the british woman calling the teddy bear muhammed?

Question

people please tell me what you have heard about that story and your views about it.. personally (im christian) i think religeon is important but its silly to what extent it goes.. now please tell me your views

Answer 1

That it was her students who named that bear Muhammed, as it is one of the most popular men names around. Neither they nor the teacher ever thought about religion when using that name, they were thinking about the tailor down the street of the dad or one of the kids...
On the other hand nothing happens in that country without the tacit approval of the government, and the government would be very happy to slow the arrival of the peacekeepers for Darfur by frightening them off with that kind of anti foreigner demonstration. They play it safe, the woman is protected from the mobs so the other countries cannot complain too much, the rabid religious who are extremely powerful in Sudan can rant and rave to their content and the peacekeepers are kept away by the fear of facing a local population whipped to a fanatical frenzy by religious fanatics.

Answer 2

I think everyone's missing the point here. The real issue here is that this whole fiasco has given teddy bears a bad name. Realistically, if people can be called this, why not Teddy's who are a lot less likely to bring shame on the name. Either the TD maniacs are out in force or unhappy Muslims are taking over this site a bit like they are taking over the UK really!

Answer 3

She named the Bear after a student, Muhammad, which is the most popular first name in those that worship Muslim. It was considered a sacrilegious and she could have been beaten and imprisoned for years. She received 15 days and deportation.
Now I am Jewish, and I think all extreme views of any religion are nuts. The Jews who throw stones at women who try to go to the wailing wall. Christians who will kill doctors who perform abortions. (In my beliefs the soul attaches at the quickening, which is just as the baby is about to enter the birth canal.)
And the very extreme Muslim beliefs where a woman is gang raped and she gets whipped for being in a car with a non-relative (That was our great ally nation Saudi Arabia).
G-d wants mankind to get along with each other. I believe in the Jewish Golden Rule, "don't do to others which you would not wish to be done onto you."

Answer 4

Gillian Gibbons is being held in a secret site for her own protection as ten of thousands marched on the womens' prison after leaving their mosques on Friday. Hopefully that secret place is the British consulate.
Millions of people from Pakistan to Morroco rioted when a silly cartoon was published in an obscure Danish magazine last year.
A Saudi woman was raped, reported it to authorities, and got two years in prison for getting raped.
Mobs of people in the Palestinian territories and elsewhere, including Jersey City, New Jersey, danced in the streets when the World Trade Center towers were knocked down.
Silly? No. It's war. We are at war. You might think that the Crusades took place 8 or 9 centuries ago, but to millions of people from places like Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Crusades never ended and now it's payback time. It's like the scene in the movie Independence Day when the American president (a thinly veiled Bill Clinton) asks the alien what they want and the alien says, "We want you to die." That's about the size of it. It doesn't sound so silly to me. They want us dead.

Answer 5

I think the prophet Muhammed himself never meant for his followers to get so extreme about a mere name.
That's all.
Excuse me now, I have to go take a 'muhammed'.

Answer 6

Yes, I have heard about this CURRENT EVENT.
My view is, it is an ongoing case, and not History yet.

Answer 7

I think they are going crazy. It's stupid if you ask me. They are really overboard with their religion.

Answer 8

From the last news report I heard, she is serving a 15 day prison sentence (5 days already served) and is going to be deported.

Being from a country that religious tolerence is supposedly the "norm", I am naturally going to find it atrocious that people are marching in the streets calling for her to be executed. On the other hand, when people volunteer to go into a religiously fanatical country, they should abide by the laws in place there and accept the punishments for any crime they commit.

Of course most people from Western civilizations are going to find the punishment and even the act of charging her in itself a horror but the people that live in that country have their laws too...and to try and impose our beliefs on them is just as bad as invading their lands under the pretense of intellectual "enlightenment".

I think she was a good person to be working there and trying to teach children in an impoverished region and I also believe that since the students were the ones to name the bear, that should have been taken into consideration.

I myself am opposed to religion of all forms. I believe that organized religion is the biggest sin against God when people follow laws and rules written by other people leaving the words up to fiercely misguided interpretation. I do believe in God and am a very spiritual person. I also believe that Jesus was a great man and teacher who didn't really get his point across. Many people are too busy focusing on his acension into heaven or possible miracles he performed while turning a blind eye to the doctrine he was trying to teach, which was to live in peace and love one another. Much like this modern teacher, Jesus found himself in a place that was completely intolerent to adversity. Religion divides, causes wars and gives people the impression that it's okay to kill in the name of God. If everyone was spiritual instead of religious, the world would be a far more peaceful place.

Upon saying that, even though I'm against religion of any form, I also believe that people and their beliefs should be respected and no one should have the right to tell another what and how they should believe even when that belief system makes allowances for heinous acts of barbarity in accordance with their scripture and what the figureheads of the religion (clerics, priests, rabbis, etc..) interpret the literal words to say and pass along to their students or "followers". Unfortunately it's not the religions themselves that are responsible for the horrors, but the messengers of the word and the way they interpret and deliver the messages and lessons. It's a flawed system (much like governments) and that's why religion is a sin against God in my eyes because people aren't following God, they're following what a mere mortal man teaches them. Many of these mortal men are powerful and take advantage of the fact that a great number of people listen to them and it becomes a power or control issue at that point. Spirituality links you with God directly and cuts out the middle man so to speak so there's no straying off of the path because someone translated something and put it into their own words more than likely for their own personal gain.

But alas, people follow their teachers and respect them and that's what they know. To view them with disdain for the way they have believed for centuries is in a way morally wrong and no one has the right to judge them simply because they would do things a different way in their own motherland.

This holds true in the case of going into another country, or someone's home, and degrading their religious preference. Naturally, there's going to be a backlash if someone gets their toes stepped on. When you deliberately subject yourself to a population that has been taught and raised to believe a certain way, you should take into consideration the consequences of an action that might offend them and avoid doing so at all costs.

I believe what happened was an honest oversight and act of ignorance to the possibilities and reprocussions by inadvertantly insulting a group of people in their own nation and was not intentional on her part. Again, I believe that to even call her out on the whole affair was petty and from the standpoint of the way everyone I know was raised, a little extremist and highly fanatical. It's a perfect example of culture clashes and a good reason as to why non-Muslims and people from non-Muslim countries have no business crossing into the borders of ANY Muslim area. The only way there will ever be peace with extremist Muslim countries is to leave them to their own devices, allowing them to conduct their lives the way they were raised and in the manner it is dictated to them in their sacred scriptures by their appointed and highly respected elders and holy men.

This is the main reason the seperation of church and state is so important. Religion IS a very important aspect for so many people as you said, but different religions have different doctrines and ALL of them should be kept within the confines of each individual's home and place of worship without imposing their will on others. For example, even though it's apples and oranges, it would be the same concept as a vegan telling other people they can't eat meat and trying to force them to eat only non-meat products and then declaring a war to institute a law by forceful means to ensure that everyone else has their choices taken away simply because one group of people think it's okay to eat meat and another group does not. It would also be wrong to imprison, execute or publically disgrace someone for eating meat simply because a select few are offended by someone else doing so.

This is the same as some religious fanatics telling people of other religions that they're going to burn in hell or be punished in some way for not believing the same way as they do.

To sum it up, I think you opened a can of worms with this one and I had a blast responding to your question.

Deep down inside, my personal opinion is that any and all aid workers that aren't Muslim should leave the Muslim countries they are working in and those Muslim countries should also rely upon other Muslim countries for food, medical supplies and any aid they need in times of hardship. Starvation, disease and civil wars should cool them down a little and give them time to think about what a**holes they're being to the rest of the world population they so affectionately refer to as infidels...just because they don't believe the same way they do.

What I'm wondering is when will most of the major religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity) realize that they all worship the SAME God?