julianw

Yeah. You are probably moderating under the influence... j/k. Though I will say that the Chinese are kind of dry in the humor department and easily gets offended. At least in my experience. :ph34r:

So is it a chick flick or could a guy actually stay awake through the whole film and not just when pretty women are on the scene? Btw, I hear that Zhang Ziyi was nominated for best actress for some award show. So how is her preformance anyway?

You are correct. These lines were written thousands of years ago. Words could be mistranslated, miscopied or misinterpreted. That's why the corruption of the church is stronger evidence that Christ would never leave his religion in the hands of the church and let the blind guide the blind. Even though Peter was a pious man and a fitting messenger of the faith, Christ would never let such a corrupt institution rule over his people for the years to come.

Great song.

You shouldn't take that line out of the context. Christ first asked Peter: "Who do you believe Me to be?" And Peter answered: "Thou art the Son of the Living God." Then Christ said: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church." When asked the same question, others had answered to Christ that He was Elias, John the Baptist or one of the Prophets. Personally, I would like to think that when Christ said "upon this rock I will build my Church", he was confirming Peter's words that the belief that Christ is the Son of the God will be the foundation of His religion. Though you are certainly welcome to disagree. Secondly, let's compare the lives of some of the Popes to Christ's teachings. They have killed innocent people and shed so much blood to merely retain power or for mere differences of opinion. There is little resemblance between the instructions of Christ and the manner of government of Popes. Thousands of men of science and learning, Protestants and other sinless souls died by the hands of the Papal government. Could Christ have ever sanctioned such a corrupt institution?

The way I see it, all of the above that you mentioned are still only progression of church and the human society and not the religion itself. Once the prophet is dead, the guidance of a religion is left in earthly hands and no divine revelation could come of it any more. Christ didn't sanction for any church. Neither did Muhammad authorize today's Islamic clergy to be the true interpreters of his religion.

The last thread was closed due to off-topicness. I guess I will risk it one more time and take full blame on this one. Aren't all religions primative and unprogessive? When the religion's prophet dies, the religion dies with it. All that are left are books and ideas written down already. It's the people who will either choose to embrace new ideas over the foundations built by their religions or choose to fight them at all cost.

Well. It's certainly far from a perfect religion since it does not confirm the equality of rights between man and woman but neither did Christ mention it. Perhaps the reason behind these shortcomings are that the people and society have not yet progressed enough to be ready for such ideas at those times, but that's off the topic.

I could check it out sometime though I am preoccupied with another book on Islam at the moment. It's really sad how underappreciated Islam is in the western world and yet certain portions of the Islamic community continues to segregate themselves from the rest of the world and sinks further and further into fundamentalism, making it even more difficult for people to discover the beauty and loftiness behind this wonderful religion.

A good question to ask the protesters would be what Muhammad would have done? You think he would even get slightly agitated at a few caricatures of himself? He even forgave those who slaughtered his friends and followers and tried to murder him. Any violent protester who even utters his name on the streets is a complete disgrace to the Prophet and his teachings of love, peace and forgiveness.

Just saw Jet Li's Fearless (or Huo Yuan Jia), his final martial arts film before retirement. Kung-fu lovers should check it out. Definitely one of his better works.

Does it involve removal of clothing and lots of mud?

Cheers! ^_^

Play the mod to find out! :D (My guess is that she (or he) is slightly psychotic...)

In this case, even if there is an apology, it has become the result due to political pressure and threat of violence and therefore not sincere at all. If the cartoonists caricatured the Prophet without the prior knowledge that it's a great offense to Islam, they probably should apologize as it would be human decency. When you caused another group unintentional harm, you apologize. Heck, we even apologize when stepping on other people's foot in the subway. But when he then sticks a knife in your gut, things tend to change a bit.

He's going to have a tough time topping his performance as Maximus and judging from Riddley Scott's later efforts, he really got lucky with Russel back then.

At least not all Muslims decided to chase down tourists in hotels.

Perhaps it would be good for religious communities to purchase the rights to the images of their prophets and then they could pursue legal actions when they are being misused. No?

It just didn't suit my taste. Also I doubt any blondes are going to enjoy it either.

Freedom of press cannot cross the line of morality. The violent reactions from angry Muslims are certainly condemnable but that doesn't make the act of insulting other people's prophets any more justifiable.

How utterly disappointing! The joke is offensive and isn't funny at all and you have to click like 50 times to actually see it. Shame on you!

You mean like Fabio-sexy?

My preference exactly. Wait, aren't you a gal? So you like the hippie look?

Been there. Done that. I am after fresh blood these days.

Me thinks a somebody is still better than a nobody. *wink*wink*