Why would anybody get upset by the drawn image of the prophet Mohammad?

[Kev]

I don't see how being ignorant towards the feelings of those who hold religion dear is any more reasonable though.

Fair enough religion is not important to you but it is to them so why offend them by creating caricatures and drawings in the first place?

Respect should be mutual.

No, religion isn't important to me. But I will respect any person who follows their faith and more so if they are decent and don't try to push it onto me. I know two Christians, not too closely mind, and religion is simply not part of the conversation. It's not very relevant.

You are a man that understands humour, Bilbo. You have made plenty of tasteless jokes in the past and that is what a lot of humour is based upon. If you were so concerned about offending people then you would just be Mr PC 24/7. But you are not, so I find it a little strange that you would be so opposed to a silly cartoon making a satirical point about something. In this instance there might not even be any humour mocking the religion, but simply an image of this human that apparently spread the word of god.

It's a huge overreaction to be banning a peoples site such as You Tube and have loads of people protesting about it. It's like christians getting upset by Monty Python's Life of Brian all those years back and everybody now loves it! Maybe Muslims need something done to cover some of their background...though I fear it might end in WW3!

There is a difference about joking on a private forum and publicly offending though. I wouldnt write about my lust for Dakota Fanning in a newspaper for example or give my analysis of why the blacks allowed themselves to be enslaved.

I see no problem in hattonthehammer drawing pictures of Muhammad blowing goats in his own home but I would object to some Western twat creating Southpark style cartoons to lampoon them and then moan about what fundamentalists they are.

Muslims dont like having their faith mocked, and Westerners dont like their civilians being blown up. Just respect each other's points of view and everything would be fine.

Fair points, though I do think having a sense of humour about things is infintitely more preferable than killing somebody. I really do believe that anything should go when it comes to humour.

I'm still struggling to understand why this prophet Mohammad dude is so offensive in the physical form though. He was a mortal and not even a divine entity, what is so precious about him? I think a lot of religion is corny, but nothing more so than being unable to represent in visual form a significant player in that history.

Islam generally doesnt allow depictions of any prophets or God for fear of it leading to idolatry. In the old Testament God was pretty strict on it too.

Gnerally though in the West, it's not only the fact that Muhammad is being depicted, but also that he is being depicted in a farcical or insulting way.

They feel at least as strongly about their faith as we do about our ideals of freedom of speech, democracy and the right to wear flag bearing clothing, even though they probably think some of these ideas silly.

Tolerance is just about accepting people to be as they are and not imposing your own opinions on them. I think the West is every bit as fundamentalist and radical as Islam, invading countries, forcing democracy, trying to liberate homosexuals in Islam countries etc.

How can being free to think your own thought free of doctrine ever be thought silly? I find the idea of being told that life is a certain way and that way only a silly doctrine.

If something cannot be proven to have even existed, then what is the harm in mocking it. In the case of the awful mohammad, and having just read about him, the guy would most likley be all over The Sun with his concubines and multiple wives. It's no wonder the Muslim faith is a mans religion.

Having done a little reading on the guy, he deserves mocking and far more so than I thought before. He was a rotter and a cheat and yet because he was male and kept women down and decided "I will speak the word of god"...all these Muslims get upset because he might be depicted in a negative light?

Laughable.

Yes but that's the western view not theirs. I have no problem respecting their beliefs even though I don't agree with them.