Islam

OK, just in case you haven't seen this over at PZ's or elsewhere, here's a hilarious and brilliantly done satire:

It takes some deconstructing, but the consensus is that it is indeed pro-science/skepticism.

UPDATE: Here are the lyrics, and here is a brief bit on the 'cast' - kudos to both authors!

Jim Downey

Oh my, it's worse than I thought. All I can say is... ew!

And please boycott Nike.

I guess for Atheists (some of you i have talked to) nothing will be enough because you are here to abuse only. But still i have posted it. Lets see how you react( You will abuse more Wild Guess)

The Young Marriage of 'Aa'ishah, Mother of the Believers may Almighty Allah be pleased with her

by Abu Iman 'Abd ar-Rahman Robert Squires

Hello, I'm reeling with a lot of new ideas gathered from you people, and this is a rewrite of my first blog entry which basically sucked.

Here's one of the main reasons I came here.

My brain was altered by the Methodists' "dogmagicians" starting when I was almost 6 years old.

Before then, my agnostic dad kept religion out of my life and off my back, but my mother couldn't live with herself, let alone anyone else, so she split and I got moved into her parents' home and church.

Something has to give, when the people you love and trust tell you with a straight face that a guy was killed and then a few days later, he woke up and walked out of the tomb and flew up to heaven where he's been hanging out ever since, waiting for the big day.

So what exactly is it that gives?

Kids in the cult I was forced into get the dogma drill around 5 or 6, by which time they've begun to feel good about their ability to figure things out for themselves.

A glimmer of light appears in the middle east.

[link] After almost five years of war, many young Iraqis, exhausted by constant firsthand exposure to the violence of religious extremism, say they have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.

In two months of interviews with 40 young people in five Iraqi cities, a pattern of disenchantment emerged, in which young Iraqis, both poor and middle class, blamed clerics for the violence and the restrictions that have narrowed their lives.

"I hate Islam and all the clerics because they limit our freedom every day and their instruction became heavy over us," said Sara Sami, a high school student in Basra. "Most of the girls in my high school hate that Islamic people control the authority because they don't deserve to be rulers."

Atheer, a 19-year-old from a poor, heavily Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad, said: "The religion men are liars. Young people don't believe them. Guys my age are not interested in religion anymore."

First of all, let me say that I am fairly sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people. One of the most amazing and dynamic professors I had in college was this man. However, the conflict between the Israeli's and the Palestinians is a huge mess that effects everyone in the world, directly or indirectly. Until a peaceful settlement can be reached, violence will be the regions main export.

Of course religion does absolutely nothing to help. As a matter of fact, religion is just another issue to divide us, cause more conflict and further complicate issues. That's why I get so upset when I see video's like this:

And here is a longer version.

YouTube went down for about two hours yesterday - nearly world-wide. The reason? Pakistan's theocracy decided that the very best way to prevent their faithful from seeing an "inflammatory anti-Islamic video" would be to block all of YouTube, instead of blocking, oh I don't know, maybe just the one, single URL that pointed to the actual video itself. Then, it all went horribly wrong when Pakistan's crack team of internet gurus completely screwed up the routing information when they were attempting to block the site, causing a cascading series of routing failures resulting in YouTube.com in general being unreachable.

[link] Many users around the world could not access YouTube Inc.'s site for about two hours on Sunday. The video-sharing company blamed the outage on erroneous routing information introduced by a Pakistani Internet service provider. Pakistani authorities ordered ISPs there to block the site on Friday.

...

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ordered the country's ISPs to block users' access to YouTube on Friday because of an inflammatory anti-Islamic video on the site, said Wahaj us Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers, in a telephone interview.

"If the video is provocative, then it is better it is removed, rather than provoke unrest in Pakistan," said Siraj, who added that he did not know the contents of the video.

I shudder to imagine what would happen to "provocative" countries if the theocratic nuts in Pakistan had access to nuclear weapons.

Sometimes it feels like the world is in the process of going collectively insane.

First of all, kudos to Allison Catalano, a sophomore at Colorado University, for starting up a chapter of the Secular Student Alliance at her school.

[link] Though there are many faith-based organizations on campus, Allison Catalano, a sophomore at CU, started the Alliance after she felt like there was no place for student atheists to assemble and get to know each other.

However, when talking about the new SSA, CU sophomore and treasurer of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), Bader Akacem, seems to have his priorities a little out of whack.

[link] (Bader Akacem) said they (the MSA) would like to meet members of the (Secular Student) Alliance and build a relationship with them. According to him, the MSA often plan dinners and various social events with other student organizations to get to know them and engage in discussion.

“The best thing we have here (CU) are a lot of religious organizations,” Akacem said.

You see, I would have said that the "best thing" at any university would be, you know, the education I was receiving at great expense.

But that's just me. At least Bader is willing to have a polite discussion with the Secular Student Alliance.

This is unlike Tom Miller, the "campus minister" at CU for the Flatirons Baptist Church. He makes no bones about why he wants to "talk" to the dirty, filthy atheists in the SSA - he wants to convert the heathens and save their eternal souls from fiery torment at the hands of Satan and his demons!

[link] (Tom Miller) said it is part of God's freedom to allow people to choose to be either a theist or an atheist. He said he wouldn't mind meeting to discuss different beliefs with the organization if they were going to be open to what he had to say.

“Some (atheists) are not open to dialogue and they'd think I was being obnoxious,” Miller said. “I would be going there to convert them and we'd clash before you even said your first name.”

So, what is the lesson the secular students at Colorado University will be taking away from this? Well, to me it seems to be that Muslim students are polite and willing to at least socialize with you, while adult Baptist "campus ministers" just want to "clash" with you, and then try to convert you.

If I were the baptist "campus minister", I'd re-think my strategy a bit.

As the year winds down, and you need a little relaxing fun to kill some time this weekend, you can play dress - up with Jesus and Muhammad! Both are from the somewhat twisted mind of Normal Bob Smith, who seems like he would fit right in here with us other heathens at UTI.

Jim Downey

(Via the comments on this post at ectoplasmosis. Which is just disturbing. I didn't even know there were people who have a 'stigmata fetish'. Let alone that there are inflatable dolls of Jesus that cater to them.)

Sudan, so we are told, is supposed to be one of the "moderate" and "secular" Islamic theocracies.

Can you say oxymoron? I knew you could.

[link] KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNN) -- Hundreds of protesters brandishing swords and sticks gathered outside Khartoum's presidential palace Friday to vent their anger against a British teacher jailed for allowing children to name a teddy bear "Mohammed."

About 600 Islamic demonstrators piled out of mosques, chanting: "By soul, by blood, I will fight for the Prophet Mohammad."

I am floored. Our planet is going down the toilet unless we can get a handle on insanity of this nature.

Man, you can't make this shit up:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that "jihadism" is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, "…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration."

Romney, whose Mormon faith has become the subject of heated debate in Republican caucuses, wants America to be blind to his religious beliefs and judge him on merit instead. Yet he seems to accept excluding Muslims because of their religion, claiming they're too much of a minority for a post in high-level policymaking.

Three quick items from the last few days you might enjoy...

Talk about your "Magic Man in the Sky" category:

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia has come up with the world's first comprehensive guidebook for Muslims in space as its first astronaut prepares to go into orbit next week.

The book, entitled Guidelines for Performing Islamic Rites at the International Space Station, teaches the Muslim astronaut how to perform ablutions, determine the location of Mecca when praying, prayer times, and how to fast in space, the Star newspaper reported on Saturday.

"The reason we formulated guidelines for Muslims in space is because we wanted to ensure our astronaut could fully concentrate on his mission, without having to worry about how he should perform his religious obligations in space," Abdullah Md Zin, a minister for religious affairs, was quoted as saying.

But that book isn't nearly as good as this one, I bet:

So, here's a little thought experiment, in two parts. I would appreciate your comments on each part, as you see fit. And whatever you say in response, also consider your initial reaction (which you don't have to disclose).

Here's the scenario: You need to have a brain tumor removed. It's a tricky operation, but there's generally a 90% success rate across the medical field with it. There is also the usual 3 - 4% chance of developing a post-operative infection, and something like 1% chance of complications due to anesthesia. Your insurance will cover the entire cost of the procedure and hospitalization regardless of which choices you make to the questions below, so expense is not a factor (hey, I didn't say this was realistic).

Last weekend a friend sent me a link to a long piece in the New York Times titled "The Politics of God", written by Columbia University humanities professor Mark Lilla. It was a difficult week here for me, so I didn't get around to reading the full article until this morning. I recommend you do so at your first opportunity, since the meat of the thing will help you to understand a fundamental threat that we face...it's just not the fundamental threat that the author of the piece talks about.

On the surface, America seems like a nice, safe, peaceful place to live your life. However, once in a while, I find thing that scares the shit out of me! The movie Jesus Camp or the Fred Phelps crew are pretty scary. From what I just saw, they are small postatos. Here is a link to Max Blumenthal's latest mini documentary and article on the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/rapture-ready-the-unauth_b_...

To all you moderate theists (Jeg, Colonel, etc) who visit UTI and think we over-react about fundies, please watch this video and explain to me why I shouldn't be concerned.

Blumenthal basically documents exactly why American Christianists are such vehement supporters of the state of Israel. It's not because they like the Israeli's or feel for their cause. The fundies support Israel because they see this as the quickest way to bring about Armeggedon and the Rapture. A preemptive war by Israel and the US against the Muslims is the key for these people to trigger the Second Coming of Christ. Evangelicals believe Muslims are worshippers of Satan and Jews will be forced to convert to Christianity when the Second Coming occurs.

First, I am going to stop apologizing for not posting very often. My life has been insane, so I hope you can deal with that. At least you don't have to deal with my insanity directly.

I just finished reading a book called 'Leaving islam' (Edited by Ibn Warraq), which is a collection of first-hand stories of apostates - people who left islam. What I learned from these people about the 'cult' of islam is absolutely unbelievable.

What struck me first is the fact that islamic children, during their religious instruction, are taught to read and recite the koran, but are not taught what the words mean! They are told that simply reciting the words brings you closer to allah - you do not need to know what you are saying. A local imam provides interpretations, and the most well spoken and charismatic imams are the ones that garner the largest followings.

The first thing each of these apostates (that is what islam calls them - I call them HEROES), did when they began to question their faith was to read the koran from cover-to-cover (translated into their own language) - for many of them, the first time they had ever done so.

This is scary. It seems a grade school in San Diego took it upon itself to allow and even organize prayer in school. That's right, I said San Diego, not Alabama.

A San Diego public school has become part of a national debate over religion in schools ever since a substitute teacher publicly condemned an Arabic language program that gives Muslim students time for prayer during school hours.

Carver Elementary in Oak Park added Arabic to its curriculum in September when it suddenly absorbed more than 100 students from a defunct charter school that had served mostly Somali Muslims.

After subbing at Carver, the teacher claimed that religious indoctrination was taking place and said that a school aide had led Muslim students in prayer.

Here is the whole article.

Of course the wingnuts are howling mad and always ready to bash Muslims at the drop of a hat. What really bothers me is that this may lead to the fundies demanding their own prayer time in public schools. I hope the powers that be get a lid on this thing before it's too late.

A piece by Melik Kaylan titled "The Last Active Art Gallery in Baghdad" really hits home for me. I've mentioned before that I owned and operated a gallery of fine art for 8 years (for full info, see here), and something about some of the religious intolerance I had to deal with in that capacity.

But nothing like this:

Among the agonies imposed on Baghdad by tormentors in the guise of self-appointed religious enforcers is the proscription of fun. Novelty, convenience, any kind of post-Quranic ease from hardship infuriates them. Ice cream is an abomination, as is mechanized garbage collection, because such delights didn't exist in the time of the prophet. A story is told that last year, on a road overtaken by jihadis, a DVD purveyor was ordered to close because DVDs didn't exist in the time of the prophet. "Neither did the BMW you drove up in," he responded. "When you come back and tell me again on a camel, then I'll listen." They shot him some days later, for his insolence.

Blaspheme? "Morally corrupt"? Yeah, it's open season on you, too.

TEHRAN: The Iranian Supreme Court has overturned the murder convictions of six members of a prestigious state militia who killed five people they considered "morally corrupt."

***

According to the Supreme Court's earlier decision, the killers, who are members of the Basiji Force, volunteer vigilantes favored by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, considered their victims morally corrupt and, according to Islamic teachings and Iran's Islamic penal code, their blood could therefore be shed.

The last victims, for example, were a young couple engaged to be married who the killers claimed were walking together in public.

But hey, it's Islam, right? Not like our good Sky-Daddy worshipers would ever want to impose their laws on us in the same way. Right?

Jim Downey

Yup, that's exactly what happened today - in Turkey. From the AP:

ANKARA, Turkey — More than 200,000 Turks protested against Turkey's Islamic-rooted prime minister Saturday, demonstrating the intense opposition he could face from Turkey's secular establishment if he decides to run for president next month.

Protesters called on the government to resign and chanted slogans including, "We don't want an imam as president."

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has brandished his strong religious convictions while at the same time pushing Turkey toward European Union membership, represents a challenge to secularists' traditional approach to government in this 99-percent Muslim country. Many fear that if he or someone close to him wins the presidency, the government will be able to implement an Islamist agenda without opposition.

Impressive. They've also got the backing of the military, which has been known to intervene to keep Turkey secular: