For once the US government and I agree on something, and actually the State Department sums it up better than I ever could. (Reuters via Yahoo):
The United States blasted the publication by European newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed as unacceptable incitement to religious or ethnic hatred.
"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims," State Department spokesman Justin Higgins said when queried about the furore sparked by the cartoons which first appeared in a Danish newspaper.
"We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility," Higgins told AFP.
"Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable. We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices."
Freedom of the press is great. It allows us to question governments and society as a whole. It allows us to do it without risking jail or persecution. It's an awesome power and an awesome responsibility.
I once had the good fortune to run a college radio station's news department in my younger days. We had one rule: present the facts and let people make up their own minds. That's what we were all there for.
When media published content that they know will incite violence, it's not freedom of the press. It's free press coverage and that's it.
Saying that the publishing of these cartoons is a freedom of the press issue is like saying the Iraq War was about weapons of mass destruction. It's not honest and it does more harm to the freedom of the press than good.
Article comments
1 - RedTard
I think the cartoons may have had some valid points. It seems that Islam, a religion founded by a warrior, is more likely to lead people to violence.
In Britain, 25% of muslims sympathized with the subway bombings. In Palestine, when given the option the people vote in militant Hamas. All around the world muslim nations are in conflict with their neighbors and other religions inside their borders. A short, non complete list of recent conflicts where muslims are at least partly to blame includes.
Kashmir (India-Pakistan border war)
Sudan (ethnic cleansing)
Chechnya (Seperatists)
Israel-Palestine (border dispute)
US Iraq (Terrorism/regime change)
US Afghanistan (Terrorism)
Nigeria (Muslim v Christians)
Philippines (Abu Sayef rebels)
Algeria (100,000 killed since 1991)
Somalia (religious/ethnic viloence)
Bosnia (religious/ethnic violence)
Kosovo (religious/ethnic violence)
France (Civil unrest)
I'm not a religious scholar and cannot say why muslims are so mired in conflict, but anyone that can get in a fight with the Buddhists has got to be pretty bad.
I don't think that a little ink on paper is a bad way to send a message. The Muslims kill artists in the streets and cut off heads on film. Where is the outrage over that?
2 - DJ Freq
That's absurd especially when you consider that Christianity is responsible for more deaths than any other movement in the history of the world.
Most of the conflicts you list below have nothing to do with religion and have more to do with ramifications of the post-colonial world that these people live in . While some of the conflicts are ethnicly motivated to say that it's specifically because of the Islamic religion is false and irresponsible.
While i'm certainly not condoning extremists in the muslim world, it's easy to follow the links back to see how they got there. Let's not forget as well that there are extremists in the Christian world as well, KKK, the religious right in the states.
As for you thought that anyone who can get into a fight with a buddist must be pretty bad i say only one thing. Many Vietnamese are Buddhists.
3 - RedTard
It takes a seriously twisted view to blame more deaths on Christianity than on any other movement. Please enlighten me to where christians killed even 20 million. (the number killed by the Soviets under Stalin)
If you really are interested in history (you seem more interested in left wing talking points) look up WWI and the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman empire, a muslim slaughter of 1.2 million Armenian christians. It served as a model for Hitler's slaughter of the Jews. Who better than the muslims to basically invent modern genocide.
4 - Raven
Are you....serious? Let me begin with this bold, but highly provable statement.
"Christianity was the first creed in history to exterminate its adversaries in the name of love."
1. I'm sure you know your history and are aware that the early opponents of Christianity were treated to a procedure known as "gutting" their captives to torture them to death. They would disembowel alive, them and claim that it was so "their soul would not be damaged".
Torture Chambers
For 1500 hundred years, the Christian Church systematically operated torture chambers throughout Europe. Torture was the rule, not the exception. Next to the Bible, the most influential and venerated book in Christian history was the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches), which was a step-by-step tutorial in how to torture "witches' and "sorcerers".
2. The "Crusades", to borrow liberally from Shakespeare...is a genocide by any other name not still a genocide?Just a few of the tortures that 'heretics' went through:
• Skin flayed from head, face and body
• Noses, nipples and breasts pulled off with red hot pinchers
• Fried or boiled alive or roasted on a spit
• Mouth slit back to ears
• Crucified upside down
• Thrown from windows on to spears
• Arms cut off
• Torturous slow burning, soles of feet, then up to ankles, mid-calf, etc.
• Women stripped, hung from trees by their hair and scourged or left hanging by one leg until dead
• Tourniquet placed on head and twisted until eyes came out
• Ears bored out
• Tongue cut out
• Set down (by pulley) into a fire by degrees
• Thrown to dogs
• Hung up by the heels and choked with smoke
• Disembowelled
• Sharp instruments forced under nails and into other body parts
• Racked until their bowels broke out
• Throats cut with butcher knives
• Knocked on the head with axes
And one of my personal favorites...
"Breaking on the Wheel"
"The naked heretic had each limb and joint broken precisely to avoid any fatal blows. He was then 'braided' into the spokes of the wheel and hoisted on to a post. There he was exposed to the elements â€" or left to be twirled by passers by who wanted to join in the fun."
You know Christians...just a "fun" lovin' group.
3. The Spanish Inquisition - Along with the great Christian movement known as the Spanish Inquisition, we were treated to a whole new interpretation of the love of Jesus and the spread of his gentle word of kindness and love. It came in this form:
The Pope's Pears:
"The vaginal pear was used on woman who had sex with the Devil or his familiars. The rectal pear was used on passive male homosexuals and the oral pear was used on heretical preachers or lay persons found guilty of unorthodox practices. Inserted into the mouth, anus or vagina of the victim, the pear was expanded by use of the screw until the insides are ripped, stretched and mutilated, almost always causing death. The pointed ends of the 'leaves' were good for ripping the throat, intestines or cervix open."
I know...nice huh! I know if I was being accused of heresy, I'd have to ask if they washed that damn thing off after using it on other..."criminals".
4. You can't forget all of the people that have been killed from inter-religious wars of the Christians either. How many people do you think have been killed in Ireland over the past 100 years because of christianity?
5. In fact, there is a portion of the New Testement that claims "Jesus" said "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." â€" Luke 19.27
6. Certainly the deaths of Galileo and Joan Of Arc along with the hundreds of thousands of others that were imprisoned until death, burned to death, boiled, stoned etc in the name of "god".
7. Funny, the arguement that fanatical Christians use to "debunk" the truth is either a) to lie about history b) to claim that athiests have been responsible for more deaths than Christians throught out time (which is...well also a lie about history). They try to shove Joseph Stalin in there, and usually Pol Pot. The part that's sort of funny (funny because it's such an ignorant arguement with so many holes) to me at least is that if you are going to use Stalin and claim that 16 to 20 million people were killed in the name of athiesm, you would have to then pick every "Christian" that ever led a country to war and tally up all of the deaths that were the results and add that to the catholic total. It's just total nonsense and well...bad debating to claim Stalin or Pot killed all those people in the name of athiesm or to further athiesm. It's just rather silly. I mean...how many leaders of various countries were Christians during world war 1 and 2? You'd have to tally every death that the United States has ever caused. To go even further and to prove my point deeper (not that it's necessary) you would have to go beyond wars, because the deaths that the Christians are citing were mostly not even from a religious war, but a civil persecution. Do "Christians" really want to get in to civil persecutions and add those to the totals too? Lets see....what were the religious beliefs of every American leader during the hundreds of years of slavery? How many blacks and other various minorities were murdered in the Unitied states by "Christians"? Why don't we just do a quick tally of those killed in Iraq since this illegal war began and see how many of the people killed were Christians and how many of them were Muslims? Do you know the religious beliefs of the people responsible for dropping bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? I do. Maybe you forgot all of those deaths and mutations in your generous count.
8. I don't know the exact tally for murderous Christians who have killed abortion doctors, political targets, etc etc.
9. What is the religious beliefs of every govenor that has signed an execution in the US? I'm....pretty certain it's not Muslim.
If we tallied the amount of deaths caused by so-called Christians I guarantee you that it far out numbers the amount of deaths caused anywhere else. Let me throw this little bonus in...you don't need to stab or shoot someone to murder them. You could...oh, I don't know, purposely give them and their children blankets you have infected with small pocks. You could...hmmmm....pull back 200 million dollars in birth control aid and education to a place like Africa, and just watch as they die from Aids by the hundreds of thousands. Many different ways...a Christian could even be responsible for killing his own people if he for example was responsible for sending thousands of his own men to war without proper armor. Or by sending his troops out to shoot anything that moves (which btw was what US Marines were instructed to do when they invaded Fallujiah) they also bombed that city with massive white phosphor the night before the attack. The results were in some ways worse than an atomic bomb, as it seemed to completely melt people to the bone, leaving their clothes intact. Many thousands of innocent civilians and children were murdered by that attack, which was NOT on military targets, but homes, schools and religious buildings. This all happened and I've seen and possess the footage. It's is every bit as disturbing as the footage I've seen of Nazi atrocities and or/ atomic bomb devistation. It was ordered and carried about by your lovely Christians. In case you aren't aware, napalm was made illegal for use in wartimes. Well, when pressed about the phosphorus substance shot at Fallujiah the US said "yes, it is very very much like napalm, but...it's not techincally napalm". What they did was find something nearly identical and fired it off on civillians. It would be the equivillant of firing off a nuclear bomb on a city and saying "oh, sorry, I thought only atom bombs weren't allowed...my bad, sorry we murdered your innocent civillians" etc etc.
If you are wondering why it is you dont read about these things in your typical American history texts, it would be because, in the words of Napoleon Bonoparte, "history is written by the winners", and as such, do you think that all of those terrible Christian psycho's that were boiling people alive, beheading and hanging all of the New World's non-Christians would accurately detail their barbarism and indecency? Why? They believed they were speaking for "god".
It's pointless to argue about who has killed more, Christians or Muslims (but as I've pointed out, it's definately Christians!) the point is...their have been more unatural deaths caused in the past 3,000 years in the name of "God", "Jesus", "Allah", "Yahweh", "Mohammed", than any other one thing. Why?
Is it because people cannot co-exist with different beliefs? Certainly not. There are many things that the millions of people in my country have different opinions or beliefs about, none of which they would be murdered for or persecuted for. There have been cases were murders were carried out due to the race of a person, or sexual preferance. But...that's not the norm. Somehow, religious murders have almost come as being acceptable to the world as a whole, and it's really not forgivable to the rational people that do exist out there. You don't think I'm right? Well...Osama Bin Laden declared war on the United States. His henchmen and sidekicks were from almost exclusively Syria and Saudi Arabia. His Taliban Regimne was in Afghanistan. After declaring "Jihad" on the United States (something by the way that is forbidden and illegal by Muslim law, since only a divine Cleric of the Muslim faith is allowed to interperet Allah and the Koran and the right to declare a Jihad. Osama did not.) it is noteworthy that George Bush immediately publicly declared a "Crusade" against Iraq. There you have it...the problem. Not your average Christian or Muslim. It's the extremists that screw the world up, not the massess. The average Christian is not the fanatical nutcases you find in the far religious right of the United States. Neither are the average Muslims anything near the unforgivable fools that took down the towers. The problem is that we as humans on earth have allowed these fanatics to walk right in and take over our land. If it continues, Armagedon is inevitable. Why should that be a surprise? Christian fanatics believe the bible should be taken literally, word for word, so they believe in "End Of Days" or Armagedon. They also believe it already happenend, since religious scholars (which is an oxymoron in my opinion) have continually changed the date it will happen in pathetic attempts to control the masses with fear. First it was the year 100, then 200, 300, then the year 1000. For sure....I mean it was...the first recorded millineum! Had to be the end of the world...Didn't happen. Try try again I guess. 2000 was going to be it for sure. The Rapture. Some prepared for it. Didn't happen, so they said "well, technically, the year 2000 is 2001". Yeah...okay. Well, they got their call in 2001 and if some of these nutcases get their way, they'll have their armagedon and the end of the world. For what? Because the old Testament doesn't mention much of Jesus or that he's the "son of God"? Maybe that's because the story of the virginal birth, the son of god, the miracles, the crusifixion and resurrection tales all existed hundreds of years before the alleged life of "Jesus", and that the stories of "The Godman" were fables and parables meant to teach young children decency and morales. Never meant to be taken literally until Paul, who never knew Jesus personally, allegedly went and meditated on the topic and came back by writting Jesus's life story. The only real acknowledgement of him to that date in history. The problem being that it was written anywhere from 40-300 years after the death of Jesus was alleged to have been!!! There is actually no historical record of any such person. It was meant to be teachings, lesson, parables, stories to teach ethics, and if one took the teachings of "Jesus" or "the Godman" or by any other name (as Shakespeare said) you'd still have the morals, ethics etc. What you wouldn't have is LITERAL BELIEF that a supreme being gave birth to a human being by wishing it. I personally am an athiest, but I have no problem whatsoever sharing the stories of Jesus, but presenting them as they should be, as literature. He was possibly the kindest character ever to be created or written about and that's no shame. It's just a fact.
The truth is that all of the three major religions were written by people that believe some or all of the following:
1. There was a physical place called "heaven" that was located IN THE CLOUDS!!! LITERALLY!
2. That the earth was being held up by large pillars.
3. That everything in the sky revolved around the earth including the sun.
4. That sacrificing ones child or animals was the "will of God".
5. That anyone that denies your personal "god" is a sinner and is destined for eternal damnation.
etc etc etc
The major problem it seems is that everything is constantly evolving on the planet. With every new decade human being find out more and more information and unravel more of the truth about our existence. There were once people that worshiped the sun. They did this for thousands of years, not knowing any better. They were not full of bad intentions, it was just...what they knew. Eventually, even 1000's of years of this ignorance was washed away. It became apparent that...the earth in fact rotates around the sun etc. Thanks to science that is. If it were up to the "Christians", we would still be being taught that the earth was flat, the pillar theory and the best of all...that the earth is somewhere between 4,000 and 10,000 years old, no older. That would be fine and dandy if educated people did not already know that 4,000-10,000 years ago is when the agricultural revolution took place, and not even remotely near the time of the beggining of the earth. Not even a half decent guess. Well, as these things are proven as facts, old tales and traditions should, along with man-kind evolve or make adjustments. Most fanatics won't/can't.
As long as all of the major world religions teach that anyone that does not accept that faiths chosen one will be damned to hell...As long as ingorant fanatics are allowed to control our schools and government, starting wars and miseducating children...we are forever in this catch 22.
You do not need a bible, koran or any other book to be an ethic person with morals. A decent athiest would not exclude his knowledge to just one single book written thousands of years ago by racist, sexist, genocidal, homicidal, homophobes (don't make me quote the various bibles to back all of those statements up, unlike many "followers", I've read everything from the Old Testement to the Koran, have you?)You can take your morals from anywhere. Decency is evident.
If you are a Christian and you are reading this, you're probably pretty upset by a few of the things I've said, and that's fine, but please consider this...If you were NOT a Christian, never were, in fact if you were not of any particular faith...do you believe you would not know that murder was wrong? Do you think you need to be a Christian to know that stealing is wrong? Must you be a Jew to know that making it with your neighbors wife is unethical? You shouldn't. You shouldn't have any problem understanding that because your parents can teach you that. You can read it in tons of literature, that is very non-secular (thousands and thousands of books with good ethics exist). You could derive your ethics from actually using your brains and thinking. With free thought and will minus religions the world would be able to be moral....because it's the RIGHT THING TO DO, not because they are scared they might be caught and punished.
It reminds of something that happened recently with my son. He had done something inappropriate and was misbehaving. I explained to him why it was wrong and asked him to apologize to the person he had wronged. He told the person he was "sorry" but it was evident by the tone that it was not sincere in any way. I explained the differnce and taught him that anybody can murmer the word "sorry" and it means nothing if they do not feel it. If they do not feel it, they could easily repeat the same unwanted behavior. Also, the person receiving the apology can usually tell it's sincerity. So...I explained to him further what an apology is/should be and in more detail explained to him why his behavior was inappropriate. I had to put him in the shoes of the person who's feelings he had hurt. Then he understood. He also understood the reason why a sincere apology was required, and that if it was not sincere why the words meant nothing.
The reason I bring this up is because every person that has ever murdered someone, whether they are Jewish, Christian or Muslim has commited an ultimate sin. All three faiths recognize either the commandments or Jesus respectively, and all three faiths claim to have "Though Shall Not Kill" in their docturnes, yet...they kill. They will find passages in their conflicting and confusing book of worship that contradicts the "do not kill" rule to get around it. The most henious of these sins is to "Kill in the name of God".
I can personally assure you that no "god" EVER asked/begged/forced/requested/planted the idea/pulled a trigger/used duress to make somebody commit murder. Humans commit murder. Not a "god" or "gods". It's always humans that claim "god" has guided them, told them to do it. That leads me to another point, all three major faiths believe that it is a sin to speak for "god", so why aren't these "blashphemours" radicals removed from the equation? Well...frankly because the majority of the members of these faiths try to practice what they preach in regards to peace, harmony, love, decency etc. They don't tend to stock up on AK-47's and rocket launchers the way...well...only religious extremists do. Think about it...nutbar Christian fanatics like David Keresh, Muslim Terrorists like Bin Laden, Jewish terrorists in Israel. It's out of hand. The decent people that simply try to live their lives that way are caught in the cross fire between these utter maniacs that have less to do with decency, righteousness and purity than anybody in history.
They are literally responsible for holding back the advancement of human kind. While they wish to continue fight wars waged thousands of years ago, I suggest that we the people start standing up for what is right. Whether your morals or ethics are derived from the Old Testement, the New Testement, The Koran, Buddha, or any other religious texts and teachings, or whether like me, you accumulated your morals from your parents, friends, reading and education, examples I have a feeling that we would all agree on the basic things: 1. Do not kill 2. Do not steal 3. Do not touch my wife/husband 4. Your sex life is YOUR sex life. Not your neighbors or coworkers. Only yours. Whom you share that with is your business. Only yours. Thus your sexuality is only your business. (the acception being if someone is being abused, than I believe the law should apply like any other crime). I think I could probably continue with a list of about 50 things that the majority of people of all faiths could agree are good decent things, (probably not all, but most) so if I can do this, and we can do this together...why use "religions" as anything more than they actually are? Studies in culturalism, linguistics, history, archeology and traditions. It doesn't mean erase religions, it means practice them as they were originally meant to be...as traditions meant to teach ethics. Not as do all, literal, word for word writtings of god. That's just not true or accurate. If we all did this people could keep their faiths private and as traditions. The only one rule I think would be required is...no one religion would be allowed to say they were the only, the best etc, or be allowed to trash on someone elses. If we could agree as people to do that than we'd eliminate the roll of the murderous extremist (whom I would suggest should be imprisoned for crimes against humanity)would negate the need to fight to the death over "holy land", and could easily be accepted as land important to ones traditions, nothing more, so why not share it? It seems that the arrogance needs to be deflated from religions. I guess this is hard to do when the guy preaching in front of you has more gold in his home than Fort Knox, or when you discover your Rabbi drives a Rolls, or that your Cleric lives in luxury. I think in order to have world peace, so called prophets and preachers should go. They are no closer to god than any of you, that I can assure you. They are no better than you. They are not in any way a representative, speaker, moderator for "god". Never were in history and never will be. This is something that really needs to be accepted world wide for peace.
With less wars and violence and no ruthless religious restraints on the freedom of thought, as a society, human beings could advance much further both as decent, moral human beings AND as intelligent thinkers. As it sits now, it's like 20-30% of the world that live as fanaticals wish to move us back 40,000 years in to the stoneage. Back to the days of complete fear and obediance to a priest or cleric. Total power to those that falsely claim to speak for god. We can not let this happen.
Here's a link to one of the websites I used for some references and borrowed some quotes from. I highly recommend it for those that would rather educate themselves before speaking aggressively on a topic.
I am also very open to debating or having a civilized discussion about any of these topics with anyone that can do so in a decent manner.
Here's a few more nice quotes to tide you over:
"If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned"
â€" (John 15:6)
"Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother."
â€" Isaiah, 9.19
"If a victim 'converted' to Catholicism at the last minute ("fuego resuelto") in its loving kindness the Church would sanction strangulation before burning."
Special thanks to Kenneth Humphreys, for the invaluable information I was able to attain from his website (some of which can be found reproduced with his consent here). The link to his URL is under my user name (as it would not allow me to print it in the message body).
Looking forward to some nice friendly debates. :)
5 - RedTard
That's a great rant. I never claimed that christianity was innocent. Some of the things you mentioned probably happened, but not on the scale of tens of millions. Also, you are comparing middle age civilizations to the modern world. I understand that it is the popular thing for liberals to hate christianity and western civilization, but you have to remember that those things worked in tandem to bring in the modern world we have today.
You were successful in totally ignoring my point and bringing up some unrelated middle ages trivia with limited evidence thrown together by someone with an axe to grind. Great job.
If you have studied the religions at all you would know that for the most part Jesus taught non-violence and followed his words with self sacrifice. It takes quite a bit of work to twist that into torture (it did happen though).
Mohammed, on the other hand, was a warrior who slept with a 9 year old. Is is possible, looking outside of religion, that this person is a worse example to follow. I don't know I am just theorizing from modern events and religious texts.
Mohammed was a warrior and a pedophile, approximately 1 billion people strive to be like him. Is it any wonder that those people seem to always be causing trouble?
6 - DJ Freq
Mohammed was a pedophile!!! What a ignorant comment!. Social norms have changed alot since the 5th century. THe "virgin" mary would have been at most 13 when she would have given birth to Jesus. Joesph was undoubtedly much older. It was a different time and considering that girls normally start delveoping as women in the physical sense around 9 or ten it's understandable that ancient society could have deemed females a woman at thier first menstration.
As for the fact that Mohammad was a warrior, i don't see the connection between that and your contention that it would lead to a more viloent religion. By that logic since the pope was a brown shirt all catholics must be nazis.
7 - Ryan
In response to the part "Imagine the world outrage if a Muslim newspaper ran a cartoon that had Jesus molesting small boys."
Anti-semitic cartoons are regularly featured in Arabic newspapers. Of course, your example is different, but many Muslims are guilty of the same religious intolerance, in the realm of newspaper cartoons.
Don't get me or anyone else started on religious intolerance in the Middle East. Yes, history has shown that Christians have been just as intolerant in the past, even across mildly differing denominations. Point is, it should be a thing of the past and has no place in modern nations.
8 - DJ Freq
I agree with you Ryan, that this really should be a thing of the past.
Sadly I think this comment thread has become an example of missing the point that i talk about in the opening of the post. We've turned this discussion very quickly to one of religion vs religion , world vs world, when the real crux of the issue is one of journalistic responsibility.
Ryan you say that
"Anti-semitic cartoons are regularly featured in Arabic newspapers. Of course, your example is different, but many Muslims are guilty of the same religious intolerance, in the realm of newspaper cartoons"
This is where the responsibility of western journalist should start by making the choice to
make this a thing of the past. Leading by example is sometimes necessary. It goes back to the can/should argument.
Intolerance is in almost every religion and society. Sometimes that intolerance manifests itself in violence sometimes in political repression sometimes in a look on the street.
Inciting violence through the printing of these cartoons doesn't serve any purpose and certainly doesn't advance the notion of the freedom of the press.
Yes i recognize that the press is a political machine, sometimes described as the 4th branch of government , and that it has a role in shaping the opinions and values of society. But this roles is not a benifit but a responsibility that some have let slip.
It's odd when you think that this whole cartoon issue could have been avoided back in September if the newpapers had just said sorry and left it at that without others printing it.
9 - RedTard
"this whole cartoon issue could have been avoided back in September if the newpapers had just said sorry and left it at that without others printing it."
Ahh, the old do what they say and you won't get hurt argument. Those people on the first 9/11 planes thought that to. It didn't do them much good either.
10 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
"this whole cartoon issue could have been avoided back in September if the newpapers had just said sorry and left it at that without others printing it."
Damn--we coulda had "Peace in our Time!"
11 - DJ freq
hardy har har :)
12 - Wayne
There were some pretty challenging exchanges in this. But, I am amazed at the vitriol against Christianity.
At least be reasonable in your usage of journalistic license. Present legitimate claims.
Had the argumentation been reasonable, I would have addressed some saliant points. But, to claim that an Army raised to defend against the invading Islamic armies and their travesties leads to blaming Christ is like saying that FDR was responsible for Hitler and Stalin and Hirohito. The Islamic invasion was a multi-front and multi campaign war. And the Muslim campaign went on for centuries.
13 - Wayne
Now about the article itself.
I am torn. On the one hand, Islam and her adherents are intolerant. Yet, on the other hand, picking on someone that you call a bully is equally insensitive. In this example, their pop star is being ridiculed. Any one at a rock concert knows (or should know) not to boo the greatful dead . . . at least not at the concert.
Ironically, we in the west do not understand their way of life well enough to interact with them well. Maybe we, as groups of people (nations), should ask (require) our journalists to be a little more reasonable in our satire?
I know that goes against freedom of speech . . . but who pays for all of the businesses that were burned and bombed? If I wrote an ignorant article - I would not want people blowing up Kentucky Fired Chicken's and me getting the bill.
Just a thought.