Were you personally offended by Charlie Hebdo's anti-religious satire?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No, and that applies just as much to their anti-Christian stuff as it does their anti-Islam stuff.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Getting offended by such stuff is rather counterproductive, and reminds me of this exchange from a couple years ago on another forum. Some Einzige style atheist was really drunk and decided he'd troll the Christians on the forum (hardcore forum, so Christians were outnumbered and a lot less vocal) and made some thread saying he was intending this to be the most blasphemous thing ever, and started posting all sorts of anti-Christian quotes and artwork including black metal stuff. This happens:

Atheist guy: *posts multiple posts of this stuff, gets a few others to join in*
Christian girl: You know what's great about all this? Jesus doesn't love you any less now than before you started this thread!
Atheist guy: RAR! Man f[inks] your religion and f[inks] Jesus, check this out.
Christian girl: Uh OK. I don't even like religion anyway. And Jesus still loves you!
Atheist guy: It doesn't bother you that I say this or this or post things like this?
Christian girl: No not at all. Because nothing you post has and nothing you could possibly post or do will EVER make God love me, or you any less. And that's all that matters. You do realize nothing you say now is much different from some records that I own and listen to? None of the words you say or images you post matter to me.
Atheist guy: *drunken rant which implies he's actually now getting offended that she's NOT offended*
Christian girl: Haha, well sorry about that I guess. But Jesus still loves you.

Now would he and she look better or worse than if she had posted "You evil infidel I hope you burn in Hell"? Or not that but rather "Wow this is really uncalled, inappropriate, disgusting and offensive"? It's obvious that the response given was the best.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What I meant is that no one should feel personally offended by a cartoon mocking their religion.

Why not? If there's a right to offend then surely there must also be a right to be offended. Which is, needless to say, completely different from a right to firebomb offices and/or gun down people at an editorial meeting.

I can't control other people's feelings, obviously. The point was that I strongly dislike the ideological ramifications of such feeling.

Such feeling is a natural outflow of feeling personally attached to one's religion, rather than just giving it some sort of dry intellectual assent.

OK, I'm not religious, so my knowledge of this is somewhat limited, but I'm pretty sure that there are many Catholics who take their faith seriously and yet don't give a damn about Charlie Hebdo's cartoons making fun of Jesus or the Pope. How would the fact that someone is making fun or your faith diminish it in any way? At most, your reaction could be one of pity toward the cartoonists if you believe God will punish them eventually.

I think you are missing the point. It's not about diminishing faith. It's about insulting something you care deeply about.

Well see my post above. Isn't taking offense to such things actually kind of counter-productive? Actually I'm a little perplexed by Madeline's comment above, since it seems that someone giving something more of just a dry intellectual assent probably would be MORE likely to be offended by that train of thought, rather than an actual firm believer.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And really, even if you're Catholic, getting offended by Charlie Hebdo making fun of the Pope is kind of silly. It'd be like if I got really offended up and upset because some publication was making fun of some hipster Christian blogger I follow.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What I meant is that no one should feel personally offended by a cartoon mocking their religion.

Why not? If there's a right to offend then surely there must also be a right to be offended. Which is, needless to say, completely different from a right to firebomb offices and/or gun down people at an editorial meeting.

I can't control other people's feelings, obviously. The point was that I strongly dislike the ideological ramifications of such feeling.

Such feeling is a natural outflow of feeling personally attached to one's religion, rather than just giving it some sort of dry intellectual assent.

OK, I'm not religious, so my knowledge of this is somewhat limited, but I'm pretty sure that there are many Catholics who take their faith seriously and yet don't give a damn about Charlie Hebdo's cartoons making fun of Jesus or the Pope. How would the fact that someone is making fun or your faith diminish it in any way? At most, your reaction could be one of pity toward the cartoonists if you believe God will punish them eventually.

If someone jokes about a person's mom, some people will take offense, others will laugh it off. Some might be a little offended but still think it's a little funny.  It's the same thing.  God, Jesus, Mohammed - these are people who mean a lot to those who are religious.

There is a fundamental difference between persons and ideas. Ideas, by virtue of being ideas (and from the point where we accept to live in a free society) are inherently subject to the possibility of rebuttal and mockery.

Is Muhammad not a person?

Of course he is, but a Muslim flipping out over him being mocked would be like me doing the same over someone mocking Guy Picciotto, or Seth MacFarlane, or Quentin Tarantino, or one of the hipster Christian bloggers I follow...or hell even opebo or Libertas.

And I've explained above why I don't get offended by people mocking Jesus.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

ITT, BRTD admits he has religious levels of obsession with opebo.

No you're missing the point. I'm just including him in what's basically a list of "people I like".

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What about 'Piss Christ?'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ

Not offended. For the reason mentioned before. Really you CAN'T desecrate Jesus, so any attempts to do so are nothing to be worried about. It's like throwing grains of sand at a tank.

Of course he is, but a Muslim flipping out over him being mocked would be like me doing the same over someone mocking Guy Picciotto, or Seth MacFarlane, or Quentin Tarantino, or one of the hipster Christian bloggers I follow...or hell even opebo or Libertas.

This is one of the weirdest comparisons that I've read recently. It's funny the idea of Muhammad filming Reservoir Dogs or being a bearded hipster who writes his experiences and shows his outfits in a blog. Speechless. Truly.

I don't read any blogs about outfits. Can't think of when that was ever done. No the bloggers I'm thinking of mostly just post about current events and what they think Jesus would think about them and how Jesus was nothing like organized churches or the right wing agenda and was actually basically a proto-progressive SJW.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The more important point is that if you believe in Jesus, then you should NOT be offended by that, because it Jesus is real and is God then it means NOTHING.