Last week’s episode of South Park brought up a relatively controversial topic – the depiction of the prophet Mohammed. Since that Danish bloke drew those cartoons it’s been widely accepted that any physical representation of him is a bad thing, mmmkay.
South Park didn’t show the actual prophet but dressed him up in a giant bear suit. This has not gone down well with some crazies though who said:
We have to warn Matt (Stone) and Trey (Parker) that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show.
Theo van Gogh was a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004 when some muslims decided they didn’t like the way their religion was represented in his film Submission.
Of course South Park courts controversy, it has done since the day it started, and threats from this US group are probably, hopefully, little more than just cheap, publicity seeking bluster. What’s interesting though is that in 2001 they aired an episode called Super Best Friends in which all the main figures of all the religions were part of a super-hero style club which fought against evil.
So you had Jesus, Buddah, Krishna, Joseph Smith of the mormons and, naturally enough, Mohammed. The episode came and went and nobody said a thing. Mohammed was shown as a muslim looking guy with superpowers and there was not one objection. There were no death threats from religious nuts.
If these people were so devout surely the objections they have now were valid back then. Or are they just making stuff up as they go along? The Danish cartoons have brought about new rules. It’s only since then that you can’t show Mohammed without having to worry about somebody killing you.
And now it’s got to the point that even if you ‘hide’ Mohammed inside a bear suit it’s still a problem. I do admire South Park for the way they stand up to hypocrisy like this. If there were no objections in 2001 then these blowhards are just that, reinventing the rules to suit their radicalism, trying to bully people into accepting their point of view.
Frankly, the idea that you can’t show an image of a religious figure is ridiculous – but not as ridiculous as those objecting to him being shown in a bear suit look.
I am not a religious person at all but I respect other people’s right to believe in what they want. I’m happy to leave them be and go about their business of praying and devotion and not eating certain things, that’s entirely up to them. However, the idea that the rest of us have to live to their standards is not right, especially when they can just decide from one day to the next that something is not acceptable.
Fair play to South Park. The easy option would be to kowtow to these nuts. They haven’t and deserve major props for highlighting the hypocrisy.
“Mohammed flame on!”
Matt Stone and Trey Parker talk about the 200th episode on this video. It might be NSFW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp9bYLa5gaA&feature=player_embedded
Blasphemer!! The totem is taboo! Kill the pig!!
The deity/prophet idol/image thing has been touchy since the beginning of the then new religions in the Middle East. Probably had something to do with overthrowing pagan ‘false’ gods and the idols that represented them.
There are ‘low church’ chapels in northern Ireland that are completely bare – no statues, no pictures, no images whatsoever. Muslims would be happy to pray in them. Fundamentalists everywhere have an awful lot in common, especially when it comes to unbelievers and blasphemers.
Nothern Ireland is starting to scare me.
This is an example of the old Ian Paisley method (and Republicans too).
You stand on your pulpit and preach as a man of God and talk of sins and damnation and injustice. But you know that in the midst of the lower echelons of society lurks the angry half-wit who’ll do the physical damage on your behalf, thereby creating outrage, hysteria and retribution.
Don’t fall for it. Ignore it.
kind of unrelated but kind of related, where did mary mcaleese get off tellign the saudis that the people of ireland stood alongside them in their outrage over the danish cartoons?
and where does she get off telling the turks that ireland believe they should get into the EU?
it’s this sort of pandering that’s encouraging radical funmentalists.
Dead right Twenty
Everything u said is bang on
A friend of mine who is not exactly the religious type was told to stop wearing a chain with a cross on it to work
Why?
In case it offended other religious minorities
She works in a hospital
Beyond a joke
* runs off to read the Daily Mail*
Hold on – why NI ? You don’t have to look too far in the ROI to see religious intolerance.
And as regards Low Church Chapels – in NI if they are Chapels they are RC. Quakers places of worship would come into the category of “no statues, no pictures, no images whatsoever.” Since when are they fundamentalists ?
As for images in Islam – hmmm – Christianity has rules about that as well – the Decalogue ? The difference is that Christianity has decided, as with the prohibition on Usury, decided to let those parts slip.
But we don’t have the ‘pray away the gay’ crowd coming to the south Maggot.
It was a great episode, fair play to them.
Tom Cruise is a fudge packer.
God has a sense of humour. For is it not written?
“Holy shit Abraham, put the fucking knife down and let him off the altar! I was only winding you up, for the love of Me. Yeah, yeah I know you wanted to make some big gesture to show your devotion to me and I’m very touched. Listen, if you really want to do something for me, give us a hand burying a few of these joke fossils.”
But we don’t have the ‘pray away the gay’ crowd coming to the south Maggot.
But you do – after all that was how the Church treated it’s paedo priests. And you have twats who see moving statues, The Virgin in Tree stumps and in the sky etc. How about the Ann Lovett thing ? Those young Catholic nutters who write to the press ?
I wonder if I dressed up in a bear suit, put a crown of thorns on me head and carried a cross on Good Friday shouting “Jesus was a bear!” would I be in breach of our new, glorious, technicolour blasphemy laws here.
Seems possible.
I’d stone you Crank – not for any religious reasons like, it would be fun!
Well, at least I’d be stoned.
was in waterford recently and noticed the locals were very touch about outsiders eating their sacred bread. a real case of blaas for me.
do(ugh)h – touchy
“Quakers places of worship would come into the category of “no statues, no pictures, no images whatsoever.” Since when are they fundamentalists”?
Now Maggot, the Religious Society of Friends are not part of the preacher-driven hellfire fraternity, unlike many of their Christian (including Catholic) brethern. The point was about the use of imagery and associated fundamentalism. The Life of Brian used to be banned down here, and I can’t imagine the protestant stalwarts of NI were happy with it either.
If you were to compare many CofI churches down south (eg St Bartholomew’s, Dublin) with ones in the rural north you’d think different sects worshipped in them. I remember being in a tiny rural church in NI where the only ‘adornment’ on otherwise bare walls was a plaque honouring the b-specials.
I know its not very PC bit to be honest the best ting to do with religious zealots of any kind is either re-open Bedlams where any given ward wil contain people who ‘believe’ in things rather than analyse them- or just take them out and shoot them in a ditch. Doesn’t matter what religion- they are all variations on ‘Me witch-doctor, you servant’ schtick anyway.
Some might find that solution a tad too strong but we are talking about evolution here and even bus drivers have schedules and cannot wait for laggards.
It would be a good thing to do in terms of Risk Management- religious nuts of one kind or another are most likely to try to destroy a city, nation or country.
So in that basis it is correct to round ‘em up, shoot a number pour enourager les autres and ban the fuck out of any associated activity.
I doubt it’ll happen but if people do change their minds and want someone to do the ditch-filling I’m yer man.
Conan – Most of the C of I churches I’ve seen – rural and urban – have wonderful stained glass windows.
I don’t see why austerity = nutterdom. It’s one part of the Protestant tradition from the earliest days and perfectly in tune with the decalogue, supposedly the bed rock of Christianity.
Porridge:heh..
I see there’s a fuss about Haughey, sorry, Berlusconi taking communion in wopland.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7103600.ece
Fuck sake- if the man wants to eat his god along with the other catholic Xombies then let the fucker go ahead.
You have to be a cannibal to be a catholic. And if you deny that then you are denying transubstantion.
Which is on Bennny Da Bum’s list of Bad Things.
divneymathers Says:
April 22nd, 2010 at 11:05 am
It was a great episode, fair play to them.
Tom Cruise is a fudge packer.
heh
“that’s a closet”
“nope, that’s a closet too”
” nope, not that one, that’s a closet”
Southpark is the best thing on tv by a country mile.
Good post, on the money twenty; you could be in southpark, and not as butters.
Mohammed is a bear faced prophet.
Makes you wish he’d stuck to ‘Cassius Clay’ don’t it?
I never understood communion – in the Bible it was for the select few. The apostles, No women, no ordinary Josephs. Just the chosen few. When he changed the water into wine at the wedding did he tell people it was his blood ? When he fed the 5,000 did he tell them it was his flesh ? No.
And never a word about Brian Cowen who never seems to take off the giant bear suit.
austerity = fanactic is not true.
look at the ammount of goldy tat, statues and bits of saints to be found in any catholic church – theres plenty of catholic fanatics knocking arround..
I’d rather piss off Catholic Fundamentalists than the fuckin Muslim ones.
Catholic ones say things like “God Bless him, he is going to Hell”
Muslim ones scream “Death to the Infidel and send you to Hell”
I’ve pissed off pleanty of Christian fundamentalists but never had one try to kill me. I once mentioned to a Turkish Cypriot Muslim that Mohammed was a fudge packer and he went for me with a knife, I had to make a very quick exit before he and his physco buddies got hold of me.
Muslim women are all mad ugly screaming bitches, its no wonder most of the men are fudgies
Lafs – Christianity is some 600 years older than Islam. Go back a few hundred years and people were quite happy to kill other people over Christian beliefs.
theres plenty of catholic fanatics knocking arround.
Yep – pubs closed on Good Friday.
I’m quite happy to kill certain christians now, never mind back in the day.
Anyone know where I can buy some lions? Might as well get some entertainment out of it.
“So in that basis it is correct to round ‘em up, shoot a number pour enourager les autres and ban the fuck out of any associated activity.”
Aw where’s your imagination Cap’n. Even the Romans managed to squeeze a bit of feline entertainment out of their religious persecution.
I propose televised fight-outs. All contestants will be armed with bludgeons and stuck on bungies inside a Thunderdome. You could then pitch Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson against a couple of raving Taliban or a loony West-Bank colonist against a scientologist. (I reckon the Dali Lama would take Pope Benny in the first round.) This way we would really find out who has God on their side.
Maggot – I agree, but those days are thankfully behind us at this side of the world, the problem is the fuckin Islamic fanatics are trying to spread the intolerence they practice in shit holes like Iran, Afghanistan etc to the West. Their stated objective is to convert & subject the whole world to the rule of sharia law & by force where & when necessary. Its these bastards I have the problem with.
I lived in the England for many years and have seen areas of cities and towns such as Bradford and Leicester turned into virtual slums and no go areas for non muslim asians. This may sound racist, it is not meant to be, I couldn’t give a monkeys who they pray to or how they do it, it only bothers me when they start inflicting their bollox on others, particularly when they take to bombing busses etc.
I cannot abide any kind of fundamentalism, especially any kind thats trying to kill me.
Although I’d be quite happy to round up all those in the Catholic religion who felt it was okay to abuse children, both physically & mentally, to deny them their freedom and basic human rights etc and practice some serious intolerence & fundamentalist retribution on them, regardless of their age or health. Biggest religous hyocrites of all.
It’s a tough one for sure Lafs. The rise of fundamentalism hasn’t been helped by our ( mainly the yanks) screwing about in the Muslim world. I know they had to eat a considerable amount of crow but for once SF were right when their editorial – long gone – in an fleabite said 9/11 was America’s foreign policy chickens coming home to roost.
Islamic fundamentalism is a lot deeper and more complicated than most people will ever know. It has more to do with economic power and wealth battles than anything to do with religious teaching. It was the same with Christianity.
The balance of power and wealth is shifting from the west to the east. That doesn’t mean that the Governments and people of the east are in control of that, it means that those who control most of the global wealth are beginning to move their interests east.
And the established gangs and crooks of the middle east and far east want to get their piece of the action. No better way than to kick up a load of shit and upset the peace by using a phony jihad to hold western wealth to ransom. Once all these shit stirrers get their cake, they’ll fuck off back to their harems and opium dens.
It’s a tough one for sure Lafs. The rise of fundamentalism hasn’t been helped by our ( mainly the yanks) screwing about in the Muslim world. I know they had to eat a considerable amount of crow but for once SF were right when their editorial – long gone – in an fleabite said 9/11 was America’s foreign policy chickens coming home to roost.
maggot….
em…
the brits kinda left a legacy?
I’d say people like the Rothschilds and the Goldmans all sit around their remote mountain resorts sipping Armagnac and puffing on Cohibas as they chortle at us little minions despairing at our misery and ignorance of what really goes.
These people start wars as birthday presents to each other. Or maybe a genocide to lift the boredom of a Tuesday. Perhaps a plague to empty out some land with oil reserves under it.
It wouldn’t be the first time in recent histoty that the dumb, bored elite lead to the death of millions HM:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0724/p13s01-bogn.html
maggot….
em…
the brits kinda left a legacy?
all the colonial powers, for sure.
But it was the Yanks who really stirred it up – hence they are “The Great Satan”
I’m glad you all realise finally that there is no god and that people higher up the food chain than you are using religion (Islam, Christianity of all its stupid derivations etc)to keep you stupid, fighting with each other and in your place. Its a long way off till enough people realise it, but it’s a start.
There is a satirical comic called Jesus and Mo which discusses this very topic depicting Jesus and Muhammad as room mates. It has been going a good few years now, yet life still goes on. Maybe it’s only the high profile defiling that counts as evil to Islam?
Check out http://www.jesusandmo.net/
“The Christian Science Monitor”? Are you taking the piss? “Christian Science”, an oxymoron if I’ve ever known one, along with “Religious Education” and “Moderate Islam”.
And Holy War
“However, the idea that the rest of us have to live to their standards is not right, especially when they can just decide from one day to the next that something is not acceptable.” – Twenty
You’ve got it the wrong way round, Twenty. The argument against religious diehards is not that they change from day-to-day but rather that they do not. It is secular society that demands (and enforces) change.
For example: The churches have always been down on gays (even when “going down” on gays on the sly) and remain hostile to homosexual equality and respect. The secular state on the other hand which both persecuted and prosecuted gays and condemned their behaviour as illegal now have done a complete volte face and will prosecute those who do not tolerate and respect gays.
It gets so a guy just never knows what end’s up.
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