On 17/02/2008, Screamer scream@datascreamer.com wrote:

Can you reference this law?

./screamer

Calligraphy was given so much importance also because of the Sharia law, which forbade Muslims from depicting a living form on the walls or in paper as a part of art form

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/islamic-art.html

Photos are more complicated.

Andrew Gray wrote:

On 17/02/2008, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:

...

So far no one has addressed my most cogent point. The law in Islam is against *all* images of humans. Not just Muhammed.

What "the law" says or doesn't say has very little direct relevance to what people get directly offended by. This is not a game of nomic, as has been explained many times over.

I want you to clarify your post for context.

./screamer

[This gets long, and is mostly about general principles, but I hope it explains why I find some of the rhetoric in this thread to be counterproductive at best...]

On 17/02/2008, Screamer scream@datascreamer.com wrote:

...

What "the law" says or doesn't say has very little direct relevance to what people get directly offended by. This is not a game of nomic, as has been explained many times over.

I want you to clarify your post for context.

Summary: This isn't a logic puzzle, it's not a code of law, it's not a scientific test, is my basic point. (Nomic is a marvellously geeky game which is basically the paragon of "rules used to win arguments", apologies if the allusion went astray)

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Explanation: People are offended. This is, on the whole, a pretty solid fact. We can quibble about how many of them there are and how deeply they are offended; we can - and should - try to get a handle on the idea of how representative they are of a wider population; but to say "oh, they're not offended *really*" is obviously just going to pour oil on troubled, er, flames.

What is tempting to a certain type of logical mind - us geeks fall into this trap very often, I know the temptation myself, and I strive to avoid it - is to try and explain (or argue, or propose) that if the offended person just looks at it from a different angle, it might not be offensive to them any more. This tends to backfire.

Sometimes, usually in trivial cases of miscommunication, this can work ("Sorry, I have a cold, what I said was..."). Most of the time, it just comes off as either callous ("I don't see what you're complaining about") or as arrogant ("well, *I'm* not offended...").

The worst approach, though, is to say "you're *wrong* to be offended, because..." This is not just indicating you don't particularly care about their complaint; it's directly attacking the grounds on which they made it, and when those grounds are partly emotive (as they certainly are in this case - it's religion!) it's effectively the same as saying "you're wrong to have that emotional reaction" or "you're wrong to think that".

For a start, it's - dare I say it - logically inconsistent! Emotional responses are not in themselves logical; you don't decide to be offended by a picture or a statement because you have checked The Laws By Which You Abide and have confirmed that it falls into class five and is not covered by exceptions c or d; you are offended because you are used to thinking in a way that finds that sort of thing offensive. Were there strict rules to start with, you have internalised them; you don't debate the matter with yourself, or consult a checklist, you just react viscerally. Oh, you can explain *why* you're offended by contextualising it with those rules, but that's not quite the same thing - and it certainly isn't exact. You can't disprove emotion.

(Secondly, it's offensive in and of itself. Every been told your opinion is flat-out wrong on a matter of personal feelings? It doesn't tend to make you well-disposed to agreeing with the other person, no matter how clever the rest of their argument is...)

We're not automatons; we're big squishy bags of meat. We are thinking beings with emotions and free will and irrational preferences and habits and beliefs, *all* of us, and forgetting that is, in general terms, a very bad thing for interpersonal relations. Especially in large, sprawling, depersonalised online communities, like this one.

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With me so far? Right, let's look back at this thread. We have things like (and I quote directly):

"The basis for the opposition is unfounded" "It's also internally contradictory" "...their protest is a complete disregard for the basic logic of their own position" "...being contradictory and illogical ... mis-interpreting the tenets of their own faith for strictly polemic reasons." "...protesting in a general way that the image is offensive, but trying to back that up by citing a law which doesn't apply"

...then we are, very basically, saying "I have disproved the assertion that they use to justify being offended, and so they shouldn't be offended, and so we can ignore them".

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Yeah. This is not a good way to be thinking. We can say they are wrong to wish us to *do something* (which is a perfectly valid position to hold though I can't say I entirely agree) but we certainly shouldn't be getting into the dangerous waters of saying they shouldn't be offended, because the fact remains that they *are* offended, it is an honestly held belief stemming from their interpretation of their religious principles, and it isn't going away...

...and, perhaps most pragmatically, you never win an argument with a believer by trying to tell them they don't know their own religion but you do.

(I really do hope I am preaching to the crowd here - I know I've had this sort of discussion before, in general terms)