The Onion satirizes Middle East protests with X-rated cartoon

[racrguy]

Haven't had a need to, but I guarangoddamntee you, if I catch someone on my property, regardless of what they're doing, it's dirty Harry time.

[mikec]

They don't want to put Momo in the picture, because it'd change the whole point of the satire.

We have this illicit picture, and we don't have Christians, Jews or Buddhists running around firebombing places or storming The Onions Headquarters looking for blood.

It mocks the fact that the rest of the worlds religions can handle something that pokes fun of or compromises their beliefs, but the animalistic Muslims cannot.

That sir, is valid!

[Geor!]

No, I don't think I should get a pass at all. And I absolutely believe in private property rights. You cross my property line you had better have an invite or warrant. By all means, do try to control me. I'm more than willing to let you try.

The fact that I've not injured a single person in 8 years says quite a bit.

Haven't had a need to, but I guarangoddamntee you, if I catch someone on my property, regardless of what they're doing, it's dirty Harry time.

So if a kid throws a baseball into your yard and jumps the fence to get it, it's huntin' season?

[racrguy]

They don't want to put Momo in the picture, because it'd change the whole point of the satire.

We have this illicit picture, and we don't have Christians, Jews or Buddhists running around firebombing places or storming The Onions Headquarters looking for blood.

It mocks the fact that the rest of the worlds religions can handle something that pokes fun of or compromises their beliefs, but the animalistic Muslims cannot.

I agree with these statements, but it wasn't always that way. Here's a post by a redditor that may shed a little light on the subject. I removed part of his post regarding politics, as it has nothing to do with the information contained in the post and the board only allows 10000 characters in a post. I'll post the link so you can read it in its entirety.

So my father sent me this email:

@&@&@&@&@&@&&@&@&@&@&@&&@&@&@&@&@&&@&@&@&@&@&

So, what's your take on the Libyan attack/destruction of the US embassy in their country, their rape and murder of the Ambassador; he was known as a really down-to-earth man, shared meals in the homes of his country, great representative for our peace, joy, and love program. Egypt is burning US flags, trying to replicate Libyan atrocities against our folks who are "guests" in their country, and 20 other Muslim nations are on the same rampage. In Libya, Libyan troops kinda ignored the horror, US Marines were only allowed to use rubber bullets to dissuate the attack, yeah, they were killed as well.

Oh, shit, I forgot. It's 9/11.

"They" obviously have not forgotten.

I actually watched the Presidential Press secretary on Fox News tell the world "Oh, It was not directed at the US, it is just a new generation of rebels"

I am very interested in your opinion.

Dad, former US Intelligence officer, Naval Security Activity "Spook", Vietnam ELINT officer (stupid war) and numerous other assignments not really reasonable to chat about.

Hail ramadan !

@&@&@&@&@&@&&@&@&@&@&@&&@&@&@&@&@&&@&@&@&@&@&

My response:

Well... Here's my perspective.

I know, probably more than 90% of America, what exactly has been happening in the Middle East. Let me just say what I have seen has led me to believe that Islam is NOT a "religion of peace." (Which i will get into detail MUCH MUCH later.) Islam, in it's current form, is very similar to Medieval / Dark Ages Christianity. It is a religion of supremacy and exceptionalism. Bloodshed and conquest. Christianity, in times gone by, was at the root of terrible bloodshed - the Crusades and The Inquisition come to mind. I personally believe that this is the danger inherent to all forms of religious ideological fanaticism whatever the flavor. HOWEVER - there is a HUGE difference between modern day Islam and modern day Christianity. Christianity, situated as it has been in Western Europe, experienced two phases of cultural enervation: The Renaissance and The Enlightenment. The prior was a shift of perspective that generally liberalized an otherwise homogeneous society. Old ideas were rediscovered and glamorized. People embraced all sorts of non-cannon ideas about life, spirituality, and even sexuality. The Enlightenment, in my opinion, was even more important - it was a period of time in which religious dogma and subsequent explanations ceased to be sufficient for many inquisitive intellectuals as a new force took command of the Western world - Reason. The paradigmatic shift away from a religious doctrine as the basis of social order (theocracy/Monarch - Church) to a society based on reason and consent of the governed (republic / democracy) was exactly what paved the way for modern multicultural societies to thrive in Western Democracies. In fact, that is the VERY REASON the U.S. Constitution forbids government endorsement of a particular religion. (Note: though you may disagree and insist the "founding fathers" were Christian and merely intended that there be no one Christian denomination should receive special treatment from the Government - you cannot deny that the essence of what they intended was to protect a minority population who ascribe to one belief system from being oppressed by a majority who believe differently - whether we're talking about Protestants and Catholics or Christians and Muslims, the dynamic is the same.)

Now, think about the Middle East. By and large, MANY areas of the Middle East were left behind by modern society. More to the point, there wasn't an equivalent of an Enlightenment in these regions of the world. That isn't to say that the Middle East didn't experience it's own Renaissance. They did. The Arab World at one time was analogous to Ancient Greece in its wondrous achievements in the areas of Science and Mathematics (Fun Fact: Our numbers are based on the Arabic numbering system). However, due to a long and sordid history the Muslim world fell by the wayside.

Now fast forward to the 20th century.

There are SO MANY things going on in the Muslim World.

The single most IMPORTANT THING to understand about Islam is the concept of the "Umma." Umma refers to the body of believers across the world. Any Muslim, anywhere, is part of the Umma. It's much like the "Body of Christ" but in Islam, it is widely regarded (based on the Koran) that any attack on one Muslim is the same as an attack on ALL Muslims. In my opinion, it is one of the most unique aspects of Islam.

Now, keeping that in mind...

The creation of the state of Israel by forcibly evicting the native Arab Muslim people created a rift of resentment that will NEVER heal so long as the United States and other nations allow Israel to continue to disregard international law and murder Palestinians without ANY consequence.
Much like the Catholic church, Islamic societies are by and large not a big fan of contraception. Considering the particular socioeconomic climate (Read: Third World) of many predominantly Islamic societies, this has led to an ENORMOUS POPULATION BULGE. I don't know the exact figure, but something like 25% of all Muslims are under the age of 25.
Islam places a HUGE priority on education. In countries like Egypt, Tunisia, and Lybia, this is PRECISELY what led to the Arab Spring. Honestly, if you go back and read the writings of Karl Marx, you will find exactly the same forces acting upon the West are what lead up to the popular uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). You have rapidly industrializing societies in which people moved, in great numbers, to massive urban settings. Due to a MASSIVE bulge in youth, you have an ENTIRE GENERATION THAT IS COLLEGE EDUCATED BUT CANNOT FIND JOBS. This is what led a poor Tunisian college graduate to set himself on fire in desperation in the streets over being cited for trying to sell fruit without a permit. This act of desperation resonated throughout the Umma. This is what started the Arab Spring.
Now, this is important: Arab societies have in the 20th century been under the strict control of dictators. Dictators that skimmed wealth off the top of society for their own benefit, leaving the rest to languish in squalor. Sound familiar? If so, that's because the Occupy movement here at home was an analogous response to this economic divide. That's why there were people in the streets of Cairo holding signs demonstrating their solidarity with Americans. Now, this is where I'll get into the particular differences between the West and Islamic societies.
In the absence of essential social services being provided by dictators who largely exploited their position of power at the detriment of the rest of society, Islamic organizations - like the Muslim Brotherhood - filled in this essential gap. The importance of this CANNOT BE UNDERSTATED. This is the reason the Muslim Brotherhood - which espouses a particularly right-wing Islamist ideology founded in Saudi-funded Wahhabism - have such a POWERFUL hold on Egypt today. The people of these countries, feeling as though Capitalism has betrayed them and left them out in the cold, seek alternative answers. In the West, this was Communism. In MENA, this is Islamism. The key difference is that the views on what constitutes an ideal, post-capitalist society GREATLY differs. Islamism believes that people need to return to the fundamentals of Islam as outlined in the Koran and Hadith (the Muslim equivalent of the Talmud) and embrace the Islamic Law as it existed in the nomadic Bedouin context of the warlord Mohammed's "society".
The story of the founding of Islam is a bloody and sordid history of conquest. Wonder where the ideas of 72 virgins and stories about paradise (Dun-ya) come from? Well as a warlord, you need to encourage your warriors to fight and die for your cause somehow - what better way than to promise them outlandish shit like 72 virgins to make them jump at the chance to die a "martyr" ?
The United States is a prime target for Islamist angst because the United States has fucked around in the Middle East WAY too much because we wanted Oil, and have proven we are willing to do whatever it takes and kill whoever we need to and overthrow democratically elected governments (which led to the Iranian revolution) whenever we goddamn feel like it.

There is MUCH MUCH MUCH more to all of this, but everything I've said is a pretty damn good start.

To be continued...

[racrguy]

To bring this back to what's happening now, the reactions to a shitty anti-islam movie produced by a former Egyptian and Coptic Christian are really not surprising. In Islam, Mohammed might as well be God the way in Christianity Jesus IS God. To insult the Prophet is to insult ALL OF ISLAM. Now, we're talking about societies in the modern world who hold fervently on to Dark-Age mentalities. Mentalities that say, not unlike ancient Judaism, that the entire world needs to bow under the banner of Islam for peace to be reality. I know FIRST HAND that people from MENA are the single most EASILY OFFENDED demographic I've encountered in my work at a major UGC internet company. While they are the fastest growing internet demographic, they are also the most antiquarian in their sensibilities. I mean, many Islamic societies force women to wear veils and full body suits because they're SO GODDAMN PATRIARCHAL AND CHAUVINISTIC THAT THEY SINCERELY BELIEVE THAT WOMEN WHO GET RAPED MUST HAVE BEEN ASKING FOR IT BECAUSE MEN ARE NOT ONLY INCAPABLE OF PREVENTING THEMSELVES FROM SEXUALLY ASSAULTING WOMEN, BUT ANY WOMAN WHO SHOULD HAPPEN TO BE RAPED MUST HAVE BEEN ASKING FOR IT. (Honestly, In my opinion this sounds a lot like a handful of Republican politicians in the US, but that's another matter). Again, we're dealing with a fundamentally medieval religion founded by an illiterate warlord who had sex with a 9 year old when he was in his 50's. Mohammed lived in a bloody and ancient time - this kind of thing was not uncommon. Shit, several prominent figures in the bible had dozens of wives and slaves and stoned women to death for being unlucky enough to be raped. The danger with Islam is that you have a whole contingent of people who insist that the ancient ways are the best ways.

Now, I think its HORRIBLE that these things in Lybia and elsewhere have happened. It is inexcusable and barbaric. What is important to understand is that many of the people who participated in the Arab Spring have been under the rule of one dictator or monarch or Caliph of Sultan for hundreds of years. *They are not yet familiar with the concept of free speech or the freedom to dissent. All aspects of their media have heretofore been controlled closely by their governments, and they do not really understand that in the West the government is not directly responsible for what is produced by its citizens - meaning, they do NOT understand the full extent of what "Freedom of Speech" entails. This is exactly why governments have asked the U.N. to ban criticism of Mohammed. They just don't fucking get it. *

(Here's where I edited out the political portion)

TLDR: The Middle East is experiencing a collective aneurysm over his video because Islam is a Dark Age religion with a profound sense of international community and are capable of butthurt levels over 9000.

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/zx392/so_my_staunchly_christian_father_asked_me_about/

So if a kid throws a baseball into your yard and jumps the fence to get it, it's huntin' season?

trollololol

[Forever_frost]

So if a kid throws a baseball into your yard and jumps the fence to get it, it's huntin' season?

I don't have neighbors, thus we won't see

[Vertnut]

I've never maliciously injured another person, ever, in almost 30 years. You get no cookie.

Shocking...

[line-em-up]

They don't want to put Momo in the picture, because it'd change the whole point of the satire.

We have this illicit picture, and we don't have Christians, Jews or Buddhists running around firebombing places or storming The Onions Headquarters looking for blood.

It mocks the fact that the rest of the worlds religions can handle something that pokes fun of or compromises their beliefs, but the animalistic Muslims cannot.

Though I couldn't find the words, that is the point I got from it. I think they want to show which religion(s) are the peaceful ones.

[Jester]

I've never maliciously injured another person, ever, in almost 30 years. You get no cookie.

well......that counts me out. lol

and im off my meds.

[GhostTX]

Wednesday will be interesting!

French Mag to Publish Cartoons of Prophet Mohammed
...
A French satirical magazine is set to publish several cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed on Wednesday, a move that is likely to inflame the Islamic faithful and militants who have already rioted in more than 20 countries over a movie mocking the prophet.
...

http://news.yahoo.com/french-mag-publish-cartoons-prophet-mohammed-214916307--abc-news-topstories.html