France Mourns 12 Dead In The War Against Free Speech

The majority of muslims does not kill over a joke either. Even when they are seriously offended (and they are). Just like many christians are still offended by parts of Life of Brian and certainly were so annoyed when it was released they would pronounce stupid things too, happily they didn't act out of proportion (as far as I know, I wouldn't be suprised of the contrary).
The lego joke is in bad taste, in my humble opinion. We can make the joke but I am not sure it has any good use or purpose or if we would regard it as funny if it wasn't for our utter animosity for this prophet's extremist followers.
I think if we expand on this matter it would be better in another thread (the fuck islam thread even sounds more on topic for it) but it is important to put the actions of historic people and societies in the context of the times. Now some of Mohammed's stances on things that became laws and rules are bad and dubious and maybe if we look at what we know of the world he lived in it still seems like that. Imagine living in a world though where there is no unification among your people, no law system that counts for both you and your neighbouring tribe, instead there is always rivalry (bloody, destructive and prohibiting any progress) and barbaric practices (marrying and raping any female of any age you can get your hands on for instance). At the same time you see other people (jews for instance) for a large part unified, acting on morals that are in a holy book they all make use of, displaying their insight in all kinds of things from trade to morals while your own people do not look for peace beyond their own tribe (and sometimes not even in their own tribe). Then one of them manages to convince a bunch that they also should get unified and ought to aim for a life with less immoral behaviour, and (even though it spread with force) this ideology is adopted by all arab tribes rapidly. Yes, they seem still barbaric now but that is because we have progressed faster. If we could look at the society and behaviour of arab tribes before islam spread we might conclude that it was a small step in the right direction at that point.

 

From an historical perspective, that's quite accurate if incomplete. Islam unified the Arabs of the Arabian peninsular, and allowed them to rapidly conquer a vast empire.It was for them a step forward. It was one of the most rapid military expansions in history.
Islam then became the basis of cultures spanning 1400 years or so.

The history too complex to go into on this thread. Some of what the Prophet said and did is very questionable IMO. But of course I'm looking at it from a modern western point of view.
I've said many times that I know most Muslims are not potential terrorists. Most want just to get on with their lives. It's a paradox that they are probably more free to do that in the UK or Europe than would be the case in many Islamic countries.

I would much rather we had toleration than strife. But that doesn't mean I have to like Islam.

If you want to continue the discussion on another thread

 

so appearantly France is now attacking free speech. France arrested 54 Muslim apologists and anti-Semitics the other day for voicing their opinion. I'm on my phone so its very difficult for me to post a link but if anyone has seen that story perhaps you can post a link for me?

 

The majority of human beings does not kill period. On the other hand it's mostly muslims who completely lose it over the most trivial issue. That doesn't mean they all start killing people right then and there but to me it means that it is possible to influence them (or at least some of them) into taking all kinds of action. It just needs someone good at hate speech.

When I worked in the Middle East one day I asked a guy working with me if he thought we could make the deadline for a project today. The answer (as usual) was: "Insh'allah". On that particular day I was pretty stressed and just wanted a straight answer, so I told him that "Insh'allah" didn't really cut it and could he please try to help me out. You should have seen the ensuing scene: in a matter of seconds there were something like 10 guys gathered around me, shouting at me and cursing me.

You're right it's bad taste. But what is worse: a man over fifty bedding a 10-year-old girl or a cartoon depicting it? Even if satirical, sarcastic, or bad taste ... the truth remains the truth.

Just to be fair: had you shown Life of Brian some 500 years ago they would have burned you at the stake.

 

Signs of things to come. It's gonna get MUCH worse before it gets better.

First everybody was like "je suis charlie" and marching peacefully. Then the backlash starts as France (and later maybe other EU countries) put together their version of the Patriot Act. The Jewish communities get louder and louder which definitely angers all the stupid neo-nazi parties who are already protesting against liberal immigration laws.
So they seriously start policing all those people who open their mouths (and some of those who don't) and pretty soon you have more attacks, more social unrest. That in turn worsens the already precarious economic situation which leads to unemployment, which leads to radicalization, which leads to more attacks. Repeat ad infinitum.

I read yesterday that someone dropped a dead pig in front of a mosque.

Wait for it .... wait for it ....

 

What I find most unfortunate about the lego pic is not that it is accusing any living muslim today of marrying underage girls but that it is insulting the prophet of a lot of people (that don't do such things, they just don't want their prophet being depicted, and certainly not insulted) to the extent it is in bad taste and unconstructive in any way. It is not about underage girls that have to marry against their will anymore, it is about insulting the prophet

And yes, we would have been burned at the stake by our own people no less This is also why it sometimes comes across a bit pretentious and hypocritical to convict every society as barbaric and backwards because they happen to be so unfortunate to not go to the same stages as ours. If we would just realize how relatively short our own society has these freedoms and rights for everyone.

 

It is also worthwhile to mention that Europe is up in arms over freedom of speech after the killing at Charlie Hebdo; but, in France it has been illegal for Muslims to talk or write about the Holocaust for decades. In France, Canada, Germany and other nations you get sent to prison for talking about it.

 

In France you get arrested and sent to prison for talking about the Holocaust.

 

Not sure about that. I happily hear a lot of people proclaim that whatever we do we should not polarize (a lot of leaders too happily) or change our behaviour or society in favor of a few terrorists. Here mosques have been targets of such actions for years (also by a retard minority of people). So as long as we do not give in to either side of those polarizing fear and hate mongerers nothing is permanently lost (except the lifes of certain victims unfortunately, but we should not let that be an excuse to get this situation in an even more downward spiral).

 

Charlie Hebdo made sarcastic cartoons of this as well

 

Wrong blanket statement. You better do some reading about that.

 

I'm against such censorship myself. I would draw the line at throwing bricks through buildings, dead pigs before them or any kind of oppression. This includes verbal oppression and hate speech. Well we shouldn't forbid hatespeech (because there is a narrow line with sarcasm sometimes) but we should convict it when it happens. We can't like every aspect of real freedom of speech and we do not have to like every aspect of it, but if we are for it in my opinion we should not restrict it on a certain matter. The restrictions on the subject of the holocaust will become less and less in the future anyway, because it is mainly such a sensitive topic because a lot of the surviving victims are still alive. That being said, holocaust deniers in general make me sad too.

 

I'm afraid I disagree. When the public is educated well, we don't have to make any exceptions at all. Our society has found their way through a history of subjective... well history We rarely got an objective account of what happened centuries ago (and even if we gotten one we can't be sure that it is entirely correct ) but still we are working on getting the right and complete picture through research, analyzing, comparing sources etc. etc. There is nothing to fear about the freedom of speech except restrictions. As pointed out: when someone says something that is really hatespeech or damaging, we can convict them (if necessary) after they do such a thing.
That there are no restrictions on free speech does not mean there are no consequences of abusing the right to express one self. It just means there is no matter that is off limits just like that.

 

It is abusive to attack others in any way.....directly and with innuendos.....
I agree with this.....one attack only begets retaliation and it escalates.....
educated people know the art of discussing things without attack.

 

Restricting free speech can also be perceived as an attack or as oppression to such a person. So I agree with that line.

Not always. Does not mean we should restrict anything by default though.

 

shall I call you a bunch of names for no reason now? Would you like that? I would be exercising free speech....wouldn't I?...but what would I gain and what would I harvest? ...only bad feelings....if someone attacks me...i usually want to retaliate....what are they growing with me but bad feelings and dissension as others may join in and then things all go to hell.