Saturday, February 04, 2006

Insensitive cartoon + inhumane response = civil & religious immaturity

Imagine two children who believed in the same G-d. The first child believed that images of G-d were insulting to G-d. The second child, an artist, believed that images of G-d were tributes to G-d. So the child who loved images of G-d imagined and drew a picture of G-d and showed it to the child who thought such pictures were insults to G-d. Does the first child, seeing a blasphemous image of G-d:

a. Smite his own eyes out
b. Attack the artist and anyone who agrees with the artist
c. Ignore it, since it is simply the imaginings of a child

Now imagine that the second child draws a picture of G-d as an evil-doer (and his publisher says he's proud of it). Does the first child:

a. Smite his own eyes out
b. Attack the artist and anyone who agrees with the artist
c. Ignore it, since it is simply the imaginings of a child

Being a child, the second child chooses B in each case.

Being adults we might pick C.

And, being adults, we might manage to respect other people's religious beliefs by not depicting their gods as evil-doers, as we expect others to respect ours.

And, in my humble opinion, as adults, we might make things a lot easier for everyone if we didn't elevate men to the status of gods, period.

Peace.