This episode, Ryan joins me as we talk about my experience with visiting JW’s, and a special “God talks” segment, as well as the book “infidel”.
With the glory days of Islamic enlightenment a long and distant memory, the only thing it seems this religion can muster is violent outrage these days. If it isn’t a piece of shit Imam claiming that all freethinkers should be prosecuted and jailed, it’s a bunch of religious thugs stirring up violence in order to remove any rivals. In Bangladesh, a country of some roughly 140 million Muslims, the outrage caused by the non-movie The Innocence of Muslims has given people an excuse to act out their violent opposition to other religious faiths. They’ve traded hurt feelings for burnt temples, as thugs set fire to 40 Buddhist temples, injuring 20 people (though luckily it appears that no one was killed). All they needed was the accusation of a Buddhist child having desecrated a Qur’an for the violence to erupt. It really is that easy to get them riled up.
Of course, it’s irrelevant the accusation turned out to be complete garbage: the fact remains their religious insecurities and insanity are a potent enough combination that one only needs to create a spark for this pile of rubber tires soaked in gasoline to be set ablaze. And rather like this noxious combustion, Islam seems poised to continue this campaign of terror, all under the false pretense of ‘hurt feelings’.
As some of you might remember back in 2006 with the Dutch cartoon controversy, the images of Muhammad had been out for some time before violence erupted. It was only when a few influential mullahs got their hands on them that the problems really began. And just like that situation was merely an opportunity for certain individuals to gain more power (and for others to gain an early ticket to oblivion), so too will the outrage industry of Islam continue to oppress other minorities, masking their systematic attack on other faiths as expressions of humiliation or marginalization. It’s time to see through this deception, and hold the people who exploit the insanity of this fucking religion accountable.
When you believe in a dogma without question, odds are you’ve managed to find fertile ground for your racist, sexist, or bigoted ideas. Like this South African man who apparently forgot apartheid wasn’t quite over:
A Muslim police officer in Johannesburg says his religion does not allow him to share a toilet with black colleagues, according to a report on Wednesday.
“I am a Muslim and they need to consider my religion. I have to sit when I urinate and I cannot use a dirty toilet. People are narrow-minded and I am a committed Muslim.”
While I’m not a fan of Islam, there isn’t even a theological justification for what this man is saying. He’s just simply a racist d-bag who happens to think everything Mohammad said was the word of God (except for the times when Satan was talking to him), and he wants validation for his shitty behavior through religion.
Don’t you also find it telling the way he tries to turn it around and accuse everyone else of prejudice? This strategy is pretty common in religious circles. These clowns think their beliefs make them a ‘race’, and it’s therefore racist to speak out against their unverifiable claims about the universe (Jews and Muslims make this accusation so often, it’s lost all meaning anyway). It takes guts to tell someone that they have no true understanding of what the word ‘race’ even means. What do you expect when you believe in things without evidence (or even in direct conflict with it)?
What do you do when your uppity, independent minded 19 year old daughter has the gall to refuse an arranged marriage with a stranger twice her age? Why, you burn her with a hot spoon, that’s what! What better way to preserve your cultural heritage than by torturing your loved ones into submission. Hey, isn’t that what Islam means?
Yusra Farhan won’t be winning any “Mother of the Year” awards, especially considering this isn’t the first time she’s been caught abusing her daughter. In Feb 8th, the whole troop was arrested after they tied the poor girl (who has not been named) to a bed and beat her mercilessly after she was caught talking to a boy. Since this violates their “Iraqi culture”, they decided that the best way to solve the problem was through ritualistic abuse. You know what they say: families that commit felonies together, stay together.
Remember last year when 24 people died because a US pastor made a public display of burning the Koran? Despite President Obama begging the guy not to do it, Pastor Terry Jones held a mock trial for the book, found it guilty of 3 crimes against humanity and set it on fire. Huge protests erupted in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and like every crazy protest in these countries, a bunch of people got killed.
So despite everyone on Earth knowing how insane Muslims are regarding their fucking book, a bunch of NATO soldiers were discovered burning a few copies themselves. Admittedly, there was no malice in the burning; just the regular disposal of garbage. Of course, nothing done over there is ever simple, and when the locals discovered the fact that their shitty little book was getting cooked, they collectively lost it. Religious fundies were quick to stoke the flames, and the protest has spilled over to Pakistan (always looking for an excuse to burn American effigies, I suppose). So far, 2 foreign advisers have been killed (both by a armed Afghan police officer) and a number of protesters who tried to bomb a UN compound.
President Obama publicly apologized for what happened, but I have to wonder when we’ll stop feeding their insanity. The Koran is just a book; and like all religious tomes, it’s nothing but a collection of falsehoods and pointless platitudes. The fact that we continue to condemn any destruction of this book furthers their assumption that the Muslim faith is superior. Why else would the most powerful man on earth apologize for a few having been singed?
This week, Carisa joins me as we talk about the Westboro Baptist church getting hacked, the burning of a Koran in Afghanistan, and the Richard Dawkins / Archbishop of Canterbury debate.
It takes guts to stand up for what you believe in when you live in a repressive country. While we in the West enjoy the freedom to post nude photos of ourselves whenever we want, there are some countries – in this case Egypt – where doing so can get you in a lot of trouble. It was in the spirit of protest that Aliaa Magda Elmahd posted naked pictures of herself on her blog to highlight the fact that the country has no artistic representations of the female form. With Mubarak out of power, the country is in turmoil as the “liberals” try and fight off the growing power of religious fundamentalists, and Aliaa’s nude posts has divided a nation that is still struggling with deep rooted Islamic “values”
Her move comes as Salafis have been pushing their attitude that women should be kept out of the public eye, promoting Saudi Arabia-style segregation of the sexes. On Salafi parties’ campaign banners, photos of the few female candidates are replaced by drawings of a flower.
It’s no mystery that Islam has a serious problem with women’s bodies, and their sexuality in particular (why else would you smother them in a giant bed sheet?). As far as they are concerned, women should be out of the public eye and remain both submissive and ignorant. Aliaa’s moves has made the liberal camp nervous. Conservatives were quick to accuse liberals of corrupting morality, and while they’ve tried to distance themselves from her, the very values they espouse makes it difficult to condemn. This is still a country where women wear headscarves and almost never show off any skin. To display one’s naked body is tantamount to pornography there.
It’s difficult to ascertain how this will play out, but I worry for the safety of this young women. Honor killings are not uncommon in Egypt, and she’s already received threats on her life. No doubt some violent young man would like nothing more than to make an example out of her. I fear that the cost of such bravery may be too high.
Every so often, I hear someone claim that honor killings have nothing to do with Islam. While it’s true that the practice is actually older than the religion (it is, after all, the “new kid on the block” compared to the other two Abrahamic Religions), it seems as though this barbaric ritual has found fertile ground in this religion. While the practice has its roots in much older Arab patriarchal societies that tried desperately to control women’s reproductive rights, it’s now become a kind of punishment for any perceived infraction of their twisted morality.
Take the story of 17 year old Rand Abdel-Qader as an example: this young women had the misfortune of falling in love with a British soldier stationed in Basra, and when the family found out about the infatuation (the innocence of which cannot be overstated), they teamed up to strangle her to death and left her body in an unmarked shallow grave. Her father’s only regret now is that he did not murder his daughter while she was still an innocent child:
‘Death was the least she deserved,’ said Abdel-Qader. ‘I don’t regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,’ he said.
‘I have only two boys from now on. That girl was a mistake in my life. I know God is blessing me for what I did,’ he said, his voice swelling with pride. ‘My sons are by my side, and they were men enough to help me finish the life of someone who just brought shame to ours.’
If you’re hoping for some kind of happy ending to this story (like this shitty father being incarcerated for murder), then I’m sorry to inform you that the cops were congratulating him for having the balls to kill his own child. The worst they’ve done is fire him from his job, although the local government official did give him money to lay low in Jordan for a while. Isn’t it nice to know you have the support of your community when you’re an infanticidal, religious douche bag?
If you’re planning to take a pilgrimage to Medina, you might want to make sure that you’re practicing “Islam” the way the locals want you to. That’s a lesson a Canadian Imam by the name of Usama Al-Atar learned rather painfully, as he was singled out from a prayer group, strangled, beaten, and then taken to jail.
According to CTV, he’s been released, but details are extremely sketchy. The police claim that he assaulted someone, but according to witnesses, the religious police found his praying to be “inappropriate” and quickly mobilized to silence him.
Let’s remember that Saudi Arabia is still the only country on earth where women aren’t allowed to drive or vote (although this is supposedly changing in 2015). Typically, this isn’t a very positive sign. Are we really that surprised that they would also mistreat foreign visitors, accuse them of crimes they didn’t commit, then lay bogus charges on them? What the fuck did this guy expect when entering one of the most religiously conservative countries in the world?
I hope this serves as a lesson for any other Muslim thinking of travelling to the country for a pilgrimage: in their eyes, you’re probably worshiping wrong, and they’re going to do something about it.
It’s hilarious how most Muslims are convinced that their restrictive religious repression of women is somehow intended to protect them. You hear this all the time in Islamic countries; they think we let our women “run around unprotected” while they “bravely” restrict every part of their lives in the misguided belief that it’s really all for their own good. The culture of Islam makes women seem like dangerous, seductive weapons that cloud the judgement of men. Why else would they execute victims of rape, if not to vindicate the idea that it is always the woman’s fault for seducing the rapist in the first place?
In the light of this prism, the slavery of women is viewed as an extension of man’s submission to God, but as the old adage goes: ladies first! Rebelliousness, seen in any light, is to be extinguished, as was the case with actress Marzieh Vafamehr, who found out herself living out the plot of her new movie “My Tehran for Sale“. The scenario involves a young woman struggling to live in a country of contradictions, where young people live secret lives together in a brutal religious theocracy. This important movie is currently being distributed on the sly, since the country has banned it.
According to an interview with the director of the movie, the government sought a number of bogus charges, including failure to cover her hair with a hijab, consuming alcohol on set, and being part of the production (she wasn’t). The sentence is the kind of thing you’d expect from a theocratic and misogynistic society: 90 red-hot lashes and a whole year of rotting in jail, all for the “crime” of acting in someone else’s movie. Considering the number of women that often fail to survive the aftermath of such unnecessary brutality, I hope she’s made of tougher stuff.
The contradictory nature of Iran is why there are really two pictures of this place: one filled with young women who live out their lives in a secret world that resembles our own, and the other populated by religious thugs who patrol the streets looking for these secret places. When these worlds clash, the only ones to bother talking about it tend to be Persian Christian Missionaries operating out of the Alpharetta, Georgia. Their presence there only exacerbates the situation of course; religion is precisely the problem in Iran. Another faith is hardly the solution.
We have to ask ourselves what we can do ourselves to expose the evils of this religion outside of the sphere of influence of Christianity. It’s our duty to see that the injustices of any faith are given the proper attention they deserve. Until we do, how can we continue to claim the moral high ground?
Ok, here’s the skinny on this video before you watch it: In 1989, Salman Rushdie released his most famous work, “The Satanic Verses”, which sends the Muslim world into a major spaz attack. To capitalize on this, “International Guerrillas” was born. The film revolves around three brothers united by their hatred of the blasphemer who set out to destroy Rushdie. The video above is the climactic scene where God smites him down with the power of the Koran. Pay careful notice to how hilarious everything is.
It’s funny to note that the movie was almost banned in the UK. Rushdie himself opposed the use of blasphemy and libel laws to try and censor the film. Gotta love the guy.
We cover a huge range of topics, from Evangelicals trying desperately to reconcile science and faith, to Muslims in Indonesia doing a little ‘house cleaning’. B
Sharia: providing a framework for the subjugation of women for over a thousand years, and with the help of misogynistic clerics, perhaps a thousand more! Hey Australia, that’s the second time in two days that you make it on my site. Not a good sign…
NOTE: I’ve been informed of the low reliability of this so-called “news” program. I wonder, is it owned by Rupert Murdoch by chance?
Here we see a glorious display of nationalism, xenophobia and religious division. There’s nothing like showing up to your neighbor’s house, chanting “Death to Arabs” while waving a gigantic Israeli flag. Is it any fucking wonder why the Middle East is still a gigantic shit-hole? Maybe it has something to do with all these assholes about.
I love whenever people start making specific claims about their magical play-land in the sky. Did you know you’ll be able to finally drink all that wine your local mullah told you was forbidden? Good thing you never bothered to actually try the stuff when you were alive…better to wait until you’re dead to enjoy the little pleasures in life.
I think the Muslim concept of Heaven is by far the most provincial. It’s quite obvious that a group of repressed desert people made it up. The rest of us couldn’t give a rat’s ass about rivers of honey and wine that doesn’t make you drunk (what is it, Synthohol?). And if there’s no such thing as jealousy in heaven, why the fuck do you need all your women to be virgins? Sounds like some pretty serious sexual insecurity there…
Did anyone like the sexy lady who called believers “idiots”? What did you think of the religionists trying to argue that belief in God is the same as our trust in currency? Hilarious.
