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Grand Ayatollah Says High Speed Internet Is "Against Moral Standards"

An anonymous reader writes A Grand Ayatollah in Iran has determined that access to high-speed and 3G Internet is "against Sharia" and "against moral standards." However, Iran's President, Hassan Rouhani, plans to renew licenses and expand the country’s 3G cellular phone network. A radical MP associated with the conservative Resistance Front, warned: “If the minister continues to go ahead with increasing bandwidth and Internet speed, then we will push for his impeachment and removal from the cabinet.” “We will vigorously prevent all attempts by the [communication] minister to expand 3G technology, and if our warnings are not heeded, then the necessary course of action will be taken,” he added.

37 of 542 comments (clear)

  1. If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...then there's got to be something to it.

    1. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Religion isn't always right... they don't teach facts, they teach opinions.

    2. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Stupid opinions based on violent fairy tale books, at that.

    3. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      fake illegal downloads

      I'll have you know all my illegal downloads are real and the NSA will back me up on this.

    4. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by Chas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      HERETIC!

      *Chops of "The New Guy's" head*

      Respect my peaceful religion! OR ELSE!

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
    5. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The pope essentially said the same thing recently when he said that young people spend too much time on the Internet.

      Religious leaders know that the survival of religion is being threatened by knowledge sharing on the internet, so it shouldn't be any surprise that they would speak out against it.

    6. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by sumdumass · · Score: 5, Interesting

      About as well as it did the last time..

      You see, letters in the hebrew language are also numbers. There is no W so V is used in it's place or in other words, V and W are interchangeable. It so happens that V is also 6 so when you type www, you are typing 666. That's right, every time to go on the World Wide Web, you are paying homage to the beast.

      That was the early rallying cry to why the internet was evil and should be removed. Of course some people who actually knew better checked up on those facts and it turns out a little different.

    7. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by pete6677 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The internet is especially threatening to the Religion of Peace, as it exposes them for who they really are.

    8. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by Nyder · · Score: 4, Interesting

      About as well as it did the last time..

      You see, letters in the hebrew language are also numbers. There is no W so V is used in it's place or in other words, V and W are interchangeable. It so happens that V is also 6 so when you type www, you are typing 666. That's right, every time to go on the World Wide Web, you are paying homage to the beast.

      That was the early rallying cry to why the internet was evil and should be removed. Of course some people who actually knew better checked up on those facts and it turns out a little different.

      Except that 666 isn't the number of the beast, it's actually 616. Google it, number of sources other then the one I put down.

      http://theologica.ning.com/pro...

      --
      Be seeing you...
    9. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 5, Insightful

      When has "fact" had anything to do with religious outrage?

    10. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wait, you're saying nerds used to have lives, it's just high speed internet that killed it? That alt.sex.pictures.oddly.specific.weirdo.porn was a relatively recent invention?

      I'll have you know that TRUE nerds used to have to jerk it to 320x200x256 palletized images. Nipples would be fucking CYAN half the time, but it was that or play wing commander. SuperVGA made the situation oh so much better, we could get 640x480x16bit in 200-300kB files that would take 2 hours to download, but hey, pink nipples! Assuming some family member didn't pick up the phone right before that line was downloaded and ready to rasterize. The cure for THAT were progressive jpeg's, we could jerk it staring at what either was snatch, or a golden retriever, the connection would probably drop before we could find out.

      No the only thing that has changed is the quality of porn and the number of viewers.

      Or so I'm told, I think I read about all this in a book.

    11. Re: If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Control is the point of religion. In Christianity the first book gives a lessen of do as you're told.

    12. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Informative

      The pope essentially said the same thing recently when he said that young people spend too much time on the Internet.

      Did he? It looks like you don't quite have that right.

      Pope Francis says the Internet is a 'gift from God'
      Pope Francis: Internet is a blessing

      The Pope's view is a bit more insightful and nuanced than you state.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    13. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by Mashiki · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It might be a generalization if it wasn't true. Been paying attention to the world lately, or did you miss the "religion of peace" committing genocide in Iraq.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    14. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by theVarangian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      When has "fact" had anything to do with religious outrage?

      Religious outrage, racist outrage, nationalist outrage. They are all equally stupid. I have had a long series of strange discussions with people of all these denominations about the building of a Mosque in my town. The argumentation goes that: "Do you know how many Churches there are in Saudi Arabia? Have you seen what they are doing to Christians in Iraq!?! We must ban mosques immediately to prevent this from happening here before the Moslems rise up and impose Sharia law on all of us!!!". Really? Says I, for one thing our moslems are a small and moderate minority; how are they supposed to impose Sharia law on us (Answer: Uhhhhhhhhmmmmm.... Uhhhh.... I just fear that they just will!). Secondly I find it interesting that you are implying that one can use the stupidity and cruelty of people in other countries to justify doing stupid and cruel things to innocent people in your own country? In that case did you notice what the Serbs did to Moslems in Bosnia? Did you notice what the white patriotic christian knights of the Ku Klux Klan did to African Americans, Latinos and other minorities in the USA? We must ban Christianity immediately!!! Remarkably enough they considered equating all moslems with ISIS and banning Islam to be a reasonable and natural thing to do (even though the local moslem community is just about the most peaceful and law abiding group of people in our country) but they went absolutely apeshit when I applied their own logic to Christianity. It got even funnier when I pointed out that both the Serbs and the Ku Klux Klan are white and perhaps we should ban white people since most of the people involved in this discussion including my self were white. I just find it endlessly fascinating how the minds of these people work. They keep citing the Constitution when it supports their point of view but then they want to ban Moslems from practicing their religion, ban immigration of non-whites or put gay people in jail for offending christian fanatics everywhere by existing the Constitution can apparently be ignored.

    15. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Funny

      Pope Francis says the Internet is a 'gift from God'

      That guy will take credit for anything.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    16. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by kamapuaa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except no...a little Googling shows that first mention of the number is in a widely distributed book from 2nd century Christian author Irenaeus, who affirms that the number is 666, and mentions some texts with the wrong number. The only evidence for 616 is an old papyrus from the 3rd century. It may be the oldest known copy of the book of Revelations, but it wasn't the original copy, the text was written 150 years earlier. Furthermore, papyrus was valuable and was often re-used, so it may not even be the oldest known version of Revelations.

      In order to prove that the original number was 616, one would have to find either the original version of the text, or a large number of texts (from various locales) which wrote 616, or perhaps have a well-regarded and well-preserved early Christian author like Irenaeus or Augustine say that the actual number was 616.

      --
      Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    17. Re:If the Grand Ayatollah's against it.... by theVarangian · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In general, there are 4 stages to Islamic conquest.

      1) When they are a tiny minority they only want to live, and worship, in peace.

      2) Once they are a bigger minority, they start demanding special laws to respect their religion and culture. This is happening in many European nations right now. These special laws may directly oppose fundamental rights in western countries.

      3) Once they are a sizable minority: they drop the mask, and the gloves come off. Time to violently overthrow the existing religion and culture. This has been going on throughout Islamic history. This is going on in Thailand right now.

      4) Once Muslims are in charge, it is no different than any other mid-east nation.

      Even getting to stage 2 is too much for many Americans. Lots of Americans do not want to give up stuff like freedom of speech, or freedom of press, freedom of religion.

      You just described the rise of Christianity in the Roman empire.

  2. Anything that wrests away control by Khyber · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You already know they don't like this because it takes away their control over a population.

    Of course they count it against their religion of control and abuse.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    1. Re:Anything that wrests away control by fermion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      so the same as any religious zealot, like the Christians in the US who are willing to spend any amount of money and support any amount of censorship to insure that a child never sees a picture of a breast.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  3. The key bit by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Informative

    The key bit FTA is here:

    “All third generation [3G] and high-speed internet services, prior to realization of the required conditions for the National Information Network [Iran’s government-controlled and censored Internet which is under development], is against Sharia [and] against moral and human standards.”

    In short the position is that if you have freedom you will abuse it. That's overall pretty similar to the thinking of al Qaida and ISIS. Strike up the banjos and play "Dueling Theocracy!" Oops, sorry, no music allowed. Or kite flying.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  4. Maybe it would be good if the Ayatollah wins? by ikedasquid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Imagine if 3G (and "4G") was found to somehow be illegal in the US - I think there'd be a revolt. A good enough chunk of the nation expects to get FB updates and cat vids on demand anywhere they go. Maybe Iran is the same? It seems backwards, but I think this is the kind of thing that gets the average person to actually care about something. No cat vids = Arab spring in Iran? Maybe?

    1. Re:Maybe it would be good if the Ayatollah wins? by dryeo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You mean like in Syria where the end result has been ISIS? The Iranian people are actually moving towards more freedom on their own. They've voted in a pretty liberal (for that part of the world) President, they have more religious freedoms then most of that part of the world and isn't much different in some ways as American allies such as Saudi Arabia where they have morals police who will execute you on the spot and women have even less rights then Iranian women.
      It's all a weird game where our friends are just as bad as our enemies, just that there is a lot of propaganda from both sides.

      --
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
    2. Re:Maybe it would be good if the Ayatollah wins? by rossdee · · Score: 5, Informative

      "Arab spring in Iran? Maybe?"

      Very unlikely since the Iranians are not Arabs - they're Persians

    3. Re:Maybe it would be good if the Ayatollah wins? by meglon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, you could have said that about Iran.. until someone fucked it all up. But more to the point, 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were citizens Saudi Arabia. I'd suggest you pretty much have it ass backwards.

      http://atimes.com/atimes/Middl...

      Iran is the mess it is now (from our perspective) directly because the US fucked them over in 1953. We have a bunch of clueless myopic idiots who's first and only thought is to dump more weapons anywhere there's a problem in the world, without giving second thought to how that's come back to bite our asses time and time again. If we quit listening to these numb-nutted war neo-cons, maybe we wouldn't keep finding ourselves in bad situations decades later.... although with the whole Iraq/Afghanistan thing, it didn't even take decades.

      --
      Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
  5. This will be hugely popular. by mikeabbott420 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Young and old we all hate fast internet connections the way seals hate fish.

    --
    This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
  6. You have to define your premise... by Karmashock · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First... moral standards are "his" moral standards.

    Second, internet in general connects his people to the world... exposing them to other view points that might distort their indoctrination to his world view.

    So what he is saying is "the people of my country might not believe in my values if exposed to alternative view points."

    Which is rational. They probably won't. His world view is pretty weak on logic, argument, or supporting evidence. Its just do what I say or the sharp knives come out.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  7. UNCENSORED high-speed internet by Namarrgon · · Score: 5, Funny

    I accidentally RTFA'd and realised the fatwa is actually against high-speed internet that isn't government controlled and censored:

    All third generation [3G] and high-speed internet services, prior to realization of the required conditions for the National Information Network [Iran’s government-controlled and censored Internet which is under development], is against Sharia [and] against moral and human standards.

    Thus I conclude that internet porn is just fine, so long as it's consumed slowly, scanline by scanline. He clearly wants you to enjoy the anticipation.

    --
    Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
  8. Wait a minute by viperidaenz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Where in the Koran does it mention bandwidth? or the speed in which information is made available, since it has nothing to do with what information is available, just the connection speed?

  9. And the lord said unto them... by RalphBNumbers · · Score: 4, Funny

    64kb/s ought to be enough for anybody.

    --
    "The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
  10. High Speed Internet Against Moral Standards? by jamesjw · · Score: 4, Funny

    Quick!, Get the Australian Government on the phone, slow national broadband is their policy!
    Mr Malcolm Turnbull, We have a sale for your broadband plan.. Iran is interested in your vision!! :)

    --
    -- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
  11. Great, by mjwx · · Score: 4, Funny

    So Comcast is just trying to protect our moral integrity?

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  12. Re:I can't believe we're afraid of these assholes by bloodhawk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They aren't the only country wanting to remain in the 8th century, their are still supposedly modern countries that ban teaching or evolution and insist on teaching their kids at school creationism.

  13. Temptation by jklovanc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is interesting that one of the basis of most religions is the freedom to choose. Most religions allow people to choose to do good or choose not to. Why does the Muslim religion seem to want to control everything? Conversion by force, death sentence for converting to another religion, hiding women's bodies so not to tempt men and now censorship. What would a religion have to force it's followers to conform? What proves a person's faith is the ability to resist temptation. Look at the trials of Job. If the people need to be "protected" from temptation then their faith is weak.

  14. Same thing from ultra-orthodox Jews. by Animats · · Score: 4, Informative

    Many ultra-orthodox rabbis who demand their followers not use uncensored smartphones or uncensored internet access. In 2012, a big anti-Internet rally for ultra-orthodox Jews was held in New York. "The siren song of the Internet entices us! It brings out the worst of us!" The event was streamed live and is summarized on YouTube.

    There are ultra-orthodox ISPs with filtering. The filtering is very stringent, based on a rabbi-approved whitelist. "That's all you get, and nothing else."

    There are kosher cell phones. "Kosher Phone has no camera, no Bluetooth capabilities, no memory card slot and cannot be connected to a computer."

    That's in the US. In Israel, kosher cell phones are so locked down that only approved numbers can be called. Even rape crisis centers are blocked.

  15. Sounds like Cable's arg. against Municipal Fiber by _0x783czar · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm becoming increasingly suspicious that the Grand Ayatollah runs my ISP...

    --
    ~theCzar
  16. Re:I can't believe we're afraid of these assholes by antifoidulus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Which is part of what drives the radicalism of the Islamic clerics. They have a perverse incentive for keeping things as fundamentalist as possible. They look to what happened to the clergy in Europe, who in roughly a 100 year span went from being basically on top of the social hierarchy to near the bottom, and are scared it might happen to them. In their eyes the situation in Europe was brought around both by the clergy actively supporting reform, but perhaps even more importantly the clergy not fighting back against reform hard enough(read cutting the heads off of reformers). In a society where your social status not only dictates the amount of property you have, but also your access to women, it's not surprising that the Islamic clergy are scared shitless of modernization and are doing everything in their power to stop it.