Hey Mark,
In response to your quote:
"As horrible as the beheadings are, are the images we send out to the rest of the world really better? If you slaughtered your animals with a knife for food would these beheadings have the same impact? If in that context you saw what we watch for entertainment what would you think of our culture?"
I understand what you're saying. We do glorify violence in our culture; we sensationalize it on the news and in the movies. That's an unfortunate quality in our culture. But in all respect, I don't think you can compare fake over-the-top violence in Hollywood films or video games or instantly and painlessly killing a cow so we can eat our Big Macs to kidnapping innocent men, slowly sawing their heads off while they're still alive, video taping it and sending the footage out to the world. One thing, there's the question of intent. It's a lot worse when you're intentionally seeking to horrify another culture. It's different when you accidentally do it because you don't realize that another culture holds cows as sacred or something. Also, I don't think you can hold the life of an animal as equal to that of a person. Yes, I'm a big environmentalist and I want to protect our wildlife, but I just can't compare people with cows and chickens. Finally, I'm sure that many of our Hollywood movies probably are very offensive and disturbing. That's why we give them ratings and warn people not to watch them if they're turned off by that stuff. Also, it's not REAL. If a culture is so primitive and simple that they can't tell the difference, then they probably don't own TV's and VCR's anyway and so can't watch those movies, so it's a moot point.
So, to answer your question: yeah, it's A LOT WORSE to kidnap innocent men, saw their heads off, video tape it, and send the footage out to the world than it is to film Friday the 13, pt. XXVI while chowin' down on some Chicken McNuggets.
