Blasphemous cartoons

[Mikuro]

Originally Posted by dmetzcher

I'd like to know where I can get that version. One thing that always bothers me about some Christians (and I will pick on them because I know more about them than any other religion) is the belief that only those who have "accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior" will be saved (whatever saved is to whomever is talking). I find this so short-sighted and, frankly, arrogant. They have never had a working argument, that I've heard anyway, to the "man on the island" scenario. What about a person that leads a life closer to what Jesus preached, but who never know who Jesus was?

I agree with this completely....and yet I could still say I'm a Christian (though I don't). This goes back to the problem of communication I was discussing before.

The way I see it, the only real base of Christianity is the Bible. All churches should be treated like libraries — a good learning resource, perhaps, but ultimately it's about what you get out of it. Furthermore, the Bible cannot to be taken ultra-literally in the first place; it's open to interpretation. Even Jesus' words cannot be taken ultra-literally, because of the context.

This is one thing I like about Buddhism. They acknowledge that even what the Buddha said might not be true to you. If he were to explain something to a hundred different people, he would explain it in a hundred very different ways, because that's what it would take to get his point across. But he's not here anymore, so he can't explain it to you. So you have to try to decompile what he said, always bearing in mind the context. In this sense, I really don't consider Buddhism to be about faith at all, at least not in the common religion sense; it's mainly about reason. It's a very intellectually demanding religion.

It's hard to imagine Jesus speaking differently. I mean, do you really think the son of God would ignore the simple nature of language?!? Yet popular Christianity rarely acknowledges this.

But again, popular Christianity is NOT all Christianity. My parents are devout Christians. They have been all my life. They don't believe that non-believers are auto-condemned to hell. I'm not sure they even believe in hell. They've never been real church-goers. But they are most definitely Christians.


Let me put it another way: Perhaps it IS right for people to say that non-believers are auto-condemned. If that's what it takes to get people walking down the right path, then isn't that the right thing to say? But that doesn't make it true for you. It may be true for many people that their only hope for salvation is Christianity, but that doesn't mean it's true for everyone.

(Also, I could be wrong, but I don't think Jesus ever said anything of the sort. I think that idea pretty much came from the mere men running churches. So....grains of salt for everyone! )

[fryke]

Of course, if your _starting_ point is that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and God is omnipotent, then language and context doesn't matter and what Jesus said is simply The Truth™ – no mistakes possible. At all. And if _that's_ your starting point, many things suddenly change.
Since God, in *my* opinion, is a product of man's imagination ("there must _be_ a God, therefore, there _is_ a God..."), Jesus Christ –*even if he has lived and spoken to people, even if he has done "miracles" etc. – was never the son of God (since that's only an imaginary product) and therefore his words were not "the truth", although it might or might not have been close to "it", should it even exist.

But we're quite off-topic by now, anyway, aren't we.

[Mikuro]

Originally Posted by fryke

Of course, if your _starting_ point is that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and God is omnipotent, then language and context doesn't matter and what Jesus said is simply The Truth™ – no mistakes possible. At all.

I'm not sure I follow your logic here at all. Language is language. If you believe in God, you almost surely believe that most of God's thoughts and ideas cannot be expressed well in human language.

The way 'the truth' is expressed can never change what 'the truth' is, no matter where you're coming from. I certainly don't think that 'the truth' is defined by what anyone — even God — says. There's a big gap between ideas and the expression of those ideas.

To put it in techie terms, which seems to be popular (and oh so amusing ), it's like saying that the compression artifacts on a DVD are the movie, because that's the way the authority behind the movie presented it. But if the authority had a better way to present it, those compression artifacts wouldn't exist. Communication always entails compromise — because human language is a lossy codec.

[dmetzcher]

Originally Posted by Mikuro

I'm not sure I follow your logic here at all. Language is language. If you believe in God, you almost surely believe that most of God's thoughts and ideas cannot be expressed well in human language.

The way 'the truth' is expressed can never change what 'the truth' is, no matter where you're coming from. I certainly don't think that 'the truth' is defined by what anyone — even God — says. There's a big gap between ideas and the expression of those ideas.

To put it in techie terms, which seems to be popular (and oh so amusing ), it's like saying that the compression artifacts on a DVD are the movie, because that's the way the authority behind the movie presented it. But if the authority had a better way to present it, those compression artifacts wouldn't exist. Communication always entails compromise — because human language is a lossy codec.

If I believed in a god or gods, I would probably have to admit that human beings are nothing less than arrogant in their attempts to understand such a being. Given our lack of knowledge about most of the things around us, I think that saying we know anything about a god or gods is simply lies. And I assure you that even though scientists have learned a great deal in the few thousand years that we've had science passed down from generation to generation, we still know only a fraction of what is out there to know.

I also tend to agree with fryke, and feel that humanity invented gods, and then a single god, in order to explain things in the universe. I also think it had something to do with a ruling class wanting power over the people, as it seems that most religions, past and present, had their priesthood, or some equivalent, to whom everyone else looked for guidance. Monotheism, frankly, is very new in terms of the time it's been around, and it just another idea in a string of religious ideas since humankind first looked for answers.

To those who have said that religion is not the root of all evil, I'll agree with you. Two things are the root of all evil, and the recent events in the middle east in response to a few cartoons drawn in bad taste, illustrate my point. The two most destructive forces in this world have been, and always will be, poverty and a lack of education. Now, for the dictator, these two things are his best friend. Keep the people uneducated (frankly, stupid), and poor. Then tell them that their financial problems are because of this or that, and that you have the answer. Give them a boogyman, and you're set. It's a blueprint for control.

We see this here in the United States. Many people were completely against the current President. Many people were against his policies. Polls showed him behind, even on the day of the election. The key to winning in a situation like that, and both parties have used it in the past, is to tell the voters, who are typically uneducated regarding all the details, that the boogyman is the other guy. "He won't do for you what I will. He helped create your problems. He will not fix them. Vote for me, and you will be safe. Vote for him, and you will almost certainly die in a terrorist attack." This is the same sort of rhetoric that the leaders of other dicatorships, like Cuba, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea use all the time to keep their own people in line, and ensure that they have their loyalty. All leaders do this, in every country. We, as human beings, know how to do it the moment we gain our social skills as children. It's no different than the school yard. I don't think that we ever really grow up, we just get better at being/appearing more mature. The key is making sure that you are educated enough to smell the sh*t being shoveled around, so you can make choices to better suit your own needs.

I'll say it again...
The Middle East is full of uneducated kids (boys and girls) who are told that life is great and that God will love them if they behave this way or that way. Often, this way or that way is just the way that their dictator wants them to behave. These cartoons might not seem like a lot to us, but to those who have nothing other than their God, and a life in heaven with him to look forward to, they are a big deal. These issues will continue to matter long into the future until we start realizing what needs to be done to fix this, and invading other countries, however much we might like to see a particular dictator strung up by his neck, is not the answer. We miss the point because we have everything, and they have nothing. Is that our fault? Some say yes, some say no. I say that, as "leaders of the free world", or whatever stupid title we give ourselves, it is our responsibility to help others, even at our own expense. That's the price of living in a free society. That's the price of having wealth. That's the price of having security. That's the price of having a conscience. That's the price of keeping your soul.

[fryke]

Mikuro: I'm aware of that. However: Quite a few bible-fanatic groups are not.

[gphillipk]

Not sure if this has been asked before, or has been addressed in this thread, but does anybody know how far the Iranian Hamshahri newspaper took its vow to publish Holocaust cartoons? Are they available online?

[fryke]

no idea. haven't heard of it since...

[lurk]

Here is an interesting responce http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/14...isemitic_.html