Ryan Tomczyk: 2010

Ive never been one to blog necessarily, and I know I'm a bit late bringing up this topic, seeing how it all occurred last Wednesday, but I just felt it was better late than never. I originally made this blog to promote my comedy and music, and just to have an archive of the random accomplishments I've made since creating this, whether it be new stand-up, or one of me and my roommate's odd videos. Usually bloggers, in my mind, are suburban white teenagers complaining about how difficult their lives are in a middle class existence, and I know not many people will read this, but I guess this is my way of venting, even though I only have one follower on this God-forsaken thing (Hi fgf! :DD <3).
So for those who do not know, this is the issue: On April 21st 2010, a new episode of South Park was going to portray the image of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, but due to Muslim extremists, the episode was gratuitously censored and won't even appear online as far as my attempts are concerned thus far (I didn't see the episode, I had prior engagements). What really pisses me off about this situation isn't that the episode was censored and condensed, but that the creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker had their lives threatened by an extremist group centered in New York City of all places. A post showed up on this Muslim website revolutionmuslim.com saying that if they showed the episode, they could possibly be hurt. A nice gesture, watching out for the creators of the show, but they also listed the creators personal information and addresses so any extremist could take action against them.
So I decided to check out this website, and see what I could find, and I stumbled upon an interview with one of the extremists from this group and he stated boldly that in the Koran (Qu'ran? I'm honestly very unsure) it commands (key word: commands) to terrorize people who do actions against their faith, or something to that effect. Kind of seems like an odd thing for a religion to say, huh? I thought religion was supposed to be the practice of worshiping an upper being, and doing things to be on his or her good side, so to speak. I never knew religion would command harm against others, and I fail to see why. I remember hearing that the word Muslim, or Islam means 'peace.' Soooo, am I the only one who is perplexed by this? A religion that means peace commands harm to others who do sac religious acts? I didn't participate in lent, so why aren't Catholic fundamentalists trying to hurt me? I ate whatever I wanted to during passover, why am I not under assault by Jewish people? Because those people don't find it necessary to hurt those who don't practice what they do.
So just because these two writers wanted to exercise the first amendment, their lives were put into danger. Honestly I'm ignorant towards the Muslim faith, I know little to nothing about it, and I don't know how showing the image of Muhammad is such a sin that lives need to be in danger, and I'm fairly sure these extremists give the rest of the Muslim faith a bad name. If you don't want to see his image on a cartoon, change the goddamn channel! The same episode that sparked such arousal also happened to show Buddha doing lines of cocaine, obviously to satirize how other deities can be poked fun at in such ways, but not Muhammad. Also, apparently Muhammad already showed up in an episode called "super best friends" and appears in the during the introduction to every South Park episode.
My apologies for this slew of my own incoherent thoughts, and thank you to anyone who actually read all of this. Religion in general just baffles me, especially when events like these transpire. I have absolutely nothing against people of the Muslim faith, I cannot stress that enough, and I really would like to know more about the Muslim faith because I know very little about it, and how something like a cartoon could incite such a response. I understand how some people of this faith may be uncomfortable with such an image being portrayed, but I guess Muslim extremists are like the fire and brimstone Christians who visit Rutgers every so often, they take things way to seriously from their faith, and in no way represent all who practice it. Religion is supposed to be about spreading peace, is it not? It's supposed to be a good thing, at least that's what I've come to believe, but people like this just really get to me.
So once again, sorry to anyone who spent their time reading all of this. If you would like to comment on the subject, or anything of that nature, my e-mail is rtomczyk@rutgers.edu or feel free to talk to me via text message, phone call, facebook, or whatever floats your boat.