a voice from way outside the norm
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I would love to be able to report that this clown, fool, douchebag, Christian minister was an example of Poe’s Law, but sadly, he appears to be genuine.
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BBC Urdu reports — according to a Google Translation — that Pakistan’s Deputy Attorney General has launched a criminal investigation against Zuckerberg and others in response to Facebook hosting a “Draw Muhammad” contest on its site late last month. On May 19, Pakistani authorities blocked access to Facebook over the contest, and this ban was lifted on May 31 after Facebook removed the page in Pakistan and other countries.
Last month, according to English-language Pakistani newspaper The News International, a Pakistani High Court judge summoned the police after lawyer Muhammad Azhar Siddique filed an application for a First Information Report (FIR), claiming that the owners of Facebook had committed a heinous and serious crime under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code. In essence, an FIR launches a criminal investigation. But no charges have been filed.
According to the paper, Section 295-C of the penal code reads: “Use of derogatory remark etc, in respect of the Holy Prophet, whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable for fine.”
According to two reports — one at Boxcrack.net, a kind of citizen journalism site run by Privacy International, and another at Pro Pakistani, a Pakistani Telecom and IT news site that lifted the news from BBC Urdu — the Deputy Attorney General has indeed lodged an FIR against Zuckerberg, fellow co-founders Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, and “Andy”, the German woman who initiated the Draw Muhammad contest under a pseudonym.
According to Pro Paskistani, petitioner Muhammad Azhar Sidiqque said he’s waiting for the police to contact Interpol about making arrangements for the arrest of Facebook’s owners and “Andy”. The site also says that the Deputy Attorney General told the High Court that Pakistan’s United Nations representative has asked to escalate the issue in the UN General Assembly. (theregister.com)
Do these Pakistani fools have nothing better to do? Couldn’t their time be better spent trying to drag themselves out of the 3rd century into the 21st the rest of the world is experiencing?
Yes, the Draw Muhammad contest was blasphemous; it was meant to be. It was intended to expose the superstitious nonsense that passes for religion. This response simply reinforces the fact that Islam as practiced by far too many Muslims is anything but a religion of peace. It’s more like a petulant 4-year-old who doesn’t get his way and throws tantrums at every opportunity.
Get a clue, folks. The non-Muslim world doesn’t give a flying fuck about your prophet or your beliefs, just like the non-Christian world doesn’t give a flying fuck about their silly beliefs. If your beliefs work for you, great, be as illogical and unrealistic as you want. But don’t fool yourselves into thinking those outside your club care to live by your rules. The more you try to force your unwanted beliefs on us, the harder we’ll fight back and stand up to your attempted enslavement of our freedom to think as we wish.
That’s a complaint atheists encounter on a regular basis; atheists demean believers and misrepresent their beliefs in an effort to belittle them.
Do theists ever listen to themselves or read what they write?
Fox News on-line has a reasonably “fair and balanced” article on the different viewpoints on religion held by Christpher Hitchens and his brother Peter. Perhaps conveniently Christopher couldn’t be reached for comment, but even though the article is focused primarily on Peter’s comments it still manages not to completely vilify Christopher.
Like many on-line news outlets, even blogs, the comments reveal more than the article does.
Right off the bat the accusations fly,
theists are free to not believe in God if they don’t want to. Wnat bothers me is (1) Arrogance of some atheists and their disdain for those who believe, and (2) Some atheists’ suppression of fair debate and expression of thought
Obviously the religious never engage in disdain for those who don’t agree with them and are never arrogant. Right. Let’s read further,
“To those who call themselves “atheists”: There is no God? Really? And you know this HOW? You have been EVERYWHERE and know EVERYTHING in all dimensions and in all galaxies, and there is no God?”
There are several documented cases of people experiencing discrimination simply by offering an opinion other than Big Bang and Evolution. There is no one stupid except for the one unwilling to learn.
“Evolution is a proven fact.” You’ve just proven how little you know about your cherished theory.
One simple question to those “atheist” out there. Where did life come from? Hmm? And don’t say macro evolution. Evolution is a disproven THEORY. A rational “atheist” would be more accurate in calling themselves an agnostic.
God is the Spirit of Truth says the Holy Bible. Fear of God is the beginning of knowledge (Proverbs) but a fool says in his heart, there is no God (Psalm 14). Science is the study of nature, which reveals the handiwork of God. God is not a respector of nations or individuals. A nation that does not respect God shall not prosper.
Believing that there isn’t a God is also a belief. It must be an unfounded belief because it can’t be proven any more than one can prove there is a God. And many prefer to believe that love and intelligence and creativity flows through us and comes from an eternal God.
Being atheistic is largely an ego thing..A longing to be different..A cry for attention..”Look at me..I’m an atheist..” So, big deal….. Being an old US Army veteran I can attest to the fact there are no atheists in foxholes…
I’m not going to make the ridiculous claim, as some theists might about their fellow believers, that non-believers are always polite and respectful of the opinions of others. Obviously there are some very angry atheists out there who are tired of being condemned to hell and called fools for their lack of faith. Perhaps they have had enough of the unreasonable presumption that only those who believe in gods are true patriots or qualified to hold public office. Maybe they’ve had enough of hearing the religious say that non-believers desire only to live in sin and not be accountable to one god or another. There might even be more than a few really angry non-believers living under theocratic governments who are resentful of knowing at any moment they could be arrested and executed without a fair trial simply for not agreeing with the ruling majority.
I’m sure many people living under constant persecution and threats of death come across less than genial when speaking out against their oppressors. I don’t doubt that there are those who, while not living under such intolerable conditions, empathize so much with those who do that their own opinions are less than polite. That the religious are blind to those conditions is not surprising, nor is it excusable.
Most of the atheists I know don’t consider believers to be stupid in the totality of their thinking; it’s only on the topic of gods that many intelligent people abandon their otherwise healthy skepticism and doubt and embrace the fantastic without question. It’s not that stupid people are religious, it’s that religion makes you stupid about belief.
And if that sort of comment offends you, tough shit. Get the mote out of your own eye before you attempt to bitch about my vision. (BTW-I, too, am an Army veteran, and let me tell you, there are indeed atheists in foxholes. I was one.)
Find the equivalent of Aaron Hamill, The Man Show boy who would go up to strangers and ask them the most bizarre questions or make outrageous requests.
This Sunday, have him go up to various priests and ministers and say, “My mom died last year. I want to give her the best gift ever. Would you please pray and raise my mom from the dead? Please?”
Record their excuses and lack-of-faith responses and forward them to me. I’ll post them and we can vote on the most nonsensical and evasive.
“And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.” John 14:13-14
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” Matthew 7:7-11
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Too many times a day I read or hear someone say that in order to preserve America we need to return to the values and lifestyles we had in the 50s. Sadly, some of these people, like me, are old enough to remember the 50s and still suggest those were the “good old days”.
Bullshit.
I lived through six years of that decade, and spent the 60s as a youngster raised on the values spawned in the 50s. So did my fellow baby-boomers, the same people who crafted the government that has succeeded in nearly bankrupting our nation and eroding our freedoms. Yet they have the gall to present these same values as something to be desired.
Let’s recall those 50s values and beliefs that so many on the religious right want us to return to.
There were a few good things about the 50s; children could wander almost anywhere in town and be safe, more people lived in rural areas and enjoyed a more stress-free way of life. But the best of the 50s were restricted to white, Christian, heterosexual males.
The 50s were only glorious in fiction, on television shows and in novels. The reality of the 50s has little in common with the stylized nostalgic version of the 50s so fondly remembered by those with selective memories. The reason white males want to return to the 50s is because modern society has disenfranchised them. They’ve lost their power to all the other Americans with whom they (reluctantly) share the nation. They want to go back in time to a period when they were the ideal. They don’t like having to share power and influence. They’re no better than a spoiled child who has been told to share his toys with the other kids.
Evidently to be conservative entails living in the past. I see no gain in that. Besides, it’s physically impossible to go back in time except in our imaginations and memory. We are bound by nature to move ever forward. The arrow of time only moves in one direction. We can enter the future with determination and hope, or we can enter the future fussing and refusing to accept reality. Either way, there’s no going back. And who would really want to when we recall what the 50s were really like for so many of us.
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I don’t approve spam comments here, but this one was so precious I just had to share it with you…
Heathen Queer » Glen Beck is better than you
Thank you. I agree. Beck’s got me beat in;
Try as I might, I simply cannot compete with the master.
But I haven’t lost any advertisers.
Oh, and Glen, to quote John Fuelsang, “Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare. You’re thinking of Jesus.“
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At fucking up.
Democrats, liberals and the sane have dismissed Beck’s hyperbole for years, but despite our best efforts, Beck loyalists have excused his racism, his bigotry, his emotional problem, his obvious character flaws and with an impressive lack of reason blame the left for all of Glen’s issues.
But now he’s managed to piss off a fairly mainstream branch of Christianity and they are calling for their followers and sympathizers to boycott Beck, Fox and maybe even Beck’s god.
An evangelical leader is calling for a boycott of Glenn Beck’s television show and challenging the Fox News personality to a public debate after Beck vilified churches that preach economic and social justice.The Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, a network of progressive Christians, says Beck perverted Jesus’ message when he urged Christians last week to leave churches that preach social and economic justice.
Wallis says Beck compared those churches to Communists and Nazis.
Wallis says at least 20,000 people have already responded to his call to boycott Beck. He says Beck is confusing his personal philosophy with the Bible.
“He wants us to leave our churches, but we should leave him,” Wallis says of Beck. “When your political philosophy is to consistently favor the rich over the poor, you don’t want to hear about economic justice.”
Social and economic justice is at the heart of Jesus’ message, Wallis says.
“He’s afraid of being challenged on his silly caricatures,” Wallis says. “Glenn Beck talks a lot when he doesn’t have someone to dialogue with. Is he willing to talk with someone who he doesn’t agree with?”
Beck did not answer numerous requests for an interview. (Source-CNN)
Don’t rush the poor man. It takes more than a few days to come up with an explanation for such a major fuck-up that sounds contrite yet more importantly paints the sad man as a victim of left-wing fascist communists. He’s got to consult with speech writers, opinion pollsters, studio heads, the ratings, god and all the other sources of Glen’s opinions. Maybe next time he should talk to them first.
But this is a two-fer. Beck didn’t just loose a bunch of advertisers and now a portion of his religious base, he’s attracted the attention of god’s own best buddy, Jerry Falwell.
But a prominent evangelical leader says he, too, is suspicious of churches that preach economic and social justice.
Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia, says Jesus wasn’t interested in politics. He says that those pastors who preach economic and social justice “are trying to twist the gospel to say the gospel supported socialism.”
“Jesus taught that we should give to the poor and support widows, but he never said that we should elect a government that would take money from our neighbor’s hand and give it to the poor,” Falwell says.
That’s right, Jerry. God wants you to be rich; to live in luxury while preaching poverty of spirit, to cash the checks from the poor and trusting, to build temples to yourselves. You are as delusional as Beck. You make a great team. Sort of like the religious-right’s version of Martin and Lewis.
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Another hypocritical “protect the family” politician has been outed by their own inept actions. This time, instead of a disingenuous denial of his orientation we get pathetic excuses for his actions which were directly opposed to the best interests of those like him.
A conservative US state senator who has voted against gay rights measures during his 14 years in office has confessed he is gay.
Republican Roy Ashburn came out during a radio interview in California, where he sits on the state legislature.
Roy Ashburn (Associated Press)
He has been on leave since his arrest last week on suspicion of driving under the influence.
Mr Ashburn said his votes reflected the way his constituents wanted him to vote, not his own “internal conflict”.
“I am gay… those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long,” the 55-year-old divorced father-of-four told KERN radio.
Mr Ashburn said he felt the need to address rumours that he had visited a gay nightclub before his arrest on suspicion of drinking and driving in Sacramento on 3 March.
Last year, Mr Ashburn opposed a bill to establish a day of recognition to honour murdered gay rights activist Harvey Milk.
He has also voted in the statehouse against efforts to expand anti-discrimination laws and recognise out-of-state gay marriages.
Cue the exuberant queer cheers, “Another anti-gay gay politician gone”, “One less enemy in government”.
Mr Ashburn, who represents California’s 18th district, said he does not plan to run for any public office after his term ends later this year.
Outed and ousted, another victory for truth and justice.
But hold on a minute. Isn’t this counter-productive to the goal of having gay representation in the government? By applauding Ashburn’s decision to leave government service, we are essentially agreeing with the anti-gay crowd that anyone who is open and honest about their homosexuality like Ashburn is now shouldn’t be a politician. It’s reasonable to chastise him for his prior dishonesty and the harm he’s done the gay community. But now that he’s being honest about himself, shouldn’t we be the first to encourage him to stay in politics and to vote for him when he runs again?
We deserve representation; the same percentage of LGBT citizens of the population should be represented by an equal percentage in the Congress and most California legislatures.
1.51% of the total U.S. population identifies themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual, or 4.3 total million Americans. These numbers are based on figures provided by a broad-based coalition of gay rights organizations and homosexual advocacy groups. The primary source cited was the The National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS), published in the book The Social Organization of Sex: Sexual Practices in the United States (1994), by Laumann, Gagnon, Michael and Michaels. (Source-U.S. Census 2000)
Most likely there’s one LGBT person in hiding for every one that was identified as such, so let’s double the percentage to 3%. Not exactly a threatening number. 3 people out of a hundred.
One advantage to electing and supporting gay politicians is that they also represent other minorities. A senator could be a woman who used to be a Black man, a congressman could be a gay Hispanic. The LGBT community embraces men and women of all races and national origin. There are gay millionaires and homeless lesbians. There are members of the clergy, those of all faiths and those with no religious faith at all who are also members of the LGBT community. Yes, as hard as it is to believe, there are even gay republicans.
Whether they are dragged kicking and screaming out of the closet or openly disclose their orientation, we owe it to ourselves to judge the fitness to serve of these individuals by more than with whom they prefer to have sex.
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As an experiment, inspired by a comment on my Radical Atheist blog today, I have disabled the DISQUS commenting system here and am going back to comments within the framework of HeathenQueer.
This is a change I’ve wanted to try for some time. I’m not totally comfortable with having comments hosted by another service, away from the blog itself.
I don’t have any issues with the DISQUS service itself. It does what it claims and it does present a pleasant interface. I’ll be doing this same thing with IntenseDebate over at RadicalAtheist.com Both are worthy of consideration by blogs encumbered with hundreds of replies to deal with. They offer statistics and controls that many built-in commenting systems don’t.
I don’t suffer that burden. To me, sending the comments off-site is an impersonal way for me to treat those who do bother to leave a comment. I enjoy reading the comments left here. I know I need to reply more often, to encourage the conversation. For me the comments are personal. When I write I’m expressing honest opinions and beliefs (or lack of same). When people respond to my writing, they are responding to me, to my thoughts, to what makes me me to a large extent.
So let’s see how well this works. I’m eager to hear your opinions.
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A student has been suspended from school in America for coming to class dressed as a pirate.
But the disciplinary action has provoked controversy – because the student says that the ban violates his rights, as the pirate costume is part of his religion.
Bryan Killian says that he follows the Pastafarian religion, and that as a crucial part of his faith, he must wear ‘full pirate regalia’ as prescribed in the holy texts of Pastafarianism.
The school, however, say that his pirate garb was disruptive.
Pastafarianism gained wide attention when its key prophet, Bobby Henderson, wrote to the Kansas School Board during the height of the controversy over ‘Intelligent Design‘ being taught in science classes. His letter, also published on his website, demanded equal time be given to the teachings of the Flying Spaghetti Monster as was given to ID and evolutionary theory.
Since then, the Flying Spaghetti Monster has gained countless followers worldwide, although there are those who remain spagnostic.
The school, in North Buncombe, North Carolina, remains adamant that their decision to suspend Killian for a day has nothing to do with his religion, and quite a lot to do with his repeated refusal to heed warnings against wearing pirate outfits. (Source-Sunday Metro)
Pirates, unite! We must stand by our fellow Pastafarians when they are oppressed. AAAARRrrrrggggg.
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