Sharia-conform blood diamonds

Ah, unreason. The other name for faith, bigotry and hate. Consider this:

There is no doubt that the word ‘sharia’ carries huge challenges in relation to public relations. If you talk about anything [related to] ‘sharia’, the first vision people get is chopping off of people’s hands, having four wives and all sorts of unusual practices which, in today’s world, are not compatible with the values which we live by.

So far, everyone would agree. The problem: thus begins a staunch defense for Sharia law. How is that possible? There’s a reason we associate Sharia with chopped-off hands, misogyny and homophobia: because Sharia law is exactly that. This isn’t even a matter of contention – it’s documented in the Quran, Sunnah and Hadith, and actively fought by major Human Rights Organizations. Just like Christian or any other religious law, Sharia law is highly immoral. A pig’s a pig, no matter how much lipstick you put on it. It boggles the mind how grown, educated people manage to add One plus One, and arrive at Lalateen.

It’s fitting, then, that the person who uttered above quote is UK’s Minister of Unreason, Baroness Warsi. She attacks the problem of Sharia’s bad reputation from the wrong direction. Instead of trying to correct what’s wrong, she wants to make Sharia law more acceptable in the UK by tapping into Sharia-conform finance.
This comes from the same woman who is on the record as bemoaning that Islamophobia had “passed the dinner-table test” and become socially acceptable in the UK. Yet she sees no problem when expressedly barbaric, misogynic and homophobic Sharia law does pass the same test.

To be blunt: Sharia-conform financing is the ethical equivalent of purchasing blood diamonds. It’s advancing morally corrupt and unacceptable behavior. It’s unfathomable how Warsi can’t see it.

Now, Warsi admittedly isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. But is it really that much to ask of a member of a country’s government that they perform some gross error checking before speaking up? She’s starting to make american ex-governess Sarah Palin look good.

Atheist are Bigots

In a public interview for Al Jazeera TV, Mehdi Hasan, political director of The Huffington Post UK, talked with Professor Richard Dawkins about religion and non-belief.

A segment of the interview produced some controversy. Dawkins was surprised and visibly baffled by Hasan’s admission that he believed that Mohammed flew to Heaven on a winged Horse. Literally, not as a metaphor. To Dawkins, who treasures hard truth over pleasant fiction, this is incongruous with the idea of being a rational journalist. He voiced that opinion, and on a related incident a few month later, even tweeted it. That kicked off the controversy

For example, The Guardian’s Andrew Brown took issue with Dawkin’s tweet, calling him an ill accomplished clown and bigot.

But why do so many people react harshly to Dawkin’s comment?

Because he is spot-on.

Many people feel caught in their own intellectual dishonesty, and are afraid that they, too, might become exposed to ridicule. Brown, for example, makes money writing religious books. He has a lot to lose if he admitted that he wasn’t believing stupid things.

Dawkins wrote,

A believes in fairies. B believes in winged horses. Criticize A and you’re rational. Criticize B and you’re a bigoted racist Islamophobe.

Indeed. If your personal brand of insanity has the majority, it’s safe to label the sane minority ‘bigots’.

Exorcise this!

Oh, boy. Bishops and Stupid surely seem to go together like Nitro and Glycerine. The result is an equally explosive mix of hate and bigotry. After the Bishops of Limburg and the Twin Cities, Springfield Bishop Thomas John Paprocki has gone off the deep end.

In his frothing-at-the-mouth homily he exorcises the evils of same-sex marriage.

What is it with religious dimwits that keeps them up at night worrying about what other people are doing between the sheets?

What kind of neurosis compels someone to write the following dreck:

“I’m not saying that anyone involved in the redefinition of marriage is possessed by the devil”

Indeed – and I’m not saying Paprocki is a professional liar and child molester.

On his way to orbit, already high as a kite, he mentions in an aside that, anyway, his homily is just a minor exorcism, not a major one. But just what’s the difference between a major and minor exorcism? It’s like differentiating between Bigfoot and and the Bogeyman. Seriously. What’s wrong with you, Bishop?

Paprocki grouses on:

“Another major deception or distortion of marriage is the view that it is not ultimately about generating life, but rather is mainly about a romantic relationship designed for individual (not even mutual) fulfillment.”

Of course a catholic priest who can’t have sex nor marry would say something as stupid as that. Bishop: Sex is ultimately about generating life. Marriage is exclusively about social life.

But let’s be honest. Paprocki begins his homily by showing his hate credentials, trying in advance to shift the blame:

“It is not hateful to say that an immoral action is sinful.”

No. But it is hate to say that homosexuality is immoral. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about your concept of sin. Stop being a homophobic hate monger and start being a decent human.

Good, god-fearing citizens one sunny day in the US…

Here’s a picture of a bunch of devout, god-fearing and upstanding citizen who have gathered on a sunny Thursday in August 1959 to do good.

A pity that they are – by today’s standards – committing hate crime

Little Rock integration protest

If there is an image that documents the absurdity of a religion’s claim on absolute morals, it is this.

Image credit: US Library of Congress

Warning: Religion can be hazardous to your health

In NGNG I wrote

“your religion is a cruel, terrible, and sometimes deadly joke on you”.

If you need proof for this, look no further than today’s story of a teenager who suffers from a life-threatening disease (Hodgkin’s) and refuses life-saving treatment because of the twisted, sick religion that his parents and priests poisoned his mind with.

Here we have a young man who is ill, who needs help, and whom his community abandoned because they are willing to sacrifice him on the altar of their superstition: Jehova’s Witnesses. To sum up, this particular Christian sect was invented in the 1870s; it believes that the ‘end of days’ has already happened in 1914 (they have to, otherwise a holy prediction of theirs from 1877 would be false), that the end of the world is imminent, and – which is relevant here – they are opposed to blood transfusion.

As a boy he was so heavily indoctrinated by his parents that today he refuses life-saving blood transfusions. Since he’s only 17 and legally a minor, a court ordered the treatment be forcibly administered – at least until he turns 18 in January 2014. Given the history and level of brain washing this youth has undergone I think it is likely that he’ll die soon after his coming of age.

Now, cynics may argue that we really shouldn’t bother: grant his wish now, and put him on the list for a Darwin Award (posthumously awarded to people who removed themselves from the human gene pool by means of stupendous stupidity). But this is really a tragedy.
Our society has failed to protect this youth. I believe that Religious Freedom must be curtailed when it endangers an innocent’s life. Now, even though I am against religion, I still think that Freedom Of Religion is one of society’s highest social achievements, so I do not say this lightly. Everyone should be free to do to themselves as silly as they wish.

Yet, brainwashing an impressionable child into self-sacrifice for a religion should be a crime. Telling a child that basic modern medicine is harmful is a morally bankrupt act of religious selfishness. You may believe it, but your child suffers the consequences. Society must step in and prevent this cruelty.

A crime was committed. The boy’s parents and his priests are the perpetrators. They should have been stopped when there still was time.

Ours is a guilt of omission.