I think this is a very simplistic.

Come on, does that mean in a non-democratic society everybody loves islam and people praise it24hrs a day!?

In Iran, how many times have you heard people swearing at islam and all things islamic? in the buses or taxis etc.? I have heard that a zillion times. yet no one protests against Iranian infidels who constantly moan and compain or even hate Islam!! but one poor Danish guy....

(at February 12, 2006 04:57 PM)

West Ender – sorry man, but you really cannot understand the differences between publishing smth in a newspaper and saying the same in a taxi!

(at February 12, 2006 05:28 PM)

How about first trying to blend the muslim faith with democracy in muslim counties! These two don't go together and it's not the fault of western countries.

(at February 12, 2006 06:24 PM)

I would look at it from another point of view:

"It sends a conflicting message to the western community: that in Islam it is permittable to burn and kill if you don't like a drawing"

How do you like that?

(at February 12, 2006 10:41 PM)

It looks like the Norwegian and the Danish governments are trying to cool people in the Middle East down by apologising. But they shouldn't have apologised!! Their governments have nothing to do with what a newspaper have published. By apologising they're indirectly admitting that it was their mistake (if it was a mistake in the first place). people can demonstrate and show that they didn't like the cartoons, but violance is not acceptable in any case and those angry muslims should understand that the whole world is not going to orbit around them and their beliefs, whatever they are!

(at February 13, 2006 02:25 AM)

What passes for moderation in the Islamic community -- "I share your rage but don't torch that embassy" -- is nothing of the sort. It is simply a cynical way to endorse the goals of the mob without endorsing its means. It is fraudulent because, while pretending to uphold the principle of religious sensitivity, it is interested only in this instance of religious insensitivity.

Have any of these "moderates" ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and, most especially, Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? …

A true Muslim moderate is one who protests desecrations of all faiths. Those who don't are not moderates but hypocrites, opportunists and agents for the rioters, merely using different means to advance the same goal: to impose upon the West, with its traditions of freedom of speech, a set of taboos that is exclusive to the Islamic faith.

The mob is trying to dictate to Western newspapers, indeed Western governments, what is a legitimate subject for discussion and caricatureThe point is who decides what can be said and what can be drawn within the precincts of what we quaintly think of as the free world.

The mob has turned this into a test case for freedom of speech in the West. The German, French and Italian newspapers that republished these cartoons did so not to inform but to defy -- to declare that they will not be intimidated by the mob.

What is at issue is fear. The unspoken reason many newspapers do not want to republish is not sensitivity but simple fear. They know what happened to Theo van Gogh, who made a film about the Islamic treatment of women and got a knife through the chest with an Islamist manifesto attached.

The worldwide riots and burnings are instruments of intimidation, reminders of van Gogh's fate. The Islamic "moderates" are the mob's agents and interpreters, warning us not to do this again. And the Western "moderates" are their terrified collaborators who say: Don't worry, we won't. It's those Danes. We're clean. Spare us. Please.

(at February 16, 2006 05:36 PM)

Consider:
The missing element in every human 'solution' is
an accurate definition of the creature.

The way we define 'human' determines our view
of self, others, relationships, institutions, life, and
future. Important? Only the Creator who made us
in His own image is qualified to define us accurately.
Choose wisely...there are results.

Many problems in human experience are the result of
false and inaccurate definitions of humankind premised
in man-made religions and humanistic philosophies.

Each individual human being possesses a unique, highly
developed, and sensitive perception of diversity. Thus
aware, man is endowed with a natural capability for enact-
ing internal mental and external physical selectivity.
Quantitative and qualitative choice-making thus lends
itself as the superior basis of an active intelligence.

Human is earth's Choicemaker. His title describes
his definitive and typifying characteristic. Recall
that his other features are but vehicles of experi-
ence intent on the development of perceptive
awareness and the following acts of decision and
choice. Note that the products of man cannot define
him for they are the fruit of the discerning choice-
making process and include the cognition of self,
the utility of experience, the development of value-
measuring systems and language, and the accultur-
ation of civilization.

The arts and the sciences of man, as with his habits,
customs, and traditions, are the creative harvest of
his perceptive and selective powers. Creativity, the
creative process, is a choice-making process. His
articles, constructs, and commodities, however
marvelous to behold, deserve neither awe nor idol-
atry, for man, not his contrivance, is earth's own
highest expression of the creative process.

Human is earth's Choicemaker. The sublime and
significant act of choosing is, itself, the Archimedean
fulcrum upon which man levers and redirects the
forces of cause and effect to an elected level of qual-
ity and diversity. Further, it orients him toward a
natural environmental opportunity, freedom, and
bestows earth's title, The Choicemaker, on his
singular and plural brow.

- from The HUMAN PARADIGM

(at March 6, 2006 02:33 PM)