(from Calamities of Nature)

Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri condemned terrorism and criticized Islamic extremists who cite their religion to justify violence.

Ul-Qadri’s 600-page fatwa is “arguably the most comprehensive theological refutation of Islamist terrorism to date,” according to the Quilliam Foundation, a London organization that describes itself as a counterterrorism think tank.

“Terrorism is terrorism,” ul-Qadri said at a news conference hosted by the foundation. “Violence is violence. It has no place in Islamic teaching, and no justification can be provided to it …”

I’d be interested in Mathurine’s take on this, but I’m guessing that this man is in a different sect than the terrorists, so they won’t care what he says. Probably something like the Pope issuing a decree about Protestants — amusing to Protestants but in no way binding.

I hope it does some good, but unfortunately I doubt it will. They’re just arguing over what a holy book says, instead of appealing to the fact that it’s just wrong to blow other people up and they wouldn’t want to get blown up themselves.

But I guess some people need the threat of hell not to blow people up, huh?

It’s difficult to take oneself with sufficient seriousness to begin any sentence with the words “Thou shalt not.” But who cannot summon the confidence to say: Do not condemn people on the basis of their ethnicity or color. Do not ever use people as private property. Despise those who use violence or the threat of it in sexual relations. Hide your face and weep if you dare to harm a child. Do not condemn people for their inborn nature—why would God create so many homosexuals only in order to torture and destroy them? Be aware that you too are an animal and dependent on the web of nature, and think and act accordingly. Do not imagine that you can escape judgment if you rob people with a false prospectus rather than with a knife. Turn off that fucking cell phone—you have no idea how unimportant your call is to us. Denounce all jihadists and crusaders for what they are: psychopathic criminals with ugly delusions. Be willing to renounce any god or any religion if any holy commandments should contradict any of the above. In short: Do not swallow your moral code in tablet form.

This is off-topic for a blog which is primarily a place of theological discussion, but I felt it might be an interesting topic to discuss. I have some experience of working with military people, I have a lot of military friends.I have admired almost all of them as good, honest people — so my heart sank considerably when I read this paragraph:

“In 2003, in a survey of female veterans conducted by the University of Iowa, funded by the US Department of Defense, 30% of the 500 female veterans interviewed reported an attempted or completed rape.”

The full story is available on the BBC website for those who wish to read it, and I recommend that you do.

This issue should be causing a massive public outcry — and yet this is the first time I’ve ever heard anything about it. Of course, this is a story about the US military and I’m in the UK; I’m not going to comment one way or the other about whether I think the situation crosses over between armies — because I simply don’t know.

I know people in both sets of militaries, though, and I have no reason to view them particularly differently in terms of their characters and attitudes. What it has occured to me to wonder, though, is this: Is this being reported in US news media? Are the likes of CNN, Fox and CBS giving this issue the air-time it deserve?

I’ve encountered issues in the past where people from overseas seem to have more information than people in the country concerned (and this is not a dig at America — it happens everywhere), and have often felt uncomfortable about the news media effectively becoming the censors of what we know (or think we know). This story brought the issue to life sharply, though, because when I googled Marti Ribeiro and the issue of rape in the military, I found absolutely nothing in the mainstream media except for this short story on the BBC and some very old stories about individual cases, one on the CNN website and one on Reuters.

Am I mistaken? Is Fox News even now wheeling out Skeletor Coulter to decry these women as liars? Is CNN, “World’s Most Important Network,” sending in reporters dressed in khakis as honey-traps? Or are we really being denied information because the news media would rather take the easy option and raise hysteria about tea-baggers instead?

Turkish police have recovered the body of a 16-year-old girl they say was buried alive by relatives in an “honour” killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys.

The girl, who has been identified only by the initials MM, was found in a sitting position with her hands tied, in a two-metre hole dug under a chicken pen outside her home in Kahta, in the south-eastern province of Adiyaman.

Police made the discovery in December after a tip-off from an informant, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported on its website.

The girl had previously been reported missing.

The informant told the police she had been killed following a family “council” meeting.

Her father and grandfather are said to have been arrested and held in custody pending trial. It is unclear whether they have been charged. The girl’s mother was arrested but was later released.

Media reports said the father had told relatives he was unhappy that his daughter – one of nine children – had male friends. The grandfather is said to have beaten her for having relations with the opposite sex.

A postmortem examination revealed large amounts of soil in her lungs and stomach, indicating that she had been alive and conscious while being buried. Her body showed no signs of bruising.

If these people were atheists instead of religious, do you think they would have done this?

Also, what do you think the consequences should be for these people?

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said some of the children have parents who are alive. The government is attempting to locate them. He says a judicial system needs to determine whether the Americans were acting in good faith – as they claim – or are child traffickers.

The Baptists are mostly from Idaho. They have been held since being arrested on Friday trying to enter the Dominican Republic with the children.

Haitian officials yesterday said they are considering sending the group back to the US for prosecution. Haiti’s court system was crippled by the earthquake on 12 January, which destroyed the Justice Ministry building in the capital, Port- au-Prince, and killed many government workers.

Since their arrest on Friday near the Dominican border, the Americans have been held inside dingy concrete rooms in the same judicial police headquarters where ministers give disaster response briefings. They have not yet been charged. A lawyer representing them alleged yesterday that they were being treated poorly and that one of them, a diabetic, fainted and was taken to hospital. Attorney Jorge Puello, in the Dominican Republic, said they were not being given adequate medical care and food.

I liked Cynical-C’s response:

Not being given adequate medical care or food? Why not? It’s not like there was a major natural disaster in an already poor country or anything. Can’t missionaries kidnap non-orphans anymore without all this red tape?

I think these folks were probably trying to do what they thought was right — help children in terrible conditions. They obviously went about it the wrong way, however. Their parents could be looking for them, and it would make them impossible to find if they were adopted to someone in another country without their knowledge.

This quote is disturbing:

One nine-year-old girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.’ And she thought she was going on a summer camp or… something like that [when she was taken].

So it appears they lied to the children to get them to go along with them.

Do you think these missionaries should be charged? Or released?

Update 2/4: They have been charged with kidnapping.

A 16-year-old girl who was raped in Bangladesh has been given 101 lashes for conceiving during the assault.

The girl’s father was also fined and warned the family would be branded outcasts from their village if he did not pay.

According to human rights activists, the girl, who was quickly married after the attack, was divorced weeks later after medical tests revealed she was pregnant.

The girl was raped by a 20-year-old villager in Brahmanbaria district in April last year.

Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper reported that she was so ashamed following the attack that she did not lodge a complaint.

Her rape emerged after her pregnancy test and Muslim elders in the village issued a fatwa insisting that the girl be kept in isolation until her family agreed to corporal punishment.

Her rapist was pardoned by the elders. She told the newspaper the rapist had “spoiled” her life.

“I want justice,” she said.

(via)

It has been my complete and utter delight to hear from these people and discover that they are among the kindest, most supportive, most thoughtful people I have ever had the pleasure to receive emails from in my life. I mean, they had to go to some trouble to find my email address and write out a nice letter of encouragement and they don’t even have Jesus in their hearts! It truly borders on the miraculous. And I don’t even believe in miracles anymore!

She has also opened up comments (with moderation) on her blog. So go share with her the love of His Noodleness!

Here are some excerpts from her apology:

1. I apologize to all the homosexuals. I am sorry that I believed in a religion that condemns you. [...] I am sorry that when I no longer thought the bible was right about homosexuality being a sin, I did not raise a gigantic stink about it every Sunday right in the middle of the sermon… week after week after week…  until the church issued a restraining order against me and I could no longer come within a hundred feet of the sanctuary.

2. I apologize to everyone on the face of the earth that has not accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior because I believed that you were all going to hell.

3.  I apologize to all my former Sunday school students because I taught you that the bible was the word of god.  I perpetuated a myth that the bible is a special book that should be regarded ‘much more highly than it ought’. [...] I apologize for always referring to god as a ‘he’, thereby further anthropomorphizing a pretend deity and making you think ‘he’ was real and decidedly masculine. I apologize for teaching you to think that you were a sinner and that Jesus had to die for you when you are really just a beautiful child, perfect in every way from the minute you were born (except for when you aren’t).

I apologize for telling you that Jesus conquered death and that you should put your trust in him when there is not a shred of evidence of the resurrection except for what is in the bible.  I apologize for not respecting your intelligence and glazing over thorny issues and rationalizing all the bullshit that is so present at all times in ‘god’s word’.  (I apologize for saying bullshit in this apology).

I apologize for ever calling the bible ‘god’s word’.  It isn’t ‘god’s word’.  It’s just a book.  There are a lot of other much better books.  There are books that helped humanity move beyond misogyny and slavery and tyranny.  There are books that led to scientific discoveries which led to medicine and helpful machines and made the world a better place.  None of those books are in the bible. [...]

I apologize for not telling you that the bible and christianity are two of the main reasons that it took people so long to move from tyranny into democracy, from slavery to human rights, from cruel religious mandates to civil law.  I hope someday you will figure that out for yourselves in spite of what I taught you.

4. I apologize for giving money to the church. I apologize for helping to support and pay for a building that stands empty six days a week.  I apologize for giving my hard earned cash to pay an enormous utility bill on a mostly empty church building.  I wish I would have given all that money to alleviate real human suffering.

5. I apologize for believing all sorts of mad things that are seriously messed up and incredibly hurtful to my fellow humans. Things like god causes the sins of the parents to punish the children and the grandchildren (which some christians use to explain birth defects).  Things like excusing the extra creepy stuff in the bible (slavery, misogyny, genocide) based on ‘historical context’ instead  of just insisting that it was wrong back then and it’s wrong now.

6. I apologize to my kids for being a passive aggressive christian mom.

7. Finally, I apologize for allowing my faith to numb my response to the problems of the world.

For all these things I am truly sorry and I most humbly repent…

AND plan to make changes, repair damages and do the hokey pokey and turn myself around.

Those are just the highlights, make sure to read the whole thing! It’s always enjoyable to read someone who is seeing things from a new perspective and the passion that results from that. Plus, she’s funny.

In a shocking incident, two persons outraged the modesty of a 50-year-old widow and shoved stone pebbles inside her private parts at a village in Banka district on Saturday.

The accused persons suspected the victim practised witchcraft and “killed” a six-month-old baby by her “black magic” at Gangti village under Goradih block in neighbouring Bhagalpur district. [...]

She said about five months ago, the six-month-old daughter of Anil, a resident of Gangti village under Goradih block, had died of some unknown disease. Suresh, a village “ojha”, had then alleged that the widow is a witch and the baby died because of her black magic. Following the allegation, she was thrashed and threatened by Anil and some other villagers.

Very sad. I wish people were better than this.

Here are the advantages in donating through them:

1. 100% of your donation will be go to these charities: not even the PayPal fees will be deducted from your donation, since Richard will personally donate a sum to cover the cost of these (capped at $10,000). This means that more of your money will reach the people in need.

2. When donating via Non-Believers Giving Aid, you are helping to counter the scandalous myth that only the religious care about their fellow-humans.

I’m sure most of us have already donated something (I donated to Red Cross), but most of us can do more. I hope you’ll consider donating through this new non-religious initiative.

According to the video description, two days after this interview, the “godman” was arrested and this ritual ended. Thank goodness.

Maybe some people ought to get together and “bless” him like he blessed those children…

In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. [...] As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. [..]

We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

They continue:

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. [...]

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

I applaud Google for sharing this information publicly and deciding not to censor their results, even though they will likely lose money over this. And I say that as a shareholder!

1. Euthyphro’s dilemma: ”There exists a dilemma over whether God embraces moral principles naturally occurring and external to Him because they are sound (“holy”) or that these moral principles are sound because He created them. It cannot be both.”
2. Silence: “Cloning, stem cell research, and genetic engineering, for example, are not discussed in the Bible, so what are believers to believe about these very real moral issues? One must either attempt to infer from ancient biblical writings something that is loosely related to the modern moral issue, or one must think it through independently.”
3. No longer applicable: “We need a new set of morals, and an ethical system designed for our time and place, not one scripted for a pastoral/agricultural people who lived 4,000 years ago. The Bible and other sacred texts have much to offer, but we can do better.”

Read the whole thing.