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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... world.html

Perhaps it's fatalistic of me to say, but I think such things are going to continue to happen until such a time as Islam reaches a reformation along the lines of what Martin Luther did for the early Christian church. Egypt's President even discussed it recently:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/06/afric ... nt-speech/

Islam reaches a reformation along the lines of what Martin Luther did for the early Christian church.

I don't think those things can happen anymore. Or I should say, it is much, much harder to do so. Everyone has a voice today, that can reach millions and millions of people without much effort. It makes it too easy to have these types of splinters. It doesn't matter that there are nearly 2 billion Muslims that don't condone violence. It is the <.01% that commit heinous acts that cause people to lump them all together. "Christians" kill more innocent people in America than any other group, but that doesn't mean that main-stream Christians support/condone it.

This is a really depressing news story. All for just making jokes and cartoons. People would really kill for that? Sad.

"Christians" kill more innocent people in America than any other group, but that doesn't mean that main-stream Christians support/condone it.

The big difference is that contemporary Christian and Jewish ideology do not call for the subjugation or death of nonbelievers. There is a difference between a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew committing a crime for a non-religious purpose versus a C/M/J committing a crime and saying 'this is for the honor of God/Yahweh/Allah". The latter occurs more frequently than not in one of those three groups for a reason.

Mori Chu wrote:This is a really depressing news story. All for just making jokes and cartoons. People would really kill for that? Sad.

Graven images of any sort are frowned upon in fundamentalist Islam; that's one of the reasons why the Taliban blew up some of the oldest sculptures in history prior to 9/11.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/m ... ukeharding

Dan H wrote: "Christians" kill more innocent people in America than any other group, but that doesn't mean that main-stream Christians support/condone it.

The big difference is that contemporary Christian and Jewish ideology do not call for the subjugation or death of nonbelievers. There is a difference between a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew committing a crime for a non-religious purpose versus a C/M/J committing a crime and saying 'this is for the honor of God/Yahweh/Allah". The latter occurs more frequently than not in one of those three groups for a reason.

Fair point, Dan. But I don't think they really believe they are doing it for Allah. They are doing it for the religious leader that told them it would be for Allah. Similar to the Christian Identity movements, which still accounts for plenty of deaths in the US each year (jews, blacks, other non-whites).

Either way, this is an awful, awful thing. France has long had a very anti-tolerant society (especially with dark-skinned people), and this is only going to push it further in that direction.

I read a tweet today that said something to the effect of "If I believed in an all-powerful being, I am sure he could conduct his own murders..."

Indy wrote:

Dan H wrote: "Christians" kill more innocent people in America than any other group, but that doesn't mean that main-stream Christians support/condone it.

The big difference is that contemporary Christian and Jewish ideology do not call for the subjugation or death of nonbelievers. There is a difference between a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew committing a crime for a non-religious purpose versus a C/M/J committing a crime and saying 'this is for the honor of God/Yahweh/Allah". The latter occurs more frequently than not in one of those three groups for a reason.

Fair point, Dan. But I don't think they really believe they are doing it for Allah. They are doing it for the religious leader that told them it would be for Allah. Similar to the Christian Identity movements, which still accounts for plenty of deaths in the US each year (jews, blacks, other non-whites).

Either way, this is an awful, awful thing. France has long had a very anti-tolerant society (especially with dark-skinned people), and this is only going to push it further in that direction.

I read a tweet today that said something to the effect of "If I believed in an all-powerful being, I am sure he could conduct his own murders..."

Hard to say one way or another. Do you take them at their word, or not? I dunno.

Good point about France, they have essentially ghettoized their immigrant populace in terms of policy and living arrangements.

I'm taking a bit of offense to the following characterization, though:

Similar to the Christian Identity movements, which still accounts for plenty of deaths in the US each year (jews, blacks, other non-whites).

The last instance I can find was the murder of George Tiller in 2009. Do you have a citation for this reference? One in five years is hardly the definition of "plenty".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_ ... _extremism

If you are saying you don't think white-supremacy groups have killed anyone in the name of their beliefs in 5 years then I don't know. They may not claim it is "Christian Identity" but that doesn't mean it isn't. Many of the Klan leaders and white-power leaders across the U.S. have adopted the beliefs.

A Google search for "Christian Identity Movement terrorism" has quite a bit of info.

Just saying, the list on Wiki is pretty thorough and it's slim pickin's in comparison to London, Mali, Madrid, Paris, Boston, New York, etc.

Great take by Bill Maher:

[tweet]@billmaher 22m22 minutes ago
Condemning attack is not enuf: unless U strongly endorse the right of anyone to make fun of any religion/prophet, U r not a moderate Muslim[/tweet]

I completely disagree with Maher on that. You don't have to strongly endorse people making fun of your religion to be considered moderate.

I'd settle for the Mormon response to "The Book of Mormon". They took out funny ads in the playbills on Broadway.

Agreed on that. And don't get me wrong. I think it is great to have a sense of humor about your religion. But being a moderate doesn't mean you are encouraging people to degrade it.

Am saddened by the attack, but not surprised.

I'm Agnostic. I look at Muslims and Christians the same. The two sides believe in two different books and believe each other to be following a false religion. Even in their own religions there are different sects that each one believe to be the right and everybody else wrong.

If you live in the US you are probably a Christian that thinks Muslims are bad evil violent people following a false prophet.

If you live in a Muslim country you are probably a Muslim that thinks that Christians are bad evil violent people following a false prophet.

If you live in the West you see news reports of terrorists attacking Western targets.
If you live in the Mideast you see reports of the West attacking places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Face it, if you are a young guy living in the Mideast, there is a good chance you are Muslim and if you pay attention to the news there is a good chance you hate America. Your local media (Iman)tells you America is evil, stealing your country's resources, killing your fellow Muslims, torturing them, urinating on them, burning the Koran, making cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed making fun of him. It is your duty to fight against them. America calls these guys terrorists.

I think the war on terror is the same as the war on drugs. A waste of time. The more terrorists you kill, the more you make.

Nodack wrote: I think the war on terror is the same as the war on drugs. A waste of time. The more terrorists you kill, the more you make.

But if we aren't fighting a war we aren't doing our jobs as Americans.

That's true. We have to have somebody to fight at all times to justify the amount we spend on our military. At the same time we do need a strong military to keep other powers from exerting their "manifest destiny". It is a balancing act and a huge game of world chess always being played. We as humans get the watered down version of every story that always makes our side look like the good guys, but in reality there are no good guys and bad guys.

Dan H wrote:http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... /21417461/

Ridiculous

Even though I don't believe in either religions, I believe people believe in those religions. Knowing that defacing the Koran or drawing pictures of Mohamed are punishable by death in their part of the world I would probably respect their beliefs and not do it.

Doing it is legal in the US and France, but if you are doing it you must not have any respect for their culture or religion. Being part of the media and doing it is like making a sign that says FU Islam! and then broadcasting it to the world. They intentionaly set out to insult Muslims and did.

Burning the American flag is legal, but I wouldn't reccomend doing it in front of a bunch of drunk Marines.

I think the leader of NK is a complete fool. Nobody cares here. The Leader of NK is considered a god to his people. Me calling him a little whiny spoiled baby to his face would get me killed in NK.

It's legal to burn an American flag, but it's also a sign of disrespect. Do it in your back yard and nobody cares. Do it front of the wrong people and you will be hurting.

Guys this is terrible, these cartoonists they killed had their flaws but they were genuinely good people.
One of them (Cabu) was like legend here, one of the most creative French cartoonists ever. Just about everybody loved him...
I feel awful: I knew I would the day he died but it's even worse than that as he was executed like a dog, basically because of a joke.
This is just crazy shit, I don't think there is anything that can be done against it. These guys (french citizens btw) get brainwashed on the Internet then go secretly to train somewhere in the middle east and come back to do this shit... What can we do? Spy on the Internet? Put more cops on the street? Give assault rifles to everyone? All decide to live in a bunker or something?
Let's face it : none of this is going to do the trick...
We can only hope these fundamentalists assholes will eventually lose ground but guess what? They're getting more and more powerful worldwide...
Reading the reactions from some young french muslims on Twitter and Facebook (like "good riddance", "they had it coming", etc.) doesn't give me a positive feeling either.
It's also bad for moderate muslims (huge majority of course) in an already quite racist society...

So yeah, this sucks...