....a fucking cartoon...are you shitting me?
Ok, I think it's about time I put my 2 cents in about this whole idiotic ordeal over a freakin cartoon.
A cartoon.
Firstly, here's an interesting link with many images of muhammad from history to present day:
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/
Now, how ridiculous is this situation here? I mean rioting, flag burning, killing over a freakin cartoon. This is stupidity at amazing levels. I don't care what your belief system is, or what religion you follow. There is no justification for that sort of reaction and behavior.
I'm catholic, and I'm sure people would say "what if they did an offensive cartoon regarding Jesus?"
It's been done already...not only cartoons, but movies (Dogma comes to mind), sculptures, paintings, music, websites, etc. Now I'm not particularly happy about those things. However, I'm not going to buy an AK-47 and go shoot up the local Wallmart in protest. I'm not going to bomb everyone involved in making the movie Dogma (since I mentioned that movie, I'll stick with that example). Even mangas and animes don't get it right, according to Catholic teachings, when it comes to depicting stories involving angels, and other christian themes, but I still enjoy those animes and mangas when plot and visuals are good. I've seen some mangas that are kind of blasphemous. I just put it down and not read it anymore.
What I find even more hilarious is that the US media are such pussies that they won't even show the cartoons while all of Europe has reproduced them. The US, great proclaimers of the first amendment and freedom of the press, won't put up those images. However, they have no problem bashing Catholics, making shows which blatantly offend christians (example, Will & Grace "Cruci-fixins" episode...which I believe will not actually air, much to my surprise), and that show where Jesus in one of the two major characters, I could go on and on and on. Hell, I could find something offensive in terms of depictions of Christ and such in just about anything really.
This gets to the point I've always made. People...ok, a grand majority of people (i'll be fair here), are stupid. People should not get offended by depictions of anything, because they are just depictions by people who don't truly understand what they are depicting, or they didn't mean any real harm, or it was in a historical setting.
I'll elaborate: Let's look at something everybody at one point or another has seen, lets say, Warner Brothers cartoons. You know those cartoons with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer, etc etc. Now many people have claimed those to be racist and offensive. Why? Because of how a mexican mouse acts I guess (Speedy Gonzales....which confuses me actually, why would you be offended when a mexican mouse kicks Sylvester's ass every time...I can see their point about the drunk mice singing and such...), Pepe LePieu I suppose say that the french stink, Foghorn Leghorn pokes fun at southerners, the blackfaces that characters have when they get blown up offends blacks (not to mention the Mammy figure, also seen in Tom and Jerry cartoons), Italians are depicted as big nosed spaghetti sucking idiots, and I could keep going.
Now I grant that those things could be considered offensive. My point is that is you look at it from a different perspective, such as he time period it was made in, the philosophies of that time, the historical political and global situations, you can look at these things from a different perspective. I look at them for what they are, period: A cartoon made in the 1940s, for example.
Some will say, what does that have to do with the muhammad drawing? Everything. People with intelligence should brush off any criticisms they see or hear from other people in any form. Again, I have seen many an offensive image of Jesus and yet I don't beat the ever living snot out of my neighbors dog just because of that. They want to offend my beliefs and most importantly God? Let them. Ultimately, isn't their judgment due in the afterlife if that's what your belief says? So let the Judge judge and you live your life. Killing, rioting, threatening, maiming, kidnapping is no answer, and we're talking about a response to something REALLY bad, not a fucking cartoon.
A cartoon.
Firstly, here's an interesting link with many images of muhammad from history to present day:
http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/
Now, how ridiculous is this situation here? I mean rioting, flag burning, killing over a freakin cartoon. This is stupidity at amazing levels. I don't care what your belief system is, or what religion you follow. There is no justification for that sort of reaction and behavior.
I'm catholic, and I'm sure people would say "what if they did an offensive cartoon regarding Jesus?"
It's been done already...not only cartoons, but movies (Dogma comes to mind), sculptures, paintings, music, websites, etc. Now I'm not particularly happy about those things. However, I'm not going to buy an AK-47 and go shoot up the local Wallmart in protest. I'm not going to bomb everyone involved in making the movie Dogma (since I mentioned that movie, I'll stick with that example). Even mangas and animes don't get it right, according to Catholic teachings, when it comes to depicting stories involving angels, and other christian themes, but I still enjoy those animes and mangas when plot and visuals are good. I've seen some mangas that are kind of blasphemous. I just put it down and not read it anymore.
What I find even more hilarious is that the US media are such pussies that they won't even show the cartoons while all of Europe has reproduced them. The US, great proclaimers of the first amendment and freedom of the press, won't put up those images. However, they have no problem bashing Catholics, making shows which blatantly offend christians (example, Will & Grace "Cruci-fixins" episode...which I believe will not actually air, much to my surprise), and that show where Jesus in one of the two major characters, I could go on and on and on. Hell, I could find something offensive in terms of depictions of Christ and such in just about anything really.
This gets to the point I've always made. People...ok, a grand majority of people (i'll be fair here), are stupid. People should not get offended by depictions of anything, because they are just depictions by people who don't truly understand what they are depicting, or they didn't mean any real harm, or it was in a historical setting.
I'll elaborate: Let's look at something everybody at one point or another has seen, lets say, Warner Brothers cartoons. You know those cartoons with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer, etc etc. Now many people have claimed those to be racist and offensive. Why? Because of how a mexican mouse acts I guess (Speedy Gonzales....which confuses me actually, why would you be offended when a mexican mouse kicks Sylvester's ass every time...I can see their point about the drunk mice singing and such...), Pepe LePieu I suppose say that the french stink, Foghorn Leghorn pokes fun at southerners, the blackfaces that characters have when they get blown up offends blacks (not to mention the Mammy figure, also seen in Tom and Jerry cartoons), Italians are depicted as big nosed spaghetti sucking idiots, and I could keep going.
Now I grant that those things could be considered offensive. My point is that is you look at it from a different perspective, such as he time period it was made in, the philosophies of that time, the historical political and global situations, you can look at these things from a different perspective. I look at them for what they are, period: A cartoon made in the 1940s, for example.
Some will say, what does that have to do with the muhammad drawing? Everything. People with intelligence should brush off any criticisms they see or hear from other people in any form. Again, I have seen many an offensive image of Jesus and yet I don't beat the ever living snot out of my neighbors dog just because of that. They want to offend my beliefs and most importantly God? Let them. Ultimately, isn't their judgment due in the afterlife if that's what your belief says? So let the Judge judge and you live your life. Killing, rioting, threatening, maiming, kidnapping is no answer, and we're talking about a response to something REALLY bad, not a fucking cartoon.