Why can we mock all religions expect Islam?

Question

I don't understand. Adult swim refused to air an epsiode of South Park which mocks Mohammad but yet South Park has mocked all other religions in previous episodes and those have been allowed to air. Now mocking religious figures in general isn't my cup of tea but when you mock one, like Jesus who constantly is in South Park, you should mock them all, right?

Answer 1

No one is permitted to mock belief in Cheerios!

Answer 2

It's because of a number of reasons.

Since 9/11, hate crimes against Muslims have skyrocketed. A lot of people are sensitive to the fact that lots of people are pretty afraid of Muslims, and don't want to make the stereotypes worse.

It's kinda political by this point. If you insult Islam, you'll get angry letters and the like, and it depends on some politics. Islam is kinda a lightning rod at the moment.

It's like you asking, how come I can make fun of Italians and Russians and Native Americans, but I can't say the N-word to make fun of blacks?

Answer 3

Yes. We can mock all religions. Islam has no sense of humor, you say? Yeah, but we do, so we can laugh about anything we want. See, if we DONT make the jokes because THEY don't have the sense of humor, then we're just propagating the disease of political correctness, where the lowest common denominator is always the limiting value and human liberty and progress just approach absolute zero.

Notice also, how almost every answer here implicitly agrees with the notion that we should be terrorized, by fear, into performing certain actions or by inhibiting others.

Answer 4

Muslims are obviously very serious about the subject. Muhammed was influential to the whole middle east and other parts of the world and this defines them as a people. Seeing their beliefs being knocked down makes them uneasy especially since they pray like 3 or 4 times a day everyday and their law is based around the Koran among other things

Answer 5

The inability to laugh at yourself and your beliefs is a death warrant to any faith or political organisation. Until I see a muslim equivalent of Woody Allen, taking the pee out of Islam on a daily basis, I will have no respect for Islam, as its lack of a sense of humour betrays its inherent lack of humanity. Woody Allen's jokes are nearly all about Jews, yet no-one ever gets shirty or aggressive. Why? - Because in a CIVILISED world, it is more important that he is funny and intelligent than that he is jewish.

Answer 6

This isn't as simple a question as it seems.

I lived in the States during the '60s and '70s, during the worst of the racial tensions and the African-American Civil Rights Movement. No one 'mocked' African-Americans publicly, though they certainly lynched them when and as they could get away with it.

Ridiculing people who feel socially marginalised (even by their own choice) and constantly threatened, is pouring petrol on a flame. Why do it?? Look at unemployment statistics for Muslim young men in the UK. Look at the media portrayal of Muslims as a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth psychos. How insulting! Would you like it if your religion, or nationality, or colour, was all anyone saw, and you were TOTALLY stereotyped by the lunatic fringe amongst your community?

Isn't it strange, how Scousers STILL don't buy the 'Sun', since the lies they printed 16 years ago, about the Hillsborough Massacre. Isn't it odd, how Scousers get on with anyone, unless someone seems to blame the victims of Hillborough.

For all people in England stereotype Scousers as lying, thieving, scum, you should hear the relish with which people in Liverpool (I'm new here) tell 'Scouser' jokes.

Those same jokes are NOT FUNNY, coming from a Mancurian.

I believe it is simply impolite to ridicule any ethnic/religious/special group other than your own. The Christian bloke with the Muslim wife can make jokes, with his wife.

I used to work in a rape crisis centre, and the things we joked about would make most people sick. Most of us were survivors of both rape and incest, and within that group, the humour was funny.

Now, if someone who didn't have the experience or understanding we did, and was not part of our community, made a public 'joke' about incest, we'd have been the first people to object.

I hope this illustration helps.

Jewish people tell great Jewish jokes. I'd like to hear some jokes about Israelis. That's off-limits, too. My male perp... I mean semen-donor, and his revolting kin moved to Israel. So, I'm allowed to say this. You want a group with no sense of humour, who take themselves too seriously, try Zionists.

If your people have been living in refugee camps for four generations, you are not going to take kindly to ridicule from any source. See 'Palestinian', for the reference.

Have some taste. Have some manners. That's all. Do you joke about Rwanda? Was the Blitz funny? Well, there are some old English people who laugh themselves silly, about the Blitz. But it would be in shocking taste for a German person to do it!

Don't pick at the sore spot, because chances are the scab will come off, and blood will spill. How hard is that to understand?

NB: I have ZERO tolerance for terrorism. I spent my teens hanging out with my mates on the roof of World Trade Tower No 2. Nearly 3000 people were murdered in the stomping grounds of my teens, for having shown up to work, or for trying to rescue those who had.

I am sick to PUKING of US-manufactured propaganda, which equates Arab=Muslim=Terrorist, plays to mob-mentality, and the lowest-common-denominator: fear. I've studied the Middle-East, and one of my Uni degrees is in Religious Studies. People in the USA honestly believed that the Taliban have the power to overthrow the United States' government.

I had hoped things would be better here, but what I see is ghettoised Muslims, who are hurting, and whose bond with other Muslims, worldwide -- but especially where they are being persecuted by non-Muslims (one doesn't hear much about the battles between Muslim factions, from the Muslim community; one didn't hear about the factions of African-Americans who were killing each other in the US, in the '60s, either) is stronger than their bond to their own country. Not surprising, really. Basic political science. (I also did a Uni degree in Sociology, and poli sci is just a sub-science of soc).

In very simple terms, why mock anyone? That's not a very attractive reflection on you, is it?

That said, I know some great Subcontinental jokes...

Answer 7

I think Protectrikz has the best answer here. How do we answer this without going into religious history and theology and the limits of faiths. FYI, I am a muslim and many of the answers listed below is personally quite insulting to me. But that does not make me want to build a bomb or to beat up non muslims. It just saddens me that in a civilised and forward thinking world, we are still ignorant.

It is sad that the face of muslims in the world is only what is being shown on TV and the newspapers. It is part propaganda and part sensational reporting. Is it truth that those terrorists are muslims? Yes it is. But is it true that the Islam which the terrorists are 'preaching' is the real islam? No it isn't. Its just the same if I were to call all christians killers due to the brutality of the crusades. But is that really what Chrsitianity is all about? I strongly doubt it.

Basically it is ignorance. Plain and simple. Anybody who have studied theology would know that all religions do not preach violence. And as long as we go about with a 'you started it' mentality, it ain't gonna help is it?

To answer your question, (and this is only my guess), it all hinges on the devoutness of the individual. Just as there are many christians that will laugh along with southpark's depiction of Christ, there are bound to be others that would call such an act blasphemous. Same for muslims, or other religion/races for that matter. So why won't they mock islam? Unlike other religions, unfortunately, there are far more extremist, misguided radicals in this religion then there are in others.

P.S - Even learned men of other religions agree that Mohammed was one of the most influential man in history.

Excerpts below on Mohammad:

MAHATMA GANDHI, speaking on the character of Muhammad, (pbuh) says in YOUNG INDIA:

"I wanted to know the best of one who holds today's undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind....I became more than convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for his pledges, his intense devotion to this friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the 2nd volume (of the Prophet's biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of the great life."

THOMAS CALYLE in his ‘HEROES AND HERO-WORSHIP’, was simply amazed as to:

"how one man single-handedly, could weld warring tribes and wandering Bedouins into a most powerful and civilized nation in less than two decades."

EDWARD GIBBON and SIMON OCKLEY speaking on the profession of ISLAM write:

"'I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD, AND MAHOMET, AN APOSTLE OF GOD' is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honour of the Prophet has never transgressed the measure of human virtues; and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and religion."
(HISTORY OF THE SARACEN EMPIRES, London, 1870, p. 54)

In the words of PROF. HURGRONJE:

"The league of nations founded by the prophet of Islam put the principle of international unity and human brotherhood on such universal foundations as to show candle to other nations." He continues: "The fact is that no nation of the world can show a parallel to what Islam has done towards the realization of the idea of the League of Nations."

MICHAEL H. HART in his widely published book on ratings of men who contributed towards the benefit and upliftment of mankind writes:

"My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular levels."
(M.H. Hart, THE 100: A RANKING OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS IN HISTORY, New York, 1978, p. 33)


However, I am sad to say that Islam as a world religion has now deteriorated to being the religion of terrorists...

Sigh...

Jay.

Answer 8

ive seen that episode of southpark on comedy centeral. it was pretty funny... i think ur talking about the 1 where they were scared of family guy showing the image of mohammad so all the parents freaked out... or it was the 1 when they were like the super friends. lol. iono. people are just too uptight all the time. its kinda annoying now

Answer 9

Yoyodda I think Maddona might have read this book; you never find her mocking Islam either.

Answer 10

I agree, but I believe that episode did end up getting shown.

And Islam is mocked here a *lot*. We also have op-ed writers, mostly conservative, who mock it in what they think is an intellectual fashion. Hell, Ann Coulter alone is holding that down!

Answer 11

We should mock ALL religions because they are all equally ridiculous. If anything, Islam just about takes the gold biscuit.