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I was on my way to Skanderborg to attend the opening of an exhibition of pictures by Kurt Westergaard when I was stopped by an elderly gentleman. He handed me a letter explaining that it was a letter from a prophet to the caricaturist. The letter read as follows:
Dear KurtI hope you are well and enjoying life. I do not know if you know, but I have been dead for many years. In spite of that, I am well, considering the circumstances. Unfortunately I am not — as many believe — surrounded by 72 virgins. This thing about the virgins was just something I made up in order to motivate my fellow fighters.
It is always hard to motivate others to die for oneself. For this reason, I had to come up with a little white hallal-lie, promising that everything I claimed to be haram or unclean here on Earth would be given them by God in great abundance, such as wine and women. Obviously, they had to die first. It was quite fortunate that Hitler didn’t come up with the same trick, for otherwise he would most certainly have won the war. Oh, mentioning Hitler: He lives in the basement of my house and follows the career of Ahmadinejad with great interest.
So here I am — unfortunately — along with all the radical mullahs, ragged and bloodied terrorists, Lenin, Stalin and all the other useful idiots, who for some unfathomable reasons love the mullahs. I fear for my life. For they are much like Danish converts — void of humour and even more fanatical than myself in my wild prophet-days, where I rode a camel to chop the head off all those poets who would ridicule my poorly told stories.
Anyway, I am writing because I wanted to tell you a few things. First and foremost: Thank you for that wonderful caricature! That was hilarious as well as clever…
Read the rest at Europe News.
Farshad Kholghi (born 1971) is an actor, author, writer, debater and a lecturer in high demand. He has participated in several Danish movies and television series and has authored two books. He is a consistent critic of religious fanaticism and speaks his mind freely against the challenges to freedom of expression.
10 comments:
From the article:
They considered your drawing as well as my laughter blasphemous, and tried to kill me in my own name, merely because I was laughing over the caricature. [emphasis added]
Priceless! I predict death a fatwa in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...
Hearty Laughter....
but: He is a consistent critic of religious fanaticism!
Why the heck isn't the man -- if he consistent -- a critic also of "moderate" or faint religiosity
or even of religion on the whole?
Religion being a millstone around the neck of humanity.
Viva an unreligious, a free and not divinely enslaved humanity!
Anti-Islamist, as far as I know, Farshad is of the Baha'i. Which would also explain that the Tehran regime would select him to walk minefields...
Not all religion sucks. Christianity, for one, gave us Freedom, Capitalism and Prosperity.
A 'faith' is missing above :)
Religion might have been evolutionary indispensible in the childhood of humanity - not so anymore - even if any religious genes are still there; heaven and hell should not be a necessary carrot or whip, neighter some god's punishment or grace, for a rational humanity in the third millenium. Evolution, development, productivity, progress, prosperity (capitalism?) are to religion as teflon to space technology. Let Abraham and the three religions that arose after him rest in peace. Let god die/be dead, and be convinced that death is final. Gutenberg gave us the art of (book)printing - that does not mean we print books today the same way as he did. Today we even might use a "Kindle" to read Rodney Stark's book or any other book that perhaps newer saw a sheet of paper. Humanity needs to grow up and not remain in pueril, lukewarm to fanatic, piety.
I have collected quite a few cartoons from a certain swedish cartoonist. Some are about the pedophet and others just about mahoundian thuggery in general and I'm sure they would make a few mahoundian fuses to blow had they been more widely known. I'm talking about stuff making Westergaard and Vilks' works seem mild in comparison. I'll send a batch to B&D as soon as I have translated them. I see only two problems. The blog could get into trouble and the cartoonist could get death threats but aside from that, stuff like that should actually get spread as much as possible. One thing is for sure, one Mr Yameni would probably get more work to do... :)
Atheist screeds like Anti-Islamists' above communicate a mistaken belief that their limiting of understanding of the human condition to observation and hard science is a superior intellectual feat.
In fact, science has no hope of explaining the most important things in life which are not visible nor measurable nor of giving meaning to our brief sojourn on earth. This is where religion comes in.
People and societies who can integrate the two approaches, the secular and the religious are more advanced than those who push either exclusively. The disastrous inhumanity of the formally atheistic regimes should chasten the anti-religionists and the uniformly failed results of Islamic totalitarianism should give pause to those who think supremacist theology would be a good thing.
Why should an atheist's rant against religion be any more credible than a religious fanatic's rant against science? Both sound butt ignorant and always zero in on the supposed failings of their "opponent" without any knowledge of the strength and beauty that the "other" way of thinking has brought to human existence.
Great thinkers integrate, not segregate. They also do not denounce what they do not understand. Good doctors write "NYD Not Yet Diagnosed" on their charts, not "Patient is nuts" (because the doctor has reached the limits of HIS particular knowledge).
Robin, GoV is PG13-rated (right?). Outright vulgar cartoons won't make it.
The genius of the KW cartoon is that it speaks the truth. No less, no more. That is why it's so offensive - the Jihadis hate having their true mindset exposed. This method, a cartoon understandable even by the illiterate, was particular devastating.
More truth is all we need.
MORE TRUTH IS WHAT WE ALL NEED
@ lain
...without any knowledge of the strength and beauty that the "other" way of thinking has brought to human existence.
This is Drivel and Nonsense! Just look around!
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A lot of good things emanete from Uppsala, Sweden (and its university).
1: Ingemar Hedenius, 1908-1982, famous atheist Professor of philosophy, whose book Tro och vetande [Belief and Knowledge], was published 1949 and read by me in parallell to the compulsory book TRO [BELIEF] by bishoph Bo Giertz which I had to study at the prospect of my impending christian confirmation - which, unexpectedly, thank god, became the festive occasion that initiated my life as an atheist (anti-theist). Probabely Hedenius has had a finger in the pie of Sweden's advanced seculaism.
2. Per Ahlberg, Professor at the Department of Physiology and Developmental Biology, who have found and presented new exquisitely preserved fossils from Latvia and with colleagues have reconstructed parts of the animal and explained the transformation, (see Nature) that casts light on a key event in our own evolutionary history, when our ancestors left the water and ventured onto land. Goodbye Adam and Eve,
...who 6000 years ago(?) supposedly lived in a perfectly good state of affairs, but were tempted by the devil to rebel against god and voluntary chose to do so. By eating of the forbidden fruit, another apple (!), they committed a sin which separated them from the dear god. As a result of this fall, their harmony was lost and death made its entrance into the world of humanity; all of us has become implicated in that sin of Adam and Eve (see Romans 5:12, 18, 19) in that this sin affected the human nature and was transmitted to coming generations. In allways being a sinner, god became compulsory to you - and you will need him for ever. Smart arrangement, was it not?
Hence, we can trace moral evil to the voluntary decision of our arch-ancestors, who did not act in accordance with god's stupid will. This doctrine is regularly referred to as the doctrine of original sin [arvsynd]. As a result, no one can avoid committing sin, not even lain, and the list of sins will never become empty. Indebted for life you are. Halleluja!
"Robin, GoV is PG13-rated (right?). Outright vulgar cartoons won't make it."
Henrik, only a limited few are vulgar and only vulgar in the sence of showing naughty bits as Monty Python would have put it. And it does not mean they are not funny. Perhaps it is possible to pixle out the "naughty bits"? :)
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