Let’s begin with the basics. To the extent that anything can be thought wrong, shooting other people is generally thought wrong. Circumstances vary, of course, but one of the less acceptable “reasons” for murdering others is that their culture differs from one’s own.
Some religions use pictures and statues to inspire reverence. Others refuse to use pictures or statues. Why? Because, in their view, God is infinite and incomprehensible—beyond the ken of scrawny human minds—so any attempt to depict her will be misleading.
Judaism forbids all depictions of God. His name is even spelled G hyphen D. Islam is especially rigorous in its rejection of imagery—not just of God and the prophets but of depictions in general. In Muslim tradition, art—blurring the line between reality and illusion—is sometimes called the devil’s work. Islamic creativity has been diverted away from pictures and statues into architecture, calligraphy, and geometric design. Strange to say, the best of those designs are literally hypnotic. Meanwhile, ironically, in modern secular societies, where worship has withered away, it seems to be the job of artists, not priests, to conjure up infinity and show us the sublime.
In Europe, recently, as you well know, Mohammed was depicted in cartoons. Islamic reaction, worldwide, has been violent, ranging from riots to mass murder. If Muslims violate Muslim tradition, and are consequently punished by their own community, well, perhaps that’s their business. (Perhaps!) But when any group presumes to punish outsiders—nonbelievers—for disobeying the laws of their sect, that’s barbaric, and, sadly, not rare. In civilized society, we don’t kill those with whom we disagree; we simply despise and heap scorn upon them.
Democracy postulates freedom of speech and thought. Should French and Danish journalists have lampooned Islam’s prophet as they did? I, personally, empathize with anyone who pees on sacred cows. (Tough luck if those you tease can’t take a joke! Though you might want to put on your flak jacket, first.) Those irritants who rock the status quo—the gadflies/satirists/provocateurs—can help us notice where our limits lie: the point where we no longer laugh.
Even a child knows it’s both rude and risky to hurt someone else’s feelings, especially after you’ve been warned. That goes double when those whom you laugh at are heavily armed. Perhaps we ought to keep in mind that words and even pictures are just scribbles on a page—until we invest them with meaning, that is. (And, of course, we reliably do.)
Religious laws, like any laws, are lines drawn in the sand. They can bring out our vehement side. Humans—mostly human males—are excited by conflict and destruction, especially where a chance to be constructive is denied. Men never embrace violence more enthusiastically than when it’s “justified” by some high moral cause, be that the Bible, Koran, or Third Reich. Religious and patriotic “indignation” is often just an excuse for thugs to throw their weight around. Add to that our absurd reluctance to distinguish between symbols and what those symbols represent. When people burn a flag or bra, it’s cathartic, of course, as if they had actually inflicted some small, real injury on whatever they resent. But, face it, Jack: a flag is just a piece of colored cloth. To me, it seems somehow bizarre that Islamists slaughter cartoonists while Islam downplays the importance of imagery. What could make pictures seem more important than flamboyantly murdering those who draw them?
In response to an immense, incomprehensible universe, awe and uncertainty seem more appropriate than dogma. Religion often takes itself rather seriously. Humor is perspective. Where humor ends, idolatry begins. When humans act as if they know what’s true, as most fundamentalists do, they’re only slightly less absurd than your grandmother’s Shih Tzu would be, standing up on its little hind legs in a turban or tux and telling us, emphatically, what God requires of us. (Maybe that’s why they call it dogma.) Theologian Paul Tillich once said, perceptively: “The opposite of faith is not doubt. It’s certainty!”