What I would rather support (and perhaps a better means for a similar goal) would be to organize a discussion/event that explores the concept of censorship and the so-called sacred. Explore the ideas, and perhaps you convince others…but do this, and turn people off who wouldn’t otherwise be turned off.

Also, after drawing a picture of Mohammed, if a Muslim threatens you, say, “oops, I made a mistake. It’s actually Jesus.” You can piss off muslims and christians with the same project.

The group has every right to run the contest, and muslims have a right to be offended… But what happens after that?

I’m all for breaking down barriers but I don’t have a death wish. They don’t call it the religion of peace for nothing.

Hemant,

That said, we shouldn’t fear depicting or even mocking other faiths. There’s no reason religion should get a free pass from satire or criticism.

We’re not another faith, we’re not a worldview either. We mock the very idea of faith.

Mohammed is a sower of discord apparently. Bad Mohammed, naughty Mohammed. Anyway, as such he was consigned to the Eighth level of Hell. I wonder why God would treat one of his prophets so harshly. Bad God, naughty God.

I like the Dali version too.

(Humor might be okay — for instance, since nobody really knows what he looked like, one might draw a bearded man in a turban and robes wearing a very modern-looking nametag that says, “HELLO! My name is Mohammed” on his lapel, so we’d know who he is — but that’s not disrespectful humor.)

The reason I would make that condition is that, while I still think that people should have every right to create even a disrespectful depiction of Mohammed, by this limitation, this organization would be limiting its current objective to just the issue of depicting Mohammed at all, which is the most fundamental point (so to speak), and also that criterion would help make it easier to embarrass any Islamic organizations that might make any protests about “defaming the Prophet” or some such nonsense.

~David D.G.

IT’S A TRAP!

I think Felcia hits it spot on though in her second paragraph.

Talking about “rights” needing to be tempered with “responsibility” and “respect” is advocating a seriously warped version of “rights”. It’s the rhetoric used by those who want to reintroduce blasphemy laws. You might find the desecration of holy cows (of any kind) distasteful, but telling people they shouldn’t do it because it’s disrespectful just shows you’ve misunderstood how integral the freedom of speech/expression is to democracy. Freedom of speech is intended to protect disrespectful, offensive stuff – no one cares about the other things you might say! You might not think you’re trying to violate freedom of speech when asking people to act with some responsibility, but what the hell DO you think you’re saying? “Yeah we should all be ALLOWED to say what we want… but that doesn’t mean we SHOULD” just sounds very disingenious in my ears.