> just because someone in a free country laughs or scorns at their delusions.
Give me a break - by all indications, the author of the video made it for his own religious reasons, because of his own delusions, rather than as some kind of enlightened critique, which explains why it's, y'know, so extremely crude. He made his video specifically to cause maximum insult to a culture: that doesn't put him anywhere near the lunatics who would kill diplomats over an insult, but he too is a lunatic. I'll defend to the death his right to say it, but it's hard to support it in any way.
Also, I don't know what you meant by it, and I apologize for being presumptuous, but your "people in backward, poorly governed countries that could never have invented the Internet" suggests an image of cultural superiority, which is an awful thing to create in response to the actions of a violent few.
I think it is safe to say that something is wrong, I don't accept that it is statistically insignificant noise of crazy and misogyny. I am not sure exactly what is wrong though.
It clearly is not race, and I don't think anybody on this website would think it was. Similarly, I don't think it is religion; their religion and science/progress historically have not been mutually exclusive. The history of Islam and science is arguably more positive than that of the other Abrahamic religions.
Moderate Islam has been compatible with science (well scientism) in the past but you can't reason from the specific to the general. A fundamentalist/hyper-dogmatic flavor of any belief system is by it's nature an intolerant breeding ground for ignorance and xenophobia.
"something is wrong"
This is where people tend to, wrongly, paint with the biggest brushes.
Listen, I'm an atheist; more to the point, I am an anti-theist. I think there is a lot wrong with religion in general, and a hell of a lot with this one in particular.
I mention this only to emphasise that I have no natural inclination to defend Islam. I just really don't see it being the root cause in this situation.
It seems to me that the religion is more a product of an unhealthy culture. It is no coincidence that the wants, desires, and prejudices of gods so often resemble that of their followers. This religion did not appear out of thin air, it was borne of the culture it resembles. It is when you see the religion spreading other contexts (primarily location or time) that you see it become "moderate". People ignore the parts they don't like.
The religion isn't causing this. At best, I'll concede that it is acting as a conduit to siphon an obsolete and brutal culture from the past into the present. I do maintain that it is culture that is wrong here, regardless of where it comes from or how it got here.
I don't think we're at odds on Islam. I'm not blaming Islam was just pointing out the fallacy I saw there.
"it is culture"
Few points:
(1) Culture is a sort of catchall term for anything that's not genetics. Whatever 'this' is that we are talking about, it's going to be pretty easy to file it under culture.
(2) What exactly is 'this' we're talking about? The latest violence in Libya/Egypt and elsewhere correct? How is this fundamentally different from riots/mob violence/brutish behavior in other cultures? When we raise the flag of culture the quick litmus test should be whether other cultures (controlling for other dimensions as much as possible) also show the same symptoms.
I don't think we actually really disagree here at all. I was objecting mostly to the perceived sentiment that the idea of one culture being better than another is DOA.
You would probably note that misogyny is/was widespread among the poor across a whole host of cultures then point out that relative affluence -> female education -> breakdown of misogyny.
"Socio-economic standing" is basically a catchall answer that's almost certain to correlate heavily with whatever the more fundamental causes are (education, women's rights, property rights, strong middle class, etc.)
> He made his video specifically to cause maximum insult to a culture.
Like Team America, but no cities burned over that one. I'd like to see a continuous stream of such insulting videos, so those offended finally concede to change the channel.
Who cares why he made it? The internet is full of videos and posts mocking Jesus, Buddha and virtually every sect or religion or lack of religion out there. Also people mock fat people, skinny people, black, white, green and everyone in between. Do they have to blow something up to get attention from Google?
I understand that just because you can do it, you shouldn't do it, but Google is different, they did not make the film and their platform should be open to all but illegal stuff (child pppron for example).
I am upset that certain people call me an infidel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafir . Google should remove those videos that cal everyone else an unbeliever or else ;).
Give me a break - by all indications, the author of the video made it for his own religious reasons, because of his own delusions, rather than as some kind of enlightened critique, which explains why it's, y'know, so extremely crude. He made his video specifically to cause maximum insult to a culture: that doesn't put him anywhere near the lunatics who would kill diplomats over an insult, but he too is a lunatic. I'll defend to the death his right to say it, but it's hard to support it in any way.
Also, I don't know what you meant by it, and I apologize for being presumptuous, but your "people in backward, poorly governed countries that could never have invented the Internet" suggests an image of cultural superiority, which is an awful thing to create in response to the actions of a violent few.