The Shrine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_(convert)

I need to either stop watching the news, or move to a large, uninhabited-by-humans forest wilderness very soon, I think. People are beginning to turn my stomach.

I don't know, I think that's kind of funny. But when I read your topic I thought he was converting to Paganism =P

"Ha ha, look at that guy facing death for trying to exercise his most basic human rights?"

I don't get you sometimes, Seek. Your sense of humor is pretty warped.

I was really pissed about this when I first read it, but thinking about it more, I don't know really what the Western world can do about this.

If the guy were bright, he would've gotten the hell OUT of Afghanistan and then declared his conversion...I mean, that seems like a pretty basic thing to be able to figure out. I'm pretty sure Muslims have been doing that for some time, but it's still just utterly fucking frightening that this is still a crime over there.

They think he's crazy, so he may get off because of it. If not, though, it basically means he's getting killed because he's trying to speak freely about his most personal beliefs on how the world works, which is pretty damn sad.

Screw a religion that won't let you leave. Seriously.

The Bible has Quran beat any day of the week. The penalty for things as trivial as planting two crops in the same field or wearing clothes of two different materials (such as cotton polyester) is death by stoning (which is essentially death by torture).

Also, for what reason should I have written anything else? Nothing I say or do really matters anyways. I don't think this guys situation is any more severe than the situations of the hundreds of millions of chuildren who are starving to death around the world because they just happened to be born into poor families who lack the means of contraception (whether by cultural belief, or just simply because they can't afford it).

There is nothing wrong with what I said, I have no idea why you took offense to it considering that there isn't anything you can or will do either. Neither you nor I have any power.

The Seeker wrote:The Bible has Quran beat any day of the week. The penalty for things as trivial as planting two crops in the same field or wearing clothes of two different materials (such as cotton polyester) is death by stoning (which is essentially death by torture).

These and the other provisions you're talking about, which have anachronistically harsh penalties for trivial crimes, are not practically enforced in any "Christian" country I know of, whether officially "Christian" or simply mostly made up of the same. I doubt anyone is about to say the Pope ought to be put to death for wearing vestments made out of two fabrics, for instance. Not so in this case.

The Seeker wrote:Neither you nor I have any power.

Regarding this particular situation, you are quite correct, probably. In the long term, I firmly believe that is not really true. I post things like this so we all know what's going on in the world. There will be other issues of contention between Islam and the West, some of which can lead to conflict, war...

Today, though, I need to finish cleaning my own living space up before thinking about trying to aid anyone else's, of whatever kind, so we can probably leave it...

Mental wrote:

The Seeker wrote:The Bible has Quran beat any day of the week. The penalty for things as trivial as planting two crops in the same field or wearing clothes of two different materials (such as cotton polyester) is death by stoning (which is essentially death by torture).

These and the other provisions you're talking about, which have anachronistically harsh penalties for trivial crimes, are not practically enforced in any "Christian" country I know of, whether officially "Christian" or simply mostly made up of the same. I doubt anyone is about to say the Pope ought to be put to death for wearing vestments made out of two fabrics, for instance. Not so in this case.

The Seeker wrote:Neither you nor I have any power.

Not now, but Christians have executed people before on religious grounds. It is still a part of the book even if it is not enforced by Christian nations now. It's just that Afghanistan is socially different from nations here.

Also I just want to add, you can't blame me for taking things lightly when there isn't really anything I can do about it. Now if some wealthy person who had business holdings in Afghanistan said the same thing, then certainly he is an asshole =)

Are you absolutely sure you're never going to haul off and kill someone?

Then again, last week I read an article about Mexican children who dance in clown suits on street corners to get money to buy glue to sniff because it will kill their hunger pangs, closely followed by an article about how an increasing number of election districts in the U.S. are gerrymandered because politicians are dead-set against giving up their power.

I spent the next two hours walking around my mom's pool, until I could calm down to the point where my head wasn't filled with revenge fantasies of inserting fishhooks into the eyes of lobbyists and corrupt politicians and pulling them out and watching "justice juice" pour out of their ruined eye sockets. So maybe I'm not really the best one to talk...

For what it's worth, this guy is getting off on grounds of craziness. Interestingly, most of Afghanistan's public is overwhelmingly supportive of killing him - "We will not allow him to insult us by converting to Christianity" was one of the quotes.

It's really frightening, to me. At least if someone stops believing all the Christian verbal fecal waste about how only Christians will go to heaven in the afterlife, they don't kill him anymore if he converts...

I swear, sometimes I think this life is some sort of hell or purgatory, and that I must have done something truly horrible in a past life to be living in this as my plane of existence. Not because my life is so bad - really, it's not, and sometimes it seems like it's becoming better than I ever dreamed possible - it just seems sometimes like all the good acts I see people doing are just drops in the bucket compared to the raging hatred, ignorance, and intolerance that are just roiling everywhere like a great sea...

Mental wrote:Are you absolutely sure you're never going to haul off and kill someone?

No, but it is quite unlikely that I would do that for this man. Nor do I think it is likely that it would make any difference to his fate (though I am sure I would be royally fucked myself, and I would have ruined someone elses life, as well as possibly a families'). If that is the point you were trying to get at, it's late, I may have read things wrong. =)


Also, on your last post: Yeah there is a lot of things that we would deem as bad or evil. In my experience, I have found that there are a lot of things in this world that are well worthy to be seen as good or wonderful.

I love listening to you two argue. I just wish I had more time to read it.

I think Seeker and I may be like matter and antimatter. If we ever got too close to each other in person, we'd probably just spontaneously combust and leave a huge crater...

Nev wrote:I think Seeker and I may be like matter and antimatter. If we ever got too close to each other in person, we'd probably just spontaneously combust and leave a huge crater...

Lets just stay away from large cities then =)