El Pibe

I dunno, I don't think enlightenment ideals are anathema to islam by any stretch. There have certainly been places and periods which have valued them and indeed pipped the west to them. In the golden age of al-andalus, for example, by several hundred years, not to mention science, learning, rediscovery of philosophy from antiquity (we can thanks the arabs for us even talking about the socratic method for instance). I think alot of this has less to do with Islam per se being medieval, but a 2 pronged crisis of confidence in the muslim, but predominantely arab, world. Firstly difficulty in coming to terms with the rise and dominance of the west when comapred to past glories (the british can surely symapthise with this sort of soul searching). And secondly the failure of the, largely secular, experiments at modernism. Even here failure is also often, and for good reasons, blamed on the west with its cynical propping up of brutal regimes, such that you can't blame them for feeling the choice is: "modern = dissent crushed & stagnant economies" "islamic = at least we might be happy and hopefully it'll have light at the end of the tunnel" as people often look back when the now seems rubbsih by comparison (yoo hoo UKIP) The western propensity to shake our heads like the roman soldiers in Pontius Pilate's cellars (life of brian version of biblical tale), and i hate to agree with ernesto, does rather smack of intellectual/cultural superiority, when alot of it *is* rather our fault in keeping the oil flowing. Who put the saudis there? Who sells them all their weapons?

English classic literature, (bar Dickens I guess) Forrest Gump Gladiator

agree liked the book, film, not so much BEST FILM EVVVAAAHHHHHHH

yeah, cultural relativism is a pretty slippery slope, the (absurd) logical conclusion of which involves total inability to make any value judgement at all ;)

I dunno otta. Sometimes it's cathartic to just go 'feck you'

you have a point. PM announces France's war on terror!! My jaw dropped a bit when the parliament sang the Marseillaise, apparently for the first time since, erm liberation. You know, when the country was occupied by evil forces and 350,000 civilians were killed. I hoped I was being a bit hyperbolic about turning a police matter into a counter insurgency, given France's woeful human rights records in these matters....

Aaaand breathe!!!!!!

Second life is a dreadful game. Hmm, also wrong thread.

"how can you possibly say that it's "not in the slightest offensive to anyone"?" My speciality at uni (alongside the start of the cold war and some spectacularly dull stuff about burgundian dukes) was the rise of islam and the schisms. I'm telling you that the issue about images of Mohammed is nothing to do with offence, it's to do with idolatry and the potential for apostasy. If you're comfortable in your worshhip they pose no threat, indeed many strands of islam are pretty ok with images full stop. The original row about the earlier cartoons involved some pretty offensive images, as I said before. Some of the Charlie Hebdo stuff I've seen is pretty damn offensive too, I found some of them offensive, it wouldn't surprise me if many muslims did too. Though that still doesn't excuse the reactions to them, I find reality TV offensive, but I have yet to burn down Endemol offices with everyone inside. What I'm saying is the new cover simply cannot be deemed offensive, it just isn't. It very much concurs with the majority islam view of allah and his prophet as merciful, peaceful and loving. How offensive is that?!?!? The 'it offends muslims' line comes from demagogues and the odd iffy scholar, those who are choosing to be offended, and they're getting alot of buy in from other people who likewise will choose to do so, probably having no idea what it even looks like, because it feeds some anger and simmering resentment that hungers for more. Maybe gives an excuse for a good riot or burn an embassy or kill some passing christian or jew. In other words in 99% of cases around the world I imagine its based almost entirely on ignorance and propaganda and ectarian hatred. And it will not effing be the new cover that is responsible for those deaths, it'll be whatever fuckwit shoots a stranger because some other fuckwit on youtube told them its bad.

New cover not in slightest offensive to anyone. People are only offended if they've decided to be. "Some men in beards decided that the prophet can't be shown. that's it. That is the basis of your hurt. Grow up FFS" That really is it. They didn't decide its offensive, they decided that you are too pathetic not to be corrupted by said image to become an idol worshipper. Said image unlikely to make anyone an idol worshipper. It is, in fact, entirely in keeping with all the Muslim naysayers who insist Islam is a religion of peace and love. So the only people offended or consider it an act. Of war are those who are offensive or keen on a civilisational war. So colour me unimpressed by calls of 'offence'

"Try my new anti-ageing serum! It uses botulinum toxin." "Cool, like Botox, right?" "Not exactly." "But it'll prevent ageing?" "Oh yes."— Tom Freeman (@SnoozeInBrief) January 12, 2015

agreed d_c of course just because you can insult, doesn't mean you should. Especially with satire, save the hardest hitting for something that matters. Some of the controversial cartoons, charlie or non, do seem to me to be just crass for the sake of it. Whereas someone like jesus & mo has been doing wonderfully intellignet humour for years. But some of you would like him to stop for reasons of sensitivity? Seems ridiculous to me.

neither are, arguably, de facto or not. There are certainly areas in both where the gov't doesnt have much of a say, for sure, but you might as well argue that the UK was republican with a kneecapping judiciary because s armagh was a no go area. "It seems people certainly get very angry about any sort of blasphemy" I suspect much of the anger is more down to an army seemingly taking sides with the west against muslims, not to mention allowing bombings, drones and assassinations on their soil with apparent impunity. Demagoguery becomes an easy thing in those circumstances, and then there's the old pandora's box situtaion. Once you've used something for political gain, it tends to become part of a pattern. I'm pretty sure Putin wanted no part of Donetsk etc, but once it started you never know when it might come in handy, so he's currently hedging his bets. Most violence is political at the end of the day. Hell even these parisian tosspots were probably brought up on a diet of the Algerian conflicts 60s & 90s. Nobody really goes postal because of a picture, there's always years of seething resentment and hatred involved.

"In a theocracy, like Afghanistan or Pakistan," apart from neither of them being theocracies....

will we get sucked in by another zelda otta? http://ie.ign.com/videos/2014/12/09/the-legend-of-zelda-wii-u-fullscreen-footage-from-the-game-awards

By and large agree with the sentiment of the post, especially with the levels of terrorism in western europe, being less than past insurgencies or even victorian anarchism. On the Power of Nightmares, I thought it entertaining but very unconvincing. I suspect govenrments like to concentrate on it because it's more fun than engaging with your constituents about the proposed wind farm ;) Oh and IS is in Syria and now Iraq, traditionally quite stable* countries until we invaded/encouraged a revolution. We're figthing them to keep the shredded remnants of a terrible middle east policy from being in further tatters than it already is. *if we ignore the odd brutal suppression, war crime or spat with Israel.

Saliva inducing denial hip shoot. That's actually in the OED under clique.

Spot on otta. Angry young men who want to break everything they resent. 'Twas ever thus, there's always an excuse for it.

aah my bad, evangelism vs evangelicalism, like liberalism versus libertarianism I guess. I'm not convinced that the trend in either church is headed that way though. At least the head folk are certainly trying their best to go the opposite direction.

I guess it mostly means they're not very nice. Ultimately it's vision is about establishing a new Islamic age, and fostering social conflict in order to achieve that (anarchist 101). Realistically you need to do this in the middle east, Pakistan or wherever you are, hence the death toll. Though they love a good snooked c0ck at the west it's not a clash of civilisations, it's a clash within one civilisation. Attacks within Western nations are almost always by people who were born there and have channeled their petty resentments into a neat angry cause that gives them all that angry self affirmation and a neat enclosed loop to both revenge and salvation and a nice v1rgin to boot (or grapes according to the original translation). Columbine where they get the girl, if that's not too crass a comparison.

Given that christianity is by definition evangelical I'm not sure what that means, but both are certainly trying to become more progressive in the face of very conservative resistance aaaanyway far be it for me to defend religion, but i don't think any of this has anything to do with religion really, at least much less than it appears on the surface. I've been saying for years (search as far back as mockney and I'm sure you'll find examples) that the vision and philosophy of al qaeda and now isis, owes a far greater debt to anarchist and communist revolutionaries than it does to suras or the hadith. Actions like this particularly bring to my mind the red brigades, shining path et al, and this belief in a utopia, whether somethingist or a caliphate again has that revolutionary zeal with a legacy to the likes of Marx or Bakunin. And it's not even been that destructive when you compare it to the 20th century's worldwide attempts through violence to create these societies from year 0. Islamism will eventually burn out. isis's miserable failure will be a good start, and is already on its way, (and i think i used this aalogy before) but virulent fatal illneses aren't very good at propogating themselves, ebola is too deadly to spread far and isis is surely the ebola of insurgencies. likewise insurgencies stand or fall by the support of the locals, and when isis police chiefs are appearing in town squares, decapitated with a ciggie in their mouth and a notice saying 'hand off our tobacco' you've got to think they're not that long for the world, especially now they're being pressed on a number of fronts and there's serious talk of a compromise with assad in the offing. Which of course won't remove this problem, it'll metamorphosise, it'll spread, there will be more of this sort of thing and our socieites will of course survive. WHat is paramount is, as D_C says, that our way of life is preserved, our fundamental freedoms, and the tenets of free speech and freedom to express yourself are not sacrificed. But i thoroughly agree with the way 'respect for' or 'offended by' have become code words for shutting down debate or artistic expression. But neither islam nor religion have monopoly on that, that's a much wider malaise and very much an internal western one too.

. sorry, serious thread.

Well, that's rather *why* there's an appeals process isn't it? Though (and im REALLY no expoert) doesn't it have to be based on new evidence, else its just a retrial. Having read the linked judge's summary this hardly looks like someone's been fitted up, or a shocking lapse by the jury. Noone's really arguing the events themselves, just that bit of legal grey area between crime and not.

bloody cliques

interesting, you'd have thought that was pretty straightforward data to sift through. I suspect it's right about collider though I was vaguely surprised Myth by Beach House wasn't much higher, being my goto 'friday is almost over at work' tune