Page 1 of Religious (in)tolerance

So a few hundred nutcases decide to attack a theatre because it's staging a play that 'offends their culture'. Oh dear. I thought we got over all this lunacy in this country a few hundred years ago. Whatever happened to freedom of speech? . If I wrote a play about Catholic priests raping altar boys (not that any have done of course) would I face a crowd of angry Papists threatening to burn me at the stake? I don't think so, in fact most would recognise what is wrong with fundamentalist religion. Those who attacked the Birmingham Rep are abusing the secularity and tolerance that it took a long time to achieve in this country and which we've now held on to for a long time and should continue to do so. If religious people want tolerance perhaps they should try practising it themselves.

Paul (ex-Catholic, now thankfully agnostic)

any chance of a link :) cos i ain`t got a clue what`s happened :D

I didn`t have any idea what it was about either, so just had a look on Google news. Didn`t find that, but did find this, which is no doubt equally shocking....a woman murdered, then cut open to steal her unborn baby from her womb.....and they`re not even calling it murder. They call in "kidnapping resulting in death"....could only happen in America....shocking !! :(

"I didn`t have any idea what it was about either, so just had a look on Google news. Didn`t find that,"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4109315.stm

easy to find, took me all of 5 seconds..

what makes me laugh is they claim there religion is a "peacfull one" yea tell that to the police who where hurt by THERE demonstration, and it wasn`t even white racisits or "young asian youths" who kicked it off, it was ELDERS

on the news one guy was saying they didn`t mind the raping and killing, it was just that it was set in a mosque, ermmm isn`t it a FAKE stage one? but at least they don`t mind the violence..

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"kidnapping resulting in death"

?!?!?!?! wow.

Quote:
it was just that it was set in a mosque

Wrong religion. RTFA.

--
www.soundalikes.com

Quote:
Wrong religion. RTFA.

beat me to it.

I think all religions claim to be peaceful, until their God tells them otherwise...I was intrigued by a quote from the Roman Catholic bishop of Birmingham :

Quote:
"Such a deliberate, even if fictional, violation of the sacred place of the Sikh religion demeans the sacred places of every religion."

I assume therefore that he would quite happily storm every theatre that puts on a performance of TS Eliot`s `Murder in the Cathedral`...unless killing the Archbishop of Canterbury is ok.

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This item was edited on Monday, 20th December 2004, 11:35

Down with this sort of thing... :p

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Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way, turn...

And those who dance will spin and turn,
And those who wait will wait no more,
And those who talk will hear the words,
And those who see will fade and die,
And those who laugh will surely fall,
And those who know will always feel their backs against the thin wall...

funnily enough, Father Ted came to mind for me as well :-)

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Speaking as one of the fundamentalists :/

I guess I can see both sides of the argument. The objection wasn`t to the subject matter of the play, merely the use of religious symbology and setting it inside a Gurdwara. If you are a deeply religious person, a little old and set in your ways, you`re bound to be offended. But remember, a small group of individuals do not represent an entire community. Also remember the woman who wrote the play is Sikh herself. There is more politics than religion involved in this. But when elderly Sikhs do take offence, they do it with style. I mean 5 police injured :D

But this isn`t limited to one religion, or something in the distant past. I remember to trouble Madonna got into with the Like A Prayer video, or Sinead O`Connor defaming a picture of the pope. In fact, try making any comment regarding Christianity right now in the United States and I`d believe that you would get a similar reaction.

My own personal opinion, is that if something is offensive to God then God can come down and do some smiting himself. There`s no need for anyone to act in his stead. Also is there a religious institution that doesn`t have abuse of power and authority from time to time?
===========================
Jitendar Canth

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"You won`t believe the things I have seen with your eyes..."

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This item was edited on Monday, 20th December 2004, 11:29