Swedish artist who angered Muslims is assaulted at lecture

[The Straight Story]

Swedish artist who angered Muslims is assaulted at lecture
Furious protesters clash with police at university event


STOCKHOLM -- A Swedish artist who angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog was assaulted today as furious protesters interrupted his university lecture about the limits of artistic freedom.

Lars Vilks told the Associated Press a man leaped from the front row and head-butted him as he was delivering his speech, breaking Vilks' glasses but leaving him uninjured. Two people were arrested, but it wasn't immediately clear whether the attacker was among them.

A video clip of the incident by a Swedish newspaper showed police using pepper spray and batons to hold off an angry crowd shouting "God is great" in Arabic after Vilks was escorted out of the lecture hall.

Vilks has faced numerous threats over his controversial drawing of Muhammad with a dog's body, but today's incident was the first time he has been physically assaulted.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2010/05/11/swedish-artist-attacked.html?sid=101

[proteus_lives]

1. Link this to the "Europe is heaven on Earth" posts that always pop-up.

:eyes:

[MUAD_DIB]

7. I have never heard of that phrase before.

Does the rolling eyes make what the protesters did alright?

[proteus_lives]

23. A comment on a DU trend.

Based on the what "the grass is always greener side...." crowd always says.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

18. Whoa.

[proteus_lives]

22. Awww, you gave me a picture of yourself.

You shouldn't have.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

24. "I know you are but what am I" gets real old real fast. -nt

[proteus_lives]

25. You do know something getting old.

And not amusing anyone.

[msongs]

2. mentally ill religious crackpots and thugs - a credit to their religion lol nt

[demosincebirth]

3. A religion of peace and harmony

[demosincebirth]

4. Delete

[UndertheOcean]

5. Riff Raff n/t

[KonaKane]

6. Oh that's right, blame an entire religion because of a few crackpots.

Brilliant.

[MUAD_DIB]

8. Conversely, one could argue that these crackpots are making

their religion to appear intolerant of dissent; kind of like the Xtian fundamentalists make Christianity look foolish.

[KonaKane]

9. Silly argument.

Religion is a concept that doesn't much care about being made to look foolish or not. It's about people. When you decide to defame a person's faith you by association are defaming them. It's not an attractive form of behavior from anyone, let alone the more progressed minds on this forum.

[MUAD_DIB]

11. I disagree with your assessment.

There are enough zealots that attempt to use religion, regardless if they believe in it or not, as a springboard for their hatred...which in turn does not help their case. That being said it still does not absolve them from their attacks on dissent or freedom of speech.

[KonaKane]

14. What zealots attempt to do has no bearing.

Especially on any given faith as practiced by millions upon millions of good, peaceful people (the vast majority of them are).

[MUAD_DIB]

15. Tell that to the cartoonist. Tell that to the 'millions upon millions of good, peaceful people'

whose religion is being used to appear intolerant of dissent.

[TampaAnimus2010]

10. Absolutely - religion has historically and is currently bedfellows...

with the illogical. If it were logical, it wouldn't be religion - it would be science!

[Canuckistanian]

12. Irrefutable reasoning

Welcome to DU!
:toast:
:hi:

[KonaKane]

13. Incorrect.

Spirituality is not necessarily "logical" yet it there is a compelling need for it among many humans. Doesn't make it wrong, evil or unnatural.

[TampaAnimus2010]

16. Believe in the supernatural is belief in the superiority of others...

People believe in religions because they were raised to... otherwise why else would religion be geographical? If it were not the case, then religions would be geographically dispersed equally across the planet.

Of course people accept what they were taught...they superficially may question it at various stages of their lives, but the statistical certainty of becoming one of those geographically correctly placed believers eventually overpower most minds. It's easier to accept than to question. The initial thrust of curiosity one gets in youth eventually peters out and the gravitational pull of the environmental beliefs sucks many minds down before they reach escape velocity - which is the confidence to assert their reason against a world where they dont have all the facts. Because of the complete lack of investigation of other frames of reference, one MUST eventually fall back into the one handed to them by their local world - simply by default.

[Quantess]

20. Welcome to DU!

[Odin2005]

17. Religion sucks!

[Maru Kitteh]

19. That guy is BRAVE and/or crazy. I admire him. n/t

[western mass]

21. Imagine a country *dominated* by these religious fanatics

oh wait... it's called the USA.