Islam and Asia Bibi

[_moksha]

In June 2009, Asia Bibi was accused of blasphemy after an argument with co-workers while harvesting berries. She was subsequently arrested and imprisoned. In November 2010, a Pakistan judge sentenced her to death by hanging.

She was acquitted and freed by the Paki-Supreme Court on Tuesday. However, Muslim cleric Maulana Yousaf Qureshi announced a bounty of 500,000 Pakistani rupees to anyone who would kill her.

What's up with a religious tradition that would pay bounties to kill someone?

[_Chap]

...

What's up with a religious tradition that would pay bounties to kill someone?

I think it would be more accurate to ascribe the propensity to scream loudly that a deity wants people killed to the current nature of society and politics in Pakistan rather than to the determinative effect of any particular religious tradition.

Poor, ignorant, and desperate people in search of meaning and hope in life - and someone to blame - are petrol that demagogues can pour on the smouldering fire of discontent.

[_subgenius]

...

What's up with a religious tradition that would pay bounties to kill someone?

I think it would be more accurate to ascribe the propensity to scream loudly that a deity wants people killed to the current nature of society and politics in Pakistan rather than to the determinative effect of any particular religious tradition.

Poor, ignorant, and desperate people in search of meaning and hope in life - and someone to blame - are petrol that demagogues can pour on the smouldering fire of discontent.

Is it ironic that your statement here is religious?

So, gow is it that you have to come such a position that supports "the sanctity of life"? Or is it that you consider it blasphemous for a deity to call for death when such a proclamation is only the right of man?....or a mama bear....or a rattlesnake....or hippopotamus...

[_Chap]

I think it would be more accurate to ascribe the propensity to scream loudly that a deity wants people killed to the current nature of society and politics in Pakistan rather than to the determinative effect of any particular religious tradition.

Poor, ignorant, and desperate people in search of meaning and hope in life - and someone to blame - are petrol that demagogues can pour on the smouldering fire of discontent.

Is it ironic that your statement here is religious?

So, gow is it that you have to come such a position that supports "the sanctity of life"? Or is it that you consider it blasphemous for a deity to call for death when such a proclamation is only the right of man?....or a mama bear....or a rattlesnake....or hippopotamus...

I'm not quite sure what you are driving at, but in response:

I don't believe in any deities.

I think we shall all be happier if we agree to refrain from killing people who do no harm to others apart from believing in one particular deity rather than another.

I am aware that people who want or need the adulation and obedience of large numbers of people often try to get it by telling those people that their deity wants them to do this or that particular thing. As everybody on this particular board is well aware. What is currently happening in Pakistan is just an extreme case of a general phenomenon: nasty people often use religion to achieve their ends.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Can the mods do something about this racist post, please? Absolutely disgusting, filthy, trash posting hating on Muslims.

- Doc

[_Chap]

What's up with a religious tradition that would pay bounties to kill someone?

We might note that there have been some religions - such as Aztec sun-worship or the cult of Moloch amongst the Canaanites, in Carthage and elsewhere, which had the killing of human beings as pretty well their whole point.

Fortunately, nowadays devotees of the deities of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) tend to hold that those deities can get by quite well on a diet of prayers, even if, from time to time, they get very very annoyed and start expecting their followers to spill a bit of blood for them.

But deities - what can you do with them? They get old and cranky, and I don't think they qualify for Medicare. So they act up. If only they'd take their meds.

[_moksha]

Can the mods do something about this racist post, please? Absolutely disgusting, filthy, trash posting hating on Muslims.
- Doc

The case above was based on blasphemy, that happened within Islam, but let's open the question to a broader context so as not to hate on anyone.

What is going on with any faith tradition where its clerics offer bounties to commit murder?

Incidentally, there is no race of Muslims, just as there is no race of Jews, Christians, or Buddhists.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

One of Cam's many foibles is he is incapable of understanding how American Islamophobia is closely tied to race.

I just want to point out we've come full circle. As long as a folksy Liberal is crapping all over Islam it's, apparently, not worth rebuking.

- Doc

[_moksha]

Incidentally, there is no race of Muslims, just as there is no race of Jews, Christians, or Buddhists.

Are you sure? Seem to recall on the old FAIR board how the priesthood is now limited to the Mormon race.