February 7th, 2006 “Not the suffering, but the cause for which one suffers, makes the martyr.” -Augustine
Should Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten have published the cartoons of Muhammed, given that they knew the oral tradition of Islam considers any depictions of Allah or Muhammed to be blasphemy? Do followers of Islam have a right to protest? Are acts of violence against the blasphemers of Muhammed justified?
EDIT:
I just read French President Jacques Chirac’s response to the cartoon crisis: “Anything that can hurt the convictions of another, particularly religious convictions, must be avoided. Freedom of expression must be exercised in a spirit of responsibility.”Mr. Chirac: Your comments offended a number of people who hold strong convictions concerning freedom of expression. Judging by your standard, you should have avoided any discussion of such a controversial and sensitive topic. If responsibility in expression primarily entails avoiding hurting people’s convictions (by which I assume you meant, “deeply offending people”), there would be pitifully few important subjects we would be free to discuss.
There ought to be a distinction made between the form and the content of expression, or between _how_ we say and _what_ we say. We should avoid speaking in an offensive manner, but we should not avoid a topic solely because it might offend someone. The “spirit of responsibility” in which we excercise our free expression should not entail avoiding certain topics, but rather: 1) to the best of our knowledge, not misleading people by _what_ we express and 2) to the best of our ability, not alienating people by _how_ we express.
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I am not familiar with that debate.
However, I did want to draw attention to renewed discussion on the APOLOGETICS OF LOVE, Part I, a couple of threads back.
This discussion is key in reaching our culture for Christ and any opions, critiques, disagreements are obviously allowed and would be very welcome.
You have let three MEN define what LOVE is in apologetics and that is a scary thing in and of itself! :)
I find myself quite conflicted by the whole cartoon controversy. While the whole “bomb in the turbin” likely wasn’t the most “politically correct” thing to print, it does represent how a large portion of the modern west views Palestinians (especially after this whole Hamas debacle), Syrians, etc. However, I largely think the middle east needs a “dose of its own medicine” as derogitory cartoons of the Jews are ROUTINELY run in their publications. Funny how it works when they do it, and they can burn down embassies when it’s done to them.
Just my “average joe” opinion.
Why do I suddenly feel like Chris “quotations with my fingers” Farley?
Pardon my spelling, I typed this out rather quickly.
interestingly enough, those cartoons were published in the danish press LAST OCTOBER. They were objected to by some Danish Muslim Clerics in November, but since then (almost 5 months later) there has been little if any anger over them until now . Furthermore, its been interesting that the UN and the US both have noted that the governments of Iran and Syria have been promoting and organizing protests in their countries. If I was the conspiratorial type, I’d say its just a islamic publicity stunt to get the attention off of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
JBrock: Definitely — let’s keep the discussion going. Soon I’m going to publish Part II of that post. As for the men defining apologetics so far: Women, this is an official request… please come talk about apologetics with us!
Jared “quotations with my fingers”:
Yeah, I think sometimes “political correctness” (now you’ve got me doing it) goes over the top. On the other hand, it is one way of not alienating people by how we talk, so it can be a good thing as long as it doesn’t overly diminish the _content_ of the statement by softening the verbiage. And yes, there is most definitely a double standard going on with these riots…
ACB: I’ve been having similar thoughts myself, although I didn’t know the cartoons were first published that long ago. The timing seems awfully good, doesn’t it?
The violence is totally reprehensible, but I understand the (overt) reason for the protests themselves: Rembember the artist who photographed a crucifix submerged in urine and named it “Piss Christ”? Or how about the artist who used pornographic images and elephant dung as part of his work, “The Holy Virgin Mary”? Christian groups protested outside the galleries, and in both cases people attacked the pictures themselves, attempting to destroy them and labeling them blasphemous. What about the pro-life extremist who shot a doctor who performed abortions in order to prevent him from killing more babies?
Granted, I think this is a different situation in some ways. I think one important difference is that in the art & abortion cases, only a few extremists participated, whereas in the cartoon case, the extremism seems to be widespread in the Islamic world.
Are these comparisons fair?