Teacher beheaded near Paris after showing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad

I also wonder how we can make fun of christianity, or other religions, and noone raises an eyelid, but if we say anything bad about islam, we're also racist.

And then the same folks wonder how the right is gaining traction in all democracies across the world.

Illiberal / internet "liberalism" is a bit hypocritical.
 
Christians aren't picked on consistently for 2 decades now since 9/11. Muslim travel ban, Hijab ban, minaret ban, protests when a mosque is supposed to be build, right-wing anti-muslim parties emerging everywhere in Europe. In Germany, a couple years ago, a former politician wrote a book about genetically inferior hijab girls. He literally argued they had genetically low IQ. It was a bestseller. Followed by the usual "freedom of speech" justifications. This woman on the right holds up a sign with Article 5 of German Consitution (Freedom of Speech) in the middle of anti mosque protests infront of a banner which translates to something like "Bravery of Saxonia stops flood of muslims":

1024px-Arbeit_familie_vaterland_transparent_sachsenmut_stoppt_moslemflut.jpg

"Freedom of speech" at this point of time has become nothing but a justification for dog whistle racism. Everyone knows what is being said or meant but it's not being directly said to avoid jurisdiction.

Then couple all of this with the consistent Western meddling in the Middle East.

Now do tell again how Christians are in the same boat just because stuff like Life of Brian exists and there are religion jokes about Christians out there.
I was talking specifically about the cartoons and other disrespectful images and writing - things that are in the same vein as the Hebdo drawings. In any case, there's plenty of violence against Christians going on in the world, I'd be surprised if people don't know about it. Mind you, it doesn't seem to get the same news coverage for some reason.

This from the BBC in May last year:
The persecution of Christians in parts of the world is at near "genocide" levels, according to a report ordered by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
The review, led by the Bishop of Truro the Right Reverend Philip Mounstephen, estimated that one in three people suffer from religious persecution.
Christians were the most persecuted religious group, it found.

Mr Hunt said he felt that "political correctness" had played a part in the issue not being confronted.
The interim report said the main impact of "genocidal acts against Christians is exodus" and that Christianity faced being "wiped out" from parts of the Middle East.

It warned the religion "is at risk of disappearing" in some parts of the world, pointing to figures which claimed Christians in Palestine represent less than 1.5% of the population, while in Iraq they had fallen from 1.5 million before 2003 to less than 120,000.
"Evidence shows not only the geographic spread of anti-Christian persecution, but also its increasing severity," the Bishop wrote.
More at https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48146305
 
I have a very simplistic view on this matter.

Those getting upset about cartoons should pray and reply in kindness than resort to mindless violence. Those who knowingly draw to offend a certain group to prove a point from a legal perspective would likely be expecting some form of retaliation. They are providing ammunition to the ignorant and naive to carry out such atrocities. We can argue as much as we want about the rights and wrongs of both sides but action will have a reaction. It's almost impossible to stop certain people with a crazy mindset however much an Imam or any religious authority will shout from the pulpit.

On a positive note from all the doom and gloom, the good in humanity still exists to a great degree. This is a very tiny minority who will go out of their way to get offended or offend.
 
It isn't.
It is.
It's just a religion.
No, it's not.

It's maniacs abusing it to justify gruesome acts to themselves and their communities that are threatening.
No, those people aren't even extremists.Technically the idea's of what we call a muslim extremist aren't extreme, they arer pretty mainstream in islam. The majority of muslims worldwide believes drawing the prophet or apostasy or homosexuality should be punished and also believe islam is above worldly laws. So those who take it upon themselves to punish those who have insulted islam are not seen as criminals or maniacs. It's not like there is no foundation for that in the texts and the examples set by the prophet. It's not exaclty a 'turn the other cheek' religion. It has always been a totalitarian ideology that spreads by violence and submission, not by convincing people.

The moderate muslims in the West are the exception worldwide that we should cherish, and they are often not that moderate by comparison to other religions and many of them aren't moderate at all. It's like 16th century catholicism but without the forgiving non judgemental hippy guy as the example to live by, but a misogynic, vengeful, antisemitic, slave holding, genocidal warlord instead. I'm sorry but the idea that it's just another religion that will go through the same process of liberation seemed reasonable and even attainable in the 70's, but that ship has sailed, the regular radical islam has been fighting back and winning since. Helped by those who can't face reality and use words like islamophobia.
 
Christians aren't picked on consistently for 2 decades now since 9/11. Muslim travel ban, Hijab ban, minaret ban, protests when a mosque is supposed to be build, right-wing anti-muslim parties emerging everywhere in Europe. In Germany, a couple years ago, a former politician wrote a book about genetically inferior hijab girls. He literally argued they had genetically low IQ. It was a bestseller. Followed by the usual "freedom of speech" justifications. This woman on the right holds up a sign with Article 5 of German Consitution (Freedom of Speech) in the middle of anti mosque protests infront of a banner which translates to something like "Bravery of Saxonia stops flood of muslims":

1024px-Arbeit_familie_vaterland_transparent_sachsenmut_stoppt_moslemflut.jpg

"Freedom of speech" at this point of time has become nothing but a justification for dog whistle racism. Everyone knows what is being said or meant but it's not being directly said to avoid jurisdiction.

Then couple all of this with the consistent Western meddling in the Middle East.

Now do tell again how Christians are in the same boat just because stuff like Life of Brian exists and there are religion jokes about Christians out there.

France neither banned the hijab (it has banned face coverings, not headscarves), nor did it ban mosques, nor did it put a travel ban on Muslims. France being a secular country, bans all visible religious symbolism at school level only. That also means no crosses or stars of David either, not just hijabs.

The idea that Muslims are under attack in France seems well over the top and doesn't remotely justify the response these cartoons generate. So I'm leaning far more towards there being a genuine problem with freedom of speech rather than that being a "dog whistle" for islamophobia.
 
Anyway, I'm heading off to the Marcus Rashford thread, and not for just his footballing exploits. We should be focusing more on those that do good than the crazy minority.
 
How can a non-believer commit blasphemy? I don't see any logic there.
Agreed, how can you offend some lad in the sky you don't think exists in the first place? It's basically peak snowflake behaviour in terms of getting offended on behalf of someone else.
 
I have a very simplistic view on this matter.

Those getting upset about cartoons should pray and reply in kindness than resort to mindless violence. Those who knowingly draw to offend a certain group to prove a point from a legal perspective would likely be expecting some form of retaliation. They are providing ammunition to the ignorant and naive to carry out such atrocities. We can argue as much as we want about the rights and wrongs of both sides but action will have a reaction. It's almost impossible to stop certain people with a crazy mindset however much an Imam or any religious authority will shout from the pulpit.

On a positive note from all the doom and gloom, the good in humanity still exists to a great degree. This is a very tiny minority who will go out of their way to get offended or offend.

A simple view can still be very wrong.

The cartoons are not drawn to offend a particular group, that's just peak disinformation. Charlie Hebdo always took a swipe at all religions.

charliehebdo8.jpg


No one should be looking to get offended from this, no one should be getting angry and no-one should be expecting violent retaliation and shootings for some bloody cartoons.

You can't put that down on "bad guys on both sides". Sorry.
 
How can a non-believer commit blasphemy? I don't see any logic there.

There is no logic. You are right. My view is that this is more than just the cartoon and the brutal murder of a teacher and the poor old lady in the Church. This is pure terrorism on the public. But this is made worse by others intervening and saying all sorts of things.
There was a very good interview on Al Jazeera English with a French guy who explained that these extremists have been reported time and again to the French authorities and why they are unable to stop it.
There will be lunatics everywhere all the time. They need to be stopped. But not demonising a whole religion.
 
Dan Brown literally wrote a book in which Jesus was portrayed as having a kid and married. They even made a movie out of it. I can buy that book at my local store and watch the movie on Netflix.
No you can‘t,
If you do that, the pope will ask Chuck Norris to pay you a visit :devil:
 
Dan Brown literally wrote a book in which Jesus was portrayed as having a kid and married. They even made a movie out of it. I can buy that book at my local store and watch the movie on Netflix.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
 
The difference is that islamophobia doesn't exist. There's never been a case of someone getting terribly frightened with no reason when seeing a mosque or someone looking like a muslim. People who get scared of islam because they're about to get their head cut off or fear muslims will attack their freedom of speech have no irrational fear, but a very real and justified one, so that's not a phobia either.

Islamophobia is a propagandistic term introduced by extremists to silence criticism and warnings for their ideology. Using that word is helping radical islam.

Yes, absolutely. There is no right not to be offended. It's everybody's freedom of religion to not abide someone else's religious rules and ridicule anyone they want, that's exactly the same freedom of religion that allows muslims to be in France and practice their religion in the first place. Not showing the cartoons is kneeling for the totalitarian rule of islam, the claim that their religious rules apply to everybody.

I would agree it's not nice and polite to shove those cartoons under muslim's noses in front of a mosque or something. But that's not the issue with the cartoons. It became an issue because the cartoons were there, in the back of a kiosk in some obscure magazine. So those muslims actually had to make an effort to get offended, and they did. That's not because they're offended in their personal religious feelings, they're offended in their feeling islam rules over everybody so there should not be a drawing that breaks their religious rules anywhere. With a vast majority of muslims worldwide not supporting freedom of religion, and a majority of French muslims, a line has to be drawn. It's not just cartoons, it's also the oppression of moderate muslims in muslim neighbourhoods, often effectively enforcing the headscarf and banning alcohol, it's the difficulty teaching kids about the holocaust en the general antisemitism among muslims. That's not the case in France and that has to be stated clearly, to remind the French muslims who's the boss and to remind them there's freedom religion for all the French, it's not a right of a religion and certrainly not only one religion, but a right of all French citizens. France does not bow to intimidation like so many other countries and everybody who wants freedom should applaud them.
Oh get a grip really I've heard all these BS arguments by right wing extremists already, you clearly have an agenda and looking at your posting history it's not a great look. So you can crawl back into the woodwork.
 
Oh get a grip really I've heard all these BS arguments by right wing extremists already, you clearly have an agenda and looking at your posting history it's not a great look. So you can crawl back into the woodwork.

classic, you’re a racist, you have an agenda, you’re right wing...go away and stop raising problems with Islam.
 
classic, you’re a racist, you have an agenda, you’re right wing...go away and stop raising problems with Islam.
Classic idiotic response. Bye.
 
You're trying to conflate antisemitism, a millennia-long hatred of Jewish people (a race) to Islamophobia (hate against a religious identity) - both are abhorrent by the way! You say that if the critiques levied against Islam were levied against Jewish people, it would be deemed as antisemitism. You are, in my opinion, missing out context, of which Jewish people are not shooting up nightclubs, beheading teachers, or driving trucks into crowds of people. Antisemitism

So Islam gets critiqued. Does some of this wash over into Islamophobia, 100%. Is all critique and commentary on this subject Islamophobic? No. People critique Israel over Palestine and sometimes that is called out as antisemitic when it is genuine critique. Other times the critiques end up being antisemitic in their content and the response is justified etc.

The logical basis for critiquing anyone and everything is obvious.

You and others love to do this thing where you strawman me and try refute things that haven't been put forward by anyone at all. The very first post of mine you quoted with the sentence in bold was in reference to statements or criticisms that are unfounded or without logical basis. There are tonnes of things in this very thread that get wrongly attributed to Muslims; the bloke that brang up the term 'taqiya' for one [implying Muslims should be under constant suspicion because they're allowed to lie and thus have some secret motives], or it could even take shape of being intellectually dishonest and using semantics to deny Islamophobia even exist when we all know what it really means and that it does, or using faulty double standard logic like 'well can you blame people for hating you even though most of you have done nothing' and then be unable to see that terrorists work in similar mindsets. These among other things of course.

You see, even from the very reasonable statement I made your instinct is to be reductive and obfuscate the interaction using incidents of extreme violence as if it had anything to do with what I'm talking about. In fact, you started this post drawing a distinction between race and religious identity, then throwing it up in the air and going the 'well Jews aren't shooting shit up are they' route.

You see this type of faux intellectualism is a huge fecking problem and is rife. Anyways, like I said earlier I give up. You people are going to believe what you want to, I'm gonna stay away from these topics or maybe current events altogether cos I come here to chat football and have a laugh, but then when I realise that many of those people I'm chilling with actually either hate or worse actively doing things that will make mine and my family's lives in Europe more difficult either now or down the line, don't really feel like I've a place here or that I want to.

I really thought for a brief period that after BLM and all the discussions on the effects of colonialism and the subsequent ingrained racism that people would realise there are many dimensions to these problems. But apparently not. It is what it is.

I can only speak for myself, but I do condemn radical baptists who shoot up abortion clinics with the same vehemence as radical Muslims that kill random Catholics. And when radical atheists appear that try to achieve things through barbarity I'll criticise them too.


That said I'll be honest, if anyone is convinced that Muslims are treated in such a way in Europe that justifies beheading people we can not have that person walking our streets. It's that simple really. Cartoon this or that, I don't care. If a cartoon makes you chop someones head off you are not fit for this society.

I respect and agree with everything you said there, though that won't stop people approaching the discussion with me as if I condone what those degenerate piece of shits do or go out of their way to draw their associations with me, one way or another.

The difference is that islamophobia doesn't exist. There's never been a case of someone getting terribly frightened with no reason when seeing a mosque or someone looking like a muslim. People who get scared of islam because they're about to get their head cut off or fear muslims will attack their freedom of speech have no irrational fear, but a very real and justified one, so that's not a phobia either.

Islamophobia is a propagandistic term introduced by extremists to silence criticism and warnings for their ideology. Using that word is helping radical islam.

You and everyone knows what the term Islamophobia means in the framework we use, it is physical verbal and psychological discrimination. It's fear and hate. I know you want to undermine that and subtly suggest that it's only natural to do that to Muslims. Cool, man.

Edit: I won't be posting in this thread anymore so don't @ me.
 
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I don’t think France can win this battle by visibly waiving a big stick. It should publicly adopt a pragmatic approach towards the cartoons (even if it goes against the principle of laïcicité) while devoting all efforts towards targeting the scum who preach this hate.
 
There is no logic. You are right. My view is that this is more than just the cartoon and the brutal murder of a teacher and the poor old lady in the Church. This is pure terrorism on the public. But this is made worse by others intervening and saying all sorts of things.
There was a very good interview on Al Jazeera English with a French guy who explained that these extremists have been reported time and again to the French authorities and why they are unable to stop it.
There will be lunatics everywhere all the time. They need to be stopped. But not demonising a whole religion.

The lunatics getting stopped is certainly one thing, but when a large number of Muslims (even people on this forum) think it's right or normal to get angry and riled up about some satirical cartoons of a fringe publication we have a wider problem. I explained it before, but if a large part of the community gets angry over something so harmless and interprets it as an attack on them, then some lunatic is bound to cross the line and respond with an actual attack. These cartoons make fun of every religion but only one religion's followers widely interpret that as an attack. The rest just roll their eyes and don't give a feck. And then when the attacks happen we see so much deflection, "good on both sides" or false equivalence arguments from both prominent and normal people that it beggars belief.

The Muslim community in Western Europe is seemingly far more religiously conservative and dogmatic on its beliefs than other communities on average. This chafes and causes problems in secular liberal democracies like the one in France. The fact so many of its followers value respect of its religious laws and customs so highly (almost above everything else) is evidently highly problematic. Because they live in countries that went through religious wars, then Enlightenment and then revolution to create states and societies built on reason and not beliefs. The fact there's intense friction between Islamic conservativism and Western liberalism is so self-evident, that it's beyond any reasonable doubt.

Pointing this issue out is not demonising Islam. Nor is ignoring it and burying your head in the sand going to make things better.
 
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It's the Daily Mail. Of course it's shameful rhetoric.

so you immediately discount anything from the mail?

Look troll, someone has already pointed out this guy is a lunatic and is best ignored. I really doubt he has much influence over Muslims.

trololol. I’m just throwing the news article out there. You don’t need to agree with it.
 
Christians aren't picked on consistently for 2 decades now since 9/11. Muslim travel ban, Hijab ban, minaret ban, protests when a mosque is supposed to be build, right-wing anti-muslim parties emerging everywhere in Europe. In Germany, a couple years ago, a former politician wrote a book about genetically inferior hijab girls. He literally argued they had genetically low IQ. It was a bestseller. Followed by the usual "freedom of speech" justifications. This woman on the right holds up a sign with Article 5 of German Consitution (Freedom of Speech) in the middle of anti mosque protests infront of a banner which translates to something like "Bravery of Saxonia stops flood of muslims":

1024px-Arbeit_familie_vaterland_transparent_sachsenmut_stoppt_moslemflut.jpg

"Freedom of speech" at this point of time has become nothing but a justification for dog whistle racism. Everyone knows what is being said or meant but it's not being directly said to avoid jurisdiction.

Then couple all of this with the consistent Western meddling in the Middle East.

Now do tell again how Christians are in the same boat just because stuff like Life of Brian exists and there are religion jokes about Christians out there.

Christ.
 
Look troll, someone has already pointed out this guy is a lunatic and is best ignored. I really doubt he has much influence over Muslims.

Who is excatly the most influential imams, theologians, mullahs or muslim leaders these days? Genuine curiosity, no ill will intended.
 
Having a right and being right are different things.

Of course i'm not saying they're right to be angry only that people have the right to feel emotions. How they channel those emotions is another thing and it's not very responsible in my opinion for people to get wound up and say things that are likely to further incite the minority extreme element of Muslim people who feel the need to commit these barbaric acts.

Getting angry over a cartoon by a tiny, fringe satirical magazine is a problematic response. It's like getting angry because of a meme on the internet.

You don't have to like it or find it funny by all means. But if it bothers you so much that you're getting angry about it, then yes you have issues. The adult response is to roll your eyes and move on.

I agree i think these incidents all stem from the complete overreaction of sections of the Islamic World.
 
An issue is that a sizeable minority of the Muslim population feels the cartoons (blasphemy) are a bigger offence than the terror attacks. So when a cartoon is published, knowing what has resulted in the past, instead of showing forbearance and muting the outrage for the sake of the future victims of an inevitable terror attack, they instead contribute to the feeling within the community that plays a big part in why the attacks occur.

Yeah I agree I think the reaction of some to a cartoon has driven these people to commit these barbaric murders.

A few have already put it much more eloquently that i could but they are right that the only real way to stop these extremists and these terror attacks is for the Muslim community themselves to try to educate their own to be more tolerant and assimilate into western culture. The extremist element of the Muslim community and Islamophobia are both diseases that feed each other and are stuck in a vicious cycle.
 
It's honestly a bit absurd to see the amount of people in here try to rationalize these events.

Some knobhead kills 3 people, one of them an elderly woman, who is beheaded, and the focus from some seems to be that the issue at hand is that their religion was mocked in Charlie Hebdo and that's a bit unfair.

I'm pretty fecking confused when it comes to the stance some people choose to take. I mean, between june 2017 and june 2018 the catholic church in the united states spent close to $200mill in settlements related to clergy sexual abuse.

I really couldn't fecking care less if someone pokes fun at a religion, if someone is so blinded by religion that a tiny publication causes them to behead an elderly innocent woman attending church, then it's pretty fecking obvious that religious leaders around the world have to step in and guide people in the right path, either that or completely bin it off and get rid of it
 
Yeah I agree I think the reaction of some to a cartoon has driven these people to commit these barbaric murders.

A few have already put it much more eloquently that i could but they are right that the only real way to stop these extremists and these terror attacks is for the Muslim community themselves to try to educate their own to be more tolerant and assimilate into western culture. The extremist element of the Muslim community and Islamophobia are both diseases that feed each other and are stuck in a vicious cycle.

Doesn't really help when you have leaders like Erdogan in Turkey.
 
Look troll, someone has already pointed out this guy is a lunatic and is best ignored. I really doubt he has much influence over Muslims.
He was Malaysia Prime Minister and was replaced this year. Doubt he doesn't have influence.
 
The lunatics getting stopped is certainly one thing, but when a large number of Muslims (even people on this forum) think it's right or normal to get angry and riled up about some satirical cartoons of a fringe publication we have a wider problem. I explained it before, but if a large part of the community gets angry over something so harmless and interprets it as an attack on them, then some lunatic is bound to cross the line and respond with an actual attack. These cartoons make fun of every religion but only one religion's followers widely interpret that as an attack. The rest just roll their eyes and don't give a feck. And then when the attacks happen we see so much deflection, "good on both sides" or false equivalence arguments from both prominent and normal people that it beggars belief.

The Muslim community in Western Europe is seemingly far more religiously conservative and dogmatic on its beliefs than other communities on average. This chafes and causes problems in secular liberal democracies like the one in France. The fact so many of its followers value respect of its religious laws and customs so highly (almost above everything else) is evidently highly problematic. Because they live in countries that went through religious wars, then Enlightenment and then revolution to create states and societies built on reason and not beliefs. The fact there's intense friction between Islamic conservativism and Western liberalism is so self-evident, that it's beyond any reasonable doubt.

Pointing this issue out is not demonising Islam. Nor is ignoring it and burying your head in the sand going to make things better.

Don't you understand the double standards in this? Everyone else is free to say whatever they want about Islam and Muslims but the Muslims have no right to get angry. Don't they have the freedom to express their emotions?
I am not saying that the cartoons should not be published and yes they should have the freedom to do so in France but then the Muslimas should have the right to be angry and express their opinion on it without violence. That someone commits violence cannot be projected on to the Muslims because of this. This is not like the Khomeini fatwa on Rushdee. No one issued any fatwa or anything of that sort on the poor teacher. He was murdered because a person thought he should murder him.
 
I agree I think these incidents all stem from the complete overreaction of sections of the Islamic World.

But this overreaction is highly expected when you see how religiously conservative the Islamic world is on average.

In Pakistan 84% of the people, according to PEW research polls, believe that country should be run under religious Sharia law and 63% believe that apostasy (leaving Islam) should be punishable by beheading. The less we talk about Gulf and Arabian peninsula states, the better. In Tunisia, one of the most "liberal" countries in North Africa with freedom of religion enshrined in the constitution, they still arrest people for eating outside in daylight during Ramadan. The state says it has a role as a "guardian of religion" which was used to justify the arrests. Even Turkey, formerly a bastion of Muslim liberalism is gradually rolling back Ataturk's reforms and is funding and founding Islamic schools everywhere and weaponising religion.

Most of the Islamic countries are miles a part from Western liberalism. In those countries Islam has protected status, while minorities face ranging amounts of discrimination and even oppression. Most of them have antiquated blasphemy laws. In their eyes, freedom of speech allowing satirists to take swipes at religion is obviously unacceptable. And when Muslims communities in the West share the same view in large numbers, then we have a serious problem.

People can just blame it on "a few lunatics" all they want. But everyone knows there's deeper issues and those radicalised lunatics are just the evident tip of a wider problem.
 
I have to say, Christians see things which mock their religion every single day. We're told to respond with forgiveness and prayer, not with anger.

After the Christian churches got bored burning people at the stake for disagreeing with you for several hundred years, yes that teaching really started to take hold.

Then when the power to stop people from mocking organized religion was forced from its vice like grip and everyone got on a level playing field for their ideas things moved forward a little.

Agreed.

Which brings us nicely to the point I think.
 
You can't put that down on "bad guys on both sides". Sorry.

That's the ironical part.

It is a bingo of GOP talking points being used here

"bad guys on both sides" (about Antifa)

"asking for it" (about sexually assaulted women)

and the classic whataboutism "the West meddled in the middle east first"