Saudi Arabia Revives 15-Year-Old Ban On 'Zionism-Promoting' Pokemon (timesofisrael.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Clerics in Saudi Arabia have renewed a 15-year-old ban on Pokemon, following the release of the highly popular augmented reality version of the game, Pokemon Go. According to Reuters, the General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars reaffirmed a 2001 ban on the game. The Times of Israel reports: "While fatwa no. 21,758 makes no mention of the latest iteration of [the] game, it does list many sinful aspects of Pokemon. Firstly, the game is seen as a form of gambling, which itself is forbidden. Secondly, it encourages belief in Darwin's theory of evolution, and thirdly, the fatwa says, the symbols used in the game promote the Shinto religion of Japan, Christianity, Freemasonry and 'global Zionism.'" The ruling says: "The symbols and logos of devious religions and organizations are used [including] the six-pointed star: You rarely find a card that does not contain such a star. It is associated with Judaism, the logo and sign of the State of Israel, and the first symbol of the Masonry organizations in the world." Pokemon Go has been such a success that it has already doubled Nintendo's stock price after launching just two weeks ago.

Comments

Are all the rare Pokemon hiding in Meca

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they trying to keep us from the Rare Desert Pokemon?

Re: Build a wall

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, but you have to admit that this one is good legislation.

*ducks out*

They sound completely insane

[ZorinLynx]

I read this and I'm just shaking my head at how incredibly ludicrous every word in that statement was.

If it weren't for the fact that millions of people live under the oppression of this sort of thinking, it would actually be funny.

When will these people finally join the 21st century and stop basing their entire lives around this bullshit?

Re:They sound completely insane

[drinkypoo]

When will these people finally join the 21st century and stop basing their entire lives around this bullshit?

Their whole society and all their peers will ostracize them when they live in such a religious society. You're right, though. It's what's needed.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't join the 21st century because their entire culture is rooted in bronze age bullshit.

They should have been cut off from modern society completely and eventually forgotten.

But of course, when we are beholden to petroleum companies, the sick and degenerate middle east gets a seat at the table.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Nemyst]

Only good news is that this reaction is clearly borne out of fear: they're worried of losing their grasp, that the rest of the world will seep in and reveal how completely retarded their religious laws actually are. A religion assured of its dominance over the population wouldn't need to suppress that sort of thing, for they would trust their followers to remain loyal to the creed.

Re:They sound completely insane

[techno-vampire]

Yes, indeed. They've recognized our Weapons of Mass Cultural Destruction for what they are, the way Western Civilization will bring them down once and for all.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll change or become less relevant when they no longer can pull $$$ form the ground.

Re:They sound completely insane

[TheGratefulNet]

capitalism, as practiced by the US, is going to cause the end of the US.

and you know, I wish our kind of capitalism on ALL OF THEM over there in the islamic countries.

what... should we be the only ones suffering in this world?

(lol)

Re:They sound completely insane

[Copid]

Here's something I've often wondered: If you have a custom of throwing people who don't believe in the volcano god into a volcano, how long will it take after everybody stops believing in the volcano god for somebody to ask, "So do we all really still believe this stuff?"

I'm thinking it might be a pretty long time.

Re:They sound completely insane

[nikkipolya]

Very true. It is the fear of the consequences of non-conformity that makes people conform. And seeing bright people conforming, turns the dumb into fanatics. Its a vicious loop.
I would have modded you up, but I do not have mod points.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Darinbob]

This is an attitude in many Christian circles as well. We're talking 21st century Christians in Murica, the same people that condemned D&D and Harry Potter. Plenty of them in Europe as well though not so prominent.

http://www.charismanews.com/op...

Re:They sound completely insane

[Shadow of Eternity]

When the rest of the world stops enabling them and defending this shit for fear of "islamophobia"?

Re:They sound completely insane

[Dutch Gun]

You'll find some folks in just about every religion that are wound waaay too tight and see the devil in everything. The rest enjoy their games and movies like everyone else.

Re:They sound completely insane

[stealth_finger]

When will these people finally join the 21st century and stop basing their entire lives around this bullshit?

Probably not until around the 26th century, but the rest of us will be in the 26th century then and the same question will stand.

Re:They sound completely insane

[stealth_finger]

Saying it's the 21st century has as much logical weight as saying that it's Thursday.

That might be relevant if you're running around as if it's Saturday.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Boronx]

If Pat Robertson could run the U.S., and he's tried, he'd ban teletubbies. Islamophobia is a polite description of someone who's racist against swarthy people who write funny.

Re:They sound completely insane

[h33t l4x0r]

Galileo's ideas took 200 years or so to catch on. Assuming the same for Darwin, we should be seeing some movement in the next 30-40 years.

Re:They sound completely insane

[abies]

Not really - Christianity is evolving. It basically loses edge as time is passing, becoming 'lukewarm' religion. Look at Church of England as extreme case of that, but same route can be seen in most subsects. On the other hand, Islam is frozen in time, actively fighting any kinds of changes (given what happened over very trivial differences between Shia and Sunni, you should not expect any bigger changes for next few thousand years).

Re:They sound completely insane

[H725_IT]

amen!

Re:They sound completely insane

[Bender Unit 22]

It's the $CURRENT_YEAR ! :)

Re:They sound completely insane

[Shadow of Eternity]

Say it with me: Islam is not a race.

Re:They sound completely insane

[alvinrod]

I've often heard the following related, occasionally to point out the absurdity of corporate policy. There are several versions, but here's one I found from a quick Google search:

It happened that there were three monkeys in a cage. Suspended at the top if the cage was a bunch of bananas. There was a ladder from the floor of the cage up to the bananas. One of the monkeys, who was both clever and agile and also liked bananas, decided to head up the ladder to grab a banana.

Imagine his surprise (not to mention that of the other two monkeys) when suddenly a fire hose washed down the cage, blasting all three monkeys over to one side. Cold and shivering, the three monkeys regrouped and thought about what had happened.

Monkeys don’t have a real long memory and, after awhile, a second monkey thought again about the bananas and headed up the ladder. Same thing—a fire hose washed all three monkeys over to the side of the cage. They picked themselves up, shook themselves off and hoped the sun would come out to warm them up.

After another couple of hours, the third monkey couldn’t resist and he went for it. Sure enough, same result—fire hose and cold, wet, miserable monkeys.

Finally, all three monkeys became convinced that going for the bananas was a bad idea, and went on with the rest of their lives.

Then the zookeeper drafted one of the monkeys for another exhibit and replaced him with a new monkey. The new monkey arrived, looked up at the bananas, looked over at the ladder and couldn’t figure out why the other monkeys hadn’t gone for the bananas. He headed for the ladder and got about 1 rung up when the remaining "experienced" monkeys tackled him, dragged him to the floor and pummeled him into submission. He quickly concluded that climbing the ladder wasn’t a good idea.

A week later, the zookeeper replaced the second monkey. Monkeys are somewhat single-minded. The new monkey spied the bananas, headed for the ladder, and the remaining two monkeys tackled him and pummeled him into submission.

Finally the third monkey was replaced and, you guessed it, the same thing happened. So life went on among the monkeys and after some time the first of the "new" monkeys was replaced with yet another monkey. Sure enough, the new guy saw the bananas, went for the ladder and his two peers then tackled him and beat him into submission.

Why was that? None of these monkeys knew anything about the fire hose. None of them had ever gotten wet for having climbed the ladder in the quest for bananas. Yet the monkeys had been fully culturalized to know that it was a bad idea. And you could likely go on individually replacing monkeys one at a time forever and expect the same result.

The Parable of the Monkeys can be readily applied to just about every organizational community structure in the human sphere. We can laugh at the silly monkeys, but humans are the only creatures on Earth capable of amassing and arming themselves to fight and die by the tens and hundreds of thousands because another human claims yet another human is building firehoses to keep all the bananas for himself.

Re:They sound completely insane

[CrimsonAvenger]

Of course, not every Muslim pays as much attention to this sort of thing as one might think. I remember a guy I knew 20 years or so ago. Egyptian. Muslim. One night I asked him if it would bother him if I did something (a beer with dinner, I think -it's been a while).

His response: "I am a Muslim. My religion requires me to not do certain things. I don't do them. It also requires me to do certain things. I don't do them either. And my religion doesn't bind you in any way."

Re:They sound completely insane

[Empiric]

I assume you mean Copernicus' ideas, and that you're excluding Galileo's ideas of God's existence, which he never repudiated.

And that you're excluding that the same Catholicism has accepted evolution for a long time now.

But other than that.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Empiric]

Your scope of "as time is passing" seems rather inappropriately restricted.

Re:They sound completely insane

[RobotRunAmok]

False equivalencies. What percentage of global Christianity believes that Pokemon is evil versus what percentage of global Islam is under Sharia law and/or believes that Pokemon is evil AND that women are second class citizens?

By the way... you know that when you use words like "Murica" you automatically lose any argument with an adult, right?

Re:They sound completely insane

[RobotRunAmok]

>>Pat Robertson

1991 just called. It wants its Boogeyman back

Re:They sound completely insane

[KeensMustard]

And Atheism, which is at least as old.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Fire_Wraith]

It's not so much that Christianity is losing its "edge" so much as that it's lost its political influence. Go take a look, there are lots of nutjobs in Christian churches that will talk about how Pokemon is demonic/evil/etc (or Harry Potter, or what have you). The main difference is that these people don't have a direct pipeline to getting laws passed as a result. They used to, back in the old days, but over time they've increasingly lost that power - first the formal link based on direct power, and then later the informal links based on influence.

But don't think for a minute that they don't want that power back.

Re:They sound completely insane

[erikkemperman]

Not really - Christianity is evolving. It basically loses edge as time is passing, becoming 'lukewarm' religion. Look at Church of England as extreme case of that, but same route can be seen in most subsects. On the other hand, Islam is frozen in time, actively fighting any kinds of changes (given what happened over very trivial differences between Shia and Sunni, you should not expect any bigger changes for next few thousand years).

First of all, let's not kid ourselves into thinking there are no sharp-edged (a.k.a. dim-witted) Christians out there.

But I kinda take your point. I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that most (all?) Muslims read their sacred text in the original language, whereas the overwhelming majority of Christians don't.

Re:They sound completely insane

[avandesande]

Really? How about the Catholic church embracing science, or Martin Luther's influence. There are nutjob sects in any religion and Christianity isn't exempt.

Re:They sound completely insane

[kheldan]

I read this and I'm just shaking my head at how incredibly ludicrous every word in that statement was.

The "..sinful aspects of Pokemon"

Yeah no kidding buddy.

Would someone care to explain to me, in rational, logical terms, how, in 2016, religion does anything whatsoever positive, in the long term, for the Human race in general? I don't think anyone can. All I see is ancient works of fiction (Bible, Quran, etc), regardless of how beautifully written they may have been, being leveraged by power-seeking people to exploit the masses and convince them to live ass-backwards lives, and also using these books as an excuse to commit crimes against humanity. It's literally holding back Human evolution, and the evolution of civilization. Please, Human race, can we get over this nonsense sooner rather than later, before we kill ourselves off over it?

Re:They sound completely insane

[Anonymous Coward]

Say it with me. To the assholes who want to "ban all muslims" and kick foreigners off of planes for talking funny, it's a race. A blonde haired blue eyed muslim speaking Swedish isn't going to get thrown off a plane, but an Italian mathematician will.

Re: They sound completely insane

[Empiric]

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

--Galileo

Rather sums it up. You may choose that he actively asserted God's existence rather than simply keeping quiet about his lack of belief, but I'll apply reason instead.

And, I think it unlikely he would. Even for the time "heresy" (perceived corruption of Christian belief), would be more problematic than atheism (outright denial of Christian belief).

Re:They sound completely insane

[JackieBrown]

The same can be said about Christianity.

That's easy to show as false. Compare "Christian" countries to Muslim ones.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Empiric]

"The Big-Bang, that is placed today at the origin of the world, does not contradict the divine intervention but exacts it,â Francis said, speaking at a ceremony in the Vatican Gardens inaugurating a bronze bust in honor of his successor, Pope Benedict XVI. "The evolution in nature is not opposed to the notion of Creation, because evolution presupposes the creation of beings that evolve."

more

You may be thinking of an atheistic assertion of evolution. That part is a non-sequitur leap from biological evolution, a leap which is both untestable and unscientific. I am not suggesting the illogical "evolution, therefore atheism".

Re: They sound completely insane

[kheldan]

Well, they do a lot of charity work.

When we live in a world where little girls are attacked, have acid thrown in their faces, or killed outright, just because they wanted to go to school to learn about things beyond being wives and baby-making machines, and where there are violent assholes running around, blowing up historical landmarks, archaeological sites, killing people just because they don't believe in some Invisible Sky God the same exact way they do, and cutting off people's heads on gods-be-damned YouTube, and some are denying their kids much-needed vaccinations or not taking them to the doctor when they're very, very sick because their 'god' says they shouldn't believe in such things, then so far as I'm concerned all the 'charity work' you could ever do does not balance the scales against all that.

I desperately want the human brain to finally evolve past the need for all this superstitious, mystical, irrational gods/religion/spirituality bullshit, and embrace rational thinking, reason, real knowledge, and a hunt for real truth.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Darinbob]

Do you have any evidence the percentage is different, or is this just another "all muslims are part of an evil conspiracy" feeling? Sharia is not what the conspiracy theorists say it is but that was from a previous slashdot topic.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Darinbob]

Right. There is a problem with Wahabis, same as there's a problem with some Christian groups. That doesn't mean you can use those groups to blame the entire religions. The Wahabis are kooks, but powerful enough that the Saudi leadership doesn't want to offend them. Similarly some evangelical groups are kooks, but powerful enough that politicians in the US don't want to offend them.

Re:They sound completely insane

[desdinova 216]

sadly, one political party in the US is dominated by religious fundamentalists.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Altrag]

I doubt most Muslims read their sacred text any more than your average Christian reads the bible -- a few chapters that were assigned to them and then they put it down because they're busy. That's why pretty much all major religions have some equivalent of priests who dedicate their lives to learning the religion and are able to pass their knowledge on to the masses -- those masses don't and have never had the time to do so themselves, even during periods when they might have had the desire.

As for the priests and their counterparts who DO read the texts.. its hard to say how much being in the original language matters. Certainly something is always lost in translation, but plenty has been historically lost in simple transcription (copying) as well back before the printing press. Its why things like the dead sea scrolls are so important -- they provide earlier (and thus generally less tainted) copies of the original texts.

Of course the question then becomes how accurate any particular copy is, no matter its age -- it could be that you found the copy that was written by some nutjob who decided to rewrite large chunks of text deliberately as opposed to some later scribe who may have made additional small errors on top of two or three generations of previous small errors and still doesn't add up to that one nutjob's large errors.

Now its hard (for me) to guess exactly how accurate a modern copy of the Quran and other texts would still be. I mean the hardcore Muslims would obviously claim its perfect because they kind of have to, but I have trouble believing that their ancient scribes were magically better at their jobs than the Christian scribes so unless they secretly had printing press technology 1000+ years before the rest of the world and we just somehow didn't notice, there's a good chance that Islam has also been slowly changed over the centuries, for better or worse.

Keep in mind that the Muslim-controlled Middle East essentially kept reason and thought alive during the west's dark ages. Much of our modern math was started during that period (the word "algebra" comes from the Arabic "al-jabr," which is a pretty common story of course, and we use Arabic numerals instead of the old Roman ones because they're far superior -- or Hindu/Arabic if you want to fully credit their history!)

Islam hasn't always been dominated by violent extremists. Nor has the west always been the rational part of the world. Just a matter of luck to be living in our particular period of time and much can change when you start looking on a scale of a few hundred years.

Re:They sound completely insane

[RobotRunAmok]

Here's your link for the Islam numbers. Short version: The number of places under Sharia law is growing, and - more shocking -- the number of Muslims in western countries like the US and the UK who *wish* they were living under Sharia Law and would like to see their country change its legal system to one that was theology based is *growing.*

47 percent of all American Christians identify themselves as "Evangelical," although only 62 percent of those "Evangelicals" believe that abortion should be illegal in all states, so they're probably not what you would describe as a real Pokemon-fearing Evangelical. Link with stats

Look, I'm not here to do your homework for what is common sense to anyone who is not a dyed-in-the-wool Jihad apologist. Radical Islam is an existential threat to western civilization, and it's growing. Christianity is NOT an existential threat, and their numbers are diminishing. Get your head out of your ass and start doing some of the research yourself.

Re:They sound completely insane

[RobotRunAmok]

Edit: 47 percent of American *Protestants* identify themselves as "Evangelical." Big difference...

Re:They sound completely insane

[Darinbob]

Look up what Sharia law is. You seem to think it's some sort of evil thing, a conspiracy against non-Muslims, that it supercedes national laws, etc.

Re: They sound completely insane

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

+1 Insightful (aka If I Only Had Mod Points)

Re:They sound completely insane

[RobotRunAmok]

Hadd offences in Sharia law -- those for which there is no wiggle room for a judge in the assignment of penalty -- include amputation for thievery and stoning for adultery. If that's not evil, then at least admit is Medieval. Whether it is enacted upon Muslims or non-Muslims, who cares? It's downright barbaric.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Darinbob]

That's not all of Sharia. Remember the Old Testament prescribes stoning for adultery. Most Jews and Christians don't follow that though. Likewise someone can follow Sharia without adopting all of the hadiths and fatwas out there, even though they follow most parts of it like Ramadan, not eating pork, giving to charities, not accepting interest payments, etc.

Re:They sound completely insane

[Copid]

I think of this a lot when I hear about atheism really "catching on." I wonder what percentage of the population has always thought the whole thing was nonsense and never wanted to spend the social capital (or the time in prison, depending on the culture) to say anything about it. That's why I can't really get all riled up about the "militant atheists" who supposedly mess everything up. The key service they offer is to provide cover to atheists to be honest about not believing.

It's also just like gay rights: Everybody hated gay people when nobody knew any of them. As soon as everybody had a totally normal friend who admitted to being gay, we stopped thinking it was a great idea to kick them around, resulting in more people coming out. We didn't just suddenly create a bunch of gay people over the course of a generation.

Re:They sound completely insane

[RobotRunAmok]

Wait, are you serious? The Old Testament? No Christian sect of any size subscribes to that! It was all over-written by Jesus' teachings and the Mosaic antitheses from the New Testament. And yes, Muslims can choose to be moderate, but the point behind the stats quoted earlier is that a staggering (and growing) percentage are choosing the "let's stone the gays" flavor over the "religion of peace" flavor.

Re:They sound completely insane

[minstrelmike]

Actually, both Christianity and Islam are evolving. It's just that only the fundamentalists make the news. When we Americans read about idiot fundamentalist Christian sects, we write them off as wack jobs since we know 'regular' Christians don't do that. It's the same in Muslim countries.
But when we Americans read about fundamental Muslims in other places, we assume they speak for all the billion Muslims in the world. (All the refugees that are abandoning ISI are Muslims, too).

There are 950 different Christian sects and 700 different Islamic ones. Both the Amish and the Catholics think they are the one true religion.

Sorry, couldn't resist

[Tablizer]

Israel: "Palestinian territories; gotta catch em all!"

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia continues to bomb Yemen.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[murdocj]

Funny thing, if the Arabs states had just let Israel be instead of trying to crush it in 1948, Israel would be a tiny bit of land that they wouldn't even notice. Instead, the whole "drive the Jews into the sea" thing kind of backfired on them.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[R3d M3rcury]

Actually, Hitler, Jews, "Gotta Catch 'em All..."

There's a time and a place for everything.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[Anonymous Coward]

Even more irony: if the Palestinians hadn't promised rivers of blood even earlier and agreed to what the Jews offered, Israelis wouldn't even have the area of land decided on by the UN: they would have less than 30% in the very northern tip, just south of Lebanon.*

Of course, they probably all would have been murdered just a little later.

And to rub salt in the wound: most of the lands in Israel have ancient titles stretching back into the Ottomon period. For a very long time Jews couldn't hold it, but leading into the end of the Ottomon Empire they began allowing Jews to buy the titles from the mostly Egyptian (but Muslim) landlords who held them. Most of the "dispossessed" Palestinians were not, in fact, in possession of the land, ever, either as native residents, a government, or people in any way, and were merely renters (they had been desert nomads). The Jews who were either in or moving into Israel? They began pooling all their resources to buy the land and houses from their legal owners, and when the time became suitable (e.g. having kids) they moved-in, having to ask their renters to go.

So Palestinians really are the occupiers, not titleholders. A bunch of Jews are: with Ottoman and Egyptian seals on the old docs to prove it. But their government *did* offer to surrender that land if they would be peaceable dwelt with and allowed to have their own tiny state in the very most northern tip--and the idiots cried "there will be rivers of blood" instead, and so got what was theirs: nothing.

* Lebanon too, by the way, was created (in that case by France) to keep an endlessly targeted group (Assyrian Christians) of Islam-mandated bloodthirst out of their grips, but they swarmed and outbred them, and back around 2005 the president was giving a veiled speech which basically begged Israel "for the love of God help and bomb our southern cities to kill Hamas."

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[Tablizer]

2 wrongs don't make a right.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[Darinbob]

Funny thing, if an Israeli hadn't assassinated Rabin... You don't have a conflict this big without having irrational bigoted extremists on both sides.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[Threni]

I always said this about hitler and poland, saddam and kuwait etc. But people call me a fucking idiot. Something about letting evil prevail?

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[Shadow of Eternity]

Trying to pretend there's anything approaching moral equivalency between these two sides is simply absurd. Israel is tolerant to the point of allowing pro-hamas people to sit on the knesset, the equivalent of America having pro-ISIS senators, while even the "moderate" Fatah openly calls for total genocide and the total eradication of Israel.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[stealth_finger]

As if Israel didn't had expansionist ambition... These fanatics will burn the whole world if it get them to the promised land.

And the last time they went on an offensive war was? Or by expansion do you mean taking land from the nations that attacked them and lost?

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[Boronx]

It's would be the equivalent of allowing pro-confederacy senators. Which we did and still do.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[GeekWithAKnife]

Now replace "Jews" with any persecuted ethnic minority...

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[Shadow of Eternity]

Evidently you missed this little thing called "reconstruction". Also your metaphor sucks because there hasn't been a confederacy for over a hundred years. I chose pro-ISIS for a reason, it's a currently extant group which is actively attacking the US (and damn near everyone else for that matter).

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[ET3D]

Were there ever Palestinian territories before Israel controlled them? They were Ottoman territories, then British Territories, then Jordanian and Egyptian territories.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[Hognoxious]

I think so, but you have to go back a long way. Before the Romans, and maybe even the Assbyrypittites.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[NoImNotNineVolt]

While everything you've said is true to the best of my knowledge, this is a hilariously one-sided account. One might argue that you're intentionally lying by omission by omitting so much context.

Re: Sorry, couldn't resist

[Pergatory]

"These are subhuman Aminals" ahhh, and the bigotry is laid bare. Regardless of how justified you might feel in making such a statement, it's racism plain and simple. You're generalizing a whole population based on the actions of the few that impact Israel. That makes you a racist, so please stop spewing your vitriol.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[apoc.famine]

No, you need like 25 wrong candy to evolve a wrong into a right.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[Darinbob]

There are parts where the confederacy still seems to exis and populations who act like it's still there. For instance in recent history we had the segregationists. We've got former Ku Klux Klan members in congress (from both parties) because there was a time when it was considered the problem thing to do if you were up and coming in politics in the South.

I'm not trying to draw any moral equivalencies but to reject the opposite view - that Palestineans are pure evil and Israelis have never done anything wrong and have zero culpability. Which is absurd because Israel has gone out of its way to torpedo peace processes, and continues to build illegal settlements.

Re: Sorry, couldn't resist

[Darinbob]

You need to learn some history. Palestine was a land with mostly Arabs and a large and significant Jewish minority. Then the Palestineans were forcibly ejected from their own land. The first world mostly supported this because they were still in a colonialist mindset where they thought it was ok to draw lines on a map from the other side of the globe and declare what was or was not a new sovereign state. The reason they want the land back is because they used to live there for centuries, not because they're bigoted against Jews. Just because the Palestineans were Arabs does not mean they have much in common with other Arab countries or communities, they were pretty much looked down upon as an ethnic group by other Arab countries.

Re: Sorry, couldn't resist

[Shadow of Eternity]

Mate you're the one that needs to learn some history that wasn't written by Electronic Intifada. "Palestine" was what the romans called the region of Judea, which Jews are indigenous to, and the region was virtually uninhabited according to everything from the ottoman empire's own census to the peel commission report. Even firsthand accounts of travelers such as Mark Twain and Arab historians such as Muqaddasi and Ibn Khaldun describe in detail how the region was so uninhabited the mosques were empty, and that the Jews were the only real permanent presence.

If you go back before 1947 there is not nor has there ever been a distinct arab ethnicity called "palestinians". Yasser Arafat was an Egyptian, and executive members of the PLO along with many other major arab leaders and historians have all publicly stated unequivocably that "Palestinians" do not exist and are a political fiction invented to attack the Jews. The region was passed from conquerer to conquerer until the Jews started buying land from the Ottoman Empire, which itself fell and left the land to the British Empire, where the League of Nations and United Nations explicitly dedicated it to be returned to its native people.

Even IF we were to grant that such a thing as a "Palestinian" existed though then by definition every resident of Israel AND Jordan would be a "Palestinian". After all the British Mandate stretched from the mediterranean coast to the far border of what is today known as Jordan, and Jordan was created at the exact same time as Israel. So if you think Israel was "stolen" by its indigenous people from colonialist arabs then you must surely think the same thing about Jordan.

As for your claim that this has nothing to do with racism... I suggest you look up the Mufti's close alliance with Hitler, his tours of death camps such as Auschwitz, and the fact that from the very beginning the arab nations surrounding Israel have openly said (in arabic) that they simply want to murder all of the Jews and finish what Hitler started. They're perfectly happy to publicly admit this as long as they're talking in Arabic. There's a reason they chant "Slaughter the Jews" in the streets of Sweden.

Re:Sorry, couldn't resist

[stealth_finger]

Shame on you for supporting terrorists asshole.

I never even mentioned hamas!

Huge Mischaracterization - Not promoting Darwanism

[Mateorabi]

Wow, such insanity. Clearly Pokémon Go is promoting a Lamarckian Theory of Evolution, not a Darwinian Theory of Evolution.

Stock price

[flopsquad]

Pokemon Go has been such a success that it has already doubled Nintendo's stock price after launching just two weeks ago.

Well good luck maintaining that bubble, Nintendo, now that people can't openly play Pokemon Go in Saudi Arabia. Time to start shorting NTDOY and hoarding gold.

Re:Stock price

[93 Escort Wagon]

Time to start shorting NTDOY and hoarding Golduck.

FTFY.

I'm pretty sure

[Anonymous Coward]

if the Middle East had their way, we would still be in the Dark Ages.

We're gonna ban Pokemon, but it's cool to beat your wife or jail folks for "insulting" Islam and other ludicrous nonsense.

How can a modern World leader, look them in the eye and not just bust out laughing ? How on Earth does anyone take them seriously on anything ?

Unless they pull off a miracle, the entire Middle East will be instantly forgotten once our reliance on oil dries up.

They really have nothing to fall back on.

Re:I'm pretty sure

[PopeRatzo]

We're gonna ban Pokemon

"We"? Are you Saudi Arabian?

Did you even read the fucking headline?

Re:I'm pretty sure

[serviscope_minor]

if the Middle East had their way, we would still be in the Dark Ages.

Which is interesting because while we were in the dark ages, the middle east was giving the world things like algebra.

How on Earth does anyone take them seriously on anything ?

They have guns.

Re:I'm pretty sure

[idji]

And that is why Elon Musk might win a Nobel peace prize for making oil irrelevant in Americans' lives.

Re:Pokémon, not "Pokemon"

[93 Escort Wagon]

So is this the new version of "cracker, not hacker"?

pokeymon

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be possible to put a "gym" or whatever in the hell, it is on the location of the Kaaba in Mecca?

Not to single anyone out, could we also drop a few on various religious sites around teh world?

Re:pokeymon

[h33t l4x0r]

Let's leave out Catholic churches though please, too dangerous for the young boys.

Re:pokeymon

[Anonymous Coward]

And the wives. Priests of all religions boinking hte milfs is a known social problem in *all* religions, including the Wiccans. Actually, it's the whole *point* of the wiccans....

Re:This kingdom has to go

[Gilgaron]

Mecca is there... it's kind of a big deal in Islam.

Re:Please Donald

[MouseR]

Heil Drumpf!

Conflicts with Reality

[Nivag064]

If a Law Conflicts with Reality, then the Law brings itself into Disrepute!

There but for the grace of...

[Early Six Digit UID]

Man, I'm glad we don't have any of that craziness here in the US...
...damn

Re:There but for the grace of...

[PopeRatzo]

Man, I'm glad we don't have any of that craziness here in the US...

Stop interrupting. We're trying to have our Two Minutes Hate against Muslims here. No fair bringing up our own Right Wing Conservative Theocrats.

Re:There but for the grace of...

[vux984]

Wow... just wow.

Now understand that I clicked that link fully expecting a whole lot of religious crazy.

And I was still not even slightly prepared for the direction it took.

Re:There but for the grace of...

[dbIII]

And I was still not even slightly prepared for the direction it took

It looked to me that they were saying pokemon was evil beyond redemption for having pictures of "demons" but a self declared actual former "demon summoner" should be respected and believed without question. Beyond the far side of crazy and not what most people would even associate with the fringes of a religion.

Re:There but for the grace of...

[vux984]

but a self declared actual former "demon summoner" should be respected and believed without question.

Well, to be fair, he was able to identify all the pokemon er... poke-demon attack types, from his direct personal experience with them. How does that not command instant faith and respect?

Beyond the far side of crazy

To where the days have 4 corners. timecube!!

Re:There but for the grace of...

[Opportunist]

The difference is that the loonies don't run the mental institution over here.

Not yet at least, give it a while.

Re:There but for the grace of...

[stealth_finger]

Man, I'm glad we don't have any of that craziness here in the US... ...damn

There's a difference between a few randoms showing concern and a government banning on overtly religious bullshit reasons. When Obama or whichever fuckup get the job next is saying the same, then you have a point.

Re:There but for the grace of...

[stealth_finger]

Man, I'm glad we don't have any of that craziness here in the US...

Stop interrupting. We're trying to have our Two Minutes Hate against Muslims here. No fair bringing up our own Right Wing Conservative Theocrats.

Because a random person on the internet equates to a national government?

Re:There but for the grace of...

[goose-incarnated]

Man, I'm glad we don't have any of that craziness here in the US...

Stop interrupting. We're trying to have our Two Minutes Hate against Muslims here. No fair bringing up our own Right Wing Conservative Theocrats.

You seriously can't see the difference between "legislated madness" and "religious belief"?

Re:There but for the grace of...

[dskoll]

In Saudi Arabia, witchcraft is still a crime and people are actually still prosecuted for it. Just look at this weird shit they do.

Re:There but for the grace of...

[PopeRatzo]

The difference is that the loonies don't run the mental institution over here.

Brother, we're getting close.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news...

Re:There but for the grace of...

[PopeRatzo]

Because a random person on the internet equates to a national government?

We have random people on the Internet running for president. It's not that big a leap.

Think about the news in the past week. We had a Duck Dynasty guy speaking at the national convention of a major political party. We had another speaker at that convention claim that the opponent is "serving Lucifer". The clock is running on our moral superiority.

http://www.dailysquat.com/wp-c...

https://twitter.com/JasonHavey...

Re:There but for the grace of...

[Opportunist]

Clinton as the devil? C'mon, she ain't that big.

Re:There but for the grace of...

[stealth_finger]

People are nuts to be sure, religious folk, some at least especially so, but you have to admit this is a breed apart. Luckily we mostly manage to keep them at bay in the west but you are right, it can be pretty precarious and if they got the power I wouldn't put it past them to try and keep it as hard as these guys.

Re:There but for the grace of...

[dbIII]

Yes I suppose.
Speaking of confidence tricksters a really funny thing is Pokemon initially had monsters called Uri and Gellar - things with a psychic attack holding bent cutlery. Uri Gellar got annoyed so they changed the names to Abra and Cadabra which resulted in witch-hunting fundamentalists using the names as proof that Pokemon is demonic.
An even funner thing is that it's left as Pokemon because it just doesn't sound right to encourage kids to play with their pocket monster.

Re:There but for the grace of...

[dbIII]

If it wasn't for society keeping religious loonies in check we'd be picking on people in the name of witchcraft too.

Re:There but for the grace of...

[jwhitener]

The clock is running on our moral superiority.

More like the clock is running out on the Republican party. If they are not able to sway their based to give up some of their more radical ideas, they will start losing more and more as demographics in the US change, and as society as a whole stops believing in nonsense.

They didn't call out the loons in their party for years, and now the loons have real sway over the party. They shoved the overton window so far right, that if they don't find a way to shift it back to match reality, the party will crumble.

At least I hope so. The alternative would be ugly.

Re:Build a wall

[Deadstick]

Okay. https://i.redditmedia.com/pvdF...

Turkey

[Dan East]

This is where Turkey is headed now too, after the staged coup which was used as justification for purging tens of thousands of secular leaning judges, teachers and soldiers.

Re:Turkey

[Boronx]

Yeah, but you have to have a story better than "training exercise" or your guys wont fight.

Re:Turkey

[Opportunist]

If this coup wasn't staged, it was the most dilettante coup since November 1923. You really want to tell me that a military that led 4 successful coups since WW2 would commit every cardinal sin in the "how to fuck up a coup" book?

If you believe that, I have a bridge with a wonderful view over the San Francisco harbor to sell to you.

Re:Turkey

[Opportunist]

Gotta jail them all.

Re:Turkey

[monkeyxpress]

Maybe, although that is probably the best case scenario. The main problem is Erdogan is rapidly making enemies (remember he only had a slight majority in the elections) and the more 'conspirators' he locks up, the more enemies he will make. Saudi has the advantage that it essentially keeps its population under control by giving them all lots of money. The motivation to do something about a regime that is giving you a lavish and comfortable life is much lower than to do something about one that is locking up your family members.

Very very sadly (I love the country, Istanbul is probably my favorite city in Europe) I think this will end in a wider civil war. There is already a civil war in the east that Erdogan restarted with the Kurds, and I fear it will break out into a wider conflict now. You'll first see more insurgent action, but I think Erdogan will eventually start outright attacking his own towns and cities as his enemies pile up and become more resolved. Inevitably this opposition will end up looking across the Syrian border for support, and before you know it ISIS fascism has appeared in the country, the West is halfheartedly propping up an increasingly repressive Erdogan , and the whole place has fallen to pieces. That's basically what happened in Syria, and it really is the saddest thing for what was, until recently, a relatively moderate country full of amazing people and culture.

Re:Turkey

[stealth_finger]

To be fair you'd expect most participants in a military coup to not know it was a coup, or at the very least not question it. Chain of command is part of how they work.

Get your men, we're attacking the president's house.

Right-o

Re:This kingdom has to go

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, Trump will solve all the problems, he's the best at diplomacy, and the best at military, the world doesn't stand a chance.

Thank you, Wahhabist lunatics, for making my day.

[cunina]

There are at least six laugh-out-loud nuggets of comedy gold in the article summary alone.

Re:Please Donald

[PopeRatzo]

Ban all of these people from the United States.

Banning these violent haters has already started:

http://media.breitbart.com/med...

Re:This kingdom has to go

[Applehu Akbar]

Mecca is there... it's kind of a big deal in Islam.

And Saudi influence on it is what is ruining Islam right now. Look up Wahhabism, and you'll see what I mean.

Re: Build a wall

[cunina]

That's the old Vatican. I wouldn't be surprised if the current Pope has a replica wand and Time-Turner.

Re:This kingdom has to go

[PopeRatzo]

"Firstly, the game is seen as a form of gambling, which itself is forbidden. Secondly, it encourages belief in Darwin's theory of evolution, and thirdly, the fatwa says, the symbols used in the game promote the Shinto religion of Japan, Christianity, Freemasonry and 'global Zionism.'"

Somebody needs to tell them that it's not a Star of David, it's a sheriff's badge.

Remind me again

[rsilvergun]

why we're friends with these guys? Oh yeah, cheap oil for our cars. Well I guess it's either that or the bus...

I once met a guy who would not let his kids go to

[mark_reh]

see Harry Potter movies because "they promote witchcraft". Yes, he was an adult and father of three sons.

Re:OH NO!

[bugs2squash]

So Pastafarianism makes the cut then...

An early 5th century cookbook describes a dish called lagana that consisted of layers of dough with meat stuffing, a possible ancestor of modern-day lasagna

Re:Huge Mischaracterization - Not promoting Darwan

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, it looks and sounds weird, but I believe you mean Kafkaesque. Unrelated, but also weird, is Picassoid.

Re:Build a wall

[Anonymous Coward]

Which Christian country enact this papal declaration? Right none. Troll harder, muslim apologist.

The ban doesn't appear to be working

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because it has been condemned by the General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars doesn't mean people won't be playing it. As I walk around Riyadh I can see many people playing Pokemon Go, so perhaps not such a big deal as some of the posters make out.

Re:The ban doesn't appear to be working

[thoromyr]

ssh... we're getting our outraged muslim hate on

When anything gets popular.....

[Neo-Rio-101]

When anything gets popular, all the hacks come out to ride on it's bandwagon of attention.

This must be some law of the internet, surely.

Anyway, suck it religious leaders. For once, something has got better hypnosis powers than you have - and by that I mean Psyduck.

Re:You must also be in compliance . .

[Anomalyst]

When did that will make it thru probate? The court date wasn't supposed to be until 2525 if mankind is still alive.

Re:Huge Mischaracterization - Not promoting Darwan

[johannesg]

Wow, such insanity. Clearly Pokémon Go is promoting a Lamarckian Theory of Evolution, not a Darwinian Theory of Evolution.

We are talking about a people who don't build any buildings with triangles in them, just because the triangle is a symbol of Christianity (it represents the father, son, and holy spirit). And who ban words with the letter 'X' in them because the X resembles a cross. I don't see why we should have any expectation of rationality out of that bunch.

They are

[Chrisq]

They sound completely insane

Haven't you noticed, muslims are often completely insane? So frequently one will attack people, saying that it is for Islam, but then everyone will say "it wasn't really, he's just insane". And there's the way that they go around murdering people n completely different countries just because someone drew a picture, made a film, or wrote a book they didn't like.

Re:Build a wall

[stealth_finger]

Which Christian country enact this papal declaration? Right none. Troll harder, muslim apologist.

Vatican City?

Re:Times of Israel is ludicrous

[Sun]

It's a pretty straight forward question. Is Israel and Zionism mentioned in the Fatwa? If so, it is completely reasonable for different sources to highlight different aspects of the Fatwa. If not, then the Times of Israel has made up facts, which is a serious problem.

Which is it? I don't know. I couldn't find the original Fatwa, and I doubt I'd be able to read it if I did.

Shachar

Re:Huge Mischaracterization - Not promoting Darwan

[stealth_finger]

Wow, such insanity. Clearly Pokémon Go is promoting a Lamarckian Theory of Evolution, not a Darwinian Theory of Evolution.

I think it's just the word evolution they don't like, it's clear they don't understand the concept under any guise. I wonder if they'd have called them transformations they would still have the same beef.

Question

[easyTree]

Do people in SA raf slashdot?

Re: Question

[easyTree]

Do people in SA read slashdot?

Re: Question

[Cro Magnon]

Are they even allowed to read?

Religion is a mental disorder

[Opportunist]

At least it would fulfill every criteria in the ICD-10 F22.0 definition of delusion if religions were not explicitly exempt. Because, well, what's the difference between a delusion and a religion except the fact that a lot of people have the same delusion?

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[dskoll]

Not only is religion a mental disorder, it has the dubious distinction of being a communicable mental illness, which is something very rare indeed.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Opportunist]

That works for all the other delusions as well. Religions, cults, conspiracy theories, SJWs... same shit, different name.

In the end, they all claim to have the moral high ground, they claim they have the truth, they have zero problem with internal contradictions and anyone who dares to tell them that they're crazy, and offer logical, conclusive examples on why they are, are heretics/shills/whatever.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[jenningsthecat]

Not only is religion a mental disorder, it has the dubious distinction of being a communicable mental illness, which is something very rare indeed.

I'm not sure that communicable mental illnesses are so rare. Belief in things like racial superiority and class superiority, along with the various forms of servitude or outright slavery they engender, are also communicable 'social diseases'. Then there are various irrational 'fad' beliefs, such as those of anti-vaxxers. Hell, advertising and marketing are the commercial versions of mental disease propagation. (It's interesting that 'propaganda' and 'propagate' share a common Latin root).

Because we humans can communicate with a great degree of specificity and detail, various forms of mental, emotional, and intellectual health deficits are communicable. Language is a mental disease vector.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Empiric]

Mainly not a delusion by virtue of being true.

But yes, to state your position accurately, per the DSM, any viewpoint that is held by a majority of one's culture cannot be a "delusion", by definition. This is not limited to religions.

It can be wrong, it cannot be a delusion. Using delusional definitions of "delusion" does not alter this.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Opportunist]

A delusion is a belief that is held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or other effects of perception.

Not my definition, I copied from Wikipedia.

Do I need to point out that there are people who think that talking snake in Genesis is real? Despite irrefutable proof that snakes are incapable of speech...

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Empiric]

And what is your "evidence to the contrary"?

Here's some peer-reviewed evidence on my side while I wait for whatever standard non-sequitur you have to offer, showing "evidence" against a Straw Man theological position of your choosing.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Opportunist]

Anecdotic evidence isn't. If it was, we'd have more "proof" for the existence of aliens, the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot than even for God.

And I sure hope you don't expect me to provide proof that snakes cannot talk. Aside of not having the mental capacity, the lack of vocal chords, the lack of a mouth capable of producing a differentiated enough set of sounds... I mean, seriously?

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Empiric]

No, again, this is peer-reviewed, quantified, eyewitness evidence as provided by among the most respected medical journals in the world.

It is not anecdotal. It is a peer-reviewed study of the phenomenon. By your standards, even aside from that, no court case is ever valid, because all the witnesses are simply giving "anecdotal" evidence. It does not work like that. "Evidence" does not mean that.

As for the snake, firstly, I thought you were making a claim of evidence toward an actual philosophical position of wide scope, e.g. "God does not exist, and the belief is a delusion". If you are simply claiming evidence Genesis is an allegory, state that.

Regardless of that question, you are presenting as "evidence" simply a reiteration of the same basic premise--that there are no supernatural events. That is simply an unproven assertion, which, to be systematic about, science does not even address--except insofar that Quantum Mechanics verifies absolutely anything can happen, as a matter of basic physics, it's simply a matter of probability. The Newtonian physics that you seem to be relying on for your determinations, likewise, has no mechanism to even possibly demonstrate it accounts for all possible phenomena--in fact it is the very nature of any scientific theory that it is permanent left open to new observations by which to inform the theoretical model. Where is your evidence it didn't happen, since science itself says you can't make such a determination?

So, yes, I understand you're merely parroting Dawkins (I assume you can comprehend how 'parrot' is being used here), with this "delusion" characterization, but given that neither you nor he are actual authorities on psychiatry, and the ones who are (contrary to random Wikipedia self-appointed authorities) say directly that your usage of the word is scientifically wrong, I suggest reconsidering its rhetorical effectiveness. Along with your simple restatement in different forms that "supernatural things don't happen". Feel free to present your evidence for that premise, because that covers the entirety of what you are asserting.

Along the way, you might want to examine, personally, exactly why you don't focus on the fact that the text you are addressing asserts that snakes originally had legs, and then lost them, a biological progression only recently scientifically verified. You prefer to focus on "things I haven't seen don't happen, and somehow contrary to all science that means they can't happen and we know we will never see them". And you prefer to not make the slightest effort to formulate a preferable alternative within the context of what may be a) allegorical, or b) performed by other means. I have not the slightest expectation that assuming it is not allegory, the snake moved its mouth and used some snake vocal cords to speak. People even of that day would not write that down as if it were naturally plausible as a common occurrence. The snake is stated as the material presentation of an angel, that is, Satan. A form of spiritual, or mental, communication seems far more reasonable as to how the communication transpired, consistent with how it happens everywhere else in the bible. Nobody thought a burning bush had vocal cords, either.

You seek the view you consider most implausible as to what the intent of the story is, and then further insist on the least plausible, personally made-up specifics for you to simply claim would have to be the case for it to happen. Why do you do that? It shows not the least intellectual honesty, or even scientific integrity, for that matter.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Anonymous Coward]

No, again, this is peer-reviewed, quantified, eyewitness evidence

...evidence for what, exactly?

The link you gave sent me to a study about near-death experiences (NDE)

First, the link you gave asks me to create an account to see the whole thing. No thanks to that so I searched for a different site.

http://profezie3m.altervista.o...

From my link, it tells me that of the 509 cases from 344 patients, only 62, or 18% of patients reports some level of recalling NDE. Not a very high number. You can't even be that one in five dentist who won't recommend sugar free gum!

Second, even if we take that 18% at face value, so what? So what if NDE exists? An NDE isn't evidence for religion or the supernatural. People once thought comets and solar eclipses were supernatural, and those were a lot easier to observe. Now we have a better understanding of them. That there may be something out there that we haven't fully observed or understood (yet) is not evidence that the supernatural exists. If you think that proves something about the supernatural or God, you're essentially presenting a God of the gaps argument there

you are presenting as "evidence" simply a reiteration of the same basic premise--that there are no supernatural events

No, it is you who are operating under the same basic premise that he has to somehow prove a negative to you. How about you prove to me that there is no invisible teacup hanging out on the dark side of the moon?

The onus is on you (well, the religious) to prove that the supernatural, gods, or whatever else your holy book says is true, is true.

To not understand something so basic and to try and hide it with the diatribe that is the rest of your post, it is you who lack intellectual honesty and scientific integrity, my friend.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Empiric]

Well, we'll have to summarize here, since you are, to my view, not treating the material honestly and are doing the standard goalpost shifting to "proof" when "evidence" is what is at hand.

You made the positive claim, that religious people are "delusional". It's yours to back up. And in that, I won't copy your disingenuous demand for "proof", simply your own claim that you had "evidence to the contrary". Evidence will be fine. You have provided none of your assertion.

It is not my assertion that all people experience an NDE, particularly given that there's a range of what can be considered to constitute "death" from a scientific perspective, and it's only the spiritual definition that would be determinant. That it happens at all is remarkable. You know this to be notable. You know this is evidence. If you say otherwise, you know you are lying.

If, in fact, you check actual history and the documents of the religion under discussion, you will find there is no significant difference between what people considered "natural phenomenon" then, and what we would consider such now. We simply have more causal details. They did not think every instance of lightning was God's direct intervention. How life and death and aging "normally" worked was very clear. What they would say was a miracle then, and what things we would say were a miracle now, are exactly the same. This is the case even if we stipulated miracles don't exist, and again, this is the facts of the matter (historical, this time), of your parroted revisionist Dawkins/Hitchens non-history. We haven't "gotten smarter" about this, there is no evidence of any transition between what was "natural" then and what was "natural" now. Feel free to read the book to verify as a historical matter, since although you may choose to reject the content, you can't reject the writing as reflective of the perceptions of people as of that time.

"God of the gaps" is an entirely fallacious argument, by the way, and entirely so on the atheist side. It is internally logically nonsense, as constructed as an very poor argument of what theists do, which we don't, and only the atheist by throwing the claim is doing. No theist says the false dichotomy of "either the event is entirely supernatural, or we understand it". All supernatural events would have a material, natural component to the causal chain, and modern understanding those causal chains in more specific detail on a physics level alters nothing. As we progress in time, we do not move from "everything must have been a god doing it" to "now we know the material specifics, which excludes a god as an original cause". There is no such false alternative, in reality. Whether a supernatural agency did X or not, knowing more physics does not address that question. That false dichotomy is all yours, and the "intellectuals" you parrot.

And no, it in no way a requirement I prove it to you--that would be equivalent forced conversion. In other words, you absolutely do not want what you claim you want, "proof".

So, anyway, though I could just reread some Dawkins to get all the content of your brain, for you personally, I suggest reconsidering these before you get inevitably Naturally Deselected and irrelevant to this and every discussion. Your move.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[bigpat]

That works for all the other delusions as well. Religions, cults, conspiracy theories, SJWs... same shit, different name.

In the end, they all claim to have the moral high ground, they claim they have the truth, they have zero problem with internal contradictions and anyone who dares to tell them that they're crazy, and offer logical, conclusive examples on why they are, are heretics/shills/whatever.

Cynicism about other people's beliefs work that way too.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Opportunist]

Sorry, but a near-death experience can, by definition, not be peer-reviewed. I cannot verify or falsify in any way whatsoever whether you have a near-death experience. What you have here is people claiming that they have seen or experienced something. An interesting question now would be what religion they belong to and what expectations they had for death. I trust that you understand the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And if you dislike the snake example, take the "person gets nailed to a cross, dies, gets buried and ascends to the sky after three days" one instead. Or is that still an allegory? You might want to check if you're really a Christian, though, if you think so...

As for court cases, yes, you will notice that material evidence usually trumps witness claims. In other words, if you claim that I was with you throughout the evening but my DNA is found on the corpse, the judge would more likely assume that you're lying than that the DNA flew there in some miraculous way. In science, material evidence is the only permissible evidence. For the reasons I mentioned before: If eyewitness accounts were permissible, we'd have a lot of "proof" for aliens, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and the riders of the Apocalypse. People err and people lie. Twice so in a stressful situation.

As for quantum mechanics, yes, really odd stuff happens in that funky world of the subatomic. But that doesn't translate into our "normal" space. Tunneling may be common for quantum particles but I have never seen a ball pass right through a door. At least not without first breaking the glass pane.

And yes, snakes once had legs and lost them. But that doesn't happen in just 6000 years. You can't have both, an earth that's only a few thousand years old and evolution that takes thousands of generations for just a minimal change, and that only if there's a good reason for change.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

That it happens at all is remarkable.

Spoken like someone with zero understanding of neuroscience. You take a brain, you reduce its oxygen intake (as happens in the physically stressful situations that induce "near-death"), and you get hallucinations. No supernatural entities need apply.

Tunnel vision (including the cliche "white light") is very commonly reported among pilots pulling high-G, which is a nicely repeatable way of temporarily reducing blood (and therefore oxygen) flow to the brain.

You know this to be notable. You know this is evidence. If you say otherwise, you know you are lying.

My, that's a shiny crystal ball you have there. By your own testimony, you're clearly under the delusion that you know exactly what GP knows/thinks.

Typical theist LOLgic.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Empiric]

Check the study, the experiences are complex and well beyond "white light". It is wholly unrealistic, if you check the actual experiences, to dismiss them as simple brain failure.

And if you read the study, and assert otherwise, you indeed also know you are lying. It's manifestly obvious it is evidence, as much so as any other example of "evidence". Note, as well, that you have an alternate explanation, does -not-, in this case or any other whatsoever, mean it is not evidence for the original scenario. At best (from your perspective), it is then evidence for -both- possibilities. Pointing out the guy whose apartment has the smoking gun has a roommate, does -not- change the fact it is still evidence against the suspect.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Empiric]

Since most of this was answered to the other AC, or the OP, I'll address the part that wasn't.

As for "God of the gaps", you completely misunderstand what it is. A god of the gaps argument is one used by theists, and it has been used by theists, that because a scientist/atheist/whatever cannot explain X (yet), X is evidence for God/the supernatural. It doesn't require any theist to hold the false dichotomy you think people assume theists hold.

No, it's not. I have never once heard a theist state this in my life, and naturally enough, since it's a horrible argument. It have heard it used repeatedly and exclusively by atheists, as an empty claim of "what theists say". Well, we don't. I suppose if you simply make up our position, and argue against the resultant Straw Man, you're likely to be successful arguing with yourself. But let's take it down to the basics. That we know or don't know more causal attributes of an event says -nothing- about whether God is the original cause. No more than saying that if we describe nuclear fission in detail, that means President Truman didn't order the bombing of Nagasaki. It's an irrational claim, if made by a theist or an atheist, and I challenge you to provide a single theist who has.

The ball is in YOUR court on how to continue.

Okay, I wait, you get deselected, I win. Or, from your stance, the best you can say is we both lose. Feel free to choose either. I know the answer.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Empiric]

You cannot verify or falsify a great deal of science, vast amounts of which is, nonetheless, peer-reviewed. I presume you then no papers regarding the various Interpretations of QM are peer-reviewed, since which is accurate cannot be empirically verified?

You have a purely imaginary notion of science and most of the core attributes of it. Feel free to start with answering any of my first response, and show a basic understanding of what "evidence" apart from "proof" is, what QM agrees is possible, what a theory means, or... just anything. Failure to understand what "peer reviewed" means is simply an additional failure of your scientific non-knowledge.

Just even basic, I mean the most basic level of coherent thought and baseline honesty allows it to be clear that because I say something is an analogy, I am not saying everything is an analogy. You see clearly how stupid that claim otherwise is, no? Yes.

I have made no assertions of "proof", so try to avoid conflating "evidence" and "proof". Any thought you have following that is likewise irrational. Do we have "evidence" of aliens and Bigfoot? Indeed we do. Very poor evidence, and, as you well know, nothing for them remotely approximating a multiple-PhD authored, peer reviewed study as published in the Lancet. As -one- source of theistic evidence. People err and people lie, true. You have given no reason they would in this case. In no other case can you dismiss hundreds of eyewitness reports with a smarmy "people lie", either.

It doesn't translate into our normal space... so, then, quantum computing is an impossible lie? There can be no macro-scale effects of quantum behavior? Do tell, how you know this. You can make a killing in the market short-selling these companies. You can spend the money in this universe that, according to the only viable position left to you, is -entirely- a macro scale effect of quantum behavior. Perhaps it doesn't exist, then?

I have made no claim it happened in 6000 years, I am in the camp of theistic evolution. Again, point at whatever Straw Man you wish, your generalized dismissal of theism does not in any way logically follow. And, in fact, evolutionary evidence has shown such changes in far less than 6000 years, Peppered Moths happened in 50 years, according to mainline evolutionary theory. But if the topic is religion, oh, then no, that's an impossibly short timeframe.

Is there a topic somewhere you can address honestly or correctly?

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Opportunist]

I remember how David Copperfield once made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Hundreds of people were witness to this spectacle. Does that mean that this is evidence for him to really make it disappear? Or were hundreds of people subjected to an illusion? They wouldn't even lie, they have seen it! They have been eye witnesses of it being gone. Hundreds of people. How many do you need for evidence to be credible? Does it depend on the reputation of the person, would it be more credible if I trick the mayor of New York into believing it?

To have any scientific value, it would first and foremost have to be repeatable, falsifiable and make predictions that will come true without fail. Dependence on humans is simply not working because you introduce not only a random element but also use an instrument that isn't calibrated.

Concerning quantum mechanics, I'm not a specialist in QM, but I'll try my best. There are a few effects in QM (like the aforementioned tunneling) that has only been observed in QM. Never in the classical mechanics. That doesn't mean that it doesn't exist in QM, it only means that obviously there are different effects working in QM than in CM. We, or at least I, don't know (yet) why this is the case. It is not an impossible lie, it is just something we need to work on to understand why it happens. What I know is two things. One, we have observed particles that should not be able to overcome obstacles due to a lack of energy accomplish this in QM, and we have never observed objects that have insufficient energy to overcome obstacles do this in CM. What that's possible in QM, we'll find out. Maybe someone already knows, I don't know.

You should also note that the degrees or reputation of someone has no influence on the validity of his claim. Whether Stephen Hawking or I make a claim about the inner workings of a black hole is insignificant when it comes to the consideration of the evidence presented. We'd both have to present the same compelling evidence to give our hypothesis merit. In practice, it's likely that any crackpot idea I offer would be laughed off, mostly because he has shown that he knows a thing or two about those things. In the end, though, his title means jack when it comes to providing evidence. Claims without evidence are dismissed without examination. Regardless of who made it.

And yes, some organisms can evolve in less than 6000 years. Not snakes, though. We're not talking about an organism that has a generation cycle of a few minutes like a bacterium!

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Empiric]

To have any scientific value, it would first and foremost have to be repeatable, falsifiable and make predictions that will come true without fail.

This is flatly untrue. Stop misrepresenting and damaging science.

There is, like it or not, a great deal that is in the scope of science that is not directly testable. QM Interpretations, for one. Most any anthropological conclusion, as the circumstances are not replicable. Domains where results are, and can only be, statistical, and not "every time", such as sociology. I know you want a personal definition of science that just happens to match precisely what you need it to, to feel you can exclude theism. If you wish to simply be wrong about science, feel free. Don't damage others' understanding, however.

Logical Positivism has thoroughly addressed this, running aground decades ago with a very systematic attempt to frame science, and reality, in the context of notions like "everything is falsifiable, or else wrong, or at minimum unsupportable". It was an utter failure, and you repeating this course (along with your favorite atheist thought-leaders) will likewise result in failure. That battle is over. "Is Beethoven a better composer than Mozart, or vice-versa?" Frame that scientifically, and answer it. Or, recognize this along with a vast number of domains you encounter every day, is outside of the scope of science. This is why I find it difficult to credit you with honesty--it is literally impossible that you apply the same criteria to religion as you do to your other thoughts every single day. You are attempting to make science synonymous with epistemology. It is not.

Never in the classical mechanics.

See, here is the issue. You make claims representing science that neither science would accept, nor are even logically coherent. How do you know this? Psychic powers? You see, presumably you consider me someone rhetorically applying theological assumptions to science--that I'm saying such things as "a theory means a theory" because I'm attempting to weaken some assertion. No, in fact, this is derived entirely from my secular science education. If someone stood up in the classroom and announced, "we shouldn't be calling these 'theories', we should be calling them 'facts'"... they would have been laughed out of the room, and not for theological reasons, but because this violates and misrepresents the basic nature of science. We explicitly -do not know- what observations will be made in the future, or new observations regarding the distant past, and to claim otherwise is to introduce -psychic assertions- into the core of science. Yet, this is precisely what Dawkins, Hitchens, Nye, Tyson, and the rest of their crowd do on a regular basis, for political and philosophical, not scientific, reasons. You can with the smallest effort find statements by all of the above which are based on untestable inference, not science. So, agreed, first thing is the baseline of what constitutes "evidence", and what constitutes "science".

Your current notions of both, are simply wrong. Testability is a scientific positive. Falsifiability is a positive. However, these do -not- scope science. Logical inference from data and tested knowns are also validly in the domain of science, and to deny this would be to chop away so much of science it would be unrecognizable. As well as stopping future science at the root, since formulation of a hypothesis -always- precedes formulating a test for it, by definition. You are suggesting "science" may not include its own established methods--which absolutely include a scientist thinking something is likely true based on inferential assumptions of his knowledge domain, -before- a test can be performed or can even be defined. That's the reality. "Science" is indeed happening there, even when it isn't testable, and that interim period can last decades. Still science.

As for the 6000 years, you'll have to provide some basis for saying snakes could not evolve another characteri

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Opportunist]

Like it or not, reproducibility is one of the corner stones of the scientific method. Basically whether you consider this true or not means jack shit. If you cannot reproduce it, if it doesn't offer any test that allows me to reproduce or falsify your findings, don't expect me to call whatever you do scientific.

And don't make it dependent on me, it's basically how science works.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Empiric]

Reproducibility is one of the main principles of the scientific method.

Well, your link. A "principle" is not an absolute requirement, and scientific method is a -subset- of science.

Read down in your own link for cases of domains that are definitely considered science that currently have reproducibility issues. Still science.

Or, note any of my previous examples that are definitely science without entirely reproducible propositions.

Or, well, get a clue. I feel comfortable saying that since you'll have no choice. As you encounter actual science as actually practiced, no other result can happen.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Opportunist]

Yeah, yeah, and a "theory" is just some bullshit some bozo dreamed up.

When you learned terminology, we'll talk again.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Empiric]

No need. You've demonstrated your inability to address anything substantive about these topics, with the 30 or so points you've skipped over so far due to complete inability to respond.

Your pithy little conclusion won't change the reality, reviewable by anyone. You don't know terminology, you don't know the theoretical structures involved, you understand neither the philosophy of science, nor science itself.

You know that whatever it takes, your "science" must protect you from reality and the evidence within it you prefer to run from. Fortunately, you can't damage religion, and you can only damage science to a limited extent, before you get naturally deselected. Fair enough.

Re:Religion is a mental disorder

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

The fact that you claim that hallucinations cannot be complex and cannot include other delusions besides the common "white light", is yet another data point that proves you have zero understanding of neuroscience.

Funny, isn't it, how these supposed "near-death-experiences" of believers in other religions are consistent with their religion, not Christianity. Oh, but knowing about that inconvenient fact would mean you would have had to have read and understood more on this topic than just one logically laughable article.

Bleat on, deluded theist, bleat on. I've heard it all a hundred times before.

But I've spent enough time feeding this particular troll. So long and thanks for all the laughs.

Re:OH NO!

[Opportunist]

So religions have to age and season? Like cheese, when it reeks it's finally ok for consumption?

Re:I once met a guy who would not let his kids go

[Opportunist]

But worshiping people nailed to crosses that die and respawn after 3 days is fine.

Yeah, I know that kind of loony.

Great minds

[GeekWithAKnife]

I banned Pokemon because I thought it was shit.

I didn't even need to reach into the ether and draw parallels with it supposedly promoting Zionism.

Fucking Pikachu, I somehow knew he was up to no good but now I have proof?

I think a review of Zionist promoting things should be conducted so we can ban them all...although, I do wonder...

If religious people in Saudi believe god created everything, who are they to say god does not prefer people choose to be pure rather than use the evil, Zionist promoting pokemon?

Next step for Saudi, ban thinking. They already did all the thinking for you. Don't worry about it.

Re:Fatwas have a number?

[Opportunist]

I wonder if there's a collection you can read up, I bet that should provide some entertainment and enough material to run a YouTube channel about it, showing off what you cannot do in Saudi Arabia because it offends their imaginary buddy.

Re:Fisting.

[Opportunist]

I'm fairly sure there's a Fatwa that clearly states they cannot.

They should be embarrassed

[Maritz]

But they aren't. We truly are the only animal smart enough to believe in fairy tales.

Re:Huge Mischaracterization - Not promoting Darwan

[michelcolman]

They must suck at trigonometry then.

Masonry organization?

[EmagGeek]

I believe the word you are looking for is "Masonic."

I have no idea what this fatwa has with bricklaying.

"Rarely find a card?" What are they smoking?

[mysidia]

You rarely find a card that does not contain such a star. It is associated with Judaism, ...."

Pokemon is a video game.... there are no cards....

Also, what is the deal with countries passing Anti-Semitic laws targeting to ban the practice of Judaism?

There should be a global embargo against such countries, which have no respect for human rights....

Re: Triangles have been around

[Anonymous Coward]

since early Egypt and much earlier.

Christianity has got nothing to do with triangles, squares, other shapes or any other symbol except the cross.
Even the cross was actually used by the Romans to punch people, and the Christians found it to be an good symbol for an anti-Roman movement.

I have been in Saudi Arabia, and it has many buildings with triangles and masonic-like symbols...

I would rate your comment as funny, not insightful.

Re:This kingdom has to go

[Gilgaron]

The Saudis will continue to have "assets, power in the world, and religious influence in the region." Maybe the royal family there could get the axe from a populist movement, but as a whole they'll never recede in prestige. Look out how Christian fundamentalists millenialists talk about Israel.

Here you go...

[denzacar]

21758

The reasons stated for banning are, in this order: gambling, evolution, use of religious symbols of other religions ("six-pointed star of Judaism", "the cross", "angles and triangles - Masonry", "Symbols of the Shinto creed").

So... the "Zionism-promoting" thing is invention and interpretation of Times of Israel, as neither Zionism nor Israel are mentioned in the fatwa.
Other than that, the entire thing reads like any other religious edict of any religion - detached from reality, one leg in conspiracy theories and religious paranoia, other leg firmly cemented in mental issues.

Re:I once met a guy who would not let his kids go

[Cro Magnon]

My GF was told that, possibly by one of her relatives. I gather from some stuff she'd said that some of them are religious loons.

Re: Triangles have been around

[Andtalath]

I found it quite funny that you wrote punch instead of punish =)

Re:Huge Mischaracterization - Not promoting Darwan

[Empiric]

"When you see your likeness, you are pleased. But when you see your images which came into being before you, and which neither die nor become manifest, how much you will have to bear!"

Prior art, by about 1800 years.

Does sound more Darwinian than Lamarckian, though, true, and accurately capturing the eventual social controversy. Got to catch them all.

Mass shooters and Terrorist shooters- same effect

[Anonymous Coward]

So frequently one will attack people, saying that it is for Islam, but then everyone will say "it wasn't really, he's just insane".

I think you have this backwards. If a Muslim guy kills half a dozen people, the media headlines say "Terrorist Attack"! If a random white guy kills half a dozen people, the media story says "Another mass shooting by an insane guy." But the number of "insane guys" who do mass shootings outnumbers the number of Muslim guys-- thousands of killings by ordinary Americans, versus a handful by Muslims..
(source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-... )

A harder question is: why are Americans so terrorized, when the actual threat is trivial? http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2...

Moral Panic

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Do you not remember the moral panic in the 1980's over Dungeons and Dragons? Or the Judas Priest subliminal message trial?

All society's suffer from this sort of insanity from time to time.

Re:This kingdom has to go

[serviscope_minor]

Somebody needs to tell them that it's not a Star of David, it's a sheriff's badge.

No, that just proves that sherrifs and by extension America is just a tool of the Zionists.

Re:Huge Mischaracterization - Not promoting Darwan

[avandesande]

The underpinnings of your religion must be pretty weak if it is threatened by such minor contrivances.

Re:Huge Mischaracterization - Not promoting Darwan

[Toad-san]

And HEY, look at that "swoosh" icon! Are they promoting the wearing of athletic shoes as well?

Follow the Money

[stoicio]

When the world stops trading goods with them. (ie: buying oil)
The only reason these countries have leadership who adhere to this nonsense is they use it to control their personal economic position in society. Run them out of financial capital and the incentive for philosophical control dries up.

Thank you

[Chrisq]

"Haven't you noticed, muslims are often completely insane?"

Fuck off. There is nothing wrong with Muslims or Islam you racist piece of shit.

If someone is committing a terrorist act claiming that they are doing it because they are a Muslim or in the name of Islam it is bullshit. Islam is peaceful. They are either lying about being muslim/islamic or they are a Zionist stooge.

Thank you, I had forgotten the "they blame everything on the Zionists" to add to the list of muslim insanities. You obviously suffer from a lot of them

Re:I once met a guy who would not let his kids go

[apoc.famine]

My crazy catholic aunt did this. Harry Potter = Witchcraft and is bad. Narnia = good because christian allegory. Lord of the Rings = good because childhood memories of reading the books. D&D = Super Bad Witchcraft Evil. It still makes my head hurt to this day.

Darwin?

[TsuruchiBrian]

Maybe it encourages belief in somebody's theory of evolution, but it sure as shit isn't Darwin's.

Re:Huge Mischaracterization - Not promoting Darwan

[Outta_the_way_peck!]

And who ban words with the letter 'X' in them because the X resembles a cross.

Shouldn't they be banning words with the letter "t" then? Or are they those obnoxious people that always use all caps?

Re:Huge Mischaracterization - Not promoting Darwan

[thoromyr]

got a citation for any of this? I'm just curious, because this is the first I've heard this particular myth.

Out of curiosity, could you point out which Arab letter is an 'X'? (You *do* realize, I trust, that Arabic uses its own script?)

Re:I once met a guy who would not let his kids go

[mark_reh]

Yeah, that's pretty nutz, but this person was a different sort of loony.

Re:Build a wall

[Anonymous Coward]

meanwhile the republican's are doing their best to ban the teaching of evolution themselves, as well as global warming