I spent some time last night doing a word-search on mock in the Bible. Mocking is stuff the bad guys do. I saw one positive reference to mocking in Proverbs 1, where Wisdom states to the folks who ignore his advice "I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when calamity overtakes you."
This morning, I bopped over to Get Religion, where they had a piece on Wednesday on the latest Arab Street-inflamer in the form of the French mag Charlie Hebdo. They have an Arab guy in a wheelchair being pushed by a Haradi on the cover-
The text balloon states “You must not mock”, but there is also the undertone of “Make my day” here also. Last November the offices of Charlie Hebdo were firebombed after they put Muhammad on the cover of their magazine and ran some distasteful cartoons inside the magazine.
Of course, CH mocks away once again, and French embassies are having to board up the windows.
Teasing and mocking doesn't make for good rhetoric; it doesn't endear you to the target and makes you look thugish. In this case, there seems to be little benefit from insulting Muslims other than a juvenile desire to make fun of others outside your in-group. We see that in politics, where liberals will make fun of conservatives for the amusement of their fellow progressives and conservatives follow suit.
Making fun of Mohammad's sexual habits isn't going to win anyone over to Jesus; making a negative case for another religion (and a lame one at that) doesn't make a case for yours. Likewise, making fun of Sandra Fluke's virtue (or lack thereof) isn't going to make a good case for allowing religious opt-outs on reproductive drugs.
Psalm 1 hits it on the head-
1 Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
That's at the front of the playlist for a reason.
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