Monicks: Unleashed

Tag: religion

  • Sentenced to death for adultery… by stoning.

    Unless you live in another planet, you must have heard about the global outcry over the imminent execution by stoning of Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani.

    According to CNN:

    “Legally it’s all over,” Ahadi said Sunday. “It’s a done deal. Sakineh can be stoned at any minute.”

    Sadly, this is not an isolated case. Granted that it’s been a while since the last time a woman  was stoned to death in Iran, at least officially, this is not the first and won’t be the last case of abuse and repression of women. This shouldn’t be happening at all, anywhere in the world. This kind of tragic, brutal, barbaric repression against women in the Muslim world must be stopped. It requires the commitment and dedication of entire societies to wipe out systemic abuse of women.

    One thing I cannot keep myself from recalling, is that these people ‘learned’ this execution method from the Qur’an (Koran) – their own holy book.  Islam is a much greater threat to the physical integrity and culture of the entire world than Christianity currently is – I wouldn’t know where to place Islamic barbaric executions compared to Catholic priests child abuse, but I digress. This, I’m afraid, might not be the case in the near future, with the rise of Christian extremism, it has become urgent the need for awareness of women’s rights. Instead of patting ourselves on the back for how civilized we are, we should be more vigilant.

    Would it be too off to say that once you control women, you control all of mankind? Without women (the means of reproduction) there is no human race to subdue. This is the groundwork of any fundamentalist religious affiliation.

    What would you do if it was your mother, your daughter, your sister or your best friend sentenced to death by stoning for adultery? Sadly, there’s not much you can do in Iran.

    Let me tell you how this execution method works:

    Ashtiani, 42, will be buried up to her chest, according to an Amnesty International report citing the Iranian penal code. The stones that will be hurled at her will be large enough to cause pain but not so large as to kill her immediately.

    This makes it clear that the purpose of stoning is to inflict pain in a process leading to slow death. No, we’re not back in the dark ages, this is happening today.

    This is why we need our secular voices to be heard. Speak up, people. We must strive to make a difference.

    Send a letter to the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani, urging him to end the use of stoning as a method of execution in Iran. Let’s try to help.

    This is happening here, in our world, to our species.

    It infuriates me to think that some people keep telling me that religion doesn’t cause any harm.

  • Can Jesus Make A Burrito So Hot He Couldn’t Eat It?

    Even the cartoon character Homer Simpson (who posed this question) has a philosopher within. And though he is not exactly the paradigm of reverence, the question is a real one for any philosophically reverent person. For one of the first properties that believers ascribe to God is that He is omnipotent or all-powerful, which means at least that there is or could be nothing God cannot do. And here is where Homer’s question fits in—or at least a somewhat more reverent version thereof:

    Can God create a stone so heavy that He cannot lift it?

    There are only two possible answers here: yes or no.

    Suppose, first, we say no. But then there is something that God cannot do: create such a stone. And if there’s something He cannot do then He is not omnipotent after all.

    So suppose we say yes. If God can create such a stone then there could exist a stone so heavy God could not lift it. But then there could be something God cannot do, namely lift that stone. And if there could be something God cannot do, then again He is not omnipotent after all.

    Some try to avoid this conclusion by insisting that God simply never will make the stone, so there never will actually exist the thing He cannot do. But this doesn’t work. To be omnipotent, it’s not enough that there happens to be nothing He cannot do. Rather, there could not even possibly be something He cannot do. And if He can create that stone—even if He doesn’t— then there could be something He cannot do, namely lift it.

    Since yes and no are the only possible answers and each leads to the same conclusion, then either way there is no omnipotent being. So if God is supposed to be omnipotent it follows that there is no God.

    That’s some powerful burrito!

  • This guy is kind of a jerk.

    Trying to find some news about the prognosis of Christopher Hitchens’ condition, I stumbled upon this little piece posted today by Andrew Sullivan, Hitch’s Cancer.

    Here’s his whole post:

    I’m devastated by the news. We need Christopher around for a long, long time. I do not know the details and understand his need for privacy. But he seems in good spirits if this classically British understatement is symptomatic of his mood:

    “I have been advised by my physician that I must undergo a course of chemotherapy on my esophagus. This advice seems persuasive to me.”

    May the God he believes poisons everything be with him. And a simple word of encouragement: surviving a potentially fatal disease can be a form of liberation. I look forward to an even more liberated Hitch.

    Maybe it’s just me, but I find his “good wishes” insulting. What an awful thing to do, using the opportunity of someone’s terrible, scary, potentially fatal illness to insist on pushing his religious beliefs.

    Or maybe this just exposes Sullivan as the complete moron he seems to be, whether  he didn’t read the book he’s referring to, or he didn’t understand what Mr. Hitchens wrote on his book’s very title “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.”  which is, in itself, a complete statement of disbelief.

    That I hope Mr. Hitchens can overcome this terrible and painful illness, goes without saying.