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

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

Sorry, couldn't resist

[Tablizer]

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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...

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: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.

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

[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.