of a new study, indicates that Americans are lagging far behind (second only to Turkey) the rest of the world in terms of sophistication about (i.e. acceptance of) the theory of evolution. The study suggests that in addition to being uneducated on basic genetics, that science has become increasingly politicized. PZ Myers, author of the pharyngula blog, thinks that God and the Republicans are to blame.
February 22, 2006
Bulldada
I never thought that a person would be persecuted for being a member of the Church of the SubGenius, but alas it has happened. A woman has lost custody of her child allegedly based on her membership in the Church. Astounding.
February 15, 2006
Anti-Semitic Cartoons
In response to the craziness over the Danish cartoons, an Israeli artist and comic publisher has sponsored an Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest. As a Jewish friend of mine put it “anything you can do, we can do better.” Clearly the whole thing is thoroughly tounge-in-cheek:
“Sandy is now in the process of arranging sponsorships of large organizations, and promises lucrative prizes for the winners, including of course the famous Matzo-bread baked with the blood of Christian children.”
February 8, 2006
Excellent Piece on the Cartoon Controversy
The Geman magazine Spiegel has an excellent piece by Ibn Warraq about why the West must not back down.
February 7, 2006
Hitchens on the Cartoons
Christopher Hitchens posts a spot on response to the cartoon controversy. He 100% hits the nail on the head in my opinion.
February 6, 2006
Spartacus?
As I mentioned in the previous post, one way to combat the Islamic fascists is to fight fire with fire, hence, the Illustrated Koran project idea. A similarly inspired post over at Infinite Monkeys suggests putting images of Mohammed all over cyberspace.
Reading up on wikipedia about the controversy, I came across the following “Section 140 of the Criminal Code prohibits any person from publicly ridiculing or insulting the dogmas of worship of any lawfully existing religious community in Denmark.” I am thankful that I live in a country that doesn’t prevent the “ridiculing” of religious dogmas (at least not overtly and through legal means.) I can’t think of a more ridicule-worthy law myself than this Dutch statute. Many relgious dogmas are idiotic and deserving of mass open ridicule and this incident indicates just how ridiculous things can get.
A timeline of the events is available at the Financial Times.
Religious Freaks has some pictures of the muslim response. Most chilling: A photo of a woman with a sign saying “Get Ready for the Real Holocaust.”
Graven Images, Part III
If you want to see what this is all about, I suggest a visit to the Mohammed Image Archive.
You can decide for yourself just how offensive the cartoons really are. Then, you can recognize that it doesn’t matter how offensive you think they are, because somewhere in your mind, pehaps in the back of your mind, you value free speech.
Graven Images, Part II
The Boston Globe has a piece on the current flap titled “We Are All Danes Now.” It’s a good start, but I think the author misses the point; he uses the words ‘radical Islam.’ That’s begging the question – if what we are seeing is radical Islam, where exactly is the moderate Islam? Well, as far as I can see, all Islam is radical. There simply does not exist a sufficiently vocal ‘moderate’ Islam that anybody would be led to believe exists. The religion is based on notion of war between the muslims and the infidels – and the punishment for apostasy in Islam is death. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the religion (or any religion, really) is incapable of reform and eradication of its most hateful doctrines, I just don’t see how it’s happened yet – and these latest eruptions are poor indication that anything is going to change soon.
The Illustrated Koran
One of the trends I’ve observed in this culture, even is this world, is the notion that people have a right not to be offended. An apology for any offense seems to be a foregone conclusion, be it from a publication or a politician. The tendency to cave in to extreme elements and apologize for some offense, real or imagined, is in itself offensive. It’s an offense to an open society where free speech is actually valued.
The latest has to do with some depictions of Mohammed in the Dutch Magazine, Jyllands-Posten. Apparently the author thought it was pretty outrageous that nobody was willing to take the tremendous risk of illustrating a children’s book about Mohammed. I also think it’s outrageous that such mind control be tolerated.
The fact of the matter is, some people, in this case muslims, who are easily offended need to be told to fuck off. Thinking people need to put some force behind their ideas and stand their ground. You may not like the actions of the Dutch magazine in question, but refusing to apologize was the right move. The tragic repercussions are being perpetrated by mindless servants of a religious doctrine. It’s one thing to expect followers of the creed to obey the doctrine, it’s another to expect everybody else to follow suit.
Somebody ought to do something like this, but for the Koran. That would get them riled up now, wouldn’t it.