I see a connection between the Islamists getting all worked up about pictures of Mohammed and the Swedish Lutherans getting all worked up about Lindex’s “we love boobs” ad. Here it goes.

At first glance neither makes sense. After all, there have been published, respectful, and accepted Islamic pictures of Mohammed and many Lindex bus stop ads of bras. What is so offending about these particular ones?

In short: Mohammed’s person is pictured as impure, and Lindex’s ad with impure words.

If you think about Christianity, one of its core stories is that in Jesus “the word became flesh”. God, which is a conceptual, abstract, timeless ideal, became a concrete, imperfect, mortal human being. Through this transformation God showed that He has mercy and saves humans from their original sin (of living a bodily, concrete, and imperfect existence), if only humans in turn believe in the ideal God. A model life for a good Christian is to imitate this humble incorporation of impurity.
Most Christian blasphemy accusations that I can recall seem to do more with using offending words and symbols against the ideal of Godly life than with depicting God with impure body. Churches are full of pictures of tormented bodies (mostly of Jesus on cross) so Christianity simply cannot be offended by imperfect bodies.

In Islam, the core story goes in the exact opposite direction: “flesh became word”. Mohammad, a human prophet, became associated with the ideal God, became holy, and *wrote* God’s will. The model of a good Muslim is to live imitating this transcendence from the concrete to the ideal. A good Moslem enters the Paradise through deeds, by controlling the bodily temptations, and making sure his body acts in the prescribed, pure manner. The Islamic blasphemy is about associating the ideal God with impure body.

So the Lindex ad is offensive to some people with Christian background not because there are boobs in the picture, but because there are the impure words “we love boobs”. And the Islamists are offended by the cartoons, not because the cartoon is associating militant Islamists with bombs (which could be considered a respected act of jihad), but because there is a picture of a Mohammad’s body in an impure state.

As for me, I thank all the Gods that there is a blog site that is cool enough to both show the pictures of cartoons and bra ads, and to write about those topics.

Yes. A Lindex ad which states that for every two bras bought, you get a big cup of hot cocoa for free.

Oh, come on. Would anything please you under those circumstances?