I’m offended by not applying the rule of law equally to each and every citizen.
I’m offended by all claims that religious laws are above human laws.
I’m offended by adult human beings taking pride in believing things that they have no evidence for.
I’m offended by people claiming that a person can be both religious and moral.
I’m offended by people thinking it’s their right to intellectually cripple their children by brainwashing them into the religion of the parents’ choice…
“The Mayor of Moscow says there are no plans to build a new mosque in the city, and says the ‘excessive’ number of economic migrants was a ‘harmful thing’.
“It has turned out that the praying Muslims are not at all Russian citizens and they are not Moscow residents. They are labor migrants. There are only 10 percent of Moscow residents among them and building mosques for everyone who wants it – I think this will be over the top,” Sergey Sobyanin said in an interview with Moscow’s Echo radio.
The top city official went on to say that “Muscovites now get irritated by people who speak a different language, have different manners, with aggressive behavior. This is not purely ethnic, but this is connected with some ethnic traits,” Sobyanin said.”
Read the rest here…
We have been told, over and over, that ‘Halal meat’ is the ‘lowest common denominator’ for all peoples: that is, that serving ‘Halal meat’ does not infringe the sensibilities (religious or otherwise) of non-Muslims while serving non-Halal food does….the logical conclusion being that serving Halal meat is the best course of action.
Indeed, in the UK, many have bought into this line of reasoning, including many schools. They no longer offer a non-Halal meat option. Indeed, many supermarkets in the UK offer Halal-slaughtered meat only – without labeling it as ‘Halal meat’ or ‘Halal-compliant-meat’ or ‘Halal-slaughtered-meat’.
However, serving/selling Halal meat is not as ‘universally acceptable’ as many Islamist lobbyists would like us to believe…even if we were to leave out the implications of the rules required for ‘Halal certification’, which violate our hiring/labour laws based on not discriminating on the grounds of relgion when hirin workers, as in order to maintain ‘Halal’ certification, only Muslims and/or Muslim supervisors are permitted.
When I was doing a little bit of research on this, I discovered that ‘Halal-certified meat’ could, indeed, be problematic.
The first group to be strictly forbidden to consume ‘Halal meat’ my research encountered were the Sikhs….who are very strictly forbidden from consuming ‘Halal meat,’ indeed.
It would appear that there are two distinct, both important, doctrinal reasons for the prohibition.
Here are the references:
- Sikhs.org – Sikhs.org/meat
- this source adds a third reason – ‘sovereignty’
- even Wikipedia has some info on it: Prohibitions in Sikhism (Not that I consider Wikipedia to be an authoritative source – I included it to demonstrate that this is a well known principle of mainstream Sikhism and does not just represent the position of some obscure fringe sect.)
The Sikh method of animal slaughter is called ‘Jhatka‘. It is very clear that Halal meat cannot be Jhatka meat and Jhatka meat cannot be Halal meat, as described in one of the references cited already above (first bullet). They are, by definition, mutually exclusive.
What I found interesting while doing this research is that meat-eating Hindus are strictly prohibited from eating Halal meat. The references found are not deeply scriptual, but they do demonstrate this is a widely held belief: here and here.
Here is a news report that demonstrates that Buddhists also find the consumption of Halal meat problematic on doctrinal grounds.
Needles to say, secular humanists are very strongly opposed to the consumption of Halal meat because of the extreme cruelty of the method of slaughter. Here is just one example.
What is interesting is that when I was poking around on the internet, I have found a curious twist to things: in both the Old Testament and in the Apostolic Letters of the New Testament, there are clear and strict prohibitions for Christians on the consumption of all sacrificial meat. As all Halal meat is, indeed, sacrificial meat by the virtue of the prayer chanted over them as they are slaughtered (this is indeed the Sikh and Hindu interpretation, as well), some of the better-informed, or, perhaps, more doctrinally-adherent Christian sects are, in fact, interpreting this to mean that Christian scriptures strictly forbid the consumption of Halal meat.
In conclusion, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhist and Christians are doctrinally forbidden from consuming Halal meat and secular humanists tend to avoid it on animal cruelty grounds.
Thus, any and all claims that ‘Halal meat’ ought to be the ‘default’ or ‘lowest common denominator’ for serving food in schools or other institutions, or that it is not necessary to label ‘Halal-slaughtered-meat’ as ‘Halal-compliant’ or ‘Sharia-compliant’ in our restaurants and retail stores is an obvious violation of the freedom of religion provision of our constitution – and, as such, cannot be permitted and/or tolerated.
After all, each and every one of us deserves the right to make a choice – an informed choice – about the food we consume.
It is our constitutional/common-law right – now let us make sure our governments require the proper labeling so that we can, indeed, make the informed choice our constitutional/common-law rights give us!!!
While most of the world only took note of the destruction of pre-Islamic religious objects in regions controlled by hardline Islamists when the huge Buddha statues in Afghanistan were destroyed, this has been going on for a very long time.
It is indeed the example set by the Prophet Muhammed himself to destroy all religious and/or cultural items that pre-date Islam in all the regions his followers controlled in order to erase the pre-Islamic cultural history and affirm ties only through the Umma – the ‘family of Muslims’.
It is therefore not surprising that as the Islamist spring spreads mayhem and destruction throughout northern Africa, pre-Islamic historical sites would become victims of this cultural as well as ideological and physical invasion:
‘RABAT — Stone carvings in Morocco’s High Atlas mountains dating back more than 8,000 years and depicting the sun as a pagan divinity have been destroyed by Salafists, a local rights group said on Wednesday.
…
“One of the carvings, called ‘the plaque of the sun,’ predates the arrival of the Phoenicians in Morocco,” Anghir said.
…
Late on Monday, one of Tunisia’s main Sufi mausoleums was burned down in an overnight arson attack, seemingly the latest in a spate of attacks on unorthodox Sufi shrines by the country’s increasingly assertive Salafists.
In northern Mali, which is close to Morocco, radical Islamists have destroyed ancient World Heritage shrines they consider idolatrous since seizing control of the region earlier this year.’
Sad.
So sad…
It drives me crazy when people engage in an honest discussion with me and, quite a while later on, we figure out that we are using the same words but intending different meanings for them!
It is impossible to have a meaningful exchange of ideas if we cannot define common labels to apply to those ideas.
This seems pretty basic and clear, but unless we are disciplined enough to define all terms prior to any debate or discussion, chances are we will fall into this trap.
And yes, of course, there are ‘weasels’ out there who intentionally twist words during the discussion in order to score cheap points.
And yes, of course, there are specific ‘weasel words’ some people use to intentionally obfuscate points and fudge discussions for whatever reasons they have.
But that is not what I am talking about.
I mean honest people, meaning to have honest discussions with each other, but not getting through to each other because the labels we use do not apply to the same ideas or principles – or apply to them in a different kind of a sense.
For example, the concept of what constitutes ‘murder’ is not universally understood the way we, in The West, define it: the unnecessary killing of another human being during peacetime.
For example, the Yanomamo people of South America considered ‘murder’ to be the killing of any living being which was ‘of their village’. So, the killing of a chicken or a dog that lived in one’s village was ‘murder’, but killing a human being who was not a member of their village was ‘killing’, but certainly not ‘murder’.
Now, the Yanomamo are matrilinear but patriarchal and so young boys go to live with their mother’s brother’s family – usually in a different village than into which they were born. When such a child first arrives into the village, they are in great danger: if the rest of the community does not accept them as ‘members of the village’ – for whatever reason – they will be killed (only click this link if you are willing to see this most vile and despicable practice!)
Brutal, but true…
Similarly, in ancient Rome, it was not ‘murder’ for a father to kill his children or cause them to be raised as slaves in unrelated families…
I suspect this Roman tradition is either the reflection of or the source of many cultural traditions where the father has absolute power over his family and it is not considered ‘murder’ for a parent to kill their offspring.
This is certainly the case under Sharia – Islamic law – which specifically states that a parent who kills their offspring is not guilty of murder.
This is important when we want to discuss the horrible, despicable practice of ‘honour killings’… it is not so much that all ‘honour killings’ are Islamic, but rather that the Islamic ‘honour killings’ are part of this tradition which is definitely seen as far back as Ancient Rome.
In most ‘traditions’, this is a cultural phenomenon only. It is something that can be altered through laws and education and, eventually, cultural change. And, while this practice had been widespread at one time, it has been greatly reduced through these means among Sikh, Hindu and Christians groups that once practiced it openly.
In Islam, because it has been codified into Sharia and because most Muslims recognize Sharia as superior to man-made laws, it is much more challenging to combat this practice.
It is a bit tricky, but, please, let me explain…
As many of us have been shouting as loudly and clearly as possible, it is Muslims themselves who are the greatest victims of Sharia.
Because, under Sharia, anyone who is an observant Muslim is obligated to kill anyone they see as ‘apostates’: those who have turned away from ‘true Islam’. So, if a child is seen as having left the true path of Islam, it is both obligatory to kill them as ‘apostates’ and it is not punishable, if it is a parent killing their offspring.
But, it goes further than that…
Under Sharia, it is not considered ‘murder’ to kill a non-Muslim – any time and under any circumstances. ‘Murder’ is only the ‘unlawful’ (under Sharia) killing of a Muslim: and it is lawful to kill a Muslim if he or she murders a Muslim, OR commits adultery, OR turns away from ‘true Islam’.
Just like Christianity, Islam demands that their religionists must ‘love’ god more than they love any family member, it is not difficult to see how what we, in The West, term ‘honour killings’ are believed (rightly or wrongly) to be not just permitted, but downright obligatory under Sharia.
Of course, there are some Islamic scholars (especially of the Shia schools) who believe that it is they, not the family, who should administer the ‘honour killing’. But this is more of a dispute over power, not substance…
Please, keep the above in mind as you watch the following video, which supplies the relevant quotes from Sharia to support the above statements:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGtXO0MytmI&feature=colike
While checking out Reddit, I came across this post:
‘I’m planning on telling my parents that I’m an atheist. I live in a Muslim country, so you can guess that they’re Muslim. I need help with some points though. Things said in the Quran that are definitely wrong, like that Noah talked to ants (ants do not talk, they use chemicals to communicate.) and such. The more you know the better. I need to know things that Islam got wrong. Muslims say that Muslim women have tons of rights, and I want to prove them wrong. Help a guy out will you.’
All the comments – at least, when I read it, I’m sure more will be posted soon – advised against this,if the young writer wants to live…
At last, people are finally understanding that in Muslim countries, there is no ‘freedom from religion’. It’s a first step, but an important one and I am glad to see that people do know this and understand that the existential danger to atheists in Muslim countries is very, very real.
I don’t know how to help this one individual.
But, I do realize that if we do not stop the stealthy creeping of Sharia into our societies, we, too, may face this fate.
Sooner than we are willing to admit…
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 