Sunday, February 05, 2006

It's Just a Cartoon for Goodness Sake!

This carton kerfuffle in Denmark and now the world is really ticking me off. It is alright for Muslums to call every Non-Muslum in the world an infidel but let anyone question or poke fun at their religion and death threats go out.

Saint Paul realized and wrote about how the Christian religion appeared to those who chose to stay outside of the church door. He said in 1 Corinthians 1:18 (NIV - "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.") -

I agree with him. Think about it. Here is the message of the Gospel in a nutshell. God created a sperm in the womb of a virgin (Human blood is in man's sperm and this blood needed to be pure/divine/untainted by sin). Her child was half God and half man. This Child grew up and never did anything wrong. Not once did He sin so He was totally innocent. He was murdered by pagans and during His crucifixion all the sin of mankind past, present and future was laid on Him. As he was dying he said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." He died and rose again in 3 days.
After the resurrection He went to heaven and sits waiting to return to planet earth at a given time that even He doesn't know. -

Now to me that sounds pretty silly but at the same time I believe it. Why you ask? Because He has shown me HE IS STILL ALIVE! (Ever hear the old hymn, 'He Touched Me'?)

Now back to the cartoons and the Muslum reaction to them. I'm confident that if a Muslum took the core of his religion and stated it as I have done for Christianity then stepped back and looked at it, it would look pretty silly. One difference here though. If I call Christianity silly I don't get death threats from the Pope or his Bishops. Neither do I get death threats from Protestant priests and ministers. Nor do Independent or non-denominational Christians come beating at my door.

What we have now is a group of infidels poking fun at the Muslum religion and (SOME) Muslums proving the point of some of those cartoons. Are the cartoonists right to do this? I think not. It shows them to be oafish and irreverent and careless about others feelings.

That said however does not excuse the rioting, assaults and destruction of property. That is not acceptable behaviour in civilized society. In no way will this type of behaviour result in infidels saying, "What a sweet and pleasant religion! I think I'll join them in their beliefs." Perhaps the rioting Muslums are like the oafish cartoonists and do not care about the conversion and salvation of infidels. Isn't converting infidels part of their religion? Well, They are going against that part of their teachings by their criminal behaviour.

One thing I do know is that if the (MAJORITY of the) Muslum community and it's leaders do not stand up and stop the vandals they are just as guilty in the long run.

If the worldwide Muslum community wants to stay in the 21st century and live in and with the West they are going to have to learn to suck it up once in a while when they get offended. They are bound to get offended. Who doesn't? Atheists are offended by religious behaviour and religious people are offended by atheists behaviour. Vegans are offended by carnivores and vice versa. Name any group and I'm sure you will find someone offended...

Those who can't suck it up without destroying property and injuring people (is that against any rules in the Koran?) need to go back to living as the caricature desert tent nomad and pretend they are in the 8th century. They can't take a laptop with internet connections because they will find themselves offended...

Update: (Thanks/Hat Tip to The Mechanical Eye for the following - quote - This website consists only of an intelligent and reasonable response held by those who disliked the Dutch cartoons but don't agree with the violence some have reacted with. - end quote -

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quote from 'This website' - http://www.sorrynorwaydenmark.com/ -

In the middle of all the mayhem surrounding the Danish cartoons controversy, a group of Arab and Muslim youth have set up this website to express their honest opinion, as a small attempt to show the world that the images shown of Arab and Muslim anger around the world are not representative of the opinions of all Arabs. - ... -

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P.S. I added a couple changes to my original post (Italics) because of the content of the http://www.sorrynorwaydenmark.com/ webpage...