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UAE Clerics' Fatwa Forbids Muslims From Traveling To Mars
PolygamousRanchKid writes "The Khaleej Times of Dubai reports that a fatwa committee has forbidden Muslims from taking a one-way trip to the Red Planet. At the moment, there is no technology available that would allow for a return trip from Mars, so it is truly a one-way ticket for the colonists, who may also become reality TV stars in the process. The committee of the General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowment in the United Arab Emirates that issued the fatwa against such a journey doesn't have anything against space exploration, Elon Musk's Mars visions, or anything like that. Rather, the religious leaders argue that making the trip would be tantamount to committing suicide, which all religions tend to frown upon."
You don't want to go to Mars? Please by all means, keep your bullshit on Earth and let us evolved human beings make a fresh new life on a fresh new planet without you!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Cue witty jokes about blowing oneself up not counting as suicide.
But they should also forbid being born, as everyone that does will die eventually.
"the trip would be tantamount to committing suicide, which all religions tend to frown upon."
Hey get your Judeocentric religious world views out of here! Buddhism goes so far as to feature a story of the Buddha himself committing suicide just to feed some hungry tiger cubs.
Which is insane like all religions, but I reserve the right for their insanity to be characterized accurately!
then staying on Earth, living out your life and dying is also tantamount to suicide too. So you are damned if you do and damned if you dont...
.. Fatwa
Stop blasting yourself into pieces, it's forbidden,
and no your chance to survive is below the mars mission.
Choosing to live the rest of your life in a distant location is not a suicide in any way. If they choose to see this as suicide, then why do they allow youngsters to enroll in their armies? That looks a heck of a lot closer to suicide.
I can't see many religious people lining up for an expedition to discover if life evolved on another planet. They still don't believe that it evolved on this one.
After all, Tobacco leads to the premature death of most people who use it.
I always thought of suicide as the act of killing yourself just for the sake of killing yourself. While one might call something a "suicide mission", that is not the same as suicide, is it? If a soldier stays behind to man a turret in the face of certain death to provide covering fire so his comrades can escape, is he committing suicide?
YOU might not care.
But the fact that many, many other humans DO care is a factor that you should not dismiss so quickly or lightly, Grasshopper.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
You realize Muslim people aren't a hivemind, right? The people blowing themselves up aren't the ones issuing this fatwa. I presume you're an atheist... are you a "fucking hypocrite" for opposing mass murder, given the actions of Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot?
Bullshit. Point to the Fatwa against Jihad.
the religious leaders argue that making the trip would be tantamount to committing suicide, which all religions tend to frown upon."
Brought to you by the religion that also endorses suicide bombers, because some suicides are actually ok.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So when these atheist dictators banned religion and went around killing those who practiced it, that was just ONE BIG COINCIDENCE and had nothing to do with their atheism?
Riiiiight. Just grow up, and realize that religion, atheism, whatever... none of those things kill. Assholes who think their way is the only way... they kill. Assholes with your mindset, only with more power and less morals.
Also Atheism is not an organized institution like religions are, so there's no one that can speak "for" atheists, that's like someone who would speak "for" people who love sunsets.
You realize Catholicism isn't the only religion, right? Most religions don't have a central authority. Any Islamic scholar can issue a fatwa. But the fact that 99.9% of Muslims oppose terrorism doesn't seem to be swaying the terrorists. Because, again, religions aren't hive minds. Members don't really have much influence over each other, and they have even less influence over people who have already proven themselves willing to kill.
What if there's a school on Mars that has a girl in it? It's not going to blow itself up now, is it?!?! More short-sightedness from the 'clerics'.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Pretty much anybody staying on earth or even having returned to earth after going to space has died here. There is no technology yet that can change that.
But the fact that 99.9% of Muslims oppose terrorism doesn't seem to be swaying the terrorists.
Quotation needed. I think that you are considerably underestimating amount of 'angry Muslims' in the world.
If you would say 99.9% of Muslims aren't _actively_ involved in terrorism - sure. But oppose?
Because, again, religions aren't hive minds. Members don't really have much influence over each other, and they have even less influence over people who have already proven themselves willing to kill.
Now, this is pure BS. Religions are closest thing people have to hive minds (I count cults of dictators, like in NK, as a religion, even if it is not using world 'god'). Religons influence minds of people in extreme ways. Think about Scientists or other strange cults/sects - this is example of religion completely brainwashing the person. Bigger religions are trying to be slightly more subtle, but still, religion is probably best mind manipulation tool ever invented by mankind.
they (UAE) say it would be suicide for such a trip but suicide is OK if they strap bombs on a kid to blow up their enemies and do in the name of allah.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
Why do you treat it as a binary constellation?
Fact of the matter is that when someone blows up civilians in a suicide bombing, then 49 out of 50 times they're muslim. That's a problem.
Other religions generally do not have a problem assimilating into society and identifying with it. Muslims, OTOH, bunch up in ghettos, prioritize speaking arabic before the national language, keep each other in check with regards to following the Koran (ostrasizing those who stray), and pine for the day when the world is run like a caliphate, just like their holy book tells them. That's a problem.
Generally, you don't see other religions doing this, and when they do we call them nutballs. That's because other religions generally keep their domain of influence to covering morality and the after-life; whereas islam, on top of this, also claims a compendium of how to run the world, politics, behavior etc. That's a problem, because it clashes with everybody else's idea that they have a right to form their own opinions about life and reality, and it makes it impossible to simply brush off inter-religion differences by going "oh well, we'll see who was right when we die, let's just do our own thing until then.". In their eyes, you're kuffir if you're not a muslim, a second-grade citizen worth less than their "brothers and sisters".
And last but not least, muslims will claim the above is not true. But then again they're explicitly allowed to lie in defense of their religion (taqqiya and kitman). Try and remember that whenever an imam or other islamic scholar tries to dodge questions about sharia. They WILL lie in order to "smooth over" differences, and they'll feel good about it.
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
That's because culture shapes interpretations of religious texts. You cannot simply look at a religious text and, using only that, make broad statements about the religion itself.
The religion filters the text through human interpretations. What you put in is not necessarily what you get out.
Look at christianity, for example.
So when these atheist dictators banned religion and went around killing those who practiced it, that was just ONE BIG COINCIDENCE and had nothing to do with their atheism?
dictator
1. a person exercising absolute power, especially a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession.
How can you have absolute power when people follow religious leaders, not you? And that claim to answer to a higher authority than you? Dictators suppress and eradicate religion because it's a threat to their power, it's in the nature of a dictator not an atheist. Sharing a religion means you are both working for the same god, you might disagree on the ways and means and goals but you're in it together. Branding it as ateists makes it sounds like we're your equal and opposite, but it's not. If two people go skydiving, they have something in common. If two people don't go skydiving, they still have nothing in common.
But the fact that 99.9% of Muslims oppose terrorism doesn't seem to be swaying the terrorists.
Are you lying or just ignorant? Here's an example from a huge study showing that just in Bangladesh is 150 million * 90% muslim * 26% = 35.2 million who think suicide bombing of civilians is sometimes/often justified. In Egypt there is another 85 million * 90% muslim * 29% = 22.2 million people and the same in Pakistan with 180 million * 97% muslim * 13% = 22.7 million. Together that's over 80 million people or about 5% of muslims that DO support terrorism. And a majority of the population in Egypt, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Malaysia want to kill you for leaving Islam.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The problem is they did read the Koran. It says non believers should be killed. Quite explicitly. Since it is supposed to be god's literal word many scholars have concluded that jihad is pleasing to him. Therefore death as a result of fighting in his name is fine, to be encouraged even.
Suicide bombing is more contentious, but only in the senses that some people argue against the legitimacy of the war and some argue that it isn't the best way to fight.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Have you actually READ the Koran? It's basically disgusting hate literature. What do you think inspires the radicals and terrorists?
Why should I respect stupidity and willful ignorance? Because that is what religion is. ALL religion.
You could do it out of altruism and grace. That is, you could respect freedom so much that you don't need to always approve of what other people do with it.
If you need a self-centered reason, like most people do, there is one: you want them to respect your lack of religion, right? You had the same choice they did, to believe or not to believe. They simply chose differently. The way this works, is that either everyone has the freedom to make that choice, or eventually no one does. Because the moment you find an excuse not to respect another's right to choose, you harm your own freedom. Eventually that list of restrictions will be expanded to include you (sooner rather than later, considering how vastly outnumbered you are). Tyranny has always been done that way, over time by means of incremental expansion.
Honestly you sound like a short-sighted person who hasn't thought this through, probably because thinking it through would interfere with feeling superior to religious people.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Its no more suicide than it is to settle in another country with no intent to return, and live the rest of your life there. The 'Mars settlers' plan on living the 'normal' remainder of their life, not just getting there to starve to death in a couple of weeks. ( sure, accidents happen but the plan is what is relevant )
Or as a Muslim you are required to go 'home' before you die?
Stupid religious fanatics. Get rid of them and the world would be a much happier ( and safer ) place.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
wrong, mainstream ones contribute to "charities" which are terrorist sponsoring organizations. they think they are helping the "truly faithful" while getting to live a more mundane and less riskful lives themselves.
If you're a typical /.er, how is that different from your life until now?
Disclaimer; I am married to a breathtakingly beautiful Indonesian doctor lady who earns so much more than I do.
The Malaysian National Space Agency (MNSA) and its Department of Islamic Development held a two-day conference in April [of 2006]. They invited 150 scholars, scientists, and astronauts to discuss "Islam and Life in Space."
Five times a day (before sunrise, at midday, in late afternoon, after sunset, and at night), earth-bound muezzins call Muslims to prayer. A spaceship traveling 17,400 miles per hour orbits the earth 16 times in a day. Does that mean praying 80 times in 24 hours?
If interrupting work to pray is not possible, the astronaut may practice a shorter version of the prayer or combine midday and afternoon prayer times, or the evening and night ones.
The next problem: Where is Mecca?
Muslims on Earth face Mecca, in central Saudi Arabia, when they pray. The MNSA suggests that the astronaut pray toward Mecca as much as possible, or at the Earth in general. But if it becomes necessary, the astronaut may simply face any direction.
How does an Islamic astronaut face Mecca in orbit?
The conference went on to discuss a broad range of concerns. To sum up: The rituals of the Islamic faith are meant to focus the believer's attention on his relationship with his God. They are not an exercise in puzzle-logic and they do not require a geometric or technological solution.
Moving on.
In January 2014, former German astronaut Ulrich Walter strongly criticized the project for ethical reasons. Speaking with Berlin's Tagesspiegel, he estimated the probability of reaching Mars alive at only thirty percent, and that of surviving there more than three months at less than twenty percent. He said, "They make their money with that [TV] show. They don't care what happens to those people in space...
Mars One
Captain John Smith ran a tight ship and had no use for the Virginian colonist whose plans were based on magical thinking and not careful planning, adequate material and financial resources and a rigorous internal discipline.
He published a list of supplies he believed to be the minimum requirements for survival on the frontier: essentially a year's supply of all consumables and durable goods, and allowing for a generous margin of safety.
New France saw one or two supply ships a year, which may give you some idea of the expense. New France, remember, had an economically viable export trade in furs and unflinching support from the crown. Those ships would be coming, hell or high water. Other colonies were less favored.
Smith's budget has no allowance for a healthy communal and social life. Entertainment, education, religion and so on.
No successful American colonial settlement ever began with a base as small as twenty or bound to a space that is at once so physically confined and isolated. I would expect to see alcohol as a problem. I would expect to see suicide as a problem.
Funny.
The Koran translation I read explicitly ordered the Muslims to get along with the Jews and the Christians and to live in peace amongst them because they all believe in the same God.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.