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Category Archives: World Affairs

“Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” Advocates Under Threat

The New York Daily News reports: A CHARISMATIC terror leader linked to the botched Times Square car bomb has placed the Seattle cartoonist who launched “Everybody Draw Muhammed Day” on an execution hit list. Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki – the radical who has also been cited as inspiring the Fort Hood, Tex., massacre and the [...]

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Arrested For Being A Single Man In A Shopping Mall

Saudiwoman writes: I have to tell you what I was up to last night. My very dear friend Tine has finished her time here in Saudi and is leaving soon. Unfortunately, being cooped up in expat compounds; she has never had a chance to see muttawas in action. These lions of Saudi morality are a [...]

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Haiti’s Orphans Still In Crisis

Let’s not forget them: Your Thoughts?

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Iran Bans Mullets

Your Thoughts?

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Gay Rights Advocate Decapitated In Uganda

Unspeakably sad and outraging: A search for a missing pro-gay priest, the Rev Henry Kayizzi Nsubuga, who disappeared almost two and half weeks ago after delivering a scathing speech at St. Paul’s Church, Kanyanya supporting homosexuality in Uganda, led the joint search team of Integrity Uganda and Namirembe Diocese to the severed head of another [...]

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Iranian Woman Sentenced To Stoning After Being Lashed 99 Times Until She “Confessed” Adultery

CNN reports: Ashtiani, 42, will be buried up to her chest, according to an Amnesty International report citing the Iranian penal code. The stones that will be hurled at her will be large enough to cause pain but not so large as to kill her immediately. Ashtiani, who is from the northern city of Tabriz, was [...]

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Threatened With Death Penalty, Maldivian Skeptic Of Islam Recants

A while back I highlighted the story of a Maldivian man who was attacked by a crowd for expressing his lack of belief in Islam during the Q&A session by a the visiting Indian scholar Dr. Zakir Naik. Maldives is a state where it is illegal to not believe. Now, via Atheist Media Blog, here’s video [...]

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A Dictatorship Of Relativism?

BBC Radio 4 analyzes the pope’s catchphrase, “a dictatorship of relativism”, used for describing the secular West.  Here’s the program description: The idea that no one has a monopoly on the truth seems to be fixed in the modern Western psyche. But it’s an idea that is under attack. Pope Benedict claims that we are [...]

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Contrasting Muslim And Western Psychologies: The Locus Of Control

Nicolai Sennels spent several years working with criminal Muslims in Copenhagen (where as of March 2009 “70% of the prison population in the Copenhagen youth prison consists of young man of Muslim heritage.”)   He writes the following about the different ways that Westerners and Muslims view the locus of control: There is another strong difference between the [...]

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New Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard Affirms Her Non-Belief, Will Not Patronize Believers

I love what she has to say and do not know why anyone, religious or irreligious, would prefer a faith panderer to this, even if the faithful politician was at least somewhat sincere: She says does not go through religious rituals for the sake of appearance. “I am not going to pretend a faith I [...]

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Lord Mayor Bans Lord Mayor Bans "Intrusive And Outdated" Christian Prayers Before Council Meetings

From the Telegraph: Colin Hall said religion had no role to play in the conduct of council business. Mr Hall, who has just taken over the mayorship in Leicester, said the “majority” of councillors and city council staff were not practising Christians therefore there was little point in having the prayers, which were introduced in [...]

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Starvation

This ripped my guts out to watch. Thanks to the “Let’s Lodge A Complaint Against God” Facebook page for the video.  But the takeaway from this video should not be just another reiteration of the problem of evil, it should be refreshed urgency in our thinking about proactively remedying the problem through humane human efforts. [...]

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“The Law Of God Which Is Above Human Rights”

Any religion, or interpretation of a religion which takes the view that the law of God can be above human rights cannot be immune to violating human rights.  In this case, we have an Iranian cleric calling for unveiled women to be treated like criminals as though they were drug traffickers, robbers, or terrorists: Guardian [...]

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Muslims Illegally Shutting Down Streets Of Paris For Prayer

Last week we mentioned that a proposed street festival of pork and wine protesting Muslims praying in the streets was prohibited from occurring in Paris.  Here is footage of such prayer sessions, which apparently are meant to be an act of civil disobedience: Thanks to Tony for the link. Your Thoughts?

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Pakistani Police Investigating Mark Zuckerberg On Charges Of Blasphemy From Lawyer

In response to “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day”: Last month, according to English-language Pakistani newspaper The News International, a Pakistani High Court judge summoned the police after lawyer Muhammad Azhar Siddique filed an application for a First Information Report (FIR), claiming that the owners of Facebook had committed a heinous and serious crime under Section 295-C of [...]

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The Asian Sex Trade

“The sex trade now accounts for 14% of Thailand’s economy.” Your Thoughts?

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Paris Bans A "Sausage And Wine" Protest Of Muslims Who Close Down Roads By Praying In The Streets

From Reuters’s FaithWorld blog: A giant “sausage and wine” party planned later this week in a Paris neighbourhood with many Muslim residents risks sparking disturbances and will therefore be banned, police in the French capital announced on Tuesday. The event, announced on the social networking site Facebook late last month (see page here in French), [...]

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Haiti’s Human Trafficking Problem Exacerbated By Earthquake

Your Thoughts?

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Russian Orthodox Church Wants Creationism In Schools

Sigh. The Russian Orthodox Church called recently for creationism to be taught along with evolution in Russian schools, according to Reuters. Senior Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion said, “The time has come for the monopoly of Darwinism and the deceptive idea that science in general contradicts religion. These ideas should be left in the past,” Reuters [...]

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Spanish Singer Prosecuted For Cooking A Crucifix In 1978

Here’s the offending video: And the story of the penalties to be paid for it: Musician Javier Krahe faces a fine of £159,000 after stills from the spoof cookery show, which involved baking an effigy of Christ for three days, were shown on television in 2004 during an interview with the star. Despite the length [...]

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Nigerian Oil Spill Victims Fight Foreign Oil Companies

1.5 million tons of oil spilled in Nigeria over the last 50 years, with no accountability from foreign oil companies: Your Thoughts?

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Is Shari'a Law "Inevitable" For UK Muslims?

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, claims it is: Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4′s World at One that the UK has to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system. Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social [...]

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Taliban Executes 7 Year Old Boy, Accusing Him Of Spying

So despicable. Your Thoughts?

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Creepy Pro-Geert Wilders Propaganda

I’m as troubled by Islam’s authoritarianism of thought and practice as any one but Christian crusading is is not much better.  This is called “Geert Wilders The Lion Heart” and unless it’s just an exceptional satire, it’s a really unsettling, unrestrained glorification of Christian warfare against Islam. How long until the Christian theocrats begin embracing [...]

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Exit Polls Say Geert Wilders’s Anti-Islamic Party Doubles Its Seats In Dutch Parliament

The Guardian: The Netherlands’ anti-Islamic MP Geert Wilders appeared on course for major gains in a general election yesterday, more than doubling his party’s seats in the Dutch parliament and overtaking the incumbent ruling Christian Democrats, according to exit polls last night. Wilders’ Freedom party looked to have taken third place in a close-fought election [...]

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