Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo! Bans "Allah" in Screen Names
szembek writes "According to The Register it seems that Yahoo! is banning the use of the string "Allah" in all screen names. The issue apparently became apparent when Linda Callahan attempted to use her surname in her screen name. The following link has an interesting list of terms that Yahoo does allow, and ones they don't."
...slashdot hasn't!
Is apparently allowed though.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Why is the name of Allah banned while the use of the god of other religions is not? Who should feel slighted? Muslims or others?
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
to people who already have accounts with these names? After 9/11 I remember them popping up a lot in chat rooms.
Yes, I know they're a business and can make their own rules (within some common sense boundaries), but it's still sad to see them giving in to this sort of crap. For fear or profit, I don't know, but it's still ridiculous.
I've run into problems with my last name ("Marcum") due to the last three characters.
It's still not as bad as Blizzard's, filtering out words like "basement".
Ignoring the whole political issue of it, if they are going to filter a string, they should at least allow common legit strings that it is a substring of.
Here we go again, Good thing Yahoo doesn't have embassies to torch. :)
Let's look at the article
I guess Yahoo is trying to avoid the trolls and hatemongers. You can't have a screenname "I<3Osama," but you can have a name with Jesus in it. I suppose that makes sense from a certain standpoint, Jesus is a popular hispanic name (but so is Osama and Usama as a male name in the Arabic world).
I could have iHeartJesus, but not iLoveAllah?
I think the entire world should start plastering images of Mohammad everywhere. Drown them in it until they realize they need to practice their religion however they want and leave the rest of the world out of it.
Not that Europe is much better, as my current sig shows. People bitch about the US and Bush, but at least Yahoo is a private corporation making this decision.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Or do Yahoo fear losing revenue from Muslim countries...or do they fear a bomb?
ConsultingFair.com
The whole point of writing articles like this is so people WILL stop using their services. If no one bitched, most people wouldn't know about it.
I read this article yesterday, and it's sad, really, that nazipedophilesodomyisgreat@yahoo.com is allowed, but nancycallahan@yahoo.com is not. It's an example of an idea that probably started as a noble concern. (I would imagine that someone tried to sign up for deathtoallah@yahoo.com in order to troll on a forum somewhere.) But in the processm you come up with something that is really unsolvable. The solution here seems to be that you ban the 7 naughty words (as determined by the FCC) throw in a couple obvious ones (administrator, security, etc.) and leave it at that. If you try to ban certain words, there is way too much grey area. Do you ban the word breast? How about the Yahoo ID breastcancerawareness or chickenbreast? There are just a few areas in life where a couple simple rules won't solve the problem. I am well aware that even banning the 7 naughty words isn't enough, (I could sign up for fuuckme@yahoo.com, and people would understand what I'm getting at.) but that's really as far as you can take it.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
This is NOT your personal war! Those people have rights!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Sad part of Yahoo! (got to remember the exclamation point!) buckling under like most of the western media over Mohammed cartoons is that it shows to terrorists and their lackeys is that terror as a political tools works. It's not kooky right wing christians that are the biggest threat to our freedom of speech. It's fundamentalist Islam that seeks to regulate western speech with threats of violence from the middle east.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Much as I might think the original post was logically flawed and offensive (and it was), your rebuttal isn't much better on the logic front. How does being married prevent someone from being bisexual? I could see the logic if he were being accused of homosexuality, but there's nothing to stop a bisexual getting half their fun within wedlock. :)
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
More like a wife under the age of ten.
Sahih Muslim Book 008, Number 3310: 'Aisha (Allah be pleased with her) reported: Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) married me when I was six years old, and I was admitted to his house when I was nine years old.
Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 88 Narrated 'Urwa: The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with 'Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death).
Sahih Bukhari 8:151, Narrated 'Aisha: "I used to play with the dolls in the presence of the Prophet , and my girl friends also used to play with me. When Allah's Apostle used to enter (my dwelling place) they used to hide themselves, but the Prophet would call them to join and play with me. (The playing with the dolls and similar images is forbidden, but it was allowed for 'Aisha at that time, as she was a little girl, not yet reached the age of puberty.) (Fateh-al-Bari page 143, Vol.13)
...when they banned the term "breast" in all their forums in an a misguided attempt to keep their service as family-friendly as possible. The result was that all the members of a breast cancer support forum had to suddenly start referring to themselves as survivors of "hooter cancer" until AOL finally realized they had f*cked up pretty badly on this one.
Sounds like the guy who created/designed the username filter for Yahoo was hired right out of college with little or no real-world experience, or at least no imagination whatsoever...
It's also at least the 5th most popular name in England and Wales as of 2004 (probably even higher by now). Link.
Time for the English and Welsh to learn a real life lesson about exponential functions.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
Life was simpler when street crooks and S.P.E.C.T.R.E. were the bad guys, and our heroes always won.
sigs, as if you care.
I consider it a completely irony that Islam is supposed to be a religon of peace and tolerance. Someone decides to write a dumb cartoon and the Muslim world gets upset. Muslims are always getting upset about something. Threatening death, riots, bombings, etc... And most of the world reacts to try and set things right to appease the Muslim masses Someone writes,critizes or illustrates something about bad about Christianity, people may get upset but the world doesn't do a damn thing. What's wrong with this picture? So now we have to make the world more "Allah" friendly. I find this to be a bug joke on Yahoo's part. Muslims want the world to change for them but refuses to adapt in any way shape or form. No way in fucking hell I'll ever sport an Arab type beard or have my wife wear a buka. I think perhaps the Muslims should get thier collective heads out of their medieval asses and perhaps modernize thier thinking and grow thicker skins.... Peaceful and tolerant religon my ass...
My response to people who are too easily "offended" by funny pictures, disrespectful online names, etc.:
My very own Mohammed cartoon
Make one of your own. Share with your friend. C'mon, folks, the time is now to be juvenile!
Like the old saying goes: "The Internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it." Well, dammit, that might be true, but I'm tired of people damaging the Internet! Let's do what we can to make them unhappy.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
"What's so dope about skeet? White people don't know what it means yet... When they figure it out, they're going to be like, 'My God, what have we done?!'"
This is similar to why American newspapers won't publish the Danish Jyllands-Posten "Mohammed" cartoons, and why American TV networks won't show them. To that end, here's some insightful commentary by DailyPundit commenter "Jack" on this issue (as quoted in this thread):
And Yahoo! appears to be falling over themselves to do likewise.Just remember the famous quote from Strictly Ballroom, Yahoo!: "A life lived in fear is a life half-lived."
Be who you are...and be it in style!
Matthias: Look, I don't think it should be a sin, just for saying "Jehovah".
[Everyone gasps]
Jewish Official: You're only making it worse for yourself!
Matthias: Making it worse? How can it be worse? Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
Jewish Official: I'm warning you! If you say "Jehovah" one more time (gets hit with rock) RIGHT! Who did that? Come on, who did it?
Stoners: She did! She did! (suddenly speaking as men) He! He did! He!
Jewish Official: Was it you?
Stoner: Yes.
Jewish Official: Right...
Stoner: Well you did say "Jehovah. "
[Crowd throws rocks at the stoner]
Jewish Official: STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW! STOP IT! All right, no one is to stone _anyone_ until I blow this whistle. Even... and I want to make this absolutely clear... even if they do say, "Jehovah. "
[Crowd stones the Jewish Official to death]
PHP
I forgot to mention this, but in the second link above you'll find evidence that Muslims were trading "black" slaves long before Europeans. You might say that they had prior art. Mohammed himself owned "black" slaves: Mohammed referred to blacks as slaves. He even owned several black slaves. Bilal, Abu Hurairah, Usama Ebn Zayyed, and a "Ghullaam" (youth) named Rabbah, were among Mohammed's slaves. It goes on:
Even in modern times, in Saudi Arabia the homeland of Islam, the common word for "black" is "Abd" meaning slave.
" What was Mohammed's position on freeing the slaves? In one instance, a man freed a slave that he kept as a sexual partner. When Mohammed heard what happened, he auctioned the boy and sold him for 800 derhams to Na-eem Ebn Abdullah Al-Nahham. (Sahih Moslem vol. 7, page 83)"
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
He said it again!
As I think we've all learned long since, in this arms race the trolls and spammers of the world always eventually show more imagination and perseverence than the filter writers.
It takes a hell of a lot of more imagination for filter writers to ensure their filters don't cause any collateral damage, as both the Allah & breast cancer examples demonstrate. It reminds me of the late '90s when I was working for a search technology startup. One of the first projects I worked on was a porn filter. We found out very quickly that trying to rely on the string 'XXX' was completely unacceptable when we discovered that websites dedicate to Super Bowl XXX, any sites that displayed copyright dates as Roman numerals (or any other sites with Roman numerals), etc. all got tagged as porn.
Oh all the Muslim-bashers and Islamophobes are going to come out of the woodwork
And so will all the dhimmis.
I am a gay man and an atheist who has no intention of following any superstitious belief, Islam included.
The penalty for homosexuality under Shari'a (Islamic law) is death. I learned this from a discussion I had with a muslim from whyislam.org.
I am also an adoptive parent. Shari'a does not recognize adoptive parents. I learned this from the same discussion.
It is permittable for a Muslim to lie to a Kuffar (unbeliever). This is called taqiyya.
The belief that "Islam will dominate the world" is a mainstream belief in Islam. Not an extremist belief, a mainstream belief.
When the editor of Southern Voice (a gay newspaper in the Southeast USA) traveled to Amsterdam, supposedly a "liberal" city, he was gay-bashed and suffered injuries. The perpetrators? Muslims who were following their religious beliefs.
So when you start accusing people like me of having "islamophobic" sentiments, I have to agree and indicate to you that your accusation sounds a lot like, "She deserved to be raped. Didn't you see the skirt she was wearing?"
There are legitimate reasons for both fearing and resisting Islam. The hatred of freedom of expression, the denigration of gays and women, the 7th-century mindset, the second-class status imposed on non-Muslims (dhimmis), and the punitive justice system are all elements of mainstream (NOT "extremist") Islam that need to be discussed, exposed, and resisted. Not apologized for and certainly not defended in the name of "multiculturalism" or anything else!
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Double-plus ungood trend if I ever saw one.
-1 Terrorbait
Christians don't threaten death to company executives or members of the press if they disagree with their opinions.
You don't know anything about US abortion clinics do you?
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
Is there any doubt that we have lost the war on terror? should we even bother fighting it anymore? We repeatedly show these extremist nutcases that they can get whatever it is they want by terrorizing us. Every article about these ridiculous cartoons on CNN.com ends with a disclaimer: CNN has chosen not to reprint the cartoons out of repect for Islam when all I can read is CNN has chosen not to reprint the cartoons out of fear of getting firebombed proof that we have lost: Yeah, Osama may be on the run in remote areas of Pakistan & Afghanistan, but it takes me 40 mins to get through security at the airport, and I have to have my personal belongings searched to ride the subway.
I seriously doubt that terrorist organizations consider the Yahoo screen name issue a victory. After a full day of sending lackeys out to blow themselves up, what Islamic terrorist doesn't want to kick back on Yahoo and shoot the breeze with AllahIsGreat and ILoveAllah? Now they'll have to switch to MSN.
If Yahoo were to ban the use of "Jesus" in screen names then you'd see some outrage from those "kooky right wing christians". (It's a war on Jesus! We're all being persecuted!) People like you would blame it on western media bowing to Islamic extremism.
Allah is just "God" in Arabic. It is the same God as the Christian God. My parents are Christians from Iraq, and they use the word Allah in regards to our Christian God. It is the same God we worship since our ancestors converting to Christianity around 2000 years ago in that area. I always see people confusing "Allah" as some other deity, which is wrong.
I consider it a completely irony that Islam is supposed to be a religon of peace and tolerance. Someone decides to write a dumb cartoon and the Muslim world gets upset.
I consider it sad that even on a self proclaimed site for "nerds" some people insist on describing the actions of a few people as "the muslim world."
Muslims are always getting upset about something. Threatening death, riots, bombings, etc...
And then they insist on making prejudicial remarks, about what "muslims" are always doing. You might as well say, "christians are always bombing foreign cities. We should ban the religion."
Christianity, people may get upset but the world doesn't do a damn thing. What's wrong with this picture?
Your ignorance. When was the last time Christians murdered someone for being homosexual? I seem to recall a mass murder a few weeks ago. How many forums ban the word "gay" even though there is nothing wrong with it aside from Christian oppression?
Muslims want the world to change for them but refuses to adapt in any way shape or form.
Yeah, that is why they keep invading countries half a world away... oh wait, that was a predominantly christian country wasn't it?
The problems with your "ideas" are multiple and fundamental. First, you are judging a religion based upon the actions of a few members of that religion. Second, all your information about those actions is what you have seen promoted by mass media, who has a vested interest in sensationalism over truth. Third, you are failing to account for the fear and anger of a people who is being invaded and conquered by a nation composed primarily of another religion and who has repeatedly openly scorned their religion, as you are doing now.
The christians I know would act no better, and probably worse given a similar situation. After a united middle east had just finished conquering the US, the mexicans and the refugees from the US who escaped the bombs would be less then kindly disposed towards and muslims. When they start making excuses to invade mexico, who has little hope of defending itself, and after seeing on TV the sexual abuse of captive Americans, if some other muslim nation were to print sacrilegious pictures of Jesus being raped by a dog, while also including in these cartoons some of the lies used to justify the invasion of the US, well there would be plenty of riots and lynching of muslims in Mexico. And I have no doubt there would be christian priests trying to stop the violence, just as there were muslim priests throwing themselves between the mob and the danish embassy. And I have no doubt ignorant muslims would make comments similar to those you are making about how the uncivilized christians need to grow thicker skins.
And as a whole Muslims don't threaten death either, its just a very voacal MINORITY of them that do.
But why doesn't the silent majority in Islam stand up and vocally reject the extremists? When Pat Robertson made comments about "taking out" Hugo Chavez, the White House publicly repudiated him. When he made comments about God having forsaken the people of Dover, PA for their ditching of Intelligent Design, other theologians went on TV and vocally announced that Pat Robertson does not speak for Christianity.
Where were the majority of Muslims when the mullahs of Iran announced a death sentence on Salman Rushdie? Where are the majority of Muslims when Osama bin Laden comes out with his fatwas saying that Western society is corrupt and should either be destroyed or converted?
Having a silent majority, in most cases, is about as good as having no majority at all.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
How about the protesters arrested in NYC during the Republican convention - held in jail and mostly released with no charges?
I agree that from my (insular american) standpoint the Islamic fundamentalists seem pretty bad, but there are fundamentalists of other religions who are pretty nasty too. For example there is the well known Westboro Baptist Church, who are now said to be protesting funerals of American soldiers because those soldiers have been upholding a regime (the Bush Administration) that is soft on "fags" (one of their favorite words) and so on.
People do cry about the religious right, but if they had the power people claim, I wouldn't be seeing commercials about a gay cowboy movie which will likely clean up as the Oscars.
I criticize Christianity with abplomb when sanctimonious Christians start using their religious beliefs as an excuse to attack me. I freely admit that Christianity is both a fear-based and a guilt-based religion.
Islam, on the other hand, is a violence-based religion. Notice the "sword of Allah" on Saudi Arabia's flag? Notice the AK-47 on Hezbollah's flag? I don't bother discussing with Muslims, because I don't know if they're lying or not. Christians can put up a good deal of resistance, but Muslims may very well murder me if I dared criticize Islam in the same way I did Christianity. This is one of several reasons why I think Islam should be resisted.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Consider this. "Pen" is an ok word, "Island" is ok too. So I want to celebrate Pen Island with a domain name... penisland.com? Oops?
The classic real-world example of that being when the Italian company Powergen created a website with the perfectly obvious name of "PowergenItalia".
during that time, girls matured early because of the hot desert climate. noting the following, that ayesha (ra) who the Prophet (saw) married was engaged before the prophet married her to another man, a non-muslim. also, notice that these kinds of claims that the prophet was (God forbid) as you say only came about in the middle ages and afterwards - if this really weren't a cultural thing back then, his enemies would have brought this up so long ago, don't you think? perhaps you should study the history of this great man before making blind claims and just copy pasting things you find online. to quote a non muslim, famous playwrite, george bernard shaw, "I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Saviour of Humanity. I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world, he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today." -- search wikipedia for "George Bernard Shaw," you'll find it on that page.
umm... maybe you should check and get your facts straight. people here typically think that the civil rights movements started in the past 2 centuries. absolutely incorrect. the prophet muhammad is the first one who abolished slavery actually. these people whom you refer to - do you know who bilal ibn raba7 actually is!? he was a slave to the qurayshis at the time (the non muslim idol worshippers). he was freed by abu bakr (ra) the prophet's companion. the prophet put him in such a high status - not only did he let him call the athan (which was a great honor), but he was also one of the prophet's closest companions. uhhh abu hurayrah wasn't a slave. he was of the very poor people of madinah who the prophet and other muslims used to feed and such. he wasn't a slave. slaves existed back then yes - but to the non muslims. the muslims did not have slaves, they freed them and were the first to bring equality between different races and colors. the hadith says something like, "no one person is better than another except by piety." uhh the word abd doesn't mean black also. the Prophet's name, as a matter of fact, was "Muhammad ibn Abd Allah" -- Abd means slave of. muslims all consider themselves as "slaves of God." if you want to be quoting ahadith, you should first: 1. learn arabic - so you know the real meaning behind things. 2. learn the knowledge of "jar7 and ta3deel" - learn what's authentic and what's not, the chains, what the origin of the story is. then come and quote hadiths. but blindly copying and pasting isn't getting you anywhere.
I think you are missing the point. Yahoo! is making a business decision based on a perceived risk that if they do not capitulate to the whims of fundamentalist Muslims, they will invite threats to their business and employees.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Now we see how perfectly compatible is fascism with theocracy. Corporations will do whatever is necessary to enforce religious laws to protect their profits. When the international currency, oil, is controlled by theocrats (Christian, Muslim or otherwise makes little difference), corporate lawmakers will enact those laws, or enforce them privately.
--
make install -not war
Does this mean that all users from Wallah-Wallah, Washington and Tallahassee, Florida are prohibited from having accurate Yahoo! profiles?
When you ban the word "Allah", it means you can't say "Fuck Allah".
*blinks*
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I'm sure they can write such an accept filter, the question is, do they know in advance they need to. If you're told in the morning 'we need to ban all usernames containing allah' by this afternoon because of this cartoon violence stuff going on, what would your implementation look like? Would you have taken the time for a surname search to find out every surname to unblock? And what uncommon name might you miss along the way? The problem is, you don't know what acceptable name you've accidentally filtered out until someone complains about being filtered. And then there's no way to fix it: the person is unhappy, the complaint is already public, and even if you turn around and fix the problem the next day or next week, nothing gained.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Jesus H. Christ, here comes one of the graduates of the West Coast school of multiculturalism (the one which believes you can call yourself a 'good' multicultural while knowning nothing about other cultures/religions so long as you keep saying good things about it).
> The proscription against images of the prophet is one of the fundamental tenets of islamic religion.
It is not. The basic five tenets of Islam are: the profession of faith in Allah, regular prayer (5 times a day), fasting (at the prescribed times), paying alms to charity and the Hajj to Mecca. Everything else is gravy. Not depicting Mohammed is mentioned in a Hadith, but there are lots of Hadiths and not all of them are followed. And non-Arab Muslim cultures have traditionally ignored these hadiths, hence you get Turkish, Persian and Indian Mughal miniatures depicting Mohammed all the time.
Here's a hint: next time someone tells you cows are holy to Hindus, take that with a pinch of salt. That too is established practice (and one piously obeyed by 99.9% of all Hindus) but not a central tenet of Hinduism (which, incidentally, is "There are many paths to the truth, none more valid than the other."). And you don't see Hindus torching steakhouses in the US and Europe, do you?
> Or have you forgotten the great public outrage in the USA over The Last Temptation of Christ"?
Another fine characteristic of the multi-culti brigade. Moral relativism. Yeah, Outrage. Outrage as in, lots of demonstrations (at which no embassies were burnt (bar a molotov bombing in (of all places) Paris)) and fiery sermons. No artists were threatened with death. (Willem Dafoe still has a good career going.) Obviously to you that's the same thing as what Salman Rushdie and now these poor Danish cartoonists were put through -- state sponsored death threats and media manipulation. (People don't have the freedom to gather peacefully in the Mid-East, and yet suddenly the cartoons inspire them to burn embassies? Hah! If you really believe these demonstrations were not government encouraged, you're a tool.)
> So hold off on casting that first stone
I'm not interested in casting stones. I am interested in collecting evidence based on which future action can be decided. And the evidence is increasingly pointing to the fact that we have dangerous tinpot governments in a volatile part of the world, feeding their citizens propaganda and claiming it's the 'Arab Street' at work.
I don't care about military actions we may or may not pursue against the Mid-East. What is clear is that we cannot export our liberal (and that is not a dirty word, despite what the GOP says) and secular values directly to the people in the Mid-East, we'll be in deep shit one day.
Go somewhere random
Yahoo! should be praised for doing their part for Homeland Security. How so?
1. Ban "Osama" in e-mail account name
2. When Osama Bin Laden tries to create an account to communicate with fellow terrorists, he finds that he is unable to!
If all e-mail providers and ISPs did this, we'd effectively isolate Osama Bin Laden from the Internet! What a fabulous victory in the War On Terror (or whatever Bush is calling it this month).
"Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves."
- Moses, by command of god, to his "chosen" people. Numbers 31:17-18, KJV
Yes, xianity is so superior. Not only keep the underage virgins for yourselves, but kill everyone else.
Discussions such as this have nothing to do with the topic at hand, and are completely idiotic in this context. Any culture, religion or nation has something like this, so pointing such a thing out to "prove" some racist or stereotypical point is not only flawed, but highly telling of the intelligence level of the one who brings it up.
And BTW, Mary was an unwed teenage mother. Cast her out!
Just FFT.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Is there any doubt that we have lost the war on terror?
Well put it this way...
WWII: 1941-1945
War On Terror: 2001-2006(+)
If we can defeat two of the most powerful nations on earth in 4 years, but can't beat a handful of men in 5 years, then we are doing pretty badly as a nation.
If I hear the words "War On Terror" in 2011 out of a politicians mouth, I'm going to very pissed.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Here is one to keep you warm until that day:
"War on Drugs" now working on it's 35th year, with no end in sight.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
If you think there is a continuum then you do not understand the question. It is wrong to kill babies. It is wrong to deprive women of freedom of choice over their own bodies and subject them to a painful pregnancy for any reason but the welfare of others. Thus, taking the middle ground is to acknowledge that one or both of these injustices are happening.
There are people who are willing to stand by to see these injustices happen, but those are cynical, apathetic people who are of a lower moral character than abortion doctors and those who murder abortion doctors because both these groups are doing what is right in their own reasoning. Don't you see? abortion is the greatest debate in history because to a religious person, or a secular humanist or anyone else, life is sacred. You cannot say that there is part of a life in a woman's womb, you cannot redefine life though existential debate for that is denying your own existence and your own right to life.
To allow abortion in certain cases and deny it in others is to acknowledge abortion as the slaughter of the innocent and as a woman's right. Thus in the cases where it is denied, you are forcing a woman into having her life changed by an unwanted child for no reason but your bossy authoritarian and when abortion is granted you are killing a human that has done nothing to deserve it.
In the US today, abortion is legal, yet when you accidentally terminate a wanted pregnancy through negligent driving it is considered manslaughter. This inconsistency leads to only one conclusion: a fetus is human if and only if its mother wants it. If this is about the beginnings of humanity, how can we not extrapolate this nihilist world view into our own lives? Am I only human because my mother and others continue to love me?
There is no middle ground when talking about what is life, it didn't work for Plato, Descartes or Wittgenstein who are all people smarter than you that have tried to define humanity and it won't work for me. The abortion debate should be thought through by each one of us, because it goes beyond choice or killing babies, it cuts to the very core of each one of our existences. The politically correct middle ground might be the safest option, but most great questions, the middle ground between two extremes is the only one that can be conclusively proved to be wrong.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
You know, since unhappiness over cartoons from Denmark somehow translated into burning down a KFC in Pakistan. You know, that famous Danish outfit, "Kentucky Fried Chicken."
This reminds me of the silliness I heard a few days ago about how they're no longer calling that flaky pastry a "danish." Instead they're gonna start calling it a Rose of the Prophet Mohammed. (Or is it "The" Rose of the Prophet Mohammed? I'm sorry, I don't know, please don't kill me!)
Well whaddya know, America isn't the only country that pulls this kind of dumbass shit.
Support the FairTax
So stop with that tired old line.
DID YOU GET THAT? WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THE MAJORITY.
Why is that SO difficult for you to get? That people can criticize some people without lumping them together? Is it becuase you're incapable of such sophisticated thinking, so you assume everyone else is as unsophisticated as you?
We're talking about the ones who are actually doing what we're denouncing.
So in the future, when you feel the urge to defend the majority, make sure we're denouncing the majority before you waste your time.
"No - yet "we" seem to group them, as a whole, into the "potential terrorist" category."
NO, as I said to you before, that's a made up stupid ass argument that detracts from the discussion. YOU group them into that category, at or at least it appears you do by your constant assertions that "we" do. WE don't.
"And while we're at it, maybe we should stop invading countries in the ME, killing their friends and families and lying about the reasons?"
And finally the truth, you think "we" deserve their enmity.
Perhaps if you weren't so busy assuming everyone is as closed-minded and reactionary as you, you'd realize that
A) these problems existed before there were any western powers in the Middle East.
B) executing little girls for being raped isn't the fault of the West. Nor are any of the anti-human rights stances taken by devout beleivers of islam. That's JUST islam. JUST the religion and its followers.
Maybe you should get your face out of muslim ass and honestly criticise them instead of making up arguments to detract from the issues.
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
"The problems with your "ideas" are multiple and fundamental. First, you are judging a religion based upon the actions of a few members of that religion."
How many millions of people need to attack freedom of speech before you understand that it's not just a few bad apples but a fundamental conflict between their beliefs and the right to freedom of speech. They blame all of Denmark for the actions of one newspaper, and expect laws passed to restrict freedom of speech because they don't like dissent from their beliefs.
Vote for Pedro
I consider it sad that even on a self proclaimed site for "nerds" some people insist on describing the actions of a few people as "the muslim world."
How many people does it have to be before people like you stop calling them "a few"? Okay, there are over a billion Muslims in the world. Does that mean if only 5 million of them riot it's a tiny, insignificant subculture within greater Islam? You can't say "the Muslim world" thinks or does something unless at least 50% of Muslims do it? That's ridiculous. You might as well say America did not bomb Iraq, only a small, insignificant, non-representative part of America bombed Iraq.
Your ignorance. When was the last time Christians murdered someone for being homosexual? I seem to recall a mass murder a few weeks ago. How many forums ban the word "gay" even though there is nothing wrong with it aside from Christian oppression?
According to your argument, Christians as a group have never murdered anybody, only "a few people" have. Obviously Christians have nothing against gay people since the vast majority have never actually gone around killing gay people. They must want to co-exist peacefully.
But seriously, you're joking right? If Christians were like Muslims, all those prominent gay marriage ceremonies a while ago would have been fire-bombed. Or do you think if someone tried to have a prominent, public gay marriage in, say, ANY Muslim country, they would be allowed?
The christians I know would act no better, and probably worse given a similar situation. After a united middle east had just finished conquering the US, the mexicans and the refugees from the US who escaped the bombs would be less then kindly disposed towards and muslims. When they start making excuses to invade mexico, who has little hope of defending itself, and after seeing on TV the sexual abuse of captive Americans, if some other muslim nation were to print sacrilegious pictures of Jesus being raped by a dog, while also including in these cartoons some of the lies used to justify the invasion of the US, well there would be plenty of riots and lynching of muslims in Mexico.
Eh, bad example. Of course if we were the ones taken over we'd be upset. But do you think Christians in America would be rioting in the streets if, say, the stuff you described happened in some remote part of Russia? It isn't the West's fault if Muslims have this dumb idea of "Pan Muslims Brotherhood" that links everybody's plights together.
It's like you're trying to argue the majority of Christians are as bad as the tiny, insignificant portion of Islam that captures media attention.
What about the people financing these acts of terrorism? Generally it's the mega rich sheeks and dictators. Arguing that Christian fundamentalists would go around bombing people if they had the money is absurd. Relatively the people who finance Al-Queida are vastly more rich than any Christians in the mid-west.
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Islam has a long well documented history of fanaticism that involves killing. Mohammed himself killed thousands in all the battles for Jihad (i.e. taking over all countries until Islam is universal.) To quote from a Hindu source about Mohammed's war atrocities.
http://www.hindunet.org/hindu_history/modern/mogh
You must remember, without Charlemagne it's quite possible that Arabic would be the dominant language in the EU right now.
And while you can claim the crusades as a Christian example of war atrocities. I think you'd find it to be one of the only cases in history. Very few modern Christians would consider the cruisades to be in line with their faith, even remotely. Nowhere in the New Testament does it suggest to go out and try and conquer countries in the name of Christ.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours. - Hunter S. Thompson
The Lord's Resistance Army is a truly bizarre creolization of fundamentalist Christianity and animistic witchcraft much like voudon and santeria only with a lot more insane brutality mixed in. Christianity's been the excuse used by a lot of brutal warlords in the past, but I'm not sure that I'd blame Christianity for this one because this is a really, really weird offshoot of the religion.
The LRA is truly one of the worst horrors of the modern world, and I think it's a real shame that no one with the military might to do something about them has. I think a large part of the reason for that is the horror and revulsion that most military leaders feel at the thought of having to send their soldiers out to fight against an army of traumatized child conscripts. A war like that could psychologically devastate an entire generation of soldiers, and there's little economic gain to be had for a country for stepping into this mess, so the world just closes its eyes and hopes it will go away on its own. It's an utterly disgusting tragedy that will take decades to end and decades more to heal.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I am Danish and I am more offended that you're Canadian. Get away from our protectorates!
Funny, I guess I'm not up on current events. I had no idea the media was covering up all those Christians that are taking over elementary schools in Russia and killing kids by the hundreds, all in the name of the Koran... I mean Bible.
I had not heard about Christians burning down disco's in Bali or blowing themselves up in a teenage hangout in Israel.
I have not heard how Christian "youths" are raping and beheading Muslim school-girls on their way home from school.
When I saw Billy Graham, I must have been in the bathroom when he was screaming "Death to the Infadels, Death to Saudi Arabia, Death to Iran!"
I guess the jews really do own the media.
How many people have the US killed since invading Iraq? 100,000? 200,000?
Gee, that only puts us 800,000-900,000 behind their previous leader. I guess we need to start gassing some Kurdish children to catch up! Actually, your numbers are wildly inflated and the 10,000-20,000 numbers I've heard included active Iraqi military, terrorists, civilians killed by terrorist and the civilians the terrorist hide behind. However, I agree that war sux and any civilian death is a travesty. Everyone in America, including the leadership and military, agrees. Can you say the same about the Arab world? Besides, we are talking about the actions of a religion, not a government. How many Iraqi's voted in the last election and had the choice of more than one candidate?
How many people did the primarily christian US army kill when they invaded Iraq?
Again, the US Army is not a "Christian Army". Trust me, I was a soldier in the US Army and as a Christian, I was the minority.
You know the red cross on a white background was also the symbol of the crusades right?
Did you know that the crusades were in response to a 1000 years of Dhimmitude (read: slavery)? Still, that cross is a symbol of the Christian religion. I still don't see Christians burning down embassies.
But you still see plenty of christians killing others because they are gay or for numerous other reasons
No I don't. I see a few red-necks doing so, and they are strongly condemded by the Christian Church. Then they are tried for murder and imprisoned or put to death, in this country you call "Christian".
Hmm.
I like most of your post.
But it seems to me that the extremes are easier to prove conclusively wrong.
i.e.
Abortion is illegal under ANY circumstances.
Okay the mother AND the child will die when she is about 7 months pregnant.
Abortion is legal under ANY circumstances.
Okay we are killing an 8 month old baby that could survive outside the womb.
So the middle ground must be where the correct answer lies or there may be -no- correct answer. Heads you lose, Tails you lose.
If you get down to it, even if you use birth control prevent the union of sperm and egg that would have occured- you just prevented a human life. Maybe not violently but just as surely as if you had aborted it at 8 months.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Doesn't matter what the religion or reason. Those who feel powerless, who feel no other recourse is open to them because they're being stepped on and subjugated, will often resort to violence and force.
It's hard to say what the religious beliefs of the leaders of Germany and Italy were because they contradicted themselves so much in word and action. They were certainly Christian in name and used a lot of religious rhetoric, but it's hard to say that they were devout, practicing Christians. It is more likely that they were simply exploiting Christianity in the same manner as all other authoritarians.
Authoritarian and nationalist / xenophobic movements all rely on an ethos of the superiority of the group based on shared (and often inherited) values. Even atheistic movements in the Soviet Union and in China shared these characteristics in their revolutions. The real problem is not religion but the tribal, "pack animal" instincts that are the core of these movements in history. Religion just provides the excuse, but the real malaise is deeper and ultimately is universally human.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The key difference between Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists right now is that Christain fundamentalists typically have a pretty decent quality of life, and Islamic fundamentalists don't.[...]If you took all of the wealth in the US and Europe and handed it over to the Middle East, I have a feeling that you'd soon see an awful lot of poor, desperate, angry Christians burning flags in the street while a bunch of well-fed, well-clothed Muslim families watched from their living rooms and wondered what in the hell could possibly make those Christian lunatics so rabid.
The wealth of the US and Europe is handed over every day to the Middle East. At about $60 a barrel. Many of your top-brand islamic fundamentalists their pockets with your money. In fact, the GDP per capita of Saudi Arabia is $12900, that is 13 times that of Mali ($1000), a peaceful stable secular democracy. The Malinese are (mostly) moslem, but very nonfundamentalist. If you want a poor Christian country, there is Malawi ($700). Comparably quiet.
No, being the haves or have nots doesn't seem to be the explanation. Try again.
Randy is a common name I see in the US. In the UK it's slang for someone who is sexually excited.
I don't want to be in the business meeting with our US collegues when Mr.Randy Slapper is introduced...straight faces won't be in it!
wut. What war with spain? The last time the UK was at war with spain was, christ, the 18th century?
Yep, that's exactly right- there has been NO need for the UK to control Ireland since the 18th century. ALL of the rest has been human rights violations.
Ireland was never useful as a strategic property, unless you planned to invade the US or something.
Wrong. During the Reformation, when England went Protestant, a very real fear was that the Catholic Spanish Armada would use Catholic Ireland as a steping stone to attack England. To prevent that, Cornwall invaded Ireland, and used Scotish Presbyterian settlers to kick the Irish off their land. ALL of the "troubles" can be traced to that invasion.
And the IRA only fought over the north; the south, and vast majority, is completely free.
You don't think the IRA started in 1921 do you? No, they've been around since the 1700s.
And it still remains in UK hands, so the IRA didn't get what they wanted.
Actually, the UK is negotiating a date to hand it over- and the IRA already got an election out of the deal.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
"So why not just choose another name that doesn't contain the word? Yahoo's systems are privately owned and operated. They choose their policies and proceedures."
1) If you read the article, you would know the most obvious answer (Linda Callahan *DID NOT* sign up with Yahoo, she signed up with Verizon, who has an agreement with Yahoo.)
2) You remind me of the person who says something like 'America is the greatest country in the world, and if you want to go around saying bad things about it you should move to another country' (in case you can't figure out what is wrong with that statement, America is (arguably) better than many other countries in large part because we have the first amendment, to wit, freedom of speech. It makes no sense to tell people who assert their constitutional rights that they should leave the country which guarantees them those rights for availing themselves of those rights.)
3) In America, we have laws against descrimination. While IANAL, their policy most likely violates those laws in the same way that opening a store that sells to everyone but blacks, or people with names that sound like they might believe in Buddha, would violate those laws.
Hope that makes it a little more clear for you
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun