…and this is a 
True monsters
Category: Religion
Posted on: May 12, 2008 9:33 AM, by PZ Myers
I have a daughter myself, who I want to grow up to be independent and free and sensible and interesting, so I can't even imagine what it would take to bring a parent to this:
For Abdel-Qader Ali there is only one regret: that he did not kill his daughter at birth. 'If I had realised then what she would become, I would have killed her the instant her mother delivered her,' he said with no trace of remorse.
Yikes. What did she do? Become a mass murderer, a terrorist, a destroyer of entire cultures by acts of destruction?
No, nothing quite so horrific. She was guilty of puppy love.
Two weeks after The Observer revealed the shocking story of Rand Abdel-Qader, 17, murdered because of her infatuation with a British solider in Basra, southern Iraq, her father is defiant. Sitting in the front garden of his well-kept home in the city's Al-Fursi district, he remains a free man, despite having stamped on, suffocated and then stabbed his student daughter to death.
Abdel-Qader Ali is a coward and a monster, the warped product of a bestial 'civilization' that treats half its members as chattel and the other half as little better than junkyard dogs, brutes who will maintain the savage order by denying love and individuality and murdering anyone who does not precisely fit their mandated roles.
Abdel-Qader Ali is not an aberration, not some random psychopath who committed an evil and then, all alone and despised, tries to justify it. No, he's part of a whole culture that favors this violence.
Abdel-Qader, 46, a government employee, was initially arrested but released after two hours. Astonishingly, he said, police congratulated him on what he had done. 'They are men and know what honour is,' he said.
…
It was her first youthful infatuation and it would be her last. She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian. Though her horrified mother, Leila Hussein, called Rand's two brothers, Hassan, 23, and Haydar, 21, to restrain Abdel-Qader as he choked her with his foot on her throat, they joined in. Her shrouded corpse was then tossed into a makeshift grave without ceremony as her uncles spat on it in disgust.
'Death was the least she deserved,' said Abdel-Qader. 'I don't regret it. I had the support of all my friends who are fathers, like me, and know what she did was unacceptable to any Muslim that honours his religion,' he said.
They are not men, they are abused dogs. They have no honor; honor is not blind, stupid obedience to a death cult that demands that you murder your children or your sisters for showing signs of humanity.
I count at least three tragedies here.
One is these 'men' who have had their minds corrupted by a foul religion.
The greatest is Rand Abdel-Qader herself, murdered for an infatuation.
The third is one only briefly mentioned: the mother, Leila Hussein. I wonder…does her skin crawl at having to submit to the vile creature who tortured her daughter to death, or is she sufficiently indoctrinated into the evils of her culture that she accepts it? Either way, it's a nightmare.
Comments
Posted by: kid bitzer | May 12, 2008 9:40 AM
but remember:
if you suggest that there is such a thing as a 'patriarchy', then you're just an hysterical feminist.
god this is sickening. one of the nightmares from which humankind can only hope someday to awaken.
Posted by: Josh | May 12, 2008 9:41 AM
Fuck...
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 12, 2008 9:42 AM
Wait, I thought you never criticized Islam....
/eyeroll
This is disgusting.
Posted by: Jeff Flowers | May 12, 2008 9:43 AM
All religion is bad, in my opinion, but Islam stands out as especially heinous. I hope that one day it is eradicated.
Posted by: amphiox | May 12, 2008 9:44 AM
Ugh. Reading this makes it hard for me to talk my darker side out of wishing for a stray american missile to plaster this guy and all the other so-called "men" involved.
Incidentally, so much for PZ not critizing islam on this blog.
Posted by: tony | May 12, 2008 9:48 AM
Islam today is where christianity was in the middle ages... so should we expect anything other than medieval behaviors?
that said - this is truly.fucked.up.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | May 12, 2008 9:48 AM
spezio ranting about zionism and discounting this murder as propaganda in 5, 4, 3, 2....
Posted by: Aegis | May 12, 2008 9:50 AM
I'll go ahead and say it plainly: Islam is a horrific, as are ultimately all religions. If you think your religion is good, or that its good outweighs its bad, then you need only look on this and thousands of examples like it to find conclusively that you are wrong.
You know, If in 2001, Bush had declared an outright war on Islam, it would have been simpler (and far more defensible). Simply put, if your religion can be used to morally justify killing your own daughter (as a father myself, I cannot even seriously imagine such an act), then your religion is faulty and deserves to be ended. Frankly, the same can be said of christianity, although at least it isn't quite so institutionalized as it is in "modern" islam.
Guess what you WON'T read about tody? Mass condemnation of this event from the world islamic community.
Posted by: SteveM | May 12, 2008 9:50 AM
Only briefly mentioned? Almost half the article is about the mother. Starting with:
Posted by: Nick Gotts | May 12, 2008 9:51 AM
Probably a case in which the occupiers' puppets and their main opponents would be united in applauding the murderer.
Re PZ's third tragedy, this is from the article linked to:
He said his daughter's 'bad genes were passed on from her mother'. Rand's mother, 41, remains in hiding after divorcing her husband in the immediate aftermath of the killing, living in fear of retribution from his family. She also still bears the scars of the severe beating he inflicted on her, breaking her arm in the process, when she told him she was going. 'They cannot accept me leaving him. When I first left I went to a cousin's home, but every day they were delivering notes to my door saying I was a prostitute and deserved the same death as Rand,' she said.
...
The mother is now trying to raise enough money to escape abroad. 'I miss my two boys,' she said. 'But they have sent a message saying that I am wrong for defending Rand and that I should go back home and live like a blessed Muslim woman,' said Leila, who is now volunteering with a local organisation campaigning for better protection for women in Basra.
I wonder how one could get a donation through to Leila Hussein? Anyone know?
Posted by: Stephen Wells | May 12, 2008 9:51 AM
Actually the last two paragraphs of the story answer one of your questions:
"Rand's mother used to call her 'Rose'. 'That was my nickname for her because when she was born she was so beautiful,' she said.
'Now, my lovely Rose is in her grave. But, God will make her father pay, either in this world ... or in the world after.'"
So, no, she is not happy or accepting. But she's still expecting an imaginary being to deal with it.
Posted by: Anniek | May 12, 2008 9:51 AM
does her skin crawl at having to submit to the vile creature who tortured her daughter to death, or is she sufficiently indoctrinated into the evils of her culture that she accepts it?
If you read more on the article you can find she is in hiding after divorcing her husband because he killed their daughter.
Posted by: SteveN | May 12, 2008 9:53 AM
There is an active discussion of this report ongoing at the Richard Dawkins Foundation site here where I posted the following:
Does anyone here know what the actual legal situation in Iraq is?
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | May 12, 2008 9:54 AM
PZ said:
From what the article said, the mother is one hell of a brave woman, in marked contrast to the evil monster she was married to:
Also further down, she's trying to do something to stop this happening to anyone else:
Now that is what I call courage and honour, shame it is lost on her "honorable" male relatives.
Posted by: AndyD | May 12, 2008 9:54 AM
"Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." Ben Stein.
Posted by: MH | May 12, 2008 9:54 AM
from the article: "She died on 16 March after her father discovered she had been seen in public talking to Paul, considered to be the enemy, the invader and a Christian."
So her 'crime', for which she was sentenced to death, was simply talking to an 'undesirable'? Fuck!
Posted by: kid bitzer | May 12, 2008 9:56 AM
#15 ftw.
Posted by: Josh | May 12, 2008 9:57 AM
Andy, you forget. Stein is talking about the real God...
Posted by: Iain Walker | May 12, 2008 9:57 AM
Well, according to the article you linked to, she's denounced her husband's actions, has divorced him and is currently in hiding. She's also apparently doing voluntary work with an organisation campaigning for better protection for women in Basra, although she's trying to raise money to get out of the country.
Posted by: Jams | May 12, 2008 9:58 AM
"I wonder...does her skin crawl at having to submit to the vile creature who tortured her daughter to death, or is she sufficiently indoctrinated into the evils of her culture that she accepts it?" - P.Z. Myers
It's almost always the later. In spite of what Mr. Patriarchy and Mr. scary quotes for men think, this isn't a male specific crime. Mother's are usually cheering it on if not demanding it outright. I don't even know how credible the "I called them to help" story is.
People don't act this way because they are men. If they did, this kind of thing would be ubiquitous across all cultures, and all families. It just isn't. You might as well attribute their behaviour to their skin colour (statistically, it's probably more accurate, though certainly more just as much bullshit).
Posted by: SteveF | May 12, 2008 9:59 AM
I fully expect Spezio to turn up and inform us all that PZs criticism of Islam is part of a Mossad sponsored plot.
Posted by: Randal Birkey | May 12, 2008 10:05 AM
Mr. Myers,
I respectfully ask you to share with me on what grounds you object to this man's treatment of is daughter? You seem to be appealing to me to agree with you about how vile this man is based upon some shared sense of fairness or decency that he has supposedly violated. What is the source of that shared standard you are appealing to me to agree with you based on?
Or, have I misunderstood you?
Randy
Posted by: Interrobang | May 12, 2008 10:09 AM
People don't act this way because they are men.
Half right. They act that way because the culture has told them that because they're men, they're entitled to police what women do with their bodies, and that women aren't really human the way they are, so killing them carries approximately the same moral weight as getting rid of a malfunctioning machine.
This is seriously not an Islam-specific thing. We simply don't hear about the cases that happen every single day where women are tortured, raped, beaten, and killed by men for not conforming to the men's arbitrary standards. In our culture, we don't hide it behind a religious euphemism; we call it "domestic violence," and most people insist that it's a personal problem, rather than the inevitable, cultural result of a society that continually others and dehumanises women, and places men in the role of enforcing women's gender conformity.
When "honour killings" happen in Western society, we shrug our shoulders and call it "child abuse" or wonder what she was doing marrying that abusive loser in the first place, and asking "Why didn't she just leave?" Pointing this up as though it's specifically to do with Islam is misleading and mendacious; Islam simply provides a different sort of cover story to the standard Western narrative(s).
Incidentally, fundamentalist Christians would openly do this -- and claim it was part and parcel of their religion -- if they thought they could get away with it. They've been working hard, actually, to try to change the laws so that they can. (For a really scary time, look up "Christian discipline" and "voluntary slavery.")
Posted by: Snark7 | May 12, 2008 10:10 AM
@Randy: The "shared standard" is the evolved moral sense. Every healthy human being has it. Problem is, that it is possible to be corrupted by evil dreck as some ideologies, religious or otherwise. In this case it was Islam, in others it is e.g. Christianity.
Btw.: You probably wanted to hint at one or the other imagined being, aka "god" as the common source of morals ? Bad luck there.
Posted by: Lana | May 12, 2008 10:12 AM
The New York Times has an interesting op-ed piece this morning that Barack Obama would be considered an apostate, so could be in danger from "good" Muslims. Islam says he's a Muslim because his father was a Muslim, even though his father rejected his faith. So by becoming a Christian, Obama is also rejecting his faith and risks the ultimate punishment.
Scary.
Posted by: Serena | May 12, 2008 10:13 AM
egh. This whole buisness makes my stomach roll.
I can not imagine what living in a shithole society where the rights of women are so marginalized would be like. It is bad enough to run into one or two people who espouse this sort of bullshit as maintaining order in their family. But when it is supported by people outside the family, it seems like an overwhelmingly horrible problem.
And this is what pleases God? Fuck that. It is the most bullshit excuse for murder and abuse.
Posted by: Ric | May 12, 2008 10:15 AM
This makes me sick and sad.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | May 12, 2008 10:15 AM
Re #22. Mr. Birkley - are you a psychopath, without a conscience, or the capacity to empathise with the suffering of others? If not, what is the point of your post?
Posted by: Brian | May 12, 2008 10:18 AM
The 'Religion of Peace' strikes again.
Posted by: mattmc | May 12, 2008 10:20 AM
Im not sure why I am even dignifying this post (#22) with an answer but:
"I respectfully ask you to share with me on what grounds you object to this man's treatment of is daughter?"
On the grounds of being a fucking human being who is disgusted by this kind of behavior.
"You seem to be appealing to me to agree with you about how vile this man is based upon some shared sense of fairness or decency that he has supposedly violated."
You are getting warmer. Dumbass
" What is the source of that shared standard you are appealing to me to agree with you based on?"
Jesus tittyfucking christ man (HT to Etha)... Are you serious???
Or, have I misunderstood you?
Yes, based on a cusory glance at your blog I think you may have misunderstood alot of things.
Posted by: Iain Walker | May 12, 2008 10:20 AM
Randal Birkey (Comment #22):
Instinctive human tendencies towards empathy and compassion, one assumes. I.e., not the arbitrary say-so of an unaccountable supernatural authority, if this is going to be an "atheists have no basis for morality" thing.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 12, 2008 10:21 AM
He thinks he's being sneaky and going to pounce with the "GOD IS the SOURCE of all MORALS!!11!!1111" attack.
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | May 12, 2008 10:22 AM
Jams said:
In this specific case this simply isn't the case, if you read the article. Not that I'm arguing that women (particularly those senior in the family) do not act as enablers (and sometimes intiators) in this sort of crime, there have been several cases when they have, but there is absolutely no evidence that Rand's mother did any such thing.
Apart from anything else, when women are involved in honour crimes their motivations are essentially the same as the male participants - protection of a particularly sick version of family honour which focuses on controlling the behaviour of family members, particularly female family members. If Leila Hussein was moved by such considerations she would not then have divorced her husband and run away in it's aftermath, thus bringing the "shame" on the family that this crime was supposed to avoid.
Posted by: Kseniya | May 12, 2008 10:23 AM
Nick, Mr. Birkley is trying to get PZ to admit that he's appealing to God's absolute moral authority, rather than, say, common human decency. Check Birkley's website for details.
Posted by: Jams | May 12, 2008 10:25 AM
"[...] but there is absolutely no evidence that Rand's mother did any such thing." - Lilly de Lure
Agreed.
Posted by: PZ Myers | May 12, 2008 10:26 AM
I'm going to take a wild guess that you are one of those idiotic demented fuckwits who think atheists lack a foundation for moral behavior. Or have I misunderstood you?
The answer is obvious, to anyone but a religiot who thinks his moral sense is beamed into his brain by an imaginary space fairy. Rand Abdel-Qader was a human being with her own feelings and desires, who was guilty of feeling the first flutterings of love…something most of us have experienced. She was brutally murdered. Us normal human beings have this feeling called "empathy", in which we can put ourselves in another's place and understand their treatment, and in this case, empathy can only produce a sense of injustice and grief at a young life lost.
I am sorry if you are unable to understand this, but only psychopaths lack empathy, and you have to be psychotic to think your instructions are coming from a deity, so my sympathy for you will have limits. Please wall yourself up in a monastery soon so I don't have to worry about your effects on society if this is the case.
Posted by: Matt | May 12, 2008 10:26 AM
@ 22: Or, have I misunderstood you?
Of course you have, deliberately and with malice aforethought.
Considering that your magic book justifies murdering family members (OK, anyone) under the flimsiest of pretenses, I would expect nothing less from you.
@ 32: He thinks he's being sneaky and going to pounce with the "GOD IS the SOURCE of all MORALS!!11!!1111" attack.
Oh, no, not THAT one! I never see that one coming. Quite ferocious.
Posted by: Clan:Rewired | May 12, 2008 10:27 AM
Mr. Birkley about to go down in flames on this commentsection in 5...4...3...2...
Posted by: Dennis N | May 12, 2008 10:27 AM
Religion of peace...
Posted by: Jason Failes | May 12, 2008 10:28 AM
As bad as American-style fundamentalism can get, at least when an individual goes off the rails and bombs an abortion clinic/ lets their child die needlessly while they pray for healing/ leaves grandma dead on the toilet for two months while they pray for resurrection, said individuals are hauled off to prison/the nut house.
That said, perhaps this will drive the point home to the moderates why we fight so passionately, relentlessly, and yes, sometimes rudely, to preserve church/state separation in the Western world.
Posted by: Clan:Rewired | May 12, 2008 10:29 AM
wow... faster than I thought, good going!
Posted by: S. Scott | May 12, 2008 10:29 AM
This actually brought me to tears.
Posted by: BobC | May 12, 2008 10:30 AM
Randal Birkey (#22), I was wondering why you asked such an incredibly stupid question, so I checked your blog and I found this: "My wife and I went and saw the newly released movie 'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' last night, and I've got to say it is one of the best movies I've seen in a long time."
Now I understand. You're a Christian moron.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 12, 2008 10:31 AM
A quick perusal of Mr. Birkley's blog will answer any questions you have that aren't made painfully obvious from his leading question.
Posted by: stevelaudig | May 12, 2008 10:31 AM
In conclusion then, George W. Bush, new father in law, is also responsible for her death.
Posted by: E in MD | May 12, 2008 10:34 AM
Yet Atheists are immoral, godless sociopaths....Riiiiight.
Posted by: kid bitzer | May 12, 2008 10:38 AM
#20--
"In spite of what Mr. Patriarchy and Mr. scary quotes for men think, this isn't a male specific crime....People don't act this way because they are men."
nice straw patriarchy you got there.
do you understand what 'patriarchy' means?
it's an ideology. a system of beliefs. something that some cultures endorse and others do not, or not to the same extent.
it's not a claim that men act a certain way *because they are men*, as though we'd have to extinguish y-chromosomes to get rid of it.
rather, it's the claim that certain men buy into an ideology that is beneficial to men. and of course that ideology can create a power-structure in which it is beneficial for certain women to buy into the lie as well.
jesus--it's as though we were talking about white supremacist racism, and you said "that can't explain lynchings, because not all white people lynch! and further more, i read once about a house-slave who despised field-slaves, so it can't be a white thing at all!"
look: white supremacist racism is not something that automatically accompanies any individual with a certain skin-color. it's a system of beliefs, false ones. it's an ideology that benefits the white skin-color, and creates a power-structure in which it is sometimes advantageous even for the victims to endorse it (in order to gain slight advantages over other victims).
ditto for the patriarchy, got it?
deep analysis you've got going there, pal.
Posted by: HaSatan | May 12, 2008 10:43 AM
Regarding #22: oh, man, there are idiots in the world.
Posted by: freelunch | May 12, 2008 10:45 AM
It certainly is not religion or God. After all, that is the reason this girl was murdered by her own father. When people are not blinded by religiously-inspired hatred and no longer engage in 'God-pleasing' evil, they can see that treating others as equals is proper.
The morality that supposedly came from God is backward and hateful. It defends murder, slavery, rape, and abuse of others. Of course, God had nothing to do with it and those who blame God for Abdel-Qader Ali's behavior or claim that it was God's will that he do this are merely justifying their own vile attitudes toward others.
Sadly, Abdel-Qader Ali would have been more likely to have been brought to justice under the secular regime that Bush overthrew than the newly religionist one that Bush has installed.
Posted by: Colugo | May 12, 2008 10:46 AM
This is not specific to Islam and does not always occur within Muslim communities. On the other hand, Interrobang is incorrect (no offense) - in lethality and positive sanctioning by the larger culture this is not the analog to Western spousal abuse. It is arguably analogous to some dominionist and other extreme Christian sects, but these are as aberrant in the context of modern North America as are the Quiverfull devotees with 18 children.
This is a predictable consequence of female reproduction being a collective asset of clans and male 'honor' being dependent on the maintenance of control over that asset. These are features typical of patrilineal pastoralist and agriculturalist societies (even if these populations have become industrial or postindustrial, these practices may remain). Hence there arises a cultural complex that includes the obligatory murder of close relatives by brothers, fathers, and uncles of teen girls and women when the victims become so-called "whores" (which includes everything from adultery to a crush on an outsider to wearing makeup). Other associated practices are veiling, restriction of women to the home unless accompanied by a male relative, and female genital mutilation (though the last may not be present in a given society). The hideous cultural practice of honor killing is also seen, to name a couple of examples, in the non-Muslim Yezidi of Kurdistan and Sikhs of India.
Some ways to remedy this problem: Punish and dishonor 'honor murderers,' promote female economic independence, and de-link the 'honor' of individual males from family and clan prestige.
Posted by: omar ali | May 12, 2008 10:47 AM
protection of patriarchy is now the number one goal of islamism...and it is the one on which they have the most solid support. For example, a few years ago a Pakistani girl was killed in her lawyer's office by a gunman smuggled in BY HER MOTHER and no one was ever arrested or punished in any way. Supposedly liberal lawmakers in her home province refused to condemn her murder because of the strong support in that area for maintaining this "honor" system above all other considerations. Full details at http://www.dawn.com/weekly/cowas/20030223.htm
I have not figured this out completely, but some great insights probably lie buried in this sick situation. Has anyone got a good article/book to recommend on this topic?
Posted by: Kermit | May 12, 2008 10:48 AM
Randy Birkey @22 "I respectfully ask you to share with me on what grounds you object to this man's treatment of is daughter? "
Others have already made their opinions clear on this. I'll assume you are suggesting that Yahweh is the source of moral behavior. Do you accept the Old Testament punishment of stoning for a child's disobedience or disrespect? If so, I see no moral difference between you and this poor girl's father. If the thought of killing your child for merely talking back evokes repulsion, then I point out that you are a better man than your god. Muslims, like Christians, are better people the farther they are from their religious roots.
If you respond with a non sequitor of the nature "We have a new covenant now, and the old rules no longer apply", then I would have to ask why such a divine law was moral back in the day, but is no longer.
Posted by: E in MD | May 12, 2008 10:48 AM
The 'Religion of Peace' strikes again.
Posted by: Brian | May 12, 2008 10:18 AM
"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you ... Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die."
-- Deuteronomy.13:6-10
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear. -- Deuteronomy 21:18-21
He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death. -- Exodus 21:15
He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. -- Exodus 21:17
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. -- Psalm 137:9
and before you say some stupid bullshit like "the old testament doesn't apply to Christians", an all knowing, all seeing god wouldn't need to make revisions of his eternal unchanging always perfect word.
Posted by: Dustin | May 12, 2008 10:51 AM
And for the ironic cherry on the shit sundae that is Christian apologetics, refer to Malachi 3:6 and Heb. 13:8.Posted by: Seamyst | May 12, 2008 10:53 AM
See, I don't think Islam itself is to blame for this, any more than I think Christianity itself is to blame for what people have done in its name. It's just the whacko nutjobs who (mis)interpret Islam (or Christianity) to support their violent, misogynistic tendencies who are to blame.
Posted by: pleco | May 12, 2008 10:56 AM
@55:
I don't think they are misinterpreting anything. Rather, they are interpreting exactly what is written.
Posted by: TheWireMonkey | May 12, 2008 10:57 AM
In cultures where honor killings are expected a woman can be murdered by her own family for being raped.
http://www.stophonourkillings.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1800
Posted by: maxi | May 12, 2008 10:57 AM
Yeah, it's just such a shame that some people take such innocent books that don't at all condone rape, murder or genocide and somehow manage to interpret them incorrectly! Crazy!
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | May 12, 2008 10:57 AM
Is there any possible evolutionary advantage that a gene line can accrue by culling its young females early? (I know I'm mangling the terminology here, I'm not a biologist) I've heard of the way male cats will kill off the young of other males; could there be some kind of underlying reason behind this? It seems to me that letting religious and cultural fuckbaggery chop off a whole branch of your genetic legacy is the evolutionary acme of stupid, no?
Posted by: Claudia | May 12, 2008 10:57 AM
Man, I wished I believed in prayer... I just had to hold my little baby and cry...
Posted by: pleco | May 12, 2008 10:57 AM
@55:
I don't think they are misinterpreting anything. Rather, they are doing exactly what is written. It is the religion itself that is to blame, as well as the psychopaths that wallow in it.
Posted by: CL | May 12, 2008 10:58 AM
Everybody seems to have the need to do God's work for God, is he busy with other things? If God isn't killing people for 'breaking rules' then why are people taking it upon themselves to do it? Seems pretty egotistical to me. Any answers Birkey?
CL
http://www.coulterlewkowitz.com/
Posted by: BlueIndependent | May 12, 2008 10:59 AM
I don't know. Maybe I will butt heads with some people here on this issue but incidents like these are why I think the death penalty is sometimes a good thing. We know who did the killing, we know the motive, easy access to evidence, and we have an unrepentent confession. If this happened in the U.S. I'd say send all three of them up the river, goodbye, see ya never, likely wouldn't even think twice about it. This stuff just enrages me to no end.
But it's the ME and medieval tribalism reigns supreme, stoked by power grabbers with money and no interest in doing anything for their fellow countryfolk, further stoked by religious extremeism of the worst stripe. I dare say women appear to hold as much or even less value in society than slaves. They can be killed at will for a simple affectionate look at another human being, they are the sole proprietors of family "honor", whose possession is ironically always placed in the mental hands of men, it's just 100% revolting on so many levels.
I want the ME to reform, and I don't want to sound like I'm pro-war at all (I'm not), but the person that figures out how to reform that part of the world for the future will perhaps be deserving of millenial praise throughout the world.
Posted by: Peter Mc | May 12, 2008 10:59 AM
You don't have to go as far as Iraq for religiously inspired domestic barbarism.
The police in the UK reckon there are about a dozen of these murders in the UK every year. The most recent I can recall a young woman had the wrong kind of of boyfriend and was strangled by her brother, the mother directing proceedings with father and other brother encouraging.
The London police have set up a task force and are looking into about 100 unsolved murders.
Posted by: Jason Failes | May 12, 2008 11:00 AM
"It's just the whacko nutjobs who (mis)interpret Islam (or Christianity) to support their violent, misogynistic tendencies who are to blame."
No. I've read both the Bible and the Koran: Actions like these are not the result of any misinterpretation.
The Bible and Koran really do say all of those horrible things and more, thankfully, that most modern Christians ignore and, hopefully, that future Muslims will also learn to ignore.
Posted by: Jorge | May 12, 2008 11:01 AM
The skin crawls at the horrendous crime, but it also crawls at the prejudice patent in the post.
You see, Leila Hussein is a product of the exact same culture that produced the men(?) in this story. Just as you are the product of the very same culture that produced Ben Stein. So if you evaluate a whole culture by its criminals, why shouldn't we evaluate America by Ben Stein and all his court of assholes?
Posted by: freelunch | May 12, 2008 11:01 AM
How much of a misinterpretation is it? Some Old Testament laws have already been quoted here and the Q'ran isn't much different. It is true that many Moslems, Christians and Jews manage to ignore these oppressive laws from centuries ago as they cherry-pick their scriptures, but that doesn't mean that those who want to adhere to these reactionary rules cannot find reasonably solid justification for their hateful behavior in those scriptures. Worse, the people who wouldn't kill their own daughter seem quite willing to give someone else a pass when they do it.
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | May 12, 2008 11:03 AM
Seamyst said:
I will agree with this when we see a flood of unconditional condemnations (i.e. no blaming the victim e.t.c. nonsense) of honour crimes and killing such as this one from the relevant religious leaders.
When this is given by religious authorities in combination with public support for the organisations that are fighting against such crimes and protection for women currently in fear of their lives from various relatives then I will hold religion blameless of (at best) passive collusion in such atrocities. So far however, I am not holding my breath.
Posted by: Colugo | May 12, 2008 11:05 AM
Whether the issue is honor killings or extreme fertility, citing verses from religious texts (Torah, New Testament, Koran, Book of Mormon) is of limited utility in understanding why these behaviors are being manifested.
Within religious communities think of religious texts as the DNA of religious behavior. Must be directly determinative, right? Not at all. Just like genes are differentially epigenetically silenced and have their transcription induced by steroid hormones that bind to DNA, so can cultural DNA be differentially expressed in vastly different ways. Think of the phenotypic diversity of cell types, all genetically identical, within an organism. It all depends on the epigenetic context and the current cellular environment.
Changing the cultural, economic, and political context of a religious community will have a massive impact on the way any religious text is manifested.
Posted by: Dunkleosteus | May 12, 2008 11:06 AM
Iraq used to be one of the most secular countries in the Middle East. That oversight is now fixed.
Posted by: emily | May 12, 2008 11:06 AM
Before condemning Islam you might like to visit some Islamic communities in Fiji and New Zealand. Religion interacts with other aspects in the culture. The Muslims I know would be just as disgusted by this atrocity. Even as a lifelong atheist and full time scientist I am increasingly disinterested in visiting a blog that contains rampant hated speech against a religious 'enemy' and stereotype an entire wolrd religion.
How is this different to what is done in Expelled and other digusting propagandas of distortion?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 11:07 AM
I take the Observer and read this article.
The mother did object to her husband killing their daughter. As a result the husband broke her arm and divorced her. The mother is now in hiding fearing retribution from his family.
How nice it is know that all those deaths of Americans, Britons, Iraqis and others were not in vain, and that a decent society is rising out of the ashes of Saddam's regime.
Posted by: Dylan | May 12, 2008 11:08 AM
Re: #22, it really is hilarious, and educational, how easily the arguments of the Jesus crowd can be destroyed by even the tiniest bit of reason, skepticism and basic common sense. How these lunatics continue to hypnotize billions of followers is a complete mystery to me.
Posted by: Dustin | May 12, 2008 11:08 AM
As is abundantly clear from the explicit statements of both the Bible and Koran, it is the people who claim the religions are peaceful who are either misinterpreting them or simply lying.Unless, of course, all of those stonings both books command are just metaphorical stonings with metaphorical rocks hurled at the metaphorical heads of metaphorical heretics by metaphorical patriarchs. And all of that is really just a metaphor for being peaceful.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 11:08 AM
I take the Observer and read this article.
The mother did object to her husband killing their daughter. As a result the husband broke her arm and divorced her. The mother is now in hiding fearing retribution from his family.
How nice it is know that all those deaths of Americans, Britons, Iraqis and others were not in vain, and that a decent society is rising out of the ashes of Saddam's regime.
Posted by: freelunch | May 12, 2008 11:09 AM
Your analogy is preposterous. Ben Stein didn't commit a serious crime and he wasn't praised by the police for murdering his own daughter. In the US people were outraged when a girl died because her parents refused to seek medical help for her and they are being tried for their crime. In Iraq a murderer was applauded and is almost certainly going to get away with it.
Posted by: Rev. BigDUmbChimp | May 12, 2008 11:13 AM
You have got to be kidding me?
I'll take pitifully poor analogies for 100 alex.
Being critical of how a culture based on a religion acts and results in the "honor killing" of a daughter by her father is the same as Ben Stein lying throughout an entire film?
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 11:18 AM
Yeah, Birkey, we got this standard from Allah, through his holy book the Koran.
Oh, or were you expecting something else?
See, moron, the problem is that any "standard" written in a "holy book" has to actualy be evaluated by something else, which ideally is our humanity. This is why much of the Bible is no longer considered to be moral.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Dunc | May 12, 2008 11:18 AM
I'm afraid that the bad news here is that this would have been illegal under Saddam, but after we invaded we let the nutcases rewrite the relevant laws and take over the job of enforcing them. It may still be technically illegal, but "legal" and "illegal" are not terms with any real meaning in Iraq these days.
Under Saddam, Iraq was one of the best places in the Islamic world to be a woman. Oh, and if you think that this statement means that I'm "objectively pro-Saddam" or some such, then you're an idiot.
Posted by: Martin | May 12, 2008 11:19 AM
In other news...
PZ Myers injects another dose of hate and fear into the world.
Good job.
[ACTIVATED: Flame Resistant Zombie Shield]
Posted by: Moggie | May 12, 2008 11:19 AM
#71:
In other words, the secular (positive) aspects of a culture dilute the religious (negative), hopefully rendering the latter mostly harmlessTM.
Posted by: Dustin | May 12, 2008 11:20 AM
Yes. He fabricated the entire story.Dipshit.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 11:22 AM
"Before condemning Islam you might like to visit some Islamic communities in Fiji and New Zealand. Religion interacts with other aspects in the culture. The Muslims I know would be just as disgusted by this atrocity. Even as a lifelong atheist and full time scientist I am increasingly disinterested in visiting a blog that contains rampant hated speech against a religious 'enemy' and stereotype an entire wolrd religion."
You would have a point had the authorities in Basra put the man of trial for the murder of his daughter, and had the religious authorities in that city condemned his actions. Unfortunatly the police applauded his actions and released him without charge, and there would seem to be silence from the religious leaders. If you want to carry on claiming that does not indicate something is terribly wrong with society in Iraq, and that a fundamentalist form of Islam is at the heart of what is wrong, then carry on. You are free to hold onto your delusions.
Posted by: Jason Failes | May 12, 2008 11:23 AM
"In other news...
PZ Myers injects another dose of hate and fear into the world."
PZ killed that young woman?
You know you've taken political correctness too far when you're criticizing a blogger for reporting and commenting on an atrocity, rather than criticizing the atrocity itself.
Posted by: Calladus | May 12, 2008 11:25 AM
One of the arguments on "morals by God" that I've recently run into is that by merely being present, God's moral "radiation" (for want of a better word) permeates everyone, religious and secular. Therefore, even us poor Atheists have a "moral sense" because of God's moral sense.
It's an interesting argument - untestable of course. If God exists he won't participate in any experiment where we ask him to "step out of the room" to see if we all lose our moral sense and go crazy.
The argument also would seem to negate free will. But the few Christians I've spoken to about this don't seem to agree.
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | May 12, 2008 11:25 AM
I disagree. Islam and Christianity both have bat-shit insane laws and principles scattered throughout them that provide support to violent ideologies. The fact that they are nearly ubiquitous within their respective areas provides comfort to people who are violent, misogynistic or bigoted; it provides them with a shield of false piety that they can hide behind.
To a smaller degree, look at Cardinal Murphy O'Conner in the UK. He spouts insane ramblings that would shame most people, but he is provided with respectable platforms purely because he claims to be religious. Look at any religious leader, and they'll spout similarly vile claims, and hide behind religious clothes.
It is worth noting, too, that - in general - it is the extremist nut-jobs that appear to have the most support from their respective "Holy" books for their lunacy. It's the liberal religious figures that are having problems supporting their positions, because their books just don't say what they want them to say.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 11:27 AM
To add to what I said in reply to Emily.
A religion is what the believers in that religion make it. If believers think it is OK to kill your daughter because she had a crush on a British soldier then there is something seriously wrong with the believers and their beliefs. You cannot excuse their actions by saying that is not what their religion is really like, since their religion is defined by what they do.
Posted by: Rav Winston | May 12, 2008 11:30 AM
...if you evaluate a whole culture by its criminals, why shouldn't we evaluate America by Ben Stein and all his court of assholes?
I do. And I'm an American myself.
Posted by: Glen Davidsoni | May 12, 2008 11:31 AM
Tell me, maker of fake comparisons, how many Muslims in New Zealand and Fiji actually condemn this BS.
How do you say that, when you're the idiot who's actually whining that someone here is disgusted by this atrocity? Or are they just better than you, condemning this, while you're playing the concern troll card?
You know, if you weren't the one guilty of stereotyping, you'd have noticed that he doesn't like any religion. And if you were at all fair, you'd also notice the rather appalling status of women in Islam, partly due to what is written in the Quran. Rather than deal with actual issues, you just stereotype and lie.
First off, fuckhead, we allow dissenting viewpoints to be aired, such as with Expelled. That's a freedom valued by real free thinkers, not pretend free thinkers such as yourself. And free speech is uncommon in much of the Muslim world--one reason why the monstrous effects of Islam continue as much as they do.
Secondly, Expelled was pretty roundly condemned by all but our "Taliban." That's the difference, we condemn BS like these "honor killings," Expelled, and appalling concern trolls such as yourself.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: freelunch | May 12, 2008 11:32 AM
My anti-virus tells me that your website was trying to install a trojan, Martin. Indeed, you are an idiot. You are also hateful and a liar. Do you worship ignorance, as well?
Posted by: Jason Dick | May 12, 2008 11:33 AM
Emily in #71,
The Islamic holy literature explicitly proscribes this sort of horrific nonsense. That some Muslims in other areas of the world have moved beyond this is not at all surprising: it's a horrific practice that normal people everywhere should recognize. But to pretend that it's not a direct result of their religion is just putting your head in the sand.
Posted by: noncarborundum | May 12, 2008 11:33 AM
tlhInganpu' chaHbe'qu' loDpu'vam'e'. mu' {batlh} yajbe' chaH.
(These men are certainly not Klingons. They don't know the meaning of the word "honor".)
The article says only that Abdel-Qader is a government employee, but I think he is secretly a scientist.
Posted by: Janine ID | May 12, 2008 11:34 AM
Warning, do not bother to click Martin's "home site".
Back to the subject at hand. It would seen that Randy Birkey uses his religion to dehumanize others just as the men of the Abdel-Qader family used their religion to dehumanize others.
The men of the Abdel-Qader family felt they were justified to murder a female family member because she did not act in the way a Muslim woman is supposed to act. Randy Birkey feels justified in accusing atheists of not truly feeling outraged about honor murders. That is because atheists, rejecting god, cannot possibly be fully human and have compassion.
While the actions of the men in the Abdel-Qader family are much worse then that of Randy Birkey, all engage in a form of thought that strips other people not like them of their humanity.
Posted by: Martin | May 12, 2008 11:35 AM
Matt Penfold
"since their religion is defined by what they do."
Ok here you do the math:
(1 billion muslims)/(number of muslims who kill their children) = how relevant the incident is to islam. Hint: its a small fucking number.
Posted by: Seamyst | May 12, 2008 11:35 AM
In partial defense for my comment at #55, I will note that I hadn't refreshed the page before posting my comment, and thus did not see the five to seven comments immediately preceding mine. As such, and as I'm not a Biblical/Koranic scholar, I didn't see and wasn't aware of the passages explicitly condoning this type of behavior. My apologies.
I was going to then say that one shouldn't take every single passage in the Bible or Koran as being literal, but then I'd be just as guilty of cherry-picking verses as anyone else, and I don't like cherry-picking, so I'm going to shut up now.
Posted by: wÒÓ† | May 12, 2008 11:36 AM
(.)(.)
Posted by: GDwarf | May 12, 2008 11:36 AM
I am sicked, disgusted, and horrified by this crime.
But I find blaming Islam for it to be bizarre in the extreme. That is no different than insisting that being an atheist makes you an amoral sociopath, I'm sure I can find amoral, sociopathic atheists without trouble, so it must be cause and effect, right?
Really, I am growing increasingly troubled by just how eager commenters here are to pin all of the world's problems on religion. Can religion justify horrible acts? Of course, so can secular humanism. The question isn't what is justified or condoned, but what lead to this, and religion was obviously not the cause since plenty of Muslims don't commit murder. Scapegoats serve no purpose save allowing you to feel falsely superior and somehow safer. Feel free to continue, of course, but at the very least stop being hypocritical by insisting that Ben Stein is wrong about "evilutionists".
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 11:37 AM
Martin,
One billion people live in Basra do they ?
I think it is your maths that is screwed buddy, not mine.
Please provide links to any civil or religious authority in Basra that has condemned this killing. When you have done so I will check, and admit I was wrong if needed. Until then, learn to count.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 11:38 AM
I think you meant "prescribes".
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Martin | May 12, 2008 11:39 AM
Well. Turns out my math sucks after all. Nobody's perfect.
Posted by: Clan:Rewired | May 12, 2008 11:42 AM
@ Emily
Maybe it is too early for me to say this, but I don't think we can expect worldwide public and official outcries by the Islamic community, or petitions to get the father and the brothers convicted. Certainly not with so much enthousiasm as with the Danish Cartoons event, the Fitna premiere, Salmon Rushdie etc.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Also I do not wish to promote the idea that there are no Muslim, Islamic people who condemn this crime, I know several that would.
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | May 12, 2008 11:42 AM
@ #71,
Wow. PZ can't win, can he. If he criticises the behaviour of some Christians, he's accused of only going after Christians, and ignoring the abhorrent behaviour of some Muslims. If he criticises a Muslim for an action, he's accused of criticising all Muslims.
Let's be quite clear here. Christianity is not a religion of peace, but - self-confessedly - a religion of devision and war. Islam is not a religion of peace, but a religion of division and war.
That does not mean that all modern Christians are hate-mongers or that all modern Muslims are hate-mongers. But violent Christians, and violent Muslims can both find ample support for their position in their respective "Holy" books.
My fiancée lived, for quite a long time, in Dubai. Most people in Dubai are Muslim and she can genuinely claim that most of her friends were - at the time - Muslim; and she has pointed out to me that there Islam for the most part is about as relevant to their lives as Church of England is to most people in the UK. They're Muslim because thats what they are. These are the genuinely "moderate" Muslims; they go through the motions, but don't really care about religion (although they almost universally don't eat Pork, which isn't that strange when you consider the reaction of most people in the UK to the suggestion that they should eat dogs).
But just as there are religious zealots in the UK and the US, there are religious zealots in the Middle East. The difference is that in some areas of the Middle East that fanaticism has become part of the institution.
A man has killed his daughter because of insane religious convictions that are apparently held by his brothers and the police in Basra. That is a serious problem, and one which demands condemnation. Condemning that action is no more commenting on all Muslims than condemning Cardinal O'Conner is commenting on the position of all Catholics.
Posted by: Michelle | May 12, 2008 11:44 AM
I don't think I can add anything to what has been said.
The man is sick. And sicker are the people who don't arrest him for his crime. A hateful, disgusting crime.
If their god existed out of their imagination he should be ashamed of the fuckers he gave birth to.
Posted by: Coriolis | May 12, 2008 11:45 AM
Ok, let's just cut this idiotic PC crap:
Religion is to blame, not because some freaking insane father+brothers killed his own daughter, but because the religious society he lives in not only did not condemn his actions but the police their actually CONGRATULATED him. OK?How hard is that to understand?
Let's make a simple analogy, if a white serial killer in the US kills a bunch of black people that doesn't mean all white people are crazy racist killers. If as a society we condone that behavior and the police congratulate the guy instead of sticking him in jail then we would be a racist evil society with serious fucking problems.
Now, do you get it?
Posted by: Calladus | May 12, 2008 11:45 AM
Christians and Muslims tend to be moral in spite of their religion, not because of it.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 12, 2008 11:46 AM
No, because being an atheist there isn't some rulebook that says we should be amoral or sociopathic.
Posted by: sailor | May 12, 2008 11:47 AM
"Is there any possible evolutionary advantage that a gene line can accrue by culling its young females early? (I know I'm mangling the terminology here, I'm not a biologist) I've heard of the way male cats will kill off the young of other males; could there be some kind of underlying reason behind this? It seems to me that letting religious and cultural fuckbaggery chop off a whole branch of your genetic legacy is the evolutionary acme of stupid, no?"
Marcus, the answer is no. And this makes it interesting because the honor killing of close relatives definitely would not be predicted by evolutionary theory. At the very outside limit you could try and explain it in terms of the benefits of patriarchy, but even that is a push because patriarchy is possible without honor killing. So there must be other factors at work. As you can also imagine the tendency to smaller families is hardly predictable by evolutionary theory either.
When the human brain became capable of being programmed by language and culture, then you have to look for roots of behavior in history, sociology and psychology rather than just inheritance. The idea of Memes (information replicating itself through humans) is one way to look at it, but the theorists have not really beaten out that idea well enough to be useful for making predictions yet.
Posted by: noncarborundum | May 12, 2008 11:48 AM
GDwarf:
Of course that's easy to say, but can you support it? Name a horrible act committed by a secular humanist and then demonstrate how the tenets of secular humanism contributed to that act or can be used to justify it.
Right. And driving drunk is obviously not the cause of any given accident, since plenty of people drive under the influence without causing accidents.
Posted by: F. Jardim | May 12, 2008 11:49 AM
Wow, this got acrimonious fast.
In my view, one of religions many flaws is that it offers a good (well, not good but acceptable to the like-minded) cover for a number of terrible deeds. So, while only a minority of believers will go the extreme of killing a daughter, refusing blood transfusions or praying for cures rather than going to the hospital, a -far- larger number will look favorably upon the deed because it is divinely justified.
Over time, this builds severe distortions in a society, especially when no parallel, countering influences are being exercised.
It's not unlike racism as it happens here in Brazil. Perhaps 10% will openly claim to disliking black or jewish people. Another 30% more will silently nod their heads when in non-mixed company because hey, they got mugged by a brown person once or denied a job by a jew. The remaining 60% is wary of alienating/infuriating the bigot minority and the accomplice subgroup, and it gets ingrained in a society for ages.
Posted by: mezzobuff | May 12, 2008 11:50 AM
"Before condemning Islam you might like to visit some Islamic communities in Fiji and New Zealand. Religion interacts with other aspects in the culture. The Muslims I know would be just as disgusted by this atrocity."
Like Aegis in #8, I am waiting to hear from these communities... where are the Islamic moderates when these atrocious acts happen? Why don't they speak up? Ultimately, doesn't their silence make them complicit? Emily, you may want to listen to the Point of Inquiry podcast with Tawfik Hamid (My life as a terrorist: 3/16/07)... interesting when he goes into what silence expresses/means in Islamic culture...
Posted by: BlueIndependent | May 12, 2008 11:52 AM
@ #87:
I certainly hope you apply that logic when Christians are involved.
Posted by: Christianjb | May 12, 2008 11:52 AM
I challenge anyone to think of another social force apart from religion which could make a parent willingly and gladly murder his own daughter and then brag about it afterwards.
Of course, most Muslims would be horrified at this act, but it is still a testament to the power that religion can hold over some people's minds.
As Dawkins has pointed out- the 9/11 hijackers actually thought they were being good people when they flew their planes into the WTC. They were trying to do right by their religion.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 11:53 AM
"Well. Turns out my math sucks after all. Nobody's perfect."
At least you admit you were wrong. Well done.
If only the father would have done the same, instead of clinging to his belief that he was doing his god's work.
Posted by: NC Paul | May 12, 2008 11:53 AM
Well said there at #102
And if I can add something, what this episode gives lie to is the idea put forward by religious apologists that religion somehow makes people moral.
It's possible that Abdel-Qader Ali might have killed his daughter even if he wasn't a Muslim. But being a Muslim certainly didn't prevent him from acting immorally.
If anything, it is the opposite. His religion provided a justification for his actions, along with the rubber stamp of the alleged will of the almighty.
This story is the proof of Steven Weinberg's oft quoted saw:
"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil -- that takes religion".
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 11:54 AM
Then why aren't you attacking the cause of it, instead of the opposition to it? Moron, did you think you're hypocrisy isn't obvious?
Uh, yeah, something that is taught by that religion, doesn't exist as such in many other religions, and certainly doesn't exist as a moral code of conduct in secular society, is bizarrely associated with that religion. My God, you'd suppose that we can think via correlation and causation, which obviously you cannot, dickhead.
Dipshit, is amorality or sociopathy either preached by atheism, or written into some "holy writ" of atheism? Learn what an honest comparison is, or STFU.
Really? So you think that commenters here blame religion for general crime in the US, or the problems of China? Get a grip on reality, fuckwit. We blame religion for problems caused by religion. You just blither stupidly on without understanding religious causes for religious atrocities, or even secular causes for many secular atrocities and crimes.
Examples, lackwit.
More importantly, we're not talking here about "justifying" anything, we're talking about religious sensibilities leading to this act.
Yeah, there you are. That's the intelligence of your line of "thinking."
Anti-Semitism didn't lead most people to violent acts against the Jews, but it damn sure was part of what led to the Holocaust. Demented retard.
That's right, ass. That's why you're scapegoating others for what was caused at least in part by an evil religion in Iraq.
You know, if you wanted us to accept anything you write you'd at least come up with one logical progression to your lame "conclusions".
Stein is wrong about "evilutionists" because of his morally deficient religious sensibilities (which appear to be shared by few American Jews, which I say simply because extremely few American Jews have agreed with him, hence I argue from the evidence), and these people also were wrong due at least in part to their morally deficient religious sensibilities. Unfortunately, at least a large minority of their co-religionists in Iraq agree with these murderers (and so do you, effectively), which is why the point about the police officers congratulating the guys was brought out.
That's an aspect of this that you lie about by omission, a-hole.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Jason Dick | May 12, 2008 11:54 AM
GDwarf in #97,
But I find blaming Islam for it to be bizarre in the extreme. That is no different than insisting that being an atheist makes you an amoral sociopath, I'm sure I can find amoral, sociopathic atheists without trouble, so it must be cause and effect, right?
Why don't you? Why not go ahead and compare the percentage of atheists that murder their children to the percentage of Muslims who do? I can pretty much guarantee you that the Muslims will win by a monstrous amount.
Now, as to the religion itself being a cause, it's really not that heard to see: [b]their holy book fucking tells them to[/b]. It's exactly as Calladus in #105 said: they're moral in spite of their religion.
Oh, and by the way, this is the sort of thing that can't be hugely common. If it were, Islam would cease to be.
Posted by: Michelle | May 12, 2008 11:55 AM
if there are truly temperate muslims out there, COME OUT STRONG!
Silence makes you criminals as well. Yea. I said it. YOU'RE ALL WOMEN HATING MURDERERS DUE TO YOUR SILENCE. You don't condemn it, you're part of it. Where are the religious leaders of so called temperate muslims? Why aren't they out in the media screaming their lungs out?
Don't give me any of that "before condemning go see the moderate ones" crap. Silence is not golden.
Posted by: Gustav Nyström | May 12, 2008 11:56 AM
Calladus @85,
"It's an interesting argument - untestable of course."
Ah, the religidiots favorite kind.
Posted by: Calladus | May 12, 2008 11:56 AM
I'm absolutely fascinated. Please, tell us all which horrible acts are justified by Secular Humanism?
I'm expecting something like the condoning of murder, rape, theft, something big - something of "biblical proportions".
Posted by: CalGeorge | May 12, 2008 11:58 AM
"Death was the least she deserved."
What else did he have in mind? Torture?
What a fucked-up, misogynistic, backward culture.
Posted by: gingerbeard | May 12, 2008 12:00 PM
The older I get and the more exposed I become to these delights of religion the more intolerant of any form of religious behaviour I become.
The "extremists" are not extreme at all, but are observant of their religious texts, the "moderates" are moderating their religion with modern cultural morals, going against the very teachings they supposedly defending. In reality any moderate religious person is just practicing self delusion.
I first saw the evil of religion when my Catholic aunt said it was a shame my protestant grandmother was going to hell (because she was not catholic).
I have seen few acts of great good that were performed in the name of god that could not have been performed in the name of humanity and compassion, without the need for a deity.
I have seen precious few acts of utter evil performed in the name of god that could have been defended in the name of compassion and humanity.
This is yet another act of utter evil justified by believing in a magic sky fairy, and the sad thing is he was right to do it according to his beliefs.
That point alone, that any religion can justify inhumane actions as correct and righteous is the argument that religion is a dangerous self delusional evil.
PZ is not instilling hate, and the intolerance this community expresses regarding the actions of the religious are the only appropriate response.
This mans actions were horrific, but well within the normal behaviour expected by his god, and the teachings of all those who worship the same god, Muslim, Jew, or Christian.
Why would any thinking person find it acceptable to tolerate these teachings? So the moderates are deluding themselves in thinking their sense of good comes from their god, and the whole belief system is being recognized as something that should not be tolerated by this community.
I hope this helps Emily understand the difference between the comments on this blog and elsewhere, and Expelled. In Expelled they are distorting the facts, here we are reacting to the distortion of values that calls itself religion.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 12, 2008 12:01 PM
I blame the New Kids on the Block reunion on Secular Humanists.
Posted by: Ryan Egesdahl | May 12, 2008 12:02 PM
Call me strange, but I don't hold the opinion that religion is the cause of so many evils in society. To me, it's always people choosing to believe something and acting in accordance with belief.
Yes, that's nearly the definition of religion, but the point is that I focus on people and not any set of beliefs. These people are just plain fucked up anyway, and their religion is only reinforcing that. Then they commit the ultimate wrong and pass fucked-up beliefs on to their children. Visitation of the sins of the father on the sons indeed.
The point? I don't care to which religion someone ascribes - I will hold that person up to a standard of behavior independent of any religion. If someone murders his child for any reason - and that means even the understandable ones - then that person is, as PZ puts it, a demented fuckwit.
THAT, Randal Birkey, is what atheists mean when we say we judge someone by a moral standard independent of God. Despite what you may believe, it is possible. And if you actually read that "Holy" book you cherish so, you would understand that your make-believe God is horrible in the morals department. I wouldn't claim to get my morals from such a being, and that is precisely why I stopped doing so. Even God has to be held responsible for past acts, and his record is worse than some of the most disturbing murderers humankind has ever produced; this is ESPECIALLY true if you say God is unchanging.
But then, those of us who realize that any God and any religion are make-believe will also realize that any disgusting acts God is said to have done are at the very least the fantasies of his worshippers, if not the actual deeds. The fact that you want to defend your religion so much doesn't speak well of your moral character, Mr. Birkey. Not at all. If I were you I would take a serious look at my religion.
Posted by: Lee Brimmicombe-Wood | May 12, 2008 12:02 PM
I notice Peter hasn't appeared to tell us we were all too PC to criticize Islamic mores. I'd better bookmark this to beat him senseless should he show his face again.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 12, 2008 12:04 PM
Yes, that's nearly the definition of religion, but the point is that I focus on people and not any set of beliefs. These people are just plain fucked up anyway, and their religion is only reinforcing that. Then they commit the ultimate wrong and pass fucked-up beliefs on to their children. Visitation of the sins of the father on the sons indeed.
How many of this people would act like this without their chosen religion telling them it is ok?
Posted by: CortxVortx | May 12, 2008 12:06 PM
Re: #22
"Shared"? You share your view with Abdel-Qader Ali & Co, who based their actions on the absolute morality of God.
How do you defend yourself, birk?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 12:06 PM
"I certainly hope you apply that logic when Christians are involved."
I apply it all religions.
I judge them not on what they are supposed to do, if one takes a benign and liberal view on what their holy texts say, but on what they actually do. And in this case it is to kill their daughters for having crush and congratulating the killer rather than putting them on trial.
Why do people refuse to believe this man when he gives his reasons for killing his daughter ? He has told us, after all, that the did it because that his what he believed his god wanted him to do. Now that could be consider the actions of a deranged man, had the authorities punished him. The fact that they congratulated him, and clearly considered that he acted correctly tells us that this is no one off event.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 12:07 PM
Or actually, anti-Semitism is the only known necessary condition leading to Auschwitz. Contrary to the religious lies of Expelled, which are comparable only to the lies of religious leading to this murder, as well as the lies of the concernt trolls on this thread.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 12, 2008 12:07 PM
bah, I botched the blockquote tag above.
Posted by: Disciple of "Bob" | May 12, 2008 12:07 PM
Somewhere, Chris Hedges is going through all sorts of Olympian mental gymnastics in order to come up with a way to blame this on "western racism" and make Islam out to be the REAL victim here.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | May 12, 2008 12:08 PM
Here's a solution for this and other issues that plague Iraq: Muslim women, for the sake of everyone concerned, please stop giving birth to men. Abort 'em, toss 'em out into the desert sun, poison their milk, or strangle 'em with their own umbilicals, do what you have to, but please stop producing more fodder for the stupidity of their fathers.
If Yahweh-too-tired would get off his fucking ass and do his own dirty work like he used to, we wouldn't have to put up with this shit.
Posted by: cl | May 12, 2008 12:10 PM
I agree with you here PZ. That is an example of religious "freedom" that should be barred from practice in my opinion.
Win some, lose some.
Posted by: Dutch Delight | May 12, 2008 12:13 PM
I agree, although it's not like the Iraqi people went that route by themselves, it was a necessity because the few were ruling the many with foreign (US, some EU states) assistance which they relied on in accordance with the principals of imperialism.
Then, somehow, the puppet got uncontrollable (oil for Euro's, bad move Saddam!). Even though Iraqi diplomats had pretty much offered surrender before the invasion to Richard Perle, using that opportunity to build a stable, free and democratic state without chaos or large scale loss of life wasn't good enough. Someone decided it was worth a couple of thousand American lives to first *create* chaos and then "clean it up" until they've "won". It's a bit of a high price, but then this was the only way to make sure the Iraqi's would sell their oil, development and exploration contracts to the right people for the right price.
Still waiting for the candidates to discuss how they will deal with this treason.
Posted by: Ranger Jay | May 12, 2008 12:13 PM
Isn't it funny how much of religious fervor involves males saving face?
Well, I guess "funny" isn't the right word...
Posted by: Hematite | May 12, 2008 12:15 PM
Matt Penfold (#83) and emily (#71):
Emily is saying that we shouldn't judge all muslims by the actions of fundamentalist lunatics in Iraq, the same way we shouldn't judge all Christians by the actions of nutjob creationists in the US. She is not being an apologist for these crimes. Where I live there are (cute) muslim students who wear head scarves along with their tight jeans and sleeveless tops. It's a different kind of Islam, and whether you still oppose it or not it's ridiculous to blindly equate it with fundamentalist honour killings.
Posted by: Planeten Paultje | May 12, 2008 12:20 PM
This guy killed his daughter with resolute dedication and is mighty proud of what he has done. Countless others slaughter their own every day, unseen by the world, taking inspiration from the exact same mindset.
I wonder, if they can murder their own flesh and blood that easily, how easy would it be for them to murder complete strangers?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 12:20 PM
"Emily is saying that we shouldn't judge all muslims by the actions of fundamentalist lunatics in Iraq, the same way we shouldn't judge all Christians by the actions of nutjob creationists in the US. She is not being an apologist for these crimes. Where I live there are (cute) muslim students who wear head scarves along with their tight jeans and sleeveless tops. It's a different kind of Islam, and whether you still oppose it or not it's ridiculous to blindly equate it with fundamentalist honour killings."
It is not the kind of Islam that is to be found in Basra, which is the whole point. Emily either cannot or will not understand that point. I would note though that condemnation from Islamic leaders around the world seems to be conspicuous by its absence. Had following the reporting of this killing two weeks ago there been an outpouring of condemnation from Muslims, and especially Muslim clerics, from around the world, and particularly from within Iraq then this criticism would have some validity. Sadly there seems to not have been any such condemnation.
Posted by: NC Paul | May 12, 2008 12:21 PM
Hematite,
And I believe that Matt P.'s point is that if these moderate Muslims are so outraged (and I'm certain they genuinely are), they should express it, because the actions of these demented fundamentalists are blackening the name of their faith.
If a few cartoons in a Danish newspaper can cause riots across the Islamic world, then shouldn't the barbaric murder of an innocent young woman raise an even greater storm of protest?
Or do these moderates care more about the dignity of their prophet (who's been dead for over a millennium) than they do about the actual life (and death) of a young woman?
Same goes for moderate Christians, Jews, Hindus - if extremists are committing atrocities in the name of your faith, it's your duty to call them out on it.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 12:22 PM
Did anybody "blindly equate" the two?
Penfold wrote "that a fundamentalist form of Islam is at the heart of what is wrong."
How about dealing with some issues, instead of dispensing stale platitudes? I know you concern trolls feel stunningly righteous, the trouble is that you're not, you're simply playing an us-vs.-them blame game .
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Greg Peterson | May 12, 2008 12:23 PM
Honor killings (and misogyny in general) are a special concern of (atheist) Joss Whedon, and his fans have taken up the cause. To consider doing something practical on the issue, please see: http://nothingbutred.wordpress.com/
http://www.equalitynow.org/english/index.html
http://www.whedon.info/Joss-Whedon-Nothing-But-Red.html
Posted by: Jason Dick | May 12, 2008 12:28 PM
Hematite #135,
The problem is that these "cute muslim students who wear head scarves along with their tight jeans and sleeveless tops" are part of the problem: they may not practice this sort of horrific nonsense, but they condone it, or at least are not outspoken against it. They are become monsters because of their religion because they are unwilling to criticize their own religion.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 12:28 PM
To go further with my last point.
If there is a problem within an institution then the first people who have a duty to sort out that problem are fellow members of that institution. Thus is a doctor performs acts that amount to professional misconduct there is a duty on other doctors to hold him to account. Likewise within a religion, if some members of that religion behave improperly, then the first people who should act are his co-religionists.
This is also a major criticism of those who attack Dawkins, PZ et al for being to outspoken in their condemnation of creationism (and other excesses of Christianity) saying it alienates moderate Christians. What these people fail to realise is that had the moderate Christians being doing their jobs properly then there would be no need for Dawkins, PZ et al to be so outspoken. But since the moderate Christians seem so reluctant to sort out their more fundamentalist co-religionists then other must.
Posted by: Alex | May 12, 2008 12:28 PM
Enjoy crusading against the evil culture of Islam. PZ's post was mildly concerning to me, though, in my view, generally justified given the heinous nature of this crime. I found it largely to be a dehumanizing portrayal of an entire culture. The responses to Emily's (71) post were fairly hate-filled and hostile to even the idea of liberal Muslims.
This is particularly true of Glen Davidson's (89) response in which he accuses Emily of implicitly condoning these acts by not showing the proper disgust and falling in line.
Michelle's (117) requirement that all temperate Muslims come out strong on this or be considered women-hating murderers was also moderately disturbing. It's ridiculous to expect people who scarcely identify with the group that perpetrated this action to somehow take responsibility for it and be required to prove their objection.
Which somewhat brings me to the point that I feel is missing. Which is that Muslims aren't a unified front and Muslim cultures are, like all cultures, constantly in flux with both liberal and conservative elements. Condemning the entire Arabic world and Muslims at large is essentially the same rhetoric I'd expect to see in calls for a religious crusade. Aegis's (8) post even bemoans that Bush didn't call for an outright war on Islam rather than what he did.
This event is certainly tragic and an example of the dangers of conservative religious control of government and the imposition of divine law as secular law but the portrayal of an entire part of the Earth as barbarians is simplistic and ridiculous. I would hope that people reasonable enough to reject ridiculous religious dogma would be able to think rationally but I guess that's a bit too much to hope for. Enjoy flaming me.
Posted by: Alex | May 12, 2008 12:29 PM
Enjoy crusading against the evil culture of Islam. PZ's post was mildly concerning to me, though, in my view, generally justified given the heinous nature of this crime. I found it largely to be a dehumanizing portrayal of an entire culture. The responses to Emily's (71) post were fairly hate-filled and hostile to even the idea of liberal Muslims.
This is particularly true of Glen Davidson's (89) response in which he accuses Emily of implicitly condoning these acts by not showing the proper disgust and falling in line.
Michelle's (117) requirement that all temperate Muslims come out strong on this or be considered women-hating murderers was also moderately disturbing. It's ridiculous to expect people who scarcely identify with the group that perpetrated this action to somehow take responsibility for it and be required to prove their objection.
Which somewhat brings me to the point that I feel is missing. Which is that Muslims aren't a unified front and Muslim cultures are, like all cultures, constantly in flux with both liberal and conservative elements. Condemning the entire Arabic world and Muslims at large is essentially the same rhetoric I'd expect to see in calls for a religious crusade. Aegis's (8) post even bemoans that Bush didn't call for an outright war on Islam rather than what he did.
This event is certainly tragic and an example of the dangers of conservative religious control of government and the imposition of divine law as secular law but the portrayal of an entire part of the Earth as barbarians is simplistic and ridiculous. I would hope that people reasonable enough to reject ridiculous religious dogma would be able to think rationally but I guess that's a bit too much to hope for. Enjoy flaming me.
Posted by: Serjis Werking | May 12, 2008 12:31 PM
Honor my whimsy and grind him to a paste and feed it to pigs.
Posted by: jeh | May 12, 2008 12:31 PM
Unfortunately this vile practice predates Islam: Women + children = property. But that this hideously evil idea is not repudiated by all Muslims is inexcusable.
But before Christians get all holier than thou on this point--many fundamentalist Christians likewise treat divorced women and unmarried mothers as damaged goods, perceiving them as having an insatiable lust that trips up "godly" men. I would not have believe this sort of insanity unless I had actually heard it articulated--several times in the churches that I grew up in.
Newt: My mommy always said there were no monsters - no real ones - but there are.
Ripley: Yes, there are, aren't there?
Newt: Why do they tell little kids that?
Ripley: Most of the time it's true.
Posted by: Hematite | May 12, 2008 12:38 PM
Oop, guess I shouldn't have ignored the thread for an hour before I replied. A more nuanced comment is required.
I am very conscious of the separation between muslim culture and muslim theology. If all the muslims suddenly stopped believing in Allah, there would still be groups with the kind of fucked up culture which led to this killing, they would simply justify it as tradition rather than religion. On the other hand, you can take muslim theology and transplant it to a western culture and it becomes as innocuous as moderate Chrisitianity. To say that Islam is the enemy is to conflate the two aspects which is overly simplistic and leads to alienating moderate elements who should really be allies in the fight against fundamentalism.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | May 12, 2008 12:38 PM
tony writes:
Islam today is where christianity was in the middle ages... so should we expect anything other than medieval behaviors?
Uh, yes - because they're surrounded by the rest of the world, which is firmly rooted in the 21st century.
Posted by: Dutch Delight | May 12, 2008 12:39 PM
Apart from the concert-trollish element:
I think most readers would settle for the local community/government. But i guess it's easier to pretend and dismiss that your opponents are calling for every single muslim on this planet to fill in a form.
Posted by: Ryan Egesdahl | May 12, 2008 12:39 PM
That's actually the point I was making, if I wasn't clear about it. I'm getting at the fact that these people are weak-minded and would accept anyone with "religious authority" telling them to do something. Hence my problem with their morals. There are plenty of religious people who do not fall under this category (and I know a few). Of course, people who practice religion tend to produce weak-minded children who also follow it, but the cause of religion would be weak-minded people accepting authority in the first place, to my mind.
Posted by: Elyse | May 12, 2008 12:41 PM
The mother left the man because she said she could no longer learn to live with her beloved daughters murderer.
Posted by: PeteKay | May 12, 2008 12:44 PM
Yet another ugly reminder of how religion can be twisted and abused to justify disgusting behaviour, and yet another reason why we shouldn't invade other people's countries...
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 12:44 PM
"Michelle's (117) requirement that all temperate Muslims come out strong on this or be considered women-hating murderers was also moderately disturbing. It's ridiculous to expect people who scarcely identify with the group that perpetrated this action to somehow take responsibility for it and be required to prove their objection."
You need to make up your mind.
If temperate Muslims do not identify with the perpetrators of this sort of crime then why would they identify themselves are being part of the culture condemned by PZ ? If people though do want to identify themselves as Muslim then they cannot avoid being identified with some of the worst aspects of Islam, as well as some of the best.
Membership of an institution carries responsibilities, and one of those is policing the actions of others member of that institution. I know that a Muslim in the west may not be able to do much of a practical nature to protect women in Iraq, except be vocal in support of their rights and make in clear to the co-religionists they do not act in their name. If they are unwilling to even to do that then they must accept the condemnation of the beliefs that lead to killings such as this.
To give an example. If I was a Catholic and felt that the Catholic position on birth control was wrong I would have some choices. I could cease being a Catholic or I could remain a Catholic but speak out against the teaching, or I could do nothing. If I chose to do nothing I then have no moral authority to complain about those who condemn the Catholic position on contraception.
Posted by: Alex | May 12, 2008 12:46 PM
Dutch Delight in #149:
I was actually responding to a specific comment by Michelle, which, unless I drastically misread it, was calling for exactly that. The constant skepticism of the very existence of moderate Muslims that Emily (71) had cited was another part of what I was responding to that I felt Michelle's comment brought most succinctly, though certainly in a more extreme manner than everyone who comment likely intended.
If by being a concert (I assume concern) troll, you mean that I'm concerned about being swept up by hateful quasi-religious anti-Muslim ideology, then okay.
Sorry about the double post before.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 12:46 PM
"On the other hand, you can take muslim theology and transplant it to a western culture and it becomes as innocuous as moderate Chrisitianity."
If only that were true.
Sadly event in London have proven you to be wrong.
Posted by: JStein | May 12, 2008 12:46 PM
What really makes me sick is the fact that I'm not surprised.
Posted by: Dale Husband | May 12, 2008 12:50 PM
The third is one only briefly mentioned: the mother, Leila Hussein. I wonder...does her skin crawl at having to submit to the vile creature who tortured her daughter to death, or is she sufficiently indoctrinated into the evils of her culture that she accepts it? Either way, it's a nightmare.
I guess you didn't read the whole article, PZ. Here's your answer from it:
Rand's mother, 41, remains in hiding after divorcing her husband in the immediate aftermath of the killing, living in fear of retribution from his family. She also still bears the scars of the severe beating he inflicted on her, breaking her arm in the process, when she told him she was going. 'They cannot accept me leaving him. When I first left I went to a cousin's home, but every day they were delivering notes to my door saying I was a prostitute and deserved the same death as Rand,' she said.
'She was killed by animals. Every night when go to bed I remember the face of Rand calling for help while her father and brothers ended her life,' she said, tears streaming down her face.
She was nervous, clearly terrified of being found, and her eyes constantly turned towards the window as she spoke....'Even now, I cannot believe my ex-husband was able to kill our daughter. He wasn't a bad person. During our 24 years of marriage, he was never aggressive. But on that day, he was a different person.'
The mother is now trying to raise enough money to escape abroad. 'I miss my two boys,' she said. 'But they have sent a message saying that I am wrong for defending Rand and that I should go back home and live like a blessed Muslim woman,' said Leila, who is now volunteering with a local organisation campaigning for better protection for women in Basra.
Rand's mother used to call her 'Rose'. 'That was my nickname for her because when she was born she was so beautiful,' she said.
'Now, my lovely Rose is in her grave. But, God will make her father pay, either in this world ... or in the world after.'
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 12:52 PM
Yet you can't speak to any specifics, you're just whining. What an idiot.
Blank assertion. You really are stupid and self-righteous.
If you weren't a lying asshole, I'm sure you'd back that up. But you can't, you're just a vile fuckwit. Libel is all that you have, since you don't even care about what is written, just wanting to be self-righteously above others.
Find anything in my post that indicated that I accused her for "implicitly condoning" the crime. You can't, or you already would have. But here it is, just in case you want to try to be honest, instead of a vile liar supporting other vile liars:
I know, you wrote "implicitly" because you think that excuses your dishonesty. Well, it doesn't, you're just a perverted moronic liar.
Other religions condemn atrocities done in the name of their religion. It's only reasonable, even if it's just in order to avoid possibly unfair comparison. But then it becomes a standard, and when religions don't condemn atrocity in their name, one has to wonder why.
You're using double scales here, like the thoroughgoing liar that you proven to be.
Now the truly dull platitudes, from the truly dull liar.
Of course you ignore all of our qualifiers, but that's expected from an egregious liar like yourself.
And most refrained from condemning the entire Arabic world and Muslims at large. But then truth has never been something you knew how to handle.
Which is why you constructed that straw whore yourself, are fucking it, and blaming everyone else for you paying for your sex with it.
Actually, what's too much to ask is for a single supported statement from you, as you condemn sans evidence, and you stereotype in the manner that others did not.
I don't enjoy it, I do it because you're a fuckwitted lying asshole, as well demonstrated in your donkey intelligence and fundamentalist-like dishonesty. That ought never to be let by without flames.
Learn how to make an argument, moron, and learn some honesty, and then come back. I'm sure you won't have either intelligence or honesty for at least a decade, since your post was completely devoid of either one.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Alex | May 12, 2008 12:54 PM
#153:
I certainly agree that group membership can carry responsibilities but I have several objections. The first pertains to the idea that Muslims aren't a unified group and that moderate or liberal Muslims may very well not even religiously identify with these people any more than a Lutheran identifies with a Catholic.
Second, I agree that I moderates ought to speak out, but I only disagree that if they don't do so they're women-hating murderers.
Posted by: SteveM | May 12, 2008 12:55 PM
#119:
I'm absolutely fascinated. Please, tell us all which horrible acts are justified by Secular Humanism?
My guess at their answer would be "abortion and euthenasia".
Posted by: Moses | May 12, 2008 12:58 PM
I think your commonly-held belief, like many commonly-held beliefs, is incorrect. I believe a better understanding of honor killings is to not view the sad practice as a religious practice (despite the hype), but as a social-practice that isn't tied to religion, per se.
Honor killings, which are now exceedingly rare in Western Civilization, are still common in Arab and Mediterranean countries as well as South East Asia (this includes China). Muslims do commit honor killings, but so do Christians, Druze, Hindus, Sikhs, and other religious affiliations, possibly including atheism, in these areas. Without religion as a common denominator, we have to look at the societies structure. Even if the country may be nominally democratic, or whatever, there is common factor - a feudal social structure.
It should be no surprise to learn that honor killings were part-and-parcel of feudal Europe. As Europe became enlightened (over many, many generations) honor killings subsided. Christianity (which was the dominant religion by that time) had previously exculpated the killings by picking-and-choosing from the religious texts to support the actions. When society decided that honor killings were wrong, and punishable, the dominant religion suddenly found new texts by which to endorse not killing.
Anyone who would profess surprise by the change, and would argue that it was really always that way, is ignoring that all religions, including fundamentalist Christianity, Islam, etc., are "cafeteria" in practice -- that is, what and which particular parts and practices of the religion are utilized in a manner that are really a reflection of the current culture in which the religion finds itself.
I think the best way to understand "honor killings" is that they are NOT RELIGIOUS ARTIFACTS, but CULTURAL ARTIFACTS of FUEDAL CULTURES. To directly blame religion is wrong, especially as religious practice follows culture. The key, I think, to understanding who is at risk from honor killing is to see who lives in a FUEDAL CULTURE, or has parents that are, despite living in a western/westernized country, culturally indoctrinated into the feudal mind-set. Not the religious affiliation of the members of the feudal culture.
The best way to stop honor killings is to get the culture of origin out of a feudal state, where LIFE IS CHEAP and HONOR VALUABLE. Which is easier said than done, and sure as hell can't be done by routinely over-throwing democracies because they interfere with our countries imperialist plans.
But pointing fingers at Islam is, well, bush league. Honor killings happen irrespective of the religious affiliation of the victim. Sure, we hear about the Muslims, because we're blowing up their part of the world. We don't hear about the Christian honor killings in Italy, Greece, Africa, etc., because they're not useful in spreading malicious, dehumanizing propaganda. We don't hear about the honor killings in Africa or South East Asia because, frankly, almost nobody in the press, or our country, gives a shit about what happens to Africa.
But a Muslim? Fucking A, front page news.
Posted by: NoAstronomer | May 12, 2008 1:03 PM
This is why I advocate leaving Iraq immediately, they don't care about each other - why the hell should we? f**k 'em.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 1:03 PM
You were actually stereotyping practically everyone here over Michelle's post, like the lying a-hole you are. And you were specifically lying about what I had written. You are the pus oozing from gangrenous limbs.
You mean, if being a concern troll means self-righteously and falsely stereotyping and condemning others, you're happy to do so.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Jason Failes (again) | May 12, 2008 1:04 PM
"I think the best way to understand "honor killings" is that they are NOT RELIGIOUS ARTIFACTS, but CULTURAL ARTIFACTS of FUEDAL CULTURES."
Without God, all capitalizations are permitted...
"But pointing fingers at Islam is, well, bush league."
Yeah, just because they said they did it in the name of Allah, and in the name of upholding Muslim law, doesn't mean it had anything at all to do with either Islam or religion...
Posted by: SteveM | May 12, 2008 1:04 PM
take the Observer and read this article.
The mother did object to her husband killing their daughter. As a result the husband broke her arm and divorced her. The mother is now in hiding fearing retribution from his family.
No, she divorced him. Not an insignificant distinction, since that is the reason she is now in fear of her own life from her husband and the rest of his family.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 1:05 PM
"I certainly agree that group membership can carry responsibilities but I have several objections. The first pertains to the idea that Muslims aren't a unified group and that moderate or liberal Muslims may very well not even religiously identify with these people any more than a Lutheran identifies with a Catholic.
Second, I agree that I moderates ought to speak out, but I only disagree that if they don't do so they're women-hating murderers."
I accept your point to some extent, however it cuts both ways. Moderate Muslims may well not identify themselves with the kind of Muslim who carried out this killing, and I fully accept they may well abhor his actions. However that does render moot those here who have claimed PZ is attacking all Muslims. If a Muslim does not identify in way with the actions being condemned by PZ and others, then they also cannot claim to identify with that condemnation and claim to be persecuted as a result.
If the moderate Muslims have any identification with the Muslims who carry out this sort of crime then any condemnation applied to them as well, especially if they fail to speak out against it. If they have no such identification then they have special interest in the condemnations, and cannot claim them to be an attack on their beliefs.
Your example of Catholics and Lutherans is well taken, but fails when an attack on, for example, Catholic teaching on abortion is taken to be an attack on Christianity. If a Christian, or Muslim, perceives an attack on a particular sub-set of their faith, and of which they are not member, to be an attack on them, then they loose the defence "It ain't what I believe guv".
Posted by: Michelle | May 12, 2008 1:05 PM
"Yeah, just because they said they did it in the name of Allah, and in the name of upholding Muslim law, doesn't mean it had anything at all to do with either Islam or religion..."
I'm downright sure these monsters disagree with you right there. All these countries are religious zealots. It's led by a RELIGION.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 1:08 PM
"No, she divorced him. Not an insignificant distinction, since that is the reason she is now in fear of her own life from her husband and the rest of his family."
You are correct. My mistake. I dug out the paper and checked. I was wrong to say he divorced her, but correct in saying she was assaulted by him, suffering a broken arm in the process, and is now in hiding.
If my government (The UK) has any ball (it doesn't!) it would find this women and offer her asylum.
Posted by: Chuck S. | May 12, 2008 1:09 PM
Beyond monstrous. Dastardly. It's an abomination. It's inhuman.
I'm disgusted.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | May 12, 2008 1:11 PM
Moses @161 is certainly right that "honour killings" occur in non-Muslim social groups. However, that doesn't in itself "acquit" Islam, as it could have played a causal role in maintaining the norms that justify such killings.
Can anyone knowledgeable about Islam cite passages in the Koran (or the Hadiths - though the population of Basra is almost entirely Shia), or provisions of Sharia law which can be interpreted as saying either "Thou shalt not commit honour killings", or "Thou shalt commit honour killings"? That would go some way towards determining how far Islam itself can reasonably be considered a causal factor in this murder.
Posted by: Hephaestus | May 12, 2008 1:11 PM
I'm a little late to this party, but I wanted to state my agreement with PZ. The father is indeed a monster and is the product of a monstrous culture.
I also agree with Moses, if a little less breathlessly. There are cultures around the world that practice "honor" killings and most of them are rarely mentioned in the press. This, and the other killings from the Middle East, are making the news because the Arabs are the villians of the day. I wouldn't even credit it as Muslims being specifically targeted by the press, because they ignore the most populous Muslim countries of Indonesia, Bangladesh, and India.
The problem lies in twenty-first century tribalism. It's always us versus them. Until an age of rationalism comes along, and I'm not holding my breath, this kind of stuff is going to keep happening.
Posted by: noncarborundum | May 12, 2008 1:12 PM
Bingo. A prominent Muslim in my area (Boston suburbs), who no doubt would consider herself a moderate, wrote an op-ed in the local paper a couple of years ago in which she undertook to reassure Christians and Jews that, no matter how bad things got, at least Muslims would never commit the ultimate outrage of defiling their holy texts.
This was at a time when there were stories circulating about how U.S. military personnel at Guantánamo and elsewhere had desecrated copies of the Qur'an. Apparently this woman thought the most pressing worry among Jews and Christians in eastern Massachusetts was not that some Muslims might become violent and kill themselves and others over these reports (which had already happened), but that they would retaliate for the Qur'an desecration by turning around and doing the same thing to copies of the Bible.
Posted by: Brian | May 12, 2008 1:14 PM
Absolutely eye-opening. This brings the reality of how "conditional" love can be when your mind is lost to dogmatic fundamentalism.
Thanks very much for your commentary on this.
Posted by: tincture | May 12, 2008 1:14 PM
Indeed.
Posted by: Ray Ingles | May 12, 2008 1:15 PM
Mr. Birkey - you might want to look at this link for a discussion of your question.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 1:15 PM
"The problem lies in twenty-first century tribalism. It's always us versus them. Until an age of rationalism comes along, and I'm not holding my breath, this kind of stuff is going to keep happening."
This is true, but I would add that religion is a great abettor of tribalism. This a point Dawkins makes in "The God Delusional", and is all to frequently overlooked.
Posted by: valor | May 12, 2008 1:17 PM
I've never read or studied the Quran, and I'm totally unfamiliar with it. However, I do know (or have been told by moderate Muslims) that a number of practices by Arab Muslims are not actual written in the Quran (like the burqa). My question, I guess, would be if any one knows of a passage in the Quran either explicitly condoning or condemning honor-killings?
Because while this act is certainly abhorrent and also certainly predictable (there was an honor killing in Canada last year), I think it's difficult to say that it is Islam's fault. There were Arabs before there were Muslims. And I don't mean that to be racist, I just mean that the culture existed before the religion.
Posted by: Alex | May 12, 2008 1:18 PM
Matt Penfold in #166:
I agree that PZ and many others haven't been condemning all Muslims. Rather, my initial post was largely in response to several outliers that explicitly did so in a way that seemed inappropriate since, like you pointed out, I don't think they can really be grouped together. The problem for me is that much of the discussion doesn't seem centered on the people who are directly responsible for this act and condoning it but rather on a broader group that isn't even involved.
I may have misunderstood your second point, but I think that when a Christian or Muslims perceives an attack on a sub-set of their larger faith as an attack on their own particular beliefs they often think as they do because the attack was imprecisely aimed at their larger group when the charges don't apply to many of the sub-sets.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 1:20 PM
The key, I think, is for you to figure out why your mis-named "fuedal (sic)cultures" continue to exist far more in Islamic societies than in, say, Buddhist societies, or even animist societies which are exposed to more modern ideas.
And learn how to spell "feudal" for God's sake.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Hematite | May 12, 2008 1:20 PM
Yeesh, sorry I'm having trouble keeping up with the comments. Apologies if I seem to be about 10 minutes behind the state of play.
Matt Penfold (#155), Re muslim culture vs muslim religion: events in London have proven you to be wrong
I don't have a reference handy, but are we talking about the muslims who are causing trouble all through europe specifically because they haven't integrated into the local culture?
Glen Davidson (#139):
Matt Penfold disagreed with Emily's post which suggested that they should not be equated. I admit I found the rest of his comment hard to parse. I read Matt to be implying that all muslims should be held accountable for this vile killing, which I would call conflating (a particular) muslim culture and muslim religion in its entirety. If I misread him I apologise, but I still stand by what I said as a general statement. The full quote you cut short reads:
...which does not address Emily's comment at all. She was not talking about Iraq.
Glen also said:
Them's fightin' words. I'm trying to defend the statement that the set of muslims and the set of muslim fundamentalists are not coextensive. It seems pretty sensible to me. If you want to call that concern trolling, I'll wear the label with pride. And who are the us-and-them? Who am I blaming? Which issues am I avoiding?
Posted by: Omar Ali | May 12, 2008 1:20 PM
Every second person seems to have an opinion about whether "Islam" is to blame or "the culture" is to blame. This seems a confused and meaningless distinction. Islam is not some person or place with a concrete presence. Its a much more vague and amorphous construct. It means a hundred different things depending on context and implicit or explicit definitions. In this case, Islam AS UNDERSTOOD by this father and the policemen in Basra and MANY (?MOST?) MALE MUSLIMS in that country permits and even encourages this barbarism. At the same time, Islam, as understood by liberal muslims (even in Iraq) does NOT approve of this conduct. Muslims in Fiji and New Zealand may mostly ignore what Muslims in Basra and Peshawar regard as holy writ. There is no monolithic uniform "islam" for everyone. On the other hand, there IS a mainstream, orthodox interpretation of Islam that is well codified and much more widely accepted among muslims than any comparable code among Jews or Christians. THAT mainstream orthodox Islam does NOT specifically order honor killings and strictly speaking, would regard this act as murder. BUT, that mainstream Islam does regard apostasy as punishable by death, adultery as punishable by stoning, slavery as legal, women's testimony as less reliable than men, men as protectors and masters of "their women" and so on.....
Posted by: Coriolis | May 12, 2008 1:20 PM
This whole "but other religions do that to" nonsense is getting tiring. Yes, we all know that.
It wasn't that long ago that a polygamist cult in the US abusing women and children was raided by the police. Yes, that was just as bad as this (infact worse from an institutional viewpoint although not personal I guess). We all know that.
The crucial difference that some of you PC-junkies need to get your heads around is that in those cases the government went after these people. Not just the government but almost all religious people condemned them as well, hell the LDS church condemned them just as much if not more then other people.
In this case, the local police gave the man a pat on the back and he's apparently getting away with it. When the government of a society condones these actions it stops being just some crazy nutjob and starts being a problem of the culture of that society.
Posted by: Calladus | May 12, 2008 1:21 PM
I would say that you're probably correct. Because Murder = Murder = Murder in all cases.
Remember, it isn't murder if you believe your God has labeled the action in question as "justice".
Posted by: valor | May 12, 2008 1:23 PM
found a Quranic verse:
"Whoso slayeth a believer of set purpose, his reward is Hell for ever. Allah is wroth against him and He hath cursed him and prepared for him an awful doom." (An-Nisa': 93)
Of course, I suppose the killer could just say that his daughter was not a "true" believer because she flirted with a Christian, but that's cheating.
Posted by: ddr | May 12, 2008 1:24 PM
#94 "Ok here you do the math:
(1 billion muslims)/(number of muslims who kill their children) = how relevant the incident is to islam. Hint: its a small fucking number"
It was not a small number to the woman who was killed.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 1:25 PM
"I don't have a reference handy, but are we talking about the muslims who are causing trouble all through europe specifically because they haven't integrated into the local culture?"
We are talking about the Muslims who carried out suicide bombing on 7th July 2005 on the London Underground, and on a London bus.
Those who carried out the attacks were British born, spoke with Nothern English accents, had attended British schools and yet chose to kill 52 people, and injure some 700 in the name of their god.
It is not clear how their being exposed to western culture moderated their actions.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | May 12, 2008 1:25 PM
Valor, pre-Islamic Arabic culture existed over 1100 years ago. Baghdad was once a centre of science, learning, and literature. You'd be hard-pressed to demonstrate that the behaviours we are discussing now have persisted unchanged throughout that entire time.
Posted by: Bob L | May 12, 2008 1:26 PM
Man that is messed up. The kind of indoctrination that you would have to have do to kill you own child. They think they can bring democracy to that?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 1:27 PM
"...which does not address Emily's comment at all. She was not talking about Iraq."
PZ was talking about Iraq, she was talking about what PZ said. You follow the logic, if you can. If you can't, ask a grown-up.
Posted by: valor | May 12, 2008 1:30 PM
Valid. I'm not saying that all pre-Islamic Arabs thought this was cool, just as not all Islamic Arabs did. But I think (and I do mean think, this is unresearched) that Bedouin practiced honor killings before they met Islam.
But I don't have the research on that. And I have to go. Sorry for the unproved assertion.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | May 12, 2008 1:32 PM
Omar Ali @181 - Thanks, that was the kind of clarification I was seeking @170.
Posted by: Jason Failes (again) | May 12, 2008 1:33 PM
#188 : "They think they can bring democracy to that?"
Since democracy means rule by the people, it's absurd to impose that from without, regardless of the culture in question.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | May 12, 2008 1:34 PM
Ah, I see, you're drawing some specific inferences about specific groups and the continuation of cultural traits through those. I think that is valid, though hard to do for any but well-researched historians and anthropologists.
Too bad you have to go. Can you come out and play later?
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 12, 2008 1:35 PM
Organized religion (such as the brand of Islam being discussed here) is a social construct; thus, the best basis on which to critique it is not the teachings or books on which it purports to be based, but rather its social consequences -- the behavior of civilizations and people who claim that religion. To make a "no true Muslim" argument is just as foolish as to say "no true Christian."
Posted by: Nick Gotts | May 12, 2008 1:37 PM
Re #188 "They think they can bring democracy to that?", and
#192 "Since democracy means rule by the people, it's absurd to impose that from without, regardless of the culture in question."
Irrelevant, since that is not what the invaders were trying to do. They wanted military bases, control of the economy, and a compliant puppet government. The preference for a bit of "democratic" window dressing is purely cosmetic.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 1:37 PM
Valor,
First, the term honour killing implies some kind of legitimacy on what is really just the slaying of a family member of who's behaviour you do not approve. There is no honour in killings like that.
And I many cultures over the years will have practised such killings. That does not excuse them. There is this concept of progress in how humans deal with each other. We no longer think slavery is acceptable in most of the world, in Europe the death penalty has gone because it is barbaric, and so on. To claim that a behaviour is traditional does not excuse it in any way.
Posted by: Dutch Delight | May 12, 2008 1:37 PM
Moses: "But a Muslim? Fucking A, front page news."
The sentiment in your post is spot on imo. You'll also notice PZ's post isn't about muslims specifically but rather about crazy religions offering refuge to these monsters instead of working as advertised.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 1:40 PM
He disagreed with an unfair attack by Emily. You are too stupid to understand that, you mischaracterized what he wrote, and like any IDiot would do, you continue on with your misrepresentation after being called on it.
In essence, you're simply lying.
You misrepresented him. Forget the "misread", you're not operating on any honest level about these matters.
Ooh, cut short eh? Can the false insinuations, jerk, I simply excerpted a telling point. The context you added changes not a damn thing, other than the fact that it exposes your eagerness to twist the issues to support your initial false accusations.
Of course she was, because she jumped into an issue which involved Iraq and the religious bigotry that exists there. Emily distorted the initial post and subsequent comments into an attack on the entire Islamic community, when PZ had not done that at all. Penfield responded to her dishonesty, and you took up the cudgel in favor of her dishonest distortion of the matter.
Which was a false accusation that these posts suggest otherwise. You perpetuate that dishonesty, because apparently getting the facts right before you attack is not part of your response.
Only if you're too stupid to understand that most weren't saying that the two are coextensive. No matter that this has often been pointed out to you and the equally dishonest Alex, you continue to perpetuate the falsehoods to which we were actually responding.
All of the ones I mentioned, you moron. You have avoided all of the facts about Emily's initial attack, and your dishonest perpetuation of the implicit and explicit lies in her comments. You simply side with her because you idiotically believe her, and you want to pretend that you're some grand moral being above the straw whores you attack, rather than the slimy perpetrator of dishonest stereotyping.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 1:40 PM
"Organized religion (such as the brand of Islam being discussed here) is a social construct; thus, the best basis on which to critique it is not the teachings or books on which it purports to be based, but rather its social consequences -- the behavior of civilizations and people who claim that religion. To make a "no true Muslim" argument is just as foolish as to say "no true Christian.""
So can we say Iraq is fucked then ?
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 1:41 PM
Should have been:Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 1:42 PM
Many Americans seem to vastly overestimate the percentage of moderate-by-ordinary-standards Muslims there actually are. (To be fair, Europeans who've been brainwashed by the PC Brigade, including newspapers like The Guardian, do this as well.)
To give an example of how wonderfully moderate they are: Sir Iqbal Sacranie, leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, said about Salman Rushdie:
"Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him... his mind must be tormented for the rest of his life unless he asks for forgiveness to Almighty Allah."
Naturally, after he said that there was no uproar from other so-called moderates. (They'd much rather complain about how we must "understand" that silly cartoons offend them.) There was no call for his resignation. Rather, about ten years later he was made a Sir.
Posted by: Hematite | May 12, 2008 1:47 PM
Matt Penfold (#189):
No, she was talking about "condemning Islam" based on this killing, which PZ did not do but does happen in general when this type of story comes up, and has happened in the comments - which is why your reply doesn't quite make sense. The whole thing was a misunderstanding.
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 1:47 PM
Take a look at that quotation again and let it sink in. What an absolutely outrageous remark. In a society in which capital punishment is condemned, he says in public that Rushdie "must [emphasis mine] be tormented for the rest of his life".
(Source: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,6000,112335,00.html)
Posted by: Ted D | May 12, 2008 1:48 PM
@#201
Why do I get the feeling that someone using the term "PC Brigade" might not present entirely unbiased arguments... hmmm...
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 1:48 PM
No, you're just a stupid liar.
What the deal with Michelles' post is, I don't know, but you simply lied about mine (#89).
And you wrote "The responses to Emily's (71) post were fairly hate-filled and hostile to even the idea of liberal Muslims. "
Mendacious idiot. You weren't targeting "outliers" there, nor did you acknowledge that Emily's post was a dishonest attack.
Now you try to spin more lies to cover up the many lies you've already told. You're proof positive that the IDiots and creationists don't have all of the worst liars on their side.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Armchair Dissident | May 12, 2008 1:48 PM
Gotta disagree with this too, although I have to say I've only recently come to my current understanding on this and would - until recently - have whole-heartedly agreed with you.
Every time an atrocity is committed by a person a Muslim, and condoned by other Muslims, the cry goes out asking, "Where are the moderate Muslims condemning this action". This sounds reasonable, but I would argue that it isn't for two reasons: first, there is the implicit assumption that moderate Muslims - those that treat Islam in much the same way that the English treat the CofE - are not condemning the action, and second the assumption that where they are being more vocal in their condemnation, their voice is being reported.
Take this incident as an excellent example of the problem. An atrocity is committed in the name of Islam, and is commended by the father's brothers, and - allegedly - by the local police in Basra. Millions of CofE-esque Muslims around the world are invariably outraged. The people in Basra - where the press are focused - will probably be privately condemning it as well, but at the same time there will be a dawning realisation (if they hadn't realised it before) that their police force can, and do, selectively enforce the law as they feel fit: speaking out will have future implications, as the mother found out to her cost.
Remeber, if you are a Muslim is Iraq, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or - for that matter - in Dubai, your options for protest or free speech are severely curtailed, and those nationals in those countries who do speak out are very brave characters. It can then be argued that if you are a Muslim in the UK that you are free to speak out and should do so. But this presumes both that Muslims in the UK are not outraged by this, or that their outrage would be represented in the press. In the UK about the only organisation that the media or government ever refer to for Muslim matters is the Muslim Council of Britain -- which can hardly be considered a moderate organisation of the CofE-esque variety. So who's even going to report the outrage? That you don't hear of the outrage is not an indication that it isn't there.
Case in point again - and I apologise for picking again on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor (I just don't like him very much) - the good Cardinal O'Connor has made some absolutely outrageous claims - claims that many British Catholics simply don't hold, and simply don't agree with. But O'Connor is the person the media turn to when they report on the catholic position on - for example - abortion: even though survey after survey demonstrate that most Catholics don't agree with the cardinal, his is the view that is trotted out as the "Catholic reaction" to news on abortion. It's simply not an even remotely true picture.
The same is true of Islam. The press choose who they talk to, and they - quite frankly - talk to some very f*cked up organisations that have somehow gained respectability (presumably because they're sufficiently "religious"), but - just as the Catholic church denies a voice to actual practicing Catholics, or the CofE denies a voice to actual practicing Protestants - these organisations deny the CofE-esque Muslims a voice.
Don't presume that the moderate Muslims are not vocally condemning these actions.
Once again, the problem in Basra is that fundamentalist Islam has wormed its way into the government institution. That is not the fault of the CofE-eque Muslims.
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 1:49 PM
Sorry, I accidentally included a bracket in that link.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,6000,112335,00.html
Posted by: Dutch Delight | May 12, 2008 1:52 PM
Matt Penfold: "So can we say Iraq is fucked then ?"
5 years to late with that question.
Even though it's a tad old, I recommend: http://www.infidelguy.com/article-print-28.html
Posted by: Kristin | May 12, 2008 2:01 PM
So, the next time some idiot tries to defend Bush's little adventure in Iraq by claiming that he's made things so much better for the women of Iraq (because W stands for Women, don't you know) point them to this article. Or one of the many other articles about how so-called honor killings are on the rise. Or one of the many articles on increasing violence against women. Or...well, you get the picture.
Posted by: dubiquiabs | May 12, 2008 2:07 PM
@ 80
Martin, you again? Trying to "kill" the messenger?
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | May 12, 2008 2:07 PM
Oh, goody, we're doing math! I know this particular equation has already been written off as screwed up, so let's try a different one:
(Number of Muslims who carry out honor killings)/(Number of those same people who would kill their family members if they weren't Muslims) = ?? [I'm guessing this one is a big number, if not infinite (i.e., the denominator may well be zero)]
I've been reading the discussion of whether this atrocity should be blamed on Islam or local culture or sexism or the personal depravity of the "honor"-killer, and since we're doing the math thing, I'll try to state my own hypothesis as an equation:
PHK = ABS(Sm-Sf)*(Arel/Asec)*SHsex
Where...
PHK = Probability of honor killing
Sm and Sf = Social status of males and females, respectively
Arel and Asec = Religious and secular authority, respectively
SHsex = Level of shame associated with sexuality
(Proper units and allowable ranges of values left as an exercise for the student)
What I'm suggesting is that the necessary social conditions for honor killing are gender inequality (i.e., the first factor in my equation), significant religious authority (the second factor), and significant shaming of sexuality. My hypothesis is that honor killings (as a cultural institution, that is) would be impossible in a society that had no gender inequality or nonsecular authority or sex-negative tendencies. If all of those factors are nontrivial and any one of them is very large, the risk of honor killing becomes significant, and in a purely theocratic society, according to this formulation, honor killings would be infinitely likely.
Note that in this forumlation, the risk of honor killing depends on the (you should pardon the expression) penetration of religious authority in a society, rather than the particular religion; however, a secondary hypothesis is that the first and third factors in the equation (gender inequality and sexual shaming) are not independent of dominant creed. More research is needed on this point.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 2:14 PM
"No, she was talking about "condemning Islam" based on this killing, which PZ did not do but does happen in general when this type of story comes up, and has happened in the comments - which is why your reply doesn't quite make sense. The whole thing was a misunderstanding."
So she was complaining about PZ saying something he did not actually say ?
In your opinion did she make that mistake because she was 1) too stupid to understand what PZ was actually saying, 2) Understood what PZ was saying but had her own agenda to push that does not require her to pay attention to the truth or 3) is just bat-shit insane ?
Posted by: Hematite | May 12, 2008 2:18 PM
Matt Penfold (#166):
First thing, I hope you don't think I'm arguing in bad faith. I don't wish to argue at all, I'm just trying to clarify a point. Glen Davidson is busy slandering me with great enthusiasm and I'd rather tidy up sensible conversations before I give him any more time.
Right.
I agree with all I quoted from you above. In the terms of your quote above, what I am arguing against is (1) a subgroup is accused of a crime, for example the insane child raper Christian cult from a couple of weeks ago. As you say, since most Christians do not hold the same beliefs as the cultists an attack on the cultists would not be construed as an attack on Christianity. (2) Some third party declares that the cultists are representative of Christianity. Now little old ladies in the Church of England are being tarred with the same brush as the child molesters. I would be very surprised if anyone wants to say this statement follows from (1), I take any argument so far as a failure of communication on my part.
(2) is what has been happening in this thread at various points, and happens in the media (but PZ did not make this mistake in his post), what I understand Emily to have been arguing against, and what I argue against.
I would like to say again that the only point I wish to make is that the error in (2) is incorrect as a principle.
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 2:21 PM
Why do I get the feeling that someone using the term "PC Brigade" might not present entirely unbiased arguments... hmmm...
Why do I get the feeling that someone who doesn't recognize the existence of the PC Brigade won't even consider what I said. Hmmm...
In any case, I barely even advanced an argument. The main thing I did in the two little posts above was state a fact about Iqbal Sacranie. Check it out yourself if you want.
Posted by: Dan Jensen | May 12, 2008 2:23 PM
Personally, all this typhoon news just makes me want to pull out God's fingernails. F&*k *Him*.
That said, I get real damned tired of being called intolerant for despising these murderous Islamic traditions. Still, there is hope--there must be hope--that Muslims will, as a whole, adopt more enlightened notions of monotheism that, for instance, forbid any claim to having God on one's side (He sure as Hell isn't on *my* side). That's called ASSIGNING PARTNERS TO GOD to all of you hypocritical so-called monotheists out there. Muslims must transform their idols (Muhammad and the Qur'an) into more humanistic representations so that they can build upon their heritage in a constructive way. Otherwise, there may not be any future worth looking forward to.
Posted by: frog | May 12, 2008 2:25 PM
Moses: Anyone who would profess surprise by the change, and would argue that it was really always that way, is ignoring that all religions, including fundamentalist Christianity, Islam, etc., are "cafeteria" in practice -- that is, what and which particular parts and practices of the religion are utilized in a manner that are really a reflection of the current culture in which the religion finds itself.
This is another way of saying that religion is in essence a language - anything can be said in any language, all languages are inter-tranlateable.
On the other hand, certain languages have built in biases. In Romance languages, it is difficult to make a gender neutral statement. English has a tendency to convert temporary states into permanent properties; it's more difficult to distinguish the two in English, as compared to Slavic or Romance languages. Chinese has a tendency to ambiguity from the lack of a normal copulative.
Religious languages, such as Islam and Christianity, make it much easier to produce an apparently sensible sentence justifying murdering your daughter because of who she flirts with. It is possible in any cultural system, but it would be difficult to do so in say an atheist Minnesota culture, but quite easy in an Iraqi Muslim context. In the former, almost any such presentation will appear to be insane.
It's not about any particular religious belief - it's about entire religious systems and their inbuilt biases. It's possible to construct a Catholic theology that is egalitarian (Liberation Theology), but it takes a lot more work and it's more fragile, than a feudal Catholic theology. Or in an American vein, one can construct a Constitutional interpretation that is anti-classist and anti-racist, but the language just doesn't lend itself to it; it's a tougher debate position to take, as the wingers who scream out "It's a republic, not a democracy" make clear.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 2:29 PM
"Once again, the problem in Basra is that fundamentalist Islam has wormed its way into the government institution. That is not the fault of the CofE-eque Muslims."
I would agree with that. The fault in Basra lies with those in charge, and with the British Government who let those people take power.
I also do not totally disagree with the rest of your post. I suspect there is an under-reporting of condemnation by Muslims of atrocities committed by other Muslims. I do though stand by by point that if you choose to identify yourself with a group then you cannot avoid condemnation of that group when it is deserved. I can speak best of the UK, since I live here. In the UK there are no doubt a good number of Muslims who really do abhor the actions of this father and who not consider criticism of the form of Islam that permits such killings to be an attack on them. I suspect though that there are a fair number who, whilst not supporting this man's actions, consider the condemnation of the form of Islam he follows as an attack of them. Those Muslims do have a duty to speak out, and if they do, they deserve a share of the criticism. I also suspect there are some Muslims in the UK who approve of this man's actions, and they deserve even more condemnation. There is culpability to be shared, but by no means equally.
Posted by: Hematite | May 12, 2008 2:29 PM
Matt Penfold (#186):
I concede the point. I would like to argue that Islamic faith divorced from muslim culture is no more dangerous than Christian faith, but I'm utterly unequipped to do so and will politely shut up about the matter.
Posted by: Ann | May 12, 2008 2:31 PM
Matt,
I don't think I'm ready to dispute your contention that "Membership of an institution carries responsibilities, and one of those is policing the actions of others member of that institution," but I would like to know what the source of that assertion is.
And I'm not sure we can equate voluntary membership in an organization (the Elks? the Marines?) with adherence to a religion, which might not be voluntary (in many countries) or at the least might be so entwined with one's family and cultural identity as to be almost unavoidable.
Even if we can equate the two, on what do you base the statement that members must police each other? Sure, it might be a wise PR move, but what makes it mandatory?
What evidence do you require that Muslims (or any group members) disapprove of a specific behavior? I'm pretty sure that I'd have no notice of statements of condemnation that are issued in a mosque or in a Muslim-oriented newspaper.
What effect would you expect such condemnations to have? Are you hoping that if Muslims throughout the Western world stand up and express outrage over honor killings, the behavior will stop in Iraq? Or would you just like to know that they do, indeed, condemn it?
I don't mean to come off as a smartass, but I really am curious about the underpinnings of that assertion.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 2:33 PM
OK, you're too uneducated to know what slander is, too. Is there any area in which you're not a low, ignorant, slug.
I say basically what Penfield does, except that I point out that your "mistakes" constitute idiocy and dishonesty. Which they do.
If you wanted sensible conversation, you should learn how to read, to think, and to have some decency. The fact is that I make sound points, you tell lies.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: MikeM | May 12, 2008 2:33 PM
This posting, and the one about the Duggars, and other news, and other postings at this and various other websites leads me to ask questions:
What is a "moderate" religion?
Can "moderate" religions exist?
I've concluded that there can be no moderate religions. None of them. My wife, who does not have my cultural background, started going to a Buddhist church about 18 months ago. I go once in a while because I have to take the kids there when she's not around. They seemed to be focused on this life, not the "next" life, which is positive... And even at that, I wonder why they exist. It's more like a club, where we get to hear a couple pretty entertaining guys (yes, they're pretty entertaining) tell us pretty much the same thing, week after week.
"I am a link in..."
I need to hear that maybe twice in my life, and then I get the picture. Okay, try to protect those who are weaker than myself. I get it. And the world would be a better place if we all did that.
But is this a "moderate" religion? I don't think so. Still bowing, still have an altar, still have "trained" people... Even the most moderate religion I can find isn't really moderate. And I have friends who go every week.
Even the most "liberal" of churches aren't very moderate. At their core, they all accept ghost stories. I really can't think of one that doesn't.
Your example here is of a fundamentalist. As soon as you accept a fundamentalist world-view, you're in trouble. But I'm starting to think that even if you go to the most liberal Christian church, Jewish synagogue, Islamic mosque or Buddhist temple, you've already accepted some level of a ghost story. A world were prayers help; a world where we're looking to move on to "better things."
So, I ask: Are there ANY "moderate" religions?
(I say with disgust that the example you found here doesn't help me answer that question affirmatively, and I very strongly suspect the answer to my question is a resounding no.)
Posted by: Kseniya | May 12, 2008 2:39 PM
Bill, there seems to be one thing missing. I think you also have to account for "cultural precedent for honor-killing" somehow. Have honor killings ever been prevalent in (for example) Christian societies that exhibited high values for gender inequality, religious authority, and shame?
Posted by: Hematite | May 12, 2008 2:42 PM
Jason Dick (#141):
Briefly, I do not see the local muslims as part of the same organisation as Iraqi lunatics, and I don't think they do either. I they want to claim kinship they had better be making some pretty damn good apolgies, but if they don't I won't force it on them.
I am in New Zealand though, I think European muslims are more strongly associated with the middle east and I understand they are more willing to claim to be of the same tradition.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 2:43 PM
Hermatite,
I think I can surmise my argument thus:
There are some actions which it is reasonable to condemn. I think we will agree that the killing being discussed is such an action.
If the person who carried out this action says the reason he did so was his religious beliefs then it is not unreasonable to state that those religious beliefs are abhorant.
There maybe people who share the same religion, but not the same religious belief set as this man. Those people do have a duty to speak out, but do not deserve great condemnation for failing to do so, unless they are in a position of authority within that religion, unless they identify at attack on the particular belief set that led to the killing as being an attack on their own belief set. If the latter is the case the person cannot escape condemnation as they have chosen to identify themselves with the beliefs that led the the action no matter that they may personally object to such an action.
Or to put it even more succinctly, if people chose to interrupt an attack on this man and his beliefs as an attack on them and their beliefs then they have no legitimate grievance that they are being condemned unjustly as they have chosen to identify themselves with a person they previously had not considered themselves to be identified with.
Posted by: qedpro | May 12, 2008 2:46 PM
this is what moderate islam is.
A while back there was an article about how a grandfather cut his 8 year old grand daughters head off because he thought she'd been molested by her uncle.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 2:48 PM
She wrote:
She of course can't write English well.
And she was stereotyping the posts here. The fact is that PZ does not think well of Islam, and does attack it (you're wrong there too, hematite. What PZ doesn't do is blame all Muslims for a particular act). That's not the same thing as saying that he's blaming the Muslims in Figi or wherever for the killing, however. So Emily was being dishonest there, at least by not being specific enough to attack certain comments that did blame all Muslims, should these exist (I don't know, she didn't bother to criticize particular instances as an honest, non-stereotyping person would do).
Plus, it is one thing for the IDiots to lie about evolutionary theory being a necessary condition for the Holocaust, and quite another thing for PZ or others to blame Islam (and many of us were careful to point to a certain type of Islam) for something for which it almost certainly is causal. As in its misogyny, authoritarianism, etc.
It's nothing that we don't blame Xianity for when we think it's partly causal of things we dislike in our society.
Glen D
http:
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 2:50 PM
"Fiji", of course.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: kat | May 12, 2008 2:54 PM
murderers belong in jail. fuck his religion.
this man considers his daughter his possession. he killed her and his (very religious) society congratulates him. even her own brothers join in!
i feel sorry for her, her mother, indeed all women in those societies
sick sick people
this disgusting event is the abusive relationship at its worst, perversely magnified because of religion.
so sad :(
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 2:54 PM
How many "moderate" voices have you heard saying anything about this latest instance of Muslim savagery? Compare it with massive brouhaha generated by the Danish cartoons.
This alone should make us skeptical about the supposed ubiquity of genuine moderate Muslims (and that's forgetting the consistent frightening results of opinion polls). When someone says, "The majority of Muslims detest Islamic fundamentalism as much as you do", ask them for the evidence.
Posted by: frog | May 12, 2008 2:54 PM
Hematite: Briefly, I do not see the local muslims as part of the same organisation as Iraqi lunatics, and I don't think they do either. I they want to claim kinship they had better be making some pretty damn good apolgies, but if they don't I won't force it on them.
I think we should turn the question around. Are Americans who don't explicitly condemn the ongoing crimes by the US responsible for them? Are Europeans who don't condemn explicitly the damage wrought around the world by their colonial systems collaborators in a sense? What about Russians and Chechnya? The list goes on and on... Everyone belongs to some group that has either recently or is currently committing grave acts internally or externally - none of us live in a utopia.
There's a line to be drawn here, but I don't know where. How much responsibility does an individual have to fight against whatever system they are part of? And where do we get to layoff and simply lead our lives in whatever productive little ways we can find?
Posted by: brokenSoldier | May 12, 2008 2:58 PM
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | May 12, 2008 2:07 PM
Well said, Bill. The problem lies solely in the authority structure that allows this crime to occur unpunished - and even celebrated - in some areas of the world still today. And your logical math hit the nail right on the head - in those areas, religious authority trumps wordly authority, and along with it the civil liberties our civilizations have come to embrace.
And having seen how the general patriarchal ego in such a society is utterly unhinged, it is easy to see how things of this nature can occur.
**Personal account: My platoon was pulling out of a little village once after delivering a child to the hospital, and one of my gunners (sticking out of the top of the Humvee, nodded at a family on the way by and the wife made eye contact with him. The husband immediately punched her in the face in retaliation to her "dishonoring" him by looking at another man, especially "the enemy" that had just gotten his neighbor's daughter the heart surgery she needed to survive. Even in the face of blatant attempts at goodwil and compassion, these sort of men will never be altered in their worldview for two reasons:
1) They enjoy their positions of power and the privileges it gives them over their own home and villages. Even through the most sincere efforts of reconciliation, they will not release their patriarchal theocratic grip on their families and villages, for the simple - and childish - reason that they do not want to.
2) Besides their enjoyment of the power it provides them, they proclaim to have a mandate from their supreme creator to commit such horrendous crimes and escape punishment. And since no authority on this earth (to them) can trump divine authority, they simply don't care about the consequences of these acts in context of their country's legal system. These are people who would endure the worst conditions here on earth - especially ones brought about by themselves - in order to live in eternal paradise after they die. When facing that, there's not much that a helping hand will do to better the situation.
It is a diametric opposition we're dealing with here - and it is not between any of the religious establishments and their quibbles. This opposition holds religiots on one side, and reason on the other. One believes that a supernatural being dictates the directions our lives should take, while the other side believes that the human should use all the faculties given to them - science, reason, logic, etc... - to continue to grow and expand their knowledge of our place in the universe. The difference between the two is simple, and can be explained in one sentence.
Religion - A mandate has been handed down by a supernatural being that should guide us and dictate the direction of our lives.
Reason - Use the tools life has given you - mental and physical - to add to the contributions to knowledge, social advancement, and governmental reform to the best of your abilities to ensure that the quality of life on this Earth can one day be (somewhat) equal and stable.
My beliefs tell me that through my own internal moral code - I didn't receive it from a heavenly uplink - that ending a life is one of the worst crimes against humanity that can be committed, and killing a member of your own family is not only evil, cruel, and heartless, but it is seriously counter-productive in the long run, if allowed to continue as a practice.
I have serious problems with someone who can utter the phrase "honor killing" with a straight, serious face. The phrase is such a obvious paradox that it begs the question - what device can remove the obvious conflict between the basic meanings of the two words? The only such device is religion, because it is believed by a great many in this world that this world is simply preparation for an eternal paradise. When you care more abou the future than you do about your present, the results can be harmful, if not murderous.
Posted by: Hematite | May 12, 2008 3:00 PM
Etha Williams(#194):
I agree, this is my usual starting point when considering matters of religion. My upbringing was hugely secular and I tend to look at religions as socio-political organisations. It seems to be getting me into trouble in this thread. I tend to view religious groups as being equivalent when they produce an equivalent effect on society rather than when they use the same holy text.
Agreed, but that's not the whole story. It is foolish to let religious groups disown their members when it is convenient for them to do so; but it is equally foolish to lump groups together because of superficial similarities in absence of any working relationship, e.g. to call every person who has passed through Scotland a Scotsman. There is no substitute for a solid factual knowledge of the situation.
I should point out that I state this as an abstract principle, before anyone jumps on me again.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 3:01 PM
"I don't think I'm ready to dispute your contention that "Membership of an institution carries responsibilities, and one of those is policing the actions of others member of that institution," but I would like to know what the source of that assertion is."
I would argue is simply a responsibility that comes from being a member of an institution.
"And I'm not sure we can equate voluntary membership in an organization (the Elks? the Marines?) with adherence to a religion, which might not be voluntary (in many countries) or at the least might be so entwined with one's family and cultural identity as to be almost unavoidable."
I have some sympathy with this, which is why most of my condemnation of other Muslims is limited to those in a position of power. Those in the city of Basra have bear the heaviest responsibility, and then in Iraq, and then outwards to the region, and so on. Ordinary Muslims do have some responsibility to speak out, but contingent on how much danger doing would place them in. In this case the responsibility would almost be reversed from that of the religious leaders. Muslims in the West would seem to have greater freedom to speak out against such actions than those in the Middle East.
"What evidence do you require that Muslims (or any group members) disapprove of a specific behavior? I'm pretty sure that I'd have no notice of statements of condemnation that are issued in a mosque or in a Muslim-oriented newspaper.
What effect would you expect such condemnations to have? Are you hoping that if Muslims throughout the Western world stand up and express outrage over honor killings, the behavior will stop in Iraq? Or would you just like to know that they do, indeed, condemn it?"
A good question. Maybe Immans standing up a Friday prayers and making it clear that such killings are not acceptable would help, and would prominent Muslims speaking to the media and making it clear that such actions do not accord with their understanding of their religion. I am more than willing to acknowledge that there have been examples of Immansm, and prominent Muslims doing both those things. What I think I really want is for Muslims to be leading the howls of outrage against such killings, the same as I would like to see Christians leading the fight against the worst excesses of their more fundamentalist co-religionists. For example, why are Christians not at at the forefront of the fight against creationism in the US ? If they were doing their jobs we would not hear Richard Dawkins, PZ et al for the noise of Christians who accept science battling Christians who reject reality. In the case of killings such as this it is Muslims who need to take the lead in condemnation. In the case of Christians who let their kid die because they think prayer will cure her, then it should be Christians who are most vocal in saying that is not acceptable behaviour. I
n other words whenever someone does something heinous and attributes the reason as being beliefs arising from membership of a group, then it is incumbent on that group to be the most vocal in speaking out against that action. If a police officer breaks the law then it should be, but sadly to often is not, his or her fellow officers who speak out against him, and if necessary bring that person to justice. If Marine commits a war crime the people who should be most active in condemning him or her should be fellow marines.
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 3:02 PM
Are Americans who don't explicitly condemn the ongoing crimes by the US responsible for them? Are Europeans who don't condemn explicitly the damage wrought around the world by their colonial systems collaborators in a sense?
I'm strongly against American foreign policy, but accidental killing of innocents is a far cry away from honour killing, the death sentence for apostasy, and the complete subjugation of all women. Also note that the vast bulk of deaths in Iraq have been directly a result of Muslim-on-Muslim violence.
"Colonial systems"? What, the Falklands, or have you gone and wandered into a time-warp?
(Here's something to think about: Imagine what would happen to the world if an Islamic nation had at its disposal the USA's military power.)
Posted by: Roy McKenzie | May 12, 2008 3:02 PM
Trash. Absolute Trash.
Posted by: brokenSoldier | May 12, 2008 3:05 PM
Posted by: emily | May 12, 2008 11:06 AMThis is an easy one - Expelled was a movie expounding a position using lies, distortions of truth, and outright theft (Lennon's Imagine and the Harvard video) to make a point. In constrast, PZ's post was an article outlining facts of what happened, and offered opinions of those actions based in common humanistic morality, as opposed to subservience to a divinely dictated code of 'honor' and justified murder.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 3:08 PM
You have to deal with particular religious beliefs, especially in context (of course culture matters, a lot).
We are more inclined to criticize certain religions than other ones for good reason. Some religions simply don't have a great many built in biases that affect culture, for instance, or at least versions of them do not. I'd mention Buddhism as one of the ones that, well, has enough built-in biases, but hardly a lot of the prejudices that Abrahamic religions have had at various times and in various places regarding society, women, and the like.
And surely the more liberal Muslims, (religious) Jews, and Xians, along with their beliefs, are not as deserving of criticism as are the more fundamentalist forms of those religions (IOW no, I'm not attacking Abrahamic religions as such, only in their specifics).
And I don't know what this is about:
The original Constitution is almost painfully neutral (in the de jure sense, though in the de facto sense it fails to deal with contemporaneous problems) on most of these matters, as one sees with the slavery clauses. OTOH, surely the 13th and 14th Amendments are included in order to stop at least certain racial practices.
I don't know why anyone would want to see the original Constitution as being written to accommodate whatever race and class practices existed (though amenable to change by the states themselves), nor later amendments as taking on the most egregious racial practices. As far as class prejudice goes, however, the status quo provisions of the Constitution seem largely to rule, with little effort at the present to address these issues even with legislation, except very marginally (the DLC's influence seems to prevail in the Democratic party thus far).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | May 12, 2008 3:09 PM
I challenge anyone to think of another social force apart from religion which could make a parent willingly and gladly murder his own daughter and then brag about it afterwards.
Grand Theft Auto?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 3:12 PM
"So, I ask: Are there ANY "moderate" religions?"
Yes, but there is probably a debate to be had over whether they truly remain religions.
There is an element within Anglicanism that I think could be considered moderate in the sense you mean. How much this element retains of the traditional concept of a god is not clear, as the form their religion takes concerns itself more with how to live a good life than in how to please a deity. Members of this branch of Anglicanism tend to be tolerant of lifestyles their more fundamentalist co-religionist condemn as sinful (children outside of marriage, being in a same-sex relationship etc.). They tend to have much in common with humanist philosophy, and would find their political views far more in line of those of Richard Dawkins than of anyone on the religious rigjt.
I would be lying if I said that such Anglicans were in a majority, although in some parts of the world they are a significant minority and not without support within the leadership of their church.
Of course it is not religious people (if we can even still call themselves religious) that Dawkins, PZ et al take issue with.
Posted by: frog | May 12, 2008 3:24 PM
J: I'm strongly against American foreign policy, but accidental killing of innocents is a far cry away from honour killing, the death sentence for apostasy, and the complete subjugation of all women. Also note that the vast bulk of deaths in Iraq have been directly a result of Muslim-on-Muslim violence.
Hogwash. We knew that the invasion of Iraq was going to lead to a million dead. There are no "accidental" killings in war, they are part and parcel of the process, and have been for a century know. It's part of the price paid. Those who start a war have to take moral responsibility for "collateral damage", and at least try to justify that price. Those dead are just as dead as this girl - if anything this girl is also part of the price that was paid, since anyone with half a clue would have predicted a rise in fundamentalism in Iraq after the invasion.
"Colonial systems"? What, the Falklands, or have you gone and wandered into a time-warp?
What kind of self-delusional world view are you into? Somehow magically after retreating from Africa and Asia everyone would be happy and fair? Where the hell do you think that Suharto came from, or the Shah, or event the Burmese junta? That shirt you're wearing probably came from slave labor in SE Asia, which is only possible because of centuries of colonialism. You don't get off the hook by just going home.
One of Europe's most dastardly acts was retreating from their colonies after stealing everything that wasn't nailed down and leaving their subjects for centuries to the tender mercies of the local thugs (think E. Timor, Burma, etc).
(Here's something to think about: Imagine what would happen to the world if an Islamic nation had at its disposal the USA's military power.)
I'm just laughing know. What would it take for an Islamic society to have the USA's military power? Well, a significantly different economic and social system, for starters. A completely different historical relationship with Europe, and even a different geographical location.
Counter-factuals like these are almost always a sign of terribly slopply thinking - it's not clever at all. What would the world be like if Venezuela Ruled the World? Or New Guinea Had the Bomb? Or I was Seventy Feet Tall and the Power to Psychically Control Swine? What if... boohahahahahaha...
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 3:25 PM
That's a bit too little responsibility for the effects of ideas upon societies, and a bit too much responsibility given to religion when other issues might be playing a crucial role.
One has to look at the teachings of the New Testament when discussing anti-Semitism in Xian cultures. OTOH, how much of imperialism can honestly be ascribed to Xianity, vs. simply understood as the result of greed and opportunism? I know that Xianity was often used as an excuse for imperialism, but it's hard to say that other religions, ideologies, racial beliefs, or feeble excuses would have been discovered (and were to some extent) to "justify" imperialism and colonialism had Xianity not seemed useful to the task. I don't think we should blame Xianity much for imperialism, for it simply built on the same sort of greed, desire for power, and aggression which exist in many non-Xian cultures (to be fair, Xianity is probably more compatible with imperialism than are some religions--but certainly no more than many pagan religions were).
You have to look at the teachings to see if they are at least partially responsible for what a society does. Sometimes religion is not the cause, and indeed, the poverty many Muslims live in no doubt has a lot to do with creating much of the radical Islam which exists. This does not change the fact that the conservation of oppressive traditional beliefs by Islam is partly responsible for how Muslim discontentment is expressed, and it seems likely as well to bear some responsibility for the continued poverty within many Islamic societies (though imperialism, Mongol invasions, and other factors certainly played substantial parts in this as well).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: watercat | May 12, 2008 3:27 PM
This murderer is a member of the government that we have sacrificed thousands of lives and driven our own nation into bankruptcy to establish. He was commended for his actions by the police force we have been training for the past five years. It's nice to see that our soldiers have not died in vain.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 3:28 PM
"Are Americans who don't explicitly condemn the ongoing crimes by the US responsible for them?"
Those Americans who voted for Bush do bear some responsibility .Those who failed to vote also bear some responsibility, as do those who do not oppose such crimes.
The guilt is not be shared equally of course. Those who bear by far the greatest responsibility are Bush and his inner circle. The American military and civil commanders who allowed such actions to take place under their command are also very culpable, and to somewhat lesser extent, but still very culpable, are those who actually carried out these crimes. It is to America's shame, and the world's, that it has only held the most junior of those responsible to account.
"Are Europeans who don't condemn explicitly the damage wrought around the world by their colonial systems collaborators in a sense?"
The situation with regards colonialism is somewhat different, not least because those who would have been responsible for crimes are very likely to be long dead, and very few people alive today were alive, and a adult, at the time.
That said there is a duty on the citizens of those countries that have a Colonial legacy to recognise that, and to recognise that means that they cannot wash their hands of all responsibility for the state of those former colonies today. For example, the UK helped broker the peace deal that put Mugabe in power in Zimbabwe. Now the current state of that nation is down to Mugabe and the policies he followed. However the UK has a duty to do the utmost to make life tolerable for the people of that country. In the specific case of Zimbabwe it might mean doing so by proxy, but it does not remove the duty.
Posted by: Dustin | May 12, 2008 3:34 PM
I suspect that, fueled by a death cult end-times mentality they would harass other members of the military for not being Muslim enough, attempt to impose theocratic rule throughout the military, and they would invade small, third world Christian countries by accusing them of harboring terrorists and weapons of mass destruction. Their generals might even go on Al Jazeera to claim that their war on terror really is a religious war.Mostly, the world would look like this.
Posted by: frog | May 12, 2008 3:38 PM
GlenD: The original Constitution is almost painfully neutral (in the de jure sense, though in the de facto sense it fails to deal with contemporaneous problems) on most of these matters, as one sees with the slavery clauses. OTOH, surely the 13th and 14th Amendments are included in order to stop at least certain racial practices.
The neutrality had an agenda. If you read the Federalist papers, a large portion of the justification of the Constitution, is explicitly to protect class distinction and neutralize democratic forces (the balancing of factions, the protection of creditors as a class from debtors as a class). Of course the 13th and 14th amendments changed the racist nature of the document, which was explicit, in a pique of post-civil war radicalness. But the structure of the US government is quite clear as an attempt to block what the Federalists saw as the excesses of the Revolutionary War - an excess of equality. There's a reason why it was so difficult to end slavery, why it has been so difficult to guarantee basic human rights (particularly economic ones) to every American citizens.
The public arguments of 1789 over the constitution make it quite clear. The language was not neutral to these issues, but was "diplomatic".
Posted by: Joanne | May 12, 2008 3:41 PM
If anyone is interested, you can donate to the Underground Railroad for Iraqi women via MADRE. Here's the link.
Posted by: frog | May 12, 2008 3:45 PM
Matt: "Are Europeans who don't condemn explicitly the damage wrought around the world by their colonial systems collaborators in a sense?"
The situation with regards colonialism is somewhat different, not least because those who would have been responsible for crimes are very likely to be long dead, and very few people alive today were alive, and a adult, at the time.
So the European living standard isn't still propped up by the after affects of colonialism? The 60's are long gone? We're not talking about things that happened in the 19th century, but things done within our own lifetimes. What percentage of the EU population is over 50? Everyone alive today has directly benefited from the state of affairs mid-century. It is much too early to claim clean hands.
Posted by: Josh | May 12, 2008 3:47 PM
"We knew that the invasion of Iraq was going to lead to a million dead. There are no "accidental" killings in war, they are part and parcel of the process, and have been for a century know."
Your first sentence is true, at least the spirit of it (we knew we were going to end up slaughtering a whole bunch of non-combatants, if not a solid number). That absolutely is part and parcel of the process.
Your second statement is false. There ARE accidental killings. There are. We don't intend on "collateral damage" any more than we intend on friendly fire. We knew they were/are going to happen, but that doesn't make them any less accidental...or any less tragic. To try and say that they aren't accidents is to nullify the amount of anguish they can cause shooters when they're not made from cruise missiles, but rather from M4 rounds on the ground. And if you don't think they cause anguish then I guess you've never seen a PFC just out of high school when he misses and puts a nice little round hole in the shoulder of a young girl who chose the wrong moment to step out of a doorway. I realize it's off-topic. It needed to be said nonetheless.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 3:47 PM
"If anyone is interested, you can donate to the Underground Railroad for Iraqi women via MADRE. Here's the link."
What kind of world is it that some 150 years after the original underground railroad there is still the need for one ? And why would it be in a country where the US and the UK, both of whom claim to be bastions of enlightenment values, were instrumental in putting in place the civil structures that should obliviate the need for an underground railroad ?
Anyone still willing to claim "we won" in Iraq ?
Now if you will excuse me I think I need to go an be sick.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 3:48 PM
Um, yeah, that's what I said, except that I also noted that later amendments are a part of the Constitution.
Why attack a strawman?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Hematite | May 12, 2008 3:51 PM
Matt Penfold (#224):
I agree completely. I only wish to add that we should be careful to not assume that groups identify without evidence, innocent until proven guilty and all that.
I think this is what Emily meant way back when, but I seem to be reading her comment differently from you and Glen. If you don't disagree with my first paragraph I'll call this settled amicably.
Sigh. I guess that means I should go try and figure out what I did to set Glen off.
Posted by: Tim Fuller | May 12, 2008 3:51 PM
This is why Sam Harris et.al. are even more strident in their disgust of Islam than Christianity, which isn't to say they're fans of any of the religion, just pointing out the obvious in lieu of these types of repeated stories.
Enjoy.
Posted by: Ted D | May 12, 2008 3:52 PM
You started with a very general statement about a very large group of people. Then, instead of backing your claim up with actual facts, you claim that anyone who does not agree with it has been "brainwashed by the PC Brigade", and jumps to "an example of how wonderfully moderate they are", this example being a single individual in the group you made your initial statement about saying something really stupid.
This dishonest tactic is what makes me disinclined to trust what you say, rather than brainwashing from some bogeyman of yours.
Please note that I don't try to argue with the facts. I don't know what's true here. But I rather suspect you don't either.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 3:54 PM
"So the European living standard isn't still propped up by the after affects of colonialism? The 60's are long gone? We're not talking about things that happened in the 19th century, but things done within our own lifetimes. What percentage of the EU population is over 50? Everyone alive today has directly benefited from the state of affairs mid-century. It is much too early to claim clean hands."
You will find I said that citizens of those nations that engaged in Colonialism do indeed have a duty to those former colonies. However I would ask that you tell us what politicians in power in the 60's are still in power today.
The 1960's, which was the decade when most European nations divested themselves of their colonies is now nearly 40 years ago. It would have to have been a very young leader indeed to still be in power today. In fact, of course, they are not. There is a new generation now. In fact this is the second. Those who had most individual culpability are no lon ger in power. Those in power now have responsibility as a leader of a nation that engage in colonialism, but please, do not think they are personally culpable in anyway. Many of the politicians in power in the UK are in their 40's and 50's,. In other words they were not even adults at the time.
Posted by: GDwarf | May 12, 2008 3:56 PM
I suspect my last line has, at least in part, made it harder to see what it is I was trying to say.
I am a firm supporter of evolution and opposed to Ben Stein, and am also a rather vocal atheist.
My point was that taking the actions of an extremist and applying it to an entire belief system is stupid beyond belief.
Do people here honestly think that if Islam didn't exist that that girl would still be alive? I suspect she'd be just as dead, the justification would simply be different. Religion provides plenty of justification, and even a shield you can hide behind, but I don't think that it is often the cause of events like this. Or, if it is, it's only part of it. As such saying that "Islam caused this" is, at best, misleading.
I suppose another example would be concluding that all Atheists are intolerant and hold ludicrous notions about religious practices simply because Hitchens exists.
Mind you, I also suspect that there's confusion about what we mean when we say "Islam is". To me that means you're saying that every Muslim is inherently like that, while it may be that you mean the way the religion is/is supposed to be practiced is like that. Some clarification would help here.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 3:57 PM
While you assume guilt in commenters without evidence.
Wow, you mean you finally figured that out? The fact is that I don't appreciate people like Emily assuming guilt where she provides no evidence, and doesn't even deal with any specifics. It's what we fault in the defamation of which IDists are guilty, and it's what I fault in your evidence-free attacks.
Yeah, it's not like I haven't told you repeatedly, while you repeated the same dull dishonest bullshit. You have to "figure it out". Don't bother, you're obviously unable to comprehend even the simplest statements.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 3:58 PM
Hogwash. We knew that the invasion of Iraq was going to lead to a million dead. [Etc., etc.]
First of all, no it wasn't known. Personally I find it likely that the people calling the shots deceived themselves into believing that it would be a cakewalk. Second, it's simply contemptible that you refuse to place most of the blame on the Muslims for, you know, actually doing the killing. It was the Bush Administration's incompetence and aggressiveness that allowed the massacres to happen; this doesn't mean that they themselves did the killing in cold blood.
One of Europe's most dastardly acts was retreating from their colonies after stealing everything that wasn't nailed down and leaving their subjects for centuries to the tender mercies of the local thugs (think E. Timor, Burma, etc).
I'm a European, and I'm not going to be fucking held responsible for the decisions of people who died before I was even born. There's no reason for me to feel guilty as a result of their actions.
Incidentally, most European colonies were utopias compared with a typical country under Sharia.
I'm just laughing know. What would it take for an Islamic society to have the USA's military power? Well, a significantly different economic and social system, for starters. A completely different historical relationship with Europe, and even a different geographical location.
That's a lousy dodge, and you know it. It's quite easy to imagine a situation in which the Islamic nations have the superior military. If the rest of us became pacifists and entirely stopped spending on defense, such a world would soon arise.
Of course, we know full well what they would do to us if we abolished the armed forces, so we wouldn't even dream of it.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 12, 2008 3:59 PM
@#241 Glen D --
I agree to a point, though in theocratic societies (which, to a large extent, today's Iraq is), it is difficult to divorce religion from other issues. Also, though I agree that you can't ascribe imperialism to Xian belief, you can critique the form of Xianity that gave rise to it for promoting a social structure and system of dogmatism that allowed such things to be justified. This is what I mean by considering organized religion as a social construct -- organized religion includes more than just religious belief; it also includes the way that belief is (ab)used socially.
That's not to say that honor killings couldn't occur without this form of Islam, but in this context, this form of Islam at least plays a part in allowing it to continue, and deserves criticism for that.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | May 12, 2008 4:01 PM
Sounds good to me, Etha.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 4:03 PM
"Your second statement is false. There ARE accidental killings. There are. We don't intend on "collateral damage" any more than we intend on friendly fire. We knew they were/are going to happen, but that doesn't make them any less accidental...or any less tragic. To try and say that they aren't accidents is to nullify the amount of anguish they can cause shooters when they're not made from cruise missiles, but rather from M4 rounds on the ground. And if you don't think they cause anguish then I guess you've never seen a PFC just out of high school when he misses and puts a nice little round hole in the shoulder of a young girl who chose the wrong moment to step out of a doorway. I realize it's off-topic. It needed to be said nonetheless."
I am sorry but killing civilians when they get caught up in "collateral damage" accidental does not cut it. If you drop a bomb you intend to kill, pure and simple. That civilians get killed may nit have been your intention but you do not get to claim it was an accident. Unless you really did not mean to drop the bomb in the first place. I doubt many examples of collateral damage are as the result of bombs being dropped unintentionally.
And as for causing anguish, I am sure the person who pulled the trigger that led to civilian deaths does indeed suffer. But I would hazard a guess nothing like as much as the family of the person killed, and certainly not as much as the dead person would suffer were they still alive to indeed suffer. In fact it is probably a good thing that those who pull the trigger that leads to civilian deaths do indeed feel anguish. It might help stop others making the same mistake.
Posted by: HeyZeusCreaseToe | May 12, 2008 4:03 PM
Thanks for the downer of the day PZ. Mwaw Mwaw....
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | May 12, 2008 4:04 PM
(Here's something to think about: Imagine what would happen to the world if an Islamic nation had at its disposal the USA's military power.)
They'd immediately attack Israel, and manage to lose anyway.
Posted by: BobbDobbs | May 12, 2008 4:06 PM
Hurray. As an atheist I have been depressed lately by the leftist PC wisdom to cut Islam undeserved slack on the basis of "cultural diversity." Bull. I'm an atheist because it is rational and I am anti-religion because religion is irrational.
If it is Christian fundamentalists trying to outlaw science or Islamic fundamentalists honor killing for showing too much ankle I am of the same mind. It must be resisted, it must be spoken against. It must be fought against.
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 4:10 PM
This dishonest tactic is what makes me disinclined to trust what you say, rather than brainwashing from some bogeyman of yours.
Please note that I don't try to argue with the facts. I don't know what's true here. But I rather suspect you don't either.
You suspect I don't know what's true about what? The quotation from Sacranie? I think that's the only point of interest in my earlier posts, to tell the truth. So what's wrong? Are you contesting that quotation?
I did not make a "very general statement about a very large group of people". I indicated that I believe people (especially Americans) are inclined to overestimate the number of "moderate-by-ordinary standards" Muslims there are. I stand by this remark, and I'm quite happy to justify it if you have a problem with it.
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 4:11 PM
The second paragraph there should be in italics.
Posted by: Josh | May 12, 2008 4:15 PM
I wasn't talking about bombs. I specifically referenced that I wasn't talking about bombs. I thought that was clear. I agree with you 100% when you're talking about indirect fire. My point wasn't about indirect fire.
I also IN NO WAY insinuated that the families didn't suffer. That also didn't have anything to do with my point. That the shooter suffers far less than the dad suffers does not make the shot less accidental.
"It might help stop others making the same mistake."
Were that it were so. It doesn't seem that history is bearing that out very well.
Posted by: Jams | May 12, 2008 4:18 PM
@kid bitzer
"it's not a claim that men act a certain way *because they are men*, as though we'd have to extinguish y-chromosomes to get rid of it." - kid bitzer
I didn't claim it did, but hey, why let language stand in the way of an argument. Moving on, Patriarchy is not a claim that "men act a certain way". I'm listening.
"rather, it's the claim that certain men buy into an ideology that is beneficial to men. and of course that ideology can create a power-structure in which it is beneficial for certain women to buy into the lie as well." - kid bitzer
So, let me get this straight. Patriarchy is a claim that "certain men buy into an ideology" that "certain women" also buy into. This ideology results in a power-structure that is "beneficial to men" (I assume you mean "certain men") and "beneficial for certain women".
In essence, there's a power-structure in which certain men and certain women participate that benefits certain men and certain women at, I assume, certain times.
That may be the single worst definition of Patriarchy ever. Needless to say, that's not what Patriarchy means.
The problem here is the application of the death penalty to petty infractions (I would say at all, but that's me). This brutal application of force is not a result of gender biases, unless we're going to argue that men in Iraq aren't executed for ridiculous reasons. Why evoke Patriarchy, if not as a knee-jerk reaction to the gender of the participants?
Posted by: Jsn | May 12, 2008 4:18 PM
When I read about these "honor killings" my kneejerk reaction is too nuke 'em all. I contemplate the horror of the innocents who would be "collateral damage" (I fucking HATE that term) I feel disgusted and helpless. The misguided believers in divine retribution have hollow comfort sure these bastards will wallow in some ridiculously grotesque eternal punishment. In the end, this Muslim fanatic and his buds will simply lose consciousness and cease to be. No Heaven, no Hell, no limbo. Our culture's hijacked belief in Karma is impotent, this man and those like him will never be persecuted or prosecuted in their culture.
Here in Texas, a muslim cab driver killed his daughters for becoming too westernized and many muslims here are sheilding him arrest. Funny, didn't those fine christian folk help hide Eric Rudolph, the asshole who bombed abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympic games? Fundamentalism breeds radicalism, no matter what the religion.
The fact that progressive believers ignore huge portions of religious texts or rationalize them away as belonging to different time, different culture is telling: they want to believe despite the obvious cognitive dissonce - they are being willfully ignorant. All religions are deserving of a huge mea culpa over the inhumane acts done in the name of god(s).
Posted by: 01010100 | May 12, 2008 4:20 PM
Such booj-wah morality, Herr PZ. From a Darwinist perspective, couldn't the killing be viewed as advancing the interests of other siblings, if not the tribe itself? Had she married the Brit., the tribal gene pool would have been diluted, weakened, etc. etc. Alpha wolves occasionally eat a few extra pups.
I shallah!
Posted by: Brownian, OM | May 12, 2008 4:27 PM
For those confused by post #267, I believe the poster is the real Jsn, not the human hemorrhoid gunking up the internet round here as of late.
Posted by: amk | May 12, 2008 4:29 PM
I don't think anyone up thread has discussed who exactly the Basra policemen are.
During the recent attempt of the Iraqi government, alongside its Badr Brigade allies, to take control of Basra from the Sadrist Mahdi Army, much of the police and army deserted or even defected to the Sadrists. Since then, the police and army have been further bolstered by the inclusion of yet more Badr fighters. It was strongly Badr influenced anyway.
The Badr Brigade is the militia of the "Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council", the key ally of Prime Minister Da'wa party. Both the SIIC and Badr Brigade were formed in Iran from Iraqi exiles during Saddam's era. Unsurprisingly, they are theocratic.
The Sadr movement, and its Mehdi Army militia, is Iraqi nativist. It remained in Iraq during the Saddam years when the Da'wa and other parties fled, and Muqtada's father was killed by Saddam. This lot are also theocratic.
Also in Basra is the Islamic Virtue party, an offshoot of the Sadrist movement who followed Muqtada's father but not Muqtada. They have their own militia.
As such I expect the police in this story are one group or another of theocratic militia men.
Unfortunately, the invasion of Iraq has removed a secular dictator only to replace it with a de facto theocracy, with rival theocrats, plus other conflicts.
Freedom House's 2007 Freedom In The World report still classes Iraq as "not free", giving it the same score as Iran. It is not a worst possible score though, that being attained by Saddam's Iraq.Today's Saudi Arabia scores between old Iraq and new Iraq/Iran.
Freedom House is largely funded (indirectly) by the US Government, and is often accused of being a pawn of US foreign policy.
link
The Saddam era police might have handled this matter (dare I say it?) better.
Juan Cole is of course an excellent source for Mid East news.
Posted by: Moggie | May 12, 2008 4:32 PM
Someone (sorry, I can't find it in this huge thread) raised the point that the apparent lack of moderate Muslims denouncing this and other atrocities is due to the media's unwillingness to give them a voice. There is something to that, of course, but I'm reminded of Irshad Manji's book The Trouble with Islam Today. Manji is a Canadian journalist, feminist, lesbian and liberal Muslim who seems passionately committed to highlighting misogyny and other problems in Islam, and encouraging Muslims to change it from within. But she has this to say in the book:
Manji knows more than most that moderate, decent Muslims do exist, and she's in a position to give them a platform, but is seems she's found that few of them even try to speak up. She's trying to change that, but it's a difficult task.
(I suspect I've mentioned the book here before, but I recommend it again. It's often an infuriating read for an atheist, but informative and humane, and even though I hope she eventually turns atheist, until then it's good to see her giving the imams a hard time and emboldening other dissidents).
Posted by: frog | May 12, 2008 4:36 PM
JL
me: Hogwash. We knew that the invasion of Iraq was going to lead to a million dead. [Etc., etc.]
First of all, no it wasn't known. Personally I find it likely that the people calling the shots deceived themselves into believing that it would be a cakewalk. Second, it's simply contemptible that you refuse to place most of the blame on the Muslims for, you know, actually doing the killing. It was the Bush Administration's incompetence and aggressiveness that allowed the massacres to happen; this doesn't mean that they themselves did the killing in cold blood.
Willful ignorance is a contemptible excuse. We have a long history of modern warfare - we know perfectly well what interruptions in vital services lead to, we know perfectly well the social effects of the disruptions, we can predict fairly well even the ensuing refugee flows. It is part and parcel of the process - just read a bit of Kissinger if you want to know what these folks think.
Me: One of Europe's most dastardly acts was retreating from their colonies after stealing everything that wasn't nailed down and leaving their subjects for centuries to the tender mercies of the local thugs (think E. Timor, Burma, etc).
I'm a European, and I'm not going to be fucking held responsible for the decisions of people who died before I was even born. There's no reason for me to feel guilty as a result of their actions.
Incidentally, most European colonies were utopias compared with a typical country under Sharia.
You're not? Then are you going to give up all your bennies? Are you going to return the profits from the slave trade to Africans, are you going to send all the churches to the Americas? It's nice to sit fat and happy on five centuries of thievery and then claim to have no responsibility. If you want moral cleanliness, then split all the descendant companies of the Dutch East India Company over East India, split French profits over their colonies... and so on.
And how do you imagine the bastards got in power? Because the European powers abandoned their colonies since they were unwilling to pay to create decent societies. What do you imagine would happen in any European country if half the country took all the infrastructure and then simply retreated from the rest? If you just impoverished southern France and then abandoned it when the locals got pissed off?
Me: I'm just laughing know. What would it take for an Islamic society to have the USA's military power? Well, a significantly different economic and social system, for starters. A completely different historical relationship with Europe, and even a different geographical location.
That's a lousy dodge, and you know it. It's quite easy to imagine a situation in which the Islamic nations have the superior military. If the rest of us became pacifists and entirely stopped spending on defense, such a world would soon arise.
Of course, we know full well what they would do to us if we abolished the armed forces, so we wouldn't even dream of it.
What's lousy is making up strawmen. Abolish our armed forces? So, then I can argue that if magical pixies came and turned the Atlantic into a sea of gold, we all would live in happy Kumbaya land? It's just as likely to happen, given 10 millenia of history. What nonsense, what self-satisfied drivel.
No, the Muslims hordes aren't coming except in your fantasies. They can barely feed their own people, and lack the infrastructure to develop modern weaponry. Iran is at best a decade away from developing 1940's era weaponry.
Posted by: Flex | May 12, 2008 4:57 PM
At comment 211, Bill Dauphin wrote, "however, a secondary hypothesis is that the first and third factors in the equation (gender inequality and sexual shaming) are not independent of dominant creed."
While your equation is intriguing, I strongly suspect as you suggest, that the two other factors are not independent of creed.
What I find interesting is your use of the term 'dominant creed'. For your equation suggests that the religious factor isn't really determined by the dominant creed, but how much religious authority has been embedded in secular authority. That is, a society could exist with a dominant religion, but because the religious beliefs are not enshrined in the law, the affect of such dominant religious belief is small. (Which is how I recall Turkey being in the late 1980's when I was stationed there.)
But, if we are simply looking at individual honor killings, it may well be that the secular authority is not important. That is, people who engage in honor killing may not be deterred by secular punishments. Instead, if the perpetrators of these heinous acts were severely punished, they would be seen as martyrs by the other proponents of this creed. In other words, the religious factor in your honor killing equation is really a matter of personal belief in how much the religious authority matters compared to the secular authority. Of course, if the controlling authorities tacitly agree with your particular religious tenets, then an outrageous event like this may go unpunished.
The size of the society in question may be important to quantify here. A small cult in the USA might condone honor killings, but the majority of citizens of the USA would condemn them. The fact that in this case the secular authorities apparently condoned his activities suggests to me that these authorities should be considered members of the same society he identifies with. The size of that society, whether it includes all Muslims or a smaller subset of them, is a debate going on elsewhere in this comment thread.
This also suggests that if there is a large discrepancy between the dominant creed of a nation and the secular laws of the nation, there will be some pressure within that society to harmonize these laws. (This pressure could also exist if the rulers of a country hold a minority creed in opposition to the secular laws of that country.) That is, there will be pressure to make all the citizens follow the strictures of the creed, or be treated like second class citizens.
In other words, the nut jobs who feel that religious authority trumps secular authority will always apply pressure to establish (their) theocracy in any country.
Posted by: Mena | May 12, 2008 4:58 PM
Is anyone else finding it ironic that Randal Birkey and Abdel-Qader Ali get their morals from more or less the same exact place?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Commandments
As for this being a religion thing, I don't think that it is. They do it because the like having that power and are using religion to justify that just like fundies nowadays are using the "But I'm a creeeestian" whine to justify hating teh gay and being offensive in other ways. It's just that most people don't buy that crap here, they do in Iraq (and Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc). It's like our buddy Ben Stein blaming the Holocaust on Darwin. The nutsies were sick fucks who managed to get most of the society to go along with their crimes. It's the same with the people who live in societies who approve of honor killings.
Posted by: Ted D | May 12, 2008 4:59 PM
It's very obvious that the veracity of the quote is not what I have a problem with. And if that's the only point of interest, why include anything else in your comment? You were associating the statement of an individual with that of a group.
OK, I stand corrected. You made a general statement about two very large groups of people, Americans and moderate Muslims. Now, I don't know how many moderate Muslims there are (nor, frankly, do I much care). And I don't know what "people" think about how many moderate Muslims there are. You have your opinion on that. I lean towards you being wrong about that opinion. But I have no statistics on the matter, and neither do you. I can live with that.
My actual problem with your comment is, and I repeat myself here, that you start by discounting views not coinciding with yours as brainwashing by the "PC Brigade". The "PC Brigade" is a favourite bogeyman of people unwilling or unable to support their arguments with actual facts.
The other part of my problem is that you take a quote from a (according to you) moderate Muslim and use it as an example (your own word) of how moderate moderate Muslims are.
You're supporting your first statement (there aren't as many moderate Muslims as "people" think) with a single quote from a single person. And now you're saying that your first statement wasn't the point, but the quote itself was. But that quote by itself has no bearing on anything whatsoever in this thread.
And no, I'm not part of the PC Brigade. But your argument was sloppy at best, dishonest at worst.
Posted by: MikeM | May 12, 2008 4:59 PM
Matt, #239.
That's fine, but it still accepts at its core a ghost story (See: The Resurrection Myth). They still want to get you from here to There after you die.
I still think that's fundamentally whacky. It's not moderate. So even the moderate ones want you to literally interpret a ghost story.
In terms of using gods to rationalize/justify the killing of people who don't agree with you, I'm not sure the track record of Christians is much different from the track record of Muslims... Even moderate Christians, which is why I keep putting "moderate" in quotes.
If your religion allows you to justify mass murder, it probably isn't moral. They keep telling us that only Christians have real morals; well, if the Bible documents how happy God is when the Jews slaughtered other people by the thousands, I just gotta wonder about that God.
(Note that I doubt the veracity of the Bible stories where God has "his people" slaughter everything in sight. The Bible says a lot of stuff we're sure is wrong; this is probably one of those things.)
Posted by: amk | May 12, 2008 5:00 PM
frog,
Don't assume that it ever was.
At the turn of the 20th century, the British economist J A Hobson calculated that the colonialism of the previous few decades had actually harmed the British economy. It did however serve to make the rich richer.
link
Posted by: Benjamin Geiger | May 12, 2008 5:06 PM
Jsn@267:
Funny, didn't those fine christian folk help hide Eric Rudolph, the asshole who bombed abortion clinics and the Atlanta Olympic games? Fundamentalism breeds radicalism, no matter what the religion.
It wasn't just the fundamentalists that shielded him. Everyone turned a blind eye.
(I grew up about twenty miles from where Rudolph was caught, so I saw the silliness firsthand.)
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 5:11 PM
"That's fine, but it still accepts at its core a ghost story (See: The Resurrection Myth). They still want to get you from here to There after you die."
I am not in disagreement with you here, although I might quibble over the extent to which the most liberal Anglicans believe in any kind of personal god any more. As with so many things there aroe not discrete groups when in all this. Suffice to say that if all religious people were like the most moderate Anglicans we would not get things like so-called honour killings, and intolerance by religious groups would be greatly diminished. In short the world would likely be a rather better place than it is now. Not perfect, but an improvement.
Posted by: HungryAardvark | May 12, 2008 5:18 PM
I feel compelled to say some obvious things, that most the posters here should, and in likelihood do, know.
Some societies allow (even support) honor killings and many other horrible fucking things (killing female babies, genital mutilation, full-on genocide, etc). I am going to call these countries "Shitty Places to Live (SPL)". Many SPLs also have strong religious beliefs. However these same societies are often poor, uneducated, and have reduced control over what happens in their lives, compared to a relativity rich western democracy. These are but a few of the possible confounds. So how then do we tell to what degree religion leads to/encourages fucked up things, and/or to what degree religion is simply a mirror, reflecting the behavioral tendencies of the group.
Now if we had some fairy dust, we could take away religion (and only religion) from a few SPLs, and non-SPLs, see what happens. Then with some more fairy dust add religion back in, see what happens. After this we _might_ be able to draw casual conclusions. This experiment is, of course, not doable.
We could compare different SPLs (and non-SPLs), and see how degree and type of religion correlates with levels of violence, bigotry, etc. Or someone could monitor developing SPLs to see how various changes in culture, economic conditions, religion, effects the amount fucked up things happening. However even in finding incredibly strong correlations, we could say nothing about causation. I do not know, and could google could not find, any studies of either type (if anyone know of such a thing, please post a link). And after reading the 270 (or so) comments no one cited such a piece of research. Instead, lots of appealing to preferred pieces of anecdotal evidence.
For a group whose defining characteristic is evidence-based beliefs, you (well I anyway) might hope that in a discussion you would see some evidence of deriving belief from evidence. If you have no solid evidence, then either be cautious in the claims you make, or be silent. I know, I know, this is not the way of the internet.
I am not sure how to design an experiment that would be capable of establishing a casual link between religion and fucked up things -- suggestions appreciated.
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 5:18 PM
Willful ignorance is a contemptible excuse. We have a long history of modern warfare - we know perfectly well what interruptions in vital services lead to, we know perfectly well the social effects of the disruptions, we can predict fairly well even the ensuing refugee flows. It is part and parcel of the process - just read a bit of Kissinger if you want to know what these folks think.
Sorry, there are no two ways about this one. Irresponsibly allowing for murder to happen is nowhere near the same as committing the murder yourself in cold blood. There is a reason why we don't hold incompetent (or sinister) judges accountable for first-degree murder when they let a dangerous man loose who then goes on a rampage.
Then are you going to give up all your bennies? Are you going to return the profits from the slave trade to Africans, are you going to send all the churches to the Americas? It's nice to sit fat and happy on five centuries of thievery and then claim to have no responsibility. If you want moral cleanliness, then split all the descendant companies of the Dutch East India Company over East India, split French profits over their colonies... and so on.
Pathetically naive. You're tacitly playing into the long-falisified stereotype of the "happy savage", as if civilized Europeans have been the only people in the world to invade and dominate other tribes. All societies have at their heart features which stem from human sinning. We can't possibly throw into the trash everything with remote connection to something bad in the past, or there would be terrible chaos (all over the world, not just in Europe).
Nothing about this implies that we're all equally rotten. Unless you're completely and utterly batshit, you should be able to tell the difference between:
(a) Having a responsibility to condemn fellow Muslims killing their daughters for nothing, thus making it clear that "this is not what Islam stands for".
(b) Having a responsibility to apologize for colonial infractions of European governments, which occurred before you were even born.
What's lousy is making up strawmen. Abolish our armed forces? So, then I can argue that if magical pixies came and turned the Atlantic into a sea of gold, we all would live in happy Kumbaya land? It's just as likely to happen, given 10 millenia of history. What nonsense, what self-satisfied drivel.
Hey, if it weren't for rogue states like North Korea and (to a much greater extent) almost every Islamic country on the planet, abolishing the armed forces would be a real possibility.
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 5:24 PM
But how evil were all those roads, railways, telegraph lines, farms, sewage systems, modern technology, police service, etc.! Verily, European colonialism was undeniably a relentless and systematic force for the direst evil.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | May 12, 2008 5:29 PM
Yah, I'm afraid I made a few simplifying assumptions, starting with the assumption that virtually all of the religious authority in a society would be funneled through a single dominant "creed" (which need not necessarily coincide with a formal denomination). Societies with multiple religions roughly equal in influence would clearly be more complex... but my observation is that such societies are often so busy tearing themselves apart in civil strife that so-called honor killings may be lost in the noise.
I specifically didn't mean my ratio of authorities to apply to formal law; rather, I was looking for a synthetic factor reflecting the effective authority held by religion in a society, regardless of the means by which that social power is projected.
I also meant to be quantifying the risk of honor killing as a more-or-less accepted social institution; I wasn't trying to account for the actions of individual crazy fanatics, which you could find in any society.
Indeed. Any detailed version of my ratio of authorities would have to include some sort of dilution subfactor.
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 5:37 PM
OK, I stand corrected. You made a general statement about two very large groups of people, Americans and moderate Muslims. Now, I don't know how many moderate Muslims there are (nor, frankly, do I much care). And I don't know what "people" think about how many moderate Muslims there are. You have your opinion on that. I lean towards you being wrong about that opinion. But I have no statistics on the matter, and neither do you. I can live with that.
No, I do have statistics, and I don't know why you would assume otherwise. Many polls have been done on British Muslims (we hear about this all the time over here). The results are generally alarming, to say the least.
On top of that, there's a somewhat deeper evidence, which I alluded to briefly. There are supposedly moderate organizations like the Muslim Council of Britain, whose leading officials are known to make bigoted remarks. And then there's the observation that these people seem to get most excited not when there's an honour killing, but when Islam is allegedly insulted.
All of this makes me strongly suspect that genuine Muslim moderates aren't as ubiquitous as many people tend to assume. I say "especially Americans" because America isn't plagued with Islamic barbarism in the same way Europe is.
Posted by: LeeLeeOne | May 12, 2008 5:39 PM
You morons! You absolute morons!
This is all morphed into arguments regarding, the bottom line, economics and social standings?
This article brought to light the murder of a daughter by her own father, brothers, and mother.
No forbearance should even be discussed! No excuses, no explanations, no allowances - He Murdered His Daughter; They Murdered Their Sister, She Murdered Her daughter.
Bring this conversation back to the murder; the cold-blooded, premeditated, heartless, torture-murder of an innocent. And as a mother of many, I hold this woman just as responsible for the murder of her daughter by proxy; this mother put her own foot to her own daughter's throat.
We know why this conversation is being held in blogs; blogs will never see the front page of the New York times or the Republican, or the Washington Post or Reuters or The Guardian or the New Scientist or Fox, or even the Boston Globe for that matter! It will never be addressed and by the Government of the United States or any other government directly. Unless, perhaps, if enough of us continue to scream loudly - this is murder, period, and NO excuses.
Posted by: valor | May 12, 2008 5:39 PM
@ Matt Penfold, #196
I was in no way pardoning such behavior by stating that it has historical background. I was attempting to perhaps assert that even though we associate this behavior with Muslims, it might be more accurately pinned on Arabs. (Again, not trying to be racist)This is much less common in non-Arab Muslims.
As to my use of the phrase "honor killings" I use it because it is the most clear description of the phenomenon. I could, yes, have used patriarchally motivated gynocide, but we all knew what I meant by the term "honor killing". Plus, I'm rather a fan of irony.
Posted by: MikeM | May 12, 2008 5:39 PM
Completely off-topic technical question:
In post #282, in the second blockquote, there's a paragraph break there. How come the line spacing is so much greater on the subsequent paragraphs than it is on the first?
Sorry, I just had to ask, because it's been driving me crazy. css bug?
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 5:42 PM
Hungry Aardvark,
Poverty certainly has something to do with it, although you do not need to go far to find a rich nation that has a significant proportion of its population believe things that are batshit insane. I refer of course to the US. So GDP alone is not proof against religious stupidity, but it would certainly seem to help if Europe is anything to go by. Western Europe tends to have living standards that are on a par with those found in the US, and yet nothing like the degree of religiosity in either personal belief or religious involvement in the state. Ireland for example has become richer over the last 20 years whilst at the same time becoming increasingly less dependent on the Catholic Church. The situation in the US would tend to suggest that religiosity, if it is connected with poverty (and I suspect it is) depends not only on GDP but on the distribution of wealth. We do need to consider the possibility in that in countries with an adequate welfare support system religious groups provide needed support.
So in short, I am not at all clear if we can ever differentiate how religion and poverty are related but in many ways it does not really matter. A liberal society where people can get a decent education regardless of parental income, where becoming seriously ill will not bankrupt you, and where you will not face pecuniary in your old age are good things anyway, and if they lead to a loosening of the hold of religion, so much the better.
Posted by: Jams | May 12, 2008 5:46 PM
"I also meant to be quantifying the risk of honor killing as a more-or-less accepted social institution" - Bill Dauphin
I would say that the dominant factor in normalizing honor killing is the normalization of killing. If cutting off hands is a reasonable punishment stealing fruit, why not honor killings? If execution is a reasonable punishment for any and every offense, why not honor killings?
Honor Killing would immediately becomes not quite so abhorrent if it was Honor go-to-your-rooming.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 5:47 PM
"I was in no way pardoning such behavior by stating that it has historical background. I was attempting to perhaps assert that even though we associate this behavior with Muslims, it might be more accurately pinned on Arabs. (Again, not trying to be racist)This is much less common in non-Arab Muslims."
Actually, I am not entirely sure it is less common in non-Arab Muslims. I do know it is an issue within the British Muslim population, which is overwhelmingly from the Indian Sub-Continent. It is also not unknown amongst non-muslims from the same region. Some Hindu castes (and it is a very caste-bound religion), often the less advantaged ones, are also known to perform such killings.
Posted by: Monado | May 12, 2008 5:48 PM
PZ, don't count on the mother being opposed. There was a Canadian girl in B.C. who may have been murdered in India on her mother's orders when she wouldn't marry an aged friend of the family. They can't see the child for the reputation.
The number actually killed may be small, but growing up knowing that Father or Mother can and will kill you if you step out of line has to be pretty fucking terrifying.
Posted by: valor | May 12, 2008 5:52 PM
I haven't been considering British Muslims. I will look into this. You have a good point. Of course, then we face the obvious problem with the integration of monotheistic religions (which are very low-caste in India) with the extremely rigid caste system.... I can't even begin to contemplate how to consider the effect that might have. Of course, there are P.M.Gs in Hindu India, too (widow-burning and the its disgusting cousin dowry-hostage burning). So that's a whole other can of worms.
But you're right that I hadn't considered the Sub-Continent Muslims. I will see.
Posted by: Hematite | May 12, 2008 5:53 PM
Sorry for the long post, nothing to see here really.
OK, Emily's post at #71 which Glen takes such exception to:
Glen reads 'you' as referring to PZ, or perhaps the thread in general. I read 'you' as referring to those who condemn all of Islam, namely #4 and #8, also this is a common theme in mass media reports on various atrocities committed by muslims. She did not state who she was directing the comment at, but it seems only fair to assume she was talking to people who condemn Islam since that's what she's arguing against. The comment works equally well if directed at the cruel world. She wishes to draw a distinction between a purely religious motivation and one which is a combination of religion and culture. She asserts that she knows muslims from a different cultural background (but with the same nominal religion) who would not condone this murder. Hardly a peer-reviewed paper, but one anecdote is enough to introduce an idea. I read the 'blog' as referring to the comments as well as PZ's posts, PZ is well known for his opposition to religion and there are always commenters who are willing to make stronger statements than he does. I read 'this' as 'foisting responsibility for an atrocity on an unrelated group of people (all muslims, notably those in New Zealand and Fiji who she is familiar with) in order to demonize them'. I think this statement is a huge stretch and is unsupportable - which is why I don't support it.
From her comment I take the following: (1) Not all muslims should be held accountable for this murder because this murder was facilitated by a combination of culture and religion (2) She is disappointed at the way this blog characterises religion.
Matt Penfold (#83) started with this:
Matt reads Emily's comment differently from how I do. He quite rightly points out that the muslim hierarchy in Iraq is actively supporting this crime, by which I take him to mean that guilt attaches to them. By my reading of Emily's comment, she accepts that guilt attaches to the Iraqi muslims, but does not accept that it attaches to muslims in other countries which have a different cultural component. This is why I think there was a misunderstanding at this point, and why I posted in reply to Matt at #135.When I said "It's a different kind of Islam, and whether you still oppose it or not it's ridiculous to blindly equate it with fundamentalist honour killings" I did not mean to imply that Matt had blindly equated the two - where I said 'you' I should have said 'one' to avoid confusion. I support the sentiment (1) I read from emily's post, which is supported by my own experience, that there are flavours of Islam which are not fundamentalist and should not naturally be blamed for this crime.
In a further post where I said "On the other hand, you can take muslim theology and transplant it to a western culture and it becomes as innocuous as moderate Chrisitianity." I really should have said '..and it can become as innocuous as moderate Christianity". I overstated my point and Matt was quite right to call me on it.
Frankly, I think everything I've recorded here was entirely justified and I've owned up honestly to the mistakes I made. The rest is Glen being an asshole. Note that this is the first time I have insulted Glen despite the choice but repetitive and misapplied words he has for me.
Glen, I'm not particularly interested in anything you have to say at this point. If any of the other commenters here take issue with my behaviour I am more than willing to make amends as best I can. I pride myself on arguing honestly and trying to reach consenus rather than score points. Glen has done nothing to convince me that I have done otherwise.
Posted by: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 5:53 PM
"We know why this conversation is being held in blogs; blogs will never see the front page of the New York times or the Republican, or the Washington Post or Reuters or The Guardian or the New Scientist or Fox, or even the Boston Globe for that matter! It will never be addressed and by the Government of the United States or any other government directly. Unless, perhaps, if enough of us continue to scream loudly - this is murder, period, and NO excuses."
I am not aware of anyone here offering excuses for this man's actions, and for the lack of action of the part of the authorities in Basra. I would think all here are sicked by this murder. Certainly anyone who is not, does not really belong in polite society.
However refusing to excuse an action is the same thing as looking for an explanation for why that action took place. In fact I would argue we have duty to try and understand what caused this man to murder to his daughter, so that we can try to prevent other women being killed. We would not think a doctor who researched the causes of cancer to in way think cancer is a good thing for a person to have. Likewise, we should not confuse trying to understand the causes of violence to be supportive in anyway of that violence. Sitting around condemning the actions of this man is fine, but not if we fail to act to prevent similar acts happening in the future.
Posted by: frog | May 12, 2008 6:02 PM
Amk:
Me: So the European living standard isn't still propped up by the after affects of colonialism?
Don't assume that it ever was.
Good point. However, the differential was propped up by empire - even if the absolute standard of living wasn't improved by empire.
J:
On the other hand, with J, we finally find what's up: "All societies have at their heart features which stem from human sinning." Another religious imbecile whose entire argument is a rationalization for his religious pre-conceptions.
No, the colonial era is not over. No, you aren't to blame for what happened three centuries ago - but you are to blame for deluding yourself into believing that your lifestyle and political power isn't built on what happened over the last century. That your shoes and pants and shirts most likely come from a third world slave, who is a slave to you because of that history.
No one is claiming the "happy savage" - once again with the strawmen. It's the smug moral superiority that is being condemned. The problems of SE Asia before colonialism were the problems of SE Asia - but once the European powers took over, they volunteered for the responsibility. If you don't want it anymore, then return the stuff - pay your bills, and then you can wash your hands of the after-effects.
Then the most stupendous idiocy: But how evil were all those roads, railways, telegraph lines, farms, sewage systems, modern technology, police service, etc..
Yes, you gave all of those away for free. You were invited in, and begged to give those things. What an ass. The roads were built by your subjects, the telegraphs were put in by those people on their labor. You weren't shipping in British aristocrats to dig the ditches! Those things belong to those people - the most you can claim credit to is the original invention.
So you ask people who have nothing to do with Iraq, British born Muslims, who are in no way benefiting from the cruel acts in Iraq, to condemn what happens there; but your lazy fat ass is too delicate to condemn the parts of the world order that benefit you. No one argues to abandon everything, since no one with a mind imagines we can undo time (except in your fevered religious imagination). Millions can die from your policies, but they are just "collateral damage", without any blood on your hands, but some sons-of-bitches kill their daughters and suddenly people half a world away are responsible?
Never does the complete amorality of the religious cease to amaze! At least the monster in Iraq had the cojones to claim his moral responsibility, rather than believe that because the buttons are being pushed at a statistical level, somehow that absolves them of the reality.
Posted by: HungryAardvark | May 12, 2008 6:07 PM
Matt @ 289,
I do tend to think that poverty and religion are intertwined, along with possibly other important cultural stuff (my bias in this is more towards the idea that people who little apparent control of their lives will find dogmatic religion appealing, thus rationalizing away their state of affairs as a good thing). And I also agree that that disassociating them may not be necessary to reduce religious belief. It might help though. What I do take exception to is the rampant blaming religion (and/or societal forces) as being the cause when we lack sufficient evidence either way. To be obvious again, societies are complex networks - complex networks that we lack (as far as I know) good models for.
I have no problem with speculation, but for so many to, apparently, think they _know_ what causes fucked up things to happen, how the many variables of a society interact, is disheartening, and quite out of line with the ideals of skeptical inquiry.
Posted by: Etha Williams | May 12, 2008 6:12 PM
@#284 LeeLeeOne --
No one here has excused what these people said, nor said that it should be allowed; however, explanation is important. How can one address a problem without understanding its cause? What kind of useful discussion could be had by "bringing this conversation back to the murder" without offering possible explanations?:
"Oh yes, it was very heartless."
"Yes, premiditated."
"How awful."
"Really, just terrible."
"What horrible, horrible people!"
"Inexcusable."
All true, but neither interesting nor very constructive.
Posted by: valor | May 12, 2008 6:13 PM
Well, I'm having difficulty locating statistics on this, probably because nobody is prosecuted for them...
Even the WHO is pretty silent on this. But thank you, Matt, for pointing out the flaw in my reasoning.
Posted by: raven | May 12, 2008 6:17 PM
"You're a Christian moron." Naw, he is a Death Cultist with a brain the size of a walnut. The difference between a Xian fundie cultist and a Moslem killer is.....well, what is the difference?
Randy, why are you posting nonsense on the internet? Don't you have an MD or evolutionary biologist to assasinate or a democracy called the USA to destroy or something? You've wasted half the day already.
Posted by: Ted D | May 12, 2008 6:20 PM
You know, I'm just going to go ahead and call you a xenophobic dimwit now. Europe isn't plagued by Islamic barbarism. How do I know this? I'm European too. Sure, there are problems with Islam here. Possibly greater than the problems with other religions here, though I wouldn't bet too much on that, Christianity is well ingrained here and still has great potential for harm. But we're bloody well not "plagued with Islamic barbarism" other than in the minds of frightened little people cowering behind their self-imposed ignorance. The people who are most hurt by Islam are Muslims. Muslim women being oppressed, Muslim men being brought up to think that it's an honourable thing to kill their daughters. But except for some groups of fanatical nutjobs, Europe isn't threatened by Islam to a greater extent than by Christianity. And while both religions, and others, are indeed harmful to our society, screaming that the Islamic barbarians are coming to get us is about as useful as me arguing with you right now.
Posted by: John | May 12, 2008 6:21 PM
usually when someone does something wrong they feel guilt- this man doesn't have any guilt due to the justification his religion provides- that is the real sick part of this (asside from the killing part)
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 6:22 PM
Another religious imbecile whose entire argument is a rationalization for his religious pre-conceptions.
Fucking moron. I'm a steadfast atheist, and I haven't faintly indicated anywhere that I have any religious tendencies in me whatever. So once again, not only are you wrong, but you couldn't be more wrong.
No, the colonial era is not over. No, you aren't to blame for what happened three centuries ago - but you are to blame for deluding yourself into believing that your lifestyle and political power isn't built on what happened over the last century. That your shoes and pants and shirts most likely come from a third world slave, who is a slave to you because of that history.
Yeah, and this is a fundamental feature of all societies in the world: they have features that are based on human sinning. Humans are savage creatures, and at almost all times in the past it has been the norm to commit acts that we would now consider sinful. This univeral property of human societies, which is by no means unique to modern Europe, isn't of the tiniest smidgen of relevance here.
Yes, you gave all of those away for free. You were invited in, and begged to give those things. What an ass. The roads were built by your subjects, the telegraphs were put in by those people on their labor. You weren't shipping in British aristocrats to dig the ditches! Those things belong to those people - the most you can claim credit to is the original invention.
Well, leaving aside the fact that none of those things would have been built for at least hundreds of years if it weren't for European colonization...I'm not claiming that colonization was entirely for the good of mankind. Maybe, though, it was for the net good (scholars continue to debate that up to this day), which is a lot more than you can say about Islam.
Never does the complete amorality of the religious cease to amaze!
I don't know whether you actually believe this unsupported conclusion about me, or whether it's a shamelessly stunt design to turn people against me before I get a chance to defend myself against these absurdly false charges.
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 6:23 PM
"...shameless stunt designed to turn people against me", that's supposed to read.
Posted by: Ichthyic | May 12, 2008 6:27 PM
I have no problem with speculation, but for so many to, apparently, think they _know_ what causes fucked up things to happen, how the many variables of a society interact, is disheartening, and quite out of line with the ideals of skeptical inquiry.
first off, I fail to see the relevance of adding that last bit.
However, on the issue of poverty and religion...
-Bishop John Shelby SpongI tend to agree that when religion meets desperation, the results can be disastrous.
However, I don't think it's that poverty and religion are necessarily intertwined, it's that when they ARE intertwined, it almost always results in something negative.
Just to be clear, if that is related to what is happening here, the intertwining of desperation and religious dogma happened long before the event documented in this thread took place. Not to say it isn't maintained and even bolstered by current events in the region.
Posted by: MB | May 12, 2008 6:29 PM
Boy, Glen D.'s in a mood today - I don't remember seeing so many obscenities out of him - or did I miss some threads where he was this excitable? Go get 'em Glen!
Where's Nullfidian when the Islamic apologists need him?
For those of you whining about this biologist's obvious anti-Mulsim bigotry...
He doesn't like religion (ever read this blog?). That's religion, not just Islam. This is an extreme example of religion's negative impact on society.
Try to separate the (mostly) right wing incited anti-Islam hatred in the west from ANY critcism of religion. Islam is not ok or exempt from criticism simply because some (mostly) right wing Christian shitbags want to whip up a frenzy of hatred around Muslims for the right-wing political agenda (and see our Dutch friend Geert).
By the same token, get a grip at the other end - take a chill pill, Michelle. Silent Muslims are not "ALL WOMEN HATING MURDERERS DUE TO YOUR SILENCE." any more than Americans are "ALL WOMEN HATING MURDERERS DUE TO YOUR SILENCE" because this wouldn't have happened without the US imposing the current situation on Iraq making this possible.
The Muslims I know would be happy to condemn this and most certainly would if they knew about it. Especially my atheist Muslim friends. But they're not Muslims, you say? Tell that to the dickheads incited by the (mostly) right wing Muslim haters whipping up anti-Muslim hysteria in my wonderful, intolerant country.
So the "moderate" Muslims might be more like our creationist Christian friends. Gee, THAT makes their religion ok...
Posted by: J | May 12, 2008 6:29 PM
You know, I'm just going to go ahead and call you a xenophobic dimwit now. Europe isn't plagued by Islamic barbarism. How do I know this? I'm European too. Sure, there are problems with Islam here.
Well I'm clearly not xenophobic, or I would be anti-foreigner (which I'm certainly not) rather than specifically anti-Islam.
Many Europeans, including the people like Salman Rushdie and the Danish cartoonists who've had their lives to a large extent ruined due to their daring to say something about Islam, would wholly disagree with you. I think we'll leave it there, unless you want to challenge me on some factual issue.