Slashdot Mirror
Anti-Education Attack Poisons 150 Afghan Schoolgirls
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.'"
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.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
And occasionally blowing up a building full of innocent people, but that is the absolute limit.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
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.
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.
There were many, many opportunities during the 20th Century to deliver sorely needed aid to Afghanistan, and put some money into helping the country modernize and industrialize. Under Western Cold War Political Doctrine, however, that simply wasn't seen as being "necessary" or a "priority". So after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan by the Western-armed Afghan Mujahedeen, Afghanistan was left to its own devices (= the country was left to rot in abject poverty). With the bone-crunching poverty, and political-abandonment by the Developed World came support for the Taliban. With the Taliban came a particularly hateful, denigrating view of women (women should cover at all times, girls should not go to school, girls should be married to older men by arranged-marriage). ----- Here we are many decades later, wondering why Afghanistan is an underdeveloped s__thole of place, where someone can so pissed at girls being educated, that he poisons their drinking water. Afghanistan should have been helped decades ago. The West, at the time, was too cheap to commit money to such a project. And now we have a genuinely "failed state" to deal with. "You reap what you sow", as they say.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
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.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Oh, like a wandering band of Shinto Priests did this?
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.
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.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Who said that Slashdot was only about technology news? "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." This matters.
Last sentence: "Education for women was outlawed by the Taliban government from 1996-2001 as un-Islamic."
No kidding. It's too bad mental retardation runs so rampant in the politically correct.
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?
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Republican's don't want to outlaw birth control. They just don't think the government should pay for it.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
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.
Why? Its a fucking health service. Why should birth control be special from antibiotics when it comes to healthcare. Its a religious objection, flat out.
Good-bye
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, have their heads cut off if they don't convert, subjects members of other religions to derogatory and humiliating extra taxes and second-class legal status or worse, sentences people to death 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 (remind you of anyone else?)
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.
Lets keep in mind the whole context. i.e. not teaching women; which has a religious foundation in that part of the world.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They got zero from India, and the Babylonians had a placeholder for it back before 1000 B.C.
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.
Would you like a slice of toast?
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.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
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?
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.
"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?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Under the Taliban regime, Sharia law was interpreted to forbid a wide variety of previously lawful activities in Afghanistan. One Taliban list of prohibitions included: pork, pig, pig oil, anything made from human hair, satellite dishes, cinematography, and equipment that produces the joy of music, pool tables, chess, masks, alcohol, tapes, computers, VCRs, television, anything that propagates sex and is full of music, wine, lobster, nail polish, firecrackers, statues, sewing catalogs, pictures, Christmas cards. They also got rid of employment, education, and sports for all women, dancing, clapping during sports events, kite flying, and characterizations of living things, no matter if they were drawings, paintings, photographs, stuffed animals, or dolls. Men had to have a fist size beard at the bottom of their chin. Conversely, they had to wear their head hair short. Men had to wear a head covering.
from -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban
10: PRINT "Everything old is new again."
20: GOTO 10
Let these girls and their families (and other females who are attacked for wanting an education) have asylum in the USA or other country where girls don't get killed for wanting an education.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
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.
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 that women should not be educated (in fact, some would argue 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.
"I love animals! Some are cute, others are tasty, what's not to like?" - Betsy Schroeder, Jeopardy contestant
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.
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...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
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.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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
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
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
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.
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?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"this isn't a religious issue" - of course it bloody is the problem.
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.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Maybe they should have thought of that before targeting women with poison.
Idiots.
I'm not aware of any philosophy that claimed that. The most common philosophy that is blamed for wrecking the Muslim's worlds scientific progress was that espoused by Al-Ghazali in his highly influential book "The Incoherence of the Philosophers" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incoherence_of_the_Philosophers. The most damaging thing in that philosophy was the idea that there were no actual laws of the universe, only things occurring the way Allah decided to. So for example if one lit a piece of cloth with a candle, the cloth catches fire not from any property of the cloth but because Allah has decided in this particular instance for the cloth to catch fire. And according to Al-Ghazali, asserting otherwise was essentially heresy. This sort of view of things is extremely inimical to discovering or codifying laws of the universe. There were other problems that happened about the same time such governments becoming more intertwined with religion in much of the Muslim world. But I suspect that is the philosophy that Neil deGrasse Tyson was talking about.
Religion is defined by it's followers. You could spend a lifetime arguing over what the Koran does or doesn't mean, and a lot of people have done just that - but, even if an answer is possible, it doesn't matter. The important part is what the believers believe it says, and particually that segment of believers that has the conviction to back up their interpretation with political action or even violence.
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.
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.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
As long as nobody tries to take away their boner pills.
It seems they voted THEMSELVES a pretty nice health plan.
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.
So because the water in the tank wasn't contaminated, they know it was poison?
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.
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.. 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.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
Yes, because the actions of a ruthless military junta to take over a 89% Buddhist country means those 89% are committing the violence. If other countries won't step in to help, how exactly do you overthrow a military regime with non-violence? Remember - they killed THOUSANDS in 1988 when people protested, and then in the first free elections, the junta refused to acknowledge the elections and kept power any way. I bet those non-ruling folks, mostly living in poverty, are incredibly peaceful. And of course, the ASEAN acknowledges that junta rule. So who exactly is to blame for the state of things in the country. Right.. continue blaming it on the Buddhists.
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.
No good deed goes unpunished...
Oooh this is fun. My turn!!
A non-peaceful religion - like Christianity - is where adherents are told to convert or die, get burned at the stake if they don't agree, subjects members of other religions to derogatory and humiliating extra taxes and second-class legal status or worse, sentences people to death 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 (remind you of anyone else?)
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.
+1 Disagree