Just showing off the new icon
Yay Gregory! And yay turtle for making it for me!
Okay, so I read a bit more about the Islam cartoon debacle, and it sounds like it started with an act of stupidity on the part of a Danish cartoonist, then spiraled out of control (like ya do). The guy wonders why there are no cartoons of Muhammed, the Muslims reply, "one of the tenets of our faith is that we do not make images of Muhammed," and he and his cartoonist friends make a bunch of cartoons of Muhammed. That's great, that's just really smart right there. That's not a matter of 'these people have no freedom of speech,' that's a matter of 'this is a central belief in a major world religion and should be respected.' Jewish people don't write the word 'God,' Amish toys (dolls and stuff) don't have faces on them because they consider it a 'graven image,' but no one gives them hell about it, and certainly no one would go and throw that in their faces like that--one would think. I know I'm an idealist, but how can people be so stupid and thoughtless? Honestly, what made that man think this was a good idea? It was not a good idea to start riots and kill people either, but now that I know that they were reacting to the Western world acting just like they've always heard the Western world acts, their actions seem less pointless and more provoked.
If we're going to stop hating each other, first we need to stop perpetuating our own stereotypes.
Okay, so I read a bit more about the Islam cartoon debacle, and it sounds like it started with an act of stupidity on the part of a Danish cartoonist, then spiraled out of control (like ya do). The guy wonders why there are no cartoons of Muhammed, the Muslims reply, "one of the tenets of our faith is that we do not make images of Muhammed," and he and his cartoonist friends make a bunch of cartoons of Muhammed. That's great, that's just really smart right there. That's not a matter of 'these people have no freedom of speech,' that's a matter of 'this is a central belief in a major world religion and should be respected.' Jewish people don't write the word 'God,' Amish toys (dolls and stuff) don't have faces on them because they consider it a 'graven image,' but no one gives them hell about it, and certainly no one would go and throw that in their faces like that--one would think. I know I'm an idealist, but how can people be so stupid and thoughtless? Honestly, what made that man think this was a good idea? It was not a good idea to start riots and kill people either, but now that I know that they were reacting to the Western world acting just like they've always heard the Western world acts, their actions seem less pointless and more provoked.
If we're going to stop hating each other, first we need to stop perpetuating our own stereotypes.