As a snarky response to Muslim bloggers who “warned” Comedy Central about an episode of South Park showing the Prophet Mohammed wearing a bear suit, one Seattle cartoonist, who calls laughter her form of “prayer,” is asking artists all over the world to create depictions of Mohammed on May 20, then submit the images to a Facebook page she set up.

Speaking on a Seattle radio show on Friday, cartoonist Molly Norris said she announced her idea as a way of countering the fear exhibited by Comedy Central in censoring episode 201 of South Park.

Even if the cartoonist has gotten “cold feet” so to speak.

Apparently this has turned into a mud-slinging fest, because most people posting on this event’s Wall just don’t get it.

Why did I create this event? I saw the fantastic cartoon now shown on this page, and thought it was a very nice (and polite + respectful) way of making the point that while Mohammed might well have insisted that he not be depicted by Muslims (to prevent idol worship), there are plenty of non-Muslims who value freedom of expression — and that we can all live together with mutual respect.

With many people all standing up for their right to depict Mohammed if they so chose, we would make an important point about how we were not going to cower before a handful of Muslim zealots.

I did not create this event to encourage people to be deliberately offensive, by equating the silliness of those zealots with the entire Islamic faith and its bazillions of adherents, a few of whom I am lucky to count among my friends.