Feminist assaulted by Islamic militants — What’s interesting about this is that it not only happened in India, but in one of the more cosmopolitan cities.
Dozens of Muslim protesters led by three lawmakers attacked an exiled Bangladeshi writer at the release of her book in southern India yesterday, calling her “anti-Islam” and telling her to go back to her country.
About 100 people burst into the Press Club in Hyderabad, shouting insults at Taslima Nasrin and ransacking the place, throwing chairs in the air and overturning tables. Organizers pushed them back, and Nasrin escaped unhurt, although witnesses said she was slapped.
The protesters belonged to the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen political party in Andhra Pradesh state. Police detained nearly all 100 protesters, including the three lawmakers, said deputy commissioner N. Madhusudan Reddy.
related links:
Nasrin’s Homepage
Fatwa Mania
MM, The time you spend here typing can be better spent by you praying … in private.
>>The time you spend here typing can be better spent by
>>you praying … in private.
Thanks for your concern, improbus. I DO spend time praying … in private. I also like to keep my finger on the pulse of what evangelists for the Church of Atheism are up to. I’m very civic-minded.
Actually, I do agree with you up to this point: believing in ‘no God’ is an act of assering a fact, and that, as I’ve always said, an assertion of belief in existence or belief in nonexistence is still, logically, semantically, legally and philosophically, belief. And when you have the same 100% absence of evidence as your opponents, it’s just as Fusion sez, “Pot, I’d like you to meet Kettle.”
But knowing that the probability of my being hit by lightning, winning the Powerball jackpot and being elected President, all on the same day, is greater than zero – it COULD happen – does not change the fact that, outside of strict formal definitions and theory, in the real world no matter that it COULD happen, IT WILL NOT HAPPEN. There is no MEANINGFUL difference between a probability of 0.00000000000000001 and zero. None whatsoever. A chance of 0.00000000000000001 = not a chance in Hell.
And the real argument hinges around the probability of any deity that humans commonly believe in being anything other than a myth being close enough to 0.00000000000000001 to make that deity’s nonexistence not a FACTUAL, PROVABLE FACT, BUT UNLIKELY ENOUGH TO BE REGARDED BY ANY SANE PERSON AS AN UTTER CERTAINTY – and that’s ignoring the well-known and infinitely more probable reasons for people to profess that belief, all of them matters of human gullibility, lack of knowledge, fear, peer pressure, mob instinct, insecurity, faulty reasoning and dishonesty.
All of those factors taken together result in a probability that all religious deities are nothing more than creations of the human mind is the inverse of the probability of his existence – i.e a 99.999999999999999% certainty, which is as sure as the Sun rising in the east tomorrow… Anything past a 99.999% is pure theoretical gravy, those are odds that you can literally bet your life on, because everyone DOES – EVERY DAY.
And you’re STILL tap-dancing around, evading the questions in the last two paras of #31. You cannot answer either one without a) proclaiming yourself a loony, or b) admitting you’re wrong.
Prove me wrong. Go ahead, as that great American hero Harry Callahan said – make my day.
>>make my day
Oooh, you’re so butch!
You assume that I care far more about your beliefs than I actually do, Great Scaly One. You worship your non-god, and I’ll take care of my spiritual life in my own way.
As to those “killer questions” in the last two paras of #31, I didn’t answer them because I didn’t think they were important enough to waste my time on. Since it means so much to you, here we go. I’m going to make your day.
Penultimate para – As to what the God of the Bible/ Koran seems like to you, I’m not particularly interested. If you don’t like him, worship another one. Or worship your non-god. Anything is fine with me, as long as you let me do what I want to do.
Ultimate para – Red herrings won’t work with me, Oh Great Clupea Mirabilis. You may or may not have noticed, but I’ve never mentioned “The One True And Correct Faith”. Sure, people are more likely to accept whatever they grew up with. If you didn’t grow up during the Quin Dynasty (or aren’t a fan of “Faces of Death”), you probably won’t like live monkey brains. And your point is…..??
I don’t subscribe to the tenets of your straw man fallacy about a “One True And Correct Faith”. I think there is a central core of ideas and beliefs and behaviors that transcend any “One True And Correct Faith”, yet are key components of all faiths. Just because the Pope and Ted Haggard fucked things up in their pursuit of the Almighty Dollar, that in no way impugns my beliefs. Which I will choose to believe, in spite of your amatuer-statistician attemtps to ridicule me. Unless you can show me proof to the contrary. In that case, I’m open to having my mind changed.
So go back to worshipping your non-god, I’ll get on with my business, and let’s be done with this discussion.
Hope I made your day.
Fred Astaire would be proud!
As for me, I worship nothing, with the possible exception of the Brennan sisters’ voices and Charlize Theron…
#34, Mister Mustard,
OK then. You’re an agnostic.
There you go, using YOUR labels. As I said earlier, I am normal. I don’t believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Easter Bunny, Jehovah, Great Pumpkin, Allah, the Great Pookie Pookie, or any other invisible man in the sky.
I know that Santa Claus exists because I dress up every year and the children believe in me. I also know the Boogie Man exists because he used to hide in my closet and under my bed when I was a little kid. Even though I never saw him I know it was him that would mess up my homework, put those brown stains in my undies, leave cookie crumbs on the floor, and steal one of every pair of socks.
MM,
I’m not trying to burn you at the stake. Actually, I think you’re a good and decent human being, which puts you (in my mind) in a very small minority. I’m just pointing out that when you limit believers in god to believers in god minus the wackos that you and I both agree are wackos, I think you’ll be left with about the same size list, or possibly smaller, than the list of atheists in this country. That’s neither good nor bad. But, many people who believe in god and are wackos as you describe will likely be offended to be told that despite going through the birth canal one more time than the rest of us, they do not believe in god. In fact, they may be the strongest believers out there. There freakin’ insane, but very devout believers.
BTW, and I really don’t mean this as an attack, though I can’t make it not sound as if I do, how do you celebrate the entry into heaven of a good decent believer whom you love? Do you mourn or throw a party? There are real true believers in the world that are so confident in their belief that they do throw a party. If you do not, perhaps you are an agnostic by the same rules that you apply to self-proclaimed atheists that do not meet your personal definition of atheist.
Again, I’m not trying to infringe on your rights. I hope you enjoyed church this morning.
>>Do you mourn or throw a party?
I said I was going to go have a beer, but I’ll make an exception for you, Mr. Scott. To answer your question, I mourn. Because unlike either the wackos OR the holy-rolling atheists, I’m not sure. I lean in a particular direction, that’s all.
As to church and my enjoyment thereof, my minister is on vacation, so she closed the church for the month of August. One of the reasons I attend that church (even though I’m not real big on denominations) is because the place is riddled with commie pinko liberals, and they accept everyone. Even those who worship at the Altar of Atheism are welcome, if they choose to attend.
#38 – MM
“As to what the God of the Bible/ Koran seems like to you, I’m not particularly interested. If you don’t like him, worship another one. Or worship your non-god. Anything is fine with me, as long as you let me do what I want to do.”
I didn’t ask if you were interested, and I didn’t say Word One about what “He” seems like to me. I said that the deity worshipped by Xians and Muslims behaves exactly as human tyrants of the time behaved – NOT like “the omniscient, omnipotent Creator of the universe.” That’s where probability comes in. Either God expects His creations to waste their time and effort constantly telling Him how wonderful He is, because he’s insecure and needs the reassurance – OR He’s just a figment of those peoples’ imaginations, because that’s the sort of “King of Kings” that they could understand at the time. Either / or. One or the other. And I asked you, obliquely, if you felt that it was more likely that an insecure tyrant with petty, dysfunctional human emotions really is the Creator of the universe, or a human fairytale. Which is more likely? The answer, of course, is blatantly obvious. The odds are – not 10-to-1, not 10,000-to-1, but billions-to-1 that that any entity that could create the universe does not think or act like a human megalomaniac. Therefore, the God described in these “holy books” is, to a certainty that may be regarded as absolute, an invention of superstitious, prescientific people.
Wish I could say “good attempt at evading the question”, but it really wasn’t…
“You may or may not have noticed, but I’ve never mentioned “The One True And Correct Faith”. Sure, people are more likely to accept whatever they grew up with. If you didn’t grow up during the Quin Dynasty (or aren’t a fan of “Faces of Death”), you probably won’t like live monkey brains. And your point is…..??”
I firmly believe that you are not dim, and therefore you know exactly what my point is. How can any rational person think that they just “accidentally” got themselves born at a place and time and to parents who just coïncidentally happen to follow the only “correct” religion?? Who can say with a straight face (IF they’ve ever even thought about it), “I’m a (Catholic / Protestant / Episcopalian / Baptist / etc) because it’s correct. I considered all of them and carefully weighed what each had to say, and I came to the conclusion that the (Catholics / Prods / etc) were right. It’s only a coïncidence that my parents belong to the same faith, and that most of the people in my town are too,”
JAYzus! What a crock! That’s what brainwashing does. Overrides the rational component of your mind with crap you wouldn’t swallow if you were drunk, stoned AND tripping on acid – unless you were repeatedly told it was true by trusted authority figures while you were too young and impressionable to see how none of it makes a bit of sense!
No, Musty, old bean. I’ve been around too long. You might imagine that I’m still wet behind the ears, that I’ve never encountered the tactic, when one’s opponent has realized they’ve been backed into a corner they can’t escape, they find a flimsy excuse for bowing out before they have to concede that they lost. “So go back to worshipping your non-god, I’ll get on with my business, and let’s be done with this discussion.”
Uh-huh. Riiiiight. Quitting the game before the score is tallied. Quite original…
I’ll leave it to the two or three remaining members of the Peanut Gallery who have stuck around for the closing credits to decide for themselves the outcome of this particular bout. :>
>>I firmly believe that you are not dim
Thanks. I love you too. Remember, we’re all God’s children.
[sigh] I shoulda known you’d say that…