Pakistan Court Orders Facebook Ban Over Mohammed Images 949
jitendraharlalka writes with this excerpt from Al Jazeera English: "A Pakistani court has issued a ban on the social networking site Facebook after a user-generated contest page encouraged members to post caricatures of Prophet Mohammed. The Lahore High Court on Wednesday instructed the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority (PTA) to ban the site after the Islamic Lawyers Movement complained that a page called 'Draw Mohammed Day' is blasphemous. ... 'We have already blocked the URL link and issued instruction to Internet service providers,' Khurram Mehran, a spokesperson for the PTA, said."
Re:LOL.... (Score:5, Informative)
exactly HOW does this defile Mohammad?
The actual problem is that an image of Mohammed might lead to Mohammed worship instead of worship of Allah. Of course, that's not the way it's treated any more.
Re:What A Mess (Score:3, Informative)
Why would a non Muslim want to draw a picture of Prophet Mohamed in a wrong manner (if not to anger Muslims) you can call it freedom but Freedom is a trial from God and to miss use it is to be answerable to God and we have no right to kill or hurt such a person
We do it to express our freedom. You need to respect that we feel the same way about freedom of speech in the West as Muslims feel about Mohammed. We are willing to protect it at any cost. In all honesty if the Muslim extremists didn't get their knickers in a bunch every time somebody drew a half-assed picture of Mohammed there wouldn't even be an issue. However since they feel the need to censor us in our own countries we feel the need to prove that we still have the freedom to ridicule anyone.
My religious tolerance ends when you start trying to take away my freedoms. And with Scientology.
Speaking of Reason, (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Blasphemy? (Score:3, Informative)
Every religion is the "true" one according to its followers. "Blasphemy", in this context, is really only the case when it is done to the mythology held dear by...those who determine whether it is blasphemy or not.
Not "true".
Buddhism, Hinduism, and many other Eastern Religions believe in and practice Pluralism [wikipedia.org]. That is, they think that all paths lead to Heaven. Or in other words, that all religions are true.
Whether or not this stands up to logical scrutiny is a different subject.
Re:Blasphemy? (Score:3, Informative)
How anybody who isn't a member of a religion could be committing blasphemy within the framework of that religion is beyond me.
Let's take a look at the definition of blasphemy [reference.com]:
So, you don't need to be a member of a specific religion to be guilty of blasphemy against that religion. You only need to conduct "irreverent behaviour toward anything held sacred" by that religion. And that's very possible.
And yes, this is a terribly silly concept which translates even more poorly into law.
Re:"religion" in the traditional sense of the word (Score:3, Informative)
Off the top of my head,
Many Buddhist sects.
(Neo-)Druidism.
LaVeyan Satanism.
Re:Seems reasonable (Score:5, Informative)
You do realise that the Rastafarian religion is based on black supremacy, right? Marcus Garvey was nothing like the laid back stoner that some would portray him as these days, he was a racist radical black nationalist who used violence and intimidation to try to get this way.
I really don't see how racism has any place in a reasonable government.
Re:Third Party Baptisms (Score:5, Informative)
I read somewhere that the LDS has branches devoted to this, and that they are so heavily into genealogy because they believe they can baptize dead people by proxy. Thats what some elements of the Church of LDS are actively engaged in, baptizing our dead ancestors into their church so that come Judgement day, they all get to go to heaven (or whatever they actually believe happens, I am not sure).
Mind you its no odder than those BA Christians who are actively hoping that Israel will go to war with the Palestinians because if they do it might herald the Second Coming.
Personally, I can't help think the world would be a far better, more peaceful and saner place if all those people who follow religions "of the book" were gone from the Earth.
Re:What is wrong really ? (Score:3, Informative)
Only one group reacts with mass protests in the streets burning effigies as well as placing targets on peoples heads because of them exercising their freedom of speech. When was the last time you heard of a cartoonist getting stabbed to death in the streets for drawing Buddha, Jesus, or Moses? When was the last time someone who simply translated a book about Buddha, Jesus, or Moses met a similar fate? If there are moderate Muslims who want to live in modern times with us they need to take back control of their religion from the extremists that dominate the news and try to dominate our lives.
It takes an astounding lack of logic to draw the connections that you just did. And even if people of other faiths did react in such a way to such things, they are in the wrong too and are not to be tolerated. This whole "please guys stop being so mean!" act is getting really old really fast. I haven't and will not participate in this event because I personally have my mind elsewhere, but nobody anywhere has any right to tell me in the USA (and other countries with sane protections to free speech) to shut up and not talk about or draw something or someone because they are offended by it. As long as I'm not saying "Go kill such-and-such or so-and-so" then the most harm I'm doing is making someone think twice about a part of their life. Your delicate sensibilities regarding religious beliefs do not mean more legally than my ability to exercise my freedom of speech. You want to call me an asshole for exercising said freedom in a certain way? That's fine, and I really don't care. Censoring or threatening with death or violence is not fine though. That is when logical beings do care.
Re:Mohammed? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Seems reasonable (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Mohammed? (Score:3, Informative)
We have no record of how old Mary the Mother of Jesus was when she married Joseph.
And yet muslims revere her more than christians do - she has an entire chapter in the quran and it is the only chapter in the book with a woman's name.
Re:LOL.... (Score:4, Informative)
Don't Muslims view Jesus as a prophet as well? So, if what he said was dogma...
According to Muslims, Jesus (and all the prophets before him, such as Moses and Abraham) all said the same things, and brought the same message, as Muhammad. It's just that their message was corrupted [wikipedia.org] by evil Jews and Christians, hence the perceived divergence from Qu'ran.
Muhammad is special in that he is the "Seal of the Prophets" - the final and ultimate prophet of God. Furthermore, his message was recorded exactly as delivered by God through him - this forms the Qu'ran - and preserved in its entirety.
Oh, hell, I'm looking for internal logical consistencies again, aren't I?
Actually, Islam is significantly less inconsistent than Christianity.
It even makes sense because, for the latter, one guy (whose identity is even unclear) preached the original message, several other guys recorded it, each as he pleases, then a bunch of other guys have met later on to decide which of the recordings to keep and which to throw out, and yet more guys translated them, occasionally creatively reworking in the process.
Islam, though, is a project that is entirely designed, and its implementation overseen, by a single guy, who, by all accounts, was very determined on making that design persist and endure. Looking at the present state of the Islamic world, he has, unfortunately, largely succeeded in that.
This isn't to say that Islam is logical - no religion is. But it is quite internally consistent, so long as you stick to the framework of its axioms. There is considerably less wiggle room there than there is in Christianity.
Re:LOL.... (Score:3, Informative)
Some sects of Buddhism are practically not religions (in the metaphysical explanation sense). Some sects of Buddhism are like Christianity will all the metaphysical trappings stripped away. The core would be, there was this really smart guy named Jesus, I like him, and want to live like him. Buddhism in-itself is more of a modifier than a religion in-itself. You can be a Christian Buddhist, or a Hindu Buddhist, or a Taoist Buddhist, or a Muslim Buddhist. Most of the more religious forms of Buddhism is pretty much Buddhism layered over a preexisting religious background (much like how Christianity gobbled up all, and incorporated (like Megaman) all the competing religions around it).
Re:Blasphemy? (Score:1, Informative)
This won't work: non-muslims are not even allowed into Mecca. The city is officially muslim only.