A lack of understanding

Friday, November 30, 2007

Explain this to me, because obviously I'm missing something: A teacher, who is working in an Islamic country, has a teddy bear, and lets her class vote on a name for the teddy bear. The class, being comprised of young Muslim children who have been raised to have great love and respect for their religion and those of their faith, decide to name the teddy bear Mohammed - their most cherished prophet. It also happens to be the most common name in the world. So, someone hears about this, and the teacher is charged with "inciting religious hatred", faced a sentence that could have kept her jailed for 40 years AND would've included being physically harmed by a whip or some other blunt object. She "got off easy" and only has to serve 15 days in jail for this.

Oh yeah, and the people of Sudan are in the streets right now, calling for her to be "killed by firing squads."

Obviously I'm missing something, because last I checked, she didn't give the teddy bear the name. Sure, I understand that it's against Muslim law to embody the prophet Mohammed as a picture or some other artistic representation (despite the fact that they have done it many times throughout the last thousand years...), but come on. A teddy bear? A teddy bear the students named?

Wow, folks. Wow.

As an American and as Jew, I realize that when I write here about Islam, I have to be careful about what I say - I've received abusive and threatening e-mails before about lesser topics - but I'm having a hard time buying the whole "Islam is the religion of peace" when every single day I'm hearing about all of these Islamic countries that are simply not peaceful, and are chocked full of people who are full of hatred and would gladly shoot me full of holes, burn my corpse, and drag it through the streets in a celebratory manner just because I'm American and/or Jewish.

I wish I could say I was exaggerating on my description there, but it's happened. A lot. All over the world (except in the USA, thankfully).

I realize that not every person from one religion feels and acts the same as the next, and I realize that there's a lot of Muslims who aren't violent and don't feel like a woman should be killed because she let her class name a teddy bear after a holy prophet. I also realize that there are bad people all over the world who are of different faiths - or of no faith at all. But all of this idiotic violence in the name of God (any God)... it's getting old. It's been old. It's very old.

Get a hobby. Knit a sweater. Build models. Paint. Draw. Play a musical instrument. Learn how to perform taxidermy on your pets. Just stop this moronic violence that you excuse in the name of your religion.

Technorati Tags: Islam, Religion of Peace, Teacher, Sudan.

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