RE: Shots fired in Dallas of mohammed cartoons.
May 8, 2015 at 12:29 am
(This post was last modified: May 8, 2015 at 12:34 am by Hatshepsut.)
(May 7, 2015 at 6:11 pm)Nestor Wrote: I don't think people realize that part of the culture war that secularism confronts in religion, and one of the reasons for the former's relatively recent success in the West, is the ability to take these superfluous beliefs that people treat with utmost seriousness and make them appear to be what they in fact are---totally unserious, and even flat-out silly...
I'm glad to see that someone realizes there is a culture war on. Although I'm not sure the beliefs in question are either superfluous (they form a core part of the personal identities of many believers) or un-serious (they weren't promulgated as jokes). Nonetheless, they are often harmful.
What strikes me with the Muslim thing about drawing Muhammad is this prohibition's ahistoricity. Islam originally forbade "graven images" because it wanted to set its followers apart from nearby pagans who used such images for religious purposes. It also betrays insecurity because a religion that perceives itself as resting on a solid foundation doesn't worry about outsiders who lampoon it. Some theists are able to poke fun at themselves, but conservative Muslims apparently can't.
(May 7, 2015 at 5:59 pm)DeistPaladin Wrote: Islamo-Christians...
...? Is that sort of like Judeo-Bolshevists?
