Honor Killings — A Symptom Of Why We’ll Never Win In The Mideast

Shit like this is what convinced me that religious people are a step behind the rest of us in the evolution of the human race.

Uncle Dave==we will win in the Middle East when we pull out and become energy independent. If we continue our 40 years of lack of carbon free energy production and do nothing, this will occur all on its own in about 50 years max when the Middle East runs out of oil and returns to a sand economy and everyone else in the world forgets how and why they had any influence at all.

With our supplies, Israel can stand or fall on its own.

I agree with number 4. The only reason we care about these barbarians is that they have oil. If we escaped the prison of oil dependency, the whole area would become irrelevant. AND Israel would have no trouble defending herself as the only civilized nation in the area since, once oil was out of the equation, who’d be pouring modern weapons into the hands of these folks?

The middle east is plagued with primitive, tribalist cultures that need to grow up, evolve to something more human. Without our greed and oil addiction propping them up they would have remained small and meaningless.

I know one and he is actively working to get these women out of the ’stans, get the clerics out of the mosques, and get the schools updated to US standards. And he is doing this WITHOUT gov aid — everything is done through donations.

He’s lived in the US over half his life and is a US citizen. He votes at every election.

He is married to a Catholic woman (which, in his words, made family reunions “tense” in the beginning). Their two boys are taught both religions in the hopes they will choose for themselves which one to follow.

His father has four wives so he is a good example of what a decent education can do. He said the biggest problem over there is they don’t educate their women and resist educating their men. So when this cleric gets up on stage and starts preaching hate, they don’t have the background to know whether that is the truth or not.

He likes to joke that one of his goals in life is to start a franchise of turban-wear with sports team patches sewed on them (that way they can put them in the back windows of their cars . He’s afraid it won’t go over too well, though. He jokes, “Some of those guys spend way too much time in the sun and would find little humor in it. Nothing gets the blood boiling faster than the Pakistani sun except jacking with a Muslim’s turban.”

I would trade any 20 random members of congress for one man like him.

I will not post his name as it is not my place.

#8–Tom==Its too close to call. Take your choice:

1–Yes, you know one reasonable Muslim. Isn’t that exactly the problem?

-or-

2..I saw a Bear once that could ride a tricycle.

#11–Mustard, you raise a fascinating question. Are “groups” best characterized by their leadership that actually can command action, or by what the majority of the group would do if left alone? You seem to imply that the average opinion of good germans should have been trusted in 1939 instead of Hitlers Leadership. Interesting. We’ll both still be in the first group to go.

How to best view a contesting ideology is a key question that all Western Societies will have to come to grips with. Is the question at all telegraphed by all the intolerant things the Muslims are doing in Minnesota these days==refusing to taxi people who carry duty free home from the airport, single women out on their own, etc?

I’ve known 2 Muslims in my life. One was a flaming asshole who thought Israel was on par with Nazi Germany, and another who wanted to become a Sufi. He very quiet but in reality when dealing with religious types, how can you ever tell who is more nuts?

We can all laugh and be stunned at the primitive thinking of Muslim fundies, but then again, we live in a society with Christian and Jewish fundies (thanks, JPV). Are our society that more advanced when it comes to religion? Isn’t it pathetic that a country prints “In God We Trust” on the their currency? Or having a President who leads the country to war because God told him so?

>>No one knows a muslam

That’s because there are no “muslams”. Get a spell checker, Jule. You keep spelling it wrong.

#17–cursor==I am in sympathy with your sentiments but no one offers up their children in the USA. Aren’t they all adult volunteers making their own decisions?

And few in the USA would claim that killing is “good”–only that it is necessary for a greater good.

And yes, I do believe homo sapien is just one step above neanderthal–from a slightly different set of stairs, but still only one step above.

I recall a recent film making the point that the reason neanderthal died out is they would not kill the homo’s. Very sentimental. Truth is they just couldn’t kill homo’s as efficiently as we killed them.

Life is like that.

The larger issue here I think is that we have two things going on here.
One is how we deal with these things when people are here on our soil and under our law.
The second is how another sovereign country deals with its citizens under its legal system.

This does nothing to change how abhorrent such acts are, but one is more clear cut, and the other limits how we can act.

er.. hopefully.

I’ve noticed that there is a lot blame about Islam demanding this. I think that it is cultural, not religious. A lot of people confuse the two.

I am convinced that even if Islam had never been invented, this problem would still be there. I has everything to do with tribalism. This pre-dates Islam.

Why tribalism took root, I don’t know. I think that it has always been there. I suspect that it is, at its roots, mans’ nature when competing for scarce resources. If you notice, tribal culture is mostly where one group can only succeed or even survive at the expense of another. The idea of “a rising tide lifts all boats” is totally foreign. Instead, it is based on a zero-sum gain.

The religious tolerance or approval of such acts is simply the faith being molded to fit the culture.

Education, and exposure to outside alternatives is the solution. However, the tribal culture is self-reinforcing, and thus hostile to the cure. That is why to most extreme think that education for women is wrong. That is why allowing someone from another “tribe”, or allowing one of your tribe, to mix is wrong.

How to break this cycle? I don’t know. I don’t think it is going to be done in our lifetimes.

#25 does it hurt?

#27 you can always have worse. Say, wanna trade Bushie with Kuzco?

Remember, Kuzco is Hugo Chavez. I also agree that the biggest problem with Islam is the Arab culture. I have also known a few Muslims in my time and not a one was either a wacko or a creep. Some were Arab and some were Asian. A huge difference, effectively like two entirely different religions.

We hear a lot of problems coming from the Arab side is Islam, but rarely hear anything from the Asian side. And when you do hear something about the Asian side, it’s always because an Arab got in the mix.

religion is a mental illness

@admfubar

So is love.

Sadly, people who like to equate a crazy woman who says “Jesus made her do it” and then is properly punished (as she should be) with socially acceptable and approved “honor killing” are part of the problem.

I’m looking at you #14/15.

If you can’t see the difference in the way the US treats a loon like that crazy woman, and the way the authorized government of Iraq treated this guy, then you aren’t any better off than the worst of human kind.

How on earth “in God we trust” is just as bad as “I’ll kill my daughter for even daring to talk with a British soldier” is beyond me.

As a proud Christian, I may believe sex outside of marriage is wrong, but believe it is entirely wrong to kill the girl or guy who does it.

Christians’ preach morality, but with forgiveness and redemption for the fallen. Sure, we believe some things are wrong, but even in a “right wing” church like mine, you’ll never find anyone who would approve of killing people for anything short of murder.

Sadly, the more of Islam I see, the more I fear for my families’ safety in a world where those that practice it grow in numbers and power.

#32 so, you’ve been labeled infidel by several religions too, huh?

@32 It is not a mental illness, just de-evolution, or lack or evolution.

It’s still not too late to invoke The Prime Directive.

It’s asinine to say that their willingness to do stupid, hateful things to each other makes them unbeatable. The contrary is true.

It just means that the percentage of them that will have to die before the others see the light is a little larger, that’s all.

39 Pedro >>>”I’m sure the one procreating like rabbits are going to be the most successful economically, right?”

That’s the thing about being too poor to own a pot to piss in. You still get one vote in a democracy.

RBG

#47–Muslims–nice like in your moniker there.

You actually propose to REWRITE the Koran???

Good luck with that. Let us know how things go?