British Muslims picket Downing Street in protest of Charlie Hebdo cartoons

[MrsTawdry]

So the Daily Mail report it as "thousands" whilst the Telegraph say "at least a thousand"

Can't find ANY other sources for it. How is this ok? Free speech yes...but...

as a Christian with Jesus being celibate and sacrificial I find it hard to relate to Mohammed's situation of marrying a very young girl and having many wives.

Because he was a pedo?

No I don't think he was a pedo as you put it but he just doesn't seem particularly holy or self denying.

Yes the Virgin Birth is challenging but that was Jesus's mother rather than him. Obviously it is a belief

And people do debate/challenge the bible, and are generally encouraged to do so. It is not seen as something so sacred that it cannot be open to interpretation and debate.

woodhill, he married and had sex with a young girl, how can he not be a pedo?

I don't want to think about it 850 tbh but I don't understand how he can be held in such high esteem by his followers. IMO he is not setting a great example. Cannot get my head round it.

woodhill, there's not much point trying to apply one standard of 'holiness' or what makes one deity/figure of worship more believable or relatable than another.

Hindus can worship Ganesh, who's got an elephant's head and rides a mouse. Maybe not 'holy' by your Christian lights, but fine for people who revere Ganesh.

I suppose that was normal at the time??? and it was within a marriage.

I know someone will mention Joseph and Mary as he was a lot older but and if you are a non christian it does sound convenient that it was an immaculate conception.

Only lovers I think the difference is that Mohammed is treated like a deity and cannot be criticised or made into a picture whereas other faiths seem more open to debate and questions and are mocked.

I'm not sure you're supposed to mock the Jewish God either. Or the Buddha.
Personally I think it's just as challenging and unrealistic to be expected to believe or relate to Jesus being the son of a deity, and to aspire to his levels of self-denial, as it is to relate to Mohammed.

More so, actually, now I think about it, seeing as the marrying a young girl thing at least comes out of a real-world cultural context, whereas Jesus's behaviour seems to me to be pretty much unattainable and his origins supernatural.

Yes I would agree that Jesus could be viewed as supernatural and it ties in with christianity.

I think the comparison was interesting as people do make fun of Jesus and use him in swear words but it is acceptable.

I think there's a debate to be had on exactly, in real-life terms, how 'unacceptable' it is to depict or mock the prophet and what 'unacceptable' actually means.

Someone upthread says the Muslims she's talked to about the cartoons generally view them as 'puerile, silly, rude but perfectly legit in our society'. Other 'Muslims', specifically IS (in inverted commas because I don't actually think IS have much to do with religion) obviously take a different view.

I guess what it comes down to, to state the screamingly obvious, is extremism.

It is indeed very good development that a group of muslims with particular views engaged with the political debate in a democracy through peaceful protest. They expressed theit vews and they ask for a debate in parliament.

I think the debate should happen.

The parliament should reaffirm the rule of law and the freedom of speech.

Just read the petition and I must say I don't find it particularly reasonable.

I denounce the actions of all those people who are connected with the production of the cartoons of the Holy Prophet Muhammad peace be upon Him

People should be allowed to produce cartoons.

I also cannot accept that, as the petition has it, these actions are an affront to the norms of civilised society.

They are only an affront to someone who chooses to follow certain tenets of a certain religious faith.

The "Declaration of global civility" suggests that some communities are "interdependent", but not subordinate to the rule of law. They are islands within the British society and it is "uncivilised" to challenge that as to not to disrupt "harmonious existence".
Is that a hidden threat?

The social fabric of society has never been governed by laws and regulations but has been enacted through reflections of creed and conscience.

Our interdependency is the rule and not the exception. It is essential for us to have a sincere insight of each other which should lead to sustainable civility resulting in harmonious existence.

They don't seem to have much insight into the democratic society though, as they seem unaware that their two maxims, are enshrined in the Equality Act and prohibition of hate speech.

Maxim: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”
We recognise that individual or collective human dignity is a fundamental right and that the desecration of such through insult, denigration or humiliation is morally and ethically wrong.

Maxim: “Love for your brother what you love for yourself”
Reckless and malicious expressions will lead to vilification and demonisation of each other and our communities.
This is obviously covered in the laws about incitement to violence and hate speech.

They don't seem to register that satire is not an incitement to violence and Charlie Hebdo were mocking all religions and politicians.

What I see in this is their discomfort with freedom of thought and desire to isolate and insulate themselves from debate by curtailing freedoms of others.

Thanks for clarifying moancollins. I really don't understand using free speech to curtail free speech it seems a tad hypocritical.

I really think we need to have a debate on free speech and have it set in statue. The levensen enquiry and the Giles Coran/Ryan Giggs/twitter incident scare me. How can we have true freedom of speech if we don't have a free press?

No need to be scared for your friends, ukib, this is a debate and you may hear things you don't like but nobody will be effected, really, will they?

What I was trying to express (maybe not very well and definitely not about anyone in particular you might know) is that I have heard British muslims refer to 'the west' as something seperate and apart from them. They are the west! I find it odd that living in Britain you don't consider yourself as part of western Europe.

But I'm firmly 'Western' and white and British, and I use terms like 'western cultures' and 'the west' when talking in this kind of context.

Just because you're part of it doesn't mean you can't talk about it as a concept.

Oh well, we'll agree to disagree then. It's my point of view, maybe I am not explaining it well,... Nevermind.

mrsruffallo, I think –hope –I understand what you're explaining:that it's odd to talk about the place you're from in these terms, because it makes it sound as though you're not part of it.

To me, though, it's just like women having a conversation about women and using the word 'women' ('yes, women should be paid the same as men to do the same job' etc). Or Labour voters talking about voting and saying 'Labour voters tend to ... '. You can be one and still talk about them in these terms.

If I'm not understanding what you mean then I apologise.

So Catholics should apologise for the IRA's atrocities?

were IRA atrocities justified by the basic tenets of catholicism?

That's just the tip of the iceberg Ubik. If we apply that logic, every citizen of the UK is responsible for the wars in Afganistan & Iraq and each death that it caused. Every Jewish person is responsible for the actions of the Israeli government. The concept of Collective Guilt is odious.

you clearly didn't understand what I wrote. It's not simple membership in a group that does it. It's membership in a voluntary group whose central tenets relate to the actions or deeds being carried out. The distinction between a religion and the UK is that membership in the UK isn't totally voluntary, and neither afghanistan nor iraq were justified by ideas central to the UK. Thus, your analogy with the UK fails on both points.

as for the israeli government, some of the actions it takes are at least to some degree justified by the religious texts of christianity and judaism. For example, Israel's very existence on that piece of land is justified by both groups through their holy books. I don't know how central those specific passages are to either faith, but they are there in the OT and Bible, and are used by people (in particular, some jews and some american christians) to justify israeli ownership of that land. As for specific actions by the Israeli government, it depends on what we are talking about.

I obviously don't blame all muslims for the charlie hebdo killings, just like I don't blame muslims when Saudi Arabia executes someone for apostasy. But I do think that some muslims, certainly the ones that say apostasy should be punished by death (a shockingly high number do), are at least responsible for endorsing the ideology on which such executions are based.

I should have said "justified by some members of both groups through their holy books".

Murder is not a central tenet in Islam. The vast majority of Muslims manage to live their whole lives being devout and not killing or condoning murders.

Central tenet or not, we repeatedly and volutarily elected governments that waged wars. We paid for every single bomb and bullet used in those wars. Living in the UK is voluntary. We are all free to chose to live in other EU countries. I think that once you start down the road of Collective Guilt, you are on shaky ground.

Murder is not a central tenet in Islam.

i didn't say it was. but death for apostates is pretty much right there in the open for all to see, and a lot of muslims agree. According to a recent pew poll pakistan, egypt, jordan and malaysia all had more than 50% of muslims agreeing to that (in pakistan and egypt, at least 3/4 do).

Central tenet or not

well, then the point went right over your head. that's the whole thing. the UK doesn't have as it's mission to start wars in poor countries (if that were the case, I would leave). if the UK hadn't joined those wars, it would still be the UK. nothing about those wars is inherently part of the UK. they aren't a defining feature of the UK.

let's not forget that the UK entered those wars against the wishes of much of the electorate.

I am not using the term collective guilt; you are. I never said anything about it, and was clear that I don't blame people who didn't murder for murders. I blame people who support an ideology that directly leads to murder, for supporting a violent ideology.

What ideology are you talking about? Also what do polls of Muslims abroad have to do with British Muslims?

What ideology are you talking about?

I am talking about their religion, and what follows from it.

Also what do polls of Muslims abroad have to do with British Muslims?

I didn't know we were only talking about british muslims. But are those groups completely distinct?

but hey, we can talk about some of the rather scary results of surveys of british muslims if you like.