Canadian Imam calling for censorship

link: Satirical depictions of religious leaders should be illegal, says Ottawa imam

Before we start debating this issue I want to say up front that this thread is NOT intended to debate the merits of religious claims (existence of God/Allah, supernatural origin of the universe or life, miracles.. ect..) nor is it about the prevalence of religious inspired terrorism. This is only about the Imam's call for censoring anti religious material that is considered "offensive". According to the article, Imtiaz Ahmed, a Canadian Imam wants offensive anti religious satire to be censored. To be fair, he also condemns that attacks in Paris.

Obviously I disagree with the Imam. No one's speech should be censored according to some arbitrary standard of what is offensive because once you start down this road, you have to violate rights and cause irreparable harm in order to achieve the objective of not offending people. Also, if the standard for censorship is 'that which offends' then religious leaders like this Imam would have to censor a great number of Quranic and Biblical passages that offend certain individuals and groups and that threaten violence.

What do you think?

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being offended by something you find distasteful but telling someone they can't bash your religion because it's distasteful is more childish than this doodle.

 

I think one solution might be to give religious figures the same status that we give living people for purposes of Libel. We do it for corporations, why not for Jesus, Muhammad and Buddha?

That way when someone says Muhammad was an illegal pedophile he'd have to go to court and prove it. If the history is unclear (and it is) or if the act was accepted and legal at the time (which it was) then the author would have to retract, or pay a fine. It would also keep people from libeling religious figures just for the "shock" value.

 

Cute. Nice artistry. If I ever decide to publish a periodical you can be my cartoonist.

 

If speech that I find offensive wasn't allowed there would be a lot of people in this country forced to be totally silent.

 

Fer crissakes, keep your day job. That's more an insult to the cartooning profession than any religious figure.

 

Uh.. no this is silly. It's worse than silly. Someone has to sue on behalf of the defamed if they are dead but these folks have been dead for over a millennia. Who can sue on behalf of people dead that long?

 

So what do with the gays who offend Christians? You're talking libel but the article is talking offensive speech.

 

You must be joking, right?

 

what do I think?

this POS Immam and all who agree with him need to grow thicker skins, grow up, act like adults, and stop being such babies.

you have no "right" to not be offended.

but you do have the "right" to not be killed or assaulted.

deal with it.

 

The problem with that is just about everything a person can say negative about any religious character is true. None of them was worth spit. A person would be better off respecting an asylum full of crazy people rather than ancient religious characters. So the Ottawa imam can ________ _______ _______. No one should have to respect his delusions.

 

How about this ignorant little immam grows the (*)(*)(*)(*) up.

 

If Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha or any other religious character or deity is ticked off about what people say about them then they need to get their butts here and show what they are going to do about it. It'll never happen because they are just crazy people's delusions. The first thing crazy people want to do when other people reject their religious delusions is to kill them. The imam thinks that he can force people to believe in his delusions by using threats and fear. He's as nutty as Moses was.

 

I think he's an idiot.

This guy is Exhibit A in why many Imams and their flocks need to join the rest of us in the 21st century.

 

time to come into the present Iman. If you don't like what you are reading... then read something else.

 

Who will decide who is a religious figure and who is not?
Are these to be considered religious figures
Pol Pot, David Koresh, Charles Manson, Darth Vader and Lord (*)(*)(*)(*)ing Voldemort I think not!

Yes lets get back to the good old days when you didn't question the religious clergy even when they were bu££ering small boys. Everything I understand about religion tells me it needs to be treated with a great deal less respect not more!

 

Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Farrakhan are ...cough cough ....religious figures.

 

Except when it's your own religion. I don't see any Muslims claiming that Jesus was gay or had a small penis.

 

Is this Imam a six-year old girl, by chance? Because that's what he sounds like.

Local Canadians should picket in front of his mosque or house or wherever he comes up with this whiny crap, if for no other reason than to show him the beauty of free speech...and to make him cry more.

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That's because Jesus wasn't gay and was hung like a horse.

 

Go call some moderator that he is a racist c*nt and find out what is in store with your idea's of free speech. Besides that, why the hell do people want respect for a couple of idiots who doodle something with the only goal to offend more than a billion people?

 

Waaaaaiiiiit a minute - a Canadian six-year old girl whining and crying - *SNAP* I know who this guy is!

 

When your delusions are most of what you have to live for, they are worth dying for.

 

Freedom of speech deals with laws passed by governments not rules of conduct on a private message board. I support what the moderators do here at PF and, FWIW, if I were to read some of what is printed and published about religion, I might well consider it personally offensive but so what?

 

There's a photo out there of gays depicting the Last Supper. Someone calls putting a crucifix in a jar of urine art. Offending Christians is fair game it seems, offending anyone else is not. I say that as an agnostic.

Muslims will kill you for being the wrong religion, what can possibly be more offensive than that?

 

Well. Making religious slurs is also not allowed here. I support that. But on the other hand, if people do that,.. let them and look like the hating b*tches that they are.