A Sequel to Draw Muhammad Day May 3, 2011

A Sequel to Draw Muhammad Day

By Guest Contributor
May 3, 2011

Last year, it was important as ever to draw an image of Muhammad.

Those who had suggested doing it were being threatened. College students who actually drew Muhammad were accused of committing hate crimes.

All of it for drawing a picture — stick figures, even! — that some deemed offensive.

Islam forbids the drawing of Muhammad, so I understand if Muslims don’t want to do it. But they have no right to silence your free speech.

This was never about pissing off Muslims. This has always been about standing in solidarity with everyone who wants to draw such an image — political cartoonists, the people behind South Park — but are forbidden from doing it. The extremists can’t attack everyone, right?

So, once again, I’m asking you all to draw an image of Muhammad. It doesn’t need to portray Muhammad in a negative way. Clever and funny images are far more effective. Stick figures are enormously popular. Be creative. Be brave.

After you draw Muhammad, send it to me.. I’ll compile as many as I can and post them on this site on May 20th, the anniversary of Draw Muhammad Day.

I will protect your anonymity unless you tell me otherwise.

It would be tough to surpass, but can we do better than last year?



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  • John

    WHY are you endorsing the “drawing” of a NON-EXISTENT ENTITY?

    Its like drawing unicorns! Besides its result of picking on the retarded muslims, what else is the point?

  • @John:

    1. Muhammad certainly existed. You might be mistaking him for Allah/God/Yahweh, whom I believe does/did not exist.

    2. Please don’t use the term “retarded”, especially in a pejorative sense.

    3. The point of drawing Muhammad is because we can, no matter what anyone else says, and especially because people say we cannot.

  • Anonymous

    One of my favorites from last year. It’s meta-meme-tastic.
    http://www.greeleygazette.com/press/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Draw-Mohammed-day-color.jpg

  • Grammernatzi

    John, the reason he is doing it is to speak against other religions enforcing their rules on people who don’t practice them.

  • Bailey

    John – didn’t you read the whole piece? I’ll quote from it directly: “This was never about pissing off Muslims. This has always been about standing in solidarity with everyone who wants to draw such an image…”

    It’s about free speech and refusal to bow to religious extremists who would deny it to speakers who don’t share their beliefs. It has nothing to do with whether or not Muhammad exists. If Pastafarians came on and claimed that no one would draw the Flying Spaghetti Monster on pain of death, we’d be having a Draw the Flying Spaghetti Monster Day.

  • The point is that people have died for “daring” to “blaspheme” the prophet by drawing his image.

    Even if that were so, we should still have the right to express ourselves however we want, without getting death threats because we’re stepping on someone’s political correctness.

  • Heidi

    What’s wrong with drawing unicorns? Hmpf.

  • Defiantnonbeliever

    @John- How bout if you draw a unicorn, and I threaten to kill you if you do? Get it?

  • Defiantnonbeliever

    @John- if you label the back side of the unicorn you draw Mohammad, and get it widely published you may have to go into hiding to keep Muslims from killing you. You might get arrested for a hate crime or loose you job or be censored by a chickenshit outfit you happen to work for.

    Someone once said we can either stand together or hang alone.

  • Freak

    Defiantnonbeliever:

    IIRC, it was Ben Franklin: “We must all hang together, or surely we will all hang separately.”

  • Gibbon

    Actually, Hemant needs to be corrected on one point. It is not true that the Muslim religion prohibits images of the Prophet Mohammed; there is nothing in the Qur’an which calls for any sort of ban, it’s a only few hadith which call for a prohibition.

    And to add to that point, not all Muslims are opposed to images of the prophet. Shi’a Muslims are in fact much more open to pictures of Mohammed, granted that those images are respectful. This is primarily due to the fact that the reason for why Sunni’s prohibit visual depictions is absent from Shi’a Islam.

  • Jachra

    Let’s hope you don’t get placed into protective custody. Good luck, Hemant.

  • Daniel

    Early entry:

    o(–[

    Here he is, taking a nap. Just enjoying a nice spring day.

    (He’d look a little better, but the auto distance between lines made him look awkward upright and for some reason, greater/less than signs don’t seem to be displayed here, severely limiting what I could use for limbs)

  • Villa

    @John

    The point is reducing a threat by dilution.

  • Kaua’i Bill

    I’d rather see a picture of the now deceased Osama bin Laden. I could care less about Islam or its “prophets” but free speech is vital to the interests of a free society.

  • Currently attempting to draw Muhammad on a unicorn.

  • What if we draw Mohamed on the back of a unicorn? OH, and we could draw Allah looking over them both. Maybe someone could do a Precious Moments keepsake out of it!

    All seriousness joking aside, I believe it was Mohammed who made it a rule that no one could draw him. In fact, I seem to remember him saying that the only art is the word of Allah. Or am I thinking of someone else? I think his idea was that he didn’t want anyone getting all OCD about him or anything else. He even told his followers to not mark his grave because he didn’t want it to turn into some place of reverence. Of course, his followers didn’t listen to him.

    Am I thinking of the right guy? I’m a serious atheist and pay very little attention to these things. I suppose I should pay more attention as they effect so much of our world these days. :/

  • I hope that everyone that chooses to participate in this event understands what this means to the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who would never even dream of attacking anyone for making some stupid picture…

    To the normal, peaceful Muslims among us, this event invokes a lot of grief, emotional pain, upset, and offense. That’s all it is. Deep-seated emotional hurt. I wish people wouldn’t draw the prophet, simply because it has such a negative effect on thousands. But if you still want to make your little drawing, it’s not like we’re going to do anything about it. I just felt that you all should know the consequences of what you’re doing. These consequences are a FACT.

  • Why on earth would a drawing cause “deep-seated emotional hurt”? You realize that you can hardly expect non-Muslims to follow the multitude of arbitrary Muslim rules, yes? Do you experience “deep-seated emotional hurt” when non-Muslims ignore other Muslim rules? Are you horribly hurt if I eat pork just because you can’t? Does the fact that I don’t pray five times a day keep you up at night? Why is the “don’t draw Muhammed” rule so special that you expect others to follow it?

  • Peter Mahoney

    Here is the prophet Muhammad smiling

    🙂

    Now, how did that hurt anyone? He looks cute. It’s actually good public relations for Muhammad to be seen smiling happily like that.

    No one deserves threats or violence for something so benign. Even if it was drawn by a Muslim, it would be crazy for other believers to physically assault/kill them for this. But to propose that Islam’s rules must apply to non-Muslims, that’s just crazy. It makes Muhammad sad

    🙁

  • Daniel

    “Deep-seated emotional hurt. … These consequences are a FACT.”

    Does it cause deep-seated emotional hurt to Catholics when I eat a burger during lent? Is it a FACT that Muslims and Jews both feel pain when I eat a ham and cheese sandwich?

    Or better yet, is it a FACT that their belief in the supernatural causes me deep seated emotional hurt?

    Of course not. We can all be a little sad that others don’t share our beliefs. But to experience anguish over this fact is absurd. I can’t believe that every religion on Earth suffers emotional torment over the fact that the majority of humans on the planet do not believe in the same things they do.

  • Ben

    I’m still feeling torn about this whole initiative… As an atheist, I obviously consider it my right to draw a picture of whomever I wish. I also acknowledge that we must make a stand against those who seek to impose this utterly ridiculous religious limitation. However, there’s just something that seems so… juvenile.. about the whole idea of us all drawing pictures of Mohammed and waving them about. There’s lots of other ‘offensive’ things we could draw – how about Jesus being sodomised by a dog? What about the virgin Mary performing fellatio on Joseph? Those things would certainly offend Christians, so should we have a ‘Draw Mary sucking off Joseph Day’? I realise that my examples are extreme, as they are obviously intended to convey my sentiments reductio ad absurdum.

  • With all due respect, please let me ATTEMPT to explain this emotion:

    You see, religion is kind of interesting in the sense that the prophet (or even Jesus) is not just a symbol of the faith, but he’s a PERSON that we all have an emotional attachment to. Call it crazy if you like, but this is how it is. Some people talk to their pets, some people talk to their dead ancestors/parents, and some people talk to their prophet/God. And they absolutely revere, cherish and LOVE these people.

    Now, if my mother died, and it was her dying wish that she didn’t want something done after her death (for example, drawing a picture of her), I LOVE HER and I wouldn’t draw a picture of her – plain and simple. Now if someone started going out of their way to draw pictures of her because they want to make a point, I know I can’t do anything about it but do you think it’s justified that I feel a little upset about it, knowing that the person I love wouldn’t want this?

    I know this is getting a little deep, but that was my humble attempt to explain a delicate matter.

  • My point is – eating pork, praying, believing in things – these are not something we all feel upset about when there’s a difference of opinion. But when it comes to our family, our loved ones, we understand each others’ boundaries. The prophet is considered the most important part of our family, he has a place in the hearts of millions of people. No one wants to see a person they love being disrespected.

  • Villa

    @willthinkforcash

    You’re mixing up two prohibitions here.

    One is the custom of “don’t say bad things about our respected figures.” This argument can be made by all religions. But there are obvious problems with allowing it to constrain public debate. Why should one ideology receive unique deference?

    The second is the more specific, “don’t create images of Muhammad because they could create a temptation for idolatry.” This doesn’t really apply to this case; the images are created for many purposes, but veneration is not among them.

  • ACN

    I think it is a poor analogy to compare your mother, who for the purpose of this exercise was a private citizen, with a large scale religio-political leader like Mohammed.

    No one is denying that muslims may have deep, irrational feelings of attachment to mohammed, and that they may feel upset if people draw him publicly. Not to put too fine a point on it, but tough bananas. Their personal feelings are not relevant to whether or not mohammed is an acceptable object of public criticism. He was a religious and political leader. He thrust himself into the public view by claiming to be god’s own prophet and founding a new religion. Maybe he should have thought about not liking to be illustrated before he forced himself into the spotlight.

  • @Villa – I agree with you. But I wasn’t talking about religious prohibitions…

    @ACN – The point was that he’s considered a personal loved one by many hundreds of thousands, even millions of people in the world.

    In terms of society and politics – yes, he is an acceptable object of criticism because he WAS a religious and political leader *FACT*. In this regard, draw him all you want.

    However, I was speaking in terms of delicate matters like the human heart, love, and emotion. Private citizen or large-scale religio-political leader, it doesn’t matter when it comes to a human being’s feelings. In other words, intangible and abstract issues. As abstract as they are though, these are feelings that every human being can relate to. This is when morality and humanity come into play. In this regard, is it really worth it to upset millions of people?

    That is what I was appealing to in my position. I feel like this is something we all understand when we’re innocent. Five year old’s will understand that it’s wrong to hurt people’s feelings…somehow it’s harder to convince a 20 year old the same thing.

  • Daniel

    The problem arises in having non-believers constrained to follow the rules of believers.

    Again, one can be upset that a deceased mother is being drawn by someone. It’s when one attempts to enforce that “No Drawing” rule that it becomes an issue.

    I would be upset by, say, an obscene drawing featuring three famous atheists of your choice and three of my family members (yes, including dearly departed Grandma Evelyn) doing unspeakable acts to each other. But I would never even consider arguing that people don’t have the right to do so.

    People do all kinds of things that upset me. Cut me off on the freeway. Refuse to sell me a burger because it’s before 10:30am. Believe in fictional deities. But outlawing something simply because it makes me upset is not okay.

  • @Daniel – I wholeheartedly agree. I think we all somehow know that society lacks human compassion and understanding…it’s a sad, sad truth.

    Just because you have the right to do something, doesn’t make it “right” to do so. We all have the right to hurt people’s feelings, it does not make it okay to do so.

    There are more pressing matters the world is facing right now anyway…why Muslims make such a big deal about this drawing is beyond me. People are dying and being tortured left and right – save your upset and energy to deal with THAT!

  • Ben: One of the interesting things about the prohibition on depictions of Mohammed is that it applies just as well to perfectly ordinary, objectively non-offensive depictions as it does to anything involving sodomization or the like. You could draw a picture of a happy Mohammed in a park with balloons and ice cream, and such a depiction is treated by the image-prohibitionists as if it were just as offensive as something involving pork, sex, and explosives.

  • R.T.

    Something I think being overlooked by you willthinkforcash is the fact some members of the Muslim faith go out of their way to kill some of those who’ve drawn Muhammad.

    Why should we respect the feelings of Muslims on the topic when Muslims respect of life is to end those who made a drawing they didn’t agree with?

  • @R.T. – I most definitely do not overlook this injustice. It is an INJUSTICE. It’s horrible. It’s wrong. It’s WAY more wrong than drawing a person and hurting people’s feelings. It’s just on another level of bad, probably the worst level of bad.

    But just because some horrible Muslims decided to do horrible things (maybe 1% of Muslims might want to do that, by the way), does it really mean we should go out of our way to offend the other 99% of the Muslim population that actually wants to stay peaceful?

    The Muslims that attack people because of a drawing are WRONG. People who want to harm another person are seriously lacking humanity.

  • Synapse

    But just because some horrible Muslims decided to do horrible things (maybe 1% of Muslims might want to do that, by the way), does it really mean we should go out of our way to offend the other 99% of the Muslim population that actually wants to stay peaceful?

    YES, when that other 99% COWERS to the 1%

    YES, when that 99% does not ostracize, hunt down, and bring to justice those 1%.

    YES, when that 99% does not kick out that 1% as their religious leaders IMMEDIATELY and instead leaves them in power years later.

  • JustAGuy

    Can someone help me understand how this exercise is different from that Minister in Florida who burned the Koran (or did he just say he was going to, either way)? Or, is it?

  • Defiantnonbeliever

    @willthinkforcash- Hypothetically, I loved my dear old priest Father Flanagan, or Uncle Sam, who taught me to fish and play ball. If someone draws cartoons showing him doing bad things, sure I would feel sad and maybe not accept the things said about someone I knew differently and loved. My sentimentalized ideal friend was tarnished with lies or perhaps the reality of who else he was and while my naivety is shattered wouldn’t I be better able to accurately perceive the real world. Wouldn’t I be better for waking up to the facts, learning that he was also a serial killer, pedophile, misogynist, and racist? Could it wake me up enough to question his opinion that our ‘country’ should take over the world and force it to follow his ‘right way’? Wouldn’t denying the right to do so be like doing the same to reports of child abuse or whistle blowing? Just pretending nothing was going on in little Sue’s bedroom at night isn’t always an option to protect my feelings about the ‘good’ father or uncle.

  • Peter Mahoney

    willthinkforcash, if (per your hypothetical) your mom died asking that no one draw cartoons of her, and I started drawing cartoons of her, then you could call me a jerk, maybe even sue me for slander/libel/something if legally it crossed some line, BUT the analogy breaks down once you and your family think it’s ok to KILL me for drawing cartoons.

    Similarly, if you try to preempt the drawings by telling everyone in advance that you (or some of the extremists in your family) will kill others if they draw your mom then YOU have crossed the line into intimidation/censorship. And yes, lots of us who would never have bothered to draw your mom would now do so just to preserve our rights to free speech, free expression, and to let you know that your family’s crazy rules don’t apply to the rest of us.

    P.S., this is your mom: 🙂
    (sorry she looks so much like my smiley face depicting muhammad).

  • I think the rationale for the prohibition on drawing Muhammad is that the Muslims don’t want Islam to go the way Christianity has gone with so many people (particularly Catholics) worshiping all sorts of figures other than the one single God. The Muslims recognize that since people have active imaginations, people have a tendency to inappropriately attribute divinity to people and things. They feel that if they can put a stop to this with Muhammad, then it won’t happen with other figures as well. The Muslims draw the line between the divine and non-divine differently than the Christians. Personally, I think the problem is in drawing a line in the first place (no matter where it is drawn). I think the punishment specified (for drawing Muhammad) is an indicator that there is something wrong with the practice of drawing a line in this way. The concept of hell (for not believing the right things) is also an indicator of a problem. My view is to either call everything divine or nothing divine. The two concepts merge. Because of Occam’s razor, I prefer the concept that nothing is divine.

    I therefore support the draw Muhammad day because it draws attention that something is wrong with all religions that dole out punishments for where these kinds of lines are drawn.

  • Kyle

    So it seems to me that what is actually prohibited is adding a CAPTION to a drawing that indicates that the person who drew the drawing wants you to identify the drawing as Muhammad. Otherwise, you know, it’s just a regular old stick figure or smiley or whatever.

    You gotta change the name of the event then, to CAPTION a drawing… day, right? I wonder if it would be OK for the caption to say “This is NOT Muhammad”? What if you put “Muhammad” in quotes? What if it was a picture of something that is clearly NOT Muhammad, like a catholic church, but you still had the caption on there…. so many things to consider…

  • Freemage

    willthinkforcash: I originally felt that DMD was rather purile. However, as I began to hear some of the arguments against it, I was actually swayed in support. Most particularly, I would routinely hear complaints that it would incite that admittedly small percentage of Muslims to acts of violence.

    The problem with this argument is that it gives to those individuals a power that I (and other Americans) have refused to give to our own government.

    A couple decades ago, there was a great deal of talk about passing an anti-flag-burning Amendment to the Constitution. My gut response to that was to declare that the ONLY thing that would make me want to burn the U.S. Flag, which my father, brother, sister-in-law and eldest neice all served and fought under, would be the existence of such an Amendment. Obviously, such an act would be painful, in much the manner you describe, to veterans and many patriots.

    But we don’t oppose censorship because we fear disapproval of what we say from a bunch of old white men in the Capitol Building. We oppose it because those men can command police forces, and lock us in jail, and strip us of our liberty, and even our lives should we resist.

    So if I’m not willing to accept such a limit from a bunch of people I helped to put into power, why the holy f##k would I want to give it to a handful of religious fanatics? These folks existing, and believing they have the right to act in this fashion, is the impetus behind DMD (which, in my opinion, should be further expanded to also be “Piss on Christ Day”, following the Catholic thugs vandalizing Serrano’s work in France).

    If the moderate Muslim community is hurt by this protest, then it is incumbent on them to work to isolate the extremists, to cut off their place in the greater community.

  • To quote the legendary RuPaul:
    “What someone else things about me is none of my business.”

    Being hypersensitive about someone drawing a picture is mostly just silly.

    People don’t “lack human compassion” because they draw Muhammad. You can’t walk around claiming to be a victim about silly things like this. If someone lets this type of thing get to them then they have to deal with that issue, it isn’t my fault.

    I am not hurting anyone by drawing what I want to draw. If they decide to make a big deal out of it then their feelings are out of my hands. Sometimes people decide to allow things to bother them for the sake of being bothered. I can’t help that.

  • I guess this entire thread proves my point =)

    -Fact: Millions of Muslims humans are bummed out and feel upset/offended.

    -Fact: No one cares.

    Did I get it right?

  • sue

    I’m an atheist. My mere existence causes millions of Christians humans to feel upset/offended. That doesn’t mean I should stop doing it. Or even care that they’re offended.

  • Sven

    @willthinkforcash

    Some Muslims on the other side, and this side of the world, yell that unbelievers deserve to be killed.
    Will you please contact these muslims to tell them they are hurting my feeling with their words?
    Please tell me what is worse in your eyes, a drawing or a death threat?

  • sgvdfg

    I am a Muslim and I believe that everyone has the right to draw whatever they want and I have no right to stop them. However, just because you have the right to do something doesnt mean you should. There’s many things that we can do to hurt others, but we dont. Its not like us Muslims want everyone in the world to live by our religion. All of my closest friends are Christians and I dont mind if they eat pork, drink or do other things that my religion is against while they’re with me. But, if one of them drew a picture of Muhammad I wouldnt like it, because that’s personal to me and my prophet, and if they did it over and over again afterwards just for the sake of pissing me off, i would get angry and it’s little things like this that cause rivalry between people of different religions. We need to realize that when we live in a community of people from different cultures and backgrounds we should learn to be sensitive about things theyre emotional about just as we would we would want them to be back to us. Ofcourse, I wouldn’t want to kill or punish my friend in any way,nor would any of the other Muslims I know. The only Muslims I know that want to kill others on the basis of religion are those I see on the news. What upsets me though is that although people realize that most Muslims arent like that, they still make it their personal mission to offend Muslims in whatever way possible, without realizing that theyre also offending the people who where initially on their side. I think we can all agree that those fanatical Muslims cant stop any of us from drawing a picture of Muhammad,so why stoop down to their level? To the person who said its the 99% of normal Muslims fault for cowering down and not bringing justice to the 1% of Muslim fanatics, it’s not anymore of my responsiblity to do so than it is yours. I dont relate to those Muslims anymore than you do, although I wish I could hunt them down and stop them because theyre affecting me on a much larger scale than you.Im the one who constantly faces hate because of what people think Muslims are like.Draw Muhammad Day isnt even that big of a deal compared to the banners people have at rallies telling Muslims to leave their country and printing verses of the Quran on toilet paper. They wont even let us build an Islamic Community Center blocks away from where the twin towers used to be because apparantly we’re all terrorists now. I still deal with it and I certainly don’t go around hating on Americans just because a few are ignorant.

    Sorry for the essay

  • Sven

    @sgvdfg

    Three questions for you.
    1. What would be more offensive to you, a death treath or a drawing?
    2. If your friends draw Mohammed , and you did not know about it. Would it still hurt you?
    3. Those 1% also use websites/forums/blogs, do you leave a message there as well?

  • sgvdfg

    @Sven
    Its not just a drawing. Muslims have the belief that we shouldnt depict anyone whether it be Moses, Jesus or Muhammad. We have a great deal of respect for Muhammad and we consider it extremely disgraceful to make false depictions of him, and it doesnt matter whether or not you agree. Obviously, you can draw him as many times as you want but dont tell me that im being silly for not liking it or that its ‘just a drawing’ because this is my personal belief. Also, take a look at the pictures people drew that are posted on this site, and you’ll realize that most of them are not just drawings. Drawing Muhammad as the pedobear is not an expression of freedom, its the expression of hate which everyone seems to be blind to. However, theres no doubt that the reaction of *some Muslims was extremely barbaric and shameful, and their behaviour offended me personally because theyre portraying my religion in negative way. But, just because a couple of savages come at you with death threats because they dont know any better, it doesnt mean you should put yourself to their level and openly bash the beliefs of everyone in that religion. Atleast prove that your better than them by showing that you respect the beliefs of others and dont criticise the people who dont have the same beliefs as you, which is something they will never learn to do.

    I dont understand your second question because I cant possibly get offended by something I didnt even know was happening. But if I saw that they where, I would tell them that I think its disrespectful and I dont like it. If they continued just so that they could annoy me because they didnt agree with my beliefs, I would not consider them a friend anymore. But, if that person only kept drawing because they had some strange fondness to drawing Muhammad, and their drawings didnt insult him in anyway, I wouldnt say anything against it anymore. I mean I still wouldnt like it, but I wouldnt get angry at them because I have no business in what they draw and I know that theyre not doing it just because they enjoy mocking my religion or just because they want to show me that my feelings have no affect on them.

    I have never come past any websites/forums/blogs made by those Muslims who think we should kill people who draw Muhammad, but if I ever do, I would definitley leave a message telling them that they should keep their ignorant and barbaric customs within their own communities and stop embarassing Muslims all over the world.

  • I’d like everyone here to know that when I see my own Muslims around me getting upset at non-Muslims for petty things like this, I am the first one up there trying to reason with them. Before our belief (or lack of belief), comes our humanity. We haven’t even gotten THAT right yet, so why the hell are we running with religion before we’ve mastered crawling with humanity?

    Besides handling people in my own vicinity, I work closely with peace activists and actually contact these people that have inappropriate reactions towards things like this. I’ve contacted a couple of these “extremists” and attempted to convince them to work on things that actually matter. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. However, I’m extremely happy that I could make that difference for even one person. That’s one less extremist in the world that I got rid of from pure reason and talking it out. It’s an art.

    This event will do nothing as such. It’s provoking people that are already dumb. What happens when you provoke dumb people? They retaliate with more dumbness.

    I would just like some support for getting rid of savage, extremist thinking. This event is counter-productive to that cause.

  • sven

    @sgvdfg
    I am glad to read your anwer to my third question.

    Concerning the rest. Depictions of Muhammed have been around in muslim art for ages. People have, for some reason, decided that old scriptures meant that it is forbidden to do so. To follow any ancient scripture is, in my opinion, silly indeed.
    Muhammed as a Pedobear.. well, he did marry an underage girl didn´t he? Still I find that drawing much less offensive than half of the verses in the quran or the bible.

    I would still like to hear your answers to my other questions. The second question was not about being offended, it was about being hurt.

  • Mel b

    What a silly, juvenile, counter-productive and tasteless thing to do. Grow up.

  • Rich

    To all moderate moslems – the best way to avoid upset, hurt or offence on May 20th is simply to avoid this site, and any similar sites.
    I’ll be drawing Muhammed, not to upset you but to send a message to the violent extremists. The sooner they realise that free-thinking people will not be intimidated by their medieval ideas – the sooner we can all get along. For some people DMD might be an excuse to be juvenile and spiteful – for me it’s an important statement about the liberty I love as much you love your prophet.

  • Why? Other than to prove a point about free speech in a way that’s not necessary, why?

    Let me draw a parallel from my own life.

    I have burned a flag before – one of the small gimme flags that are given to people lining the streets at Fourth of July parades. And, I later burned it – for the free speech thrill.

    But, I did that on the balcony of my apartment.

    Sure, I shot a photo, but I don’t wave that in other people’s faces all the time.

    Back to this “day” and the issue of “cui bono,’ or “who benefits.”

    IMO, something like this benefits neither atheism, nor broader humanism, nor more-liberal minded Muslims, and it doesn’t cause Muslim fundies to suddenly “repent” of violence, narrow-mindedness, misogyny or other actual or alleged defects.

    http://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2011/05/draw-muhammad-day-why.html

  • Stop Playing The Victim

    The point is here in America we have a right to draw your momo (muhammad). We reserve the right to be disrespectful if we are disrespected. We have certain freedoms and rights and we WILL use them as we see fit as long as it doesn’t result in an illegal action. You mad? Are you butt hurt? Have we hurt your feelings? Too bad. We do not care. The Drawings aren’t meant to show disrespect. They are drawn to show that we will not be silenced because some 3rd world morons are pissed off.

    If you have a problem with them, don’t look. Why try to find these pictures, get all butt hurt, whine, make death threats and complain? It’s just going to add fuel to the fire. Your countless and endless rants, essays and and comments that try to explain how this hurts you doesn’t matter. Your feelings about the whole thing are irrelevant.

    You are always playing the victim and at the same time some of you have FB pages of Draw Jesus Day. Even though it irritates some Christians they are not going to sling death threats or suicide bomb anyone for it. I am not Christian or Catholic but I have family and friends who are. I also have many Jewish friends. They see your kind and their actions as barbaric and juvenile.

  • Santa Sa

    No, you are an American redneck, who  probably doesn’t know his breeding much further back then his own mother, if even her …