A Dutch police station trying to help Muslim detainees face Mecca for their prayers painted arrows in cells pointing in the wrong direction.
Muslims pray five times a day, facing east in the direction of Mecca. But the arrows in Segbroek pointed west.
“This is a really gigantic, stupid blunder,” a police spokesman told the De Telegraaf.
“The faulty compass marks have been immediately corrected. It is a mystery for us how this could have possibly happened.”
Uh, which is it: a smartass copper or a dumbass copper?
What direction would a Muslim in orbit pray, considering a low Earth orbit of about 90 minutes?
Cripes! They had them praying in the direction of the White House.
#2
Just watch out… soon you’ll see bills with In Bush we trust… 😉
“Uh, which is it: a smartass copper or a dumbass copper?”
2. “Cripes! They had them praying in the direction of the White House.”
Well, that about proves that he was a smartass.
Accidental, unintentional, me don’t thinks so.
Just some jailers way to thumb their noise at another hate group.
Whether they pray eastward or westward, Muslims should take note that their prayers are constantly being electronically monitored for suspicious content by the NSA. At the present time, prayers can simply be received and monitored, but technology is under development that could actually intercept a prayer and rebroadcast a modified version of that prayer, nullifying the original request.
The day is coming when a prayer to Allah for a successful martyr attack might easily be modified by the NSA to request Allah’s blessing on the spirit of a deceased grandmother or favorite uncle. They might even modify it to invoke safety for the U.S. troops. Though extremely effective in the past, prayers are on the verge of becoming obsolete.
WTF does it matter? The earth is round. East is just a long way west.
#7 – It very much matters — if they are not praying EXACTLY in the direction of Mecca, then Allah cannot hear them, for His Mighty Ears of Omnipotence can only hear in a radius of +/- one-tenth of a degree…
Ugh how I hate religion.
I doubt I would’ve been able to resist mixing in with the paint a bit of pig fat… and for a bit of lagniappe maybe painting the arrows to indicate a different Mecca; to wit, Smithfield, VA.
And by my act of malicious vandalism, some worthy faithful would forego their due allotment of virgins. How can I live with myself? 🙂
So if a Muslim was standing on the isle of Moruroa, which is the antipodes of Mecca, which way would he/she pray?
Hell, I’m thinking of becoming a Muslim just for the young virgins.
No… wait… young virgins are a pain in the neck.
#6
Quality!!!!!
With all that iron in jail cells, what makes them think a compass would work anyway?
9, Lauren, you know entire countries have gone to war over little stuff like this — bring back the Crusades !! 🙂
Oh, wait, we’re already there now.
Notice to all Muslims: This is a reminder that prayers do not have mass and are therefor not affected by gravity.
Please be advised that all prayers to date have left the solar system in random trajectories.
OH NOES! Those poor muslims prayers wont be answered now! I guess that’s why they’re still in prison. LOL
JimR, perhaps those escaping prayers not bound by Earth’s gravity have been received by distant, highly evolved civilizations. That would explain why the current joke going ’round the Milky Way is that if you need to give our galaxy an enema, Earth is where you would insert the tube.
Aliens have a very hurtful sense of humor 😉
They’ve also heard reports of the prayer vandal named “Lauren the Ghoti,” and they’re totally befuddled over the pronunciation of his name.
Why paint a compass at all?
Why not just paint arrows pointing directly to Mecca (southeast of the Netherlands)?
Interdimensional Newswire: A message from Allah arrived at Mecca today through their prohhet correspondent. Due to supernatural difficulties, prayers within Mecca, and those directed exactly at Mecca, will be diverted to an Allah prayer holding center. Prayers on hold will be processed as soon as possible. Please be patient.
As a reminder, if you have not received an answer to your prayers, make sure you have followed directions properly and are within direct eyesight of Mecca. Allah was adamant that he will not go running through the universe chasing the millions of prayers leaving Earth in random directions every Earth minute.
14, Jim R., you mean those prayers don’t have to go through the ‘captcha’ system? At least SN doesn’t have to filter them.
Guess that means they turned thier back meca and in the process chucked them a moon ….not a good thing to do.
Of course the arrows were painted in the wrong direction on purpose. The people who work at the jail know the how the jail is oriented.
#12…..If those Virgins are a pain in the neck. Your doing it wrong.
Since the Dutch are not an overly religious group of people….I vote for Jail guard fun and games.
#18 – Gary Marks
“They’ve also heard reports of the prayer vandal named “Lauren the Ghoti,” and they’re totally befuddled over the pronunciation of his name.”
All part of my masterful scheme to divert their attention. This is no time to take unnecessary chances… there’re few things in the multiverse as dangerous as a befuddled alien Muslim wannabe with an enema kit, eh?
How’d they figure it out? Somebody hide a compass in a cake? Or can they eat cake? No, that’s the French thing.
#26
A little smart, a little imagination … No McGiver or genus needed
A sliver of magnetized material on top of floating material in a cup of water, wallah.
A sliver of magnetized material tied to loose thread, wallah.
A cast shadow, wallah.
Road noise from a high way, wallah.
Albert Einstein “Imagination is more important than knowledge”
Lack of imagination and overactive imagination, fear is what got us into IRAQ!
#20, cute.
The reason that muslims pray towards Mecca is to show unity. It really doesn’t matter what direction they pray in, that is except for the fundamentalists.
Some how, I don’t think this was a mistake. The Dutch are not very tollerent of different cultures or religions.
Maybe they got suspicious when their prayers weren’t being answered.
#28. If any one is intolerant it’s Muslims
The Dutch are an extremely and overly tolerant society until, the Islamic murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
In fact that is one of the chief complaints Muslims have of the west, we are too tolerant. I guess because we didn’t issue a fatwa against people like the author of “The Satanic Verses.” or the creators of those funny Danish cartoons.
“In fact that is one of the chief complaints Muslims have of the west, we are too tolerant.”
You see, that’s it. In contrast to Muslim authoritarianism – where everyone knows Islam is correct and all other beliefs are wrong, so supressing non-Islamic belief is virtuous – Western society, by allowing people to believe what they want to believe, is weak and evil, and therefore deserves to be conquered. So they take advantage of our perceived “weakness” and enter our society with the intention of replacing it with theirs.
As I’ve said before, tolerance is not some wonderful universal virtue. It can be taken too far, such as tolerating those who have no intention of returning the favor but instead want to use it against you. In such a case, tolerance is self-destructive.