Atheists & Agnostics
Related: About this forumThis week in religion-inspired horror, madness, depravity, and oddness.
Mosque attack kills 19; Pakistan Taliban claim responsibilityThe Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for a Friday attack on a Shiite Muslim mosque in Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan -- a suicide bombing and gunfire assault that a hospital representative said killed 19 people.
The Islamist militant group said the attack was orchestrated by a commander who was behind December's massacre of 145 people, including 132 children, at a Peshawar school.
Sixty-seven people were injured Friday, said Tauheed Zulfiqar, a representative of the Hayatabad Medical Complex in Peshawar.
The Pakistan Taliban attacked the mosque, spokesman Muhammad Khurasan said in an email to CNN, as revenge for the government's December 19 execution of a militant who was allied with the group.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/13/world/pakistan-violence/
Yemeni Houthi fighters fire on protesters after clashes kill 26
Tens of thousands of Yemenis demonstrated in several cities on Saturday against the rule of the Shi'ite Muslim Houthi movement whose gunmen fired on protesters in the central town of Ibb and wounded four, medics said.
It was the second day of nationwide demonstrations against the Iranian-backed Houthis in less then a week after its dissolution of parliament this month unravelled security and sent Western and Arab embassies packing.
Activists said they were enraged by the death on Saturday of Saleh al-Bashiri, who they say was detained by gunmen as they broke up an anti-Houthi protest in Sanaa two weeks ago and was released to a hospital with signs of torture on his body on Thursday. There was no immediate comment from the Houthis.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/02/14/uk-emirates-yemen-idUKKBN0LI06J20150214
Gunmen kill polio team driver in Khyber Agency
PESHAWAR: The driver of a van carrying a two-member polio team in a tribal region near the Afghan border were shot dead by gunmen on Saturday, officials said.
The two attackers fired shots from a nearby mountain on the van in Shalman area of Khyber region where the military is battling militants.
The two-member team was busy making preparations for the three-day polio campaign starting in the region from Monday when the two gunmen opened fire on their vehicle killing its driver on the spot, a senior local administration official Tayyab Abdullah told AFP.
The polio workers, however, escaped unhurt.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/838300/gunmen-kill-polio-team-driver-in-khyber-agency/
Boko Haram Attacks Gombe, Nigeria
The terrorist group Boko Haram stormed the restive Nigerian northeastern city of Gombe Saturday.
Fleeing residents reported "raging gunfire." There is no immediate word about casualties.
On Friday, Boko Haram, for the first time carried out an attack in Chad, part of a widening insurgency that has now drawn in four countries.
Chadian officials say at least 12 people were killed during the early morning violence in the village of Ngouboua, including the village chief. Officials say the militants crossed Lake Chad in four motorized boats early in the morning.
http://www.voanews.com/content/boko-haram-attacks-gombe-nigeria/2644033.html
Alabama Supreme Court to consider petition seeking halt to same-sex marriage licenses
The Alabama Supreme Court late Friday agreed to consider a petition by two groups seeking a halt to the issuance of same-sex marriage licenses by state probate judges.
Meanwhile another group, which supports same-sex unions, also asked justices Friday to toss out the petition. And one Alabama Supreme Court justice wrote he believes an order halting the issuance of licenses could inject more confusion and, possibly, subject more probate judge to federal lawsuits.
In a 6-2 decision issued late Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court set up a schedule next week for the different sides to file their answers and briefs on the request by the Alabama Policy Institute and Alabama Citizens Action Program. The court, however, did not say whether it would hold a hearing for oral arguments before responding to the petition.
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/02/alabama_supreme_court_agrees_t.html
Utah bill would OK discrimination on religious grounds
A bill proposed in the Utah House could place freedom of religion above other constitutionally protected rights for the first time ever and recognize religion as a defense against allegations of discrimination.
Republican Rep. LaVar Christensens measure would allow people of faith to sue others for imposing on their beliefs, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. One of the highlighted provisions is requiring government and private individuals that impose a law or action that substantially burdens anothers religious liberty to balance certain requirements in order to lawfully enforce or recognize the law or action.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/utah-bill-would-ok-discrimination-religious-grounds
Locals for religion, discrimination bills
Arkansas: religious bigotry isn't just for Mormons.
State Rep. Nelda Speaks voted for two bills Friday some say sanction discrimination against gays. Rep. Kelley Linck opted out of voting on one measure, but joined all the Twin Lakes Area legislators in voting for the other.
Senate Bill 202 prohibits local governments from enacting discrimination ordinances, and it now moves to the governor's office. But Gov. Asa Hutchinson says he will let it become law without signing it.
House Bill 1228, also known as the Conscience Protection Act, bars the state from burdening an individual's practice of religion unless it furthers a compelling governmental interest.
http://www.baxterbulletin.com/story/news/local/2015/02/13/local-legislators-support-religion-discrimination-bills/23374975/
ISIS parade captured Kurdish fighters in cages in new video as they threaten to burn them alive
ISIS parade captured Kurdish fighters in cages in new video as they threaten to burn them alive.
The men in the video are dressed in orange jump suits and shackled - much like murdered Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh.
http://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/isis-parade-captured-kurdish-fighters-in-cages-in-new-video-as-they-threaten-to-burn-them-alive-30991722.html
Palestinians want role in probing terrorist killings of North Carolina Muslims
The Palestinian government on Saturday condemned as terrorism the killings of three young Palestinian-Americans in North Carolina and called on U.S. authorities to include its investigators in the probe.
Police have charged a neighbour with Tuesdays shooting in the town of Chapel Hill of Deah Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, 19, saying the incident followed a dispute over parking.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/palestinians-want-role-in-probing-terrorist-killings-of-north-carolina-muslims/article23002986/
Senior al Qaeda cleric killed in Yemen drone strike, AQAP says
Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) A senior cleric for al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen was killed along with three other people in a drone strike on their vehicle January 31 in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said Thursday.
The cleric, Harith bin Ghazi al-Nadhari, was killed in Yemen's south-central Shabwa province, AQAP said.
The strike would be a further indication that a U.S.-led drone strike program is continuing following a pause during political upheaval in the majority Sunni Muslim nation.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/05/world/yemen-violence/
Vatican may be asked to repeal Papal Bulls of Discovery on 'heathen' aboriginals
Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission is weighing whether to ask the Vatican to repeal the Papal Bulls of Discovery that granted 15th-century explorers the right to conquer the New World and the "heathen" aboriginals who called it home.
Chair Murray Sinclair says the commission examining the impact of Canada's Indian residential schools is looking carefully at the 1455 and 1493 Catholic edicts as part of its final report.
Many argue the proclamations legitimized the treatment of aboriginal people as "less than human." Crown sovereignty in Canada can be traced back to those papal bulls, and neither Canada nor the United States has repudiated them, Sinclair said.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/vatican-may-be-asked-to-repeal-papal-bulls-of-discovery-on-heathen-aboriginals-1.2951620
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)Which of our self-righteous religionistas will get up on their high horse and call for it, I wonder? Not to mention all of the murders committed by Christians this past week.
Cartoonist
(7,323 posts)As some here tell it, it was just a land grab. Nothing to do with religion.
EvolveOrConvolve
(6,452 posts)Real, true religion is all puppy breath and unicorn farts, dontchaknow?
onager
(9,356 posts)A modern history class taught by these clowns:
The pacifist Catholic leader Adolf Hitler tried to convince his obstinate neighbors to join an early form of the European Union, to be temporarily called "Greater Germany." When peaceful negotiations failed, he reluctantly resorted to a form of hostile takeover with several belligerent and aggressive nations like Belgium, The Netherlands, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Libya, Poland, France, Britain and ATHEISTIC Russia. Large segments of Europe's Jewish population apparently pulled up stakes and left, though we're not quite sure where they went.
Meanwhile, Japan's peaceful leaders tried to kick the Western imperialist shitlords out of Asia. They began this benevolent project in China in 1931 but faced aggression from ATHEISTS like Mao Tse Tung. Along with a few regrettably brainwashed Xians like Chiang Kai-Shek.
Japan then formed the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," a sort of early Asian United Nations. It might have succeeded. But in 1941 the colluding warlords Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt managed to simultaneously fake Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Indonesia, Guam, Wake Island, Singapore and Hong Kong...
I could do this all day, but won't...
EvolveOrConvolve
(6,452 posts)JDDavis
(725 posts)over the past few days around the world.
So nobody is talking about those "isolated incidents".
And remember, this week, one wacko anti-theist killed three very devoutly religious innocent people.
Lots of talk all over the media and the internets about that whacko devil, just because he's not following a religion.
Irony or religious privilege?
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)to implement "the end of religion", I will be very careful to explain that my anti-theism includes tolerance for everyone's right to be a complete idiot.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)They are afraid that you will take inspiration from religious people who want to bring an end to all non-their own religion people.
Panich52
(5,829 posts)onager
(9,356 posts)Cairo (AFP) - Cairo carried out air strikes against Islamic State group targets in Libya on Monday after the jihadists posted a video showing the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians...
With Monday's air strikes, Egypt opened a new front against the jihadists, who it is already battling in the Sinai Peninsula where scores of troops have been killed since the army toppled Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.
Ah yes, poor old Morsi, "democratically elected" President cruelly removed from power bla-bla...I'll say more about that asshat below.
In the village of Al-Our in Upper Egypt, where 14 of the victims were from, devastated family members gathered in the small local church.
"My son travelled to Libya 40 days ago, he wanted to make money for his marriage," said Boshra, whose 22-year-old son Kirolos was among the dead.
But surely things would improve if the Evil U.S. Arms Industry would just quit selling weapons to everybody...
Oh. Well, never mind, then...
http://news.yahoo.com/says-beheaded-egyptian-copts-libya-193850727.html
Addendum for Mohammed el-Asshat Morsi:
Some DU'ers put up a great hue-and-cry when Morsi was removed in 2013. It's probably a reasonable enough mistake, assuming that a "democratic election" in Egypt means the same thing it does in the U.S.
Only it doesn't. Morsi's party, the Muslim Brotherhood, has been trying to turn Egypt into an Islamic theocracy since it was founded in 1928. Its founder, Hassan al-Banna, was executed for trying to violently overthrow Nasser's regime. When I lived in Egypt, the M.B. was frantically trying to upgrade its image and appear more moderate. This only seems to have fooled some of the Useful Idiots in the Western media, but many Egyptians knew better.
You may not have read this in the media, but I heard it from friends in Egypt - what happened in June 2013, when Morsi appointed his old buddy Adel el-Khayat as governor of Aswan Province in Upper Egypt.
el-Khayat belonged to the terrorist group responsible for the horrendous 1997 massacre at Hatshepsut's Temple, where 62 people were killed, mostly foreign tourists.
Friends in Egypt tell me that Aswan residents were so outraged by the appointment, they were waiting at the Aswan airport when el-Khayat's place landed. They literally wouldn't let him off the plane - not without danger of being torn limb from limb.
As Wikipedia blandly notes: He resigned less than a week later. No shit. When your own constituents won't allow you to take office, resigning is probably a good idea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_massacre
edhopper
(33,615 posts)but what about that atheist guy who might or might not have been mad at people because of parking or religion huh?
What about him, isn't that a bigger story than these?
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)JDDavis
(725 posts)Because, well, because GOD, and religion always trumps no God in the world we live in. Unless you are Chinese, of course, and then it doesn't matter if you believe in a god or not. What is important is that you just work hard and amass wealth for the state to loan to the rest of the foolish world. The USA needs more money to feed their God, and doesn't want to take care of their own poor, sick, and elderly, unless it's on dimes they borrow from China.
I just had an idea: maybe we should just let the religionista's kill each other all off in the world and who would be left would be us non-religiously inclined, except for a very few of those crazy anti-theists among us who happen to live in capital punishment states that get killed off because, well, religion requires an eye for an eye, doesn't it?
So, that way, the religionista's take down all of each other in about 50 years with modern weaponry, machine guns, electricute or shoot or otherwise inject or blow off most of our wacko anti-theists with their capital punishment killing laws, and we are left with only the peaceful non-religious rational thinkers to run the world and punish multiple victim killers the way most of the countries in the world now do, by humanely confining them for the rest of their days or rehabilitating a few of them with appropriate psychotropic medications.
I don't know, just a fantasy I have been having about how the year 2100 might actually look, given the rate we are going on killing-off the numbers of sincerly held "believers".
What religion in the world is that one about "peace"? In the last 4-6 thousand years in the history of them all, few score very highly on the "peace" scale.
whatthehey
(3,660 posts)I did do a double take on that one. Polio workers are obviously a tad more important but I'll be honest I was thinking closer to home there for a bit. Birthplace of the sport after all...