Sensitivity Training

[Corain]

I think the most important part here is the fact that the lemming is about to blow.

 

[Grahav]

Did I see a "5" on the lemming?

Points for you for making fun of mad bombers.

 

[UltraXan]

As a guy who has recently been watching a lot of theist vs atheist debates on youtube lately, I can greatly appreciate this comic. But daaaaaaaaaamn, does he take a jab at believers. Still a good punchline, though, regardless of your beliefs.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

Except it ain't muslims 99% of the time. At the moment, Islam is probably the most violent large religion on earth, but only by a small margin. So what? We gonna boot out all the christians and hindus next?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Anyone who can't keep their hands to themselves over an argument, especially when it comes down to something as asinine as who's ancient supposedly-divinely-inspired text is the ONE TRUE TRUTH, needs to be punched in the face until the stupid bleeds out of their ears.

Believing in something is not, and should not be, a problem. The problem arises when one cannot discuss, or respond to criticism of, their beliefs civilly.

No war actually happened because people told other people to believe in their religion. They happened because of political and social differences. Even the Crusades wasn't the Pope telling Muslims to convert. The first one was because one Muslim ruler forgot that Islam prohibits persecuting non-Muslims living in a Muslim country and started abusing Christians. The Byzantine emperor called for help and the Pope seized this as an opportunity to gain political power and throw some bad people out of Europe by sending them as mercenaries/Crusaders. Where does Christianity or Islam come into this? Its Muslims and Christians who were the culprits, not their religion. If they did follow their religion, the Muslim ruler would not have done what he did and the Pope would turn the other cheek. And don't say religion allowed these people to control everyone else, people like that can use any excuse. Stalin, Hitler and Robespierre used nationality to do the same thing. Money can be and is used to do it, resources, land, anything can do it.

Some Muslims can and do respond in a civil manner, you just tend to ignore them.
What question would you ask of me, a proud Pakistani Muslim?

Also, Islam has rules for war, one of them being to not kill civilians and another being if an enemy inclines to peace we are ordered to incline to peace.

About the protests, you only saw the violent ones. From Pakistan,for example, you saw the ones on the day declared by the government on which it turned violent. No news channel covered the peaceful one in my university or the one held by Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, the Grand Mufti of Pakistan, one week later. What you don't understand about those protests is that there are some people here who use protests like this as an excuse to start looting.

I live in Karachi and I actually saw the aftermath of this personally. Is a stupid joke worth this? Is it not hate speech if it incites hatred between my people and yours? We aren't asking you to censor any speech that you don't censor for others.

 

[HalfTangible]

... i find it interesting that mr.glasses (whose name i forget) is okay being in the same room as the psycho who threw an xbox at him and his girlfriend.

Heh heh. Religion IS full of stuff to make fun of, though...

"Behold, heathen! You can make ONE staff into a snake with your sorcery, impressive, impressive. But your twig is no much for our divine gifts. You-"
"Excuse me."
"Yes?"
"Don't look now, but my 'twig' just ate both of your 'divine gifts'... in a single gulp no less... Good boy, Twig!!"
*angry hiss*
"Girl."
*hiss*

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

That aside that was a real zinger, even as a christian I felt that.

I hear that. I think it's cause as far as Stout goes, she's not anti-Muslim, she treats all religions with equal contempt. Referring to religious people as ones who have "an imaginary friend" is a cheap shot at anyone who believes in a higher power that can't be unquestionably proven to exist.

I think it is the equivalent of a religious person saying "you don't believe what I believe therefore you are going to hell". Neither is a pleasant comment and both should be kept out of general conversation.

That is a really good way to put it. In criticizing religion some atheists start doing the exact thing they criticize religious people for.

 

[maninahat]

Now, admittedly, there are other religiously motivated terror groups. But they don't operate on the same scale. There also aren't any Christian theocracies out there than put people to death for adultery or blasphemy.

Places like the Central African Republic still execute people for witchcraft, whilst many Christian African nations are notorious for applying the death penalty to homosexuals and sodomites. Women are denied or discouraged from education in many places, and conflicts between Muslim and Christian groups are common.

And all of this is supported by a doctrine of global jihad, which basically classes all outsiders to certain sects as barbarians and therefore, declares open warfare on them. And yes, this is a religious notion, not just a political one. People died when a cartoon was drawn of Mohammed and a Koran was burned in Afghanistan. These aren't any less religiously motivated than politically...

...What it does mean, I think, is that condemning the religious institutions themselves for the actions of its followers is appropriate and that doing so does not necessarily make one a xenophobic turd or a prejudiced person. It certainly doesn't mean that everyone who criticizes the religion is completely ignorant of it either. I probably know more about Islam than many of the violent Muslims who are largely illiterate and get their information from religious leaders who are trying to convince them to be violent. This is a widespread problem, not something that is isolated to a few small groups who have perverted their faith.

There isn't much I can disagree with there. My only concern is that Islam gets regarded as somehow exceptionally and intrinsically violent whilst similar examples of religious (and for that matter, non-religious) motivated violence goes unreported/unnoticed.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

Yay, Penny's back!
And wearing a rather fetching pair of kitty ears, to boot.

 

[Skeleon]

I didn't get the joke at first. I think that might say something about my attitude towards organized religion.

 

[Agayek]

So, if I said that you needed to convert to Catholicism or be punched in the face until the stupid bleeds out of your ears, would that be discussing my belief uncivilly?

Just askin'.

If you attempted to assault me because I said your *insert holy book here* is fallacious, you would be discussing your beliefs uncivilly.

If you restrained it to just stating that you want to punch me in the face for not being *insert religion here*, you would still qualify as "civil".

No war actually happened because people told other people to believe in their religion. They happened because of political and social differences. Even the Crusades wasn't the Pope telling Muslims to convert. The first one was because one Muslim ruler forgot that Islam prohibits persecuting non-Muslims living in a Muslim country and started abusing Christians. The Byzantine emperor called for help and the Pope seized this as an opportunity to gain political power and throw some bad people out of Europe by sending them as mercenaries/Crusaders. Where does Christianity or Islam come into this? Its Muslims and Christians who were the culprits, not their religion. If they did follow their religion, the Muslim ruler would not have done what he did and the Pope would turn the other cheek. And don't say religion allowed these people to control everyone else, people like that can use any excuse. Stalin, Hitler and Robespierre used nationality to do the same thing. Money can be and is used to do it, resources, land, anything can do it.

Some Muslims can and do respond in a civil manner, you just tend to ignore them.
What question would you ask of me, a proud Pakistani Muslim?

Also, Islam has rules for war, one of them being to not kill civilians and another being if an enemy inclines to peace we are ordered to incline to peace.

About the protests, you only saw the violent ones. From Pakistan,for example, you saw the ones on the day declared by the government on which it turned violent. No news channel covered the peaceful one in my university or the one held by Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, the Grand Mufti of Pakistan, one week later. What you don't understand about those protests is that there are some people here who use protests like this as an excuse to start looting.

I live in Karachi and I actually saw the aftermath of this personally. Is a stupid joke worth this? Is it not hate speech if it incites hatred between my people and yours? We aren't asking you to censor any speech that you don't censor for others.

I never said anything about Islam.

I'm firmly of the camp that people are people. Some are good, some are bad, and the vast majority are somewhere in between. Muslim, Christian, Atheist, black, white, yellow, tall, short, whatever. It's all irrelevant. People are people.

My point was not the whole "fuck religions, especially those damn dirty Arabs!" thing that you've apparently conjured up. I explicitly made no mention of any particular religion or situation, simply a general guideline of behavior.

My post explicitly states that "anyone (I really want to draw attention to this because you're apparently willfully blind to it) who can't keep their hands to themselves over an argument needs to be punched in the face". That means that anyone, regardless of race or creed, that feels the need to resort to violence to settle an argument needs to be violently beaten, preferably with pieces of their own anatomy.

People can, and have, done terrible things to people for any number of reasons, some valid, but most horrifically not. Anyone who perpetrates violence against another for stating their opinion is most assuredly in the latter category. I don't give a flying fuck what the reasons are.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

What's for a xenophobic turd to fail to understand? Some people get murderously violent because of a religion, about 99% of the time, it's a certain religion. I don't have to get a degree in Islamic Studies or anything to want to put a boot to it.

Except it ain't muslims 99% of the time. At the moment, Islam is probably the most violent large religion on earth, but only by a small margin. So what? We gonna boot out all the christians and hindus next?

Citation needed. Specifically a citation relevant to the last 20 years. Now, if you only consider honor killings, then you would have a point. Course, even there Islam still takes the plurality, if not the majority. However, excluding honor killings, Islam is very much in the lead concerning violence. Definitely over 90%, quite possibly well over 99%.

Honor killings have nothing to do with Islam(maybe not even with Hinduism or Sikhism). They are an ancient Indian tradition. That is why Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims are all guilty of it.

 

[Arif_Sohaib]

So, if I said that you needed to convert to Catholicism or be punched in the face until the stupid bleeds out of your ears, would that be discussing my belief uncivilly?

Just askin'.

If you attempted to assault me because I said your *insert holy book here* is fallacious, you would be discussing your beliefs uncivilly.

If you restrained it to just stating that you want to punch me in the face for not being *insert religion here*, you would still qualify as "civil".

No war actually happened because people told other people to believe in their religion. They happened because of political and social differences. Even the Crusades wasn't the Pope telling Muslims to convert. The first one was because one Muslim ruler forgot that Islam prohibits persecuting non-Muslims living in a Muslim country and started abusing Christians. The Byzantine emperor called for help and the Pope seized this as an opportunity to gain political power and throw some bad people out of Europe by sending them as mercenaries/Crusaders. Where does Christianity or Islam come into this? Its Muslims and Christians who were the culprits, not their religion. If they did follow their religion, the Muslim ruler would not have done what he did and the Pope would turn the other cheek. And don't say religion allowed these people to control everyone else, people like that can use any excuse. Stalin, Hitler and Robespierre used nationality to do the same thing. Money can be and is used to do it, resources, land, anything can do it.

Some Muslims can and do respond in a civil manner, you just tend to ignore them.
What question would you ask of me, a proud Pakistani Muslim?

Also, Islam has rules for war, one of them being to not kill civilians and another being if an enemy inclines to peace we are ordered to incline to peace.

About the protests, you only saw the violent ones. From Pakistan,for example, you saw the ones on the day declared by the government on which it turned violent. No news channel covered the peaceful one in my university or the one held by Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, the Grand Mufti of Pakistan, one week later. What you don't understand about those protests is that there are some people here who use protests like this as an excuse to start looting.

I live in Karachi and I actually saw the aftermath of this personally. Is a stupid joke worth this? Is it not hate speech if it incites hatred between my people and yours? We aren't asking you to censor any speech that you don't censor for others.

I never said anything about Islam.

I'm firmly of the camp that people are people. Some are good, some are bad, and the vast majority are somewhere in between. Muslim, Christian, Atheist, black, white, yellow, tall, short, whatever. It's all irrelevant. People are people.

My point was not the whole "fuck religions, especially those damn dirty Arabs!" thing that you've apparently conjured up. I explicitly made no mention of any particular religion or situation, simply a general guideline of behavior.

My post explicitly states that "anyone (I really want to draw attention to this because you're apparently willfully blind to it) who can't keep their hands to themselves over an argument needs to be punched in the face". That means that anyone, regardless of race or creed, that feels the need to resort to violence to settle an argument needs to be violently beaten, preferably with pieces of their own anatomy.

People can, and have, done terrible things to people for any number of reasons, some valid, but most horrifically not. Anyone who perpetrates violence against another for stating their opinion is most assuredly in the latter category. I don't give a flying fuck what the reasons are.

Lets say I am in a position of power and am able to spread information very fast and I insult or spread bad rumors your mother or father or whoever your most beloved person or thing is. Are you not allowed to be angry? Are you not allowed to punch me in the face out of frustration because in the hypothetical scenario you are not in a position that anyone will listen to you. That is why some people respond violently to comments.
This is the situation most uneducated Muslims found themselves in after the video was posted on Youtube.
Those who could respond peacefully did. Like the response to Newsweek's Muslim Rage article on twitter.

 

[NotALiberal]

or because they're xenophobic turds looking for any excuse to put the boot in on a religion they don't even begin to understand.

This is politically correct bleeding heart liberalism at it's finest. Islam deserves EVERY single goddamn ounce of hate it gets. Speaking as someone whose family lived under the boot of an Islamic theocracy, where you could be executed for having a Bible in your family home (my family is Christian, and this very nearly happened), I understand Islam more than some bleeding heart liberal who spouts the same politically correct, inane bullshit about how Islam isn't "different from any other religion". Christopher Hitchen's would disagree.

Also, tying Islam to race by your use of the word "xenophobic" is racist in itself. I'm of Middle Eastern descent, yet no one in my immediate and extended family are Muslim.

Shit like this sets me off, when people of privilege who don't have to deal with the absolute misery Islam as a whole still brings to the world (It's not the Middle Ages anymore, so the "BUT OTHER RELIGIONS DID BAD STUFF TOO!!11!" argument doesn't really hold up), get on a moral high horse and condemn us as "bigots" for hating a religion of bigotry and hatred.

 

[Cavouku]

Except it ain't muslims 99% of the time. At the moment, Islam is probably the most violent large religion on earth, but only by a small margin. So what? We gonna boot out all the christians and hindus next?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Anyone who can't keep their hands to themselves over an argument, especially when it comes down to something as asinine as who's ancient supposedly-divinely-inspired text is the ONE TRUE TRUTH, needs to be punched in the face until the stupid bleeds out of their ears.

Believing in something is not, and should not be, a problem. The problem arises when one cannot discuss, or respond to criticism of, their beliefs civilly.

I'm willing to totally agree, but we can extend that to; the problem also comes when people with different beliefs or no beliefs are not being civil towards people with certain beliefs, right?