"At Least We're Not As Bad As the Muslims!"
Christians in Prakasam, Srikakulam, Vijayawada, Nizamabad and other towns in India stormed and ransacked multiple offices of a local daily newspaper, Sakshi, destroying furniture, tossing computers to the ground and smashing them, and in the meantime smashing windows in a nearby public bus. What terrible offense triggered this attack by the Christian community? The newspaper had printed a picture of Jesus with a beer and a cigarette. .
Sound eerily familiar? Does anyone here remember Christians claiming that such things were unique to Islam and other "barbaric" religions, and that Christianity was much more tolerant? I do. Does anyone here remember people demanding that every Muslim everywhere immediately and unconditionally denounce these actions, or stand accused themselves? I do. Yet here we have a picture that was only mildly sacreligious, was apparently published by mistake (they were looking for a generic picture of Jesus from the Internet, and didn't check it closely enough), and an apology quickly followed. Yet the apology wasn't fast enough to stave off the violence from the followers of Christ. Christian extremists have joined Muslim extremists in threatening free speech. Do those Christians who bleated loudest at the Muslim outrages over the Danish cartoons now retreat in quiet humility and introspection to determine what went wrong in their religious community, or do they bleat louder that this is somehow different? Or, do they ignore it and hope it goes away? My money is on option (C).
Here is a copy of the offending picture.
Sound eerily familiar? Does anyone here remember Christians claiming that such things were unique to Islam and other "barbaric" religions, and that Christianity was much more tolerant? I do. Does anyone here remember people demanding that every Muslim everywhere immediately and unconditionally denounce these actions, or stand accused themselves? I do. Yet here we have a picture that was only mildly sacreligious, was apparently published by mistake (they were looking for a generic picture of Jesus from the Internet, and didn't check it closely enough), and an apology quickly followed. Yet the apology wasn't fast enough to stave off the violence from the followers of Christ. Christian extremists have joined Muslim extremists in threatening free speech. Do those Christians who bleated loudest at the Muslim outrages over the Danish cartoons now retreat in quiet humility and introspection to determine what went wrong in their religious community, or do they bleat louder that this is somehow different? Or, do they ignore it and hope it goes away? My money is on option (C).
Here is a copy of the offending picture.