R.I.P. Chris Stevens

[ceez]

This has been all over the news today and its chaos and stupidity all around. for those that don't know some ignorant film maker made some low budget online movie mocking the Prophet Mohammad causing riots in Egypt and Libya. in Libya rioters stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens.
http://news.yahoo.com/photos/libyans-den...06494.html

I'm actually surprised that the rest of the world hasn't learned by now that we can't control the idiots that live in this country and a movie some douche bag made who wasn't even known until after the movie released is no reason to go and take someones life.

[Puck]

The guy may have been a douche but he had every right to make the video.

Muslims are the ones who don't seem to understand the notion of intelligent debate. They disagree with something, its riots and fire and brimstone flying. Voicing your concerns? Attempting to be civil to others? Pfft! Why do that when religion dictates your every mindset?

Note: This is not an attack on Middle Eastern people. I do not possess a racist bone in my body. This is an attack on psychotic religious nuts. It is OK to include Muslims in this, right along with the Christians and Catholics. Voicing your dislike of the Islamic religion does not make one a racist

(sorry to go on that spiel but I've had that argument with people in my life before who accuse me of racism when I attack Islam)

[Pix]

It's sad, and how many Muslims actually feel righteous for murder (one reason I prefer selfish sociopaths who only do evil when it helps, as oppose to hinder, reach their goals to the self-righteous zealots who do evil because their conscience compels them to and even makes them feel guilty for NOT being evil) is very disturbing. It's like they're still in the medieval period. Not all, of course, but enough that their societies tend to be extremely brutal and things like this just aren't surprising.

One of my favorite movies (and the graphic novel is even better) is Persepolis and it's actually made me very sympathetic to people who flee Islamic governments (such as immigrating to Sweden or the United States). I don't care if they're Muslim themselves as long as they're not barbaric. (I consider both Christianity and Islam to be extremely barbaric religions with a history that would horrify anyone not raised to overlook such evil, but plenty of people who claim either of those as their religion are good people, where we differ is they think they're good because of their religion while I think they're good IN SPITE OF their religion.) Btw, that movie, despite winning awards, was not allowed to play in most Muslim countries (supposedly because it showed how a girl imagined Allah but I think because how it showed the practice of Islam in a place like Iran), and Iran even got it banned from showing in Thailand through diplomatic pressures, and the few Muslim countries that did play it often faced violence themselves (like when a TV station that aired it was nearly burnt down by Muslim fanatics that was only saved by a massive police intervention).

I do recall one Muslim on YT who decried an atheist who made a video critical of the Danish cartoon riots (had to love the sign a Muslim carried that said something like, "Behead those who say Islam is violent") and she was insulted (and she, an Asian American, endured racial taunts as well) and most of all, threatened (eventually complaints got the vid deleted by YT even though there was no profanity or sweeping generalizations, instead she rationally and calmly focused on those rioting, murdering, and burning embassies over a mere cartoon, not every Muslim and why it was barbaric and unacceptable, and I think her being calm & reasonable made it all that worse for many of the offended Muslims). One (and visiting his channel I know he was for real, not a troll pretending to be a Muslim) made several diatribes on how peaceful Islam was but one post went something like, "I'm going to rape you and slit your throat," to which I sardonically replied, "Truly Islam is the religion of peace." His sarcasm detector was working because he almost immediately sent me a PM...let me see if I can find it...note this is as he sent it to me, misspellings and all:

dead bitch
"your a dirty white whore. u fuken trailer trash... death to the crusaders and christians.."

The funny part to me is I read that and my very first semi-outraged thought was, "Did he just call me a CHRISTIAN?" :redface:

[Rainbowmum]

May he rest in peace.

[TryingNewThing]

this is truly sad as I have a lot of respect for diplomats (and anyone really) who go into harm's way to help make the world a more understanding, friendly and peaceful place to live. It's especially tragic that he's killed in Benghazi, the birthplace of the revolution.

RIP Chris Stevens

[zeon]

problem with faith is too many people take it too seriously and this causes problems.. An ideal game to understand faith

POPULOUS THE BEGINNING - PS1

[watkins]

That situation is terrible. I would in no way lump all muslims together as every religion has its extremists and I lived in the middle east for nearly a decade and loved their culture. However, some of the states need to change their ways and some things are no longer acceptable. Religious fanatacism and subsequent murder is not acceptable in my opinion! It is a pity that some people (cerainly not all and usually the more idiotic) view all muslims as fanatics which is plain naive, but they are getting a lot of air time at the moment.

[Puck]

That situation is terrible. However, you cant lump all muslims together. Yes they have extremists and a lot of what goes on in the middle east is wrong but not all muslims are the same. (I am not muslim myself but lived in the middle east for nearly a decade). Just saying.....

That's the sad thing about religion Watkins. For every good and decent practitioner out there, 500 more step up to make them all look like extremist psychopaths. This goes for pretty much ALL religions though....

I'm not trying to sound like a prejudiced ass (though in the case of religion I AM something of a prejudiced ass so there you go) but the only Muslim I know of that's in the public eye who actually acts like a normal individual is Yusuf Islam, better known to music aficionados as Cat Stevens. The man wrote "Peace Train" for cryin' out loud mile:

Anyway, I get what you're saying....but its hard for me to set aside my views on religion when so many of them make a bad name for themselves. They have no one else to blame for the public's perceptions of them.

[Person66]

This is like the Danish cartoons and Theo Van Gogh (the descendent of Vincent Van Gogh, who made a short film about the hypocrisy of the Koran who was killed in Holland) all over again.
Muslims have shown over and over again that they are over sensitive to any criticisms and jokes of their religion. Though I'n not Muslim or middle eastern both of my parents spent their youth in the Shah's Iran so I personally know many secular and moderate Muslims who are good people. But I don't know what is wrong with this generation, it seems that every time we have one of these controversies, we hear no voices of moderation from the Middle East asking their countrymen to calm down. And the U.S. was too afraid to even show the Danish cartoons, I had to see them on a Canadian newspaper online. They were actually funny, one showed the Prophet Mohammad telling the 9/11 hijackers that he was running out of virgins. Nothing to kill people over!
Even Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam has gone thru an evolution, when Khomeini put a Fatwa on Salman Rushdie's head for writing The Satanic Prophecies he appeared on the BBC show " The Hypotheticals" saying if he knew where Rushdie was he would personally try to contact Khomeini. So even he was once in the grips of radical Islam. Fortunately he is now on a more moderate path, apologized to Rushdie, started playing music again, etc.
RIP Chris Stevens and the three other men who died with you.

[princealbertofb]

Listening to the news, it sounds to me like some people have a vested interest in a whole group of (probably) uneducated people behaving like sheep. They have presumably not seen the film, (not that it sounds like it's very interesting to watch) and haven't made their own opinion of whether or not it 'insults' their religion. I heard one man on the radio saying: ''You can insult me all you want, but you can't insult my religion''. Honestly, what's the difference? Why is his religion more worthy of respect than his own self? That, I don't know.
To me this is just proof that religion is about power and that some people are ready to hand over power to people who have no respect for them, or their liberty, or their education, or their lives. These people are being played and they don't even know it. Sad, sad, sad.