Masked Gunmen Briefly Take Over EU Office

When will people understand that all religions is based on fake fairytales? I hope Jyllands-Posten and Magazinet will stand by their word and not apologize.

and when would people recpect other people religoins ?

just because you think its fake doesn't make you right

This is about more than simple free speech. It's about the image of Islam in the non-Islamic world. It is the actions of the more extreme moslems that paint a certain and no doubt distorted image of the faith to non-moslems. The published drawings simply reflect the image giving to Islam in the western world by those extremists.

By ranting, raving and setting fire to things in protest that image is simply reinforced.

If moslems genuinely believe that Islam is the one true faith that the whole worls should follow they should take more care to send positive messages about it if they want to win over current non-believers.

The Offending Cartoons

and when would people recpect other people religoins ?

just because you think its fake doesn't make you right

I respect other peoples belief. But there is an limit. It doesn't matter which religion they belive in. All people has the right to free speech and do whatever they feel is right. If someone wants to draw an cartoon of Muhammed they are allowed to, as much as the muslims are allowed to burn the danish flag - even tho it wont help them.

No religion should ever be allowed to say what is right and what is wrong. They can have their ideas and beliefs but they must understand that they cant decide for everyone else.

Simon L:

I think the word tolerance is not in your personal dictionary.

I have a best friend who happens to be athiest yet I've been Christian since I can remember and we get along fine. Just because you have a viewpoint in that you feel the rights of others should not be respected is quite ignorant. You're no better than the people that put pen to paper for creating these cartoons.

I agree with Simon L. I don't believe in gods. So why do people who do believe in a god must keep attracting my attention and saying that I have to believe? Is that tolerance?

Eddy, That possibly is tolerance. You have to believe in Christ to enter heaven, but I am not going to bug you about it all day long and try to reason you into believing on the street. It is the view of Christian that we are the evangelize to the world. How ever this does not mean that Christian are to convert you violently. We are also taught to love everyone and love is an essential part of tolerance. What many people, like the rioters in this story, many Christians, and others, do not understand is that tolerance does not mean acceptance of others views as truth.

I think the ideal situation is when all religions (including atheists) have equal access to the marketplace of ideas and have an understanding that just because another group exists that they are invalidating your views. It may be against Islamic tradition to draw pictures of Muhammad, but these are rule that can only be followed by Islamics. The proper route for disagreement should be through education and polite debate. Not condemning others to hell and trying to be the hand of God in that action.

Just to put this all in perspective: click

Maybe I didn't explain myself.

I do have tolerance in my vocabulary and I have the biggest respect for people and their beliefs. But I don't like when people are forcing other people to belive in something and to decide for everyone else how they should behave.

eddy has a good point.

It's hard to believe that a progressive country like Denmark would promote this sort of intolerance. A cartoon like this just stereotypes an millenia-long cultural tradition based on the actions of an extreme minority during the past couple decades. It's pretty disturbing that this is viewed as ok.

Of course, violently taking over a fairly non-affiliated building is just escalating the situation. Ever heard of public condemnation rather than adolescent rage?

A few bad apples on each side continue to pull us all downhill...

dungbeetlemania: Good link. Everyone should learn to respect freedom of speech, it doesn't matter what the subject is or who is whining.

Simon L:

I don't believe that in this situation the Muslim community is "forcing other people to believe in something and to decide for everyone else how they should behave." I think it is perfectly acceptable for the community to react to the publication of images of their prophet with a bomb on his head with a little bit of outrage (maybe not AKs-and-hand-grenades outrage, but at least letters-to-the-editor outrage.) If newspapers in Denmark published cartoons of Jesus pissing on the ashes of a "witch" in Salem, people in the U.S. would be (rightly) offended. It is highly disrespectful of a religion to demonize their saviour or prophet on the basis of actions made by a few extremist followers.

Muslims aren't asking you to believe what they believe, only to respect those beliefs.

Oh my *insert random*, it's just a cartoon, it's for laughs.

I think the newspapers should issue a public apology very quickly. I believe in freedom of speech, but I also believe in not being extremely rude. The majority of Muslims are nothing like the extremists we hear about on the news, and it is insanely ignorant to draw a cartoon like this. What if I drew a cartoon of Jesus carrying signs saying "God hates the U.S." and "Thank God for 9/11".

(Just in case you were wondering, there actually is a "Christian" group that carries around signs like these.)

What has intolerance got to do with it?

The Danish cartoons were a reflection of the brand-damage which has been done to Islam, in the eyes of the west, by moslem extremists. Moslems might not enjoy it, but there is a lesson for them about the signals they are sending the world about their faith, or at least that the extremists are sending on their behalf.

The extremists' reaction was to overdo the indignant outrage and compound the brand damage.

More moderate moslems need to worry about the impact on how the world sees their faith and try to take a lead in presenting islam in a better light.

I'm a Christian, I read many comics making fun of Jesus and/or God.

They make me laugh, not light bomfires and play soldier.

What if I drew a cartoon of Jesus carrying signs saying "God hates the U.S." and "Thank God for 9/11".

I would probably laught at it, or feel angry and not read it. But I wouldn't go around demanding you to apologize and take it down/destroy/hide the comic(s).

Muslims aren't asking you to believe what they believe, only to respect those beliefs.

So we should only publish, in this case, cartoons that doesn't upset anyone in the whole world? Thats not free speech, heck thats not even democracy!

In a time when the western world attempts to solve its issues with the Middle-East through the use of force, can we expect anymore from Middle-Easterners?

Moslems, Christians, Taoists, Confucianists, Zarathustrists, Janaists, Hinguists, Shintoists, Jews, Aboriginists, and other religious faiths cannot keep arguing and provoking each other.
In Europe, we went through the so-called Crusades which brought about great misery and depravation; In Africa, we have had the constant tribal fiefdom warfare with their respective head sorcerers spearheading their hostilities. In America, we have seen the faith-based, near-annihilation of countless local populations; In Australia, it was simply take, take, take. In Asia, the domination effect went as far down as to produce its own in-house class of castrated servants (eunuchs). And on and on and on.

Even if religions (or the lack of such uniting force) are not constantly propagating these atrocities, we all know that they are party to them, with the many rituals and honors bestowed upon the real actors.

My proposal in this arena is simple enough: Be your own religion, and let everyone else be theirs.

Hinduists, correction.

Trouble is some religions are of the actively proselytizing variety. It's part and parcel of the faith.

You can't tell them to have their own faith and not try to foist it on unbelievers, because the foisting is part of what their faith tells them to do.

Muslims aren't asking you to believe what they believe, only to respect those beliefs.

Then my question is. Why cant they respect our democratic values and ideas, why do we always have to respect their religious beliefs?

The comics that was drawn is satire and they doesn't break any laws in Denmark, Norway or in any other country that embrace democracy. The satire images of Muhammed doesn't differ from other satire images on for example politicians, queens or Jesus.

And like Dennis M Wright wrote:

(...)The Danish cartoons were a reflection of the brand-damage which has been done to Islam, in the eyes of the west, by moslem extremists(...)

Why is religion more important than democracy and free speech?

What if I drew a cartoon of Jesus carrying signs saying "God hates the U.S." and "Thank God for 9/11".

I would probably laught at it, or feel angry and not read it. But I wouldn't go around demanding you to apologize and take it down/destroy/hide the comic(s).

Actually, if you were to make a Jesus cartoon that is of an equally blasphemous nature as these Mohammed cartoons, it would have to be something like a cartoon of Jesus having gay sex and advocating gay marriage. If you put a cartoon like that in a newspaper in America's Deep South there would be an equal violent reaction against the paper. Someone would certainly burn down the newspaper building.