Pam Geller planning bus and train ad campaign featuring Muhammad cartoon

[Tallguy88]

Don't know.

You chose a great example though. That word is used regularly within major league sports and I have heard that it is used within minority communities a great deal. It is only "whites" who seem to be under restricted use of the word. Does that even make sense? Is this word really the premier insult among all possible insults?

In group, out group. My friends can insult me harshly while we are drinking and I'll laugh and give it right back to them. Some stranger says something like that, we're going to have a problem.

 

[Armoured]

On a personal level that may be true.

Yet, the fact remains that freedom of speech applies to offensive speech ... or it applies to no speech at all.

Muslims in this country somehow overlook the "gay agenda" and they overlook women's dress codes and they overlook a hundred other heretical conflicts between Islam and American culture. The American culture after all is one of tolerance for all. Why should we accept intolerance from any particular religion?

Now here's a deliciously meta self contradiction.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I like watching Family Guy, but don't watch South Park much anymore. I do think it is extremely low brow when they make fun of God or Jesus. So, I put this Geller woman in the same category as them: just looking for a cheap reaction because they ran out of actual good material to use.

Material aside, that still doesn't change the fact that there's a double standard at play.

While many might agree that certain humor is low brow, it still doesn't change society's perspective on it.

Nobody accuses Seth MacFarlane of Christianphobia, and nobody accuses Trey Parker of Mormonphobia when they point out, what they feel, are absurdities within the religions.

Nobody is calling either of them Bigots...

This point is especially valid considering that those two are far more mainstream than Pam is.

You can make fun of other religions in a very widely received media and it wins awards, you can't even take a bus ad out about Islam without be called "thoughtless/bigot/Islamaphobic/etc"

 

[Tallguy88]

Material aside, that still doesn't change the fact that there's a double standard at play.

While many might agree that certain humor is low brow, it still doesn't change society's perspective on it.

Nobody accuses Seth MacFarlane of Christianphobia, and nobody accuses Trey Parker of Mormonphobia when they point out, what they feel, are absurdities within the religions.

I've heard many harsh criticisms of MacFarland's treatment of religion in his works. Less about Parker and Stone, they're old hat. I've never heard of this Geller woman until the recent brouhaha.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Point of order, the "depictions of the prophet" bit isn't actually part of the Muslim religion, it's just a tradition that has grown within Islam.

This, to me, suggests that the average Muslim fundamentalist extremist who get's all bent out of shape by such a depiction has more in common with our average Christian fundamentalist extremist, i.e. not nearly as much knowledge about the thing they claim to be experts on as they would like to think.

As discussed in another thread, the key difference is the misinformation within the Christian communities lead to religiously biased legislation (which is still a big problem that should be addressed) and some protests that can be considered mildly annoying at best. Misinformation in the Islamic community ends with someone getting their head cut off in a soccer field or a cartoonist being targeted for a violent attack.

This politically correct idea of "all religions have their extremists" is problematic in terms of trying to address an issue.

I will agree that there was a day a long time ago when Christianity held the title for "worst extremists", however, that was some time ago and trying to pretend that the two are on level playing field isn't an accurate portrayal of reality.

 

[NightHawkeye]

In group, out group. My friends can insult me harshly while we are drinking and I'll laugh and give it right back to them. Some stranger says something like that, we're going to have a problem.

Why? Doesn't Christian tolerance come into play?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I've heard many harsh criticisms of MacFarland's treatment of religion in his works. Less about Parker and Stone, they're old hat. I've never heard of this Geller woman until the recent brouhaha.

that accentuates my point even more IMO.

If two well known people can present that kind of stuff and a major media outlet that reaches millions with the network's endorsement with very little backlash (I personally have never heard a secular person call for the silencing of Seth).

However, a virtual nobody can take out a bus ad and secularists nationwide are getting their undies in a bunch.

I ask, was there ever any nationwide backlash or criticism when these billboards started going up at the hands of 'American Atheists'...

Nobody really made a peep about it...until they released this one:

(which matches the Christian one above)

When they released this one, CNN ran an article about how "Anti-religious group targets Muslims"

...and other atheist groups tried to immediately distance themselves from it...like freedom from religion, who commented stating that they felt the "anti-muslim" billboard was rather "combative" and "unnecessary"

...funny, their opinion on the matter was conspicuously absent when the group was bashing Christians, Jews, and Mormons.

For the record, I agree with the American Atheists right to purchase the billboard and bash whatever religion they want...freedom of speech.

I want to see some consistency among the people in terms of their attitudes toward free speech.

When it's an idea they want to protect, they fight for the first amendment tooth and nail. When it's an idea they don't like, they rebuttal with that tire old contrived "fire in a theater" response.

 

[Tallguy88]

Why? Doesn't Christian tolerance come into play?

Why would a Christian tolerate hate speech?

 

[Tallguy88]

that accentuates my point even more IMO.

If two well known people can present that kind of stuff and a major media outlet that reaches millions with the network's endorsement with very little backlash (I personally have never heard a secular person call for the silencing of Seth).

However, a virtual nobody can take out a bus ad and secularists nationwide are getting their undies in a bunch.

I ask, was there ever any nationwide backlash or criticism when these billboards started going up at the hands of 'American Atheists'...

Nobody really made a peep about it...until they released this one:

(which matches the Christian one above)

When they released this one, CNN ran an article about how "Anti-religious group targets Muslims"

...and other atheist groups tried to immediately distance themselves from it...like freedom from religion, who commented stating that they felt the "anti-muslim" billboard was rather "combative" and "unnecessary"

...funny, their opinion on the matter was conspicuously absent when the group was bashing Christians, Jews, and Mormons.

For the record, I agree with the American Atheists right to purchase the billboard and bash whatever religion they want...freedom of speech.

I want to see some consistency among the people in terms of their attitudes toward free speech.

When it's an idea they want to protect, they fight for the first amendment tooth and nail. When it's an idea they don't like, they rebuttal with that tire old contrived "fire in a theater" response.

Those anti Christ ads made big waves, including national and local news. One went up in my hometown (the Christmas one). I didn't know they also made fun of Muslims and Mormons.

 

[NightHawkeye]

Why would a Christian tolerate hate speech?

How is it "hate speech"? It's no more than an insult ... and at the time it was "banned" not even that among most who used it ... and it certainly is not the worst among all possible insults which might be articulated.

 

[Tallguy88]

How is it "hate speech"? It's no more than an insult ... and at the time it was "banned" not even that among most who used it ... and it certainly is not the worst among all possible insults which might be articulated.

The n word is prejudicial hate speech. If you don't see how that is offensive to so many people, I don't know what to say.

 

[TLK Valentine]

Yes, that's is my point.

Every religion gets poked fun at, only one seems to be reacting this harshly...as discussed nobody is worried when South park rips on Jesus or makes Jewish Jokes, nobody is worried when Weird Al makes an "Amish Paradise" song, nobody was worried about the Book of Mormon Musical.

The fact that Islam is the only one that incites that kind of fear in people suggests that there's an issue with Islam, not Pam Geller.

Islam seems to be the only religion we, as a society, do this for. In every other instance we defend free speech over all else, when it's Islam that's the target, society changes it's tune to put the onus on Pam to shut up instead of putting the onus on Islam to reform themselves in terms of their response to criticism.

In the rare instances where abortion clinic personnel were injured by Christian extremists, we certainly didn't blame the pro-choice people "you caused this by provoking the pro-life crowd, you should think before you act!"

Some people did, but that's beside the point.

What's also beside the point is whether the violence is inherent to Islam or just incidental -- a byproduct of the sociopolitical climate.

There are literally millions of Muslims who take offense but choose not to act on it, so claiming that the violence is inherent is a bit of a tough sell.

Can a Christian, Jew, or Mormon be provoked to violence? Of course. I'm sure with enough effort, you could even goad an Amish guy to take a swing at you.

Some Muslims are a lot more thin-skinned than zealots of other religions... and this is said by someone who's had his tires slashed by Christians. Nothing new under the Sun.

Bottom line is, if you throw enough rocks at any hornets nest, eventually you will get stung...

...and nobody's going to blame the hornets.

 

[NightHawkeye]

The n word is prejudicial hate speech. If you don't see how that is offensive to so many people, I don't know what to say.

Oh, I see how it's offensive. Offensive is quite different from "hate" though.

 

[High Fidelity]

Don't know.

You chose a great example though. That word is used regularly within major league sports and I have heard that it is used within minority communities a great deal. It is only "whites" who seem to be under restricted use of the word. Does that even make sense? Is this word really the premier insult among all possible insults?

Difference between 'a' and 'er'. Let's not pretend there isn't.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

There are literally millions of Muslims who take offense but choose not to act on it, so claiming that the violence is inherent is a bit of a tough sell.

Bottom line is, if you throw enough rocks at any hornets nest, eventually you will get stung...

...and nobody's going to blame the hornets.

I understand that the majority of Muslims don't act on it, I'm simply claiming that the minority of them who do act on it, tend to act out in far more extreme ways than the minority of zealots from other religions...and that the "acting on it" occurs more frequently in the Islamic ideology than in others...

Obviously it's not just coincidence...so I think that does make a case for some of the violence being inherent to the religious doctrine itself.

The fact that we're even having this Pam Geller discussion shows that even progressives are acknowledging that Islam is a whole different kind of "hornets nest" than the other religions, however, their politically correct approach is to question why Pam Geller is doing what she's doing rather than questioning "why would you want to hurt someone over a cartoon or bus ad?"

I have no doubt in my mind that if someone made an inflammatory comment about Christianity, and a Christian escalated it to violence of some sort, there would be no shortage of progressives that would use that as ammo against Christianity.

I gave props to Sam Harris for coming out an saying this (and take a lot of heat from his fellow liberals in the process).

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Those anti Christ ads made big waves, including national and local news. One went up in my hometown (the Christmas one). I didn't know they also made fun of Muslims and Mormons.

big waves in the secular community like the Pam Geller case?

 

[Tallguy88]

big waves in the secular community like the Pam Geller case?

I think I saw it on Fox or CNN.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I think I saw it on Fox or CNN.

I wouldn't really consider those secular communities, those are more Republican and Democrat based political commentary (which both have huge audiences that are self-professing Christians)

My apologies for not being a clear as I should have...when I said Secular, what I was referring to was (Atheist, Agnostic, Unaffiliated)

 

[Aryeh Jay]

About two years ago, a guy in Florida wanted to burn Qurans. There was a huge outcry among the left, not because it's bad form to burn another region's holy book, but because it would trigger violence by the adherents of that religion, the aforementioned "religion of peace". That's the difference between the pagan and barbaric religion of Islam and Christianity, I guess. When a Quran is burned, violence. When Bibles are burned, such as the United States Army did in 2008, only prayer. Once again demonstrating that the Biggest difference between Christianity and Islam is that we build hospitals, while Islam fills hospitals.

The Bibles were written in the languages Pashto and Dari. Is the US government into the business of forced conversions to Christianity now?

 

[TLK Valentine]

I understand that the majority of Muslims don't act on it, I'm simply claiming that the minority of them who do act on it, tend to act out in far more extreme ways than the minority of zealots from other religions...and that the "acting on it" occurs more frequently in the Islamic ideology than in others...

Obviously it's not just coincidence...so I think that does make a case for some of the violence being inherent to the religious doctrine itself.

Then we should be able to look into the doctrine and find it.

The fact that we're even having this Pam Geller discussion shows that even progressives are acknowledging that Islam is a whole different kind of "hornets nest" than the other religions, however, their politically correct approach is to question why Pam Geller is doing what she's doing rather than questioning "why would you want to hurt someone over a cartoon or bus ad?"

I will give Christian terrorists this much over Muslim terrorists...

When a Christian plants a bomb in a clinic, they more often than not have the courtesy to phone ahead first -- the really smart ones forego the bomb entirely and stick with the phone call, having already inspired the requisite terror.

When a Christian terrorist, such as Scott Roeder, guns down an innocent man, such as Dr. George Tiller, he is usually courteous enough to use a handgun, and not something splashier, such as an RPG.

On the whole, Christian terrorists seem to be a lot more sensitive about collateral damage than Muslim terrorists. Now, whether that's a religious distinction, a cultural distinction, a political distinction, or just a case of being more batguano crazy, I can only speculate.

(Personally, I think given the political history of the region, collateral damage just doesn't faze them as much as it would us, but that's just my opinion)

I have no doubt in my mind that if someone made an inflammatory comment about Christianity, and a Christian escalated it to violence of some sort, there would be no shortage of progressives that would use that as ammo against Christianity.

Agreed -- but given the number of Conservatives who use such violence as ammo against Islam, you're not exactly going out on a limb with that prediction.