Discussion (31)¬

1. HaggisForBrainsDS7 says:

   January 24, 2011 at 3:25 pm

   Excellent – hoped you’d pick up on the Baroness.

2. Nassar Ben Houdja says:

   January 24, 2011 at 3:37 pm

   Can it be what this phenomena seems
   Islam making inroads through extremes.
   The open minded west
   Won’t endure this pest.
   An intolerant, violent has been.

3. DapperAnarchist says:

   January 24, 2011 at 3:46 pm

   To be fair, there is an actual Islamophobia around – you can tell, because the complaints about superstition, homophobia, insularism, and backwardsness are coming from non-Islamic religious people, who fail to attend to the plank in their own eye…

4. Angelo Ventura says:

   January 24, 2011 at 3:58 pm

   Religions plead tolerancy for themselves when minoritary, when dominant are intolerant.

5. Ophelia Benson says:

   January 24, 2011 at 4:30 pm

   The last line is hilarious. Right, because Mo doesn’t get mixed up in politics enough. Haaaaaaaaa!

6. Runar says:

   January 24, 2011 at 4:54 pm

   Panel 2: Is it blasphemy for a Christian to deny the divinity (or existence) of Ganesh, Kwan Yin, or Amaterasu? If you’re not a believer, it’s not blasphemy, making it impossible to have such a thing as international blasphemy laws.

7. Anonym says:

   January 24, 2011 at 5:34 pm

   Anyone militantly religious is already engaged in politics.

8. jerry w says:

   January 24, 2011 at 6:02 pm

   Middle class is respectable? As if something that’s shrinking as the gap widens by the day is to be respected.

9. Dinner Table Talk | Geoff Coupe's Blog says:

   January 24, 2011 at 6:17 pm

   […] Mo seems to have captured the false logic expressed by Baroness Warsi to a tee. […]

10. Ketil W.Grevstad says:

    January 24, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    eheh i vote for Jesus and mo for President. 🙂 lol

11. fixed&dilated says:

    January 24, 2011 at 7:56 pm

    A royal complaining of intolerance toward religion? Maybe Diderot had it right about these partners in crime: “Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest” (quoted entirely metaphorically, of course).

12. Wrinkly Dick says:

    January 24, 2011 at 8:57 pm

    Isn’t a phobia a baseless irrational fear? Suicidal nutters, black swathed females, calls for medieval backward laws frighten me. By the way, a few weeks back, a “Burkas make me horny” T-shirt was hinted at, I want one. P.S. Veils make me horny as well.

13. Joe Fogey says:

    January 24, 2011 at 10:25 pm

    At my dinner table we talk of little else, except of course for your magnificent victory in the Riffys, for which belated congratulations.

14. Broggly says:

    January 25, 2011 at 1:18 am

    I don’t know, Islamophobia is a worry. When you see someone with a cross necklace, nobody worries they’re about to start killing witches or homosexuals, or beat up the epileptic because they’re “possessed”.

    Although, I am biased since I want Eid to become mainstream and secularised so we get another public holiday to party and stuff our faces!

15. Andrew Hall says:

    January 25, 2011 at 1:21 am

    Mo is right! I don’t want to be Islamophobic so I’m going out to buy my wife a burka.

16. Daoloth says:

    January 25, 2011 at 6:44 am

    More material for you author:
    http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/lesley_hazelton_on_reading_the_koran.html
    Apparently we have got it all wrong.
    “Jihad” actually means “give a biiiggg hug” and the opening line of the Q’ran, “Die infidel!” actually means “fluffy bunnies”. Also “stoning to death for adultery” means “big sloppy kiss”.
    Aren’t we all a silly bunch of middle-class Islam-o-phobes?

17. Ish says:

    January 25, 2011 at 8:12 am

    You may all like the Daily Mash’s take on this

    http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/warsi-asked-to-explain-why-dubai-locks-you-up-for-having-a-shag-201101203453/

18. Daoloth says:

    January 25, 2011 at 8:30 am

    Its a mistranslation.

    What they mean is “adulterers get stoned”, you know like Rastas, not “Stone adulterers to death.”

19. Stephen Turner says:

    January 25, 2011 at 10:46 am

    Well done author! I’m not sure that we want Jesus and Mo for president, but author… maybe!

20. Neuseline says:

    January 25, 2011 at 1:02 pm

    Jesus & Mo for joint presidency, I say. What a coalition! They can’t be worse than Dave & Nick here in the UK, one a Christian and the other one not.

21. LibertyPhile says:

    January 25, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    Excellent. For a quick run down on the news stories generated by this lady, have a look at our Baroness Warsi Special Edition

    “…. This particular story gets this degree of extra attention because it elicits and sums up so well the huge gap between European Muslims and the rest of us. If Lady Warsi gets it so badly wrong we have a difficult road ahead.”

    See here:

    http://thelibertyphile.blogspot.com/2011/01/baroness-warsi-special-edition.html

22. beechnut says:

    January 25, 2011 at 11:52 pm

    Jerry W, the Middle Classe is the Onlie Begetter of Respectabilitie and as suche has always existed and will survive for ever and ever and ever, as eny fule shud no. That having been said, let me add, O Authour, that this is one of your best.

23. b1gr1d3r says:

    January 26, 2011 at 3:24 am

    For interesting insights into levels of religious literacy in North America…
    http://www.vancouversun.com/life/question+about+Bible+atheist/4149109/story.html

24. HaggisForBrainsDS7 says:

    January 26, 2011 at 11:57 am

    @ b1gr1d3r – great link. I particularly enjoyed this:

    “Religious knowledge surveys are good at serving up black humour too. An early poll showed one in 10 Americans believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. Another one in five believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple.”

25. Prior Aelred says:

    January 26, 2011 at 2:44 pm

    Haggis for brains — but surely Sodom & Gomorrah were only married in Massachusetts (or in California for a limited time only).

26. Tylar says:

    January 26, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    Here I will come off of my heavy metal blasphemous high-horse to play the devil’s advocate here. Hey, at least I got the devil in there. I read the actual lecture and didn’t see that much reason for being angry about it, other than the whole “God is Reason” interpretation of that Bible passage, but that shouldn’t surprise any of us. Truth is, evolution of one’s dogma in tune with modern paradigms isn’t as fallacious as we tend to say it is. With Christianity, it’s pretty simple: anybody with even the slightest capability of reason knows that the Bible was not written by God, it was written by men; several different men. Based on this, a religious person’s interpretation of the Bible is inevitably based on the religious person’s own views. The evolution of Christian sects based on modern paradigm therefore becomes possible. With Islam it’s a bit more of a leap. According to the Muslim faith, Mohammed’s hand was in fact instructed by God so the rationalisation is thus: God instructed him to write messages that resonated with the paradigms of the time and with modern progress Muslims should reinterpret the messages accordingly. It’s a stretch, but I think that it’s one that many Muslims I have met made and I think that the morals that this leap results in are not abhorrent at all. The way some of the media reports it would make it look like they’re all backwards and stuck inside the Koran. It would help me to speak from a point of knowledge if I knew what’s in the Korans and what’s in the Hadiths, because I think some Muslims go more by the Hadiths and others more by the Koran, but I really don’t want to read either.

27. Daoloth says:

    January 26, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    @Tylar. I think you are right- we should read both. Hadiths are also part of the story because contemporary histories of Mohammed exist–in a way that they don’t for Jesus, for example. Mohammed really was an illiterate caravan raider who was really good at raising armies and making them fight fanatically. His story is interesting–just like Attilla the Hun’s story is interesting. Problem is- no-one is wanting me dead becasue I don’t follow the teachings of Attilla the Hun.
    Robert Spencer does a good job of looking at both in “The Truth About Mohammed”. On the front cover is quote from one cleric asking for him to be spinectomied to the end of time. Your muslim friends might disagree with this– I hope so!
    Trouble is– there are a number of Moslems who take the “Kafirs must be converted or dead” (which is the first line of the Q’uran) route. Some of their actions confirm these beliefs.
    The other ones- the ones who are happy to do redactive analysis on the Q’uran- fine. No problem with them as neighbours.
    Eventually they’ll become the milk–and–water “I just think there’s something” church-of England–style semi- agnostics, I guess.

28. Daoloth says:

    January 27, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    Oh and another thing:
    Just in case anyone forgot about this :
    http://myreader.co.uk/msg/1212755813.aspx
    Baroness Warsi was egged by moslems for speaking in public- quite right too- she should have been indoors or burkhared up and suitably meek.

29. Mary2 says:

    January 28, 2011 at 11:49 am

    @b1gr1d3r – excellent link. Very funny/scary article.

    Apparently “Fewer than half of Americans can name the four Christian gospels” and “One-third of Americans falsely believe that evangelist Billy Graham delivered the Sermon on the Mount”!

    Just had an hilarious time filling in the quiz and will now spend the rest of the evening strutting around feeling self-righteous and superior because this little atheist, raised in a non-religious family, knows more about the bible (and the US legal system regarding religion) than 90% of Americans (according to test results).

30. ._. says:

    August 16, 2011 at 12:16 am

    Amuses me to hell since Baroness Warsi was roundly criticised for being a thin-skinned lout the next day. Typical victimhood complex as already discussed in previous comics.

31. fenchurch says:

    December 2, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    @Daoloth – whew, thanks for clarifying the religion of peace’s mistranslations.
    I just *knew* that with all the Islamic Apologists claiming that the Koran advocates and promotes peace, women’s rights, science, etc. that without our knowing premedieval Arabic, we swallowed some unscrupulous translator’s misinterpreting of “fluffy bunnies’.