Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad • Hacker News Board

Re: Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

#321

Post by josteink » Tue, Jan 13, 2015, 3:01 PM UTC

geographomics wrote: post #198

pohl wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Race is an immutable characteristic. No one could possibly change their race. It's barely a valid concept. Holding someone responsible for an inseparable part of themselves is both ill-conceived and futile. Religion is software: adopt a baby from a family with a different religion and odds are that the baby will grow into an adult having your religion. It may feel like an inseparable part of oneself, but it is not: i…

Religion might be better analogised to firmware - installed early in the lifecycle by the manufacturers, difficult to replace; most end users would not do so or even consider doing so. If we look at someone who is born into a religion, lives their life holding those religious beliefs, and dies as a member of that same religion - is it valid to assume that they could have separated themselves from their beliefs? Just…

> If we look at someone who is born into a religion, lives their life holding those religious beliefs, and dies as a member of that same religion - is it valid to assume that they could have separated themselves from their beliefs?

Ofcourse that's fully possible. My parents was Christian. They raised me a Christian.

It wasn't until my late teens, when I got a job that I was exposed to a critical thinking crowd. They were very much willing to speak their minds, instead of showing religion some special-cased "respect".

It made me think. It made me reconsider. I'm now an atheist.

But oh boy was the period in between then and now a interesting one. Somehow just asking yourself "what if there is no God?" felt so incredibly wrong and the mind many, many times tried to stop itself thinking that very thought. Confusion is certainly not a sufficient word to describe what went on then.

Anyway today I'm extremely thankful that people didn't show me nor my religion "respect". They treated me with reason, rationality and critical thinking even though they knew it might offend me. Now that is showing someone real respect!

Re: Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

#322

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jan 13, 2015, 3:02 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #92

[deleted] wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> Like we all believe that racism is bad, and racist comments/opinions should be discouraged, then why can't we respect each other's religion? Racism is bad, because you can't choose your race. You can choose your religion (or, in general, what you believe in). I think adults who believe in the existence of unicorns are insane. If you don't find that wrong/offensive, I don't see why the same reasoning couldn't be app…

> Racism is bad, because you can't choose your race.

No, racism is bad because it involves discrimination in many contexts on bases irrelevant to the context in which discrimination is being done; it is not bad "because you can't choose your race".

Re: Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

#323

Post by EliRivers » Tue, Jan 13, 2015, 3:03 PM UTC

xcode_ wrote: post #288

chroma wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only non-violent religions I know of are Jainism and Theravāda Buddhism. The holy books of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all contain passages encouraging their followers to torture, kill, and otherwise harm non-believers. Mainstream adherents followed these directives for millennia. It's taken centuries of conflict with enlightenment values to relegate such views to extremists. After September 11th, I read the…

I've studied Quran too and a bit of comparative religion and nowhere did I find any instance where it preaches violence. Look on the life of Prophet Muhammad for instance (you'll find plenty of non-Muslim accounts on His life that are non-biased) never you'll find any instance where he punished someone just because he ridiculed him. Forget about prophet, just when Europe was going through the dark ages and Muslims we…

"Islam" when translated to english means Peace.

A more common translation is "submission".

Re: Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

#324

Post by mcv » Tue, Jan 13, 2015, 3:06 PM UTC

quonn wrote: post #8

Much better than expected: It's defiance and almost turning the other cheek at the same time.

It's forgiveness and turning the other cheek. It's surprisingly Christian for such an anti-religious magazine.

Also check out the beautiful cover they had after the 2011 firebombing: http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/static/world/charlie_...

Re: Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

#325

Post by georgespencer » Tue, Jan 13, 2015, 3:07 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #188

georgespencer wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not funny or disgusting And therein lies the rub: would you subsequently gun someone down because they made photos of your loved ones which you find distasteful? Almost nobody would.

I could take a photo some someone's male child, photoshop it so he is kissinganother male. That would be enough for some people to murder me. You can argue that only a tiny number of people would murder me, but then it's only a tiny minority of Muslims who consider murder when they hear of Muhummed cartoons.

That's exactly the point. Most (all?) reasonable people would not kill you for that. The minority who would need help.

Re: Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

#326

Post by ilitirit » Tue, Jan 13, 2015, 3:08 PM UTC

q4814 wrote: post #211

ilitirit wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> real satire "Real" satire of Islamic culture has been performed for decades. For the most part, you don't have to include the image of Mohammed for every statement you want to make of Islam. However, I do agree that you should be allowed to do so without fear of violent reprisal. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in at the moment. It's going to take a while before Islamists change their views on this iss…

> It's going to take a while before Islamists change their views on this issue. It's only been 1,500 years. Lets give them a little more time mmm-k?

Why would you do that?

Don't misinterpret me - regardless of whether you post 10000 Mohammed cartoons or 10, Islamists are not going to change their attitudes overnight.

Re: Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

#327

Post by Killah911 » Tue, Jan 13, 2015, 3:08 PM UTC

chroma wrote: post #32

The Charlie Hebdo attacks show that these days, real satire of Islam can't be done without significant risk of violent reprisal. If you doubt that statement, remember The Book of Mormon. (The play, not the actual book.) Could you imagine Trey Parker and Matt Stone making an equivalent Broadway play about Islam? Could you imagine them calling it The Qur'an to Google-bomb the original? Even if they disregarded their ow…

I'm as much for risking your life for a principle as the next guy. But I don't know which principle we're risking our life for. The message the others hate our freedom? (Seriously?)

Are we trying to "teach" these "uneducated and backwards" Muslims what freedom and freedom of speech are? Are we teaching comedy?

Sadly, in many cases those standing for "principles" are being defiant against the authorities in their own countries (as in who the hell is my Editor/Producer/Government to tell me what I can't say) whom the extremists have beef with and are getting caught in the crossfire. Yes, the extremists are wrong. I agree with the government not being able to tell me what I can and can't say. But to ignore reality is a whole different thing.

Let's extrapolate... Publish more content meant to offend so either they get used to it... or some fringe elements in the Muslim world commit terrorist attacks pretending to be the "defenders"... Then our government steps in and bombs said country back to the stone age (which incidentally is where these guys are most comfortable & can grab power the easiest). Think terror victims are pissed off/disturbed? I'm sure some kids in post war Afghanistan are a lot more ruthless than some of the meanest gangsters on our streets.

When I was on the streets, I recall being punched. The first thing that came to my mind was to kill the asshole that punched me, but I was able to catch myself before doing that. I realized that me punching back would eventually not just lead to one of us dying, but possibly his and my friends dying. He was astonished when I didn't punch pack, given I had a size advantage on him. I thought it through and made sure he, or anyone else there wouldn't punch me again, without anyone getting killed. We eventually became friends and started volunteering to feed the homeless.

If we're supposedly intellectually superior, and we're obviously in a superior position when it comes to the exchange of ideas in our society. If we can't stop and think a little more critically, then that's a shame. Principles are great. I know a gang member who is paralyzed from the waist down who really wished he's rethought that decision to fight. Sure the other guy ended up dead. The fight was about the principle of "respect". In the end they both lost.

It's stupid to jump on the bandwagon and stupid to complete forget. This is a good opportunity for us to think... There may be a better solution and machismo isn't necessary noble.

Re: Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

#328

Post by kristofferR » Tue, Jan 13, 2015, 3:09 PM UTC

rikacomet wrote: post #316

kristofferR wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, of course. All the English translations say the same thing, so it's not a translation issue: 33:57: http://www.internetmosque.net/read/english_translation_of_th... 33:58: http://www.internetmosque.net/read/english_translation_of_th... 33:59: http://www.internetmosque.net/read/english_translation_of_th... 33:60: http://www.internetmosque.net/read/english_translation_of_th... 33:61: http://www.internetmosque.net/…

there you go quoting random things from the internet. This is really not worth my time anymore. Should I say two things clearly? 1. I condemn the attack on charlie hebdo. Do you? 2. I condemn the over-the-top carricatures of Muhammad. Do you? Whether your answer is Yes or No, that is your opinion, and this is mine. For the record, any Quran you find over the internet is most likely to be not genuine.For example, ther…

> For example, there are only 30 chapters in Quran. so no.33 is just not possible.

You're confused: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran#Text_and_arrangement

The Quran has 114 chapters called sura's, but the book can also be divided into 30 parts called juz'. The 33th chapter is in the 22th juz' of your book.

Re: Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

#329

Post by jambox888 » Tue, Jan 13, 2015, 3:10 PM UTC

chroma wrote: post #32

The Charlie Hebdo attacks show that these days, real satire of Islam can't be done without significant risk of violent reprisal. If you doubt that statement, remember The Book of Mormon. (The play, not the actual book.) Could you imagine Trey Parker and Matt Stone making an equivalent Broadway play about Islam? Could you imagine them calling it The Qur'an to Google-bomb the original? Even if they disregarded their ow…

I take your point and agree with it but another factor you can't ignore is that there are 1.7 billion Muslims, compared to 15 million (wikipedia'd that) Mormons. Plus, I can't source it right but I have read editorials where broadsheet editors say they've been asked by the government not to print something in the interests of "national security" (IOW they don't want to cause problems with the Saudis or whoever.

Re: Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts prophet Muhammad

#330

Post by totony » Tue, Jan 13, 2015, 3:12 PM UTC

philh wrote: post #299

totony wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your proposition makes no sense, simple warning someone would offend them that way. I relate to the OP that trigger warnings are an insult to my intelligence. If such a thing offends me, I should be able to judge it by myself or stop reading. The title is explicit enough to assume the "triggering" content is present.

Trite response: if trigger warnings offend you, you can choose to stop reading when you encounter them. Or just skip them, they take up one line in any given article. Problem solved! Longer response: I accept that you, and others like you, don't like trigger warnings. What concrete action would you like me to take in response to this? If the answer is "stop posting this thing that I don't like", well... sorry, but I'…

I understand that it doesn't cost much to warn people, I was just stating my disliking of it, not asking for them to be removed. I believe humans should be able to judge things on their own and to handle their emotions at the very least.