Wahabis have repeatedly threatened to burn down the house of Shamil and Madina Yakubovs from the Dagestan village of Krasnooktyabrskoye, after phrases from the Koran began appearing on the body of their nine-month-old son.

“They found it only unnatural that Allah showed his signs through a boy born in a family of a police officer! Wahabis consider us kafirun (the unbelievers – IF),” Magomed-Kadyr, the boy’s grandfather said as quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda daily on Monday.

According to him, their house was approached by a Gazel car in broad daylight, which brought a group of armed Wahabis. They demanded to show them the baby. Then they left threatening to come back. After that, Said Murtazaliyev, head of the district, provided them with a group of six security guards.

A “miracle” baby has brought a kind of mystical hope to people in Russia’s mostly Muslim southern fringe who are increasingly desperate in the face of Islamist violence.

From hunchbacked grandmas to schoolboys, hundreds of pilgrims lined up this week in blazing sunshine to get a glimpse of 9-month-old baby Ali Yakubov, on whose body they say verses from the Koran appear and fade every few days.

Pinkish in color and several centimeters high, the Koranic verse “Be thankful or grateful to Allah” was printed on the infant’s right leg in clearly legible Arabic script this week, religious leaders said. Visiting foreign journalists later saw a single letter after the rest had vanished….

Up to 2,000 pilgrims from Russia’s 20 million Muslim population come daily to see the docile, blue-eyed baby, whose pink brick house has become a shrine.

Holy crap. Two thousand people a day come to see this little paragon of foolery? I wish these people would use their brains.

Thomas Paine figured it out long ago: “Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course, but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time; it is therefore at least millions to one, that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.”

Update: Here’s a picture. As other commenters mentioned, it looks like dermatographia or someone simply scratching the poor child:

Hmm, I wonder why I didn’t make many friends?

Thankfully I didn’t attend a church quite as bad as the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainsville, FL which has been sending their students to school with t-shirts that read “ISLAM IS OF THE DEVIL” in large print on back:

More children from the Dove World Outreach Center arrived Tuesday at area public schools with shirts bearing the message “Islam is of the Devil” and were sent home for violation of the school district’s dress code when they declined to change clothes or cover the anti-Muslim statement on their clothing.

What if a Muslim students started wearing shirts that said “Christianity is of the Devil”? Christians would be having conniptions about how they are being persecuted and how they would fear for their poor little fundie kid’s lives. I see now that the school district staff attorney had the same exact thought, which makes me like him already.

On Monday, a 10-year-old fifth-grader at Talbot Elementary was sent home because of the shirt. On Tuesday, two Eastside High students and one Gainesville High student were sent home and a student at Westwood Middle had to change clothes because of the shirt, according to members of the Dove congregation.

Dove Senior Pastor Terry Jones said no local company “had the guts” to print the shirts. Dove member Wayne Sapp said he then ordered the shirts over the Internet from a company that allows individuals to design their own shirts. His daughter, Faith Sapp, 10, was the Talbot Elementary student sent home Monday. She said she was allowed to wear the shirt to school on Tuesday – with the Gospel message on the front visible but the anti-Islam message on the back covered.

Wayne Sapp’s daughter, Emily Sapp, 15, was the student sent home from Gainesville High on Tuesday. Both Faith and Emily Sapp said it was their decision, not that of their parents, to wear the shirts to school in order to promote their Christian beliefs. Emily Sapp said the “Islam is of the Devil” statement was aimed at the religion’s beliefs, not its members….

Jones said that, to him, spreading the church’s message was “even more important than education itself.”

This pastor sent his 10 year old daughter with this shirt on. I think that says all I want to know about him.

Do you think these types of t-shirts should be allowed in public schools?

I don’t.

Marwa Ali El-Sherbini moved to Germany in 2005. In Aug 2008, a man (Alex W.) shouted abuse at Marwa at a public playground, calling her a terrorist and a slut because she was wearing a head scarf. The police arrived and Alex was charged with defamation. During his trial Alex said that “people like her” were not real humans.

Later in an appeal court, Alex W. attacked Marwa and stabbed her at least 16 times. When her husband tried to protect her, the man stabbed the husband 16 times. There were no security personnel there, and when a policeman finally came, he misidentified the attacker and shot Marwa’s husband instead of Alex.

Marwa died at the scene and her husband was critically injured. Marwa was three months pregnant.

Some of the mourners didn’t help the problem with this, though:

“There is no god but God and the Germans are the enemies of God,” chanted the mourners, while others carried banners condemning racism.

It’s a sad tale of religious intolerance and racism. It didn’t get very much attention in the West, but it should have — this kind of behavior is despicable.

Can we please have a representative of the Flying Spaghetti Monster there? Because

Anyway, it sounds harmless enough. But Islamic leaders, surprise surprise, are offended:

“Doing something like this for the sake of ratings is disrespectful to all religions. Religion should not be a subject for entertainment programs,” High Board of Religious Affairs Chairman Hamza Aktan told state news agency Anatolian after news of the planned program emerged.

The show makers disagree:

“We are giving the biggest prize in the world, the gift of belief in God,” Kanal T chief executive Seyhan Soylu told Reuters.

“We don’t approve of anyone being an atheist. God is great and it doesn’t matter which religion you believe in. The important thing is to believe,” Soylu said.

Wait — they don’t approve of anyone being an atheist? What a bigoted thing to say. If I said, “I don’t approve of anyone being Jewish,” I’d be called anti-Semitic. Yet people can say that about atheists, and no one thinks twice — and most nod their heads in agreement.

Then he claims that “it doesn’t matter which religion you believe in.” Why not? Why is it “important” to just believe in God? If their God is Yahweh, then all the Muslims go to hell. Or if their God is Allah, then all Christians go to hell. Seems like it would be important to get your religion right if their God existed!

But the most amusing part is that they will have “a team of theologians” to “ensure that the atheists are truly non-believers and are not just seeking fame or a free holiday.” How, exactly, would they do such a thing? Lay hands on you and make sure they feel the presence of Satan?

How utterly ridiculous.

Historically, both Christianity and Islam have been pretty cruel and evil when they control nations. I’d rather have neither.

I found his campaign promises amusing:

Mozouni said he would ban computer games and raise wages of male parents so that mothers do not have to work.

Mozouni has also promised to pass a law that lets women have jobs only if they have had babies for at least five years.

He said he would also negotiate with US President Barack Obama to buy Hawaii Islands and move Israelis there so that Palestinians can live peacefully in their lands.

When asked if he knew what yellow cake — a substance used for nuclear fuel — was, Mozouni said, “A president does not have to know everything.”

I’m really surprised they didn’t let him run — he sounds like an ideal candidate for over there.

(via)

1. Embrace Your Anger — “You were lied to. You were betrayed. You were fooled. You have the right to be angry.”
2. Get Over Your Regret — “Kick yourself in the ass a few times. Mourn everything you lost. But pick yourself up and get on with it. You already wasted time — don’t waste more drowning yourself in your sorrows.”
3. Hold Steady — “Create a support network, and try to stay away from intense debates with Muslims.”
4. Be Cautious About Religion — “Even if you still believe in some sort of god or gods, you should probably take it easy with religion, at least for a while. Otherwise, you may be setting yourself up for a pattern of devotion, disillusionment, and disbelief.”
5. Life Your Life in Color — “Life without Islam can be a marvelous, beautiful thing. I urge you to take the opportunity to do things you couldn’t or wouldn’t do before when and how you can.”

If you’re interested in Islam and how to help those who are recovering from its clutches, be sure to read the whole thing.

Afghanistan’s only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats, because people are worried it could infect them with the virus popularly known as swine flu.

The pig is a curiosity in Muslim Afghanistan, where pork and pig products are illegal because they are considered irreligious, and has been in quarantine since Sunday after visitors expressed alarm it could spread the new flu strain.

“For now the pig is under quarantine, we built it a room because of swine influenza,” Aziz Gul Saqib, director of Kabul Zoo, told Reuters. “We’ve done this because people are worried about getting the flu”….

“Influenza is quite contagious and if it passes between people and animals then there’s no need for the pig to be here,” zoo visitor Farzana said.

A Saudi Arabian judge has refused to overturn a ruling that declared the arranged marriage of an 8-year-old girl to a 47-year-old man legal, a relative says. 

The judge, Sheikh Habib Habib, ruled for the second time Saturday in Onaiza that the girl’s marriage to a friend of her father’s was legal and binding. He said the child wife could file for divorce once she reached puberty, CNN reported.

Why would a parent arrange such a marriage? “The girl’s father arranged the marriage with his ‘close friend’ to pay off a monetary debt.”

Sounds like child prostition to me.

Which is downright biblical, of course. I wonder if the Koran has something similar:

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please her master, who designated her for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed; he shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt unfairly with her. (Exodus 21:7-8, NRSV)

It’s a wonder people can read that and still think the Bible is our “absolute standard of morality.” Thankfully, we’ve progressed beyond the crude morals of ancient holy books.

Well, at least in some places.

Some worshippers are said to be anxious about the validity of their prayers.

Can you imaging believing that your prayers might not be heard because a building was slightly misaligned? Good grief! Do they really think an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise God would care about such a thing?

So what is to be done about this odious blasphemy?

There have been suggestions that laser beams could be used to make an exact measurement.

I have a better idea. Maybe they could get a bunch of Muslims to pray in the right direction, and see if Allah will fix the direction of their mosques. Or do they admit that their prayers, even when facing the right direction, can’t do anything in the real world?

Officials assure their sheep that everything is fine, their prayers were heard:

Tawfik al-Sudairy, Islamic affairs ministry deputy secretary, downplayed the problem in remarks quoted by the pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat.

“There are no major errors but corrections have been made for some old mosques, thanks to modern techniques,” he said.

“In any case, it does not affect the prayers.”

Though the 57 nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a bloc which also dominates the UN’s Human Rights Council, have been lobbying for the move since 1999, the signs this time are that the resolution could well be made binding. While the resolution calls for protection against “defamation” of all religions, it only mentions Islam by name.

The resolution deems offending Islamic sensitivities a “serious affront to human dignity” which could lead to “social disharmony”, “violations of human rights” and “incitement to religious hatred in general and against Islam in particular”. If passed, the resulting binding resolution would find its way into various UN documents all of which would require that UN member states at “local, national and international levels” start restricting the free speech of citizens to prevent public criticism of religious beliefs, particularly Islamic belief.

This is something both atheists and Christians can oppose together. For atheists, it means we would be unable to speak our minds about Islam. For Christians, it would mean the inability to preach to Muslims or criticize their religion. For ex-Muslims, it would mean being unable to speak openly about past experiences — even in non-Muslim countries. If this resolution was passed, it could be a massive blow to freedom of speech and thought.

Freedom of speech is a two way street. Muslims can’t use it to preach their religion and criticize other religious beliefs, yet have their own religion closed to criticism.

If we value truth, nothing should be closed to criticism. As Thomas Jefferson said, “Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.”

No one should ever be silenced or jailed for questioning or criticizing ideas. We know where that leads — just look at the Middle Ages. When it comes to freedom of speech, modern Christianity and Atheism is often on the same side — we both value freedom of speech and religion (or from religion).

Yet Islam seems to be curiously unsupportive of this freedom. “In thinking about Islam,” Sam Harris said in The End of Faith, “and about the risk it now poses to the West, we should imagine what it would take to live peacefully with the Christians in the fourteenth century—Christians who were still eager to prosecute people for crimes like host desecration and witchcraft. We are in the presence of the past.”

Update: The proposal has been rejected by the UN. Score one for reason and liberty! James Randi writes:

Proposals that would have banned “defamation of religion” were formally rejected by United Nations international bodies this week…. The proposal failed to earn sufficient votes in the UN General Assembly to become a binding resolution, and it will not be on the agenda at the next conference, slated for Geneva in April. Doubtless, it will be again proposed in the future, as zealots seek to promote their discriminatory agendas….

The basic principle of freedom of speech, conscience, and expression – so far as the UN is concerned – has been once again upheld.