Thankyou, for one of the most intelligent posts I've seen on this forum.<EJ>Wolf wrote:
Just about every /major/ religion preaches peace and forgiveness. That is the way the books are all written. However, there's this little issue about interpretation. What one person reads as "Love thy neighbor" (or take the appropriate wording from the appropriate text) someone else reads it with an addition "Love thy neighbor...so long as he is like you."
The problem isn't the religions, the problem is the people. Islam is a very understanding religion, Christianity is a very understanding religion. Muslims and Christians tend not to be very understanding, however. The vast majority of each populace is ignorant. Not stupid mind you, but uneducated. They believe what they're told because they aren't being told anything else. This goes for those in the middle east, and those here in America.
And while everyone speaks about the atrocities committed by muslims, the atrocities committed by americans, what about the atrocities committed by catholic priests? One of the most anti-gay religions in the world....and their very own priests are molesting alter boys. Here's the sad reality, it's religion now, but if it wasn't religion, it'd be something else. There will always be some evil, some conflict. Because as a whole, people cannot accept those different from themselves.
The cartoonist should have considered the reaction his works might cause, but in the same respect, they were his work and he had every right to create and distribute them as he saw fit (and as permitted by the country in which he distributed them).
The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be.
~ Richard Feynman
~ Richard Feynman