Luxor4u

Teddyboy wrote:I'm quite intrigued by your term "reviling the prophet". Could you perhaps enlighten us as to how he is reviled in this film?

Apparently there is a scene in which an actor playing a buffoonish caricature of the prophet Muhammad calls a donkey “the first Muslim animal” , and the prophet is made out to be a womaniser. That's all I've read; there may be more. But then, that is more than enough.

Hafiz and Tony C. To Buddhists their Monks have a huge religious significance. The fact that they are being so brutally butchered on an almost daily basis is a huge insult to the Buddhist faith. Are they rising up and causing mayhem around the world because of it? No. They are just struggling to defend themselves.

Of course the situation is political as well. Such situations invariably are. The situation in Darfur is as much political as religious. But it doesn't alter the fact that helpless Christian farming villages are regularly raided and destroyed by Islamic Militia. In Southern Thailand the Islamic Separatists want complete autonomy and control of the region and are prepared to engage in acts of extreme persecution of the local Buddhist population in order to achieve it. Does the fact that they have a political agenda as well as a religious one justify their actions in any way? I can't see that it does.

You've put me in your post, but I was confining myself to the depiction of Mohammed in the film. I was offering no thoughts on the wider aspects of persecution!

I wonder if miss-spelling the name of the prophet could be classed as 'reviling' him?

TonyC wrote:You've put me in your post, but I was confining myself to the depiction of Mohammed in the film. I was offering no thoughts on the wider aspects of persecution!

Just because I was trying to draw a comparison. You were saying that the Prophet is at 'the core' of the Islamic faith, that any perceived insult to the Prophet is bound to incite violence and that critics of Islam therefore have a responsibility to 'self censor'. By the same token, Buddhist monks are at the 'core' of the Buddhist faith. They are as sacred and holy to Buddhists as the Prophet is to Muslims. The difference is that they are not just being insulted or 'reviled', they are being brutally murdered. There are degrees of 'wrong'. Do not the Islamic extremists who are perpetrating these atrocities and in so doing so disrespecting the Buddhist faith have a similar responsibility to stop doing that? And also to refrain from burning Churches and Christians? If and when they do they may well find that the non-Islamic world is more sympathetic to their demands that their religion is 'respected'.

This is a violent smallish protest against a religious insult. It's not an insurgency, ethnic cleansing, civil war etc. Except for Libya, I'm not aware of any western/Christian deaths and the Libyan situation is a bit unclear. Two protesters have been killed in Egypt. This isn't as big as it looks its a series of violent demonstrations not a planned military campaign.

The Prophet has been attacked not his mullahs, imams or priests. There's a big difference.

Given that everyone knows the sensitivity of this issue you don't need to be a genius to guess the reaction - and these film makers knew what they were doing and they have got what they wanted. They share the responsibility for the blood

Wishing that Muslims would behave like we do on religion misses the point. They hold these views and they are not going to change them anytime soon. Given this, any sensible person/Government will tread carefully. For example, in personal relations you don't continually goad friends/family with comments you know will set them off. It's not very useful and is often prompted by malice. They hold different views and they are not going to change them for you.

I've read that the film implies pedophilia - Christians would likely react pretty strongly to any Egyptian film about Jesus which alleged the same. The reaction in the Bible-belt would likely be ugly. Lots of people can get pretty angry when their religion is attacked.

On a positive note, which shows striking even handedness at this tense time, a respected Cairo group which includes Salafis is taking legal action against a mullah who burnt a bible outside the US embassy last week. They say that this an offense against religion. http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/fo ... le-burning. Amazing.

Timetraveller, the post from Hafiz above says everything I would want to say in reply. He even saves me the trouble of posting the link I'd prepared about the Bible-burning incident.

But even when we do tread carefully Hafiz it doesn't really work. For example a recent 90 minute documentary here in the UK "Islam: The Untold Story" presented by Tom Holland examined the veracity of the traditional story of the origins of Islam and came to the conclusion that these traditions were unreliable to say the least.
Holland presented the programme in a very respectful manner (sometimes painfully so) but the programme still received 1200 complaints, Holland was abused and threatened on his twitter account and a public showing of his film was cancelled by Channel 4 after threat against Tom Holland.
How far do we go to pander to what Salman Rushdie yesterday described as the "thin skinned paranoia" of some Muslims?
Jesus was portrayed as a gay man in the play "Corpus Christi" which was put on in theatres from NY to California and even in Austin, Texas. Certainly there were complaints but nobody was killed, no buildings were ransacked or burnt and no UN workers were beheaded.

"They say that this an offense against religion."

They would say that, wouldn't they? Nevertheless, a bible is a book; paper and ink, nothing more! I really cannot imagine a Christian being so simple minded and idolatrous to suppose that anyone burning a bible should deserve the full weight and majesty of the Law to be brought against him?

Although the bible is often referred to in Christian circles as 'The word of God', we all know that the 'Word of God' is not actually contained in any book. Jesus is the 'Living Word of God', and is now beyond any physical ill will emanating from mankind. (Been there, done that, and got the scars to prove it!)

"Given this, any sensible person/Government will tread carefully."

It's perhaps a pity the Jews hadn't tread a bit more carefully in Germany in the 30's then. I mean, they knew what Herr Hitler was about, didn't they? And I'm sure that the troublemakers in Idi Amin's Uganda could have been a bit more circumspect as well!

"The Prophet has been attacked not his mullahs, imams or priests. There's a big difference."

Sorry to add this separately, but I've just remembered, and I'm 99% positive, that I read somewhere that Muhammad gave explicit instructions that he was not to be revered above other prophets, and that he was just a man!
If that's so, then how is the film blasphemous? And why is any 'attack' against him such a 'big difference'?

TonyC wrote:Timetraveller, the post from Hafiz above says everything I would want to say in reply. He even saves me the trouble of posting the link I'd prepared about the Bible-burning incident.

Well, if you're not taking the trouble to post it then you are obviously making no comment about it and obviously I can't respond.

Hafiz, just because we know that Islamists are very quick to be moved to violence when they perceive and insult to their religion there is no reason why the rest of the world should 'walk on eggshells' or be held to ransom either by their threats of violence or actual violence. No other religious or political group wields such power and has the rest of the world desperately trying to 'appease' them, and neither should they. Islam is just one of the religions humankind observe. It should not be held as any more or any less important than any other. The Prophet may be of extreme significance to them (but not, I believe, more significant than Monks are to Buddhists), but they cannot expect him to be equally significant to non-Muslims. And no amount of violence will change that.

And as for burning Bibles or the Koran. It's an insult, for sure, but it's also symbolic. Burning a live human being is an outrage of an altogether different magnitude!

The Bible
The Qur'an
The Bhagavad Gita
The Book of Mormon
The Holy Piby
The Talmud
When you are in prison and need a cigarette paper any of the above will do, it's not the content it's the 'quality that matters. The quality of the paper that's what's important....
Religion? 'spare me the rantings' of sheep. 'Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all. ~William Shakespeare, Henry VI