Je Suis Charlie - The Bear and Badger

Brooks

It's pretty hard to demonstrate the value of your ideals when a cursory glance at the actual conduct of your state and citizens suggests you don't even always value them either.

Yossarian

Just realised I misread that page I linked to earlier, support for honour killings is down to 3% of young Asian Muslims, and is at 4% of Christians and Sikhs.

Outlaw

IanHamlett wrote:

The whole religion has to come to terms with its rules only applying to people that are part of that religion. You can't eat bacon, you can't draw mohammed, you can't earn interest on your bank balance. I can do all those things and you don't have to punish me for it because the being that created the universe has got it covered.

I completely agree with this, but this applies to every religion. In America they are constantly and consistently trying to erode women's reproductive rights in the name of their religion. I am of the opinion that if they want to wait until marriage, if they want to believe foetuses are children and if they don't want to have abortions then fine and dandy for them. But they do not get to dictate those same restrictions to everyone else. Yet they are doing - on a colossal scale. In Ireland women who need abortions are dying because their laws put the foetus's rights above the mother's. It's not just Islam which is fucking shit up for others.

IanHamlett

I'd like to see a proper breakdown of those stats cos they seem to be skimming with "young muslims" and "young asian christians" but yes. Christianity also needs dragging into the 20th century.

@Outlaw - agreed.

[Deleted User]

Universally people need to get the fuck out of each other's faces.
The internet is not helping this scenario, we are more connected than ever and therefore more invasive of other's worlds.

Kow

IanHamlett wrote:

@kow piss taking is how taboo subjects get brought up.

It's interesting that you used a passive form to write that, as if it's an internationally understood practice. Which it (clearly) isn't. I think there's definitely a great misunderstanding among groups of people as to what is important to each group.

Yossarian

IanHamlett wrote:

I'd like to see a proper breakdown of those stats cos they seem to be skimming with "young muslims" and "young asian christians" but yes. Christianity also needs dragging into the 20th century.

@Outlaw - agreed.

The PDF's in the link. Knock yourself out.

I presume you looked into the original 2006 stat as well.

Kow

Ironically, while Facebook is full of support for Charlie and free speech, there's a petition going around to block the production of a Channel 4 comedy set during the famine in Ireland, even though the writer is Irish and nothing at all is known about it yet.

[Deleted User]

I think Facebook would have a petition for "socks before trousers vs socks after trousers" if you looked for it.

Kow

I think they're moving towards 50,000 signatures.

Kow

People are all for free speech when it's somebody else that's offended.

IanHamlett

Yossarian wrote:

IanHamlett wrote:

I'd like to see a proper breakdown of those stats cos they seem to be skimming with "young muslims" and "young asian christians" but yes. Christianity also needs dragging into the 20th century. @Outlaw - agreed.

The PDF's in the link. Knock yourself out. I presume you looked into the original 2006 stat as well.

Yup.

JonB

The problem with free speech is that it also needs some level of equal speech to function properly. Any society that champions speaking out against the extremes of Islam or whatever should also be set up to air the views of Muslims of various kinds on an equal footing. I don't just mean a formal right BTW, but a media and public sphere that makes the views of Muslims part of its daily discussion.

In fact, even the most contentious of issues, Israel and Palestine, tends to favour the Israeli narrative in the media, and that's monitored more closely than anything. For the most part, you wouldn't have a clue what people in Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Iraq, or even Muslims in Europe think about things, yet you'll know very well all the criticisms against them and their beliefs, thanks to free speech. And nobody ever became a terrorist who thought they had a voice in society.

IanHamlett

A lot of the Israel Palestine coverage follows the global warming model of "hey, both sides have a point" when it shouldn't be presented as equal sides.

Lord_Griff

Nobody better fuck with my invisible mate Dave.

IanHamlett

I watched some american news last time it kicked off and had my head in my hands. I don't feel like I'm getting the full story but those fuckers don't stand a chance.

Yossarian

Related:

Aziz Ansari vs Rupert Murdoch.

IanHamlett

Some okay points there and Rupert Murdoch is clearly the most evil man alive but did Mark David Chapman shoot John Lennon because of his religion? Did he have the sympathies of 20% of his countrymen that shared his religion?

You all know I hate all religion but Islam does have some specific problems and I think we've tried the "it's just a few extremists" thing long enough.

Yossarian

So what are these 'specific problems' then?

[Deleted User]

Islamic time of the month.

mistercrayon

Kow wrote:

IanHamlett wrote:

@kow piss taking is how taboo subjects get brought up.

It's interesting that you used a passive form to write that, as if it's an internationally understood practice. Which it (clearly) isn't. I think there's definitely a great misunderstanding among groups of people as to what is important to each group.

Piss taking done on the terms of outsiders is hardly an encouraging way to bring people out of their opinions. If anything it will likely harden peoples codes.

Lord_Griff

Hadith...

IanHamlett

Yossarian wrote:

So what are these 'specific problems' then?

Glorifying martyrdom, doing martyrdom and taking a busload with you, freaking out over drawings, killing schoolgirls for being girls that go to school, lashing victims of rape, lashing blasphemers, marrying victims of rape off to their rapists. I suppose the specific problem would be thinking any of this shit from the 1400s is anything close to being fine.

Yossarian

The problem with your argument is that the majority of Muslims do not do, or support those that do any of those things, so that rather undermines the argument that it's an issue with Islam, no?

IanHamlett

Just like the majority of Catholic Priests weren't paedophiles.

Yossarian

But the Catholic Church as an institution was guilty of covering up known instances of paedophilia.

Yossarian

Not that I'm entirely sure what the equivalency is here.

Diluted Dante

RamSteelwood wrote:

i don't normally step into serious conversations for fear of revealing my true stupidity, and let me be clear that i'm not defending murder of people or this specific incident (just in case it ends up reading like that).

but isn't the 'right of free speech' simply a belief held by a particular group of people? isn't it just an element of the modern 'religion' of the west? we don't believe in god, we believe in 'rights' like free speech and buying as many ipods as you can carry. isn't it just arrogant to assume everyone else should have the same belief, or that any group that doesn't are inferior and behind the times?
even then, like most religions, aren't some beliefs open to interpretation? to some, the 'right' of free speech means no one has to suffer in silence, that if you disagree with things you have a right to speak up and be heard....but for others it means they can say whatever they want about whatever they want without any fear of repercussions?
again, not saying murdering people is right at all, i'm not talking about charlie hebdo in particular.
it's just there seems to be an element of "i can say what i want without fear because that's what i believe in, and therefore i can mock those that don't share my belief but I still expect them to react in line with my own beliefs".

I think that not expecting someone to murder you for a drawing is pretty reasonable. If someone is of the belief that killing someone over a drawing is ok (and I'm far from convinced that the killers actually gave a shit) then I'm perfectly happy to consider your belief fucking dumb.

You should expect opposition, you should expect criticism, but you shouldn't expect to be killed. I'm totally ok to be considered arrogant for expecting people not to kill people over some shitty cartoons.

Yossarian

There's a difference between pointing out that rights such as free speech are socially constructed and not necessarily universally held and stating that murdering someone for insulting you is okay.

LarryDavid

Obviously it's hard to tell what the true motives of the terrorists were but I'm guessing media coverage, radicalising other people and drawing an inevitable backlash (which only serves to radicalise even more and can be used for propaganda purposes) would probably have been considered. Or simply to be seen to be 'fighting back'.

I'm sure from a hard line Muslim point-of-view the cartoons were offensive but I'm equally sure given their backgrounds and the places they'd been, if it wasn't the cartoons then they would've found some other reason to cause mayhem. But then I'm not Muslim so it's hard to judge how offensive the images were.

The fact young radical Muslims seem to find it so easy to hop over to Iraq or Syria and come back with assault rifles and rocket-launchers seems a concern. Unless I'm underestimating how easy it is to get a Kalashnikov thesedays.

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