Monday, October 26, 2009
Religion There Is No Morality Without Religion
Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 9:21 AM
A Saudi court has sentenced a Saudi woman, Rosanna Al-Yami, to 60 lashes for her work on a Lebanese news program that broadcast an interview with a Saudi man who bragged about his sex life, losing his virginity at 14, and his collection of sex toys. That man, Abdul Jawad, has been sentenced to 1000 lashes. The female journalist who is going to get 60 lashes? She used to do some work for the Lebanese news program but she had nothing to do with the particular episode of "A Thick Red Line" that featured the controversial-for-that-sandy-shithole sex interview and had nothing to do with setting up the interview.
Kinda makes you want to fly slowly over Saudi Arabia tossing out sex toys and sprinkling bacon bits from an open cargo door.
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4
Oh, Dan, you just have no imagination. Given a slow-moving plane and an open cargo door, I'd opt for tossing out copies of the Koran smeared with shit. What the hell - if you're gonna piss 'em off, do it right.
5
I always suggested bombing them with pigs. Give half of them parachutes. That way, you have live pigs streaming though the streets, covered in pig guts.
7
I know it's disgusting but please, less of the bacon bits stuff. Look what you bring out of the woodwork with stuff like that.
12
@ 3 - You beat me to it, Laurel. It's gotta be REAL bacon bits, like that sold by homo-owned Hormel.
13
Honestly, the US of A is Saudi's bitch and it's been more than obvious since 9/11. Saudi's can do no wrong in america's eyes, as long as that oil keeps making the government rich
14
Yes, she was sentenced...and immediately pardoned. There's no question that Saudi Arabia's sex phobia is fucked up (sexual content is illegal on TV or in newspapers, magazines, and books) but misrepresenting the facts doesn't help the situation.
16
Actually, the case was dropped, but the judge sentenced her to 60 lashes to "set an example". Then the king stepped in and pardoned her. See, the system works!
17
@13, quite the opposite. The only reason we are finding out about internal Saudi shit is becasue they supply us oil. How many stories do you see about such things from countries that are not strategically important?
18
Religious scholars generally agree that writing a single definition that applies to all religions is difficult or even impossible, because all people examine religion with some kind of critical eye, and the term is therefore fraught with ideological consequences for anyone who might want to construct a universal definition. Talal Asad writes that "there cannot be a universal definition of religion ... because that definition is itself the historical product of discursive processes"[5]; Thomas A. Tweed, while defending the idea of religion in general, writes that "it would be foolish to set up an abstract definition of religion's essence, and then proceed to defend that definition from all comers."[6]
The earliest definition of religion is from Johnson's Dictionary, which simply calls it "a system of faith and worship". Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl, commonly translated as "a feeling of absolute dependence".[7] His contemporary Hegel disagreed thoroughly, defining religion as "the Divine Spirit becoming conscious of Himself through the finite spirit."[8] Clifford Geertz's definition of religion as a "cultural system" was dominant for most of the 20th century and continues to be widely accepted today.
http://www.learningquranonline.com
The earliest definition of religion is from Johnson's Dictionary, which simply calls it "a system of faith and worship". Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl, commonly translated as "a feeling of absolute dependence".[7] His contemporary Hegel disagreed thoroughly, defining religion as "the Divine Spirit becoming conscious of Himself through the finite spirit."[8] Clifford Geertz's definition of religion as a "cultural system" was dominant for most of the 20th century and continues to be widely accepted today.
http://www.learningquranonline.com
19
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
~~Lennon, 1971
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
~~Lennon, 1971
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