The poor boy is Mohammad Anwar, 15, of the Hujra Shah Muqeem district in Pakistan. We're told the villagers celebrated him and his parents expressed pride, but they are the ones who made him feel that he needed to make an even bigger gesture with his hand than the impulsive, mistaken indication that he did not pray. Their celebration and expression of pride cloaks what should be shame. They terrorized him into doing that violence to himself.
Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in Pakistan, an Islamic republic of some 200 million, where even unproven allegations frequently stir mob violence and lynchings.Accused of blasphemy, how was he supposed to save himself? He only did what was rational under the circumstances.
ADDED: I pictured this:
A young man is caught in a predicament where he figures out that he must cut off his hand to save his life.
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158 comments:
Let's import this culture. I mean, what could go wrong?
Rational only to Muslims of the takfiri persuasion.
The Salem Witch Trials were models of Enlightenment compared to this.
The multiculturalists will tell you that you need this sick death cult to enrich your culture. They've given chunks of the UK over to them, with more to come. Who is sicker, the Pakistani muslims or the ones who invite them?
@Michael K
I am not saying the villagers were rational. I am saying that what the boy did can be understood as rational -- and I mean that we can all see him as rational if we understand his circumstances.
Once you have a system in which everyone is afraid of punishment if they don't outwardly manifest religious belief of a particular kind, then you have a dynamic that everyone enforces. In fact, the villagers each as individuals may be behaving rationally, even though as a group they are terrible and doing something extremely harmful to individuals. It's easy to judge them from afar, but try to think about what you would do if you were in the middle of system that immediately punished perceived blasphemy with a lynching. Would you not pretend to believe? Would you even bother to maintain a free mind in which you knew you were only pretending? Would you use your mind to pursue a more accurate understanding of the truth, an understanding that you could not use and would need to hide in the village where you were stuck? In my opinion, if you believe that about yourself, you are lacking in empathy, and as such, ironically, you are more likely to behave like the people you think are different from you.
Let she who is without sin cast the first Franco
Let me go/Let I go.
The sickos wailing for mobs to go out and kill infidels or kill apostates or kill the slightly liberal neighbors just so they can be proud of their special pure doctrines are such non=human degenerates that empathy for them is not possible.
The only empathy feeling they get is a resolve to find them and kill them all.
Since he misheard the question perhaps he should've just chopped off one of the ears that deceived him.
Easier to go through life missing an ear than missing a hand.
Perhaps he could even turn to painting.
I am Laslo.
More than any other faith, the faith of the Mohammedans is one of conformity, of falling in line. Some wonder why Islam has not undergone reformation, as the Catholic Church did. This is why. To question Islam is to question the prophet and puts one under sentence of death for blasphemy. Islam is "reformation proof" because once men have tasted killing, they are willing to kill more. Killing blasphemers is not only acceptable but encouraged.
Liberalism is rather like Islam. Both demand conformity of thinking, and punish those who think outside of the approved train of thought. Look at how people who once held the same position on same-sex marriage as Barrack Hussein Obama, but haven't evolved as he has, have been driven from their jobs.
Cult behavior. Pretty well studied. I always recommend Eric Hoffer's little gem, "The True Believer."
As the good Professor points out, these systems are stable (within a bounded space). In chaos theory they are "strange attractors" and their behavior follows a (loosely) determined trajectory. People in such systems find it very hard to escape, and because of the mutually-reinforcing messages and incentives they mostly cannot or will not even imagine escaping. What does emerge from the system is stunted, sterile, sometimes pathological.
We will be asked to fund a campaign #NewHands for Medecins Sans Frontieres but then the Taliban will execute the surgical team the same way they shoot polio vaccine workers.
"In fact, the villagers each as individuals may be behaving rationally, even though as a group they are terrible and doing something extremely harmful to individuals."
It's not just cutting off hands. Muslims are attacking immunization centers in Pakistan to try to prevent the eradication of Polio. Uttar Pradesh, a Muslim majority state in India, has been the last holdout for Polio in the world. It seems finally to be eradicated but the war on civilization does not stop.
Suicide bombers are rational by your definition.
"Once you have a system in which everyone is afraid of punishment if they don't outwardly manifest religious belief of a particular kind, then you have a dynamic that everyone enforces" These are comforting generalizations--once you have traditionalist bitter-clinging yokels, who knows what evil they will do--that evade the particular horror of the situation. The predicament is Islam. The punishment is doctrine. The enforcers are Allah and his Prophet.
Superstitious 'tards.
you have a system in which everyone is afraid of punishment if they don't outwardly manifest religious belief of a particular kind
And this is why the West will fall to Islam. We no longer understand the hold that Faith can have on people, and so we underestimate it and dismiss it.
This boy will move mountains for his religion. And the West no longer has the moral certainty or cultural values to stop him and offer a better alternative.
"but try to think about what you would do if you were in the middle of system that immediately punished perceived blasphemy with a lynching."
I'd take the first donkey out of town.
Yes, Islam is a wonderful, benign, life-fulfilling religion.
Why do you ask?
The Spanish Inquisition over the span of several centuries killed less than five thousand heretics. The French Revolution knocked off that many in a season, and the Russian Revolution topped that number in an afternoon........Being politically incorrect is our form of blasphemy. As of yet, we're not quite as fervent as Pakistani villagers, but we're on a slippery slope and accelerating.......It is blasphemous to express reservations about Muslim immigration. It is the opinion of the pious that such people be banned from public life, but perhaps more stringent measures are needed. If Donald Trump were stoned to death in the public square, I think we would all learn to be more tolerant.
"but try to think about what you would do if you were in the middle of system that immediately punished perceived blasphemy with a lynching."
Too many observations/jokes regarding leftist dominated institutions in the west....circuits overloading....requires immediate shutdown and reboot...
I wonder if this story is even true.
Sebastian: "The predicament is Islam. The punishment is doctrine. The enforcers are Allah and his Prophet."
The apologists are the western leftists.
All cultures are not of equal value.
The great flaw in mindless multiculturalism has been failure to recognize that some cultures are destructive of freedom. Religion is not the only cultural manifestation that can require an outward manifestation of a particular kind to avoid punishment. The political correctness mania that has infected American academia is a current example. Indeed most cultures are conformist to some degree, but often the punishments are mild, subtle or informal. In its mildest form this phenomenon simply results in persons of similar affinities congregating. (Think American Wasps and pseudo-wasps.)
In our country we have outlawed some formalized expressions of this exclusionary action by anti discrimination laws. Overall we have a embedded culture of freedom that can counterbalance the human tendency to authoritarian conformity, and laws to support that culture. Places like Pakistan lack this history and structure. This is damaging in dramatic and subtle ways, including this example.
Bob B.: what's the difference between "true" and "even true"?
Religion of peace.
"Once you have a system in which everyone is afraid of punishment if they don't outwardly manifest... belief of a particular kind, then you have a dynamic that everyone enforces."
Take out the word "religious" and you have every society. We just pick different patterns of rationality.
What he did sounds horrid and absurd to us, of course, and it should. But that's very curious in our society where plastic surgery is a massive way of life. Where we're told to celebrate people who through surgery and drugs change themselves into being the gender they feel they are, and they're getting encouragement to do so from those within their "villages." We have massive health crises related to stress to perform to get cars, homes, etc. that are far outside our budgets, just because we want to show off to friends and classmates from thirty years ago.
Success in a system often means doing something stupid to those who aren't committed in that system. But the people in that system don't care. Who was going to help Mohammad Anwar live a better life besides those in his system? Now, he's likely going to be a hero of sorts.
Same thing happens in gangs in our inner cities, in gangs in our best universities, in academia where people cut out large swaths of their creative thinking to keep their jobs. Etc. and so on. Every field has this temptation. And most of us are missing our metaphorical hands. It's a very driving motivation to do what we think we have to do in order to survive and most of us leave a significant part of ourselves behind in order to keep up in the systems.
Which isn't to justify or excuse it. A missing metaphorical hand is usually better than a missing real hand. But people are people. I know people who would be a lot better off to their families and friends if all they left behind was a hand.
Those of you who are trying to capsulize this problem as belonging to Islam are yourselves inhumane. It's very hard to break out of a culture that gets into this dead end. What are people supposed to do? It's heartless to simply announce that a reformation is needed. An individual inside the system might be able to get to that realization, but then what is he supposed to do? At other points in history, other religions, including Christianity, have gotten stuck in this place. Distancing yourself and blaming Islam is plainly unChristian, so your smugness is unusually disgusting.
Bob Boyd said...
I wonder if this story is even true.
My thoughts also.
@Ann,
It's heartless to simply announce that a reformation is needed. An individual inside the system might be able to get to that realization, but then what is he supposed to do?
We could invade their country, and impose a new non-Islamic political order.
Which is closed to Muslims, who must pay a special tax for being non-Muslim.
"It's heartless to simply announce that a reformation is needed."
Heartless or not, what other solution is there?
Sometimes you must cut your loses and thumb
The Professor wants an answer to being trapped as a death cult follower.
The answer is now and always will be Bold Free Speech. Which is why the battleground for a Muslim's freedom from the Death Cult will be striking down the Blasphempy Laws in Sharia, that the UN has even enacted for Islam. That censorship called Sharia respect is goal #1 for Obama's Gang in favor of proving Americans accept Mohammed's Death Cult as a regular Religion.
Ask Salman Rushdie about that battle to name Islam and speak truth about it. Ask a traveler into Saudi Arabis with a Bible in his Luggage.
But remember, you racists, the problem isn't Islam!
Ann, you are so wrong. It is Islam that is inhumane here, not the people pointing out the blindingly obvious; that this action was the direct result of Islam as practiced. Stuff like this is hardly an isolated incident, confined to some obscure sub-sect of Islam, the equivalent of Branch Davidians.
The dismissal of reality by you is what's scary here. He can't even just say "Oops my bad, I thought you were asking 'who prays'" and the Imam the says "That's ok buddy, you are forgiven." No, he has to CUT OFF HIS FUCKING HAND, or face a trial that will result in him being put to death for MISUNDERSTANDING A QUESTION. And then you have to gall to say this isn't a problem with Islam?
If Islam isn't the problem, then what is he being accused of "blasphemy" of? Lack of faith in Jah, or Buddha?
Quit trying to find some obscure reason, other than the very rigid practice of Islam in established Islamic countries, to excuse Islam for the results. You're being extremely PC here and you are wrong.
This is what Islam is. This is what Islam does.
"The answer is now and always will be Bold Free Speech. Which is why the battleground for a Muslim's freedom from the Death Cult will be striking down the Blasphempy Laws in Sharia, that the UN has even enacted for Islam. That censorship called Sharia respect is goal #1 for Obama's Gang in favor of proving Americans accept Mohammed's Death Cult as a regular Religion."
I agree that the single best change is freedom of speech, but you have to get to that point. It's not easy. How can you do it? How did we get there? It wasn't easy! And Americans don't even value it and care for it the way we should. Why would people in the grip of belief in the problem of blasphemy ever make the leap? If people think their immortal soul depends on cutting off the voice of the devil (or whatever), how do you get to freedom of speech? Maybe the speech gets in anyway and people hear enough that they want more, but it's a long, long road in a place where minor speech infractions have been getting the death penalty.
I have American commenters on this blog who accuse me of speaking in the voice of the devil and who condemn me just because I've supported equality for gay people and women.
"Those of you who are trying to capsulize this problem as belonging to Islam are yourselves inhumane." Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. But I only pointed out an error: to attribute to the general failings of a closed culture the particular horrors that emanate from Islamic teaching. [Leaving aside here whether, as BB pointed out upthread, this story is even true.]
"Distancing yourself and blaming Islam is plainly unChristian, so your smugness is unusually disgusting." Boohoo. But no, I am not distancing myself at all. I feel tremendous solidarity with all the victims of Islamically motivated cruelty, including the many Muslims who suffer its impact. Nor do I exclude the possibility of a true reformation of Islam, but unfortunately the likes of Abdullahi An-Na'im and Khaled El Fadl (yes, some of us study this stuff) are still a small minority. And by the way, since I am not a Christian, better pick a better slur next time. Orientalist? Islamophobe? Neocolonial antisubalternist? Defamer of the Prophet? Kaffir?
What the linked story didn't tell you is the kid had this weird third hand growing out of the top of his head that would sometimes spasm, standing up and waving as though it had an important question or knew the answer to one.
The presence of this weird, spasm-prone hand had been sort of bugging the kid for a while, I guess. He had EVEN talked to his friends about at cutting it off before, but hadn't followed through.
The incident in the mosque apparently steeled his resolve.
Do the Doubting Thomas types believe the story about Malala Yousafzai?
“We are not against Malala herself but we are against her ideology,” Shahidullah Shahid told The Telegraph by telephone from an unknown location.
“Anyone who campaigns against our religion and criticizes Islam, like she is doing with her secular ideology, is our enemy and so we will target her again, and again,” Shahid added.
Original Mike,
"Heartless or not, what other solution is there?"
War.
Distancing yourself and blaming Islam is plainly unChristian, so your smugness is unusually disgusting.
So who do we blame?
Who do we blame for 1,300 years of constant warfare against Western civilization and Christianity?
Who do we blame for the conquest of the Holy Lands and the destruction of the Byzantine Empire?
Who do we blame for the conquest and occupation of Spain?
Who do we blame for the bombing of the Beirut barracks or the capture of the Tehran embassy?
Who do we blame for the attacks on the WTC?
Who do we blame for the constant terrorist attacks around the world today?
Who do we blame for the demand for, and constant struggle for, an Islamic caliphate that covers the whole world?
Who do we blame for the hundreds of millions of men who would rape, subjugate and enslave you in a heartbeat simply because you are a Christian woman?
That young American man who cut off the hand that was trapped behind a rock has had some difficulties since then. He was convicted of some petty crimes and before he was sentenced the judge asked him for an explanation of how he went from national hero to miscreant in such a short time. The young man shrugged and said "I don't know, your honor. I'm stumped."
Washington Post headline:
Bill banning child marriage fails in Pakistan after it's deemed 'un-Islamic'
I wonder if this is even true!
"I have American commenters on this blog who accuse me of speaking in the voice of the devil and who condemn me just because I've supported equality for gay people and women."
Yes, and they're nuts too.
"Those of you who are trying to capsulize this problem as belonging to Islam are yourselves inhumane."
Yes and let's invite thousands of them to move here and impose their "problem" on gays and trannies here.
And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.
What percent of Americans do you think believe that sometimes the devil speaks through the voices of human beings?
@original mike
Is the Pope crazy?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-modern-pope-gets-old-school-on-the-devil/2014/05/10/f56a9354-1b93-4662-abbb-d877e49f15ea_story.html
I hear that clock wants to come back to Texas.
clock boy
"What percent of Americans do you think believe that sometimes the devil speaks through the voices of human beings?"
As long as they remain nonviolent, I'm not overly concerned. The issue with Islam, in my opinion, is the percentage that act out on their beliefs to the harm of others.
"So who do we blame?"
Abraham. The man should have believed God and not tried to force the issue of succession.
Uttar Pradesh State is most certainly not majority Muslim.
As per published figures its about 20% Muslim, which is above average as Indian states go.
Uttar Pradesh is THE India of popular imagination BTW. Much of English language literature about India takes place there, and so defined the image.
"What percent of Americans do you think believe that sometimes the devil speaks through the voices of human beings?"
I am not aware of the Bible telling it's followers to kill those they believe are speaking for the devil. Islam, on the other hand, tells it's followers that it is their duty to not associate with and to kill, infidels.
The former may shun you, the latter may kill you.
Ann Althouse said...
"I agree that the single best change is freedom of speech, but you have to get to that point. It's not easy. How can you do it? How did we get there? It wasn't easy!"
Have you considered the possibility that the way we got there is biological evolution? And that the reason these subhumans behave like subhumans is because they are genetically subhuman?
I realize that these questions are blasphemy of the highest order, and there are plenty of people right here in the USA who would be happy to execute me for asking them. James Watson had his career summarily executed for saying something similar about Africans. But it is obvious that the reason, say, dogs don't speak English, is not cultural. It is genetic. Dogs don't speak English because their genes don't suit them to that activity. Human behavior is also strongly determined by our genomes. And there is strong evidence that human evolution has been accelerating in recent times (last few thousand years).
It seems quite likely that the reason that Islam is a hideous blight in Pakistan and Syria, but a mere circumstance in Singapore, has more to do with genes than with culture. In which case importing crazed Muslims is not cultural suicide, it is genetic suicide.
Yeah, I know, that's racist. Biology is racist. Get over it.
What percent of Americans do you think believe that sometimes the devil speaks through the voices of human beings?
Apparently not enough to scare you enough to prevent you from promoting the homosexual agenda...
"Is the Pope crazy?"
Deluded might be a better word, or maybe just simply wrong. But he's not preaching violence in the furtherance of his belief so as far as I'm concerned he can believe whatever he wants.
Ann...Are you, a professed Christian, expressing doubt about the existence of Satan and the struggle between good and evil?
Professor Althouse asks: "What percent of Americans do you think believe that sometimes the devil speaks through the voices of human beings?"
How does He ever speak, except through human beings?
I think I have found the problem.
Ann apparently thinks you can follow a religion without really believing in it, and seems not to realize that others follow their religion because they really believe in it.
Sorry...substitute "Atlhouse" for "Ann" in my previous comments.
Ann said: "I have American commenters on this blog who accuse me of speaking in the voice of the devil and who condemn me just because I've supported equality for gay people and women."
And yet they continue to post here, presumably typing with both hands.
Why have you not cut off their hands, or at least cut off their posting privileges?
(You're the authority figure on this blog, so you have the "Islam" position in this parable, yes?)
As a native of a place where part of Islam's "bloody borders" runs, I advise you all to get used to it, as the "bloody border" now runs nearly everywhere thanks to modern technology.
This really isn't just some standard ethnic conflict, there are after all lots of ethnic conflicts that don't involve Muslims. But the tendency or propensity - not the immediate state but the risk of conflict - of Muslim societies to initiate violence against ALL other ethnic groups is notable. And it's not a matter of state violence really as it is something spontaneous.
It's something like the character of dog breeds. All can bite, many will kill, but pit bulls tend to be vastly more dangerous. In spite of most pit bulls being just nice doggies.
Pope Frank still believes in Immaculate Conception, the Virgin Birth and Biblical marriage, so yeah to lots of people (including, I suspect our hostess) he is considered crazy. What kind of question is that?
Under Sharia law, questioning the existence, presence and influence of Satan is enough to get you killed as an apostate.
you have a system in which everyone is afraid of punishment if they don't outwardly manifest religious belief of a particular kind....and.........
At other points in history, other religions, including Christianity, have gotten stuck in this place. Distancing yourself and blaming Islam is plainly unChristian, so your smugness is unusually disgusting.
Moreso progressivism/marxism, which has a lot in common with Islam. Both totalitarian systems. The twentieth century has a pile of bodies much, much deeper than the fraction of bodies attributed to Christianity, of people who were punished for not outwardly manifesting State as God and islam (genocides in Africa and Armenia).
"but try to think about what you would do if you were in the middle of system that immediately punished perceived blasphemy with a lynching."
Our Founding Fathers set up our country to prevent that but let's ask the bakers, photographers, florists, Nuns, and various religious institutions who are being lynched by the state and your side of the aisle about that, shall we?
So before you smugly complain of the speck in Christianity's eye, please remove the plank from your own.
AA: It's very hard to break out of a culture that gets into this dead end. What are people supposed to do?
I'm going to defend you on this specific point; people are being remarkably obtuse about this specific point. Yes, that poor SOL kid is indeed behaving rationally within the parameters of the culture in which he is embedded. That's not a value statement, people, or a defense of cultural relativism, it's a neutral description of the way human beings function in the societies they live in.
However:
It's heartless to simply announce that a reformation is needed.
Why is it "heartless"? I think the whole "Islam needs a reformation" wheeze is wrong-headed and silly for a lot of reasons, but that people believe this tells you nothing about their capacity for empathy and understanding. Sorry, but just understanding that fucked-up cultures can arise from what are shared aspects of human social nature doesn't fix a damned thing, regardless of the faith that bleeding hearts, NGO racketeers, vacuous academics, and church ladies all over the West have in the miraculous powers of Not Othering.
What, exactly, do people think they're getting at when they bang on about "but white Europeans/Christians/your ancestors blah blah blah did that, too", aside from indulging in another tedious round of "bet you didn't know!"? Frankly, I think that most of the people who automatically fall into this mode are either 1) not very bright, or 2) squirrel!. They're trying very hard not to face the here and now.
So, we were/are fucked up, too? And? We're not fucked up in those particular ways anymore. (Is there any place in the world more culturally fucked-up than the Pakistan Northwest Frontier/Afghanistan region?) So what are they saying? Apparently some people seem to think that because at some time in the past we were fucked-up sorta kinda like they're fucked up now, it logically follows (well, within the paramenters of "logic" in Clown World culture) that we need to let millions of 'em pour into the West and drag us back down into these particular forms of fucked-upedness again, because...don't Other!, and/or...drumroll...we can fix 'em! Somehow.
Whatever. Consider the possibility that the people "blaming Islam" are just not interested in another sterile round of "bet you didn't know", and are approaching things from a different perspective.
...is plainly unChristian...
Some people may find your smugness when playing theologian unusually disgusting, but I find it hilarious.
Paco Wové: Bob B.: what's the difference between "true" and "even true"?
Bob is just indicating that he can, too, even.
(I can understand your irritation with the overuse of "even" these days, but I'll defend Bob's usage here - he's usin' it old school; "even" adds a shade of meaning here.)
Angelyne asks;
"Is there any place in the world more culturally fucked-up than the Pakistan Northwest Frontier/Afghanistan region?"
From an evolutionary perspective, the most fucked-up (to use a technical term) cultures are those that are in the process of destroying the peoples in which they reside. Germany, France, Sweden. Britain, the US, ... Or perhaps I should say Leftism or multiculturalism, as it appears there are actually quite a few people left in those countries who want to cherish and defend the cultures we inherited. The people doing their best to destroy the cultures that support them are the Leftist intellectuals who have infected all the institutions of Western societies. It appears that Leftism is a disease, or cancer, that overtakes sufficiently intellectually advanced cultures, which apparently have no natural defenses against it. Cultural evolution, however, proceeds at a much more rapid pace than biological evolution. Antibodies may yet be developed.
Angelyne said: "Apparently some people seem to think that because at some time in the past we were fucked-up sorta kinda like they're fucked up now, it logically follows (well, within the paramenters of "logic" in Clown World culture) that we need to let millions of 'em pour into the West and drag us back down into these particular forms of fucked-upedness again, because...don't Other!, and/or...drumroll...we can fix 'em! Somehow."
I used to believe in "the equality of cultures", but I sure don't anymore. I am, grudgingly, coming around to Trump's position on Muslim immigration. Not a ban, but very careful vetting. This kind of violent behavior is antithetical to the country and culture I want to live in. People can believe whatever they want. Hell, they can cut off their own hand if they want, but when they attack others that has to be defended against.
Jupiter is right. Winning the contest requires at minimum survival. Those who fail to survive haven't won, however sophisticated they think they are while they are playing. Because in the end, they won't be around to continue to congratulate themselves.
Banal but true.
Rational for the boy in that circumstance, but it points out a very sick culture.
This kind of atmosphere isn't limited to Islam however, or even religion. The same sort of atmosphere can be found in other places, from small religious cults to giant totalitarian states. Imagine this was in North Korea and the question asked was "who doesn't like the dear leader?"
Even in the US, it's possible to run into this type of thing. Not at the same level as in Pakistan, but to say or do the wrong thing and offend certain sensibilities, even inadvertently, may end up costing a career.
As for what to do with cultures like Pakistan, there aren't any easy answers. Sometimes a culture is so far gone, the only remedy is its destruction. The Europeans may come to regret that their ancestors didn't try that on the Islamic world when they overran significant chunks of it during the age of colonialism.
"Some people may find your smugness when playing theologian unusually disgusting, but I find it hilarious."
As an actual theologian (a presumptive title for anyone, but it is what I get paid for), I've long found Althouse's musing interesting. She's clearly speaking from a informed perspective. I don't always agree with her but she has given me insight into a perception of religion and thought that is common but rarely expressed as clearly.
And in this instance, I agree with her. It really doesn't get any more Christian than what she said.
Luke 18, Jesus says this:
"He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Which isn't to say that the Islam of this kid's village lacks responsibility for this specific event, just as the tax collector isn't somehow justified in his corruption.
God, be merciful to me, a sinner, is the prayer for all of us. What "hands" are we cutting off in our life and those around us in order to achieve as much as we can in our settings?
Accused of blasphemy, how was he supposed to save himself? He only did what was rational under the circumstances.
That's the most generous interpretation available. There are others.
10 million Muslim men of military age are poised to invade Europe, and the only one who should migrate, whose departure would benefit everyone involved, STAYS and chops his hand off.
This is just more evidence that we're confronted by a vast barbarian horde equipped with nuclear weapons and determined to submerge the entire Western achievement since Homer under a sea of blood. Sooner or later a secular metropolis, probably DC, is going to vanish in a flash of gamma rays, and then we'll be faced with a dilemma: either knuckle under and become just like little Muhammad Anwar, or retaliate in kind. Which will it be?
Jupiter: From an evolutionary perspective, the most fucked-up (to use a technical term) cultures are those that are in the process of destroying the peoples in which they reside. Germany, France, Sweden. Britain, the US, ...
Good point, Joop. Despite all the propaganda about us all being so interconnected these days we can't live in peace unless we fix everything in the whole wide world and make everybody happy, fucked-up Pakistani cultures are only a problem for Westerners because fucked-up people in Western cultures insist on bringing them here, while meddling in things over there that are beyond their power to fix, fucking things up even (even!) more.
That they continue to get away with this appallingly destructive behavior, while being well-paid, well-pensioned, and well-thought-of, supports your argument that our culture is the most fucked-up of all.
Cultural evolution, however, proceeds at a much more rapid pace than biological evolution. Antibodies may yet be developed.
And not too little, too late, one hopes.
What "hands" are we cutting off in our life and those around us in order to achieve as much as we can in our settings?
You mean like promoting the idea that our culture is no better than the Islamic culture?
You mean like promoting the idea that Christianity and Islam are equivalent?
When does it become permissible to label a behavior as evil? (Some cultures embrace and celebrate cannibalism)
A culture as evil? (Come on, North Korea isn't all that bad...)
A Religion as evil? (Not even the Aztecs?)
Anglelyne said...
Paco Wové: Bob B.: what's the difference between "true" and "even true"?
I ain't much for fancy book learnin', but I think I legitimately used "even" as an adverb to emphasize the adjective "true". Because if the story ain't even true then all the debate over what the lesson ought to be is a waste of time.
I'm not saying it didn't happen, but the story's not very well documented in this piece, is it? I think there's room for doubt.
The Pakistanis in that remote village don't see this kind of story as horrifying. They think of it as a wonder to behold. It's like a Muslim version of the kind of stories you sometimes hear, like a devout boy in a rural, South American village develops the Stigmata after a lightning strike or the Virgin Mary appears on a piece of toast, then a lame child eats the toast and is cured. See what I mean?
I admit it's easier to believe the Muslim story, maybe because Muslims are always choppin' things off.
Quaestor @ 12:40 PM: "..vast barbarian horde equipped with nuclear weapons…" I used to worry about Iran or other Muslim states getting the Bomb. Now with the millions trekking into the West I realize they don't need nukes. THEY are the warhead, and one that generates far more complicated fallout than a dirty bomb.
Suicide of the West.
PS: Anglelyne @ 11:46 AM? Awesome rant. Props to you.
I'm America we would call him a super hero and give him a ribbon for being so brave.
Let's import more Muslims. I wonder what body part they'll want to cut from the gays.
It's very hard to break out of a culture that gets into this dead end. What are people supposed to do? It's heartless to simply announce that a reformation is needed. An individual inside the system might be able to get to that realization, but then what is he supposed to do?
Ha. You remind me of the people that insist gays want to be "cured" of homosexuality.
You just assume the kid is brainwashed and would get out if he knew any better.
Would you cut out your own tongue to protect The Law? He would.
And that's why the West will lose to Islam.
I think that the innocent individuals stuck inside that sick culture are, unfortunately, beyond our immediate help, just as we could do nothing for the innocent individual Germans who hated Nazism but who were powerless to defy its power over their lives. All we can do with Islam is quarantine it.
We have to play the long game and continue to believe in, fight for and advance Western and Christian values such as mercy, tolerance, and freedom.
In liberal societies, we have resumed abortion rites, and "witch trials" held in the dark fringes of a secular religion. Whether it is religious or moral philosophy, or scientific frames of reference, the only objective truth is a selective derivative upheld by a minority consensus or democratic mob.
"And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire." - Mark 9:47
"If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell." - Mathew 5:29
"When does it become permissible to label a behavior as evil?"
When it is evil. You're conflating the issue and making this about some supposed binary. We can say that act is indeed evil, but also point out how that act makes sense in his context. We can say human sacrifice is wrong, but also condemn enslavement of aztecs by conquistadors.
"You mean like promoting the idea that Christianity and Islam are equivalent?"
When they're expressed as equivalent, they're equivalent. Whicn is what Ann is getting at. Christianity is a better way precisely because of how we are to respond to those who are in contexts of oppression and how we are to respond to our own expressions of sinfulness rather than dismissing and blaming others. Of course cutting off his hand is wrong. Now let's drop a bomb on them to stop them to show that we're more enlightened. Of course cutting off his hand is ignorant, but if a person feels like they're not pretty enough or the "wrong" gender, then let's slice and dice the, while getting all kinds of societal approval. Of course cutting off his hand is wrong, but so is kicking people out their homes to build a shopping center or casino. Cutting off his hand is wrong, but so is spending 100 hours a week at an office to buy a better home and car while never spending time with family. Cutting off his hand is wrong, but so is cutting off relationships and having affairs for the sake of momentary delight, leaving kids divided and disordered.
The condemnation isn't against Christianity it's about a bunch of people who claim we're not doing the sorts of things that happen there, with our own justification and cultural priorities.
Of course it's wrong. There and here, and part of what is wrong is the attitude of dismissive blame.
Which isn't to say that it's okay or that we shouldn't try to stop those sorts of things. But I don't have influence in that Pakistani village. I do have influence in my own life and contexts. We should be better. And in many ways we are better. But we're not always or even often better, we just justify the pain we cause through our cultural values.
Christianity is better. But we're not really Christian.
I'm amazed when I think on it that there are people, not just the odd nutjob here and there either, here in the U.S. who, though themselves free of this barbarism and (as yet) not oppressed by it, hate their own culture and crave power to narrow and trim it into compliance so much that they make common cause with the most hateful, the most violent, and the most ruthless supremacist faith the world has ever known. Islam is eaten up with hate, but your modern leftie has raised contemptuous spite to suicidal levels.
Have they never considered the wisdom in the fable of the frog and the scorpion?
Is the Pope crazy?
A tad. Among some other questionable characteristics.
However, one of the few things he is completely sane about is the raw, real, existence of Satan.
Ann Althouse said...
Distancing yourself and blaming Islam is plainly unChristian, so your smugness is unusually disgusting.
I don't blame islam, I blame the brains of muslims, since their inbreeding = stupidity, clannishness and tribalism.
Islam is the result, not the cause.
Islam will not, indeed can not, be reformed.
Either Islam or the west will prevail.
We continue to witness so many words written by so many simply to avoid the unavoidable.
This reality is upsetting to many. So much so that those who are upset by these realities tend to lash out since there are no "can't we just hug it out" type answers.
Here's a "Christian" challenge for Althouse: sponsor some of these crazies to emigrate here and have them move in with or next door to your very own son.
Anything less would be ugly and hypocritical and decidedly "un-Christian".
Get back to us with the results.
As a precautionary note however: http://www.jpost.com/International/North-African-men-attempt-to-stone-transgender-women-in-German-city-441695
It's always funny watching Ann trolling her own blog. (It's even funnier watching suckers take the bait!)
Christianity is better. But we're not really Christian.
Thank god for that.
Jupiter said...
From an evolutionary perspective, the most fucked-up (to use a technical term) cultures are those that are in the process of destroying the peoples in which they reside. Germany, France, Sweden. Britain, the US, ...
Pathological altruism.
Fernandinande, either your link is broken, or you have a peculiar sense of irony.
The kid followed Jesus' instructions to the letter: His hand offended and he cut it off.
But something in the Christian ethos is a little wary of following instructions to the letter. We are warned that living by the law means dying by it and in a way this suggests that the way to avoid dying by the law is by not living by it! You must also live in Love, and especially in Love of God, but if you are it might be better not to take any chances by living by the law too lest there be any question of where your heart is. The example was set by our Savior when He healed on the Sabbath.
We don't always appreciate just how odd it is that per our faith the most powerful man in history died for us at the hands of those who disbelieved Him, and not the other way around. It depends on the bright line He drew between earthly and heavenly authority ("render unto Caesar..."). And it depends on the bright line He drew between this world and the next ("Blessed are the meek..."). It depends, as well, on a world without end that has always been, so that the Word that came always was and always will be and what happens in the space between has already happened for God Who knows and will assure that it all comes out right in the end.
It does make me wonder, though: We are told that man does not live by bread alone. So probably the most grievous wrong we could commit would be to welcome refugees and give them the bread of the body, yet deny them the bread of life lest its taste offend. You're right back to maintaining the body whole on earth only to send its soul to Hell.
All of which is to say that Christians are darn lucky to have a Savior like Jesus Christ. We oughtn't take it for granted. But before we decide to handle the refugee crisis by asking What Would Jesus Do, we ought remember that He died a miserable death for our sins. What would it take to measure up to that standard?
Paddy O: And in this instance, I agree with her. It really doesn't get any more Christian than what she said.
What did she say? Aside from her usual finger-wagging and meandering platitudinizing about human nature?
Her initial point (that the boy's behavior was rational, and that we are embedded in social systems that limit our range of responses) was sound, but eventually Rev'run Ann, apparently provoked (understandably) by the obtuseness of some of the responses to that point, went holy-rollin' off the rails again. The Pharisee, standing by herself, was praying thus, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people: bigots and ignoramuses who Other the Muslim..."
God, be merciful to me, a sinner, is the prayer for all of us.
So, in context, you seem to be saying that you think that people who disagree with Althouse's perspective on Islam must be smug hypocrites who lack humility and think that they're not sinners? Bit pharisaical of you there, don't you think?
Do you have a point to make, gbarto?
Quaestor said...
Fernandinande, either your link is broken, or you have a peculiar sense of irony.
Perhaps both! It was just a google link:
https://www.google.com/search?q="Pathological+altruism"
"A working definition of a pathological altruist then might be a person who sincerely engages in what he or she intends to be altruistic acts but who (in a fashion that can be reasonably anticipated) harms the very person or group he or she is trying to help; or a person who, in the course of helping one person or group, inflicts reasonably foreseeable harm to others beyond the person or group being helped; or a person who in reasonably anticipatory way becomes a victim of his or her own altruistic actions."
"Psychoanalytic", unfortunately, but perhaps applicable to Europe, etc:
"Pseudoaltruism originates in conflict and serves as a defensive cloak for underlying sadomasochism."
I keep wondering why Althouse invokes Christianity when so many of her commenters are not Christian.
Some of us are free to say that we will practice self-defense and leave that turning the other cheek suicide pact to Christians who have it in them to be martyred. Not all Christians believe that interpretation of Jesus's words.
And many who are not Christians think that when Islam is spread even wider, these questions will no longer be asked, as we all act rationally within the same system this sad boy encountered. Or the Reformation will come from without, violently.
Query this, Althouse:
If Reform is impossible from within -- as those inside act rationally, by submitting -- and conquest is required by the text, what are the possible solution sets to the problems?
Althouse let's blow by your observations and those of the other commenters about about the relative virtues of the various faiths, cultures and civilizations. Each believes in the superiority of their own. Nothing new in that observation. What is the point I'm making is that we in the West lack the certainty in our beliefs and customs that in the past was exemplified by Charles James Napier:
“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.[To Hindu priests complaining to him about the prohibition of Sati religious funeral practice of burning widows alive on her husband’s funeral pyre.]”
― Charles James Napier
“So perverse is mankind that every nationality prefers to be misgoverned by its own people than to be well ruled by another”
― Charles James Napier
“The best way to quiet a country is a good thrashing, followed by great kindness afterwards. Even the wildest chaps are thus tamed.”
― Charles James Napier
“The human mind is never better disposed to gratitude and attachment than when softened by fear.”
― Charles James Napier
The time has come for the West to get in touch with it's inner Charles James Napier otherwise we will become subject to someone else's Napier.
cubanbob,
The difference being the British left of their own volition when they otherwise could have stayed.
The subjugation promised in the current fight is forever. And not much kindness after the conquering either.
What Would Jesus Do, we ought remember that He died a miserable death for our sins. What would it take to measure up to that standard?
That is not the point of Christianity. Islam demands that you live your life as Muhammad did. Christianity merely demands that you be the best you you can be.
Althouse a penultimate thought on your comments and the relativism expressed by many:
Once there was a gentile who came before Shammai, and said to him: "Convert me on the condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot. Shammai pushed him aside with the measuring stick he was holding. The same fellow came before Hillel, and Hillel converted him, saying: That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it."
If Not Now, When?
“If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?”
"He who refuses to learn deserves extinction"
We need to be for our civilization if we wish to avoid extinction.
Anglelyne said...
"That they continue to get away with this appallingly destructive behavior, while being well-paid, well-pensioned, and well-thought-of, supports your argument that our culture is the most fucked-up of all."
Yeah, I know. A slightly less pessimistic approach would be to say, that the plague of useless and, indeed, destructive parasitic drones with which we find ourselves afflicted is a sad but wholly predictable effect of a civilization capable of producing a vast surplus.
O'Sullivan's law says that any organization which is not right wing will, over time, become left wing. The Ford Foundation retains nothing of Henry Ford but his last name and his fortune. There are many people in our society who struggle selflessly to produce more and better for those around them. And they provide the resources which enable the parasites to live comfortably while oppressing their betters.
Biology (which is not mocked) teaches us that parasites sometimes evolve into symbiotes. But I think it is fair to say that the best and most common solution to the problem of parasites is eradication.
You gotta hand it to him.
Rap game same.
You folks ever heard the story of The Lion Sleeps Tonight?
Ignorant wretches, I doubt it, more serious than the most serious Jesuit.
France is learning, sad lessons known by others to be avoided first hand.
http://www.steynonline.com/6003/the-lion-sleeps-tonight
Sad sack sufferable searingly shock, shock.
Birkel said...
cubanbob,
The difference being the British left of their own volition when they otherwise could have stayed.
The subjugation promised in the current fight is forever. And not much kindness after the conquering either.
1/16/16, 3:25 PM"
Birkel you made my point. As you said the British left by choice. They (the British) retained the confidence to retain the power of having the ability to make the choice. We still have the trappings of jingoism-military and economic power but no longer the self assurance and certainty that ours is a culture and civilization worthy of using that power to preserve. Perhaps we still do and it is simply dormant for now and will reawaken.
Re Napier quotes -
"I prefer a government run like hell by Filipinos to one run like heaven by Americans" - Manuel Quezon, in numerous speeches I believe. In the subsequent ninety years this has not only seemed like prophecy, its been a staple of political humor.
Hey I an't got stile, and GM AMER*Ca tax drainors say t ma face, pay now.
O O O k.
Paddy O said...
"Cutting off his hand is wrong, but so is spending 100 hours a week at an office to buy a better home and car while never spending time with family."
Uh, Paddy, I thought you said you were a "theologian". Which means that either you believe in God, and suppose yourself to be well-acquainted with his views (in which case your personal views on work/life balance are kind of beside the point, aren't they?), or else you don't believe in God (in which case you have devoted your life to studying a psychopathology). Either way, the wishy-squishy either/or you're pushing is what got us into this mess in the first place.
Christianity has played a huge role in the development of our culture, which is based upon cooperation and mutual respect. But the Christian response to persecution is martyrdom. Thanks, but no thanks. It worked very well on Roman Pagans, but a glance at the map will show you that it is not effective in dealing with Muslims. I'm thinking nuclear physics may have more to offer.
"This kind of violent behavior is antithetical to the country and culture I want to live in."
When do we start—under your aegis—deporting urban african american men?
cubanbob,
I was agreeing with you, after all.
And that's why the West will lose to Islam.
It is not their perfidy, cruelty and mindlessness that will give them victory. It’s the West’s acquiescence, which uses cultural relativism as an excuse for it.
They have the advantage in numbers.
They have the advantage in commitment.
They are much better at diplomacy, strategy and tactics.
We are weak, declining fast and in the throes of decadence. We have welcomed many of them into our societies, horrible things have occurred because we have them in our societies and we are about to welcome many, many more. It’s a form of self-immolation.
The only advantage the West has is its weapons are technologically superior. But at some point a parity will be achieved; the Obama/Iran nuclear deal being the latest example of that parity being implemented, and then all hell is going to break out.
But let’s enjoy freedom while we can and try not to think of what will happen to future generations. To do otherwise is to invite depression.
The idea of Muslim reformation is a joke because those who longingly express a desire for it do not realize that Muslims stepping up their violence, aggression and subjugation is the Muslim version of reformation.
We are doomed.
"Those of you who are trying to capsulize this problem as belonging to Islam are yourselves inhumane."
They're provincials who have the self-certainty of their own rightness and superiority typical of provincials.
Birkel said...
cubanbob,
I was agreeing with you, after all.
1/16/16, 4:25 PM
Noted and I stand corrected.
Grackle we are only doomed if we wish to choose to be doomed. That is what Birkel and I are saying. Europe is starting to stir. The Muslim retirement plan isn't working and it is becoming obvious to the locals that they will need to take control of the situation.
Robert Cook said...
"They're provincials who have the self-certainty of their own rightness and superiority typical of provincials."
Ah, Cookie! Always a pleasure! And what is this Rome you inhabit, to whose smug provinces we ignorant Philistines are condemned?
"Have you considered the possibility that the way we got there is biological evolution? And that the reason these subhumans behave like subhumans is because they are genetically subhuman?"
They're genetically the same as you.
You knew that Cookie would have to pile on with some comment about us being provencial [sic]. Buying points with his new Muslim overlords, I suppose.
"That is not the point of Christianity. Islam demands that you live your life as Muhammad did. Christianity merely demands that you be the best you you can be."
No, Jesus commanded that his followers do as he did. You're confusing Jesus with Tony Robbins, or a commercial for joining the marines.
I like provincials. I descend from generations of provincials. My dad was from Albay after all, which is about as provincial as it gets.
The great hero of Albay is little known, as are most provincial heroes. The great cities prefer to sing of their own, but most real deeds are done by provincials. This was Pedro Esteban, Mang Tiban, who at the age of 80 in 1818 brought together the provincial fleets, armed fishing boats manned by the fed-up people of the Bicol provinces, to crush the slave-raiding Moros at the great battle of Tabogin bay, the turning point of the long war against the Moros.
This is as obscure a business as anything gets, but its more real than much of what passes for history. Not great men and speeches by the educated.
Everywhere there are Muslims, that's the sort of incident you will find, century after century, mostly obscure, mostly a matter of, for and by provincials.
No, Jesus commanded that his followers do as he did. You're confusing Jesus with Tony Robbins, or a commercial for joining the marines.
Aw come on. You can do better than that. Jesus knew very well that Christians would never be able to do as he did. We are commanded to try our best, acknowledge our ongoing failures in doing so and ask for his grace as we get back in the saddle to try another day.
Joan of Arc was a provincial :)
Robert Cook said...
"Those of you who are trying to capsulize this problem as belonging to Islam are yourselves inhumane."
They're provincials who have the self-certainty of their own rightness and superiority typical of provincials.
You mean like you.
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
Joan of Arc was a provincial
and a whack job.
Jupiter: Christianity has played a huge role in the development of our culture, which is based upon cooperation and mutual respect. But the Christian response to persecution is martyrdom. Thanks, but no thanks. It worked very well on Roman Pagans, but a glance at the map will show you that it is not effective in dealing with Muslims.
Well, that's the thing, Joop. Christianity had its martyrs (and still does), but for most of its history, after it moved from marginal cult to civilizational religion, Christianity was unapologetically a religion of the sword, when it came to defense and conquest. That it was gentled and improved by the nature of its founder, the cult of Mary, etc., does not change that. And right through the 19th century, and even into the 20th, this remained mostly true. And right through that time Christian men were rather more than "effective in dealing with Muslims".
Hippie Jesus is a recent construction. Truly feminized, ineffectual Christianity appears only after the secularization of the West is well-advanced. It's what you get when men stop believing in the civilizational cultus (through which a culture lives and dies), and it's left in the hands of - to go all Shoutin' T on you to make a point - women and gays. No, I'm not saying that believing Western men are unmanly, or that all believing women are cat ladies with pathologically misplaced maternal drives, or that believing gays are culture-wreckers. But a visit to a service of just about any "mainstream" branch of the Latin church is likely to reveal the dismaying truth underlying this crass generalization. (I mean, I'm an old lady, and I find church services unbearably touchy-feely and maddeningly mundane. God, where's a Tridentine Mass and the Spanish Inquisition when you need it?)
That's what's so funny about the sermonizing of Althouse and people like her. Modern progressives apparently believe that the West was enlightened about "real Christianity" 'round about 1968, contemporaneously with these "real Christians" ceasing to believe in the non-metaphorical reality of the Risen Christ, Son of God. Something men like Charles Martel, Don John of Austria, Jan Sobieski, and Parisot de Valette, those otherizing bastards, really believed in. Even Napier, discussed above, conquerer and all around bad-ass, was a believing Christian, iir his biography correctly.
Modern Christianity is a limp and ineffectual, that is true. (I'm betting that we're going to see lots of conversion to Islam by European church "leaders" in the near future. I think they're just waiting for the Ummah to guarantee them a comparably comfortable living to what their church is providing them with now.) But so is the ideology of the modern secular West. At least the Christian martyrs laid down their lives, bravely (dare I say manfully), for a vision of transcendent reality. The enfeebled secular West will lie down and die, whimpering, for a mess of globalist-progressivist pottage.
One down, two billion to go!
Uttar Pradesh State is most certainly not majority Muslim.
It is majority Polio then. My point is that it has, if not the largest, a large share of India's Muslims. The Muslims are the location of the Polio reservoir which was finally cleaned out in 1998. They are still trying to avoid a reemergence of Polio, perhaps from Pakistan and areas even more primitive. The Muslims are convinced immunization is a plot to sterilize Muslim boys. I suppose they would be concerned bout the girls if anyone there cared about females.
Modern progressives apparently believe that the West was enlightened about "real Christianity" 'round about 1968, contemporaneously with these "real Christians" ceasing to believe in the non-metaphorical reality of the Risen Christ, Son of God.
I agree and the Catholic seminaries were among the first to change the creed to include gays and lesbians. That is where the scandal of priests molesting children came from. Most of the "children" were adolescents preyed upon (no pun) by homosexual priests. The furious denials of homosexual interest in adolescent boys is related to the furious attempts to disconnect "gayness" and AIDS in the 90s.
The new New England Journal has finally given up and admitted that most HIV transmission is by anal intercourse.
Muslims are as unsuited to modern civilization as Neanderthals were to the Holocene era.
Robert Cook said...
They're genetically the same as you.
Are trying out lines for a comedy club act?
Anglelyne said...
cat ladies with pathologically misplaced maternal drives
"Toxoplasma Gondii, Parasite In Cat Feces, Linked To Schizophrenia And Other Mental Illness"
"The stereoytpe of the crazy cat lady may soon have a scientific explanation."
I Have Misplaced My Pants: "Aw come on. You can do better than that."
It's difficult for Marxists to "do better than that."
You see, they are hindered by Marxism, which is quite the hindrance indeed.
Cookie is an expert on genetics and will explain to us why twins have such similar behavior patterns.
Stephen Jay Gould is still an icon among Marxists who are still hoping for a "New Soviet Man."
Cookie keeps hoping.
Socrates: "Alcibiades, if a Christian man spanks his child because he believes his religion requires him to spank his child, what does this mean?"
Alcibiades: "It means that his religion is both foul and false."
Socrates: "Suppose, Alcibiades, A Muslim boy mistakenly uses his hand to show that he does not pray as he should, and his family and neighbors make him cut off his hand to show penitence? What does this mean?"
Alcibiades: "It means that you are a racist."
Robert Cook: They're genetically the same as you.
(OK, I'll join the pile-on.)
No, they're not. Group genetic differences are real, and meaningful.
If you want to champion the dignity of Man and the belief that no member of homo sapiens should be viewed as "subhuman", then you'd better ditch the "they're genetically the same" and "more variation within than among races blabbity blah" Gouldian/Lewontian obfuscatory b.s.. Lying about uncomfortable truths never ends well.
Don't build your ethical house on sand, Cookie. The earth isn't flat. Celebrate diversity. The right way.
"Jesus knew very well that Christians would never be able to do as he did. We are commanded to try our best, acknowledge our ongoing failures in doing so and ask for his grace as we get back in the saddle to try another day."
Did Jesus say all that? He seemed awfully ticked off at the excuses his followers made when he asked them to immediately follow him, (e.g., one wanting first to go bury a dead father, etc.). I think you're confusing church theology (deriving perhaps from the Apostle Paul) with what Jesus said.
Robert Cook: "'They're genetically the same as you.'
"(OK, I'll join the pile-on.)
"No, they're not. Group genetic differences are real, and meaningful."
I concede I was being rhetorically careless, (or perhaps just too glib). There are genetic differences in populations of human beings, but they are just variations among the many members of one species of creature; there is no such thing as a population of human-looking sub-human creatures, as Jupiter, echoing Hitler, among others, came close to asserting.
Marriage within clans is encouraged in many countries in the path of Muhammadanism, so "inbred" is for real, not just a slur with Islam. King's College in Cambridge has collected more Nobel Prizes than all of Islam.
Interesting that people are still commenting on this....
Jesus said if your right hand offend thee cut it off,
He also said whosoever offends the least of these (children) it had been better if a millstone had been placed around their neck, and they had been cast into the sea.
There's no need to resort to genetic arguments vs Islam. There is though the well documented inbreeding (consanguineous marriage rates) propensity in nearly all Muslim countries - well, all of them really, though some are much worse than others. It's actually quite a remarkable cultural marker.
I don't think this is a cause of anything but rather a quite unique and bizarre physical effect of the culture.
The US is down in the very low parts of the consanguineity charts.
buwaya puti said...
I don't think this is a cause of anything but rather a quite unique and bizarre physical effect of the culture.
Inbreeding causes a lot of things, some good, some bad. At the extreme are social insects - very altruistic to close relatives, very hostile to others (the only non-human animals that wage war).
As for humans:
It has long been known that inbreeding is bad for you. A new paper in Nature (Directional dominance on stature and cognition in diverse human populations) finally gives us a good quantitative estimate of just how bad it is. They find that the offspring of first cousins suffer an average reduction of 1.2 cm in height and 0.3 sd in g ( ~4.5 IQ points)."
Inbreeding and the Evolution of Social Behavior
inbreeding and the evolution of altruistic behavior
Also
Alcibiades and Socrates, both of whom I am fans of, didn't know any Christians and the ethics of Christianity were quite different from those of the Greeks. Not all that much superior, but quite different. Both were light years ahead of the Persians and their successors, the Muslims.
The classical Greeks were the tiny light in history that has shown for centuries and is now in danger of being snuffed out.
"The classical Greeks were the tiny light in history that has shown for centuries and is now in danger of being snuffed out."
Were it not for the Irish, your classical Greek history would have been aborted, as those that were aborting thought they were very, very smart. They wrote books about it, and waged wars, and killed for fun too. Because. And yet, How the Irish Saved Civilization.
Any history that lead you to abort babies is the Devil's history.
Any American of any ability to read can understand what "life" means, hence aborting life is aborting America, to the rest of the worlds horror*.
*Most of the world sees abortion as the horror it is, not what Lamborgini owners earned. You sick anti-American sons of bitches can get the fuck out of here, to where people will celebrate your murder as intelligent advancement of Nazi eugenics.
Grackle we are only doomed if we wish to choose to be doomed. That is what Birkel and I are saying. Europe is starting to stir. The Muslim retirement plan isn't working and it is becoming obvious to the locals that they will need to take control of the situation.
I wish you were right, I really do. But all of Europe is hamstrung by PC and has been for generations. They’ve let many Muslims in, many more are coming and they will also be allowed in. Leaders like Merkel are determined let them in. The 2nd and 3rd generations of Muslims already there are not in the least reformed, liberalized or otherwise pacified. They eagerly continue the violence that the Islamic culture dictates and that will never stop. Despite hot denials by European leaders extralegal Sharia enclaves and no-go zones are already a headache for Europe. That kind of thing never gets better and the European leaders don’t have a clue about how to deal with it.
In addition the demographics are a time-bomb of trouble. Non-Muslims have few babies and Muslims have many. Once a certain concentration is reached a couple of generations is all that is needed for that to begin to make a significant difference in the European institutions. Politics will go from bad to worse. Protesters will be silenced, indeed are already all but silent right now. Don’t be fooled by a few demonstrations against the sexual predation that occurred on New Years Eve all over Europe.
Would you rather your daughter be a porn human or an abortionist with a doctorate of abortion, M.D.?
What if the doctorate of abortion was from Stanford?
"The classical Greeks were the tiny light in history that has shown for centuries and is now in danger of being snuffed out."
The Great spotlight of Christianity has allowed you (and Reagan) only so much: hellfire with standing.
Anybody worried about AI?
B3for lawyer,.
E v bod e.lse celebrae
Time:our
Rewarding shit, AI can be seen somehow equal me.
By me I mean way, way less than Christ, the Lord, Jesus. Christian salvation.
Barbarians. Not fit to live among us in western societies.
Althouse wrote: Distancing yourself and blaming Islam is plainly unChristian, so your smugness is unusually disgusting. I had a hard time understanding how someone as supposedly rational as Althouse could have voted for bozobama. Having read this, all has become clear.
"Politics will go from bad to worse. Protesters will be silenced, indeed are already all but silent right now."
Better keep an eye on Fido, too.
And yet they continue to post here, presumably typing with both hands.
Why have you not cut off their hands, or at least cut off their posting privileges?
(You're the authority figure on this blog, so you have the "Islam" position in this parable, yes?)
Hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha hahaha!
Watch this space.
Blogger buwaya puti said...
"There's no need to resort to genetic arguments vs Islam."
My argument was rather that the worst Islamic hellholes are also genetic sinks. Singapore, for example, is an Islamic country with an Oriental population, who do not appear to be intent upon slaughtering their neighbors. Perhaps I'm just not paying attention.
It does appear, that where Islam has been the longest, is where it is worst. It seems fairly clear that living in cities breeds for high IQ, or at least it did a few centuries ago. Presumably living under Islamic rule has its own evolutionary pressures. If you would like to know what they are, look at what they have done to those populations which have been subject to them the longest.
God wills it.
"Distancing yourself and blaming Islam is plainly unChristian, so your smugness is unusually disgusting."
Perhaps your son should go there, and enlighten them. I'm sure they will be so pleased that there is no longer distance nor blame of Islam.
Worthless old academic cunt derides others for smugness. This would be ironic and funny, except the very same views are held by the muslim sympathizer she voted into office and who currently is in control of the executive branch of the United States. Instead it is terrifying.
Islam is incapable of reform, and will only be contained by overwhelming and massive brute force.
Worthless old academic cunt ...
This is the kind of person that strolls into someone’s home and shits on the floor. Whew!
Is the story even true?
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