Shaun - I think you put it quite nicely and I couldn't agree more. And sure, I'd be keen to workshop with stencils! do you want to meet up sometime prior, perhaps after work? Is anyone else keen? (hope  you won't wind, I had to cut down your quoted email) 

Daniel - perhaps you could write something to save ambiguity that could arise from a drawing. So long at it emphasised more of a "question your religion" angle from a "Muslims are savages". It is about protecting freedom of speech and rational inquiry after all.   

Issac - I do hear your concern but, along with what Shaun said, this is about being able to criticize. While I do realise your concern, I don't thin the New Zealand participation will be routing all Muslims anytime soon. It's more of a solidarity effort to those who have lost their freedoms to zealots. Any rational Muslim should be able to see that, if not, then it's probably too late for them. However, I suspect we will need to agree to disagree on this one. You see the risks out weighting the benefits, I see the benefits as out weighting the risks. 

Now..

Does anyone else wish to participate, you can read the debate and decide if you wish to come along, or make your own contribution. So long as you're not motivated by racism, which I highly doubt, hence I thought skeptics would be a good circle to ask around. This isn't meant to be an official Skeptics operation either. But if anyone from skeptics wishes to join, then feel free - that is the point after all.

Remember this isn't open warfare or rioting in the streets, nor is it burning crosses or mosques. It's just doodling, something that as members of the free world, we are all entitled to do.  

Cheers,

Ben

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Shaun Waugh <[address removed]> wrote:

Hi All,

Thank you for your considered debate on this topic everyone.

I see the original request to join in what I view as;

?  a form of non-violent protest against the actions and threatened actions of militant Islam and there adherents in this context.

?  a fair criticism of Islam 

? a symbolic act of solidarity with the Danish cartoonists who have suffered gross, disproportionate, irrational hatred and real threats of violence for publishing cartoons well within the bounds of reason for a free press to publish. 

 

? I see "draw Mohammad day" in the same light, reasonable men and women making an innocuous (on the scale from a cartoon of Mohammed to a suicide bomber, drawing Mohammed is innocuous) symbolic stand against the clear and present threat that is posed to the hard won freedoms of modern secular society directly by oppressive, misanthropic Islamic extremists and indirectly by the unspoken major premise of their faith?to expand, dominate, I should say "enlighten" the world.

It is also a symbolic stand in support of those Danish cartoonists, people who draw humourous one liners for a living, who have been hounded and oppressed for behaving in a manner entirely consistent with what is expected of a free press in a modern secular society.

Moderate Islamic people can choose to feel a range of responses from being offended, to feeling supported in their opposition to the radical haters and wreckers within. How they choose to respond is over to them.

Finally, as a graphic artist and long time screen printer I've developed a skill at stencil cutting... anyone care to workshop this effort?"

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