Originally posted by: Gaffer Tape
Wouldn't there be an uproar if there was a movie depicting Mohammad at all, since, like that comic uproar a few months ago, it is against their law to represent Mohammad in any way?

Google a movie called The Message and you'll learn a very sordid history about what happens when you try to make a movie about Mohammed. Muslims protested the depiction of Mohammed in this film and he wasn't actually depicted in it. You'll never see The Passion of Mohammed. Therein lies the great difference ... you cannot depict Mohammed even in a positive light. As an American protected by the First Amendment, I will support any Muslim's right not to see such a depiction just as I will salute any artist's desire to create such a depiction. Neither has the right to shed blod over the issue. That is the ultimate affront to God.

On a different subject, I think it is interesting how many more people raised Catholic have developed a negative taste for all organized religion when compared to those raised Protestant. I think it is indicative of how the Catholic Church conducts itself. Its inflexibility and monarchial structure and is causing it to snap apart. The structure is beyond passe, it is damn near despotism in today's enlightened, democratic world. On the flip side of the coin, you have the Baptist approach, which like The Ol' South from which it was born, thinks that whenever you disagree on something, you just break off and start your own new system of governance. Jefferson Davis would be proud.

I'm quite particular to the core Protestants: The Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Episopalians, who engage in theological debate and apply democratic process to the administration of their respective denominations. But the democratic process was established way, way back at the Council of Nicea. The Great Schism between Catholicism and Orthodoxy (predating the Protestant Reformation by roughly nine hundred years) was caused largely on the Pope's assertion that -- (insert Jack Nicholson voice here) he ... was the #1 ... guyyyyy -- and not one voice among many bishops. Every attempt at reconciliation failed upon the Pope's unwillingness to relinquish absolute power over the church and recognize a reversion that all bishops had an equal voice in affairs of the church. They had a constitution, the Pope chose to ignore it, and set up an absolute monarchy over the Western world. Wasn't the first time in history, wasn't the last.

Now, all religions have been and continue to be abused, but don't discount the good that it has brought to those who actually "get it" when it comes to religious enlightenment. Whenever I feel cynical about organized religion, I look at the mission work that smaller churches do both in their communities and globally. I admire average people who give up not just their money in the offering plate, but their time and energy, either to feed the homeless, or to build a roof in an Appalachian home, or who take a week's vacation to pour concrete floors for impoverished villages in the third world.

Those are whom I choose to align myself and support. They are everywhere, doing good every day. But they are neither boastful nor do they give of themselves to be seen doing so. Those are the REAL Christians.