Anti-Education Attack Poisons 150 Afghan Schoolgirls 707
An anonymous reader writes "The water at a high school in Afghanistan was contaminated today, poisoning roughly 150 girls in attendance. Afghan officials say this was a deliberate attack: 'We are 100 percent sure that the water they drunk inside their classes was poisoned. This is either the work of those who are against girls' education or irresponsible armed individuals.' From the article: 'Some of the 150 girls, who suffered from headaches and vomiting, were in critical condition, while others were able to go home after treatment in hospital, the officials said. They said they knew the water had been poisoned because a larger tank used to fill the affected water jugs was not contaminated. ... None of the officials blamed any particular group for the attack, fearing retribution from anyone named.'"
And that, ladies and gentlemen (Score:5, Insightful)
is what happens when you coddle and religious groups extreme behavior and the myth that they have a right to tell governments what to do.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, at least in the U.S. the attack on education by conservatives is nonviolent. Thank goodness for small favors, I guess.
Re:And that, ladies and gentlemen (Score:5, Insightful)
Next time instead of attacking what you don't agree with, try to understand it. Otherwise, all you are doing is giving these idiots reasons to further their agenda.
Re:And that, ladies and gentlemen (Score:5, Insightful)
How's this food for thought: There are plenty in the scientific community that not only believe in God, but also think this kind of crap is the stupidest thing they've ever heard?
Just out of curiosity, why aren't those people making their voices heard?
Re:And that, ladies and gentlemen (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And that, ladies and gentlemen (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that this kind of dialogue is common not just here on the Internet but EVERYWHERE.
I have an uncle and every god damn problem in this country is the fault of those evil, liberal teachers brain washing our kids. All liberals want to make everyone step in line to their creed, you know. Because there was once this story about a really stupid liberal guy who said something like that.
Similarly I've met people who know that Conservatives want to elect Jesus as president, know that He supports their right to carry an M-60 in their local supermarket and shoot anyone who's skin looks Islamic. They know this because of that story from last year where that crazy guy did that thing.
We need to stop this.
There are stupid, opinionated liberals. There are also well-informed, open-minded liberals.
There are stupid, opinionated conservatives. There are also well-informed, open-minded conservatives.
Beginning a statement by saying ALL members of group X are such and such isn't just wrong, it hurts actual discussion. No, that story in the paper about that one liberal/conservative group/politician/whatever being an idiot or an asshole does not, in fact, discredit everyone on that side of the political spectrum. People on the opposite side of the aisle are never going to listen a word you say if the first words out of your mouth are insulting to their entire group.
Problems can't get fixed until we actually discuss what needs to be fixed and how, and we can't have a decent discussion until we learn to stop insulting everyone.
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Now that you have conceded that "conservatives" are in the majority, and one of the objectives of the left is to increase "democracy", then you recognize that conservative views are the ones that should be emphasized.
I wish both conservatives and progressives would take a moment to step back and look at what they're espousing. I'm not in the US, so I don't have any sticks in your fire. Take this as merely an observation.
Conservative means preferring the status quo, or even going back to some previous state when things were (presumably) better. I have the utmost respect for your Founding Fathers, or at least some of them. They were revolutionary for their time; progressive even.
Progressives want to go forward, assumi
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Ultimately, it's not about religious extremists telling the government what to do, it's about their telling actual individual people what to do. If ever there were a time for methodological individualism [wikipedia.org], this is it.
Re:And that, ladies and gentlemen (Score:4, Insightful)
that they have a right to tell governments what to do.
I'm sure you didn't mean it to sound this way, but in case you did, who do you think DOES have the right to tell governments what to do if not the people they govern?
Re:And that, ladies and gentlemen (Score:4, Insightful)
Religion != people religion has no right to dictate directly to governments, people do. In a lot of ways I would love to see the separation of church and state run both ways, the state does not mess with churches and churches stay out of politics. The state should never implement church doctrine as law, rather implement the minimal set of laws that are required for civil society. That would let the church go back to working on morals and the state out of enforcing them.
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As long as that theocracy provides for a way to it to be later changed or removed if that is the will of the people. Otherwise it is just another form of autocratic oppression.
For example, see Iran, Cuba, China and many other regimes where they fervently defend "the Revolution". Specifically THEIR revolution, not the next one people are trying to bring about because the last one wasn't as great as promised.
"Viva la revolucion" really should be "Viva mi revolucion".
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Maybe you can explain who was coddled by whom?
This may follow from their religion, but for the life of me I can't figure out what 'coddling' has occured to encourge this.
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Aren't you for 'democracy', which means rule of the majority or basically mobocracy? If the majority consists of religious fanatics, wouldn't it just mean democracy can be used to give power to Taliban just as well?
As say: democracy does not ensure freedom, it is actually a gateway towards tyranny.
HOWEVER, where does it say even in TFA that it's Taliban that is responsible? Here is what TFA says:
The Afghan government said last year that the Taliban, which has been trying to adopt a more moderate face to advance exploratory peace talks, had dropped its opposition to female education.
AFAIC it could be anybody poisoning those girls, from Taliban, to USA military contractors, who stand to lose a s
Well, I guess that'll teach them... (Score:2)
If the message is that women shouldn't go to school, then maybe they learned something at school. But wait... someone just taught those girls something! Kill the offenders!!!!!
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
None of the officials blamed any particular group for the attack, fearing retribution from anyone named.'"
Bad guys do bad things and people are afraid to even name them for doing the said bad things... I think the bad guys might be winning.
Re: (Score:2)
This. You beat me to it, but, just wow. Fear of fucking retribution for outing the sort of scum who would poison schoolgirls?
GROW A PAIR, "OFFICIALS" - Or get the hell out of the way for someone who will do their job.
Re: (Score:2)
They're afraid of inciting more violence against the school and its students. It's easy to say "do your job" from way over here - not so easy when you may be directly further endangering hundreds of innocent students.
If Afghanistan hadn't been so neglected... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:If Afghanistan hadn't been so neglected... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you simplify this too much. It wasn't the "west's" opportunity after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan. Iran, Saudi-Arabia and Pakistan were the major players in Afghanistan in the post Peshawar Accords. If the British (or the US) would have just gone in there (even to "help"), how do you think things would have gone differently? Would the Afghanis have just completely forgotten the first 3 anglo-afgan wars? Not so sure that was the best course of action.
Perhaps, we should have perhaps been rooting for Ahmad Shah Massoud and the United Islamic Front. They weren't saints, but were still anti-Taliban. Instead, the west was lobbying for them to surrendar to the Taliban to stabilize the region as the west was more aligned with Pakistan at the time (and Pakistan was one of the big supporter of the Taliban).
How did history unfold? Well, Mr Massoud was eventually assasinated and then Sept 11th occured. I don't think it was about the west being too cheap, it was more about picking the wrong side.
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> after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan. Were they defeated? I do not think so.
I guess that depends on your point of view... From the Soviet and Najibullah point of view, it was certainly a withdraw. From the mujahideen point of view, hard to say.... What does it mean when a guerella force outlasts an imperialist power's desire to occupy? Maybe the word withdraw is more to you liking...
In any case, my original point was that from the Afghani's point of view, the chaos that ensued after the Sov
Re:If Afghanistan hadn't been so neglected... (Score:5, Insightful)
Help doesn't always help.
If we tried to help, who is to say it would have turned out better or turned out like many African and Latin American countries that did receive help. Symptoms may get treated, but that can make the issues worse.
America is evil for trying to impose it's will on other countries.
America is evil for not trying to impose it's will on other countries.
In a no-win situation doing nothing is often the best course of action.
This is not Islam (Score:4, Insightful)
Remember that crap like this is carried out by a fundamentalist extremists. Don't start a witch-hunt on religion just because the wack-jobs killing people claim to be religious.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And yet it is religion which justifies these actions. Please consider reading Sam Harris' "The End of Faith", which outlines in detail why the continued survival of our species can no longer tolerate attitudes such as your own.
Re:This is not Islam (Score:5, Insightful)
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And yet it is religion which justifies these actions.
The interpretation is what gets twisted. You can find twisted interpretations in any religion or elitist mentality. Even atheism. If you're going to hate, don't be selective.
Trouble is, the majority of mainstream religions tend to keep nutjobs under control.
Fearing retribution? (Score:2)
anonymous tip line? (Score:2)
Are there no cell phones there? Can't someone start an anonymous tip line? If this happened in the US we'd have detectives so far up everybody's ass that the ACLU would be foaming at the mouth.
What's the rationale behind this? (Score:2)
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You know a government is inneffective when... (Score:3)
...they're afraid to accuse people whom they think poisoned over a hundred schoolgirls, for fear that they'll tick the criminals off (and have trouble as a result). Sure, angering terrorists (or whatever they're calling these scoundrels--if anything) is likely to provoke them to try other acts of terrorism. What are you going to do, though, let them get away with it? I can't see how that won't encourage further acts of terror just as thoroughly (if not necessarily as quickly).
Side note: yes, Afghanistan is strongly Muslim, and yes there are some extremists who utterly pervert and abuse that faith; but unless there's some mention in TFA about religious motivations, let's please not jump to inflammatory conclusions about this being faith-motivated. In point of fact, this sort of thing has happened here in the USA, as recently as in the 20th century, so let's not throw stones based on our dominant religions (including atheism and agnosticism--which are, of course beliefs about God, if only by denial and uncertainty) being somehow superior to theirs. Horrible people exist in all countries, and infest all religions, as you should all well know.
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Best Option: Allow them to leave the country (Score:5, Interesting)
The women prepare the food in that society right? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they should have thought of that before targeting women with poison.
Idiots.
They know it was poison? (Score:5, Interesting)
Afghanistan isn't especially well known for it's hygiene standards. The symptoms of headaches, Nausea and vomiting match up pretty well with salmonella or e-coli poisoning. It's obviously in a public official best interests to blame evil terrorists rather than lax health standards. Put your water jugs in a messy kitchen where meat it prepared, it could easily be contaminated.
Re:Islam (Score:5, Insightful)
And occasionally blowing up a building full of innocent people, but that is the absolute limit.
Why is this moderated down? (Score:2, Insightful)
The comment is absolutely on the mark.
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Yes, because weekly hundreds of McVeighs gear up for roadside bombings and suicide missions in the name of Christianity and whack job right-wing conspiracy theories. It's every bit as prominent as Muslim terrorism, but it's never, ever, mentioned in the news.
I don't know why the fuck we're in Iraq anymore but it's not due to Christianity.
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:4, Insightful)
How to tell the difference between a peaceful religion and a non-peaceful religion.
A peaceful religion - like Buddhism - is where adherents are invited to attend, learn, discuss, and ultimately choose whether or not to accept the tenets and philosophy of the faith. A member of a peaceful religion may set himself on fire in protest of the mistreatment of others, but will not actively attempt to harm another person.
A non-peaceful religion - like Islam - is where adherents are told to convert or die [wikipedia.org], have their heads cut off [wikipedia.org] if they don't convert, subjects members of other religions to derogatory and humiliating extra taxes and second-class legal status or worse [wikipedia.org], sentences people to death [jihadwatch.org] for converting away from it, and starts wars of conquest to enlarge the areas in which they can practice barbarism openly. They may also be religions that were founded by hyper-polygynists who may or may not have been pedophiles [wikipedia.org] (remind [wikipedia.org] you of anyone [wikipedia.org] else [wikipedia.org]?)
In short:
- A buddhist will set himself on fire to protest your mistreatment of other people.
- A muslim will set your kids on fire to protest your open practice of another religion if you live in a Muslim country.
Difference not difficult to determine.
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Insightful)
A peaceful religion - like Buddhism - is where adherents are invited to attend, learn, discuss, and ultimately choose whether or not to accept the tenets and philosophy of the faith. A member of a peaceful religion may set himself on fire in protest of the mistreatment of others, but will not actively attempt to harm another person.
So I guess a largely Buddhist country like Myanmar would be among the most peaceful on Earth, right?
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:4, Interesting)
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A muslim will set your kids on fire to protest your open practice of another religion if you live in a Muslim country
Rubbish. No one is setting kids on fire in Malaysia or Jordan.
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they are setting churches on fire, in their annual attacks on Christians around Christmas. Then some kids burn, and some firemen who come to fight the fire get shot at, but of course, no one gets punished. After all, non-believer public worship is illegal.
Funny that you would mention Malaysia. The above paragraph happened there. Wanna guess at the AVERAGE number of Christians they kill for Christmas every year?
As for Jordan, I have to admit that they do prosecute attacks on Christians. But now, given that the highest profile case was against people who tried TO BURN KIDS IN A CHURCH for disrespecting Mohamed... I think I have been trolled. Or you're a brainwashed ignoramus. It can go either way.
Re: (Score:3)
There's violent bits in the Koran. There's violent bits in the Bible. Chinese Confucianism-Taoism-Buddhism has some objectionable bits.
Even if any of it is the word of God, God doen't exactly stop people misinterpreting it, or just making shit up. Even other true believers are usually pretty accepting of really screwy interpretations.
It's a myth that religions have any existential properties, because religions DO NOT EXIST. They are just words, and words can have a whole range of different meanings. They ca
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Interesting)
A non-peaceful religion - like Christianity - is where adherents are told to convert or die [wikipedia.org], get burned at the stake [wikipedia.org] if they don't agree, subjects members of other religions to derogatory and humiliating extra taxes and second-class legal status or worse [wikipedia.org], sentences people to death for converting away from it [wikipedia.org], and starts wars of conquest [wikipedia.org] to enlarge the areas in which they can practice barbarism openly. They may also be religions that were founded by hyper-polygynists [wikipedia.org] who may or may not have been pedophiles (remind [wikipedia.org] you of anyone else [wikipedia.org]?)
You would be *damn* hard pressed to find a religion in the history of the planet responsible for more violence and death than Christianity. Is there more violence being caused by Muslims right now at this very moment? Perhaps, but there are just about as many peace loving practicers of Islam as there are of Christianity. Wacko fundamentalists transcend religious lines.
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Sort of, it's actually kind of complex.
Many Shinto and Buddhist men have commited attrocities, and a lot of nice guys self identify as muslims.
The truth is that Islam has many teachings that could be considered peaceful as well as many violent ones. Same could be said about Judaism, and even Christianity isn't perfect (in fact it's horrible, it just seems good in comparison). However it doesn't really matter much how violent is your religion if you manage to reinterpret it and selectively learn it to minimi
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets keep in mind the whole context. i.e. not teaching women; which has a religious foundation in that part of the world.
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets keep in mind the whole context. i.e. not teaching women; which has a political foundation in that part of the world.
There, FTFY.
The Qur'an does not state [wikipedia.org] that women should not be educated (in fact, some would argue [cssforum.com.pk] that it states the opposite). Certain passages, however, have been interpreted to mean that women are not to receive education, purely for political and societal gains by the 'interpreters' in question.
Islamic teachings are not the problem. Doctrine set by self-serving radical fundamentalists is the problem.
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Insightful)
You could go out there and tell the fundamentalists that their interpretation of their holy text is wrong. Then they'd stone you as a heretic, and anyone else watching would probably be smart enough to keep their own views to themselves.
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask a devout Christian or Jew if that's the case and see what he says.
No, I'm not sure a religion is defined by its followers. You could say it's defined by people who do NOT believe in it, too. Mostly though, you could say it's defined by a very small number of elitists at the top who almost certainly have a political/social agenda.
This is one reason why there absolutely should not be tax exemption for religions. None of them. Now, if they want to organize some specific social welfare program, then that could be tax exempt. Muslims want to start a hospital? Tax exempt. Catholics want to start a soup kitchen? Then that should be tax exempt. But there is no compelling interest in society for allowing churches to make money and not pay tax on it. Maybe I'm just thinking about taxes because I just wrote a check a few minutes ago and the Catholic Church doesn't have to pay a nickel on the money they use to hire lawyers to defend guys who rape children - not to mention the money they use for moving expenses for the child rapists to move to a new parish where they will be free to rape children. .
Religious people can have a very positive effect on society. I see it around here every day. Religious institutions, on the other hand, should have to continually prove themselves though. They bear watching. They should not get special privileges just for existing.
Now these sick muslims who would poison girls just for trying to get an education are an example of what can happen when religious extremism, especially in educating the young, is allowed to run wild. But there's no question that it's a spectrum. Before they got to the point where they're poisoning their daughters, they had to get to the point where they had control over the way society educates. And before they had control over the way society educates, they had influence in schools' curricula. And before they had control over schools' curricula, there had to be some holier-than-thou stroke like Rick Santorum, telling people what's right and what's wrong based upon his interpretation of what God wants (and in his case, not even what God wants, but what some extremist convert decades after Christ wrote that he had decided God really really wants despite the fact that Christ didn't mention anything about those things. And apparently, God wants women with entropic pregnancies to die horribly painful deaths).
I'm not saying that Santorum is the same as guys who would poison little girls, but I'm saying that you don't get to guys poisoning little girls except by first having guys like Santorum. And it's fewer steps from one to the other than you might think.
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:4, Insightful)
Islamic teachings? Teachings?
Look, I 100% guarantee you that the attackers were 1) male 2) Muslims 3) were taught that women should not be educated in an Islamic school.
You don't get to stand up on your hind legs here and state what Islamic teachings are, or if they are the problem or not. Just because you interpret the Qur'an that way does not make it "Islamic teaching". Trying to pass it off as a political problem is equally bogus. Define for me where politics ends and religion begins in places where any Religion is the official Religion, and Islamic law is the law of the land.
There is no Central Authority in Islam. No Pope. There is, therefore no central and universally accepted authority on what constitutes Islam or its teachings. Which is precisely why the religion is so abused in so many places. Anyone can appoint themselves an Imam, and begin preaching virtually anything they want. There is really no one to hold them in check.
Islam is Quran + Hadith (Score:5, Informative)
Quran-only Muslims are a small minority, and their rejection of Hadith is heavily criticized by mainstream Muslims. So saying "The Quran does not state" really has no weight for the vast majority of Muslims. If it's in Hadith, it's part of the religion.
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Doctrine set by self-serving radical fundamentalists is the problem.
By "radical", you mean "traditional". We westerners only consider them radical by our standards. That's perfectly normal to their standards.
"Islamic Radicals" according to eastern Islamic societies are the blasphemers and infidels that dare to practice a western "liberalized" Islam, hence why they have fatwas and such issued against them by religious mainstays calling for their deaths.
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Which shows why moral relativism is morally bankrupt. Some cultures are simply evil. Some cultures are actually better than others when judged on criteria like: freedom, health, education, general happiness, and equality. All cultures, ours included, should be striving to improve. Trying to justify an action by authority or tradition just doesn't hold water for any ra
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Funny)
"Oh, like a wandering band of Shinto Priests did this?"
Them Shinto are a stealthy bunch. Why do you think most of us ain't ever seen one?
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The problem is, this isn't a religious issue, religion is used as the excuse, but this type of behavior happens over and over and is much more related to political strife in a region. Crow, it wasn't all that long ago that
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Informative)
these "books" are the excuse for all this type of shit, if you believe in your god of that book, you have to do what he says. you obviously haven't read them. e.g. the God of the bible expects your to sacrifice your child for him, he'll only let you win wars if you kill every man, woman and child etc etc The religious and apologists for religion always skip those parts out.
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Informative)
Last sentence: "Education for women was outlawed by the Taliban government from 1996-2001 as un-Islamic."
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:5, Insightful)
Last sentence: "Education for women was outlawed by the Taliban government from 1996-2001 as un-Islamic."
As opposed to Tennessee, where teaching of science to children of any gender is considered un-Christian.
Oh, wait, you say the Christian fundamentalists are just a bunch of loons who contort and abuse their religion to justify pre-existing cultural and political biases, eh? I wonder, maybe, just maybe, if that could possible apply to fundamentalists in general, Islam included. You think?
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a point, a. coward; it's right on the top of your head.
While certain Christian idiots have done things like bomb abortion clinics (thereby killing both doctors and those seeking abortions), I ask if you've ever seen one try to poison a school full of children for being taught evolution? I thought not.
Rational people will not excuse the misdeeds Christian fundamentalists, but neither will they excuse the much worse abuses perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists.
Re:Why is this moderated down? (Score:4, Informative)
from -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
How about because the article mentions no religion?
I believe you are acting deliberately dense in order to be politically correct. The Taliban and those with similar Islamist leanings have done scores of events like this in the past (bombing girls schools, poisonings, throwing acid in girls faces) and there is no reason not to have a high certainty that this was done by an Islamist. They feel that women should be in the home, married and not allowed out without a male relative. They are doing this because this is their interpretation of Islam. Saying that t
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its time all priests were outlawed and people allowed to "worship" in their own personal space and don't bother anyone else with their delusions. Priests and imams are the major problem as they think they have a line to their imaginary god
Re:RoP (Score:5, Insightful)
Religion of Peace. We should be tolerant of their views.
Show me in the Koran where it prohibits educating girls?
It's a cultural thing. Traditional (read patriarcal) societies that treat women as second class citiczens or as property all do horrible things like this.
And it's not right at all. Any culture that values males more than females is a backwards culture. In varying degrees, India, China, Japan, the Arab nations, Persians, most of the African countries, you names them - all backwards cultures. And most of them are paying a very heavy price for it. And in just about all cases, religion is used as an excuse for their deplorable behavior - it's not the cause.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, so Republicans' desire to outlaw birth control is cultural, not religious. Poor backward Republicans.
Re:RoP (Score:4, Informative)
Republican's don't want to outlaw birth control. They just don't think the government should pay for it.
Re:RoP (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:RoP (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as nobody tries to take away their boner pills.
It seems they voted THEMSELVES a pretty nice health plan.
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I don't want to pay for nuclear weapons, but I don't really get a choice in that do I?
~S
Re:RoP (Score:4, Informative)
Sarcasm detected. Yes, Republicans are a cultural movement, not religious. They cater to both moral and fiscal conservatives despite obvious inconsistencies, such as Jesus helping the poor and budget cutting anything that helps poor people.
They use religion to back up their opinions where it is supported, and any other useful tidbit when it doesn't. Do you think Jesus would have supported the NRA? Cutting school budgets to get the latest F-35 bombers that the military doesn't even want?
Yes, it is cultural, yes religion is used as an excuse. Same as Taliban extremists - they have their views, including outlawing education for women for a few years, and they use religion to back it up.
Many Christian groups treat women as second class citizens because they are to remain silent in church, and obey their husbands. Most Christians understand that contextually, but a few take it literally and frequently out of context. Every culture, every religion has people who do this, and it is not tied to the religion. It is an interpretation used as a convenient excuse to impose what some people believe on others.
Re:RoP (Score:4, Insightful)
Sarcasm detected. Yes, Republicans are a cultural movement, not religious. They cater to both moral and fiscal conservatives despite obvious inconsistencies, such as Jesus helping the poor and budget cutting anything that helps poor people.
That's just wrong. Republicans... conservatives donate a higher percentage of their income to charities than liberals; they also donate more blood and time. Paying taxes and sinking this country into a fiscal debt crisis is not "charity." If you are not making the decision, it's not "charity" and it's not "magnanimous" on your part. If you believe in Jesus then you must believe did NOT support not giving people the choice... you have to be judged on your OWN actions, not what you were forced to do. (for the record, I'm not religious, and I use this very same argument against religious people who want to control my life, too)
Who Gives and Who Doesn't. [go.com]. Yes, you can call it biased... yet no liberals have ever been able to disprove it, just attack the authors without substantive arguments.
They use religion to back up their opinions where it is supported, and any other useful tidbit when it doesn't. Do you think Jesus would have supported the NRA?
I don't think Jesus would care one way or another about the NRA.
Cutting school budgets to get the latest F-35 bombers that the military doesn't even want?
You're right about one thing, it's not based on religion that they do this... it's based on what's written in the constitution; based on the failure of our educational system despite the wanton amounts of money we throw at it (BTW, Bush increased educational spending more than anyone else in the previous four decades... what did he get for it? The disdain of the left, of course.). As far as military spending - you're right. I'm not a republican, I think they've been terrible leaders since Bush's election... but I also think democrats seem to have been inspired to one-up the terribleness.
Think what you want - I won't change your mind, I realize that the people asking the most for open mindedness are typically the most closed minded of all. But between the way liberals want to destroy this country and the way the republicans want to destroy this country, the republicans are much less "bad," even if they're not good.
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Jesus on Taxes.
"For truly I say upon to you... Render on to Ceasar what is Caesar's...Render on to the father what is his."
Jesus on the rich.
A rich man approached Jesus. "Teacher how can I enter heaven."
Jesus: "Sell everything you own and give all the money to the poor and the needy. Then you can enter the kingdom of god"
Jesus re-affirms : "For truly I say upon to you. It is much easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle that it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god"
I think Jesu
Re:RoP (Score:5, Insightful)
By this line of reasoning, we need 2 more bills before Congress:
1 - Doctors and hospitals are absolved of blame in refusing to tread non-paying patients, and are permitted to eject them.
2 - We need a public health organization to collect and cremate uncollected bodies found on public property, or upon request uncollected bodies found on private property. This is of course subject to finding that the death was natural and not the result of foul play. This is necessary to safeguard the water supply, and because trained personnel are required to safely handle such bodies.
EITHER !!!
You are going to be compassionate about medical care, in which case you'd better be as efficient about it as possible. In which case paying for birth control is a heck of a lot cheaper than paying for emergency childbirth care.
OR !!!
You have to adopt the, "Go away and die," model. There is very little in-between. Health care as practiced in the US today is one of the lease efficient ways to run it. There is effectively universal emergency care, but no universal preventive care. That pretty much guarantees that some portion of the population will require expensive medical care.
Re:RoP (Score:4, Insightful)
Quick question... Which do you think costs more in the long run? Government covering costs of birth control to help reduce unwanted pregnancies, the cost to government and society that result from unwanted parenthood? These unwanted children will incur additional costs in welfare, education, and (statistically speaking) increases in crime.
A party complaining about "welfare mothers" doesn't have a lot of room to complain about making birth control more accessible.
Re:RoP (Score:5, Interesting)
Republicans just don't want to have to pay for someone else's birth control, you troll
They do, however, want someone else to pay for their hardons. [thinkprogress.org]
Also, if you honestly believe a group referred to as the "Religious Right" does not use religion as their motivation, well, I've got this bridge in NY state you may be interested in purchasing...
Re:RoP (Score:5, Informative)
You're either uninformed or plain old lying.
Here's the bill in virginia that makes the pill illegal: http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?121+ful+HB1 [state.va.us]
passed the republican controlled house and senate with ease.
And all the current candidates bar Romney have gone on record agreeing with it explicitely for religious reasons: http://www.personhoodusa.com/blog/personhood-republican-presidential-candidate-pledge [personhoodusa.com]
Of course Romney flip-flops back and forth but here he is saing he "absolutely" agrees too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkrOt9Qposg#t=5m25s [youtube.com]
Part if the mechanism of the pill is to prevent fertilized eggs from impanting - that's after conception has occured. It's not the only mechanism, but it's part of the package. So all those republicans are trying to outlaw the pill. Not just not pay for it.
Re:RoP (Score:5, Insightful)
I was just watching a talk by NDT on "Intelligent Design". In that, he made an excellent observation about how, for a 300 year period, the Arab world was the center of intellectual progress in the world. 2/3 of all stars with names have Arabic names. They discovered 0, they gave us algebra.
Then... a new religious philosophy arose that taught that mathematics was the work of the Devil. This wasn't Mohamed.... it wasn't there in the beginings of Islam. For many years, these problems didn't exist.
The sobering thought there is... as he points out.... this period of advancement ended with the rise of this anti-scientific ideology. Just think, there are a Billion Muslims, and only a handful of Muslim/Arab nobel prize winners. If they hadn't ended their period of advancement hundreds of years before Europe became the new center of intellectual progress... where would we be today? How much raw talent just went totally unused because of these ideologies.
Honestly.... I have little doubt that there would be people posting comments from Lunar or martian colonies by now if not for this terrible ideology.
Re:RoP (Score:4, Informative)
They got zero from India, and the Babylonians had a placeholder for it back before 1000 B.C.
Re:RoP (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that we have a religious culture that encourages extremely high levels of obedience, faithfulness and passion. And this is not necessarily going to cause problems, but....
But it's unstable, like a dictatorship. Your first dictator might be a fine Wise Benevolent Leader, and everybody's happy. But then his son takes over, and he's maybe something more on the Cackling Lunatic Leader side of thing. You're trapped in a system that doesn't regulate itself. As long as you're shackled to the ideologies attached to a name, rather than the rationale behind the ideologies themselves, something horrible can go wrong.
And it has.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, the middle east is going through it's own version of the Dark Ages, nothing more nothing less.
Re:RoP (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
I agree, I heard that in India, a man set his wife on fire for THINKING she was having an affair, and he got off with a slap on the wrist, even though she may or may not have been cheating, as he had no real proof.
I hate any cheater, but come on....that is just sick!
Re:RoP (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate any cheater, but come on....that is just sick!
Why would you hate someone for doing something that doesn't affect you, for reasons you have no idea of?
Re:RoP (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a conservative thing. Conservatives everywhere attack education. Whether it's literacy for women in Afghanistan, or sex ed and evolution in the United States, conservatives are anti-education.
Why are conservatives anti-education? Because their beliefs cannot be supported by facts, and so the more factual ideas you teach, the less conservative your people will be. There is a positive correlation between education and liberalism for a reason.
Sliiight correction there... (Score:3)
Why are conservatives anti-education? Because their beliefs cannot be supported by facts, and so the more factual ideas you teach, the less conservative your people will be.
Not all conservatives have religious or anti-educational ideas and motivations.
BUT... What they all DO have is a very strong preference for the status quo. THAT is why they can't accept new ideas, or find them threatening.
To them it's good as it is. Perfect in fact.
To fundamentalists among them, ANY change is a tantamount to an attack on their entire way of life.
Those girls weren't being taught to be atheists, feminists, witches or whatever the fundamentalists would find undermining to their religious belie
Re:RoP (Score:4, Insightful)
Culture and Religion are very intertwined.
The Catholic Church while a Unified church, operate rather differently cross different cultures. Even with them following the same rules, the importance of the rules they follow are prioritized differently.
Re: (Score:3)
It's a cultural thing.
I've heard exactly this position from a local imam (a liberal Turkish Sunni and Sufi too). People associate "old time religion" with whatever their local cultural traditions are.
Same thing happened with Christianity in the Middle Ages.
Re: (Score:2)
Where was religion mentioned anywhere in the article or summary?
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...able to go home almost immediately aka insta-antidote is kind of odd/unusual.
Perhaps the contaminant was a strong emetic or diuretic causing extreme dehydration, which explains the headache.
In the cases where they could go simply home after "treatment in the hospital", perhaps those girls didn't drink as much of the tainted water (duh).
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it did say that some were in critical condition and only some were able to go home.
I would imagine the ones that could go home didn't consume as much poison as the others.
Re:poisoned with what (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from that, its an excellent example of why multiculturalism should not exist. My daughter gains nothing by the existence of that culture. Let american consumerism steamroll it out of existence, no substantial loss.
Right, because the American culture is the One True Culture. Your ridiculous statement implies a false choice: American culture vs. poisoning girls who want to go to school. This is, in fact, a great argument for multiculturalism. If Afghanistan were more of an educated multi-cultural society, these nutjobs would have a harder time getting a following. As it is, when everyone only sees one culture (their own), treating women like this is the only "normal" they know.
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It didn't actually say that they were treated and released. It just said that some were able to go home immediately, which could just mean that they didn't drink enough and weren't ill enough to be concerned about them.
Or it could be bacteria in their water tank (e.g. legionella). If you drink bacterially-infected water, you would ex
Re: (Score:2)
"able to go home almost immediately aka insta-antidote"
Not really. It probably means that some girls received a smaller dose of the poison. That's exactly what one should expect in a large-scale poisoning - simple chance would create such clusters.
Re:Why is this on Slashdot? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
"Not even religious fanatics are stupid enough to think this helps their cause."
Who are you to speak for them?
Also, they are winning.
Re: (Score:3)