" 'Adultery' and 'apostasy' are acts which should not be considered crimes at all, let alone meet the international standard of 'most serious crimes' in relation to the death penalty. It is a flagrant breach of international human rights law,"While the Margaret Atwoods of the world worry about the Baptists enacting some horrible draconian theocracy here in the US*, it's actually happening in other corners of the world. I guess over there it's charming and ethnic and we shouldn't judge them by our imperialistic Western standards. Why, one person's flogging for an unapproved marriage is no different from another person's $15 ticket for jaywalking!
In the Tom Wolfe quote about that "great unexplained phenomena of modern astronomy: namely, that the dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe" one could substitute "theocracy" and "the Third World" for "fascism" and "Europe".
*Both atheists and believers want to feel oppressed here, because oppression is the coin of the realm in 21st century America and can be traded for valuable cash and prizes.
23 comments:
*Both atheists and believers want to feel oppressed here, because oppression is the coin of the realm in 21st century America and can be traded for valuable cash and prizes.
Tam wins the Internets!
gfa
Margaret Atwood is a moron, to wit: to the extent that "fascism" is being imposed on the people of the United States, the thought police are coming from the left, not the right. That said, I do enjoy her writing, for the most part, but the "1984" scenario, which is a left-wing scenario, is far more credible than "A Handmaid's Tale."
The dirty little secret seems to be that "Christians" love to promote sinfulness in order to have an ample supply of souls to save. I see more and more of this in all creeds, and it sort of confuses me. Then again, I'm not too happy with the actions of a lot of "Christians"
"one person's flogging for an unapproved marriage"
Only a flogging? That's some good lawyerin'!!!
Shootin' Buddy*
*not licensed in Sharia
Tolerance is a rather rare commodity in the world.
Gerry
@ Steve - I wouldn't say the left has a monopoly on thought police. In fact, the left has a lot in common with social conservatives. Both think you're too stupid to live life on your own terms, and only their benevolent efforts to make you forcibly submit to their belief system (gov't/religion) will save you from yourself.
-Drifter
The local Baptist church is unlikely to call for the public executions of anyone contradicting their church dogma. The youth groups aren't into explosive fashion accessories.
Therefore the Baptists are much safer to malign.
The state of the world is not that of tolerance, never has been, never will be.
It appears that if Christians are being flogged for adultery and hung for apostasy, the left is ok with it. Persecuting Christians is as welcome by athiests and the left as persecuting jews (non-rich, non-liberal jews in foreign countries) is.
Villifying some group, for some thing is what keeps the media spinning and the poswwers that be in power.
" Persecuting Christians is as welcome by athiests..."
You really don't even bother to think before dropping dumplings like that, do you?
...and then you went on to decry vilifying groups! I think my irony meter needle swung so hard it snapped the stop pin clean off the gauge face. LOL
Damn, Tam you have won the internets twice in one topic, with the Irony Meter statement.
Not us. Anyone who isn't should be vilified.
Victim hood is being elevated to a fine art thanks to lawyers and ever large judgements for victims against evil capitalists.
Just that now they do not know who the evil other side is, beyond themselves being the victim.
A pox on them all.
There are atheists who criticize Islam in addition to Christianity. Richard Dawkins has called it "an unmitigated evil" and Sam Harris has been similarly blunt about it. They've been attacked as expected, but anyone looking at the objective facts can see the extremes of Islam are more dangerous than the extremes of any other religion today.
Ok then. If we atheists are going to be accused of persecution, I demand lion pits for Christians.
I mean, if we are going to be accused of viscous behavior, I want to have the benefits of the entertainment.
"There are atheists who criticize Islam in addition to Christianity. "
Some even have blogs!
This is why I cling to my gun, as well as my religion.
I don't have a religion to cling to, so I took an extra helping of guns.
I'm glad you appreciate the irony most time I don't pull it off very well.
The thing I find hilarious about that quote is the implicit belief that "international human rights law" is worth the paper it mostly isn't written on.
"International law" and a dollar won't get you a cup of coffee.
Leftist are in favor of letting every civilization develop in its own way including Western Civilization ... but they believe they are the True Western Civilization and others are trying to hijack it.
To be even weirder, as I recall Atwood places the splinter religious state up in the Northeast, solid progressive Presbyterian and Episcopalian territory. The book references that they are actually at war with the Baptists, who are not doing the "biblical submission" thing.
IN THE Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage
For food and fame and woolly horses' pelt.
I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man,
And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.
Yea, I sang as now I sing, when the Prehistoric spring
Made the piled Biscayan ice-pack split and shove;
And the troll and gnome and dwerg, and the Gods of Cliff and Berg
Were about me and beneath me and above.
But a rival, of Solutré, told the tribe my style was outré—
'Neath a tomahawk, of diorite, he fell
And I left my views on Art, barbed and tanged, below the heart
Of a mammothistic etcher at Grenelle.
Then I stripped them, scalp from skull, and my hunting-dogs fed full,
And their teeth I threaded neatly on a thong;
And I wiped my mouth and said, "It is well that they are dead,
For I know my work is right and theirs was wrong."
But my Totem saw the shame; from his ridgepole-shrine he came,
And he told me in a vision of the night: —
"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
"And every single one of them is right!"
Then the silence closed upon me till They put new clothing on me
Of whiter, weaker flesh and bone more frail;
. And I stepped beneath Time's finger, once again a tribal singer,
And a minor poet certified by Traill!
Still they skirmish to and fro, men my messmates on the snow
When we headed off the aurochs turn for turn;
When the rich Allobrogenses never kept amanuenses,
And our only plots were piled in lakes at Berne.
Still a cultured Christian age sees us scuffle, squeak, and rage,
Still we pinch and slap and jabber, scratch and dirk;
Still we let our business slide—as we dropped the half-dressed hide—
To show a fellow-savage how to work.
Still the world is wondrous large,—seven seas from marge to marge—
And it holds a vast of various kinds of man;
And the wildest dreams of Kew are the facts of Khatmandhu
And the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban.
Here's my wisdom for your use, as I learned it when the moose
And the reindeer roamed where Paris roars to-night:—
"There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
"And—every—single—one—of—them—is—right!"
- Written by some ignorant, bigoted dead white male in a more barbaric age.
gvi
Come on, Tam, defend us lawyers against bigots like Paul too! ;-)
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