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Comment by kohanz | Hacker News Reader

This is not really a fair comparison. It would be more like posting a picture during the Xmas holidays of doing something sinful/forbidden by Christianity with the baby Jesus. The context of this being during Ramadan is extremely important, as it's the holiest time of the year for Muslims.

I'm a former Muslim. I'm not offended by the OP's action, I just think it's a dumb joke that shows a lack of sensibility and respect.

The key is, in the West, if you did what I described above, you would probably receive a lot of flack, but you definitely wouldn't go to jail!

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South Park actually did that very thing in one episode, where satanic animals were celebrating Christmas by sacrificing babies or something similar.

Was in it poor taste? Sure. But no one went to jail for it, no one was at all punished for it, no one really cared. So when the person I responded to decided to admonish these people for doing something "offensive to muslims and non muslims"... well for one that's objectively false, and for two that's ridiculously backwards from the culture of tolerance that I was raised in. His comment was more offensive to me than the action these folks took by several orders of magnitude.

It's impossible for me to fathom any serious repercussions stemming from offending the sensibilities of religious people. Because where I come from, that's basically a national pastime.

It's more like posting a photo of someone ordering a hamburger instead of a filet o fish during lent. Nobody would care.

That's another perspective, you could really define it in many ways. I went with Christmas because it's the most holy and high-profile time for that religion. Lent doesn't really come close on the average Christian's radar in terms of involvement and public awareness.

Of course, what makes it really difficult to compare is the huge difference in attitudes towards and the role of religion between the cultures.

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