Banaz Mahmod
Reuters – London – July 19, 2007:
A Kurdish woman was brutally raped, stamped on and strangled by members of her family and their friends in an “honor killing” carried out at her London home because she had fallen in love with the wrong man.
Banaz Mahmod, 20, was subjected to the 2-1/2 hour ordeal before she was garroted with a bootlace. Her body was stuffed into a suitcase and taken about 100 miles to Birmingham where it was buried in the back garden of a house.
Her badly decomposed body was found in April 2006, three months after the killing.
Last month a jury found her father Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and his brother Ari Mahmod, 51, guilty of murder after a three-month trial. Their associate Mohamad Hama, 30, had earlier admitted killing her.
I think some of you are missing the point of my sarcasm. I am not at all saying that science cannot be objective or that it should be discredited in anyway. I’d much rather rather cross a bridge designed by a scientists and built by engineers than one designed by a theologian and built on faith. My point is more that dismissing any point of view other than your own as ignorant or stupid is as closed minded as any religious zealotry.
If you don’t believe in God or gods or mythology or whatever, fine, but don’t assume just because there are some dumbasses out there that believe creationism should be taught as a science or that anyone who doesn’t follow their religion should be killed. This simply is not true. Religion has come up with such wonderful ideas as human sacrifice, the Spanish inquisition and execution for non-believers, science has come up with such wonderful ideas as eugenics and social Darwinism (not to be confused with natural selection). Some scientific theories have been proven wrong and the discipline has progressed. Religions and religious people have been lead astray and have come back to sanity. You can’t dismiss science for a few bad theories and you can’t dismiss religion because its followers have fucked up.
#30, Bobbo, #14—dont [sic] try to bait me like some rabid dog!
Cheese, Bobbo, what did I bait you with? My comment was not directed at you.
35—Sorry Bubba. That was for Mr Mustard #15, I guess he has me so upset, I’m seeing cross-eyed. I did look at that universe picture. the numbers and concepts are so huge, I don’t even start to appreciate it. Like staring at the face of god, it is so incomprehensible as to warrent not talking about at all? Like the first view of a four engine airplane cockpit, I guess you have to start out and learn the bits you can and try to add them up later? That start of the universe thing. Real puzzler!
[off topic but relevant]
Well, all, darnit, my bad. Looks like some comment was withheld by the eds. or posting software, and threw all the numbers off by one. That’s why I always try to put not only the #, but the commenter’s name in as well. My apologies ’cause my last two posts have the wrong numbers in them (but I hope the right names).
34–You still basically dont get it. Science being wrong is part of the science==Edison learned 14,238 items that would not work as a filament before he found a carbon laced horse hair (or whatever).
But a mind with holes in it like a bucket, cannot hold water. Science over time builds consensus, and that consensus over time fairly rejects certain ideas and becomes closed. We can argue about the age of the earth ((or not much anymore?)) but not that it exceeds 6000 years by billions of years.. Relgion has NOTHING to teach except by its being overcome==usually by whatever innate Darwinian sense of fairness, justice, and kindness resides in the coding of our dna. Religion likes to take credit for what hasn’t been negated so far, but it is a complete misnomer to think that science brought us “eugenics.” Science is a tool, a method of analysis and discovery. How the fruits of science is used gets into the slap happy ideas of people. Totally different. So, I guess you will continue to try and equate the two. Good luck.
#10 – Why more BS about demonizing Muslims?
This post is not about demonizing Muslims. It’s a post about the fucked up tradition that quite a few Kurds are upholding… Don’t fall in love with the wrong guy or you’re going to get whacked. Perhaps the headline should have been written in a different way.
Islam…..Catch It!
34. “I think some of you are missing the point of my sarcasm….My point is more that dismissing any point of view other than your own as ignorant or stupid is as closed minded as any religious zealotry.”
Basically, your point is that despite our differences we should be civil and respectful towards each other. To that I totally agree. However, that message should never be delivered with sarcasm. It kind of defeats the whole point.
39–Good catch. Wikipedia agrees with you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killing
41–34==Yes, being respectful of people is a good baseline, but too easily confused as I think Ben does that from that flows that “ideas” deserve the same respect. No, simply not true. The advance of science shows certain ideas to be totally without merit and therefore respect. Astrology is an idiotic idea. How closely one who believes in astrology should be painted with the same brush, is I think a fair debate saving the common humanity of that person. Too the degree that is true, the basic humanity of a person really become irrelevant?
#30
Yes – according to Islamic law once a Muslim you are a Muslim forever. I am sorry I cannot quote the relevant passage. However there is an interesting case in Malaysia where in the north Islamic law is followed and a woman has taken to court her view that if she leaves Islam she is no longer a Muslim therefore does not fall under Islamic jurisdiction.
I lived in Jakarta, Indonesia for about seven years. Many of my Muslim friends and work colleagues gave me many in sites in understanding what Islam is, how it came into being, what it is to be a Muslim and to respect other faiths – including protection from harm and the rights of someone who is a follower of a different faith – as long as that someone does not try to subvert Muslims to leave Islam.
I have many Muslims tell me that these extremist terrorists are not good Muslims but as a Muslim they cannot speak out against them as Allah will judge them.
This girl who was murdered by her family where obviously not good Muslims in as much as Christians murdering abortion doctors.
The problem it seems that some people of faith want to take the role of God – which they should not and cannot.
Even prayer is a selfish act in an attempt to lobby God to do something that the person praying thinks God should do. It’s the biggest goof – if they don’t get what they prayed for then it is God’s will. So Next time someone wants to pray for something wouldn’t be better to just skip ahead to the “It’s God’s will” part?
Amen! 😉
Cheers!
#9 – Lauren the Ghoti,
I’m as antitheist as anyone. However, since the correlation is not 1.0, and even 7% of the scientists in the National Academy of Sciences, i.e. this nation’s top scientists though possibly not the world’s top ones, actually do believe in some deity, it must be said that there are indeed intelligent believers. In fact, just the existence of two would be enough. Einstein believed in a deist, Spinozan sort of a god, though certainly not a personal one to whom one might pray for temporary suspension of the laws of physics. I do not know how a top scientist today can reconcile a belief in a personal deity with their chosen profession, but a few actually manage it.
#12 – pedro,
when I start seeing “modern christians” killing others because their kids are not being taught creationism, I’ll agree with you. In the meantime, you’re dead wrong (see the pun?)
Um … you have heard of the IRA, abortion clinic bombings, doctor shootings, and the rest, right?
#16 – TIHZ_HO,
Dang. Guess I overslept.
#24 – Ben Waymark,
You call Dawkins a prophet. By this, I assume you must have some religion. I have seen on this thread and other places many times where the religious simply fail to understand that Dawkins is no prophet, God Delusion is no bible, atheists have no need of such things. There is no dogma to atheism. I agree with a lot of what Dawkins says, disagree with some and read a lot of other authors. No one of them is a prophet; no book a bible. Atheism is not a religion. It is merely an acknowledgment that there is no reason to give any credence to a hypothesis for which there is not the slightest shred of evidence.
Further, the god hypothesis fails to even be a valid hypothesis because it fails to explain anything. If you believe in cause and effect, a position contradicted by the quantum mechanics that powers your computer, then god must also have a creator and then a god creator creator. It’s an hypothesis that flies up its own asshole in endless recursion.
#29 – Ben again,
Science and religion differ in that one searches for truth the other assumes it to be known and rams it down your throat. Are scientists sometimes biased imperfect humans? Yes. Do they make an effort to learn about the real world? Yes. Are religious people searching for answers or do they claim to already have them? IMNSHO, the latter, every single time.
#34 – Ben again again,
Dismissing that with no evidence is something we do every single day. I have a dragon living in my closet. You dismiss this. You assume there are no dragons and that one would not fit in my closet anyway. Why is that any different than dismissing god? A universe with a personal god to whom one might reasonably pray for suspension of the laws of physics would be demonstrably different than the one in which we live.
Mostly a good read. A little difficult to follow when the post numbers change, but what can ya do.
I just hope the three dipsheets all find how much their religion will help them doing their time.
Excuse me –
I appreciate everyones banter about Christians and such – but shouldn’t you really focus on the fact that this story has nothing to do with that particular faith and that it has to do with an innocent girls brutal murder by HER OWN FAMILY who are MUSLIMS? And furthermore, that these particular fanatics had no problem murdering one of their own and saw it as their duty to serve ‘allah’ in this way? Isn’t there something fundamentally wrong with that?
I think someone took a wrong turn in this discussion beginning at comment #2 – thank God or whatever it is that you choose to believe in that justice has been served to those responsible.
Shocking and sad!
[somewhat off topic]
Here are some quotes by Carl Sagan, prominent scientist and JPL member with whom you may be familiar. Remember “Cosmos” on PBS? The movie “Contact”?
Here’s a sample: “Life is but a momentary glimpse of the wonder of this astonishing universe, and it is sad to see so many dreaming it away on spiritual fantasy. [Carl Sagan]”
Be sure to read quote #35. I still miss him. Happy Saturday diversionary reading. Flames away!
http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_CSagan.htm
47–mossimo==are you disagreeing with Post #39 and #42? You might highlight that disagreement otherwise you look like you post without reading the thread. Thats ok, until you miss a relevant counterpoint/correction?
48–Bubba, did you post the wrong number again? (Smile!) I thought your idea of posting names with number was a good check. You might use it? Sagan was the first time I heard that we are all stardust. Still blows my mind—and its all evolution. The warp and weave of the entire scientific edifice, building and supporting areas seemingly different, but all interconnected from Supernovae to dna==all connected. Whoosh!!
But hey, its a religion of peace!
Misanthropic Scott (and others):
Science and religion differ in that one searches for truth the other assumes it to be known and rams it down your throat.
I don’t think that is a very fair statement. After reading Dawkin’s book you might be lead to believe that science tries to ram truth down your throat, but I think it would be quite easy to demonstrate that scientists rarely do that and that Dawkin’s is one a few scientists who will actually go so far as to mock people who disagree with him and dismiss them out of hand. In fairness, there are some religious people who also try and ram their version of the truth down your throat.
Science and religion are similar in that they are both methods of searching for the truth, they differ however in that science is concerned with what can be understood rationally and demonstrably. Religion, on the other hand, tries to understand things that are beyond our ability to understand rationally or demonstrably, through stories, mysticism, prayer, religious experience, and often things like trances brought on by drugs, exhaustion or pain.
Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages, but I still reckon its as silly to dismiss non-scientific methods of trying to understand our universe as primitive or stupid simply because you don’t believe it. To do so is to close your mind to other possible avenues of understanding, much like Christian missionaries during the time of European exploration simply closed their minds to some of the interesting, and often insightful gleemings other religions had discovered.
Science or physics may well have demonstrated that a world with a super natural being who we can have a personal relationship with is contradicts its own laws, but that doesn’t mean that sitting down reading mythological tales, or a holy book, or spending some time in prayer as a hermit isn’t going to open ways of understanding the world that science may not lead to.
51. “Science and religion are similar in that they are both methods of searching for the truth”
You should read my comment up in 33 so I don’t have to keep repeating myself. Religion is in no way even an attempt to discover the truth. To its converts it is the undisputed truth and no amount of empirical data could every change it. Dogma is never a means to learn or explore. It’s a means of enforcement and control.
51–Ben, it is noticed that you “hardly” engage your critics, but rather simply repost your position. I suppose repetition is how religion is forced down the throats of the little kiddies, but wont get you too far with adult non-believers.
Prove me wrong and really take up the point that science is the search for the truth (aka repeatable results) whereas religion begins with the truth that cannot be contradicted? Go to the essential truth of religion- – – that there must be something behind it all? Why go to the supernatural explanations when the objective universe offers so much to explorer? ——————- I’ll wait.
53. “——————- I’ll wait.”
Don’t hold your breath! 😉
54–Jerk, I almost posted that myself. I could search the threads I suppose, but Ben posts very much like the few Deist I have run into here and there. Very good rhetoricians, but with the fatal flaw they are arguing for the fanciful. “You know, just because you can’t disproove my silliness, doesn’t mean I don’t deserve respect!”
What is a man except what he believes? ((assuming he acts on it as well?)).
And the way you post is interesting too. Why not call yourself “Reason Face?” But perhaps some things should remain private.
Word ass signing off.
>>dont try to bait me like some rabid dog!
Tee hee! A little cranky today, Bobbo?
As to the rest of your comment, I’m not sure where you’re going with that. Brutally raping and killing a member of your family is wrong, and it’s illegal. Sponsoring dog fights for fun and profit is wrong, and it’s illegal. To dip my toe back in your endlessly circular argument for a moment, what’s the difference? Where’s “the line”? Should they both be wrong but legal? One wrong buy legal, the other wrong but illegal? Both right and legal? I won’t exhaust the list of permutations.
Both of them are sick, both of them are creepy, and I’m not losing any sleep over the fact that both of them are illegal.
And that’s all I’m saying about that. You wore me out the last time.
Bobbo (53) and Jerk Face (52):
I don’t disagree that science is the used for the search of truth, especially repeatable truth and universal truth. I just think that people have different ways of understanding the environment they are in. Some people, usually people with high IQ’s as has been mentioned in various posts, understand their environment through scientific understanding, experimentation and sequential logic. Other people understand the environment their are in through more abstract methods such as mysticism, prayer, story, mythology or whatever.
Engaging in any deep argument as to which system of understanding is a bit useless for me to do really, mostly because I agree that science is the best method of understanding our world. My point isn’t which system is best, its simply that nut jobs will blow each other up over philosophy if its not religion and they can’t use either they will just make up some other excuse to blow each up. The nutjobs that tried to set off bombs in Glasgow and London were doctors as a well religious fanatics, so presumably they had a scientific background as well as a religious background, yet they were still nutjobs.
I am trying not to repeat myself but its hard because I am only trying to make one small point, and its not that religion will answer anything, or that my god is better than your god, or anything else other than we should all accept that different people have different ways of understanding things. We should not simply dismiss anyone who doesn’t believe in the same things we believe in as stupid or unenlightened but accept that one person may see things one way, and another person another way.
Theology, which attempts to codify religion into consistent philosophies, often starts with a truth that cannot be contradicted, something along the lines of ‘God exists’, but religion doesn’t begin so. Religion begins with a question, or a feeling or an experience (or maybe all three). It would seem that many people move quickly from that to inalienable truth that they expound as loudly as they can from every direction they can find, but then many don’t. Many people just continue with that question or that feeling or that experience and try to make sense of it. It is these people that I am trying to defend because they aren’t loony nut jobs that are raping their daughters or telling everyone they are going to hell if they don’t believe this that or the other thing. They came from all the religions, from all sorts of areas of the world. Some are smart, some are not, but its not fair to say that they are all nut jobs just because people who lay claim to the same beliefs strap themselves with bombs and blow shit up. Hell, I wouldn’t discount the whole medical profession as mad just because some doctor’s tried to blow some shit up…
56–Mr Mustard, I did that for your pleasure, because I am a nice guy.
I fully acknowledge that it takes two fools to have one argument, so, I too will persist. Its fine with me that dog fighting is illegal because I too think it is disgusting. But when notice that no humans are hurt, and many humans do want to do it, then I wonder why I might support a law that restricts human freedom. What is the overriding principle? One persons personal moral or preferences should not be made the law unless some overriding principle is in play. Now, I can make an argument for it, that I “almost” accept, but it doesn’t come back to “Its wrong.”
Now to contend with Master Ben.
>>What is the overriding principle?
The overriding principle is that there are some things that are so far from any “line”, so far from any moral or legal ambiguity, so indefensible that there’s no sense even discusing them. Brutal rape/ killing, dog fighting, and betting on horses with their feet chopped off as to which one will fall down first all fall into that category. As I said, you wore me out the last time.
You’d be better off trying to engage me in a discussion about the gal who wanted to grind up her baby’s placenta for use as new-age Prozac. A little on the gruesome side, but a lot closer to “the line” than any of these black-and-white issues like dog fighting and “honor” killing.
57–Ben, looking or in fact seeing the supernatural in this naturalistic world is not “understanding” anything. Such religious, non-scientific, ways may give some comfort, but not knowledge or understanding because there is no truth to it. Truth==that which is not personal and can be repeated by others. Truth–opposite of belief ((yes, in the sense being discussed.
I don’t know what equation you are making with the science/religion background of the London Bombers. Science doesn’t motivate anyone to do anything period. It is a tool by which people motivated by whatever can use to their advantage. How you combine the two “words” to equate the concepts is very dishonest if done on purpose, and very ignorant if done innocently. And you don’t write ignorantly, but coming to grips with reality and disagreement can be a challenge.
You seem to want to defend people that no one is attacking. Those who have questions ((“don’t know or agnostic at worst?)) and are looking are indeed not those who force other people to be questioning as well, or blow themselves up. Nice rhetoric, but thats not in fact what you do, or if that is your goal, you need to proof your material a little bit better.
“we should all accept that different people have different ways of understanding things.” //// No, thats wrong. An astrologer doesn’t understand anything and needs to be shamed out of it if they want to insist other people believe in it too.
“We should not simply dismiss anyone who doesn’t believe in the same things we believe in as stupid or unenlightened” /// Yes, we should or in a sense we equate being wrong with being right. Want to believe the world is flat and still be respected? Go find a flat planet. Now, something not so “objectively true” like whether or not dog fighting should be illegal???? Yes, I still respect Mr. Mustard for his inarticulate defense of its illegality. So, again, you lump too many disperate things together and call them all the same. Distinctions are important.
26: A threat to kill someone, which could have come from anyone, not necessarily the people who claim to have sent it, cannot be equivalent to actually being convicted in a court of law of killing someone. Taqiyya and kidman.
>>Yes, I still respect Mr. Mustard for his inarticulate defense
>>of its illegality.
Bobbo, if you made an “articulate” argument for why it should be legal, I must have missed it. I saw many questions, phrased in the form of Platonic dialogues, where you don’t seem to have the courage of your convictions (assuming you have some), but rather you prefer to pester the victim with “why this?” “why not that?” “where is the line?” queries.
At the end of the day, honor killing, dog fighting, and betting on horses with their feet amputated are going to be legal, or they’re going to be illegal.
Right now, they’re illegal. If you have a problem with that, make your case. And NO QUESTIONS ALLLOWED. Either state your case, or STFU.
If you don’t agree
Excuse me, Mr. Moderator, where is my comment?
If these aren’t posted promptly I will not continue to try.
Is that the point?
#12 That was very astute of you but I was looking for a particular study.
Sorry, I’m not going to write this a third time.