…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
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: kid bitzer | May 12, 2008 9:40 AM
Fuck...
Posted by: Josh | May 12, 2008 9:41 AM
Wait, I thought you never criticized Islam....
/eyeroll
This is disgusting.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 12, 2008 9:42 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: Jeff Flowers | May 12, 2008 9:43 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: amphiox | May 12, 2008 9:44 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: tony | May 12, 2008 9:48 AM
spezio ranting about zionism and discounting this murder as propaganda in 5, 4, 3, 2....
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | May 12, 2008 9:48 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: Aegis | May 12, 2008 9:50 AM
Only briefly mentioned? Almost half the article is about the mother. Starting with:
Posted by: SteveM | May 12, 2008 9:50 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: Nick Gotts | 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: Stephen Wells | 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: Anniek | May 12, 2008 9:51 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: SteveN | May 12, 2008 9:53 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: Lilly de Lure | 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: AndyD | 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: MH | May 12, 2008 9:54 AM
#15 ftw.
Posted by: kid bitzer | May 12, 2008 9:56 AM
Andy, you forget. Stein is talking about the real God...
Posted by: Josh | 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: Iain Walker | May 12, 2008 9:57 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: Jams | May 12, 2008 9:58 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: SteveF | May 12, 2008 9:59 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: Randal Birkey | May 12, 2008 10:05 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: Interrobang | May 12, 2008 10:09 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: Snark7 | May 12, 2008 10:10 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: Lana | May 12, 2008 10:12 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: Serena | May 12, 2008 10:13 AM
This makes me sick and sad.
Posted by: Ric | 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: Nick Gotts | May 12, 2008 10:15 AM
The 'Religion of Peace' strikes again.
Posted by: Brian | May 12, 2008 10:18 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: mattmc | 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: Iain Walker | May 12, 2008 10:20 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: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 12, 2008 10:21 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: Lilly de Lure | May 12, 2008 10:22 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: Kseniya | May 12, 2008 10:23 AM
"[...] but there is absolutely no evidence that Rand's mother did any such thing." - Lilly de Lure
Agreed.
Posted by: Jams | May 12, 2008 10:25 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: PZ Myers | 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: Matt | May 12, 2008 10:26 AM
Mr. Birkley about to go down in flames on this commentsection in 5...4...3...2...
Posted by: Clan:Rewired | May 12, 2008 10:27 AM
Religion of peace...
Posted by: Dennis N | May 12, 2008 10:27 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: Jason Failes | May 12, 2008 10:28 AM
wow... faster than I thought, good going!
Posted by: Clan:Rewired | May 12, 2008 10:29 AM
This actually brought me to tears.
Posted by: S. Scott | May 12, 2008 10:29 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: BobC | May 12, 2008 10:30 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: Rev. BigDumbChimp | May 12, 2008 10:31 AM
In conclusion then, George W. Bush, new father in law, is also responsible for her death.
Posted by: stevelaudig | May 12, 2008 10:31 AM
Yet Atheists are immoral, godless sociopaths....Riiiiight.
Posted by: E in MD | May 12, 2008 10:34 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: kid bitzer | May 12, 2008 10:38 AM
Regarding #22: oh, man, there are idiots in the world.
Posted by: HaSatan | May 12, 2008 10:43 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: freelunch | May 12, 2008 10:45 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: Colugo | May 12, 2008 10:46 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: omar ali | May 12, 2008 10:47 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: Kermit | 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: E in MD | May 12, 2008 10:48 AM
Posted by: Dustin | May 12, 2008 10:51 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: Seamyst | May 12, 2008 10:53 AM
@55:
I don't think they are misinterpreting anything. Rather, they are interpreting exactly what is written.
Posted by: pleco | May 12, 2008 10:56 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: TheWireMonkey | 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: maxi | 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: Marcus Ranum | 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: Claudia | 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: pleco | May 12, 2008 10:57 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: CL | May 12, 2008 10:58 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: BlueIndependent | 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: Peter Mc | May 12, 2008 10:59 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: Jason Failes | May 12, 2008 11:00 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: Jorge | 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: freelunch | May 12, 2008 11:01 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: Lilly de Lure | May 12, 2008 11:03 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: Colugo | May 12, 2008 11:05 AM
Iraq used to be one of the most secular countries in the Middle East. That oversight is now fixed.
Posted by: Dunkleosteus | 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: emily | May 12, 2008 11:06 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: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 11:07 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: Dylan | May 12, 2008 11:08 AM
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: Dustin | 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: Matt Penfold | May 12, 2008 11:08 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: freelunch | May 12, 2008 11:09 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: Rev. BigDUmbChimp | May 12, 2008 11:13 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: Glen Davidson | 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: Dunc | May 12, 2008 11:18 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: Martin | 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: Moggie | May 12, 2008 11:19 AM