We must stop deferring to religion: Laughable absurdities must be laughed at.

[Warren Stupidity]

It's time for honest discussion: We have a problem with religion. Let's figure out how we are going to deal with it
JEFFREY TAYLER

...

The (liberal) French President François Hollande traveled to the scene of the slaughter and denounced an “act of exceptional barbarity.” Former President Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative, also condemned the “barbarism” and called for national unity in the face of an attack against “our democracy.” President Obama issued a statement decrying the “horrific shooting.” United States Secretary of State John Kerry voiced solidarity in France’s fight against the “extremism” targeting “free expression.” Professing agreement with a French imam who, he said, called the victims “martyrs for liberty,” Kerry declared that, “Brave and decent people around the world will never give in to the intimidation and the terror of those seeking to destroy [the values of free expression and democracy).”

On and on the politicians’ avowals of support go. Yet one word is absent from all the grave, aggrieved verbiage. Surely their audiences will supply the missing noun, the prima facie yet material motive for the otherwise puzzling “exceptional barbarity,” the hitherto inexplicable “horrific shooting,” the nameless “extremism” – Islam. Attackers shouting “Allahu Akbar!” don’t leave room for doubt.

Or at least they shouldn’t. But you would not know it judging by the public responses of those tasked with assuring our safety and looking out for the common good. It is incendiary to name Islam as a culprit in atrocities: perhaps a tenth of France’s population is Muslim or descended from those who have arrived from the shores across the Mediterranean. Speaking frankly about Islam’s role in inspiring terrorist bloodshed would elicit cries of Islamophobia and intolerance, bigotry and even racism (as though a belief system could be congenital), all liberal bêtes noires as shameful as they are misbegotten.

Complicating matters, apologists would say, is that the West is hardly blameless. The United States continues to wage a murderous drone campaign against those it designates “terrorists” in countries across the Islamic world; and this on the heels of its disastrous unprovoked war against Iraq, and a 13-year occupation, surely soon to be proved fruitless, of Afghanistan. France is a former colonial power with deep footprints in the Muslim world; its own bloody 132-year sojourn in Algeria, for example, still bears bitter fruit in that country. And plus, there are lots of peaceful Muslims. So maybe it would be easiest and most politic to ignore, to passer sous silence, Islam’s role as a material element in the “horrific shooting” that took so many lives in Paris just now.

To do so might be easiest and it certainly is the most politically expedient, but the rank cowardice implicit in such a decision cannot fail to provoke outrage. The attackers left no doubt about what drove them, and they can cite scriptural sanction for their savagery: the Quran (33:61) warns that those who insult Islam – and, as riots in the Middle East over Danish cartoons in 2006 showed, satire, in the eyes of too many Muslims, equals insult — “shall be seized and slain (without mercy).” Salman Rushdie, despite a fatwa ordaining his murder (for his 1988 novel “Satanic Verses”), has so far escaped this fate; the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (for his film “Submission,” documenting violence against women in the Muslim world) was not so lucky.
...

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/08/we_must_stop_deferring_to_religion_laughable_absurdities_must_be_laughed_at/

[PeaceNikki]

1. Look at what Saudi Arabia does to liberal bloggers and others who oppose theocracy there

This is going on right now.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/05/07/world/middleeast/07reuters-saudi-activist-sentence.html?referrer=

DUBAI — A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced the editor of an Internet forum he founded to discuss the role of religion in the conservative Islamic kingdom to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes, Saudi media reported on Wednesday.

...

In a separate ruling on Tuesday, the court also convicted the administrator of a website on charges of supporting Internet forums hostile to the state and which promoted demonstrations, Sabq reported on Wednesday. It said he was sentenced to six years in jail and a 50,000 riyal fine.

...
Also in April, a Saudi court sentenced an unidentified activist to six years in jail on charges including taking part in illegal demonstrations and organizing women's protests.

Another was sentenced to three years in jail for spreading lies against King Abdullah and inciting the public against him.

This is the exact same ideology that spawned the attacks in Paris. Denying the involvement of the ideology is ridiculous and dangerous.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. It is misguided left-liberalism at its worst.

These fuckers are rightwing misgynist homophobic authoritarian thugs who bamboozle their followers using religious propaganda.

That could apply to Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu.... shitheads around the globe. We need to stop giving religion a free pass.

[PeaceNikki]

5. afuckingmen. There's nothing more dangerous than a monster who thinks he's right with his god.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

13. Or thinks they're smart to judge like God.

[cwydro]

18. Yes.

[m-lekktor]

11. exactly. nt

[ChisolmTrailDem]

4. Can't have thinking people messing around with the instrument of control. nt

[jeff47]

15. It's about power not ideology.

It's not about religion or ideology. It's about power.

There's not many people who will willingly sign up for a violent life to bring more power to sociopaths. This creates a large recruitment problem.

So they need to create recruits. That's a lot easier when Muslims are a despised and oppressed underclass. The attacks and these sentences are designed to create a backlash that brings about that oppression. That way they'll get a lot more recruits, and gain more power. Which will let them carry out more attacks, get more oppression, gain more recruits, and gain even more power.

If it was about ideology, they'd be attacking Iran. Images of Mohammed are extremely common in Shi'ite Islam. Only Sunni Islam bans them. You'll find Mohammed in an Iranian household about as frequently as you find Jesus in a Christian household.

But attacking Iran doesn't get them the backlash they need.

[notadmblnd]

28. but you know what the real kick in the head is?

The images of both Christ and Mohammad are not images of Christ or Mohammad. If those men ever existed in the first place, no one alive today can even begin to imagine what they looked like. So killing over supposed images of someone they think may have once existed are even more inane.

[LadyHawkAZ]

2. .

[jeff47]

17. Please show me the statements from the Pope and other

Christian leaders denouncing the murder of Dr. Tiller. Be sure to highlight how they do not differentiate their religion from the killer's.

[randys1]

6. The mistake we make is we defend religion for the sake of peoples feelings...

A. not ok to shoot people over religion

B. religion or tribalism which religion is a symptom of, is killing the society of human beings


My religion is the true religion, yours is crap...

etc


I will not go down the road of distinguishing one religion as worse than another...that will make this whole thing much worse.

[valerief]

7. Religion is a tool of the PTB to keep the masses in check. It will never be given up by the

people who run the world.

[Arugula Latte]

8. I think that was the very reason humans made up all this nonsense --

to control others, particularly women.

[valerief]

16. Men could always control women. They're bigger and hit harder. nt

[jwirr]

9. The immediate groups that do it. When the KKK attacks someone we do not blame all southerns.

When some poor person defrauds welfare it is not all poor. Throughout history there have been small groups that did a lot of damage. It was almost never the whole population.

[LostOne4Ever]

19. No we don't blame all southerners, but we do the blame southern culture that enables them.

[font style="font-family:papyrus,'Brush Script MT','Infindel B',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal] In nine days my state is going to celebrate this peace of crap:[/font]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_Memorial_Day

[font style="font-family:papyrus,'Brush Script MT','Infindel B',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal] There is no denying, that in the south, there is a culture (I am going to call it neo-confederate culture) that promotes and propagates these kind of thing. That culture needs to be condemned and replaced with one of tolerance.

Similarly, there are many religions that promote things like homophobia, racism, sexism and violence in their foundational text. In the same way that southern culture that promotes racism needs to be condemned until its replaced by a more inclusive and accepting culture, so too should bigoted religions.

Or, at the very least, until they remove and replace the bigoted passages in their books. In neither case is this condemning the whole for the actions of the few. Not every southerner buys into the neo-confederate culture, and not every adherent of a religion follows every passage of their books. But many do and that needs to be stopped. This is simply looking at what is motivating the few who are causing problems and critiquing that.

Neither action, condemning neo-confederate culture nor condemning religions promoting bigotry will end bigotry on its own, but they will move us closer to that goal.[/font]

[KittyWampus]

10. Not tarring all Muslims or Christians or any people of faith for extremist crimes of a few

is not being an apologist.

Nor does understanding CONTEXT.

Frankly, it seems to me there is an ideological contingent amongst the Left that is truly obnoxious and hovers around the edges of being hateful and/or racist without even realizing it.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

14. How tribalist.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

23. So is tribalism.

[mike_c]

22. +1

[m-lekktor]

27. exactly. it's the 21st century for fuck sake. read a damn science book. nt

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Gott mit uns

English: God With Us

Arabic: لله معنا

Hebrew: אלוהים איתנו

French: Dieu avec nous

Tajik: Худо бо мо

Russian: Бог с нами

Ukranian: Бог з нами

Bosnian: god s nama

Serbian: бог с нама

Croatian: Bog je s nama

Abraham Lincoln: "The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time."

[rug]

24. What's laughable is his sugegstion that going topless is the answer to sociopathy.

Sorry, hashtag activism – even the #WeAreAllCharlieHebdo campaign underway on Twitter – won’t do. To avert more deaths, we have to stand up in real — and sometimes risky — ways to noxious ideologies masquerading as salvific faiths. Pundits need to overcome their fear of being labeled “politically incorrect” and speak their minds. Politicians must come clean with their electorates and state, simply, “With Islam, we have a problem.” Better still, “We have a problem with religion. Let’s figure out how we are going to deal with it.”

Few are doing this now, but one group is — the topless protest movement Femen.

Among other laughable conclusions.

[HereSince1628]

25. Somehow I feel less terrorized by radical religion than those seeking security

and trying to scare me into submitting to security excess so I am forced to live in a society that has a religion accepted by the security apparat

[Warpy]

26. I will defend everybody's right to believe whatever nonsense they wish to

but I will never defend the nonsense, itself.

I find all religions to be ridiculous and damaging to the human spirit. I will never defend them.

However, don't expect me to attack people who believe in them. That's self defeating.

Humans have rights.

Religions don't.

[NanceGreggs]

29. One can respect ...

Last edited Sat Jan 10, 2015, 09:11 PM - Edit history (1)

... the religious beliefs of others without "deferring" to those beliefs.

I do not believe that Christ died on a cross to save men's souls. I also don't feel any necessity to laugh at those who do.

There is a simple course of action for those who have "a problem with religion": don't join one.

[Warren DeMontague]

30. Some sociopathic ass shoots people in CA, and it is the fault of #YESALLMEN and Seth Rogen movies

But heaven forfend anyone should suggest that religiously fundamentalist murders done by religious fundamentalists for stated religious fundamentalist reasons might be the fault of religious fundamentalism.