LittleBigPlanet Delayed Due To Qur'an-Sampling Audio 995
Several readers have pointed out that Sony's much-awaited LittleBigPlanet has hit a snag and will be delayed worldwide. The delay came after it was discovered that a song licensed for use in the soundtrack contained audio samples from the Qur'an. All advanced copies sent to retailers for the target release of October 21 in North America, 22 in PAL territories, and 24 in the UK and Ireland, have been recalled. "The post, by user 'Solid08', indicates of the specific references in the composition: 'In the 18th second: "kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt", literally: "Every soul shall have the taste of death' ... almost immediately after, in the 27th second: "kollo man alaiha fan", literally: "All that is on earth will perish."'"
Re:To quote Bill Hicks (Score:5, Informative)
From: http://kotaku.com/5065106/nsiders-letter-to-sony-and-media-molecule-re-quran-references [kotaku.com]
"We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Quran deeply offending. We hope you would remove that track from the game immediately via an online update, and make sure that all future shipments of the game disk do not contain it."
Personally, I consider censoring art "deeply offending." Sony, you're losing a customer if you cave to the demands of any religious group. Hey Muslims, don't buy the game.
Re:Different Sony, right? (Score:4, Informative)
It's all about calculated risk - piss off some English Catholics, you get some peeved letters in the local paper. Piss off Muslims, you get explosions, beheadings, and people living out their lives in hiding.
Re:Peace (Score:2, Informative)
Actually the quran is quite specific in which souls need to have a cruel, agonizing and bloody death. It also clearly specifies how they're to be administered : every muslim is to "fight, kill and die" as a slave of allah until there isn't a single non-muslim left.
And if you want demonstrations, you could read about the religious massacres in the description of the "prophet's" life.
It's even got paedophilia. Somehow I don't think it's very politically correct, all these inconvenient truths.
Re:And we reproduced the lines here? (Score:3, Informative)
I think you misunderstood my point.
I thought there was some muslim tenet that said you aren't supposed to reproduce the Qu'ran except in its true entirety.
Similarly to how muslims aren't supposed to have depictions of muhammad, etc. Maybe I'm confusing that with some other rule.
I know in Judaism that the Tora is only supposed to be copied by hand and in its exact form or something like that. Thought this was similar.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, it's not a suicide bombing... but it's a bombing:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/37363/ [alternet.org]
Re:And we reproduced the lines here? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, if that's the case, the solution is simple: Re-release the song, but instead of just sampling those two parts, sing the entire book! I smell a platinum record!
Re:Peace (Score:5, Informative)
The more enthusiastic priests and ministers quite like these ones though:
"And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him."
and
"If there be found among you ... that ... hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them ... Then shalt thou ... stone them with stones, till they die."
Re:Peace (Score:1, Informative)
Isaiah 13:15-16 Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives ravished.
- "Stab all those people over there, bash the head's of their babies in against a rock, then rape their women(especially the young cute virgins)." Sounds more like the order of a corrupt general than an omnibenevolent diety.
Ah context:
Isaiah 13:17 Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them [Babylon],
who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold.
It helps to read things that way. At least in this text, what's happening is not, God commanding Israel to kill/rape, but that another culture is being raised up, Medes (re: evil) and will destroy Babylon. So whether you say God is using Medes to destroy Babylon, or that this will transpire either way God is not telling someone as a commandment to kill/rape. Judgment is coming to Babylon in otherwords. Is this not how Babylon acted when destroying cultures? But oh noes we can't have that. God is snuggly, he doesn't judge people...
But don't let me rain on your parade by forcing you study something instead of make blanket statements.
Lastly no one says Christian is the religion of peace. Though we have at least killed a lot less people over the years that Muslims. Especially if you narrow it down to Protestantism. But Athiests (i.e. Russia, China) sure have killed a lot without any religious text.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Informative)
Christians have learned all about timers:
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2719258620070428 [reuters.com]
They're also quite fond of guns:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E7DC1630F934A15757C0A962958260 [nytimes.com]
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-16035695.html [highbeam.com]
This Muslim's buying... (Score:4, Informative)
... and I know a lot about Islam. I teach it to other Muslims. Yes, the religion teaches that the Quran must not recited in conjunction with music. It must be vocal only, although most of the reciters inflect their voice so that it is beautiful to hear, much like music is. The musician that Sony licensed it from should be contacted about it. I wouldn't blame Sony for it. But I can see why some Muslims might be offended by it. Grow up. It's only two phrases, not an entire passage. I personally think it is kind of cool to have it in a game, as long as it is innocuous and not used to promote an anti-Islamic agenda (other posters here have cut and pasted text for that). "Bismillah" ("in the name of God") is in The Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and I love it everytime I hear it. And then Beelzebul shortly thereafter takes me back to the D&D days...
Re:Peace (Score:4, Informative)
This fact is often understated. The average Muslim is just about as religious as the average Christian. That being said we don't see rioting in the streets (all that often) because of religious differences. It's usually the leadership (and the Fundamentalist versions of Brown Shirts) that spur things on.
Re:Peace (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Peace (Score:1, Informative)
Let me refute what you wrote:
You mentioned:(Sura 2:191-193) "...and fight them until persecution is no more..."
You ignored the sentence that comes just before that one:
Sura 2:190: Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors.
Which gives it a whole new meaning along the lines of:
be peaceful, do not begin hostilities, but you have to defend yourself if needed... (may allah forgive me for rephrasing this differently in order to simplify it in english...)
Advice: go read the Quran yourself to have a first-hand account of what is written, and do not rely on second-hand quotations, especially in these times of cheap shots against muslims & islam
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/002.qmt.html [usc.edu]
Re:So what? (Score:3, Informative)
You don't see suicide bombings coming from oppressors, suicide bombings are carried out by the oppressed (or those who see themselves as). You see laws and the twisting of science and culture coming from oppressors.
For whoever think the religon debate is pointless (Score:2, Informative)
I've got one on the way for delivery tomorrow, cause really I don't give a flying ratass about who's religion is saying what. Less religion, more faith. You all can go argue while im going to get back to waiting to play LBP tomorrow.
Re:ANd? (Score:5, Informative)
The post, by user 'Solid08', indicates of the specific references in the composition: "In the 18th second: "ÙfÙ ÙÙØ ØØئÙØ© ØÙÙ...ÙØ" ("kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt", literally: 'Every soul shall have the taste of death')... almost immediately after, in the 27th second: "ÙfÙ Ù...Ù ØÙÙSÙØ ÙØÙ" ("kollo man alaiha fan", literally: 'All that is on earth will perish')." It also comments: "I asked many of my friends online and offline and they heard the exact same thing that I heard easily when I played that part of the track. Certain Arabic hardcore gaming forums are already discussing this, so we decided to take action by emailing you before this spreads to mainstream attention. We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Quran deeply offending. We hope you would remove that track from the game immediately via an online patch, and make sure that all future shipments of the game disk do not contain it."
Re:Peace (Score:3, Informative)
Actually... (Score:4, Informative)
The prior Pope did actually explicitly apologize for the crusades, among other things.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1071456 [npr.org]
The current Pope has also apologized for other failings of the Catholic church.
Re:Radical Minority (Score:1, Informative)
GP said "stone-the-gays minority" not ban-the-gay-marriage minority. The right to exist vs. the right to a govt. sanctioned socio-economic union. I, for one, see a LARGE difference between the two.
Ah yes, I see the difference as well.
It's okay that they live, but they shouldn't expect to be treated as equal members of society. They are second class citizens.
Actually, the "stone-the-gays" group is merely a subset of the "ban-the-gay-marriage" group, which in turn is a subset of the larger "hetero-sexist" group.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Informative)
Setting a framework is good. Action is better. When was slavery actually abolished in Muslim lands, and why?
Slavery in England had been banned since at least 1215, possibly 1102, and serfdom died out by 1600; a court ruling in 1772 confirmed that no English law permitted the condition of slavery to exist in the country any way. Slavery was abolished across the whole Empire in 1807. The United States abolished slavery in 1865. Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1962.
the practice of slavery is now antiquated, and disgusting universally, and that includes the 1.2billion muslims in this world.
Antiquated. That's a funny way to refer to an institution that's been gone for all of 46 years.
Re:Peace (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, there is also a "fire and brimstone", stone-the-gays minority
I can't tell how careful you're being with semantics. Do you mean to imply (as below) the majority of Christians are not homophobes, or merely that they don't drag gay dudes behind pickup trucks in 2008 quite as often as they did a decade ago?
Say what you will, that "brimstone" stuff plays pretty well in every church I've been to, and I've never set foot in the crazy ones.
Can you point me at the equivalent of the New Testament in Islam that would discard the laws such as stoning for adultery or beheading for apostasy, or name a mainstream Islamic school of law that considers those laws to not be in force today?
Not that I have any pretension you'll accept this as less than desperate apologism, but can you name the mainstream Sunni schools of thought, or describe their relations to each other? You can answer your own question googling e.g. "Hanafi adultery." Tough to do the penance for zina if you've been stoned to death. Where this happens, blaming Islam is about as sensible as blaming Thomas Jefferson for the DMCA.
Have you ever met a non-homophobe Muslim?
And again, google. Try "gay Muslim." Clever, I know.
How is this troll +5 insightful?
Re:So what? (Score:4, Informative)
That's a very interesting kind of defensive war he waged there then, the one in which borders of his realm expanded manyfold...
It also okays sexual slavery and rape [wikipedia.org] (and explicitly identifies it as a sole workaround for the prohibition on adultery, effectively promoting it).
Oh, it's a great book for the 7th century, no arguing. Now if only the book itself didn't say that it's the final and most authoritative source on the opinion of God on all the subjects it cover, and forbade ever changing any dogma enshrined therein...
Re:Peace (Score:4, Informative)
Hi, I'm a non-homophobe muslim.
Wish I could say I was pleased to make your acquaintance you ignorant, prejudiced and ill informed person, but I'm not.
Re:Peace (Score:5, Informative)
I apologize for my previous comment. It was made in anger. Apart from your prejudice showing, your post appeared to be that of a reasonable person.
How many muslim's do you know? How many countries have you known them in? How many different age groups, races, social classes have they belonged to?
You think that by talking to a handful of muslim's you have a grasp on the entirety of the beliefs of 1 billion+ people?
I am a non-homophobe muslim. My wife is highly educated and an equal partner in my marriage, she does not wear a burkha or even a scarf. I do not think Jews are evil, that America is a great Satan, or that infidels should be slaughtered en masse.
Do not presume to think that I'm a non-practicing muslim either. I've never had alcohol, or eaten meats I'm not allowed to. I fast, and I pray. I contribute to my mosque, I pay zakah, and have been for umrah several times. I hope to go for Hajj soon. Insha'allah.
The assumptions you make from a handful of individuals that you do not understand are the foundation of all types of bigotry. From relatively harmless ones like 'women are bad drivers', to dangerous ones like 'black people are dumber than whites'.
Re:Peace (Score:3, Informative)
1. A good friend of mine who is a practicing Muslim is openly gay, and from what I understand, neither his parents, nor anyone that he worships with sees it as any sort of problem.
2. I have many Christian friends, and even the most liberal of them don't "discard" the old testament. There is a significant group that not only believe in the teachings of books such as Leviticus, but they believe everything there is the literal truth.
My point is that fundamentalist conservatism sucks in any religion, especially when it is abused by politicians.
Re:ANd? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So what? (Score:4, Informative)
There is a deeper problem with Islam than merely a lack of education or not reading between the lines of the Qur'an.
First, the Qur'an is the direct word of Allah/God. The words came to Muhammad, who wrote it down word by word (at least, so Muslims believe). This in contrast with the old and new testament, which were written by disciples. The difference is slight, but this difference means (according to Islam) that no deviation from the Qur'an is possible. Where Judaism/Christianity are able to interpret their holy books differently, Islam specifically forbids this as theirs is the direct word of God. Changing a single word would be sacrilegious, even translating the Qur'an was considered problematic (for it is no longer the direct word of God after translation).
Thus, a true Muslim will not read between the lines of the Qur'an, for he/she is not allowed to.
A second deeper problem is that Islam is more than just the Qur'an. Scribes/imams have interpreted the Qur'an in certain ways, leading to laws for Islam (Sharia). These are the laws that (in certain regions) prescribe hangings and stoning of (in our eyes) innocents.
The Catch-22 is that (again, in certain areas) these laws are unchangeable without near-unanimous support, but that wanting to change them would lead to persecution. Why? Allah is perfect, thus he wouldn't mislead the imams into making false statements about the word of god. Thus the Sharia must be correct. Over time, the laws have snowballed into something that for a Muslim from the 7th century wouldn't even be recognized as Islam.
Over time (and unlike Judaism/Christianity) Islam has become less moderate. It was indeed quite a liberal religion in the early centuries (at the time) but these two facets of Islam, often overlooked, have lead to a religion that isn't susceptible to change.
Re:Help! Help! I'm being repressed! (Score:3, Informative)
And for those that claim that Islam is the "peaceful religion" and all that, go read this [zombietime.com].
That place is a picture archive of Mohammed. Evidently, depicting images of Mohammed is yet another 'bad thing'. Now, read the email responses.
Yeah, real enlightened.
May allah throw you in the hell fire. ....promise...
You are the enemy of islam. Your abode would be fire.
You are really funny with your democracy you sun of whores
fuck you kafir pieces of shit
please tell me where you live now and all your adress to me so i can come to your house and make new pictures using your BLOODS!!!!!!!!
just wish that all yu gay shits die a veriiii nasssty death
fuck your virgin mary, bastards
ill see u burn in HELL
ey motherfucker, i'll fuck your generation, if you do not delete this site.
just wait and watch one day the 9/11 will be repeated.
Well, there's a sample from the people who follow the enlightened path of Islam. Hatred, intolerance and bigotry. That about sums it up.
Re:ANd? (Score:3, Informative)
Er, what? Denmark was the quietest piece of Axis-occupied territory in Europe. I cannot recall a country occupied by Nazi Germany that offered so little resistance. I wonder where you got that factoid.
There is not such thing as a typical Muslim. (Score:3, Informative)
I lived in a Muslim country and have visited several others, I also have Muslim friends in non Muslim countries.
First of all in countries were Muslims are not forced to fast you will find many that do not fast. Once they have the same freedoms as everybody else this becomes a matter of personal choice.
In countries were fasting is mandatory well, what are you supposed to do? (they do have religious police in those places).
Not all Muslims memorize the Holly Quoran, it certainly is studied assiduously and it certainly is well received if you can memorize it, but by no means is common.
Not all Muslim men have beards. This happens only in some very backwards countries. In other countries this is a non issue.
Muslim women dress modestly certainly, but there is a spectrum of interpretation. IN Indonesia and Malaysia women wear trousers, the ones that don't wear colorful batik dresses with flowers, this would be unthinkable in Saudi Arabia or parts of Afghanistan. In Turkey you will see plenty of local women wearing modern western clothes and mini skirts.
Re:Peace (Score:3, Informative)
Its funny you mention elections, because the most prosperous Muslim-majority nations are the ones that are democracies (Indonesia) or closer to it on that spectrum (Pakistan).
According to this Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], the biggest per-capita GDP, on a PPP basis, is... Qatar (a Muslim country).
Let's see which other Muslim countries have a better rank than your Indonesia and Pakistan: Brunei (#4), Kuwait (#9), United Arab Emirates (#14), Bahrain (#24), Oman (#36), Saudi Arabia (#38), Libya (#58), Malaysia (#59),
The first Muslim country that is a democracy is Turkey, coming at #61.
So whatever your point was... it was dead wrong.
Re:Peace (Score:3, Informative)
Why? You believe it is okay to violate others' 1st amendment right in order to uphold your.....right not to be offended? I can't seem to find "the right not to be offended" in the country's founding documents though.
Because the United States has no state religion. That separation between church and state doesn't exist solely, or even primarily, to protect the state from the church. It exists also to protect the church from the state.
It's perfectly reasonable for politicians to talk about their own religious beliefs. Hell, I'm a fervent supporter of Barack Obama, and he peppers many of his speeches with more religious references than any President since Carter.
But attempts to insert any specific religion into law or government are against the very founding principles of this nation.
And if you don't want to then that's fine too but don't stop someone else from doing so just because you don't want to participate. Do you try to stop any activity that you don't plan on taking part in just so others can't do it? If not, why draw an arbitrary line at trying to stop other people from practicing their religion? Mind your own business. No one is forcing you to do something.
Who's advocating stopping someone else from practicing their religion?
That's a wonder it was not shutdown merely because it would have been soooo easy for someone to accuse one of the teachers (or all of them) of actually leading it. Then again, at other schools, student speeches which have any hint of religion in them (well, Christianity) are not allowed at graduation ceremonies despite being student speeches, which is why I said before that those student prayer circles are lucky they weren't shutdown. In another school they would have been, unjustly so.
And yet amazingly after four years in a high school of around 2000 students in a relatively rich, liberal, Jewish neighborhood in Florida, it never did. Maybe the spectre of Christian persecution just isn't as prevalent as you think it is.
So what do you do when they make you recite the Pledge of Allegiance (with or without the "under God" phrase? Depending on how much you like Congress and the rest of the government that day you may not feel very patriotic. Are you going to eventually want it banned?
I say the Pledge of Allegiance proudly, in its form prior to being changed in the 1950s to include "under God." As for whether it should be mandatory in school, well no it shouldn't be, but it already isn't. Children aren't required to say it, though they are sometimes required to stand. Listening silently to the teacher-led Pledge of Allegiance, however, is a far cry from listening silently to a teacher-led Christian prayer.
On the one hand, you have "I pledge allegiance to the Flag..." While on the other you have "Our Father who art in Heaven ... Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven ... Forgive us our trespasses ... For thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory, now and forever ..." -- Which most certainly puts a teacher, as an employee of the state in a position of power over the students, into a position of advocating a particular religion.
I've never heard of any school system requiring students to recite the Lord's Prayer let alone hear of anyone banning it.
You haven't heard of it because the Supreme Court ruled it illegal in 1963 in Abington Township School District v. Schempp.
But actively forcing students to do something and supporting them when they want to do something (whether it is initiated by students or not) are 2 different things for which many secularists don't care to make the distinction.
As a matter of fact we do. That's why I asked the question about the ACLU. These are some cases argued by that mos
Re:Peace (Score:2, Informative)
Way to quote things out of context. For example, you neglected to point out that:
"You will eat the fruit of the womb, the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you." (Deuteronomy 28:53)
is proceeded by:
"If you don't obey all of the laws in the Old Testament, God shower you with the curses that are listed in the the next 52 verses."
At no point is God saying that people *should* do these things, rather he is threatening the people that if they do not follow the commandments terrible things will befall them.
And if you read further back in context you will realize why God even made such threats. The Jews weren't supposed to wonder in the desert for 40 years. They were supposed to enter Israel right after leaving Egypt. The above curse and 40 years of wondering in the desert are a result of "bad stuff" they did along the way which rendered them unworthy to enter right away. In short, they severely offended God once so he was just warning them to make sure they understood what happened if they did it again ;)