And speaking of people getting all up in your face – there’s also the hot fashion for saying people who insult Mo should be killed. For once an official body is taking that seriously as what it obviously is: incitement to murder.
A British TV channel that broadcast a talk saying it is acceptable to murder someone who has shown disrespect to the prophet Muhammad is facing a heavy fine or potential closure by Ofcom.
…
The media regulator commissioned two English translations of the programme which revealed that the presenter of the show said: “If someone takes a step in the love of the Prophet, then this is not terrorism.” He also made a number of comments citing a “duty” to kill those who insult Mohammed, including: “I hail those who made this law [Pakistan’s blasphemy law] which states that one who insults the prophet deserves to be killed – such a person should be eliminated.”
Ofcom said: “We considered that the broadcast of the various statements made by the Islamic scholar … was likely to encourage or incite the commission of a crime.”
Oh now that’s a welcome sound, like rushing water in a desert. The statements made by the Islamic scholar are likely to encourage or incite the commission of a crime, and a nasty crime at that – murdering someone for saying something about a guy who’s been dead for 14 centuries. Well done Ofcom.
Mohammed started a religion that encourages violence.
Are they going to try to kill me for writing that?
What a dangerous time for Islam to enter puberty. Luckily for us, Christianity went through that phase when the best they had was crossbows and boiling oil.
@ #1
Probably. They’ll probably want to kill me for saying that Mohammed was a murderous sadistic paedophile, but as I think it needs to be said I don’t see why I shouldn’t say it again. If Mohammed lived in Britain today he’d be locked up, not as a freedom-fighter but as a murderous sadistic paedophile. If he’s the best Allah can do, Allah must have pretty poor judgement — but of course he’s just an idol made in Mohammed’s image. Jesus said a few good things, though not as good as the best of the Cynics or the Stoics. I can’t think of anything that Mohammed said that comes even close to the best of Jesus or Paul or James or John, and most of that is rubbish compared with, for example, Oscar Wilde or E. Nesbitt, or for that matter A. A. Milne or Enid Blyton, because even the poorest of them were concerned about real relations between real human beings as human beings and not as subjects of an apotheosised contempt.
.
These miserable people think that because of their disgusting sentimentality they own all of human life. They own nothing, not even common sense. They have surrendered their humanity to their nasty idol, and have made themselves unfit to live with the rest of us, whom they despise. Moral cripples, all of them.
#2 yeah and christianity seems like it’s having a mid-life crisis when it alternates between wanting to re-invent itself and trying to relive its “glory” days of youth. Both suck, both have means of dealing with people who insult it, but at least xity isn’t as overtly violent. They won’t stone you to death, but they won’t think much of carpet bombing your country.
Normally, I’m a great believer in free speech, and I think the UK errs too far in constraining it. (if people say what they think, then you know who they are)
But this Islamic “Scholar” (isn’t that a bit like being able to recite every page of Lord Of The Rings by rote? Impressive, but ultimately pointless) does seem to have overstepped the line by inciting violence, which (IMHO) is the personal limit of what free speech should be – the active incitement of violence.
I’m not convinced that “religions” follow a stage theory of psychological development. I suspect that how “religions” behave has more to do with economic and political conditions. It is, after all, the people who behave.
Modern Christians talk about how nice Christianity is: it doesn’t burn people at the stake, it doesn’t condone slavery, it thinks democracy is a Christian value. But those things are simply not the case. Christian churches aren’t as mean to people as they used to because the society they’re embedded in has become nicer … and those that can get away with it are still mean.
There were periods when kingdoms whose official religion was Islam were quite prosperous and thus tolerant of Christians and Jews living among them. The countries whose religious radicals give their religion a bad name are the shitholes of the planet. It is unfortunate that their santorum leaks out onto other countries.
EVen in the United States there’s a correlation between religious radicalism and economic conditions, both geographically and over time. The flyover states, especially the poor South, are well-known for fundagelical craziness. And Bush’s economic disaster has fed right into the needs of the fundagelical recruiters. (And, unfortunately, the santorum spreads here, too).
I’m not sure that the concept of a religion’s adolescence makes as much sense as how people are affected by their economic conditions.
I think we should all say regularly – like our prayers, you know, ‘To hell with the prophet!’
They can’t possible kill us all.
David Amies
timberwoof @6
Christian churches aren’t as mean to people as they used to because the society they’re embedded in has become nicer … and those that can get away with it are still mean.
Exactly. It is way too simplistic to say that religions like Islam are making their societies cruel, just like it’s way too simplistic to say that Christianity has made Western culture “nice”. If anything it’s the other way around – secular culture has tamed Christianity and forced it to jettison it’s horrible parts. And forces it to jettison more horrible parts with each generation – I suspect that before I die the majority of Western Christian churches will be marrying gay couples at their altars (though probably still not the Catholic Church).
This is especially obvious if you look at Christian churches in areas where secular culture has not tamed them. Take a look at how witches, heretics and gays are treated by Christians in Africa and tell me that somehow Christianity is inherently nice.