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Subject: A sobering look at Islam
American Kafir    3/2/2004 7:05:40 PM
::not for the squeamish:: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/040302/481/bei11003021506&e=20 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040302/481/bei11103021547 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040302/ids_photos_wl/r1387291387.jpg http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040302/photos_wl_sa_afp/040302140920_hp8hnjt2_photo1 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040302/ids_photos_wl/r750524943.jpg http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040302/ids_photos_wl/r2591409041.jpg http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040302/ids_photos_wl/r2798736864.jpg
 
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celebrim    RE:A sobering look at Islam   3/2/2004 8:14:44 PM
I saw those earlier. I have a hard time getting really upset about that - even though the age of the youngest children call into question how much of a willing participant they are. Leaving that aside just for a moment as a different issue, extreme sects of my own religion practiced self-scourging until the middle ages and the monastic orders started clamping down on that and other vain glorious acts. In a few weeks here, pious Christians will crawl on thier knees - some carrying wooden cross beams - over stones until they are bloody and bruised as an act of piety. And this Passion film is little less than a voyeristic and more hygenic version of that suffering. By the loosest definitions, Christianity is a 'blood cult' - though clearly we have nothing on Islam if we wanted to via for that title. Generally speaking, if you want to self-inflict wounds on yourself, I disapprove, but I don't condemn or forbid. I'd certainly rather your religion advocates striking yourself with a sword than going out and striking others. No, its not the blood itself or even the primitiveness of the practice that bothers me. The irony of the situation is that this ritual recalls the first blow in the 1300 year old war between the Shia and the Sunni's over who by right should inherit the Islamic empire, and today that eternal war continued as 143 Shia in Iraq were slain by fellow members of thier 'religion of peace' in a suicide attack. What bothers me is that culture of murder and the glorification of the murderer. Whether this is a part of that glorification of murder or the responce to it I couldn't say from a picture.
 
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American Kafir    RE:A sobering look at Islam   3/3/2004 7:47:42 AM
Forget self-flagellation and personal bloodletting. When a person has no qualms whatsoever about slicing an open wound into the flesh of their own defenseless infant child and letting the blood drench them, one wonders what they'd do to a stranger. This is not an example of "cultural diversity." This is child abuse.
 
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celebrim    RE:A sobering look at Islam   3/3/2004 8:13:11 AM
"Forget self-flagellation and personal bloodletting." Alright. I wondered which angle of this offended you. Moving on then. All Jews and most Christians practice circumcision. Quite a few people consider that child abuse. As far as the parents are concerned, its most certainly not. Tell a Jewish father that he is forbidden to practice circumcision and he will probably think that you are practicing child abuse. If circumcision is not child abuse, then what is protrayed by those pictures is even less so. The most damning argument against circumcision is that it is a form of multilation. Now, I personally consider it about like having your tonsils or apendix removed - you are losing something you don't really need - but if you don't want to practice circumcision I'm all fine with that too (another one of those social choices Christians are explicitly forbidden from criticizing one way or the other). But you can't make the claim of mutilation in the case of the blood letting ritual. There is no lasting harm to the child. Nor do I think you can strongly make the abuse claim. In the two pictures, the children look rather calm. In fact, they look so calm that I wondered at first whether or not they used fake blood for the occassion. The father's don't appear to be in any fashion hateful, and they appear to me be actively consoling, encouraging, and teaching thier children - though I doubt given the age of the children any of that is particularly meaningful. Just because I wouldn't deliberately slice a wound on my child doesn't mean I have any right to condemn what is going on here on that basis alone. If the wound becomes infected, the child is neglected, or otherwise similarly harmed, then yes I'm offended. But otherwise this is a harmless if rather bizarre social ritual for promoting community unity. You know that I'm no apologist for the Moslem religion, but in this case it does strike me as an example of cultural diversity. I'm very hesitant to condemn something on the basis of it seeming to me to be quite bizarre. I'm willing to tolerate bizarreness, and even to try to empathize with the participants. No, violent as that ritual may appear to be, I still maintain that the real violence - the real condemnable acts - are the murders of the 186+ individuals in Iraq and Pakistan by the suicide death cultists. The motivations for that action are the ones that are clearly evil; the motivations for the blood letting ritual are much less clearly so to me and without first hand evidence I'm not going to claim to understand it.
 
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capitalist72    RE:A sobering look at Islam   3/3/2004 9:56:31 AM
Interesting parallel. How is circumcision done anyway - I guess the child is not sedated because he's too young? Ouch.
 
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swhitebull    RE:A sobering look at Islam   3/3/2004 10:22:51 AM
Actually, in Judaism, we let the baby suck on a cotton ball soaked in some sweet wine - gets him snookered!! IN addition, it is permissible in the Conservative and Reform (not sure about the Orthodox) to use a topical anasthetic). Its STILL a big ouch, but better at 8 days old than as an adult! swhitebull
 
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SGTObvious    A sobering look at Judaism   3/3/2004 12:39:59 PM
"Actually, in Judaism, we let the baby suck on a cotton ball soaked in some sweet wine - gets him snookered!!" Obviously, this is where the young Jewish man first learns the truth about the world: The sweet wine they give you is only to distract you from where the hand with the knife is going. Yup. I see the sense of this.
 
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American Kafir    RE:A sobering look at Islam   3/3/2004 2:15:24 PM
"All Jews and most Christians practice circumcision. Quite a few people consider that child abuse." Ah, the pungent smell of red herring. I'd say most Jews and Christians do not circumsize their children EVERY YEAR - until they are old enough and brainwashed enough to cut themselves at holiday time. We're comparing apples and oranges here.
 
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celebrim    RE:A sobering look at Islam   3/3/2004 9:51:35 PM
"We're comparing apples and oranges here." Are we? The charge you appear to be making is that the parents are being unnecessarily cruel to thier children. Against the annual character of the Ashura ritual we can weigh the much greater pain of circumcision and (if we choose to look at it this way) the 'lasting irrepairable damage of mutilation that you must live with for the rest of your life'. You don't seem to find circumcision similarly barbaric. Which is more cruel, and indeed whether either is cruel, is a matter of opinion only. Nor are you making any effort to demonstrate its cruelty, but instead you are relying on the 'common sense' assertion that it must be self-evidently cruel and abusive, just well, because you wouldn't cut your own child. Apples and oranges are both fruit. They are thus rather comparable. Circumcision and ashura rituals both inflict some ammount of pain on children. They are thus not only comparable, but it would be hard to find two things more comparable. Heck, even ravens and writing desks are comparabable so don't go raising the charge of 'red herring' with me, because I am not guilty of trying to distract anyone from the subject at hand. You want to discuss logical fallacies, lets discuss what's wrong with this statement: "hen a person has no qualms whatsoever about slicing an open wound into the flesh of their own defenseless infant child and letting the blood drench them, one wonders what they'd do to a stranger." You want to make the case that the Ashura ritual is cruel, abusive, and dangerous you are going to need more than photos. Find out what these people are saying as they engage in the ritual. We know what they are mourning, and we know what these stripes are intended to remind them of. Find out what motivation they are intended to instill in the celebrant; find out what sort of emotion this is intended to provoke, and then you can make your case. But don't come here without that knowledge and shouting (in effect) 'Look at these bizarre people!' and expect to get much sympathy from me. As far as I'm concerned, the ritual is no more unusual than tattooing or body piercing, and likely serves the same purpose in the community in which it takes place.
 
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American Kafir    RE:A sobering look at Islam   3/4/2004 8:06:03 AM
>>You want to discuss logical fallacies, lets discuss what's wrong with this statement: "hen a person has no qualms whatsoever about slicing an open wound into the flesh of their own defenseless infant child and letting the blood drench them, one wonders what they'd do to a stranger."<< Let's. >>You want to make the case that the Ashura ritual is cruel, abusive, and dangerous you are going to need more than photos. Find out what these people are saying as they engage in the ritual. We know what they are mourning, and we know what these stripes are intended to remind them of. Find out what motivation they are intended to instill in the celebrant; find out what sort of emotion this is intended to provoke, and then you can make your case. But don't come here without that knowledge and shouting (in effect) 'Look at these bizarre people!' and expect to get much sympathy from me. As far as I'm concerned, the ritual is no more unusual than tattooing or body piercing, and likely serves the same purpose in the community in which it takes place<< Back to circumcision (bris) and now body-piercing / tattoos. The differences between Ashura celebrations and those is rather obvious, at least to me. At a Jewish Bris Milah, the gathered crowd does not all whip out their penises, cut off a slice of flesh and dance around profusely bleeding on themselves and each other, nor does the infant involved get his hacked and then bled all over the place. Body piercing and tattoos are generally voluntary, but similarly don't involve the intentional creation of celebrated blood-gushing wounds, self-inflicted or not. Next?
 
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Sikman    RE:A sobering look at Islam   3/10/2004 12:26:27 AM
While circumcision has many health benefits, I would assume the benefits of the practice of bloodletting were disproven in the middle ages. Thats exactly what this ritual is bloodletting. and if you need more convincing on how violent and yes EVIL the Islamic religion is, i suggest you check out their site. http://www.khilafah.com/home/
 
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