Friday, November 30, 2007

Mohammed Bear

How many Muslims do you know named Mohammad?
More than one I'll bet. Do you think a religious group would demand the parents should be punished or killed because they named their child Muhammad?
Recently, and English teacher in Africa named a teddy bear Muhammad, and a particular religious group, I'll let you figure out which one, wants to put the woman in jail and have even suggested killing her for her blasphemy.
Wow, you name a human Mohammad it's okay, but name a teddy bear Mohammad and religious extremists want you dead. I've spelled the name differently to further confuse.
In America it seems so incomprehensible for a religious group to act this way.
Sadly, for thousands of years different religious factions of these intolerant folks involved in this issue, have decided to kill each other because the can't decide on who should be a successor to their religion.
Amazing. The difference in America is we have a First Amendment which demands religious freedom and keeps government out. That means we can have lots or wacky religious folks that believe in somewhat wonderous things, but few in America demand death for someone who names a teddy bear Jesus. But Jesus never suggested killing people, had an army or fought a military battle....he only wanted us to love one another and treat others as we would ourselves.
Perhaps there are some extreme religious groups whose heads would explode if they were required to follow those basic religious tenets, and wouldn't that be wonderful if that happened?

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