Features   ><   Full Blog

Tag Archives: Iran

Iran Bans Mullets

July 8, 2010 – 12:33 pm

Your Thoughts?

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in News, News Discussion, News Discussion, World Affairs, World Affairs | Also tagged | Comments (4)

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

July 6, 2010 – 11:22 am

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 [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in News, Women's Issues, World Affairs, World Affairs | Also tagged , | Comments (7)

“The Law Of God Which Is Above Human Rights”

June 20, 2010 – 8:07 pm

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 [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Islam, News, News Discussion, World Affairs | Also tagged , | Comments (1)

The McDonald’s Ad About Gays: Iranian Style

June 7, 2010 – 5:00 pm

The original ad is here, Bill O’Reilly’s despicable reaction and my denunciation of it is here. Your Thoughts?

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Homophobia, Parody, Satire | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Earthquakes Explained: Promiscuous Girls The Cause

April 19, 2010 – 2:16 pm

We so often hear religion is not incompatible with science because “science can’t tell us everything”, with the implication being that religion can tell us what science cannot.  This must be one of those things we need religion to explain to us, not how earthquakes happen but why they happen and how we can prevent them! [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Divine Intervention, God, Islam, Religion, Religion and Science, Religulous | Also tagged , | Comments (0)

Iranian Student Stands Up To Supreme Leader

November 7, 2009 – 10:10 am

Impressive courage: Mahmoud Vahidnia has received an outpouring of support from government opponents for the challenge – unprecedented in a country where insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a crime punishable by prison. The session began with a speech in which Khamenei told the students the “biggest crime” was to question the results of [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in News, Politics, World Affairs | Also tagged , | Comments (0)

Jailtime For Singing The Koran

August 5, 2009 – 1:11 am

Religious authoritarianism strikes again: Mohsen Namjoo, a singer-songwriter who has been described as the “Iranian Bob Dylan”, has been sentenced to five years in prison for recording music that “dishonours” passages from the Qur’an. The sentencing was in absentia, as Namjoo lives in Vienna. The musician was convicted for “his unconventional singing” of the Muslim [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Koran, Religious Extremism | Also tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Sex Change In Iran

July 26, 2009 – 8:44 pm

Strangely, in a country with a government that outlaws homosexuality, transsexuals are allowed to change their sex.  A documentary on the subject: Thanks to The Daily Dish.

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Islam, LGBTQAA, Politics, Religion, Religious Moderates, Religious Secularism | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

"Wedding" Young Girls So They Can Be Executed

July 20, 2009 – 10:53 am

This story out of Iran is nightmarish and devastating to read: He said he had been a highly regarded member of the force, and had so “impressed my superiors” that, at 18, “I was given the ‘honor’ to temporarily marry young girls before they were sentenced to death.” In the Islamic Republic it is illegal [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Islam, News, Rape, Religion, Religious Extremism, Women's Rights | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Gay Rights and Persecution Around the World

July 4, 2009 – 9:01 am

Johann Hari celebrates the remarkable progress for gay rights, achieved through peaceful democratic pressure around the world in the 40 years since Stonewall.  But then he highlights some of the places where being gay means being murdered: Jamaica is Taliban Afghanistan for gay people. If caught, gays and lesbians face ten years’ hard labour – [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Civil Rights, Fundamentalism, Gay Rights, Homosexuality, Islam, News, News Discussion, Torture, World Affairs | Also tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Authoritarians, Not Fascists

July 2, 2009 – 3:29 pm

Daniel Larison complains Obama’s critics have no sense for important distinctions in their zeal to criticize: When Orwell used the phrase “objectively fascist” during WWII to criticize pacifists, he at least had the advantage of talking about a situation in which there were actual fascists involved. Roger Simon, on the other hand, is complaining about [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

How Best to Support the Iranians? Larison vs. Hitchens

June 29, 2009 – 7:46 pm

Daniel Larison excellently states the case for personal support for Iranian freedom but non-involvement by the US government: Something that I don’t quite understand is why anyone would conclude that silence or minimal comment condemning the Iranian government’s violence by government officials requires that private individuals refrain from expressing their moral support. There has been [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Christopher Hitchens, News Discussion, Religion, World Affairs | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

Beginning of the End of Radical Islam?

June 29, 2009 – 10:24 am

The Washington Post reports: Election and polling results show a diminishing influence of radical Islam acroos the Middle East and other Muslim countries. Radical political parties are losing clout, support for suicide bombing and terrorist tactics is dropping, and the deteriorating situation in Iran mark the beginning of the end of radical Islam. Regardless of [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in News, Religion | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Taking The Unity of Truth Notion Seriously

June 28, 2009 – 2:28 pm

Cosmologist Lawrence M. Krauss on the incompatibility of God and science.  The whole piece is worth your time.  This succinct statement summing up the article, however, hits the nail on the head: My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Atheism, Christianity, Epistemology, Faith, Naturalism, News Discussion, Philosophy, Religion, Theocracy | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

"The Curtain Has Been Pulled from the Islamist Wizard"

June 26, 2009 – 1:02 pm

Andrew Sullivan isolates the essential result of the last two weeks in Iran: it seems totally clear to me that the curtain has been pulled from the Islamist Wizard. Theocratic regimes require some base level of reverence, and watching the old Supreme Leader lose it at Friday prayers a week ago, and the bare-faced martial [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Andrew Sullivan, News Discussion, Theocracy, Uncategorized, World Affairs | Also tagged , , , | Comments (0)

Freedom as a Power, Rather than as a Passive State

June 23, 2009 – 3:54 am

Today, an excellent former student pushed me on the question of whether philosophy was more important than basic survival.  I interpreted this question, at its core, to be whether freedom of thought is worth dying for.  I think this because the right to philosophize for oneself is, at its core, the fundamental freedom of thought [...]

Share
By Daniel Fincke | Posted in Applied Ethics, Ethics, News Discussion, Nietzsche, Philosophy | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)