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Egyptian MP Hamdi Fakhrani: I Was Beaten Up by President Morsi’s Supporters
July 12, 2012 — xanthippaA duly elected member of the new Egyptian government appeals the President’s decision to the courts for a fair ruling: for this, he is attacked by a mob of Islamist Muslim Brotherhood thugs who tear his clothes and, had the police not intervened, would have torn him to pieces.
This does not bode well for the future lives of regular Egyptians…
The Arab Anti-Islamist League Presents an Iraqi Anti-Islamist Black Metal Band
July 12, 2012 — xanthippaMeet JANAZA and their ‘Burn the Pages of Quran!’
Touted as the first Iraqi woman-fronted black metal band – politics aside, it’s actually good music.
Anahita, who fronts the band, was recently asked via a Facebook interview:
What would happen to her and her compatriots if religious authorities discovered their actions?
“A simple answer. They would kill me, and kill all of my friends, by cutting off our heads.”
From the same article:
She’s not alone in her fight. Seeds of Iblis (“Iblis” is an Arabic word for the Devil) features five men and one other woman besides Anahita herself (Epona, who has also spent time in the now-defunct black metal band False Allah) who handles the vocals and lyrics, and released their first EP, Jihad Against Islam, in 2011 via French label Legion of Death. This band is even more unrelenting, crafting songs like “Sex With Muhammad’s Corpse” and “Inverted Hilal.” One of the band’s guitarists, Yousef, pulls double duty in Tadnees, another virulently anti-Muslim outfit who, together with the aforementioned projects, style themselves as part of an “Anti-Islamic League.”
Music is an effective way of spreading ideas, and ideas are the best weapon against all forms of dogma.
Plus, it’s good to see that at least some places, culture is still playing the important role of holding a mirror up to society!
H/T – BCF
Brian Lilley and John Robson on Free Dominion & Freedom of Speech
July 3, 2012 — xanthippa
OK, John Robson is as close to a genius as it gets – in non-science fields, that is…
Thomas Sowell is even closer – he is as close to divine as you can get without having to surrender your ‘atheist’ identity!!!
Help the Fourniers pay their legal costs: if you are reading this over the internet, you are benefiting from the legal fights they have already won…
AronRa: ‘Faith is not a virtue’
June 21, 2012 — xanthippaThis video is interesting for several different reasons.
Yes, I do agree with most of what AronRa says in this one.
The only exception I take is to his claim that circumcision gives some protection against the transmission of AIDS. Yes, there are studies that ‘conclusively’ show this. But, there are just as many studies that just as ‘conclusively’ show that this is not so. All studies, however, show that wearing a condom does work…
…and I think that it is better to err on the side of caution when it comes to incurable deadly diseases. Still, if people wish the protection of circumcision as well as a condom, when they are old enough to give informed consent to it and they pay themselves for it, I have no problem with any cosmetic procedure.
After all, self-ownership is the cornerstone of our civilization!
The reason this video is important is not just because of the reasonable things AronRa says (and that he looks rather good saying them), and not because of how he says them (he is a much better speaker when he does not deliver a prepared speech but rather when he speaks unscripted), but because of the attitude the theists in the audience display as well as the demonstration of theist sentiment in the video that AronRa shows.
It is difficult to describe just how visceral the hatred many theists feel toward atheists – and feel completely righteous in expressing – is.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to shut them up.
Let them spew.
But really – saying that if my beliefs don’t match theirs, I should be raped?
Suggesting all atheists should be hunted down and killed?
We are not talking about some uneducated Islamists – these sentiments were expressed by American Christians…
OK.
An orthodox Jew, a moderate Muslim and an archetypal polytheists (someone who believes all gods exist – as fairy-tales) walk into a bar.
What happens next?
The Jew and the Muslim unite against the atheist in a ‘theological’ debate.
This is not a joke – it happened to me. The moderate Muslim was Salim Mansur. We were all celebrating the launch of Salim’s most excellent book, ‘The Delectable Lie’.
Sure, everything was very friendly and good humoured – but, it still did not take long for the two monotheists to set their differences aside and unite against the atheist. (To be perfectly honest, I am nowhere near as good at verbal arguing as either one of these two intelligent, educated men… Mind you, since then, I have thought of really, really awesome things I should have said! AHA!)
OK, these guys had their fun, but they were very, very nice to me.
They were not like the typical theists one meets.
Somehow, I suspect I have had more than my ‘fair’ share of ‘scary’ experiences.
I have ‘bunny-hopped’ a tank once – because my Aspieness got me manipulated into trying to drive one when I was 12-years-old. Really, I just mouthed-off to the ‘wrong’ ‘many’-star general (because I did not ‘get’ it) it a totalitarian country – all my friends later admitted they thought I was going to be either sent to re-education camp or expelled from the exclusive language school as a result.
I have been stopped in the street and interrogated by the police – in a totalitarian police state – for not having my ‘documents’ …when I was too young to have been issued ‘documents’.
I have escaped from a totalitarian police state across a closed border.
I was less than 15 meters from a live shoot-out battle between two criminal elements within the UN refugee camp where I was staying. There were fatalities.
I was stalked – twice, by very different men in very different circumstances.
I was physically attacked by attempted rapists, three times (twice by someone whom I knew, once by a group of strangers). I had to fight my way out, each time. (Twice I did so unharmed, once I got off easily with just a torn-up shoulder – it still pops out of its socket at the slightest provocation! Well worth it!)
But, never in my life have I felt as unsafe, as physically threatened, as when a neighbour manipulated me to go to her Pentecostal Church and the ‘congregation’ saw me – singled out – refuse to ‘accept Jesus into my heart’!!!
Truly, this was the most frightening thing I have ever experienced.
At the risk of sounding pretentious, I suspect I understand how Hypatia felt in the last moments of her life. (This NOT, in any way, a comparison of me to Hypatia: it is the comparison of the fear we both felt as we faced a crowd of homicidal theists on her part and almost-homicidal ones on my part!)
I kid you not.
I could face a bullet.
I could beat up a bunch of thugs.
I could face down stalkers.
I can defend my honour against attempted rapists.
But faced with such a large crowd, whipped into a mob mentality by their preacher, so sure in their ‘righteousness’ and so pitiless towards ‘unbelievers’ – I knew that if something tipped them just a tiny bit further, I was dead.
It was palpable!
It was then that I knew what being hated not for ‘who I was’, but for ‘what I was’ was like.
So, yes – I do believe the theists – Christian, Muslim or whatever other religion – when they say that they will kill me, if they get a chance.
Not every theist is this way, of course not.
But way too many are.
The religion itself is much less important than the sense of self-righteousness it conveys onto its adherents!
It is my profound conviction that without the religious teaching that it is righteous and God-pleasing to exterminate ‘the unbelievers’, these men and women would never have abandoned morality in favour of threatened or actual mob violence – and felt good about doing it!!!
And this is demonstrated in this video:
This ought to make religions think twice about hiding pedophile predators!
June 18, 2012 — xanthippaThe recipient of this legal smackdown – to the tune of almost 23 million USD – are the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
In a precedent setting ruling, Candace Conti was awarded 28 million USD – 7 is damages and 21 punitive. (The Jehovah’s Witnesses are to pay the 21 million in punitive damages and 40% of the 7 million in damages.)
‘A substantial part of her allegations dealt with claims that the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York (the organisation that oversees the Jehovah’s Witnesses) had adopted a policy in 1989 that instructed congregation leaders to keep child abuse allegations secret. This meant that when Conti’s abuser from the 1990s, Jonathan Kendrick, was convicted in 2004 of molesting another girl, the elders at the North Fremont Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses did nothing to prevent him coming into contact with other kids at the church.’
Of course, he re-offended – and the ‘Church’ is being punished for not taking precautions as well as for not having revealed his history when he did eventually molest another child.
I suppose that making them financially accountable is the only way these organizations which hide behind piety and enforce silence on their congregation through ‘eternal blackmail’ will sit up and start paying attention!
We are not as gullible as we used to be!
We will not permit pedophiles to pray on children, just because they pretend to be ‘closer to god’ than the rest of us!
And, we will not let organizations hide pedophiles just because they play the ‘religion’ card!
As a matter of fact, let’s go a step further: let’s let people believe whatever batpoop-crazy stuff they want, but let’s hold those who profit/make their living from marketing it live up to the same consumer protection laws that every other commercial entity has to.
If you can prove the claims about your product (that would be your dogma) – continue to sell it.
If not – then let’s call fraud a fraud.
While you’re at it – start paying your fair share of taxes on your highly lucrative commercial enterprises!
And if you don’t think that religious organizations are highly lucrative commercial enterprises, then I have this bridge here I’d like to sell you. It’s a great deal: you pay me now, get the bridge after you die!
Oh – and here is an afterthought: stop mutilating your children in the name of religion! It is NOT your religious right to violate the bodily integrity of another human being!!! (Plus being this obsessed with your kids genitals is seriously creepy – please, seek professional help!)
(Sorry – pedophiles make me angry. Organizations that hide, protect and enable them make me angrier… People who mutilate their own kids in the name of their own religion – they make me about as angry as angry can get!)
Muslim Brotherhood in America – the course
June 17, 2012 — xanthippaIt is difficult to understand the impact of much of the news we hear if we lack the context in which to evaluate it. While I have educated myself on Islam and even early Middle Eastern history in order to better understand the cultural context which gave rise to this major world religion.
Still, this does not mean that I understand all the intricacies of the modern network of Muslim organizations. Without understanding this, how can I recognize the difference between truly moderate Muslim voices (whom we need to help be heard) and shameless fronts for Islamists?
The ‘litmus test’ I usually use is ‘Sharia’: Muslims who have attempted to escape Sharia tend to be moderate voices of reason while Muslims who support Sharia, by definition, wish to impose their religious views onto their neighbors…. This may be a good ‘rule of thumb’, but it does not help me understand the complexities of the various Muslim organizations in North America.
Here is something that might help get one started: a 10-part course about the history and activities of Muslim Brotherhood in America.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Part 5:
Part 6:
Part 7:
Part 8:
Part 9:
Part 10:
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 