He done blowed up real good!
I love the last part of this:
Qari Zafar, a commander of Pakistani militants, has accidentally punched his own one-way ticket [he blew himself up] to Paradise.
[…]
All you ever hear is “If you die while committing jihad, you go to paradise and get 53 or 72 or 99 virgins (or whatever today’s number is). But we never hear them say “beautiful virgins.”So we have a question about the whole virgin thing. What happens if you blow yourself up, get to Paradise and find out the reason your 99 virgins are virgins is that they’re so fat, ugly and repulsive that no one wanted them?
72 virgins
Funny fucking terrorist interview
I’ve always wondered … why 72?
Why not 172 or 572 or some other number?
Is 72 a mystical number in Islam or something?
The reward of virgins for martyrdom may be more mentioned in the west to defame Islam than it is by Muslims themselves.
Maidens with dark eyes (which I assume means beautiful) for wives is part of the picture of heaven.
I’m no expert but I think the number of maidens is part of the Hadith (traditions) rather than in the core of Islam.
It may be telling that “streets of gold” is part of the Christian picture of heaven when marital bliss is part of the Islamic picture of heaven.
Are we more materialistic and they more family oriented?
Asking any hard core zealot about their religious beliefs is never very interesting.
They will just regurgitate whatever they have come to believe on whatever basis they believe it and that is the end of the discussion.
Who here has EVER had an interesting answer from a zealot about their religion?
Just doesn’t happen. As close as you can get is imagining what a truthful answer might be, but that never happens.
Religion: a set of beliefs not subject to logic, testing, or challenge.
Ask away.
I could demonstrate my point by asking Greg a question. I like Greg so much I hesitate to do so, but in the spirit of goodwill I’ll just throw an old chestnut out there for demonstration purposes:
#4–say Greg: “Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
– Epicurus
Yes, very basic interesting questions to the religious have gone unanswered for ages. As they always will.
Actually, I’d be inclined to pay the family something for this knucklehead falling on his own sword. It sets a great precedent: if you are a terrorist, we’ll pay money for you to off yourself without killing anyone (bonus for killing other terrorists in the act).
I’m all for helping these bozos get their 72 virgins as long as they don’t take anyone else (beyond other bozos) with them.
I still say being forced to live with 72 virgins for all eternity sounds a lot like hell.
He really blew that one didn’t he?
bobbo,
No problem asking _that_ question (and thanks for the nod).
“Why do the righteous suffer” and “How can a loving God allow evil?” have been asked for the whole history of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition.
The different religious traditions tend to look at the issue from different perspectives but I’ve never heard an answer that would satisfy a skeptic — or even many people of faith.
I, personally, tend to view the question as simplistic, almost binary, human logic — a constraint God lives above and beyond.
If humans could fully fathom him, we couldn’t call him God, either.
Guys like Zafar are using children to deliver bombs. Most likely against their will and under duress of being shot or of having their families killed. I doubt that faith has anything to do with it.
heh, heh, heh.
Yea, standard interesting question if one imagines a truthful answer, faith is the response.
thanks Greg. I do sense you are a nice guy and what most christians/religious actually should strive to. So am I, BTW, if good works was the only criterion, but that’s an atheist’s tale.
If we, err–YOU, can’t get the basics right then you must admit your faith doesn’t make any sense. But you won’t go that far, and in my simplistic mind, that means you aren’t being honest.
The “facts” are even worse if you assume god is the author of all things. So yea, the nature of evil destroys any notion of a god worthy of being worships/believed in.
It just gets silly and tedious.
I previously thought this guy was killed by an American drone — so I Googled it.
Here:
>> Mohammed Qari Zafar’s death, which was reported earlier by Pakistani intelligence officials, marks the latest success from Washington’s covert CIA-run drone program in Pakistan. The unmanned aircraft have carried out more than 100 missile strikes near the Afghan border since 2004, killing several senior Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.
http://tinyurl.com/27sfv9o
Where the original stories wrong?
I don’t like assassination-by-joystick — it would be such better justice if he died by his own hand.
@bobbo
“gone unanswered for ages” ?
Here is one, there are others…
Christian pastor and theologian, Gregory A. Boyd claims that God’s all-powerful nature does not mean that God exercises all power, and instead allows free agents to act against his own wishes.
“Is God to Blame?: Moving Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Evil” (2003), pp. 57-58
>> bobbo, the evangelical anti-theist said, on June 18th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
I missed your first post.
>> Religion: a set of beliefs not subject to logic, testing, or challenge.
I agree with you on this — when it comes to underlying presumptions.
People either believe in God or they don’t – it’s not a rational conclusion based in objective evidence. (I think it comes down to brain wiring.)
I do bicker with atheists when they then claim that “believers” are categorically intellectually inferior. This is just supremacism, which leads to all kinds of evil.
is there anywhere that says the virgins are women?
revdjenk==doesn’t that just mean god allows evil to exist and therefore is not all good? I think those old Greeks got you covered there.
Greg==and by dishonest, I mean “to yourself.”
Another example of dishonest dogmatic responses that don’t make any sense (ie–no sense is something that cannot be believed and the speaker is being dishonest to himself or the questioner) is on tape right now. The BP Pres being asked by Congress how they could violate all the safety standards and still maintain they did everything right. Hayward: the blow out valve is the fail safe mechanism. Meanwhile, other BP executives take the Fifth and some Congresscreeps think Hayward should be put in handcuffs.
Congress Committee Chair says “you can’t have it both ways.” and yet Hayward keeps testifying the same way.
Can I not think of Hayward as a lying scumbag and then use a different standard for anyone else who denies his own intellect?
Yes it would be funny if it is 72 big hairy male virgins 😛
#16–Greg==after years of denying it myself, I have to agree with you. There are too many very intelligent people who do take on the faith. There is only a moderately strong correlation between IQ and atheism, not close to one to one. And if its not religion, there are other modes of magical thinking that spring from the same refusal to deal with inconsistencies. Like fervent political beliefs that drive people to do all sorts of horrible things.
One very intelligent guy I knew was a psychiatrist who was also a devout Catholic. I asked him how one determined the difference between being religious and being crazy. He was slow to answer but did answer by way of attacking my own “concrete thinking” and that I should be more flexible. Maybe I should have done that after our first meeting?
Does crack me up on some level===intelligent people still thinking they way they do. Ultimately, it makes me question my own rationality when I am only human myself. What delusions do I engage in without realizing it?
I sense 2-3 that I continue to work on. Life is a challenge.
>> bobbo, the evangelical anti-theist said, on June
>> If we, err–YOU, can’t get the basics right then you must admit your faith doesn’t make any sense.
God’s existence is not dependent on our understanding him.
You can say exactly the same about science, too.
Take the Big Bang. There are probably more things science DOESN’T understand about the Big Bang than what it does. Does this make science bogus and dishonest?
Of course not.
There are TONS very basic things I don’t understand about the spiritual and the material worlds. It’s only honest to admit that.
Here’s a counter question for you: is it honest to definitively declare that God does NOT exist? It’s the same kind of bogus certitude the we religious people often have.
Aren’t agnostics the only truly honest people? Ironically, the ones who have questions but no definitive answers?
Wow, bobo, you are bringing up serious issues faster than I can respond to them!
I will try to come back here but I gotta get going.
Peace. Out.
#21–Greg==I take on the moniker of an anti-theist==if god exists, which I totally doubt but you can’t prove a negative, then I do not find him worthy of worship or respect.
The universe acts just as if god did not exist. There must be a reason for that, and I accept it.
God gave me my intellect and I have to assume he wants me to think the way I do. And I do. THIS bobbo will never accept the goodness of god and that being the case, all god can possibly be is a very powerful entity. Thats fine==he can just leave me alone. Being powerful does not make one worthy of being worshiped. Even being all good would only imply “respect.” This worship thing in violation of your own intellect is very worrying. Leads to all kinds of evil==like being a Muslim.
Embrace your own humanity and require god to do the same.
Or worse… virgin men. ;D
The main thing is that this raghead is gone. Who cares where he went?
72 burqa wearing virgins. How would you know that they are beautiful?
haha..this is crazy! Virgins? but fat and ugly? no way..lol..
#6
““Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
– Epicurus”
No source reveals that this is indeed Epicurus.
It is considered poor debate form to use unsourced quotes to bolster one’s argument.
“Don’t fear god,
Don’t worry about death;
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.”
– Epicurus (“The four-part cure” of Epicurus)
That is a properly sourced quote of his. And it does show that he believes in idea of a theism, but shows no fear over it or death. Those are excellent words to live by no matter what your beliefs.
That unsourced crap is being passed around the internet by atheists hell bent (pardon the expression) on making theists look like fools.
Theists do a good job already as many (especially in the West) do not read, let alone understand, their own texts. Atheists need only become more familiar with the words of these texts to catch theists in their own folly.
Making up crap to try and trip them is not needed. The snare is already at hand.
Cursor_
# 8 – I couldn’t agree more with Animby “…being forced to live with 72 virgins for all eternity sounds a lot like hell.”
I always thought that this ‘reward’ sounded like the immature fantasy of some poor old looser who never had a decent bonk their whole lives!
#10
“If humans could fully fathom him, we couldn’t call him God, either.”
Actually God, in the christian gospel texts, makes himself very very clear. He even becomes a man to make it more clear.
He is motivated by profit. (A concept many of his followers misinterpret, but what’s new there?) He operates by two rules:
You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
In his case it means he must love himself, and so should we all. This is a very accepted idea in psychology outside of belief. For if someone cannot love him/her self how could they love another? It makes the task much harder if not near impossible.
The second rule is:
Love your neighbour as yourself.
That means if something you do would hurt you, don’t do it to someone else. Pretty much every philosophy concurs with that. From theists to atheists.
God is a rather simple to understand person. He does things out of a need for profit and has only two rules. What is hard to understand?
The only reason why people say we cannot know the mind of a god is that way they can have an out for when they cannot explain something away. A cop out.
# 17
“is there anywhere that says the virgins are women?”
Actually the literature on states that these virgins are female and beautiful for men, and male and handsome for women. And that no one has to martyr themselves to get it. It is also non-canonical for Islam.
It also comes with eighty thousand servants and a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine and ruby.
Milk and honey, streets paved with gold, nirvana… clap trap that only humans would comprehend.
I call bullshit.
Cursor_
I always thought it would be justice if the 72 virgins were, innocent child victims of terror attacks. Then these guys\ gals would be sentenced to be child care workers for all eternity.