Debunking Forwards: Are the photos of Moslem protestors in London real?

I came across this forward in my immense backlog of unread emails that I decided to sift through today starting with the oldest. The forward was sent to me in July of 2006, so I figured I would look it up first, to see whether the placards the demonstrators are holding were perhaps photoshopped before I go spreading it around.

Well, according to Snopes the photos are actually real this time. The context for the demonstration was the British fiasco about publishing the cartoons of Muhammad. There is a Moslem rule that images of Muhammad should not be made, for fear that granting any preference to a particular image (and incorrect, since no one necessarily knows what he looks like, per se) might lead to an idolatrous reverence toward that false image. The rule, however, is very similar to a Judeochristian rule made presumably for the same reason — and it’s one of the commandments, no less.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Exodus 20:4, KJV

Anyhow, although the protestors seem to be actually prostesting what their signs indicate (as opposed to being a mock protest, a protest of agent provocateurs, or protesters whose signs have been digitially manipulated), it is very very necessary to recognize that the opinions of these outspoken individuals do not represent the opinions of the whole. However, it would not be unprecidented that a group of individuals to protest and cause a general rucus in an attempt to disparage their rivals by pretending to be their rivals and committing heinous acts in the name of the rival’s group. A famous agent provocateur Klan member was actually someone who was against the KKK but infiltrated the group by claiming to have the same beliefs, but once higher up into the order began to reveal many of their secrets from within. The verse, “A wise man scales the city of the mighty, And brings down the trusted stronghold.” (Proverbs 21:22) comes to mind.

In the same way with Christians, the particularly outspoken and discouragingly frequent newsreporter attractant Westboro Baptist Church (the folk who oft protest veterans’ funerals as judgement from God for America’s sins) do not represent the vast vast majority of Christian’s opinion on the matter — nor debatably even represent a Judeochristian biblical perspective. In the same way, let’s not fool ourselves into believing that views of a few represent the vastly unheard opinions of millions of individuals. To clump a huge swath of people into one group based on rumor-spreading of a stark minority, as the forward suggests, would frankly be childish.

It should be noted, also, that one of the pictures (as Snopes mentions) is from an entirely different protest.