On the Afghan response to the Florida BBQur'an

“A believer wounded by the nonbelievers. A nonbeliever wounded by the believers.”

Cited in Le Devoir

During his first year in office, President Barack Obama justified his decision to send an additional 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan by declaring, “We’re in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer.” Recalling the perpetrators of the September 11^th attacks, he said,

As we know, these men belonged to al Qaeda – a group of extremists who have distorted and defiled Islam, one of the world’s great religions, to justify the slaughter of innocents….

[S]hortly after taking office, I approved a long-standing request for more troops. After consultations with our allies, I then announced a strategy recognizing the fundamental connection between our war effort in Afghanistan, and the extremist safe-havens in Pakistan. I set a goal that was narrowly defined as disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al Qaeda and its extremist allies, and pledged to better coordinate our military and civilian effort.

Islam-inspired extremism, then, is the enemy thus defined. Fast forward to April Fool’s Day last week, when over one thousand rioters in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif were certainly not fooling when they killed seven United Nations employees and beheaded two of them. This was the mob justice meted out in response to the burning of a Qur’an by a pastor in Florida, quite obviously a development with which the UN workers had nothing to do. Clearly, Obama is right to be concerned about “al Qaeda and its extremist allies,” but what is particularly instructive about this savagery is that it occurred in a city that is under the control of the US-backed government led by the corrupt Hamid Karzai, who according to a New York Times article, actually helped incite the rioters:

Both Afghan and international news media had initially played down or ignored the actions of [Terry] Jones, the Florida pastor. On Thursday, however, President Karzai made a speech and issued statements condemning the Koran burning and calling for the arrest of Mr. Jones for his actions. On Friday, that theme was picked up in mosques throughout Afghanistan.

“Karzai brought this issue back to life, and he has to take some responsibility for starting this up,” said a prominent Afghan businessman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution if he was identified as a critic of the president.

If it’s extremists President Obama is after, he need look no further than the Karzai government he supports; not to mention the depravedly excitable people of Mazar-i-Sharif, who represent not an insubstantial faction of religious zealots who are not in an officially designated terrorist organization. With citizens of a US-allied government like these, who needs al Qaeda?

- Max

Muslim savages behead UN workers in Afghanistan in response to Koran burning in Florida

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan — Stirred up by a trio of angry mullahs who urged them to avenge the burning of a Koran at a Florida church, thousands of protesters overran the compound of the United Nations in this northern Afghan city, killing at least 12 people, Afghan and United Nations officials said.

The dead included at least seven United Nations workers — five Nepalese guards and two Europeans, one of them a woman. None were Americans. Early reports, later denied by Afghan officials, said at least two of the dead had been beheaded…

Unable to find Americans on whom to vent their anger, the mob turned instead on the next-best symbol of Western intrusion — the nearby United Nations headquarters. “Some of our colleagues were just hunted down,” said a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Kieran Dwyer, confirming the attack.

New York Times

Once again Islam’s theocrackpots have held up their “religion of peace” for all to see. What does it say about the level of fanaticism when the desecration of a Koran by redneck pastor Terry Jones, (who last year threatened to, but ultimately did not burn the Koran) thousands of miles away can whip up a mob up into a homicidal frenzy to the point where its members feel justified in targeting anyone who appears to be from the West?

Here’s one fascist trying to explain the situation:

A prominent Afghan cleric, Mullah Qyamudin Kashaf, the acting head of the Ulema Council of Afghanistan and a Karzai appointee, also called for American authorities to arrest and try Mr. Jones in the Koran burning.

The Ulema Council recently met to discuss the Koran burning, Mullah Kashaf said in a telephone interview. “We expressed our deep concerns about this act, and we were expecting the violence that we are witnessing now,” he said. “Unless they try [Terry Jones] and give him the highest possible punishment, we will witness violence and protests not only in Afghanistan but in the entire world.”

So it isn’t these infantile Muslim sadists, with their uncanny inability to handle news of an isolated incident of blasphemy in some faraway land, who have the problem. It’s the United States, with its freedom of speech and expression. It’s because Terry Jones and every other American has the right to physically and verbally trash the Koran, the Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita, or Tuesdays with Morrie from now until the First Amendment is repealed.

Of course some liberals will be inclined to condemn not just the murderers themselves, but Terry Jones as well. Not me. While Jones’s religion is also bunk, and I have no doubt that he is probably one of the most ignorant hayseeds in the hemisphere, the man has a right to do what he did. Only a true miscreant would take such umbrage as to say he has blood on his hands. The collective psychosis on display in Mazar-I-Sharif is a display of barbarism that can only be explained by the irrational devotion to Islam.

Fuck the Koran, fuck Mohammed, and fuck Islam, which is a heinous, evil abomination.

- Max

Atheism and morality (Part 2 of 3)

In my previous post I addressed the oft-repeated claim by believers that god/religion/holy books provide an objective moral benchmark by pointing out that this morality is hopelessly vulnerable to selective and flawed execution. I hasten to add that even when such principles are universally applied, the results are frequently ghastly. One need only think back to the time when the Catholic Church, with its absolute standards of morality, reigned supreme over Europe. This epoch is called the Dark Ages for a reason, and the presence of an objective system of morals was of no consolation to those who were persecuted in accordance with its precepts.

Rabbi Adam Jacobs claims that when Sam Harris and other atheists condemn the Taliban (or anyone else) for engaging in objectionable behavior, they are betraying the principles of atheism, which for Jacobs includes rampant moral relativism. This is because atheism is the rejection of deities, and for him deities are the only things capable of advancing objective moral guidelines. By implication, the theist is in a far better position to decry as immoral the acts of the Taliban. But does not the Taliban feel its actions are guided as much by their understanding of divine law than Rabbi Jacobs is of his? In this regard, the problem is not godless moral relativism, but competing religious moral absolutisms.

Not content with accusing atheists of nihilism, Jacobs hurls this insult:

“At the end of the day, the reason that I can agree with many of the moral assertions that these atheists make is because they are not truly outgrowths of their purported philosophies, but rather of mine. I would suspect that the great majority of the atheistic understanding of morality comes directly or indirectly from what is commonly referred to as the Judeo-Christian ethic. I have not yet found an atheist who is willing to follow his or her convictions through to their logical conclusions (outside of sociopaths like Jeffrey Dahmer who was at least honest enough to say, ‘I always believed the theory of evolution as truth that we all just came from the slime ... if a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges?’ [sic, no closing parenthesis]”

There you have it. Neither Jeffrey Dahmer nor Rabbi Adam Jacobs can imagine a reason for behaving oneself in the absence of a supernatural entity that promulgates and monitors morality. I suppose what the rabbi is confessing here is that if he stopped believing in god today, he would turn into Mr. Hyde—or Jeffrey Dahmer—tomorrow.

As to Jacobs’ contention that the morality of atheists is in fact the residual influence of the “Judeo-Christian ethic,” that is wishful thinking and spoken like a true arrogant religionist. Read the books of the Old Testament and see how much of the “Judeo-Christian ethic” you actually assent to or would deem fit to teach a child for that matter. These books are replete with god-sanctioned genocide and homicide, contain obscure commandments that not even the most ardent of the faithful follow or even know about, and prohibits certain sexual activity that only a truly neurotic deity could care anything about, among other abominations. It should also be added that of all the commandments found in the Old Testament, not one says anything like, “Thou shalt not rape.” I am quite certain that Sam Harris, other atheists, and Rabbi Jacobs himself think that rape is bad, but if that’s the case, then on whose authority do they form such an opinion?

If the bible contains any provisions which have been codified in the laws of our modern society, this is only a happenstance. Believers pick and choose which commandments they follow as evidenced by their following of rules not put forth by the deity, and their neglect of those that are. The implication here is clear: humans are capable of forming a set of morals independent from divine sanction.

Not only does Jacobs conveniently ignore the selective application of his beloved objective morality, he fundamentally misunderstands evolution:

“Is not [Christopher] Hitchens an ardent supporter of the tenets of Neo-Darwinism that necessitates the perpetual death struggle within all species at all times? Shouldn't he in fact believe the precise opposite of what he claims? Survival of the fittest does not suggest social harmony.”

A more fatuous point would be difficult to imagine. Anyone who has stopped often and long enough to observe wildlife will notice that a general peace exists among animals of a particular species, and often animals of different species. In my travels I find that squirrels are the most abundant mammal, and I see several of them each day. And yet, not once in my years of observing thousands of squirrels have I observed one squirrel attacking another. This is not to say this doesn’t happen or that squirrels do not kill one on another on occasion, because they surely do. However, squirrels have no sense of divine morality, and so according to Jacobs’ logic, there could be no expectation of social harmony among these creatures. And yet there is. Take any species. No doubt it happens that rams or giraffes or sharks, etc. attack each other (especially when females are involved), but these are rare occasions. No population of species whose members are engaged in a “perpetual death struggle” with each another would last very long. Without question living things are engaged in a competitive struggle, but rarely must the survival of a member of one species involve the demise of another member of same. In many cases, it is quite the opposite.

- Max

Part One

Atheism and morality (Part 1 of 3)

Consult a preacher about morality and he will tell you that like everything else, it is a gift from god. Without this divinely imparted sense of right and wrong, you will be told, all would be lost. There would be no standard for human behavior other than for each person to act as his own conscience dictates. Without this god-given morality, the world would be marred by chaos, uncertainty, and unspeakable acts. A true Hobbesian jungle in which there is no “objective” way to view human behavior.

Such is the critique by Rabbi Adam Jacobs on Huffington Post, which seems to have an endless supply of rabbis and other unimaginative clergymen whose thinking is limited by a belief in celestial magic. I am not very much interested in specifically critiquing Rabbi Jacobs since he makes a charge against atheists that so many others have made and will continue to make. I will however, quote one relevant paragraph because it typifies this kind of accusation:

“What I do not yet understand is why [Sam Harris] (or any atheist for that matter) makes so many moral proclamations. The average atheist makes certain basic assumptions about reality: that we all exist as a result of blind and purposeless happenstance, that free will is illusory, that there is no conscious ‘self’ and that there is no objective right or wrong. As Dr. Will Provine has said, ‘[as an atheist] you give up hope that there is an imminent morality…you can’t hope for there being any free will [and there is]…no ultimate foundation for ethics.’”

He goes on to say that to be an atheist is to be amoral because atheism does not allow for an objective standard of morality. According to Jacobs, only theism can provide this much needed behavioral benchmark. And so any pretense on the part of atheists to be able to judge right from wrong is actually a subjective exercise because, well, on whose authority are such judgments being made?

This is the reasoning of a slave. The notion that a divine engineer is necessary to provide universal norms of behavior is one that recurs everywhere—among Jewish populations, Christian populations, Muslim populations, and so on. Such is the purpose of religion, to provide an explanation for life—its nature and meaning, as well as how it ought to be lived. This is morality by revealed wisdom. No thinking necessary.

One immediate problem with Jacobs’ view is the sheer of volume of disagreement on moral questions that believers in god have amongst each other. Take for example, the Ten Commandments, the most famous and perhaps the most important divine moral instructions for those in the Judeo-Christian tradition

The Sixth Commandment admonishes, “Thou shalt not kill.” This seems a straightforward dictum. And yet believers of all kinds cannot seem to agree on a whole range of issues in which this commandment is a central concern. Ask a group of Catholics, or Protestants, or Jews about the death penalty, or if and when it is ever morally acceptable to use lethal self-defense, or if it is ever right to kill in war. See if you can find a uniformity of opinion with respect to any of these questions, even among members of the same faith.

Or take, “Remember the Sabbath; to keep it holy.” Jews and Christians do not even agree on which day the Shabbat falls. Nor do they agree on what kinds of activities can be performed on that day. And while we’re at it, why is it that Christians and kosher Jews do not see eye to eye on the matter of pig consumption? They are after all praying to the same Yahweh.

How about, “Honor thy father and thy mother”? What form shall this honoring take? Is the honor to be bestowed even on those parents who are negligent or abusive? What exactly is so “objective” about this or any of the aforementioned instructions? One could go on in this fashion for days, but I’m sure you can think of your own examples of Biblical or Koranic ambiguity. Clearly, even when morality is assumed to emanate from divine wisdom, these rules still lend themselves to subjective interpretation.

Granted, Jacobs and his ilk might very well concede the above points without agreeing that they have damaged the contention that atheists must necessarily be amoral or that divine sanction is a prerequisite for moral objectivity. One of the more interesting (and wrong) arguments I’ve heard that defend this position admits that religion is flawed because it is a “human endeavor,” which is to say it’s as corruptible as anything else. In which case, what is religion for?

- Max

Part Two

The faitheism of S.E. Cupp

The underrated Cambridge philosopher G.E. Moore once mused on the absurdity of stating a fact, but then claiming to believe its opposite. For example, the sentence, “S.E. Cupp is attractive, but I don’t believe she is,” while not a contradictory statement in and of itself, nonetheless conveys contradictory ideas. A statement like this is an absurd declaration that no rational person could utter with any sincerity. To assert A is to believe A (unless one is lying). Notice that what matters is not whether A is actually true or false, but whether A is being asserted or not. In a similar fashion, it is equally absurd to assert not-A, but believe A, e.g., “I didn‘t get an email from John, but I believe I did.”

Thankfully, real-world instances of Moore’s Paradox are few and far between, if they exist at all. But Cupp, the popular conservative columnist, author, and self-proclaimed atheist dangerously straddles the line demarcated by Moore’s Paradox that separates the world of rational thought from the world of total incoherence. There may not be another creature like her on the planet. Whether she truly holds wildly contradictory beliefs about faith and atheism, or, by calculated contrivance is carving out a profitable niche for herself as a nonbelieving defender of the faithful, we cannot know for sure. All we have are her words on the subject, and they make no sense at all.

Everything you need to know about atheist Cupp, author of Losing Our Religion—an attack on atheists (you heard right)—and her brand of nonbelief can be gleaned from this portion of an interview she gave to C-SPAN in 2009. Explaining her rejection of religion, she told interviewer Brian Lamb:

“I didn’t buy it. It wasn’t for me. But I’m envious. I’m envious of the faithful. So I defend the faithful, especially the Christian Right in America at every opportunity I get….I haven’t closed the door on faith. It just hasn’t found me yet.”

Yet?

“I don’t believe in a higher power of any kind. No deity whatsoever. I really believe that when I die I go in the ground like every other animal and that’s that.”

That’s good.

“I aspire to be a person of faith one day.”

What? What does that even mean? Becoming a person of faith isn’t like becoming a CPA. There’s no training or certification process. To say you aspire to be a person of faith one day makes as much sense as saying at some point you hope to be a postmodern feminist. Here’s a person who’s basically saying that she sees no good reason for believing in a deity, but that one day she hopes to believe in a deity that presently she does not think exists. In other words, “God doesn’t exist, but I hope I will believe he does.” Cupp hasn’t contradicted herself here, but this view is nevertheless bizarre.

The interview takes an even stranger turn when she starts heaping praise on George W. Bush:

"I’m a fan of George Bush…I think he had a conviction, personal principles that required him to answer to someone else when he went to bed at night. Not to the state and not to himself. I don’t see the same kind of reverence in some of our other recent presidents. Barack Obama included. Bill Clinton included. That gives me comfort as a citizen, knowing that my president is going to bed answering to a higher power. So he’s thinking about the decisions he’s making, not just because they’re going to affect him and his legacy, but because he has someone or something to answer to. I really respect that. And I think that whether you liked his policies or not, he really did what he thought was best for the country. And I think that’s really really rare."

At this point, Lamb asks what is no doubt on just about every viewer’s mind. Here is the rest of the exchange:

Lamb: If you don’t believe at all, why would you then follow somebody that has that as their way of life?

Cupp: As an atheist, I could never imagine electing, voting for an atheist president for exactly those reasons. I mean, religion keeps a person who is endowed with so much power honest. This is a person who is answering to a higher power every night. And not to the state. He doesn’t think that the state has all the power and he doesn’t think he himself has all the power. That’s important to me. I mean, I represent two percent of the world. Why would I, why would I want someone who thinks that 98% of the world is crazy running the country?

Lamb: [Composed but incredulous] But you don’t think that that higher power exists.

Cupp: I don’t. But I don’t think people are crazy. I understand the allure of religion. I really do. I’m just not going to be dishonest and say I believe in something I don’t yet.

Lamb: But what if he’s hearing voices all the time and taking advice from a higher power that doesn’t exist in your opinion, and makes decisions based on the higher power that doesn’t exist in your opinion?

Cupp: Well, I mean, people’s faith—it’s very personal, and I don’t judge the way that people use their faith to inform their decisions. I really don’t. We can judge him on his policies, whether he heard it from a voice in his head, he got it from the bible, he had a conversation with Laura one night over dinner. I mean, it doesn’t really matter to me. I’d like to judge the policies on face value.

Sensing an impasse, the interviewer moves away from Cupp’s whirlwind opinions on religion to spare the audience from further decreases in IQ.

Several statements stand out here. Let’s start with,

“That gives me comfort as a citizen, knowing that my president is going to bed answering to a higher power.”

Now, it’s one thing for Christians or Muslims or other theists to say this. After all, they believe in said higher power. But what about Cupp, who doesn’t? What are we to make of the person who essentially says, “I don’t believe in a higher power, but I’m glad the president answers to it”? As Lamb pointed out, she doesn’t believe in that higher power, so how could that possibly give her comfort? If anything, it should concern her that her president is getting guidance from a nonexistent entity. One has to seriously wonder whether Cupp thinks that a schizophrenic who receives instruction from benevolent voices is better qualified for the presidency than an atheist.

Her response is full of specious generalizations and tacit self-deprecation:

“As an atheist, I could never imagine electing, voting for an atheist president for exactly those reasons. I mean, religion keeps a person who is endowed with so much power honest. This is a person who is answering to a higher power every night. And not to the state.”

First of all, Cupp says she is an atheist, which is to say she believes that religion is false and deities are nonexistent. Yet simultaneously she insists that believers in such falsehoods are the only ones qualified to be president precisely because they believe in god. Ok?

Second, Cupp is claiming that the religious are made more honest because they believe in what she herself thinks is a false doctrine.

Third, the idea that god kept Bush honest is betrayed by his administration’s penchant for mendacity and deception. Also, how honest and decent are the ruling mullahs in Iran being kept by their higher power? Or the 9/11 hijackers? Or the people who blow up abortion clinics and murder doctors in the name of their higher power? And what about the fact that Bush’s former top advisor, Karl Rove, is an atheist? Rove was arguably the most influential man in the life of Bush the candidate and the Bush president, and yet he answered to no higher power.

Fourth, implicit in Cupp’s assessment is an admission that she would not vote for herself for president because she presumably would not be kept honest by a higher power since she does not believe in one. In which case, how could we trust anything she says?

But Lamb hits a home run with his question, “But what if he’s hearing voices all the time?”

Realizing she can’t reason her way out, she backtracks somewhat, now saying she judges the president based on his policies. She’s a conservative, and so if a president has conservative policies that match up with her political beliefs, she’s going to view him favorably. As she just said, she takes a policy at face value, and said it doesn’t matter how he arrives at it, whether “he got it from the bible [or] he had a conversation with Laura one night over dinner.”

So Cupp goes from saying that only believers should be president, to admitting it doesn’t matter how the president makes the decisions he does, just as long as they make for good policies, which for her means “conservative,” while seemingly maintaining her position that atheists like herself shouldn’t be president.

What do we call this position, where a person believes that what she believes to be false must be believed as true by another as a prerequisite for being awarded a special privilege, in this case the presidency? (I suppose this take would be fine if Cupp viewed holding the presidency as some sort of detriment or punishment.) Boiled down to its bare bones, Cupp’s view is,

“Atheism is true, and atheists should not be elected because they believe atheism is true.”

Or

“Faith is false, and only the faithful should be elected because they believe faith is true.”

Nonsense? Absurdity. Craziness? Cupp’s Conundrum?

Call it whatever you want, but I know what I’m calling S.E. Cupp: a faitheist.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Islamic Theocrackpots At It Again

You’ll have to kill me first.

The latest Islam-inspired violence can be found in southern India, where on Tuesday a mob of Muslims (not pictured) rioted “because a local newspaper published what it said was an article by controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin challenging the traditional Muslim veil as curbing women's freedom.”

Oh the humanity.

Muslims vandalized shops and smashed automobiles, displaying their “religion of peace” for all to see. Two people have died, one of which was shot by police. Although a quasi-democracy, India occasionally curtails freedom of speech to ensure that Muslims do not have to learn to tolerate those who wish to criticize their wretched religion:

Nasrin’s work has sparked trouble in India in the past.

She fled Bangladesh for the first time in 1994 when a court said she had “deliberately and maliciously” hurt Muslims’ religious feelings with her Bengali-language novel “Lajja”, or “Shame”, which is about riots between Muslims and Hindus.

Reuters

Oh the irony.

These riots come less than two months after the bombing of Catholic churches in Malaysia by similarly offended Muslims, and less than a month after

Malaysian authorities...caned four Muslim men and, for the first time, three Muslim women this month after being found guilty of having sex out of wedlock.

The move to cane the women under the country’s Islamic Shariah laws has raised fresh concerns about the growing political and judicial influence of Islam in what traditionally has been one of the world’s more moderate Muslim nations.

The vibrant, resource-rich country came under intense international scrutiny last year after a Shariah court sentenced 32-year-old Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno to be caned after she was caught drinking beer in a hotel bar.

The Wall Street Journal

This is what we are up against. And I do not mean “we” as in “Americans.” I’m talking about those of us who are anti-theism, pro-liberty, pro-beer-drinking, anti-caning, and pro-fucking, both in, and out of, wedlock. Islam is a disgrace and ought to be rejected outright by every decent person. While I am aware that most Muslims do not commit violence, the book on which their faith is based teaches that women are inferior and may be struck, that apostates must be slain, and that war must be made upon infidels. Thankfully, most Muslims do not abide by these horrendous commands, which begs the question, why do they continue to identify with a religion to which they are morally superior?

Perhaps another question for another time. Suffice it to say, there are millions if not billions of people around the world who are better than the religions they practice and preach. The problem for unbelievers isn’t so much about getting theists to become less superstitious, but about getting them to realize this simple point: that the “great” religions of our day are relics from antiquity, grounded in bigotry and ignorance, and collectively represent one of the more shameful chapters in human history.

When will we turn the page on religion?

- Max

Happy Islamic Valentine's Day!

Well hey, at least the ban on cards and flowers seems reasonable.

This picture was taken a couple years ago at Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad, A.P., India by the author of an anti-Islam website. Apparently this poster was placed right outside of a park that was full of cute Indian couples doing their best to ignore it and enjoy a bit of privacy. They must have been blissfully unaware of the price that their ignorance will cost them. The same goes for all of you heathen infidels out there.

So I hope you all enjoyed showering your lovers with candy and flowers today, for it will surely cost your souls an eternal penance in blazing hellfires.


~Wolf

Islamic Speech Police Strike Again

AFP

Islam is so backwards and despicable, that its practitioners in Malaysia have actually managed to get me to defend Christians.

Today in Malaysia, three Christian churches were firebombed with Molotov cocktails because it was rumored that church officials have been saying—not defaming, not desecrating, not cursing, but simply saying—the word “Allah.” The attacks came about a week after a court ruling which angered many Muslims:

A Malaysian court had last week overturned a government ban on non-Muslims using the word “Allah” in their literature, allowing Roman Catholic newsletter, the Herald, to use the term to refer to God in the Malay language.

The judge has since suspended the implementation of the ruling, after the government appealed the ruling and the Roman Catholic church agreed to the suspension.

Al Jazeera

Will the Malay government give in to this terrorism? There is talk of amending the country’s constitution so that non-Muslims will once again be legally prohibited from uttering the name of god. The level offense taken upon hearing an infidel speak the deity’s name is so ludicrous, so senseless, so unfathomable, that I am at a loss for words. I suppose I could try to comment somewhat extensively on the matter, but there is no need to insult your intelligence with superfluous declamations about the necessity of free thought in a civil society. No, that will not be required here. The story says it all.

Although we should probably send a few million copies of Mill’s On Liberty to Kuala Lumpur ASAP. Does anyone know if there’s a Malay translation in print?

- Max

Islam Is A Heinous, Evil, Abomination

Islam in action.

Despite eight years of U.S.-imposed “freedom” in Afghanistan, the women of that country remain one of the most oppressed people on earth. As a result of the Taliban resurgence, and also the rise of Islamic fundamentalist factions in the Afghan government, the picture looks grim for the women there:

Afghan women are among the worst off in the world, violence against them is “endemic” and Afghanistan’s government fails to protect them from crimes such as rape and murder…

“Women will not seek help because of their fears of police abuse and corruption, or their fears of retaliation by perpetrators of violence,” said the 96-page [Human Rights Watch] report, which is based on 120 interviews from different Afghan provinces...

The report cites cases where rapists have been pardoned by the government, girls and women have been imprisoned for running away from home, rape victims have been charged with adultery and where women in public life have been murdered.

It comes a week after the United Nations said violence and rape against women in Afghanistan was a problem of “profound proportions.”

Reuters

The Taliban may no longer be in power, but the legacy of Sharia law is alive and well. After all, the Qur’an teaches,

Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in their sleeping places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.

Shakir’s translation of the Koran, Quran, 4:34

This is pretty clear instruction. Disobedient women are to be literally beaten into submission. In instances of noncompliance in the bedroom, the Afghan government has given men the legal remedy of denying their wives food and drink if they refuse to have sex with them. Of course, that drastic action is likely rendered unnecessary by the fact that Afghani men generally have fewer qualms about raping their wives than men elsewhere. In fact, there is no specific provision in the Afghan legal code that criminalizes rape. Even if there were, the political and social culture in that country is such that rapes would garner no serious attention from authorities.

Naturally, the craziness is not just confined to Afghanistan. From today’s Jordan Times:

The Criminal Court prosecutor on Saturday charged a 36-year-old man with the premeditated murder of his younger married sister the previous day in the latest so-called honour murder in the Kingdom, according to official sources.

The 34-year-old victim, who was nine months pregnant, received seven fatal stab wounds to different parts of her body, allegedly inflicted by her brother, one senior official source told The Jordan Times.

The suspect then headed to the nearest police station, handed the knife he allegedly used in the incident to the officer on duty and claimed “family honour as his motive”, the source added.

The Islamist said he stabbed his own sister because he thinks she was committing adultery, and on top of that, she often left the house without her husband, i.e., unsupervised!

This is nothing new. An “honor killing” is carried out when a woman has shamed—or has been perceived to have shamed—her family by committing some awful deed, such as disobeying her husband, walking in public without a male escort, or getting raped. The killing is committed when some virtuous Muslim man or men, take it upon themselves to rectify this abhorrent state of affairs by stabbing, stoning, beating, or shooting the offending woman to death.

Recently, in Somalia, a young woman accused of adultery was murdered by the local militia, which was simply enforcing Sharia law:

According to reports from a small village near the town of Wajid, 250 miles (400km) north-west of the capital, Mogadishu, the woman was taken to the public grounds where she was buried up to her waist.

She was then stoned to death in front of the crowds [which were about 200 strong] on Tuesday afternoon.

The judge, Sheikh Ibrahim Abdirahman, said her unmarried boyfriend was given 100 lashes at the same venue.

BBC

Even in America, these “honor killings” have been perpetrated, with six documented cases in the past two years.

Some might object that Islam is actually a religion of kindness and peace. Bullshit. Islam is no more peaceful than Christianity. The Qur’an is so broad and vague and contradictory as to justify virtually any disgusting practice, including the murder of me and my ilk:

Allah is an enemy to unbelievers. - Sura 2:98

Slay them wherever ye find them and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. - 2:191

O Prophet! Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites. Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey’s end. - 9:73

It is perhaps too sanguine of me to hope that Islam itself is headed for a hapless journey’s end anytime soon. While not all Muslims act in such a destructive and wicked manner, Islamic extremism is simply a symptom of the disease of Islam. And in several ways, the religion is actually worse than a disease. Can you recall any disease that infected one billion people worldwide? Do you know of any disease where the afflicted generally wish to remain ill?

By far, the most important question is: What prospects for success does the vaccine of reason have for inoculating the sick?

If our country with its own (less dangerous, Christian) extremists is any indication, the answer is, very few. god help us!

- Max