"Last Supper" depiction at Olympics Opening Ceremony

Well, you're the one who told me that I didn't understand the complicated world, so, you know. Talking down or what?

Anyway. The point is, it's disingenuous to say "I’m sure some Muslim lads wouldn’t agree, but that’s their problem" because if it leads them to try to kill you, I'd say it's your problem too. And that needs to be said over and over, so that people don't start to find it normal. Because it's not normal.

My "beef" is that I'm seeing our society turn back into a self censoring terrified place that no longer has freedom of speech to debate things and I think this is why instead we're getting gangs of violent men smashing stuff up. In Ireland in particular we only had about a decade of freedom from ideology, and now we're heading back into a new era of self censorship where, because open debate is frowned upon, physical violence is starting to be seen as the best way to be heard.

I think that's disastrous. And I think the answer is to have more freedom of speech, not less. Sadly a lot of people, including the government, think the answer is more control over speech instead.

If I say Im free not to worship any particular religion then how does imply that I would willingly offend that religion or that I want to annoy people in that religion?

It doesn't unless you want to use the church or religious iconography in another, non religious use. Then it may well do.

I'm only going by their own words. If they didn't succeed in annoying enough people, does that mean they didn't try?

Sure. What's your point?

Well my point was that your argument simply lacked any sort of nuance, as though you didn’t remember the context, thereby implying that it was Christians sought to have the films banned, when in reality it was a mere handful of Christians, and of that minority, the majority were of the Protestant denomination. Geographically speaking there were far more Protestants wanted the films banned in their countries than Catholics, and I dare say the same is true of the current kerfuffle about this display at the Olympics - the objections appear to be predominantly emanating from Evangelicals in the US, as opposed to any ordinary Catholics in Europe or other parts of the world.

People DO similar in Islam, you yourself even provided an example of a Muslim comedian earlier in the thread and suggested we need more Muslim comedians. The reason there aren’t that many is because Islam is literally a foreign concept in the West, whereas Christianity is not. Your argument is that people don’t mock Islam for fear of reprisals, but the evidence for that amounts to a mere handful of incidents, whereas I can think of one historically significant incident in recent history where there was no mockery, it was simply the fact that Western culture is an affront to their extremist ideology - all it took was a mere handful of them to kill 3,000 people in the Twin Towers.

You think they killed journalists in France for mocking their religion? The people who did it are extremists, they are not representative of Islam, and to suggest they are, is to ignore the fact that the vast majority of Muslims simply aren’t interested in the West or being part of Western society and culture. In the same way - most of Western society isn’t interested in Islam, and is even less interested in mocking an ideology which has no meaning or any bearing whatsoever on their lives. That’s not to say it couldn’t be done, but it’s called obscure or surreal comedy for a reason, precisely because it’s obscure and surreal and doesn’t conform to the standards of what makes for popular entertainment which appeals to Western audiences. See the earlier examples of The Real Housewives of ISIS and The Four Lions - direct mockery and satire of Islamic terrorists, pretty sure the whole cast of either of those productions have not suffered any ill fate as a consequence of their actions.

You’re also old enough to remember the book that was published which some people claimed was intended to mock Islam which received rave critical acclaim in Western media:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses

So to suggest it isn’t done because of any fear of reprisals is simply false, and there’s little evidence to support the claim, for various reasons, whereas the fact that mockery of Islam is just not as popular as mockery of Christianity is because Islam in the West is not as popular as Christianity, is a far more reasonable conclusion.

Nobody in this thread at least, is pushing self-censorship btw, it’s quite the opposite - they’re flat out disagreeing with your perspective! I do see the parallels you’re making between blackface and drag, and it’s a fair argument, but the attempt to draw parallels between the treatment of Christianity and Islam in the West? They’re not even remotely in the same league as to be able to make a fair comparison, let alone to derive from that comparison that by the standard you’ve created, all religions are fair game. That’s not comedy, or mockery, or satire, it’s just trying to find an excuse for being a despicable prick.

I’ve never needed an excuse, before you make that obvious retort 😂

not a biggie but I thought this must be fake when I started seeing it. What were they thinking , get me 50CC's of WD40 Stat!

Thanks, Im sure I would drop a Euro in if I saw this on Grafton Street but skeptical this rates as an Olympic sport, better than Australia though someone was done out of a free trip

it makes the Olympics seem bloated and gives off a "one for everybody in the audience" vibe, even events like "speed walking" should be dropped, ive never heard of anyone even "doing it" in real life or that its someone's life long dream from the age of 10, its not a thing, yet give it 6 months and the French will be complaining about how much the Olympics cost to put on.

One of the most enjoyable and medal winning Olympics for our little country in recent memory !

Well done Paris and congratulations to all our wonderful athletes 👏👏

Remember the time Selina ran away with the cult....?

Macron should have called the election after the Olympics.