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
Sounds like a mod of bible thump’n rednecks going to a book burning. No matter where you go there will always be religious wing nuts.
Didja Know?© #492:
Islam = Religion of PEASized brains.
There’s no such thing as bad publicity.
Um, we had a man get treated almost this bad (less one slap, of course) for having the temerity of saying a Hindu prayer, here in a America, just a few weeks ago.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/12/AR2007071202007.html
Of course, that was in the US Senate, rather than the Hyderabad press club, so I can understand why it has equivalent security.
>>Um, we had a man get treated almost this bad (less one
>>slap, of course) for having the temerity of saying a Hindu prayer
You REALLY gotta be careful now, Li. You’re going to have not only those who worship at the Altar of Atheism, but the Evangelical Christians biting at your heels for pointing THAT out!!
Some religious inDUHviduals will torture, maim, or kill to show that their religion is one of peace. Play that back again please. I missed something.
>>Some religious inDUHviduals will torture, maim, or kill to
>>show that their religion is one of peace.
As will some atheists, in an effort to show that their doctrinaire non-belief is superior to those silly and dangerous believers. Torture and murder are not limited to those on any particular religious persuasion. It’s the self-important grandiosity, the unshakable belief in whatever it is they believe, and the need to have others think the same way they think that turns people into monsters. No matter if they worship at the Altar of Atheism, or that of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
Yep. Happens all the time; “I kill you in the name of the Nonexistent God!!”
Getting to be quite the epidemic, people committing violence for the Greater Glory of something they don’t believe in…
Another PITA is those fucking atheists in the ties and short-sleeved shirt going door-to-door in pairs, spreading the Non-Gospel.
What really happened, MM?? Some atheist run over your dog when you were a kid, wha?? I speak for a number of us here (for a change) when I tell you, you’re really off the wall on this one, keed.
>>Getting to be quite the epidemic, people committing violence for
>>the Greater Glory of something they don’t believe in…
Well, not exactly, Fish Finger King. More like slaughter of theists by the Atheist Overlords, because the theists’ beliefs were not acceptable to the overlords. Warranting death.
Perhaps you’ve heard of Mao? Stalin?
Feel free to say you “don’t believe in God”, but you your non-belief is so strong and overwhelming that you feel a need to kill others because they don’t belive what you don’t-not-believe, that sounds just like the Inquisition or the Salem Witch burnings.
And that, Señor Pescado, is a RELIGION. And a deadly one at that.
>>speak for a number of us here
Oh, and let me congratulate you on your plurality, Monsieur Poisson. If there are more of you than there are of me, then you must be right. Right?
Wow. Tryin’ to figure out how to break this to ya…
Uh, Mao? Stalin? Uh, this just in to Headline News, mon frere, but they killed religious people for cold-blooded political reasons. And guess what? It would’ve made not one subatomic particle of difference what the beliefs of their victims was – they would’ve been killed anyway. Y’see, the people’s religious beliefs were an impediment to Communist ideological purity. Communism, you might not be aware, is not a religion, and it is also not a synonym for atheism.
Try all you want, O Lord of the Condiments, but atheists, like any other group of humans, have done all sorts of things, incuding committing genocide. But don’t piss on my foot and tell me it’s raining; you know as well as I do, no atheist has killed anyone for not being atheistic. That’s a crock of Grade-A USDA-approved horse feces. It’s never happened.
Oh, shit. I guess I forgot about all the atheist suicide bombers. And the Atheist Inquisition. And “Onward Atheist Soldiers.”
I can’t imagine why I didn’t see the light sooner. I mean, all the facts were there, just waiting to be put together.
Look at the most religious and the most atheistic areas on Earth and you can see the difference instantly; peaceful, serene, prosperous and progressive Africa, which features the most people who believe in the most gods of anywhere – contrast that paradise with the human blights of genocide, famine, disease, environmental destruction and political upheaval that are the norm in the most nonreligious area of the planet, Scandinavia. Highest concentration of atheists there, you can tell from the Hell on Earth they live in, not like the pious, god-loving believers in the paradises that are Botswana, Congo and Nigeria.
Strange how it works, ain’t it, MM? Go anywhere in the world where there is stupidity, war, violence and general inhumanity and there you’ll find those smart, virtuous believers. Yet when you check out the healthiest, smartest, most peaceful and prosperous populations and countries, that’s where you find the highest concentrations of those evil, mindless, genocidal atheists.
Amazing coincidences, ain’t they?
The Deep South; home of slavery, hardscrabble poverty, racial injustice, lowest IQs in America, highest rates of all varieties of social ills, “Red States”, also known as the Bible Belt, where Baptists and Pentecostals and various evangelicals call home.
New England and the West Coast, the intellectual and cultural centers of the Western Hemisphere, home of freedom, liberalism, “Blue States” where the least religious, least violent, most prosperous and productive people in America are found.
MORE coincidences, right, my man??
One more point, Herr Fisch:
When I say “people who believe in God”, I’m not referring to the fucking Pope, or Ted Haggard, or Jimmy Swaggart, or Jerry Falwell, or the late, great, Tammy Faye Baker. They are pimps of business empires that use God as their whore to bring in money.
Just as Stalin and Mao were pimps for the Church of Atheism.
As always, excessive power in the hands of True Believers, be in in Jesus Christ or the Church of Atheism, is a dangerous thing.
Deal with it. As the Monkees so succinctly pointed out, you’re a believer, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. Only your belief is in darkness, rather than light. But make no mistake about it; you’re a believer.
#15 – MM,
Sorry to tell you this, but you probably just weeded down the number of “people who believe in God” to a lower number than the number of atheists in this country. And, I think you probably offended a whole bunch of meth and man ass loving born agains.
But, just as you really don’t get the right to define atheism and force your definition on the world, you also don’t get to define your own particular flavor of peaceful christian and force it on the world.
Those who read any flavor of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic texts too literally will almost certainly gain some violent feelings, and possibly some real violent actions as well. None of these texts are even remotely peaceful.
If people actually still got their morals from the bible, I’d have to crawl into a bunker every weekend for fear that some fucking wacko fundamentalist who reads the bible without the wisdom of your own personal interpretation will literally stone me to death for doing something that s/he considers work on what s/he considers the sabbath.
Oh, and when you’re done reading the section about what happens to someone who works on the sabbath, check out what happens for bestiality. Yeah, OK, this one is bad, but check what they do to the animal, if you thought the poor sheep was fucked before, wait ’til you hear the law on how to kill the animal who was involved in the bestiality and where to spill the blood.
Sorry, MM, but you really must accept that a lot of people are reading these books and becoming violent because of the literal words of the bible. You can call the literal word a misinterpretation all you want, but how peacefully can you interpret the story of Joshua at Jericho. I call it genocide. And, again, what did the animals of Jericho do to deserve death?
Now, I admit, people have misinterpreted Darwin and attempted to engage in “social darwinism”. However, since Darwin specifically warned against doing so, that is an obvious misinterpretation. No one in the bible ever warned against following the law of the bible. In fact, there are explicit warnings about attempting to interpret certain particularly violent sections. There are violent laws with specific rules that say DO NOT INTERPRET THIS, TAKE IT LITERALLY.
This is one of those subtle differences again. So, I’ll try to spell it out a little more clearly. A few people have become violent by misinterpreting Darwin and literally ignoring his warning against social darwinism. Many people become violent by reading exactly what the bible (both books) and the quran say without any interpretation. Many people also become quite peaceful by deliberately ignoring large swaths of the bible. If you know which sections are wrong and can be ignored (and you do), then you are not getting your morals from the bible. You’re getting them from your own moral processing center in your own brain. Take credit for this. It means you are good and just all on your own without any help from god. Impressive!
Luckily, most of today’s Zoroastrians do not read the books literally. But, some still do. And they get violent. And, they get violent as a direct result of reading the religious writings exactly as written. If these mythologies did not cause violence directly, people would not be so strongly against religion.
Speaking for myself, even when I was an agnostic, I knew the god of the judeo-christian-islamic religion, if he existed, would not be worthy of my worship. So, I was against the judeo-christian-islamic religion even when I still thought there might be a god.
Ah, M. Mustarde; projection, they say, is not just a type of televison set. It’s you who has this obsessive hard-on for atheists. You cannot possibly judge my mood or mindset from the strength or mildness of what I say here. II get angry about once every 4 to 6 weeks to keep my blood circulating, otherwise I maintain a resigned, bemused skepticism about all.
No, diversionary tactics like that don’t cut it with me, sport. You have no response to my points; the best you can do is attempt to divert attention from your total lack of anything to counter my arguments with – but as Elton John so aptly put it, I’ve Seen That Movie, Too.
These militant atheists you persistently and obsessively rant about don’t even add up to a double-digit percentage of that part of humanity that rejects superstition. And likewise, their percentage contribution to genocide and other brutalities people commit against one another is so negligible as to be virtually nonexistent. They lack the ability to swallow the fairytale that they’ll be blessed by their Big Daddy In The Sky if they kill anyone who doesn’t share their childishly absurd fantasies.
Anger management sli;;z; get ’em, use ’em. Maybe they can help you overcome your reliance on fairytales…
#14, Mister Mustard,
You make my argument even better than I can.
Gee, I thought Lauren made a very passionate argument. How you can reconcile this with your past arguments is quite the stretch, but, … WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TRUE BELIEVERS.
Where knowledge is not a matter of faith.
Where one can fornicate all night and still have respect in the morning.
Where you don’t have to lie to absolve yourself from your natural drives.
Where you can look to the sky for weather instead of some invisible man.
Where you can block those TV stations that always tell you “God loves you, please send money, sinner, so you don’t have to rot in hell”.
Where you will talk to a physician to do something instead asking the invisible guy that made you sick in the first place.
Where you can be thankful you have a job instead of that invisible guy putting the turkey there.
Where you can know what makes babies instead of giving credit or blame to that invisible guy in the sky.
Where that is just a brown spot on your toast and not the Virgin Mary.
And on and on and on and ……
sli;;z = skillz – but you knu that… 😉
#’s 16, 17, and 18.
Jesus fucking Christ. If this were a “might makes right” discussion, I guess I’d be long dead. For some reason, youse want to lump me in with people who look to The Big Mystery man for the weather report (although that might not be much less accurate than current meteorology), those who can’t fornicate without losing self-respect, and Christian Scientist.
Tsk tsk tsk.
>>… WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF TRUE BELIEVERS.
I’m glad you finally admitted it, Señor Fusion.
>>Sorry to tell you this, but you probably just weeded down
>>the number of “people who believe in God” to a lower number
>>than the number of atheists in this country. And, I think you
>>probably offended a whole bunch of meth and man ass
>>loving born agains.
Well, ain’t that just too fucking bad? As I have repeatedly pointed out (although none of you holy-rolling atheists seem to be listening), when I say “people who believe in God”, I mean (get ready for this…) “people who believe in God”. Shocking? tfb. I don’t mean man-ass loving born-agains, meth-loving born agains, women who wear enough makeup to block global warming, witch-burners, or any of the rest of them. I mean “people who believe in God”.
And if you choose to be someone who “doesn’t share [my] childishly absurd fantasies”, that’s just hunky dory. Just leave me the fuck alone, and don’t try to push your childishly absurd fantasies down my throat, capisce? I’m not pushing mine down yours.
I respect your heartfelt, deeply religious belief that God doesn’t exist. So respect my beliefs too. Or would you like to burn me at the stake?
Oh, btw, I guess when you call yourselves “Atheists”, you’re limiting yourself to the sub-classification known as “Ethical Atheism” (http://tinyurl.com/33ufzy). Looks to me like you’ve just narrowed yourselves down even further than I have. Are there 15 of youse, or just 12?
Kind of entertaining to read that even the Church of Ethical Atheism web site feels it necessary to discipline their congregants to “not promote hatred and intolerance”.
Funny, that.
Fuck that shit. Intolerant? That’s me. No tolerance whatsoever for irrationality not arising from dain bramage. Zero tolerance for adults too fucking insecure and cowardly to face reality without relying on a childish fabrication of some prescientific, superstitious desert dwellers from two millenia ago to watch over them. No intention of ever saying, “It’s OK, believe in idiotic things” and then subjecting myself to suffering from the results of the idiotic actions that arise from those idiotic beliefs.
Havin’ a hard time with the points we’ve been making, huh? No good response? You have yet to say whether or not it’s a coincidence that the more intelligent and the more educated a person, the less likely they are to believe in ancient superstitions that go against all knowledge and reason. So – coincidence??? Coincidence that the stronger and more literal the Bible or Quran is taken, the stupider the person??? Coincidence the evangelicals, pentecostals, fundies, Holy Rollers, speakers-in-tongues are people with 2-digit IQs??? Coincidence that “God,” the “King of Kings,” just happens to behave (according to the Holy Bible) exactly like an insecure, cruel, egotistical, megalomaniacal, irrational, unjust, mercurial human king of 2000 years ago, but 100 times bigger???
NO person who a) is a mature, secure, well-adjusted adult; b) is rational; c) has a basic education; and d) has not been brainwashed in childhood can accept a “creator” that is nothing more than a pastiche from contradictory folk tales of people who had virtually no knowledge of the nature of the planet Earth or the slightest concept of the laws of physics. The creator of the univers, if there is one, will certainly not be a caricature of a human despot with the personality of an ego-tripping human, drunk on power. It’s every single iota as absurd as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and exactly as liikely to actually exist.
Grow up and face it, and leave the cavemen to their boogyman stories.
Good one, pedro…
>>Grow up and face it, and leave the cavemen to
>>their boogyman stories.
All I can say is my condolences for the ass-fucking you must have taken from that priest as a boy. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for the hatred, the violent angry outbursts and your perception that you are being “subjected to suffering” because of my (and others’) personal beliefs.
>>Zero tolerance for adults too fucking insecure and cowardly to
>>face reality without relying on a childish fabrication of some
>>prescientific, superstitious desert dwellers from two millenia
>>ago to watch over them. No intention of ever saying, “It’s OK,
>>believe in idiotic things”
Holy fuck! I can only hope (no, _pray_) that you’re never in any kind of position of authority. I imagine that given the right circumstances, you could make Stalin look like Mister Diversity. Sounds like, if you had the power, you would put to death Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, FDR, JFK, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, and everyone else “toofucking insecure and cowardly to face reality without relying on a childish fabrication”. I guess in your world, the wages of spirituality is death. Yikes. Have you considered counseling?
As they say at executions, just as they slip the Hot Needle into the vein, “May God have mercy on your soul”.
MM, You shouldn’t post while you are having a psychotic break. Take your medication and then come back and post.
>>MM, You shouldn’t post while you are having a psychotic break. \
>>Take your medication and then come back and post.
Wow, improbus, now THERE is an eloquent defense of your viewpoint. You must have been on the debate team in middle school, huh?
Anything relevant to say, or are you just practicing your typing skills?
MM,
You are a troll and a bad one at that. You just want to rile up the Atheist “faithful”. Why else would you use such unchristian language and arguments? You surely don’t intend to spread the “Word” in such a fashion do you? Pharisee.
>>Pharisee
What, you’re anti-semitic too? Do yo belong to the Neo-Nazi Church as well?
As to what “Word” I’m trying to “spread”, you just don’t get it, do you?
I’m not trying to spread ANY “Word”. I’m simply trying to live in peace, adhering to my own beliefs, without being constantly berated by elders of the Atheist Church for being “too fucking insecure and cowardly to face reality without relying on a childish fabrication of some prescientific, superstitious desert dwellers from two millenia ago”. Is that too much to ask?
I will worship my God, you will worship your non-god, and we can all go out later for a beer.
Or is tolerance so antithetical to the canons of the Atheist Church that the other 90% of us can’t be allowed to believe what we choose to believe and live in peace?
[sigh] This is frak’n pointless.
Oh, you can do it, all right. No es una problema. Tell ya what – while you’re resting, why not tell your fellow believers to keep their bullshit to themselves?
Somewhere along the way you developed this bizarre idea that nonbelievers are trying to force something on you. I’d like to read some of the writings of your imaginary ‘atheist evangelists.’ Got linkz? Maybe a book or two on Amazon you can refer me to? A Wikipedia entry? Something scrawled on the back of a matchbook?? No???
Well, then I guess you’ll just have to excuse the living shit out of the rest of us who have been laboring under the impression that it’s the believers in fairytales who do, and did, and always will, try to force everyone else to obey their nonexistent boogyman.
Enjoying your persistent and obsessive projection of your own inner turmoil onto others, though; also the stylish tap-dance you treat us to in your desperate avoidance of the points raised by yrs trly, et al.
Lemme give you another opportunity to grasp at ad hominem straws; do you think that it’s only coïncidental that the God of the Bible / Quran behaves exactly like a Giant Economy-Size vain, petty, egomaniacal human despot of Biblical times??
Or do you think that coïncidence is involved with the One True And Correct Faith just “happening” to be the one that is predominant in the society / geographic area that the person proclaiming it as Truth happened to be born in??
Looking forward to your next creative evasions, red herrings and straw men…
>>No es una problema.
Better attend class more often, Pescadito. That’s “un problema”. Masculine noun.
>>Tell ya what – while you’re resting, why not tell your fellow
>>believers to keep their bullshit to themselves?
If your reading skills are anything like your bloviating skills, you will have observed that I do just that. Bullshit, non-bullshit, God, not-God, whatever your religious beliefs are, kindly keep them to yourself. If I want to know, I’ll ask.
>>I’d like to read some of the writings of your
>>imaginary ‘atheist evangelists.’
I could point you to Mao’s Little Red Book, but I’m sure you’d come back with that same old tired argument that just because Mao was an atheist, and he killed believers for no reason other than their beliefs, he somehow wasn’t an Atheist evangelist.
Come on, Pescado, don’t be a pecador. Is it REALLY THAT HARD for you to admit that what you believe in has no more proof in quantum physics or evolutionary biology than what I believe in? I really seem to have struck a nerve here, by pointing out that the Church of Atheism is a system of belief, and one that they try to force on the non-believers by any means necessary, up to and including slaughter?
Gosh. Take a chill pill, m’hijito.
#21, Mister Mustard,
Oh, btw, I guess when you call yourselves “Atheists”, you’re limiting yourself to the sub-classification known as “Ethical Atheism”
Please don’t suggest I am an “atheist”. That is YOUR terminology, not mine. Nor do I consider myself any branch or division of “atheist”. Again, YOUR definitions.
I am normal. No theism here.
>>I am normal. No theism here.
OK then. You’re an agnostic. I assumed you were one of the ones fighting mightily against their Atheism being labeled a religion. Sorry about that. When you’re being besieged on all sides by hard-core nonbelievers fighting tooth and nail to discredit others’ beliefs, it’s hard to keep them straight some time.