Some of the cartoons depicted Muhammed as a terrorist. This was obviously an exaggeration, but it was meant to imply that there is some potential in various strands of Islam to kill over religious issues. Obviously many of those religious issues are only superficially so, and the root cause is some form of political injustice. Having said that, however, I think those who've set fire to the embassies and those marching in London with signs saying: "Europe, your 9/11 will come" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4683002.stm) in response to a few cartoons are dangerous victims of religious brainwashing.
Some European catholics might be very upset about a picture of say the pope getting a blowjob, but I doubt they would be ready to kill over the issue. This is because they understand it would be the most stupid thing to do and that it would deny the core values of their religious message.
Let's face it, we can't call the WTS religion a cult on the one hand, and defend Islam as a perfectly safe religion per se on the other. There's a dangerous element of totalitarianism and dying for nothing but the ideology which we may pretend to ignore, but it shows from time to time.
There is an interesting case, which probably illustrates the core issue here. We have a small community of Tatar muslims in Poland. They've been living here for the last 600 years. They have gone the same path of religious relativisation as most Polish Catholics. They may feel strongly about their religion, but when faced with a blasphemy they will never consider using violence over a strictly religious issue.
What is interesting is that they even find it difficut to understand "fresh" muslims coming here from the Middle East. They perceive them as fanatic and militant. I guess it shows the cultural leap we're seeing here.
Pole
Posts by Pole
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88Seriously, they`re burning down our embassys now.
by Hellrider inthe cartoon-rage continues.
in syria, protesters have now burned the norwegian and danish embassys to the ground.
the latest news is that they are rioting in copenhagen, denmark, where 200 moslems have stormed the sentral station (the railwaystation), and throwing bricks and rocks.
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Pole
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Moslem world outrage over cartoons of prophet
by Hellrider ina few months ago, a danish newspaper printed a set of cartoons about mohammad, the most important prophet of the moslem religion.
a few weeks ago, a small norwegian newspaper followed, and also printed the drawings.
moslems all over the moslem world are now rallying against both the newspapers and the danish and norwegian governments, which they hold responsible for this.
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Pole
Hellrider,
As with many other superficial dillemmas, the criterion to be considered is: who gets hurt and why? In this case, the only "victims" are the few deluded morons setting fire to Danish flags who risk burning their hands in the process. And they are the victims of religious/cultural delusions. That's my honest opinion, at least.
As for showing respect for other religions, many muslims are not the best example of avoiding the terrible crime of blasphemy, so they should at least learn to accept the fact that a Danish newspaper published in Denmark can publish whatever is considered largely acceptable in Danish culture.
"Punishing the newspaper" as some muslims demand would be ridiculous. The eshetic aspect of your argument non est disputandum.
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Moslem world outrage over cartoons of prophet
by Hellrider ina few months ago, a danish newspaper printed a set of cartoons about mohammad, the most important prophet of the moslem religion.
a few weeks ago, a small norwegian newspaper followed, and also printed the drawings.
moslems all over the moslem world are now rallying against both the newspapers and the danish and norwegian governments, which they hold responsible for this.
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Pole
BTW:
The cartoons
Pole -
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Moslem world outrage over cartoons of prophet
by Hellrider ina few months ago, a danish newspaper printed a set of cartoons about mohammad, the most important prophet of the moslem religion.
a few weeks ago, a small norwegian newspaper followed, and also printed the drawings.
moslems all over the moslem world are now rallying against both the newspapers and the danish and norwegian governments, which they hold responsible for this.
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Pole
France Soir, Germany's Die Welt, La Stampa (Italy) and El Periodico are now following suit. This should be interesting. Too bad so many Muslims get so excited about a few silly cartoons in a newspaper nobody has ever heard of before. Oh yeah, I forgot, depicting Mohammed is strictly forbidden by the high moral standards of islam. But then, isnt' burning national flags of another country and issuing death threats immoral too? (of which there have been reports http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4670370.stm)
I guess, the whole situation shows the cultural abbyss between today's Western Europe and many parts of the Muslim world. And their call for the Danish government to "punish" Jyllands-Posten is a good joke. A government punishing an independent newspaper for publishing a cartoon. Yeah, right. Interesting that other newspapers have decided to support Jyllands-Posten. Maybe that will help many muslims to understand something about the western idea of free press? Isn't it a nice contribution to the mutual understanding between our cultures? ;-)
Anybody read Iran's Daily?
http://www.iran-daily.com
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Wow, you gotta read this.
by IP_SEC in.
well might not interest everyone, but about 2/3s down the discussion of scanning and modeling the human brain reverse engineering it into nonbio counterparts is really amazing.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1
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Pole
I don't know. The whole theory is based on constructing a metaphor which maps a selection of phenomena on an exponential function. One could easily piece together a theory of logarithmic development , where things develop very quickly at the begining and come to a stanstill with time:Strong Artificial claims have sparked people's imagination since the 1950s/1960s. Little progress has been made in the area, though. Same with space exploration. Mars should have been taken a long time ago according to the common expectations from the Cold War period.
Pole
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Tribute to Norm Hovland and Co.
by Vormek2.8 innorm is hands down my favorite xjw writer.
i wish he still posted but i guess he's said all there is to say.
in case some on this board are unfamiliar with norm's great work, here's a link to the topics he's started.
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Do The WTB&TS Really Believe They Have Truth?
by prophecor inor are they just stringing the rank and file along, getting every ounce of work out of thier constituents, long enough to pull the next rabbit out of the hat?
those at the top, don't they see where they've made mistakes?
how can they continue in good conscience before the god they profess to serve?
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Pole
Q: Do The WTB&TS Really Believe They Have Truth?
A: Sure, most of them do. Since they made up their own notion of "THE TRUTH" (Armageddon, Paradise, Great Crowd, The remnant, 1914, Jehovah's Kingdom, etc.) and there is nobody around claiming their right to it (who needs it anyway?), they have no choice but believe they have it.
Pilate's question has yet to be properly answered.
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A warning to Auzzies, EUFA, and the Pope!
by LittleToe ina little something for the conspiracy theorists - 24 years apart: .
1981 in review prince charles got marriedliverpool crowned soccer champions of europeaustralia lost the ashes tournamentpope shot .
2005 in review prince charles got marriedliverpool crowned soccer champions of europeaustralia lost the ashes tournamentpope died .
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Pole
1981 In Review
1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes tournament
4. Pope Died
Sorry to bother you, but as a member of a 96% Catholic nation, I have to ask: which pope died in 1981?
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Conspiracy freaks, here`s one for you!
by Hellrider inhttp://profindsearch.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=79&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15 .
the picture is from the watchtower of february 15, 1983. in case i`m not succesful in putting the picture in here, here`s a page you can watch it... .
http://profindsearch.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=79&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15.
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Pole
The article was on "Amazing things have been done with technology"....the Twin Towers were finished in 1972 and 1973 and at the time they were the worlds largest buildings, so that is why they are in the picture!
Yes exactly. And if you look closer at the jet plane, it looks like one of those Concord jets - which was another icon of technological advancement at that time. So the explanation is simple: they wanted to put some stereotypical items of technological advancement on the front page of Awake!. That's why you have the Twin Towers and the Concord jet-plane.
Does anyone have the entire image? I believe there were more icons in this picture, totally irrelevant to the 9/11 issue.
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PROOF OF REBIRTH?
by Dansk inrebirth, as opposed to reincarnation, is a fascinating topic and the following two stories have been taken from the tibetan book of living and dying by sogyal rinpoche (available from amazon books).
the second story, that of a child, came to the attention of the dalai lama and he sent a special representative to interview her and verify the story.
there have been many other rebirth stories published and the subject holds a special fascination for me.
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Pole
LT,
I'm yanking your chain again
I know, and you're good at it!
Meglomanic is a bit extreme. Egotistical might be nearer the mark. But that having been said, some of the humblest people I've ever met believe in reincarnation (incidentally, isn't the concept of "resurrection" a one-off version of reincarnation?)
I am not saying it's something inherently bad. It's part of our survival instinct. If we honestly assessed all the risks involved in leaving our homes every day, most of us would rather stay at home after all. I believe the same kind of harmeless (and somtimes even useful self-delusion) is at work when we try to deal with the most fundamental issues of our existence.We just can't step out of the sandbox of our personal universe contained in the brain and imagine the general universe without us. For me it's quite simple. I have no problems with accepting that nobody was bothered by my conscious self before my physical birth. Why shouldn't it be any different after my physical death? Or why should it be different for such a diehard materialist with no transcendental communication skills or previous life memories as myself?
Pole
