Stoned to death. In the 21st century. And she was three months pregnant. And Pakistan has about 100 nuclear weapons. Think about that. What if fanatic, populist, fundamentalist Muslims of the sort that stoned this woman for “family honor” attain the highest reaches of power in Pakistan and decide that national or religious honor is at stake in a crisis with India (which also has about 100 nuclear weapons)? Nuclear stones disintegrate all bones. Given that we’re an irrational, violent, and territorial species, we’ve been darn lucky that nuclear weapons haven’t been exchanged between nations already. The article below is a grim reminder of just how precarious our collective situation continues to be. Steeled emotionally to the doing of any deed deemed righteous, lacking all sense of proportion, offended in honor, sure you’re on the side of God, sure the afterlife exists, and in possession of weapons. Not good.
Prometheus Unbound 
It’s so interesting to see how far you’ve come from, “Talk to a Muslim Day.” Or maybe I’m imagining some changes in perspectives regarding Islam that aren’t actually there.
Why can’t I be worried about fundamentalist Islam even as I am friendly with more moderate Mulsims? Every Muslim that I know personally in the Los Angeles area is moderate in views and behavior. I lunch with them, I work with them. Islam has a good deal of diversity locally. It’s important to encourage moderate strains of religious cultural behavior wherever it is found. But I’m right to worry about Islam in Pakistan because the country is a nuclear power and its populist versions of Islam are anti-rational, isolationist, and lacking in pragmatism. The populism that the military there keeps from gaining full power may not always remain sidelined. That’s worrisome. But even relatively conservative Islamic behavior in, say, Turkey, while not a happy situation, is a cultural phenomenon that needn’t be a source of panic. It’s manageable. Conservative Islam has been around for 1500 years. It’s not going away. It makes good sense to cultivate good relations with people wherever you can. Kindness breeds kindness.
This has nothing to do with religion. It has everything to do with ignorance and mysogyny. This sort of thing happens everywhere, don’t be fooled. A girl was stabbed to death by her parents right here in the United States because she went to work at McDonald’s.
Congratulations, that’s the most callous and ignorant thing I’ve read in several weeks. Was this McDonald’s employee 3 months pregnant? I guess that the theists are only in support of fetuses when their host is not violating some religious law.
To compare two kinds of stupid ass crazy and say ‘oh well’ is incredibly callous. We’re killing each other for very stupid reasons, religion being one of the more stupid reasons.
Yes, when people have the wrong idea about God, then religion is stupid. But then again, it’s not always religion that’s the cause of problems. Why did secular governments like the Third Reich, the Soviet Union, North Korea, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, commit atrocities? atheists always ignore this fact. It’s so much easier to blame religion and continue believing the false and absurd notion that atheism can do no wrong.
This is why I love being a godless right winger. The notion of “communism or theocracy, pick on!” is just laughable on its face to people like me.
@conservative and free
Your assertions here ignore the fact that religion claims the high ground. Everyone can be stupid… only religion can be stupid and claim to know the only truth. So, while you try to equivocate you forget that religion already claims the high ground of being morally right. The rest of us get to sit back and laugh at how stupid that is because everything that religion does which is morally reprehensible sticks out like a sore thumb. Anyone else is pardoned or not having morals because they didn’t claim to have them to start with. Do you see what I’m getting at here? Yes, we all make mistakes and judgement errors. It is religion that claims to be right. That stupid ass crazy can be compared.
That’s not true, that only religion claims the higher moral ground. Secular humanism does too. “they didn’t claim to have them (high morals) to begin with”. Yes, they do. It seems to me you haven’t listened to the leftist political discourse lately. They claim to have the highest morals on their side with the legalizing of “gay marriage” and opposing “discrimination”, a term which they make up as they go along.
It’s laughable that you are not aware of the self-righteous nature of the progressive left.
And yes, socialists and Communists also claim to have the highest moral ground, helping the workers who supposedly live in poverty, stopping oppression, and so on.
andrew,
You don’t have to choose between communism and theocracy. I didn’t say that. I don’t want a theocracy either. It would become corrupt and end up like the socialist garbage we have now.
To acknowledge God as the source of justice and truth, is not theocratic. The founding fathers acknowledged God, they even said that our rights come from God, “endowed by their Creator”, and they didn’t want a theocracy.
As for being a “godless right winger” 🙂 you have my respect and alliance. But you should know that this is what got us here in this mess, in the first place. Conservatism without God and Christ. It failed because it just claimed to be moral and right, without acknowledging the source of that morality and righteousness. Also, many people one hundred years ago, just went through the motions, but they didn’t believe or understand why they supported some things and opposed others. It was just the right thing to do, socially speaking.
@conservative and free: what in the world makes you think that politics and morality have anything to do with each other? You can’t possibly be serious. Religion claims to be the seat of morality and politicians pretend to be moral by feigning religious belief… neither group having actual morals of worth.
Theists toss morality around like a game of 52 pick-up and choose which cards they want to call moral but you say others are making up the definition of discrimination as they go along. Seriously, you need to wake u p and smell the coffee.
There is a big difference between killing your daughter and being arrested for it, and society encouraging you to kill your daughter.
There’s a case of a woman in Sudan, who was sentenced to 100 lashes and the death penalty, because she married a Christian man. Meriam Yahia Ibrahim, just gave birth to her second child, in prison. Her husband is also from Sudan and an American citizen. An Islamic sharia court considers her guilty of apostasy and they don’t recognize her marriage to a Christian man. There was a report on CNN about it. I can’t find the link right now. You might want to post something about it, santi.
It’s shocking to hear of stoning women, but unless we deal with the real source of the problem, all our opposition to it, is in vain.
The point that everyone here is missing, is why stoning people is still happening in Islam.
In order to understand that, you have to look at the biblical background of stoning, and stoning as a part of monotheistic cultures and religions, although it’s also found in other religions as well, maybe not to the same extent.
You also need to ask the question, How come Christians don’t stone people anymore? In fact, they stopped this practice more than a millennium ago, long before the modern era.
Santi, you said in “Four hundred Scripture verses that contain anti-semitism”, among other things, that the New Testament is anti-semitic because it declares Judaism void and no longer valid, as a religion. It declares just certain aspects of Judaism as being no longer valid or legitimate, not everything. The New Testament and most Christians, recognize some aspects of Judaism as still valid and important. I think Judaism still has some validity before God, in some aspects. But I also believe that there are aspects which are definitely void and should no longer be practiced.
Stoning people for certain sins, is one of them. The reason that is void and should no longer be practiced, has to do with God and His salvation plan, more than it has to do with modern legislation and acceptable norms. But you guys don’t want to hear about God’s salvation plan from a biblical perspective, you could care less about that, and as a result you’re stuck with a moral dilemma.
You want Christians to say that Judaism is still valid, and yet you are against stoning. But if Judaism would still be valid, then stoning is perfectly legitimate, because it’s part of the Jewish religion, it’s in the Torah.
When Jesus came as the Messiah, he declared the “Acceptable Year of the Lord”, see Luke 14:16 to 30.
The acceptable year of the Lord means the grace period in history, in which we are living. It started at Calvary and it ends at the Second Coming. During this time of grace, God is no longer applying the death penalty by stoning or any other means, for certain sins. Instead, He’s giving everyone, including Jews, the chance or opportunity to repent, receive Jesus as the Savior, and start a new life, in a relationship with God.
Now, what’s so antisemitic and terrible about that? You claim to be a thinker, then THINK before you jump to silly conclusions.
Also, another practice in Judaism that is no longer valid, is animal sacrifices. Since Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for the atoning of sins as the Lamb of God, see John 1:29, then it only makes sense that God wanted animal sacrifices to stop. And they did stop, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, in AD 70.
Speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem, you also attacked the authors of the New Testament books for that reason, because they believed the destruction of Jerusalem was God’s judgment on the Jews. Actually, even the authors of the Old Testament books believed the same thing, when they mentioned the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians! It was Jehovah’s judgment on a rebellious nation. Does that make them anti-Semitic, too? : ) LOL
You don’t see how ridiculous and false your statements about “Christian anti-Semitism”, are? …
I’m not saying there is no antisemitism in Christianity, there is; but to blame all anti-semitism in the world on Christianity and the New Testament, is absurd. It’s either ignorance or ill-intent.
Alright, let’s get back to animal sacrifices. Hassidic Jews still want to offer sacrifices today, but they can’t, because they don’t have a temple anymore. God made sure that they wouldn’t start the sacrificial system all over again, since He offered Jesus Christ as the final and perfect sacrifice. And He did that through historical circumstances. God allowed a Muslim mosque to be built on the Temple Mount, to prevent Jews from starting the animal sacrificial system again. It makes perfect sense.
Are you going to tell me, this is anti-Semitic, too?…
The rejection of Jesus as Messiah and his sacrifice for sins, causes many people to have the wrong idea about God’s expectations when it comes to morality and how to solve moral problems. That’s why Muslims still stone people and are very harsh and unforgiving. Their religion is like that because it rejects Jesus. And rabbinical Jews are not very far off. If Israel was controlled by Orthodox Jews, they would stone people just like Muslims.
I think you can see why the sacrifice of Jesus is so important, for all of us.
Hebrews 10:8, 9, 10
Head over to “Four hundred antisemitic verses in the Gospels” and read something about Marx’s anti-Semitism. Marx was an antisemite. If some of you didn’t know that until now, this may come as a shock.