[Hack&Lube]

I liked this story:

The wave swept many in the region. Sheik Muhammed Abu Zaid, an imam from the Lebanese town of Saida, said he began hearing of the caricatures from several Palestinian friends visiting from Denmark in December but made little of it.

"For me, honestly, this didn't seem so important," Abu Zaid said, comparing the drawings to those made of Jesus Christ in Christian countries.

"I thought, I know that this is something typical in such countries," he recalled.

Then, he started to hear that ambassadors of Arab countries had tried to meet with the prime minister of Denmark and had been snubbed, and he began to feel differently.

"It started to seem that this way of thinking was an insult to us," he said. "It is fine to say, `This is our freedom, this is our way of thinking.' But we began to believe that their freedom was something that hurts us."

I think most hardline Muslims have to realize like this guy, that cartoons are a tradition entrenched in western journalism and political culture as a way of hitting at abstract ideas in a direct and appealing manner and other religions don't lash back so violently against similar caricatures. This is the first time I've read something from an imam that understands this point.

Of course, his response to the diplomatic snubs leads to what many Muslims believe to be a conspiracy theory or at least culture of superiority and humilation shown toward the Muslim world.

As for Cheese's point that "The problem is that most Atheists were raised by religious parents", I think it's true. Reminds me of Jeremy Clarkson's latest article in the Times which has nothing to do with this at all but he's fun to read.

"There's a lot of political posturing about the future of education right now, all of which seems to miss the point: that at school, children should be encouraged to study books that make reading fun.

And it's the same story with religion. Because I was forced into chapel every Sunday, and made to read the Bible, which is even more excruciating than Paradise Lost, I emerged from the chrysalis of puberty filled with a sometimes overwhelming desire to set fire to the Archbishop of Canterbury." (yes I am probably falling into that catagory without the pyromaniac aspect).

Yet those verses that Cheese point out are usually explained by Christian apologists as being more a product of cultural and not divine rationale as the Bible should not be read literally or out of historical context for certain elements. Which is why I think God should send us some new drivers, a firmware update, and new PDFs.