And I wish I’d had time this week to do the DMD image I wanted to, even if my ‘art’ is craptacular.

Now, a couple of the side issues in this thread:

“The fact that PEOPLE WERE MURDERED in response to the cartoons more than justifies them as being thoughtful religious criticism.”

Huh? That people had a bad reaction to something, makes that something automatically good? That makes no sense.

“Atheists will say that Catholics are child molesters and that Evangelicals are knuckle-dragging, women-hating ignoramuses, but apparently saying (not without justification, either!) that Muslims the world over have violent tendencies is too much for some.”

Well, I would say (as an atheist) that atheists shouldn’t be slinging around bigoted overgeneralizations about anyone. In the US, it bugs me more when Muslims are the targets than when, say, evangelical Protestants are, because it’s feeding a more pervasive societal stereotype, and because US Muslims don’t have the same level of power to defend themselves. But I would call out someone who started spouting anti-Christian bigotry.

To paint this as anything other than a freedom-of-speech issue is a distraction. It doesn’t matter if it’s xenophobic, it doesn’t matter if it’s offensive, it doesn’t matter if the cartoons are good or bad or funny or mean.

What matters is that a group of people responded to political cartoons with violence, leaving over a hundred people dead, setting fire to buildings, and issuing death threats,all of which intimidated a university press to such an extent that they refused to publish the images in a book about the images.

I find both of those things truly offensive, and yet, somehow, I manage not to riot or make death threats…

A photo of an old man who looks disgusting is on the back cover with the name Mohammad under it. This book is begging for a fatwa.

Jim Murray

I guess it’s the same as when Christians respond to the murder of abortion providers. When George Tiller was murdered the reaction from some was largely about the evils of abortion and how Tiller was a bad person, with a begrudging “of course murder is wrong” thrown in. It made me seriously question people’s priorities if not their true motives.

The whole point of publishing those cartoons originally (in a right wing Danish newspaper) was to give a big “f%#! you!” to Muslims living in Denmark and Europe. It didn’t appear to me to be any sort of thoughtful critique of religion.

No, it was not. It was a talk both about free speech and how fundy muslims made other muslims look. If I remember correct, besides JyllandsPosten isn’t “right-winged”.