Canim, you don´t realize that you basically have only agreed with me, not with "all posters" here!! hahaha

I don´t agree with this. Muslims don´t insult Jesus because Jesus is also a Muslim prophet. Insulting him would be the same as insulting Mohammed. But somehow people tend to forget that Islam has more then one prophet.

The issue of the cartoons is not about respect for Islam, but about disrespect for the people who abuse a religion for violence.

And in the end, everybody has the right for his or her opinion about a prophet. Because a lot has been written about Mohammed´s life, it is easier to form an opinion about him then about other prophets. And some things that have, by word of mouth mostly, happened in his life are things that other people don´t agree with. Some of the cartoons were about this too, but the cartoons that got the most heavy responses were actually about abusive so-called muslims.

awww well..not only with you I agreed with Lis´s point that people should focus on doing good things instead of insulting other people´s religions, I said I didn´t like playing the religion card. And I also agree with BM that Muslims react as if Mohammet was the only prophet criticised. And now I agree with BM even more. What´s happening to me? Am I going to be this year´s TC´s nod person?

I just can´t think of one good thing that came out of this gentleman publishing this cartoon.  He proved that there are religious zealots out there.  We didn´t know that already?  

Why would somebody who has a talent waste it on such rubbish?  These cartoons caused riots and scores of people to get hurt.  I am just asking, what good came out of this?  We, as Westerners have so much freedom, we are so lucky and fortunate to be able to express ourselves.  Why do we waste it on upsetting people, pornography, and other hateful acts?  Why do we use our freedom as an excuse to do and say whatever we want?  Perhaps we are NO BETTER than those who use religion to do and say whatever they want?  

Well, it also showed VERY clearly that religion is not necessarily that peace-loving, force for good in the world, but it can also be a murderous ideology! That surely should make people rethink how much automatic respect religion should get.. (not much really!!) And it should also change people´s minds about whether religions should be criticized and questioned... or just let them be what they are. 

You are right that mockery might be a particularly painful form of criticism to hear, that not everyone might want to engage in, but people should still not have to fear for their lives for doing it in a free society.

We agree about the need of the change. And I think that change shall be on human behaviours and minds. Muslims, Christians, Jewishes, Budists, Atheists etc. almost all people in the world losed humanitarian values a lot nowadays. That situation has rooted reasons which are subject to another main topic; Why human lost his/her values?

In my opinion religions are the last Castles of humanitarian values. So the world needs to understand the soul of religions rather than trying to reform it.

I can not think that a real religious person insults anyone else becouse he/she knows that the world is a temporary station on the way to eternity. Neither extreme rightest attacks in Europe nor cutted heads in Afghanistan are becouse Christianity or Islam. All these are becouse value losing human.

BTW Frea, we are on the same idea about Jesus. What i ment in my previous post was totally the same with ur point of view. Jesus is a prophet of Islam also. So none of the Muslim people do not insult him.

If only Norwegian newspaper´s executives would focus on "how to increase humanitarian values" rather than provaking Muslims by insulting their holy figures.

That would be more effectful approach to fix socil problems of Europe like, ethnocentrism, exploitation, dishonesty and etc.

liked it. very logic.

That is absolutely true, there is no rule that a Muslim is better or worse then a Christian or an atheist, there are good and bad people from all walks of life. But.. we do want and have to criticize their beliefs/ideas.. if we think they contribute to bad things happening. If you don´t criticize first.. nothing will ever change.. my two pennies!

I have to agree with Catwoman again. the fact that all religions have flaws (or as some may want to put it, people have flaws and are thus incapable of trully understand and/or follow religious teachings) makes it an argument supporting criticism, which satire definitely is.

If there´s something in the world you don´t like, why shouldn´t you be free to say it openly? If some people think their religion justifies terrorism, they can´t be surprised at being criticised. If a Prime Minister of a European country wants to sunbathe naked in the company of naked women, the respect for his wife cannot be a reason of not turning this incident into a satirical cartoon.

Everything and everyone in this planet and beyond it is prone to criticism. People can do terrible things if they don´t fear the public opinion, let´s take the latest news about child abuse in the Catholic Church. If it was ok to criticise Church before, they would not feel so unpunishable

Oh canim, and of course I agree with you too!!

So true!