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Edited on Tue Feb-07-06 01:04 PM by kgfnally
I would never have seen that cartoon.
The overall problem is people who take their religion far too seriously for anyone's good. Maybe I'm less offended by the cartoon than I otherwise would be because, being gay, I'm used to far, far worse than some stupid cartoon in a newspaper.
I submit, religious people in general need to develop thicker skins when it comes to criticism from people outside their faith. Again, maybe I feel that way because I'm just more used to dealing with far worse criticism regarding my own life. Oh, and that criticism? It comes from the very same type of people who were protesting the cartoon: fundamentalists.
It doesn't matter what religion they come from. They're dangerous. As in, threatening our lives, dangerous. The fact the religions tolerate fundamentalism rather than try to wipe it out only makes the problem that much worse, and makes the truly faithful look very bad to the nonreligious besides.
Another problem is that you can't tell who is a potentially violent fundamentalist to begin with. These sorts of thing bring them out, make them expose themselves. That's actually a good thing. Now we know who they are, in much the same way we know how big a bigot Phelps is.
I'm not saying we should welcome their violent reactions, but how else do we deal with them? They don't listen to reason, or logic; they will chuck facts out the window and never, ever patiently listen to those who disagree. They believe that their "faith" should be everyone's "faith", even if others do not wish to have themselves subjected to that "faith".
It's a sick, controlling mentality that doesn't allow for any disagreement or criticism at all, and it needs to be stamped out. The only questions are, how do we do so, and should we disregard the fundamentalists' taking offense at what we have to say?
For the former, I have no idea, but for the latter... well, we obviously can't ignore fundamentalists, because they tend to become more and more violent over time if we do so. I do, however, think fundamentalist beliefs and attitudes should be dismissed as generally bad things... and I don't think we should be shy about doing so.
There's right, and there's wrong, and burning down buildings because your religion suffered an "offense" is most certainly wrong.
edit: There's another thread that just popped up saying that three of the cartoon were actually not part of the original publication. Apparently, these were three of the most "offensive". Now, I ask you: in what way is that any different from fundamentalists in, say, Massachusetts, putting false petitions out to get people to support an anti-gay marriage ballot measure?
Using lies to advance their position only makes the fundamentalist problem that much more self-evident. We have to confront and ultimately do everything we can to wipe out religious fundamentalism wherever it rears its ugly head.
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