Fatwā

I like this, and yeah, pretty much what a Fatwa is about.

There was this Australian show, called 'John Safran vrs God'; John Safran is the host of the show (obviously), and what the show entailed was a comedic exploration of each of the major monotheistic religions.

In one episode, he explored Islam - specifically the dealing of Fatwa's. He wanted to see how easy it was to get a Fatwa placed against a non-Islamic member of the Australian public, so he fabricated a bunch of images using photoshop, which showed Rove McManus (a popular Australian talk show host), being offensive towards Islamic ideologies (like him parading around in his underwear, kissing other 'men', him saying Islam 'sucks') , and then proceeded to show these images to high powered Islamic authorities in Britain, whom upon seeing the fabricated images declared a Fatwa upon him. Lol.

Obviously to avoid a law suit, after the making of the episode, the authorities were informed the 'evidence' was fake, so the Fatwa was dropped - just goes to show how easy it is to earn the death penalty in that religion.

I like this too. What I take from it is a comment that once an idea becomes "earthly" it becaomes debased in some way, once humanity even tries to understand God we bring him down to our level. A powerful concept neatly expressed. I'm Australian and I watched the John Safran show but I think it can be dangerous to read too much into a comedy skit on a TV show and expand on that too much. If I managed to photoshop a pic of Safran kissing another man I and showed it to your average Southern Baptist preacher I'd have no trouble getting him to say "he's going to hell!".