You never hear about Hindus walking into McDonald’s and telling the manager they’re not allowed to use beef products anymore.
If they did, we would laugh it off. We’d say that’s absurd because non-Hindus don’t have to follow their rules.
But what if the Hindu radicals committed a violent act against the manager? We’d be furious.
What if moderate Hindus said it was offensive for someone else to eat a Big Mac? We’d say that’s crazy.
In response to all that, I think it would be perfectly appropriate to stage a peaceful sit-in where all participants ate Big Macs.
It wouldn’t be anti-Hinduism nor would anyone be purposely trying to piss off Hindus by doing that. It would just be a show of solidarity by those who believe that only Hindus need to abide by their religious beliefs, not anyone else.
That’s what we’re doing by drawing these Muhammad images.
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Lars Vilks, the man who drew Muhammad’s face on the body of a dog, was attacked a few days ago. And it has only gotten worse for him since then.
His house was set on fire. (Thankfully, Vilks is ok.)
The facade of the building was lightly damaged, a police spokeswoman told SR radio. Neither Vilks, nor anyone else was in at the time of the incident at the house in a secluded part of southern Sweden.
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The radicals are remaining violent.
The “moderate” Muslims are pointing fingers at the artists — the artists! — saying they’re offending Islam by drawing Muhammad.
That’s ridiculous, and that’s why I support everyone drawing Muhammad on May 20th.
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I’m getting some great drawings of Muhammad from several of you. (Please keep them coming!)
The ones which seem most effective to me are the ones portraying Muhammad in a positive way. Smiling faces, peace signs, etc. If Muslims are offended by those, they’ll only be embarrassing themselves.
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The Secular Student Alliance supports the college students who have drawn stick figure Muhammads. To be sure, we are offering a few helpful pieces of advice for any other campus atheists who want to follow in their footsteps.
In the video below, The Young Turks voice their support for the SSA and they go after Eboo Patel‘s wrong-headed criticism of the atheists. The key part for me begins at 1:53:
Right on.