‘Hang atheist bloggers’: Hundreds of Thousands of Muslims call for execution of 'blasphemers' in Bangladesh
Hefajat-e-Islam, the hardline group who organized the protests, has set out a list of 13 demands for the Bangladeshi government. They stipulate a system by which so-called ‘atheist bloggers’ can be prosecuted and hanged for their defamation of Islam.
I fully support Muslims in their efforts to practice this aspect of their religion and I also urge Atheists to make themselves personally available to all Muslim crowds, with whom they can further discuss this topic.
Last edited by Diogenes on Wed Apr 24, 2013 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —
Not all religions are equal in how they impact society. For an example of religion as a positive force, religious groups were a major force in ending slavery in the US.
The daylight is uncomfortably bright for eyes so long in the dark.
Skipjack wrote:Anyone still claiming that religion is great?
Jonathan Haidt quite ably makes the case that religion is useful and inevitable. That argument will probably end up losing him most of his fellow-atheist friends.
Beyond that, the secular West is suffering a crisis of existential self-confidence. Bangladeshi Muslims quite obviously are not. Which faction tends to be ascendant 50 years hence - the self-destructive, or the self-assured?
Atheism is their religion. They don't like blasphemers either.
djolds1 wrote:
Beyond that, the secular West is suffering a crisis of existential self-confidence. Bangladeshi Muslims quite obviously are not. Which faction tends to be ascendant 50 years hence - the self-destructive, or the self-assured?
The conclusion of that contest is self evident in my mind. I just wish some of these militant atheist (like a certain brain-stub which I see puttering around the place) would get themselves a good dose of this future now, so they could either WAKE THE F**K UP! Or Darwinize themselves.
Religion is a lot like intestinal bacteria. It produces farts once in a while, but if you get rid of the good bacteria, the bad bacteria (C. Diff) will take over the place and try to kill you.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —
djolds1 wrote:Beyond that, the secular West is suffering a crisis of existential self-confidence. Bangladeshi Muslims quite obviously are not. Which faction tends to be ascendant 50 years hence - the self-destructive, or the self-assured?
Hopefully as far as the west is concerned...those "westerners" with the highest degree of self-destructive self-doubt will turn out to have the lowest fecundity, and the more self-confident will turn out to have more kids. Maybe the former are disproportionally the ones most responsible for the decline to below replacement rates in Europe and Japan, and after they weed themselves out there will be a rebound of sorts fueled by the later, or at least stabilization. I imagine man-hating ultra-feminists (or hedonistic/nihilistic males) for instance who despise western society & everything it stands for and secretly enjoy the idea of its collapse, probably tend to have few if any kids. After all as the welfare state rapidly goes bankrupt, natural selection will start picking for confident/competent people who can actually pay for/raise their kids themselves.
Diogenes wrote:Atheism is their religion. They don't like blasphemers either.
The Perpetual Revolution has no brakes, no terminal objective. It champions not progress so much as change for the sake of change, and that is simply corrosive.
Diogenes wrote:Religion is a lot like intestinal bacteria. It produces farts once in a while, but if you get rid of the good bacteria, the bad bacteria (C. Diff) will take over the place and try to kill you.
LOL! A metaphor of questionable taste, but it works.
williatw wrote:
djolds1 wrote:Beyond that, the secular West is suffering a crisis of existential self-confidence. Bangladeshi Muslims quite obviously are not. Which faction tends to be ascendant 50 years hence - the self-destructive, or the self-assured?
Hopefully as far as the west is concerned...those "westerners" with the highest degree of self-destructive self-doubt will turn out to have the lowest fecundity, and the more self-confident will turn out to have more kids.
At the Versailles Conference in 1918, 95 years ago, three Western men who together ruled 70% of the land area of the globe met to determine the fate of the world.
djolds1 wrote:At the Versailles Conference in 1918, 95 years ago, three Western men who together ruled 70% of the land area of the globe met to determine the fate of the world.
Can Western leaders still do that today?
No and they probably never will be able to wield that much relative power again. Not that big a fan of power being concentrated in the hands of that few in any case, western men or otherwise. Don't care about that much, doesn't mean life can't continue to be long, prosperous and free for us and our descendants. Doesn't mean that the death of western civilization isn't being greatly exaggerated. The mean standard of living around the world continues to increase, in large measure because of the industrial/scientific/technological revolution started by the renaissance. The average person today in the western world is far better off than in 1918, when the world reeled from the twin blows of WWI and the global influenza pandemic that killed many more people. Wouldn't willingly change places with many of them.
What if God's an atheist, and who's going to argue with him that he can't be, or if he feels like being an agnostic for that matter. Maybe God's a secular humanist for all we know. What if Satan decides to call it quits and take up lawn bowling, does he get replaced by immigrant labour?
Diogenes wrote:
Religion is a lot like intestinal bacteria. It produces farts once in a while, but if you get rid of the good bacteria, the bad bacteria (C. Diff) will take over the place and try to kill you.
problem is, the "good" bacteria has killed many in the past and will likely kill many more in the future. Not so sure its good bacteria. More likely, we developed immunity to it, but soon it will mutate and start killing again.
Just other day was seeing a very good movie that few people even saw... Agora... about the last days of Alexandria Library, the christians waging war first on pagans, then on jews than finally killing the atheist Hypatia.... yes, a movie, but based on real events, aside her discovery of the ellipse orbits of planets.
djolds1 wrote:At the Versailles Conference in 1918, 95 years ago, three Western men who together ruled 70% of the land area of the globe met to determine the fate of the world.
Can Western leaders still do that today?
No and they probably never will be able to wield that much relative power again. Not that big a fan of power being concentrated in the hands of that few in any case, western men or otherwise. Don't care about that much, doesn't mean life can't continue to be long, prosperous and free for us and our descendants. Doesn't mean that the death of western civilization isn't being greatly exaggerated. The mean standard of living around the world continues to increase, in large measure because of the industrial/scientific/technological revolution started by the renaissance. The average person today in the western world is far better off than in 1918, when the world reeled from the twin blows of WWI and the global influenza pandemic that killed many more people. Wouldn't willingly change places with many of them.
Power shifts, but so long as humaity endures it will not end.
And the advance of IT is making the "Army of Davids" improbable in the face of a totalistic state. Witness how easy it was to ID and take down the Boston Bombers last week.
djolds1 wrote:And the advance of IT is making the "Army of Davids" improbable in the face of a totalistic state.Witness how easy it was to ID and take down the Boston Bombers last week.
Easy to ID someone dumb enough to not wear a disguise of some sort (or even a simple hoody). I am witnessing how two poorly trained(apparently) brothers who probably learned how to make explosives from some internet muslim website, who apparently never heard of security cameras, reduced a city for days into lockdown and near panic.
