Iran: almost 300 women arrested for "inadequate dress"

[tellner]

I think your points about the rising tide of fundamentalism in the 'States are particularly telling, especially as it gathers around the centres of secular power :scared:.

That's been the really frightening thing about the last couple decades. We've seen the Church, the Government, the Rich, Capital and a huge chunk of the Press all align with one another. The concentration of all power around one set of interests and policies is a textbook definition of tyranny. When faith and religious zeal get mixed in it's downright terrifying. I'm convinced that the only thing saving us is that there is still a core of professionalism in the United States Army and Marine Corps. And even that is changing as the purges of officers who are not sufficiently loyal to the Party and the Leader continue.

 

[heretic888]

And I'll say it again. Paul was a vicious, hateful self-promoting used car salesman. The fact that he also had a convert's zeal doesn't excuse him from anything. Circumcision? Follow G-d's Law? Only if it makes other people feel better. Otherwise it's do what Paul says. Jew-hatred? You betcha. Let's talk about the "synagogues of Satan". It's a wonder James wasn't completely expunged from the canonical Bible.

And I'll say it once again. There isn't a shred of evidence for most of the speculations you're putting forward. If we're going to completely make stuff up on the fly, at least make it a bit more interesting.

To reiterate my previous post, if Paul's letters (and he only wrote 7 of the 13 attributed to him) is your metric for anti-Semitism in the New Testament, you are either blind or willfully ignoring the rest of the books. With the exception of Revelation and perhaps one or two of the odd apostolic letters, the Paulines are the least anti-Semitic books in the New Testament. The gospels attributed to Luke and John (as well as the Acts of the Apostles, also written by "Luke") easily take the cake as the most vociferous anti-Jewish polemic in all of the Bible.

Of course, there's a reason for all that. The epistles authored by Paul and Jude and the Revelation of John were all Jewish works written by Jewish authors. The Gospels and Acts were authored by Gentiles at a time when "Jew" and "Christian" were two clearly delineated groups of people (i.e., after 90 CE). The evangelists clearly had agendas to fulfill and axes to grind, and blaming "the Jews" for just about everything was one of them.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Women are treated like **** and you're telling me it's our fault for not understanding the culture? You honestly think that there's some way to justify treating them like property, and that all we need to do is make an effort to understand?

Thats exactly what I'm saying. The whole idea is protection. You can't use western standards to judge other cultures. It leaves you wanting to fix the problem. The problem as they see it is that western influance is drawing thier rebelious children away from Allah. If a woman goes out into the world to work like a good western girl and gets raped en route, it is seen as a faliure on the part of the family. The Family is shunned until they solve the problem. The rape squads are still bad people and get killed if caught, but they cause irreversable damage in the mean time. Don't act like women that get raped are given a parade in the west either. They get blamed for thier actions right along with islamic women.
Sean

 

[Touch Of Death]

Also, if a western Family's daughter becomes a stripper or a prostitiute, it is not as if they save a spot next to the preacher's wife for her mother in church. "The Scarlet Letter" mentality is still alive and well in the West.
sean

 

[jdinca]

And I'll say it again. Paul was a vicious, hateful self-promoting used car salesman. The fact that he also had a convert's zeal doesn't excuse him from anything. Circumcision? Follow G-d's Law? Only if it makes other people feel better. Otherwise it's do what Paul says. Jew-hatred? You betcha. Let's talk about the "synagogues of Satan". It's a wonder James wasn't completely expunged from the canonical Bible.

And he isn't the worst the Church has offered up over the centuries to the horror of the world. Leaving aside their internecine atrocities the attitude of, say, the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church towards anyone who didn't practice their particular brand of Christianity has always been "Comply or die." And if you're a Jew, a Muslim or a Pagan you didn't always get the first option. According to Papal Bull spoken ex cathedra and which is therefore binding on all Catholics for all time the killing of a Jew or Muslim guarantees Paradise and the remission of all sins. In fact it was only Pope John XXIII who removed the line calling down "G-d's curse upon the perfidious Jew" from the liturgy and who ended the ritual yearly humiliation of Rome's Chief Rabbi at the hands of the Pope. Like Mohammed Luther loved the Jews right up until the point where it was clear that they wanted to remain Jews and not convert. Then it was time for fire and sword.

I could go on from the Albigensians, the Waldenses, the Hugenots, the incalculable atrocities of the conquest of the New World, the Opium Wars, North American slavery (much worse than the Muslim variety - cf. Islam's Black Slaves), the traditional Christian treatment of women, the Klan and on and on and on.

Christianity has no right whatsoever to hold itself up as morally superior to any religion with exceptions like the Thuggee, Scientology and Jim Jones. It's no better or worse than Judaism, Islam, Hinduism or the worship of the Aesir. And like all of them it's a few laps behind the Buddhists and Bahais overall. In all fairness the Bahais have never really had a chance to oppress anyone.

The only reason it isn't worse now is that there are still secular forces and tendencies around. But look at the people who have the President's strings - Dobson, Kennedy, Reed, Falwell, La Haye, Haggard until it turned out that he was a closeted bottom and a tweaker, the Dispensationalists, Dominionists, Reconstructionists, Millenialists and the rest of that vile crew of theo-fascist whack jobs. They're every bit as bad as Bin Laden and Iwannajihad. Just as extreme, just as murderous, just as evil towards women if not more so.

As for the idea that we should concentrate on who is killing whom, let's consider it. By the time we had finished moving into Afghanistan we had killed - by our own official estimates - at least ten times as many as had been killed in the embassy bombings, the Cole and the 9/11 attacks. The numbers haven't exactly gone down since. The war in Iraq which was entirely our own making conservatively killed about a quarter million Iraqis from the end of Gulf I to the beginning of Chimpy's Great Adventure. Since then the best estimates we have are 100,000 refugees a month and upwards of half a million dead civilians. That doesn't include the disappeared, those kidnapped and tortured to death by US troops or the Iraqi government, the deaths that will certainly come as the Iraqi Civil War drags on and the thousands tortured, raped and humiliated as part of our new human rights policy.

Do I love the jihadis, the Iranian government or the rest of the mullah ****ers? No. They would kill me for being a Jew and for being a Sufi. But there is an ocean of innocent blood on my country's hands, and the fundamentalists here would kill me for being a Sufi. While they wouldn't necessarily kill me for being a Jew the Dispensationalist et al doctrine is that the Jews have to be shipped off to Israel to be killed by Arabs so that Jesus will be allowed to come back. Presumably he'll run into the Mahdi while the Hidden Twelfth Imam is crawling out of his well.

Whichever brand of jingoistic racist clods wins I die. My only hope is that the lights of reason and progress will not be completely extinguished by the Marching Morons.

All of which is why I have my faith but subscribe to no organized religion. When man gets his hands on things and tells you that if you don't worship in this way, or in that way, you're disrespecting God, I'm going to walk away. I just do not believe that is true.

As for the treatment of women that I've been talking about, I think it comes down to a basic issue of human decency and dignity. Regardless of your sex, race, ethnicity, religion, whatever, I think a person deserves the right to be treated decently as a human being. All religions have black periods in their history, it just so happens that what we're talking about is happening now.

 

[jdinca]

Thats exactly what I'm saying. The whole idea is protection. You can't use western standards to judge other cultures. It leaves you wanting to fix the problem. The problem as they see it is that western influance is drawing thier rebelious children away from Allah. If a woman goes out into the world to work like a good western girl and gets raped en route, it is seen as a faliure on the part of the family. The Family is shunned until they solve the problem. The rape squads are still bad people and get killed if caught, but they cause irreversable damage in the mean time. Don't act like women that get raped are given a parade in the west either. They get blamed for thier actions right along with islamic women.
Sean

Wow. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I can see absolutely no reason to condone treating another human as a lesser being just because that human happens to be a woman and a muslim. That is what you're saying, btw. If it's not, please correct me because quite frankly, I'm blown away. I don't care what the reasons are, a person is a person and we all deserve to be treated with the same dignity and respect, regardless of where we live, or what religion we happen to practice, or what sex we are.

 

[crushing]

Also, if a western Family's daughter becomes a stripper or a prostitiute, it is not as if they save a spot next to the preacher's wife for her mother in church. "The Scarlet Letter" mentality is still alive and well in the West.
sean

I'm not sure what you are getting at. Was this meant as a defense of the arrests of women who authorities say "let too much hair peek out from under their veil"?

 

[Tez3]

Tellner, I tried to give you good rep for your posts but said I had to spread some more around first so I'll do it publically!
Your posts give me a lot to think about (and to agree with) and I always admire passion in people especially when combined with eloquence.

 

[tellner]

Tez, you pay me a great compliment. Thank you.

 

[Touch Of Death]

Wow. We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I can see absolutely no reason to condone treating another human as a lesser being just because that human happens to be a woman and a muslim. That is what you're saying, btw. If it's not, please correct me because quite frankly, I'm blown away. I don't care what the reasons are, a person is a person and we all deserve to be treated with the same dignity and respect, regardless of where we live, or what religion we happen to practice, or what sex we are.

You see it as lesser humans, they see it as protecting their most precious members of their society. Even looking in the direction their females is an afront to the family. I know people, and I think you do too, whom are Christian and hold their own mother's in this reguard. Yes, its a trapping; however it is not uncommon.
Sean

 

[Touch Of Death]

I'm not sure what you are getting at. Was this meant as a defense of the arrests of women who authorities say "let too much hair peek out from under their veil"?

Shunning happens to this very day in the West. That is what I was getting at, but I want you to know I will fight right beside you to allow women to go toppless on the subway. I think they still arrest women for that, and I for one think it harkens back to darker times. LOL
Sean

 

[jdinca]

You see it as lesser humans, they see it as protecting their most precious members of their society. Even looking in the direction their females is an afront to the family. I know people, and I think you do too, whom are Christian and hold their own mother's in this reguard. Yes, its a trapping; however it is not uncommon.
Sean

I wouldn't argue your point of view, if the evidence didn't point to something different. There's no saying that either of our positions is wrong, either. It could very easily be a blend.

If they were their most precious members, then why aren't they treated as such? Why make them walk three steps behind the men, as opposed to next to them, if they're such a treasure? If a man and a woman are both accused of adultery, who gets the brunt of the punishment? Why aren't women allowed to get an education, or frowned upon if they do? I won't deny that there is evidence to support your point of view but there is also a great deal of evidence to support mine. I guess it's a matter of perspective.

 

[Carol]

The women being prosecuted may not be Muslim.

Iran has a Zoroastrian minority.

 

[Touch Of Death]

I wouldn't argue your point of view, if the evidence didn't point to something different. There's no saying that either of our positions is wrong, either. It could very easily be a blend.

If they were their most precious members, then why aren't they treated as such? Why make them walk three steps behind the men, as opposed to next to them, if they're such a treasure? If a man and a woman are both accused of adultery, who gets the brunt of the punishment? Why aren't women allowed to get an education, or frowned upon if they do? I won't deny that there is evidence to support your point of view but there is also a great deal of evidence to support mine. I guess it's a matter of perspective.

If there is a bad guy ahead, the women have at least three steps advantage in getting away while the lesser man deals with the danger or is killed. That is the whole pupose of the three steps behind rule.
Sean

 

[Steel Tiger]

The women being prosecuted may not be Muslim.

Iran has a Zoroastrian minority.

An interesting suggestion. But given the way the Iranian government has been trying to get rid of Zoroastrianism, at the insistence of the ayatolas, it would surprise me if she actually got a trial instead of manditory punishment.

 

[Touch Of Death]

I wonder how many women were arrested in the United States for inadequate dress last year.
Sean