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Third Bangladeshi Blogger Murdered In As Many Months
An anonymous reader writes: Ananta Bijoy Das blogged about science in Bangladesh, also sometimes tackling difficult issues about religion. He won an award in 2006 for "deep and courageous interest in spreading secular and humanist ideals and messages." He's now been murdered for his writings, the third Bangladeshi blogger to die in the past few months. Four masked assailants chased him down in broad daylight and attacked him with cleavers and machetes. The Committee to Protect Journalists says Das is the 20th writer to be murdered globally so far this year. Arrests have been made in Bangladesh for the murders of the previous two bloggers this year, but no convictions have yet been made. Das's murderers remain at large.
Shows how "progressive" some countries can be.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
It's a Muslim thing, you wouldn't understand.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Machetes and cleavers? Holy shit!
Time to start blogging anonymously, guys. Something tells me ultrareligious people aren't technical enough to track you down.
True. We must all worship the son of God the father, born to a mortal woman, who traveled the mid-east several thousand years ago performing miraculous deeds and building a religious following. Lets all worship Hercules.
Or did you have some other silly myth in mind? You were not very clear on that.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Guess who's behind it. Go ahead, guess without even reading the summary. It's "the religion of peace" again. You know, the one that tells people to cut off other people's heads and enslave them and that everyone is an enemy and most crimes are punishable by death?
Islam is the religion of peace! Well, except for a few radicals, maybe 2 or 3 percent, which would only make about a million radicals. And, maybe except for their supporters, maybe 20 percent or so, which would make about 200 million. Other than that, it's mostly moderates, who won't actually go out and jihad, but they'll cheer the jihadists on. You've nothing to fear from Islam, there's just no way that there are more than a three or four hundred million activists and jihadists combined!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Cock-sucking pigs. Death is too good for them.
I have the misfortune of living in London, and I see that a lot of these Bengali Jammat-e-Islami mass-murderers have colonised us here in East London, and the British government are freely allowing them to spread their poison and organise with complete impunity. They have a bolt-hole/colony here, so that if Bangladesh actually manages to clean house, these overgrown rats will still go somewhere. They keep trying to take over the local government, and the decent secular Bengalis live in fear of these animals.
There are real, bona fide war criminals (many condemned to death in absentia) walking the streets and yet we do nothing.
...No Tea Partiers or Christians were involved... AGAIN. Who will all the Leftie Slashdotters blame...???
The Guardian shies away from discussing the motivation, but even their description of an earlier attack alludes to it:
Could some Islamic scholar chime in to describe, how such an attack (as well as that against Charlie Hebdo, or Pamela Geller, or Salman Rushdie) is not in perfect conformance with Koran?
No, pointing fingers at other religions will not answer the question and will be ignored.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Of course you never read about enraged scientists hacking religious zealots apart...
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
>> Arrests have been made in Bangladesh for the murders of the previous two bloggers this year, but no convictions have yet been made.
You know, in America it would also be rare for a murder conviction to happen the same year an arrest was made. For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
If Islam is like American-style Christianity, its followers actively ignore the words of their own prophet so they can do whatever atrocious shit they wanted to do anyway.
For Christianity, that means hating gays, subjugating minorities, and living a selfish, materialistic life while judging others.
Not only is there no biblical basis for those things, the RED words in the bible point the exactly opposite direction.
It's a weak god indeed that is needs to be protected by semi-illiterates armed with hatchets and cleavers from a guy asking questions and having discussions. Each act like this done in this "god's" name further convinces me there is no possible way it is worthy of worship, or that it exists at all.
I should add, not all the followers do those things, but the ones that do are pretty shameless about it.
we wouldn't be so afraid of our psychopathic genocidal rulers' fear of our textual prowess? good sports with good spirits prevail... real spys like us... in the moms we trust... thanks again.. rock on slashdot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-kA3UtBj4M
The bastion of tech news!
I think I'd rather worship Xena. She's much hotter.
I really love the part where you just compared chasing a guy down with machetes and cleavers to anything that happens in the US.
You know, hyperbole never helps your case.
I do not think 3 writters is enough to draw any conclusion about the security of Bangladesh. They got 156 million people and 20 writters have died this year out of the 7.125 billion people. That means that 0.5 writters should have died in expecation in Bangladesh. 6 times the expected number does not seem unreasonable.
To be more precise: If we assume that 0.5 is the real expectation for Bangladesh and each writer dies with equal probability in a given year and are independent (i.e. that one writer dies does not say anything about the probability that another dies), we can given an upper bound on the probability that 3 have died in a year using Chernoff bounds. It says that the probability that 3 writers have died while the mean is only 0.5 is a bit more than 5%.
Note though that this is an upper bound on the real probability and hence only gives a quite rough estimate. If we assume that it is accurate, we see that if all countries were the sized of Bangladesh (i.e there are 45 countries), then every year more than two countries should have 3 dead writers in expectation (or Bangladesh should have it once every 20 years if it happens only according to chance).
Note that this is not taking into account the relatively arbitrary choice of time for this article (it is more likely that at some point in a year a country is far from the expecation, simply because there are so many points in time in a year), choice of objective (there are many equally important properties to dead writers this year and it is therefore more likely that some of them are far from the expecation) and that it is in the news (more unusual things are in the news, i.e. it is not news that another country did not have 6 times to many dead writers).
You should read the prophet's words. Really, you should read his words. Jesus is a forgiving God. Jesus wept. Mohammed never forgives, never forgets, and the only weeping he ever enjoyed was the tears of the widows and orphans as he raped them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Maybe carry a gun?
https://www.facebook.com/fahme...
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Islam is nothing like christianity. Christ (the new testament) at least teaches love and forgiveness. In islam it is the very prophet that incites and orders followers to commit those atrocities. Those muslims are not ignoring the words of their prophet but acting in accordance with god's command, which is exactly the problem.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
If Islam is like American-style Christianity, its followers actively ignore the words of their own prophet so they can do whatever atrocious shit they wanted to do anyway.
For Christianity, that means hating gays, subjugating minorities, and living a selfish, materialistic life while judging others.
This is actually a pretty common misconception about Islam. You're correct in saying that Christians are hypocrites when they do any of those things, because it runs contrary to the teachings of Christ. You can't say the same about Muslims when they commit acts like this, because they are expressly commanded by Muhammed either in the Quran or the Hadith (honor killings, killing apostates, drawing images of the "prophet", etc.).
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
We will continue to win battles and will convert the world.
Just like the Crusades did huh.... HUH....
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
When the sky will get dark, the light will stop, you will not see it coming, you will not be aware of it, the end of existence and revelation of the truth, the deep rabbit hole goes far, far beyond your mortal reach.
I didn't compare anything. I suggested some muslims may be ignoring their religion, and gave examples from the dominant religion in my country and how its principles get ignored.
You forgot the outright murder of doctors and nurses, seems a very Christian thing to do in the Mid-West.
Christianity on gays "we don't want gays to be married"
Islam on gays "We will kill gays"
Christianity on Minorities "people are people"
Islam on Minorities "Convert to Islam, pay a tax or die"
Christianity on Selfish living "Love one another"
Islam on Selfish Behavior "Kill the Infadel" "Hate the Jew" "Kill the people of the Cross"
Christianity on Judging "Love the sinner, hate the sin" "Judge not lest ye be judged"
Islam on Judging "Kill the infadel"
Yeah, they are completely the same.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Theseus.
Don't like my choice? We should arrange a bout and see what Vegas thinks.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
As I told the other poster, I wasn't trying to compare acts. So, I didn't pick comparable acts. If I wanted to, there is a long history of murder and oppression in the West I could have listed.
Meanwhile in Chicago on average one person is killed every day. I think I'd be safer as a blogger in Bangladesh.
They keep telling me that Christians are violent fascists and islam is the Religion of Peaceâ
Corporatism != Free Market
The main thing preventing Christians in the U.S. from regularly saying, and acting upon, "We will kill gays", is the protection offered by a secular government.
But give our U.S. Christians some influence outside our borders, like the American Family Association's encouraging Christian-majority Uganda to pass laws making homosexuality a capital offense, and we find Christian and Islamic fundamentalists to be rather similar.
You can't say the same about Muslims when they commit acts like this, because they are expressly commanded by Muhammed either in the Quran or the Hadith (honor killings, killing apostates, drawing images of the "prophet", etc.).
Honor killings are definitely not prescribed by Islamic law. They tend to be most common in Islamic societies because these societies are - let's face it - relatively primitive and more family-oriented (not in a good way). But I've read about Hindus doing the same thing, and I suspect that was even more common when the caste system held sway. (It's the same deal with female genital mutilation - not at all Islamic, but mostly-but-not-entirely practiced by certain Islamic societies.)
Then again, we could be good progressive people who believe that trees and rocks have souls. If you split atoms or build telescopes or engineer genes, Mother Gaia will unleash Her righteous wrath upon you.
The main thing preventing Christians in the U.S. from regularly saying, and acting upon, "We will kill gays", is the protection offered by a secular government.
Yeah, right.
American Family Association's encouraging Christian-majority Uganda to pass laws making homosexuality a capital offense
Citation needed.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I really love the part where you just compared chasing a guy down with machetes and cleavers to anything that happens in the US.
Well, I don't know about you, but I'd say the Sikh Temple shooting was pretty bad. I'd say that the killing of Mathew Shepherd was pretty bad. I'd say that the murder of James Craig Anderson was pretty bad. The Murder of George Tiller. The brutal attack on Freddie Gray by officers of the alleged peace.
And hey what about this guy:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/video/machete-wielding-attacker-breaks-neighbors-door-28332236
Huh.
I guess nothing bad at all happens in the US.
Hey, I think you have a pretty good summary of what the Bible teaches here, but I personally know Christians who do not live those values at all. That was my point.
Can't comment on the koran, as I've spent exactly zero time studying it. Something tells me we aren't going to have anybody stick up for islam on this thread.
I am sure that gays who have been beaten to death or blown up, doctor who have been shot, etc, would feel this comparison is not exactly off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...
Was enacted, has since been struck down but only for technicalities: lack of quorum when passed. That is being appealed to Uganda Supreme Court, and if that fails it will be brought up again. Original bill included death penalty, was changed after International pressure to life sentence, but politicians have been working to amend to make homosexuality a capital crime as originally intended.
Either way, the legislation has also increased vigilante homophobia, Uganda gays "face an atmosphere of physical abuse, vandalism to their property, blackmail, death threats, and 'correctional rape'."
Bill was introduced following a two-day conference by U.S. Christians on how homosexuality is a threat to families in Africa.
American Family Association leader praises bill:
http://www.thenewcivilrightsmo...
Family Research Council supports Uganda anti-homosexuality bill:
http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/...
Well, I guess this is a nice visceral example against the argument that "only" government can censor people or affect what people say publically.
Wrong God. Allah will win this war.
I was always partial to Gabrielle myself. She can be god, so I can "worship" her latex blowup images.
For science for of course.
Be seeing you...
She's a witch! BURN HER!
Time for people to murder them back.
Islam is the religion of peace! Well, except for a few radicals, maybe 2 or 3 percent, which would only make about a million radicals. And, maybe except for their supporters, maybe 20 percent or so, which would make about 200 million.
I actually think you have those numbers closer to reversed. The financial supporters of terrorism seem to pretty much be limited to those loyal middle eastern friends of ours, Saud royal family.
Then again, we could be good progressive people who believe that trees and rocks have souls. If you split atoms or build telescopes or engineer genes, Mother Gaia will unleash Her righteous wrath upon you.
I thought that was Greenpeace.
And isn't their thing these days defacing world heritage sites in more or less irreversible and environmentally damaging ways?
If Islam is like American-style Christianity, its followers actively ignore the words of their own prophet so they can do whatever atrocious shit they wanted to do anyway.
For Christianity, that means hating gays, subjugating minorities, and living a selfish, materialistic life while judging others.
Not only is there no biblical basis for those things, the RED words in the bible point the exactly opposite direction.
The Bible is very vague on whether you should still hate gays, have slaves, stone people, etc... Pretending that
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
obviously means the old law can be ignored is moderate apologetics. All the Abrahamic religions have plenty of fire and brimstone, and killing in the name of God. Ignoring that is just as much an act of cherry-picking as is ignoring the more love and tolerance passages. The fact that it takes a "bible/koran scholar" to make a plausible argument other than "just ignore the old stuff" is problematic at best. Hell, the Bible ends with Revelations, which is seriously lacking in "turn the other cheek" and "love thy neighbor."
I could be totally wrong, but I'm pretty confident in this. The Bible is easy to use to justify misogyny, hating gays, having slaves, etc... My understanding is that the Koran is more so. Maybe the people doing that are "reading it wrong," but the fact that these "holy books" are so easily misinterpreted makes it hard to say that Christian/Muslim fundamentalists are not following the religion. They are doing what the books say to do.
Dear God, next time you inspire a holy book please leave out "allegories" that seem to promote killing, enslaving, stoning, beheading and burning people at the stake for victimless crimes. Someone might think you meant it. Actually, please stop being a lazy bastard that outsources all killing, enslaving, stoning, beheading and burning people at the stake do do it yourself.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
The only demonic things that comes to mind is religion and its bigoted adherents.
The Koran actually *is* more viscious than even the Old Testament. Partially this is due to the fact that Mohammed spent much of his life leading an armed struggle against armed opponents, and needed to rally and advise his followers (i.e., armies).
OTOH, it would be quite interesting to know what the New Testament would be like if we had accurate records rather than third hand accounts written down a century or more later. *Was* JC leading a revolutionary action group against the Romans? (Well, against the governor installed by the Romans.) John the Baptist was, almost without question. You can't believe the words written in the Bible, even if they are phrased as quotes. They weren't quotes. They were written down by someone who never met Jesus, and never met anyone who had seen him within the last 30 years. And the intervening period seems to be filled only with verbal reporting. Calling them "second hand information" is praising them fullsomely.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Christianity on gays "we don't want gays to be married"
You mean "We don't want gays to be gays, so we'll treat them for their mental illness at our conversion camps" and if that doesn't work...
Then there's this wonderful idea:
"I had a way, I figured a way out, a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers, but I couldn't get it passed through Congress. Build a great big large fence, fifty or a hundred mile long, put all the lesbians in there. Fly over and drop some food. Do the same thing with the queers and the homosexuals, and have that fence electrified ‘til they can't get out. Feed them, and you know what, in a few years, they'll die out. Do you know why? They can't reproduce."
Christianity on Minorities "people are people"
Try again, after you've learned about the Christian Identity movement.
Christianity on Selfish living "Love one another"
Christianity on Judging "Love the sinner, hate the sin" "Judge not lest ye be judged"
Tell me about Hobby Lobby again, and all the hate campaign there???
Because employees getting contraceptives was clearly a sign that those sluts weren't living their lives properly.
Heck, let's see what Mike Huckabee thinks. Oh wait, he says that people who support same-sex marriage are liars, just like the Nazi's before the Holocaust.
Sorry, but plenty of judging by Christians goes on.
all legal like
https://news.vice.com/article/...
Most (many at least) Christians don't have a clue what the bible actually says. They only know what (parts of) the New Testament says. Most only recite what their pastors preach from the pulpit, or single verses (taken out of context)
Most couldn't explain why Jesus didn't condemn the whore to stoning, because they don't know. But he was 100% biblical (Torah Compliant) in his approach and there are many lessons that could be learned from that.
Yes, there are some pretty strong prescriptions in the Bible, but most of them are actually hard to fulfill, as most of the accusers would be indicted for their own sins in the process of pointing fingers at others, something most people don't like to face in themselves. It would be like saying "Mr Drug Dealer stole from me (when I was trying to buy drugs from him)".
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Recursive bigotry. Great.
Modding down. Leaders of an organization are not just random rank-and-file members.
There is pretty good indication that Matthew was written by an actual witness to the events. These manuscripts copies are within a hundred years of Jesus' life, and are copies of earlier ones. Most scholars view the original manuscript to be closer to 50-60CE, placing it within the lifetime of a contemporary of Jesus, claiming to have known him (20-30 years)
You can't believe the words written in the Bible, even if they are phrased as quotes. They weren't quotes. They were written down by someone who never met Jesus, and never met anyone who had seen him within the last 30 years.
That is your opinion. ;)
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Apparently, blogging isn't the safe thing it used to be: https://xkcd.com/369/
False. There is only one true being, and we all marvel and one day hope to be embraced in His noodley appendage.
Ramen.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
Well considering the massive support the Kill the Gays bill had in 84% Christian Uganda, I think a few more than 5 Christians supported it.
Now, if you want to compare Christianity in Uganda and the U.S. in terms of the legacy of exploitation, poverty, and strife, and how those issues are a more important factor in social attitudes and affect the interpretation and execution of a shared religion, be my guest. Just take it up first with the poster who made sweeping statements about Christians and Muslims.
Oh, right, that was you. Talk about disingenuous.
Religion is great indeed. We need much more religion. Like a hole in the head. Religion can give you that.
Nothing wrong with Islam guys, nothing to see here, don't mind the slaughtered body of a decent person in the street over some words he wrote.
I'm sorry, but Osama Bin Laden was NOT the Jim Jones of Islam.
I really wish he was, but what he presented was a very clear concise, and accurate interpretation of Islam.
To say Islam is a religion of peace is to simply not acknowledge what their holy book and hadiths clearly state numerous times.
If you want a religion of peace, I suggest you turn and take a look at the Jaines.
For Christianity, that means hating gays, subjugating minorities, and living a selfish, materialistic life while judging others.
Perspective. Christians over here are greedy, call some people some mean names, and are refusing to make a few gay wedding cakes, whilst Muslims are hacking up and beheading people with machetes and you try to draw an equivalence?
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
You're the third person to miss the point of what I wrote. The other two posted as AC, though, so I guess I should give you some credit. Here's what I wrote in reply to the first one:
I didn't compare anything. I suggested some muslims may be ignoring their religion, and gave examples from the dominant religion in my country and how its principles get ignored.
Sweeping generalizations to counter sweeping generalizations is effective, when exposing the original hypocrisy. I did it to make a point, one that eluded you.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
You forgot the outright murder of doctors and nurses, seems a very Christian thing to do in the Mid-West.
And all those artists murdered over Piss Christ.
Oh, wait.
I confused Piss Christ with cartoons of Mohammad.
My bad. Sorry,
Bless your heart. It must hurt to be overflowing with that much stupid.
No, it's clear the point you wanted to make was that Islam is barbaric while Christianity is not. Rather than own up to that false notion, you've opted for hand-waving.
I hate to interrupt a good smug-a-thon, but it should be noted that the assailants were Muslim.
As you were...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Now expect the usual retards to say how its just coincidence that all three were killed by Muslims and it could just as easily been a member of the mormon tabinacle choir. The thing is its not just three it's thousands and thousands. Maybe the retards should think - if you bet against a coin coming up heads and lost several thousand times in a row isn't it about time you took a closer look at the coin?
How can you call yourself a nerd and not worship Athena, goddess of knowledge? Brilliant, well educated, and with the body of a greek goddess.
They almost always are. But notice how the summary conveniently left that fact out?
Bullshit. Complete and utter Bullshit. There are very few non christian members of this secular government and even fewer openly atheist members. This is true nationally and locally. If that was really the only thing stopping it, a simply majority would overrule any opposition. There is more to it than that.
You keep chasing that boogieman, and ignore the real threats.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
not really. America's got tons of religious loonies and they don't get on to this sort of stuff because when they do the policy drop a hammer from space on them.
It's about money and control. Always is. The ruling class looks like other way because blokes like this one that got hacked up tend to be progressive. In addition to banging on about atheism they usually want food and medicine for everybody, and that cuts into the budge for private planes and houses the size of skyscrapers.
Whenever human beings do something truly awful it's always, always about money; and lots of it.
Oh, and before anyone thinks I'm saying America's better because we don't tolerate this sort of nonsense; it's not out of the kindness of our hearts, we just haven't felt the need to let religious extremists off their lease. We've got other ways of keeping the working man down...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Now, let's not bicker and argue about who killed who. This is supposed to be a happy occasion!
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
It's interesting. You can do this here, but as the article points out, it will get you killed in other areas with other religions.
|-&
Look, I just drew a picture of Mohamed fucking the spaghetti monster. But wait, before you yell "blasphemy". I said spaghetti monster not Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's his mentally challenged cousin I'm talking about.
I think he was referring to the Son of God, and also God himself (part of the holy trinity), born as a man from immaculate conception, the Savior, the adoptive son of a carpenter, visited at birth by wise men guided by a star, whose human parents fled when angels predicted that the local dictator would attempt to assassinate the child, born without sin, the miraculous healer of disease, followed by disciples, capable of raising the dead, host of one hell of a last supper. He who made the lepers whole! He who was meek, merciful, and forgave his enemies! He who was crucified, and was then resurrected! Ladies and gentlemen, the seed of the woman bruising the serpent's head! The Lion Of The Tribe Of Saki! My savior, and yours! Give it up for Krishnaaaaaaaa!
Sorry, I got confused. I'm talking about the Holy Child, born on December 25th to a virgin and placed in a manger! The traveling teacher who performed miracles! The sacred king of kings killed and eaten in a eucharistic ritual of purification! The one who turned water into wine, was crucified, and was resurrected after death! The God of Gods! The Only Begotten Son! The Redeemer, Bearer of Sin, the Anointed One, Alpha and Omega, the Lamb of God! My God of the Vine, and yours! Dionysuuuuuuus!
Sorry, I was confused. I'm talking about THE ONLY begotten son of God, born of a virgin! His birth heralded by the brightest star in the sky! Threats of death upon his birth, with his mother rushing to hide them! Nothing at all known about him between the ages of 12 and 30! Baptized in a river at 30! The baptizer got beheaded! The one who walked on water! Cast out demons! Healed the sick! Cured the blind! Crucified, died, and was resurrected 3 days later! My God of the Sky, and yours! Hooooooruuuuuuuus!
Or maybe someone else. I'm sure their mother claimed to be a virgin too. Suuuuuuure, honey. Whatever it takes to avoid being stoned to death.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Every book of the New Testament was edited. Matthew is no exception.
If You're trying to take a poke at christianity, Jesus didn't travel much of the Middle East, only a tiny sliver of it.
How can you call yourself a nerd and not worship Athena, goddess of knowledge? Brilliant, well educated, and with the body of a greek goddess.
Because Eris Discordia's spontaneity is more fun?
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
In the context of the country in which this incident happened, he probably meant worshiping the pedophile prophet who got his adopted son to divorce his daughter-in-law so that he could marry her himself, and went on a mission to heaven in a dream to bargain with his imaginary friend the #times his followers would have to pray to him down from 50 to 5.
Some quick googling gives 12,000,000 bloggers worldwide out of 7 billion people. There are also around 400,000 murders worldwide each year. So one would expect to see around 700 bloggers murdered each year or 200 bloggers pro-rated to today . But the poster claims "the 20th writer to be murdered globally so far this year". So bloggers are actually doing extremely well!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
Osiris is a black god.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Islam is the religion of peace! Well, except for a few radicals, maybe 2 or 3 percent, which would only make about a million radicals. And, maybe except for their supporters, maybe 20 percent or so, which would make about 200 million. Other than that, it's mostly moderates, who won't actually go out and jihad, but they'll cheer the jihadists on
A lot of this is fair, but the same goes for any ideology. You could say the same for Christianity. You could say the same for Protestantism, which kept central Europe awash in blood for hundreds of years after its introduction. You could say the same for political philosophies. The Spanish Civil war, and to a large extent WWII were fought over Republicanism vs. Authoritarianism, and millions slaughtered each other in the most gruesome ways imaginable.
Yet nobody runs about decrying philosophy in general. That would be stupid. The problem is humans naturally like to think in us-vs-them terms, and like to kill "them" (chimps go to war too. It sucks, but its natural). Religion is just an excuse. Strike it down, and another will be used.
There is pretty good indication that Matthew was written by an actual witness to the events.
The main source for the Gospel of Matthew is the Gospel of Mark out of which the author copied large amounts of text. Nearly half of Matthew is lifted from Mark. Why would an eye witness copy somebody else's account (even on the Christian tradition, Mark was not an eye witness)?
These manuscripts copies are within a hundred years of Jesus' life, and are copies of earlier ones. Most scholars view the original manuscript to be closer to 50-60CE, placing it within the lifetime of a contemporary of Jesus, claiming to have known him (20-30 years)
The consensus is more like 80-100CE for Matt. Not an eye witness.
You can't believe the words written in the Bible, even if they are phrased as quotes. They weren't quotes. They were written down by someone who never met Jesus, and never met anyone who had seen him within the last 30 years.
That is your opinion. ;)
and probably a correct opinion.
I found it interesting that it wasn't included. While I can appreciate them wanting to not try and add fuel to flames of hate towards Muslims, it's clear it was an important detail to have included. Otherwise, we are left wondering WHY he was murdered and not that he had been.(going off summary, who has time to read article?!)
Hercules doesn't really offer much. That other middle-eastern miracle worker son-of-god guy is promissing an afterlife, which is quite an appealing offer but Kwankwaka the goat-headed god of mice in Papa New Guinea is offering pigs and all the wheat I can carry ! Bacon and Beer man ! Bacon and Beer !
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
The vast majority of atheists in America, particularly those who live in conservative areas report hiding their beliefs from neighbours (often claiming to be agnostic) for fear of discrimination and reprisal.
It would appear that even in the US of A atheists feel legitimately scared of religious people who are decidedly NOT Muslims. 3 Atheist murders in a short period is distressing but hardly above average, it COULD be just a random statistically clump which has no deeper meaning. There is nothing to suggest that this happens more frequently there than among Christians in the USA.
In fact, there isn't even any proof yet that this particular person's murder (or any of them) were even related to their writings - no trials yet, no evidence or motives known. The country is in a state of significant civil upheaval where murders are a frequent ocurrence. That these three victims happen to be atheist may be entirely unrelated to their deaths.
A good atheist should not form opinions before evidence is available and ought to know about statistical clumping fallacies and selective reporting.
Of course it's also possible that these WERE religiously motivated murders - we don't have enough evidence ot judge yet, we don't EVEN have a signficant enough statistical clump to consider it an unlikely coincidence
To get a valid sample you must EXCLUDE the data that originally drew your attention from your data-set, then make a prediction of what would happen if there was a NON-random event, and only if that prediction holds can you rule out randomness. So we now suspect that atheist bloggers may be getting targeted for their writings. We can predict that more deaths will follow, in quick sucession. If another happens -then we can NOT say "4 deaths now" - we say 1 death matching the prediction, if another 3 happen in a reasonable timeframe THEN you've got something MORE than mere coincidence.
Oh - and Muslim extermists are hardly the most violent religious lot around. That title is actually held by a Christian group. The Lords Resistance Army kills about as many people every month as all the Islamic terrorists in the world combined do in a decade - and that was in the decade that include 9/11, in a typical decade it's about a 5th of what the LRA does monthly.
The reason you don't HEAR about the LRA murders is because they don't happen where there is oil or, indeed, any resource of importance to America. They just happen somewhere in Africa, which as far as America is concerned is basically this big country full of children with distended bellies where everybody dies by age 10 anyway.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Regardless - it is an existential war against those radicals, and Brigitte explains exactly why that is.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Seriously? You're comparing fear of contempt to fear or public assassination? Fail.
These secular humanists really are the problem. If they'd just mind their own business rather than trying to shove their unbelief down everyone's throat I think we'd all be better off. Seriously. No one cares what you don't believe. Find something you believe in and focus on that instead.
I have no problem with the idea that fundamentalist Islam is a serious threat to human rights worldwide. I do object to false blanket statements that Islam is inherently barbaric and Christianity is not. For one, starting from a false premise is an impediment to finding solutions. For another, living in the U.S., barbaric fundamentalist Christianity is a far greater threat to my personal well-being than fundamentalist Islam could hope to be.
Where one is found the other is sure to follow.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
Nah, Gaia will unleash her fury on you regardless, whenever she wants.