Re: Caption, please.
 

Re: You (all) lie!
 

No.

But I think it's worth noting that the prohibition on even depicting Muhammad has no useful analogy in Christianity, though it does in Judaism. Each believes polytheism is a sin that cannot be forgiven. Add to that (1) Islam's belief that there actually is an afterlife where people are punished for sins and (2) Islamic belief that we are all as responsible for the sins we allow as we are for the ones we commit, and you can begin to get your head around the idea that faithful people are entitled to take unilateral action against sinners -- stoning the woman in the low-cut dress, or stabbing people who depict the Prophet.

I have no interest in defending these notions, but it makes me happy to describe them. So anyone who responds with "but . . . " is only going to get a response if they agree in advance that I am neither a Muslim nor an apologist for fascists. We should all be students of how other people think without being accused of sympathizing with them. As you might be able to tell, I feel burned by otherwise intelligent people on this board losing sight of that difference in the past.

Re: You (all) lie!
 

Re: You (all) lie!
 

I can't find a single fact in here that isn't highly questionable.

Seeing Adder slam you on iconoclasm is rich indeed. You're not the one I would have chosen to be entirely ignorant of a major theological issue in early christianity. But some notion of where you get the rest of your thoughts would be useful. Some of what you say sounds like some of the myths Geertz shredded 40 years ago - are you that old?

Re: You (all) lie!
 

Thou shalt make no graven images.

I just thought it was time someone used a source more reliable than Wikipedia.

God, this shit is pathetic. My son is 13. He may make jokes about racial or ethnic "others" without sounding stupid. He is developmentally workiing out his discomfort with the huge amount of "isms" in our society and also working through the fact that people are viewed as different.

Aren't we a little older and more mature than that? We can tell racist, sexist, etc. jokes, but nobody over the age of 21 can legitimately say that they don't know those jokes will offend more people than they amuse.

Between this board and the PB (which I looked at because of Hank's cross-pollination), can I just suggest you all drop it? What are you, a bunch of fucking retards?

* Adder, I'm using this post as a jumping-off point, don't get pissy or I'll beat the craap out of you next week when I'm in DC.

** Yes, Hank, Earl Butz was forced to resign. He spent the remainder of his life paying for sex, looking for a pair of comfortable shoes, and never going outside so that he would always have a warm place to go to the bathroom.

Re: You (all) lie!
 

Anyone with time on their hands want to summarize Salazar v. Buono (cross transfer from public to private land case) for me. Six opinions. 3–2-3–1 split. Best I've got so far from a comment on Volokh is:

Re: You (all) lie!
 

move to other thread--

Re: You (all) lie!
 

I said useful analogy. The Christian iconoclast controversy is potentially a useful analogy to the Muslim prohibition on depiction of humans and animals in mosques. But I do not consider it a useful analogy for discussing a specific prohibition on depicting Muhammad anywhere, at any time, in any way. Ask me to find you a portrait of Jesus and at any point in history I could find you thousands, even if there were also thousands who wanted those portraits destroyed. Ask me to find a Muslim's painting of Muhammad, and I might not be able to do so even if I could travel the world.

Re: You (all) lie!
 

Hey, here's an idea -- if something's wrong, say another thing. As it is, you've merely invented an even more obnoxious way of saying "Cite please," which I'll grant you is an accomplishment.

Re: You (all) lie!
 

do you consider this sacred? we end threads at 5000 posts.

Re: Caption, please.
 

Seeing gaffes like that, I think its safe to say the Fourth Estate is pretty much indistinguishable from the Blogoshere.

Congrats, Ty. Next time Hank flags you for citing blogs, you can cite me for the proposition the papers are no better.

Re: You (all) lie!
 

No, but I'll rank religions on credibility:

Lets start with Zoroastrians. Several of their tenets were co-opted by the Jews. The Christians stole a whole book from the Jews and added another. Islam stole a whole bunch of stuff from the Jews and the Christians and emphasized the incoherent, violent angles of the teachings.

Islam's like a new model BMW. You don't go buy the new 7 Series when it comes out (See: IDrive Controversy). It's a fucking mess for a few years until they get the warts out of the thing. Judaism's smoothed out over time into a rational, elegant way of looking at the world. Simple, concise, and rational. Christianity still has some warts, but outside the radicals and pedophiles, it's getting there - sort of following the shift from spirituality to rational-guidebook-for-living Judaism took.

Islam... Well, Islam's still a mess. They were moving in the right direction with it a 800-1000 yrs ago when it was the religion of great philosophers, mathematicians and scientific thinkers. But something went wrong. They changed the model, badly, and its been a lemon ever since. Until they fix it, I see no reason to worry about silliness like whether it enjoys a double standard. It's like your neighbor's LR3 Range Rover. Of course it's a piece of shit. But what do you care? Your neighbor has his head up his ass. He's probably going to be foreclosed on any day. If he comes over to your house and tells you your Suburban's a piece of shit, and you need to get what he has, just smile and nod.

Re: You (all) lie!
 

"Muhammed Playing Cards with Dogs" draws a fat zero in Google results. That's a shame.

Re: You (all) lie!
 

I can 2 all of this, but if we're ranking credibility it helps to set the lower limit. Rastafarianism and Scientology are tied for least credible theology, with Christianity a close second, and then Judaism and Islam tied for third. Hinduism isn't even a datapoint -- either it's right or it's stupid but there's mo way of knowing by looking at the four corners.

Re: You (all) lie!
 

Of course, you could also just check out the top link on searching google for "islamic images of mohammed", but, you know, I, too would prefer to travel the world.