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I have done a few ‘Hero of the Day’ posts and I have a few more on the way. The recipients have done great work spreading important information, rallying against injustice, educating us masses, and have been generally awesome. But today’s hero is special. On top of those usual achievements, she’s done it all while personally facing off against one of the leading threats to civilization as we know it. Oh, and she’s only 15.
The Taliban, with its “all powerful god”, is threatened by literate females. So much so, it will use brutal violence, murder, torture, and arson to enforce its view that girls should not be allowed in schools. What else would you expect from the “religion of peace”?
Malala Yousafzai, from the Swat district of Pakistan, however, does not agree. With aspirations of becoming a doctor or a politician, Malala is a strong advocate for gender equality, especially for equal access to education. Like many other girls in Swat, Malala has risked her life to attend classes against the wishes of the Taliban. At the same time, she was also doing something extraordinary. Malala, using a pseudonym, started blogging for the BBC, reporting to the world what it was like to be an ordinary child under the Taliban as it destroyed schools and forbade girls from attending the ones they hadn’t destroyed yet.
Adam B. Ellick from the New York Times made a documentary called Class Dismissed profiling Malala, her activism, and the difficulties and dangers for girls wanting to go to school.
Since the documentary, Malala’s has kept on advocating for girl’s education, growing in influence and visibility. This earned her and her father numerous death threats from the Taliban. Undeterred, Malala kept working for equal education opportunities.
On October 9th, 2012, the Taliban tried to make good on its threats. To preserve the glory of Islam an Allah, Malala was shot in the head.
Now recovering in a UK hospital, Malala isn’t done yet. Her message and story are spreading and the world is taking note.
Tarek Fatah, from Toronto, started a petition on change.org to nominate Malala for a Nobel Peace Prize. The response has been tremendous. The Prime Minister and the leaders of all of our major parties have unanimously endorsed this petition. If you haven’t done so already, please sign as well.
In the west we’ve had huge media organizations cower and retreat when islamist extremists raised their hate filled voices. In Swat, a 15 year old girl stood directly against the guns, bombs, soldiers, and machetes wielded by the worst of brutal zealots, just outside her door.
Islam, religion of Peace burns down American Embassy illustrating dedication to rational non-violent ways of resolving disputes.
This just in the from insano-delusional land (credit CBC.ca):
“Many Muslims find it offensive to depict the Prophet Muhammad in any fashion, much less in an insulting way.
This week’s attacks on U.S. diplomatic outposts in Egypt and Libya, the latter of which claimed the lives of U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens and three others on Tuesday, erupted after a 14-minute trailer of an obscure movie by a California real-estate developer. The film was posted on YouTube in English and later in Egyptian Arabic.
Ultraconservative Islamists were suspected of being behind the attack in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. Advocating a strict interpretation of Islam, they have bulldozed Sufi shrines and mosques that house tombs in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and other cities, including ancient sites dating back to 5,000 years ago.”
So, like the danish cartoons, the publishing of this film somehow gives people the right to flip out the buttered insane fuck-crumpets and burn shit up and kill people? This is part of the trailer that has incensed the reality challenged.
Wow. This film ranks below Poolboy:Drowning out the Fury on my list of awful movies.
So, full marks for beating out PoolBoy, but not really a honour one should be striving toward. Let’s recap so far, some dude makes a crumby, ass-pustule of a flick and because it makes fun of your godhead of choice *you* get to kill people.
“The movie trailer depicts Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a madman in an overtly ridiculing way, showing him having sex and calling for massacres. An amateur cast performs a wooden dialogue of insults disguised as revelations about Muhammad, whose obedient followers are presented as a cadre of goons. The film was being promoted by an extreme anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the United States, and was financed with the help of more than 100 Jewish donors according to Sam Bacile, who wrote and directed it.”
Yep. I can totally see how shedding innocent blood is called for in cases like this. Chris Stevens and three others were destined to give their lives to fanatics hepped up on righteous god-juice over a D-list movie.
Let me reiterate, religion is harmful to people and society if it is not kept in check by a strong secular state the kind of irrational bullshite that our muslim friends demonstrated in Libya happens. Believing in magic and mythology for the nth time, has no place in the modern world. We commit plenty of atrocities without the help of those who lose their shit when you depict their ooga-booga of choice.
Indeed, religion does poison everything it touches and creates the nightmare world which we striving to leave behind us.
The Disservice takes a dim view of most religions with a few notable exceptions (sock-gnome worship is encouraged). Islam takes centre stage many Sundays for no other reason that it promotes ugly, horrible things. Today’s little gem is the proper way to beat your wife and stay on the down-low with allah all at the same time.
Apparently, as long as you are not beating her about the face or breaking bones, its a WIN all the way around. Folks, I realize this theme may be getting old, but the sad fact is that unless we continue to bring the injustices to light, keep the evil firmly in the spotlight, it won’t go away.
We are working toward equality and freedom for women in the West, despite the cancerous religious dogma that conspires against them (thank you religious-right wingnuts).
First, to any and all Christians who claim to believe the world is ending tomorrow, I don’t believe you for a second. I invite you to prove me wrong. Spend the rest of today donating every single penny and asset you have accumulated over you life to charity. Give up your house, your life savings, everything you own (maybe pack yourself a lunch) to the underprivileged. You won’t need it anyway, and the charity will look good on your resume when pining for positions in heaven. What’s the matter? Not enough faith? I thought not.
But before the second coming of christ (giggety giggety) we have another very important event: today is Draw Mohammad Day! Here is my 2011 contribution, a fine display of microsoft paint skills, if I do say so myself.
If you have no idea what this post is all about, here is a great vid from one of my youTube favs, Thunderf00t, explaining everything.
The radical form of Islam being preached in Afghanistan (and other places) is a symptom of the upheaval and chaos that is endemic of the region. With no security, no law and no justice, it is who has the biggest gun makes the rules. Currently the radical followers of islam occupy that role and the repression of women is the cornerstone of their particularly warped take on the religion of “peace”.
We recently received a comment on a similar post about the insane ass-backwardness of Islam, and religion in general, decrying the lack of respect and tolerance for religion and religious practices.
“While I have little respect for religion I have too much respect for the people that do practice it to support a Draw Mohammad Day, or for that matter a Piss on a Crucifix Day. It just seems like another opportunity for otherwise sane progressive people to join with the far right in attacking Muslims.”
This seems to be a fairly mainstream progressive opinion. Fairly wrong as well, but wrongness aside, the comment lends insight to one of obstacles progressive thinking needs to overcome when arguing the issues. Our opponents, usually people who sponsor socially regressive policies (pro-death penalty, anti-abortion, anti-socialism etc), decry progressive positions (for a myriad of BS reasons but I’m making a point here about cultural relativity and ‘tolerance’) because of the lack of an absolute moral position. Because progressives usually are not as xenophobic, racist or intolerant as regressive voices the progressive position is framed as being a moral willy-nilly free for all that permits all behaviour because it is believed that morality and the behaviour that stems from said behaviour is based on the society and culture being viewed.
Cultural Relativism (CR). CR is great in small doses, but should not be used as a basis for moral judgments because human societies are capable of cruel despicable laws/customs that by deontological standards, are atrocious. Allow me to cut off the boilerplate religious response to my admission that CR is heavily flawed when it comes to making moral judgments by saying that a supreme being in any form is not necessary for the formation of a moral system. We can make moral judgments without divine guidance or literacy in irrelevant ancient texts by using our reason and intuitions alone (see Utilitarianism and Deontological Moral systems).
In the video included in this post women, housed in their burka cloth prisons, are risking their lives for the simple act of attempting to become literate. They face persecution and death simply because they wish to free themselves from the torpid ignorance which is religiosity. So can one simply say that the cultural practice of cloistering and oppressing half the population merely because they have the double XX chromosome is a good one because we must only judge societies by their own intrinsic standards?
The argument is a gross simplification of what CR is, but some progressives seem to endorse the idea that tolerance means we have to condone the reprehensible actions of others because it is “OK” in their society. Basing your morality on any one system is a recipe for moral failure as all systems have inherent flaws that can amplify human suffering if taken as gospel.
The problem with morality is that, by nature, it is inherently complex and comes with many layers of conflicting values and ideas that must be judiciously weighed before coming to an (often unsatisfactory) answer. Regressives have little time for complexity and depth of thought and often adumbrate easy moral solutions based on unrealistic binary models.
So, to address the issue raised in the video clip, yes it is morally and functionally wrong to prevent women from becoming literate and educated. One must look at the problem not only through the prism of the CR analysis but also Utilitarian and Deontological moral systems. If all societies were to adopt the fundamental tenets of Islam would people be better off? Does the system promote great amount of utility for individuals and society? When cast in the light of a multifaceted moral analysis a moral stance can be taken that is nuanced and guided by rational thought (rather than musty rules from a magic a book). The system (delusional religious belief) that encourages such egregious misogynistic cultural practices must therefore be criticized for promoting such a view of women.
Finding contemptible religious people saying horrible things on youtube is not a difficult task. This particular individual is all over his Sky-daddy allah and how women need to be beaten so they can quickly learn their place and proper behaviour within Islamic religious society.
We can dispense with any notion of Islam (christianity, judiasm etc.) being the religion of peace and harmony. Oh certainly this man may be a crank and not represent the “true faith” but does this lessen the horror of what he is saying? We have our share of absolute cranks here in North American, but we are protected from their delusional insanity because of the secular tenets of our society.
In countries that do not share the same dedication(?) to rationality the damage these people can do is significantly multiplied.
We can safely file this entire shit for brains episode under “how religion makes you stupid and how it makes you do stupid things” or even “religious belief = full on pants-on-head retarded”.
Islam the aptly named religion of peace is responsible for the recent riots and the killing of (more) innocents in Afghanistan. Of course we almost instantly know when Westerners are killed in Afghanistan. Contrast this story with the media coverage of the native people are slaughtered every day in Afghanistan if when they are counted. Pro-innocent civilian death concerns aside, the general assholery of war seems to have gone exponential as of late. People are losing their minds because some crack pot christian god-bag in Florida burnt a Qur’an or two. It is therefore logical to riot and kill people because you burnt their magic book. (!)
“At least nine people were killed and dozens more injured Saturday after protests took a violent turn in Kandahar city, the office of the Kandahar government said.
On Friday, Afghans protesting the Qur’an burning stormed a United Nations compound in northern Afghanistan, killing seven foreigners.”
Unbelievable. People have to die because the extra-deluded are getting their shit in a twist over the actions of a christian
Captain deluded to the resuce!
fundy-loon in Florida. It gets better though. Pastor Dense as fracking Neutron-star has the gall to say this:
Wayne Sapp, a pastor at the church, called the events “tragic” but said he did not regret the actions of his church.
“I in no way feel like our church is responsible for what happened,” Sapp said in a telephone interview on Friday.”
This epitome of douchatude does not “feel like our church is responsible” for what happened. Out here in rational land the stupid meters just fused solid. As a self appointed spokesperson of the atheist rationalist community let me spell this gordion knot of a problem out for you.
Many muslims are batshite-crazy deluded over their magic book. Given previous incidents (cartoons etc) it takes little in the way of worldly knowledge to guess what would happen if you well..oh say..publicize and then burn their mystical tome of puerile foolishness religious righteousness. I may have spoken too soon, perhaps this wisdom of the ages does escape the religious as they do have the tendancy to avoid facts when dealing with reality. How many other groups of people that, with the fracking Everest sized mountain of evidence for evolution crammed sideways up their ass, can still bray about the veracity of the biblical flood and the other assorted creationist mind-farts they purport to believe in?
I’ll be charitable and say only a select portion of christians are as ass-backwards as their Islamic counterparts. Don’t get too smug my christian friends, this slots you only milimeters above those with a profound belief in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
So essentially, this is a story about two religiously addled groups who possess only the IQ necessary to breath and pray, insulting each other and seeing who wins the title for committing flossing-baby-out-of-your-teeth evil.
“An Associated Press photographer estimated the crowd at a few thousand and said demonstrators had smashed his camera and roughed up other journalists.
We want you to live in the Dark Ages too!
The desecration of the Qur’an has outraged millions of Muslims and others worldwide.”
The level of backward, barbaric, nuclear grade stupidity has also outraged the non addled worldwide.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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