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March 25th, 3:40pm 0 comments

greta christina's open letter to concerned believers

It is difficult to avoid the observation that, whenever believers give advice to atheists on how to run our movement, it is always in the direction of telling us to be more quiet, to tone it down, to be less confrontational and less visible. I have yet to see a believer advise the atheist movement to speak up more loudly and more passionately; to make our arguments more compelling and more unanswerable; to get in people's faces more about delicate and thorny issues that they don't want to think about; to not be afraid of offending people if we think we're right. I have received a great deal of advice from believers on how atheists should run our movement... and it is always, always, always in the direction of politely suggesting that we shut up.

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March 10th, 11:45pm 0 comments

Women's Day a Communist plot? Oh, wait I mean Capitalist. No, I mean Zionist!

The article can be found here, but I don't recommend going there because the website is damned slow. The author is, I believe, a popular blogger who is a member of PAS, the Malaysian Islamic Party. Proof that religion rots the brain?

(TERJEMAHAN: 1932 Poster Soviet yang bermaksud: 8 March adalah hari pemberontakan oleh wanita bekerja terhadap "perhambaan dapur". Katakan “TIDAK” kepada kekerasan dan penindasan kerja-kerja rumah”)

Mengikut pengkajian saya, sejarah "Hari Wanita" telah dimulakan oleh Parti Komunis Russia (Bolshevik) selepas mereka menjatuhkan Czar di Russia. Ia telah dimulakan oleh SU Agung Parti Komunis Russia yang pertama, Vladimir Lenin, bagi tujuan yang amat jahat dan seperti dirasuk syaitan. Yakni, menghancurkan institusi keluarga di Russia.

SAMBUTAN 8 MARCH DIMULAKAN PARTI KOMUNIS RUSSIA

Dari poster di bawah, ia menjelaskan kepada kita sambutan 8 March sempena “Hari Wanita” adalah ciptaan Parti Komunis Russia dan bersumber dari ideology Komunis.
Tujuannya tidak lain dan tidak bukan adalah untuk mengeluarkan para wanita dari peranan sebagai ibu dan surirumah kepada peranan sebagai pekerja untuk mengkayakan negara.

Dalam konteks kapitalisma pula, para wanita digalakkan bekerja sendiri kerana mereka bakal digunakan untuk mengkayakan para korporat-korporat yang senantiasa tamak dan haloba untuk mencari wang. Tidak pernah mereka cukup dengan wang yang ada, mereka mahu wang mereka sentiasa bertambah.

Tujuan Parti Komunis menyuruh wanita keluar rumah dan bekerja adalah supaya anak-anak mereka kelak akan dibesarkan dan diindoktrinisasi oleh negara. Ertinya, tugas ibu bapa hanya memberi sokongan material sahaja tetapi dari segi pemikiran dan cara bertindak,semuanya akan ditentukan oleh negara (dalam kes ini negara yang diperintah Komunis).

Dalam kontek kita sekarang ini, apabila wanita bekerja, anak-anak akan diracuni pemikiran mereka oleh media yang mempromosikan budaya konsumerisma, hedonisma dan berpeleceran serta keduniaan yang melampau.

Tidak hairanlah semenjak wanita-wanita bekerja dengan ramai, masaalah sosial dalam masyarakat umat Melayu semakin serius dan membarah. Apa yang berlaku adalah tugas membangun keluarga sudah menjadi tugas “separuh masa” manakala tugas sepenuh masa adalah mengkayakan para korporat yang sentiasa tamak haloba.

Apabila makin ramai wanita bekerja, maka kos “labor” (tenaga kerja) semakin menurun kerana bilangan pekerja dalam pasaran semakin bertambah. Di kala wanita 90% duduk di rumah dan menjadi surirumah, kos pekerja berada di tahap yang agak tinggi. Apabila para wanita mula bekerja di luar, maka kos pekerja menjadi murah kerana secara tiba-tiba bilangan pekerja bertambah.

KEMPEN KOMUNIS SECARA SENYAP-SENYAP

Kita semua tahu Gerakan Bolshevik adalah gerakan yang dipimpin oleh Zionist antarabanga. Leon Trostsky adalah dari keturunan Yahudi berasal dari New York. Begitu juga Vladimir Lenin yang mempunyai keturunan Yahudi dan begitu juga Stalin. Kebanyakan pembesar-pembesar Parti Komunis Russia sewaktu Revolusi Bolshevik adalah dari bangsa Yahudi termasuk director pertama “Polis Rahsia” Parti Boshevik (Cheka) yang bernama Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky. Beliau ini telah bertanggungjawab terhadap pembunuhan berjuta-juta nyawa yang tidak berdosa selepas Revolusi Oktober yang menjatuhkan Czar Nikolas Romanov dari takhta beliau.

Agenda komunis ini diteruskan oleh agen-agen mereka di Amerika. Dalam hal berkaitan pembebasan wanita, dua nama yang sering dikaitkan adalah Betty Friedandan Gloria Steinem. Kedua-dua wanita ini dianggap sebagai pengasas kepada gerakan Hak Kesaksamaan Wanita di zaman moden ini. Kedua-dua wanita ini juga dalah dari bangsa Yahudi berfahaman Zionis.

Maka yang selama ini dulaungkan sebagai “Hak Wanita” adalah sebenarnya kempen senyap untuk mengkehadapankan agenda Komunis kepada manusia seluruh dunia. Mereka berkata kononnya wanita ditindas kerana terpaksa duduk di rumah sahaja dan menjaga keluarga.
Hakikatnya, kita lihat sekarang ini, wanita-wanita dari keluarga yang kaya kesemuanya tidak bekerja dan duduk di rumah. Wanita-wanita dari keluarga tidak berada terpaksa bekerja sepenuh masa demi untuk mengkayakan sejemput wanita-wanita dari keluarga kaya ini dan membolehkan mereka tidak bekerja.

AGENDA SEBENAR KOMUNISMA

Agenda Komunis adalah untuk menukar peranan masing-masing dalam masyarakat kepada peranan yang dikehendaki oleh ideology komunis, yakni menjadi pekerja.
Institusi keluarga dianggap hina dalam ideology Komunis kerana ia menyebabkan 50% dari rakyat sesebuah negara itu tidak menjadi pekerja.

Bagi saya, pertubuhan-pertubuhan seperti WAO, Sisters in Islam etc adalah anak beranak Pol Pot kerana mereka ini berjasa menghancurkan institusi keluarga dalam masyarakat.

Mereka juga menamppakan sikap hipokrit mereka yang tinggi terutamanya dalam kes sebatan syariah. Kalau mereka benar2 mahu meperjuangkan kesaksamaaan, mengapa marah Kartika disebat? Bukankah kesaksamaan menjamin bahawa wanita dan lelaki dilayan sama rata?

AGENDA SEBENAR GERAKAN HAK KESAKSAMAAN WANITA

MEreka mahu menghancurkan institusi keluarga. Secara turun temurun, kaum lelaki adalah ketua di dalam keluarga. Mereka bertanggungjawab menjaga serta memberi nafkah kepada wanita dan kanak kanak.

Kita tidak nafi memang ada lelaki yang tidak berguna dan tidak boleh diharap sebagai bapa, tetapi majoriti lelaki yang menjadi bapa bertanggungjawab menjaga keluarga mereka. Namun, dengan bantuan media yang dipunyai Yahudi, kes-kes terpencil ini diperbesarkan menjadikan tugas lelaki memimpin keluarga dipandang serong oleh masyarakat.

Hakikatnya, kempen “Hak Kesaksamaan” ini adalah kempen yang menguntungkan segelintir kecil masyarakat sahaja. Dalam negara komunis yang untung adalah ahli-ahli Politburo Parti Komunis. Dalam negara “Kapitalisma” ia menguntungkan tuan punya syarikat yang besar-besar sahaja.

Majoriti rakyat akan menderita dan tersiksa di bawah polisi-polisi yang mendukung “Hak Kesaksamaan”. Masyarakat akan menjadi hancur dan berkecai. MAsalaah sosial akan menjadi lumrah hidup kerana tugas menjaga keluarga sudah menjadi tugas separuh masa.
Zina, minum arak, judi, rogol dsbnya akan meningkat dan terus meningkat.

PEnyalahgunaan dadah akan menjadi lumrah hidup. Semuanya demi mengkayakan dan memberi kesenangan kepada segelintir orang kaya dan berkuasa di dalam masyarakat.
Seharusnya syarikat membayar gaji yang lebih kepada seorang bapa berbanding dengan seorang wanita kerana bapa menggunakan wang yang beliau dapat untuk menyara keluarga. Wanita tidak diwajibkan menyara keluarga, maka apa salahnya mereka dibayar lebih rendah dari lelaki?

Tulang Besi

Posted
March 7th, 12:03am 0 comments

Ethnicity and religion

I have just read this article on The Nut Graph about a lecture on Islam and Christianity in the Middle East. The lecturer, a Dr Chawkat Moucarry, does have a valid point about not entangling and confusing ethnicity (your genetic heritage) with religion (a cultural heritage). He relates an experience that I think would not be out of place here in Malaysia.

During the lecture, Moucarry, who is a Syrian Christian, related his own negative experience when he travelled to Algeria in 1982: "[The name in my passport] is Chawkat George Moucarry as I was born into a Catholic Syrian family and was given the second name of George.

"The [Algerian] immigration officer asked me, 'Are you Arab?' I said, 'Yes'. Then he asked, 'Are you Christian?' I said 'Yes'. He told me, 'That cannot be. You are either Arab or Christian, you cannot be both.'"

Moucarry was detained for several hours and initially not allowed to enter Algeria due to the officer's disbelief about his ethnicity and religion.

"It was a humiliating experience," he said. "For the first time in my life, I was denied my Arab-ness, as being Arab was defined as being Muslim [only]."

Moucarry said a person should not have to give up their ethnic identity just because they have another religion.


But, he is spot on about the similarities between Muslims and Christians:

Media_httpwwwthenutgr_ihtic

I wonder what he thinks about us atheists?
Posted
March 3rd, 1:21pm 0 comments

Where do atheists come from?

HERE's a fact to flatter the unbelievers among you: the bright young things at the University of Oxford are among the most godless groups ever studied in the UK. Of 728 students surveyed in 2007, 48.9 per cent claimed not to believe in any god, with 49.6 per cent claiming no religious affiliation. And while a very small number of Britons typically label themselves as "atheist" or "agnostic" (most surveys put it at about 5 per cent), an astonishing 57.3 per cent of the Oxford sample did.

This may come as no surprise. After all, atheism is the natural stance of the educated and the informed, is it not? It is only to be expected that Oxford students should be wise to what their own professor Richard Dawkins calls "self-indulgent, thought-denying skyhookery" - and others call "faith". The old Enlightenment caricature, it seems, is true after all: where Reason reigns, God retires.

Of course, things are never quite that simple. Within the sample, for instance, the postgraduates (that is, the even-better educated) were notably more religious than the undergraduates, in terms of both belief in God and self-description. Although the greater number of non-Europeans in the postgraduate population is almost certainly a significant factor here, evidence from elsewhere backs the idea that there is no straightforward relationship between atheism and education.

from newscientist.com

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February 28th, 6:34pm 0 comments

Persuasion, not compulsion

Inspired by Unscientific Malaysia's decision, I am mirroring this as well since The Star has taken their copy down.

QUESTION TIME
By P. GUNASEGARAM


When federal laws unambiguously prohibit whipping or caning of women, religious laws must not be allowed to do the opposite.

ONE of the small things that I am grateful for is that I cannot be legally whipped or caned for any offence any more. Yes, there are criminal penalties which can specify whipping, but not for those over 50, I am told. Sometimes being old(er) is an advantage.

The other reason that I won’t be legally whipped is that I am not a Muslim and therefore my personal behaviour is not subject to syariah courts, which can hold me liable for offences such as drinking alcohol and have me caned.

For me and for millions of Malaysians of all races and religions, Feb 9, 2010, was a sad, black day in the history of our country. On that day, three women were caned legally for the first time ever in this country. They, all Muslims, were caned for engaging in illicit sex, an offence under syariah law, it was announced.

It is shocking that such sentences are being meted out for such offences. While religious laws may allow for such sentences, it is possible for judges to mete out lower sentences, especially when such “offences” are of a very personal nature and harm no one else.

When there are loopholes in religious laws which allow such punishment out of all proportion to the “crime” committed, and which go against the sensibilities of most Malaysians, then it is incumbent upon the Government of the day to use the legislature to do the needful. Otherwise it abdicates its responsibility.

Illicit sex means sex out of wedlock and if we are all not hypocrites, we will admit that it happens all the time, among both Muslims and non-Muslims. To prescribe caning for such an offence is something that most Malaysians are likely to consider just too much.

It also opens the door for caning for more minor offences in the eyes of religious officials, such as drinking alcohol. In fact one Muslim woman, who has refused to appeal her case, is currently awaiting a caning sentence to be carried out after she was found guilty of drinking alcohol.

That case attracted international attention and made it to the front page of two international financial dailies – The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times – on the same day last year. The current case, announced on Wednesday, is already beginning to attract world attention.

With three women already having been caned for illicit sex, the way has been paved for more caning of women in the future. That will not endear Malaysia to Malaysians, let alone foreigners who are inevitably going to equate us with the Taliban. And who can blame them?

And are we going to go further down the slippery road and cane women for dressing immodestly too, as has been done in some countries?

There are already indications that Malays, especially women, are migrating and leaving their homeland, not because they don’t have opportunities here but because as Muslims, their personal freedom is restricted – and there is danger that it will be curtailed even more.

Yes, it has been said the three women did not suffer any cuts or bruises following the caning but that is scant consolation to those who have to undergo such humiliating punishment on top of the intrusion into their personal affairs.

As if the caning was not bad enough, alarmingly they spent months in prison. One of them is still serving her jail sentence and will be released only in June.

All three were found guilty of committing illicit sex by the Federal Territory Syariah High Court, which issued the caning order between December last year and last month. Perplexingly, they were not made public at that point of time. The public had no idea of the caning before it was done.

Also, it was not clear if the women had exercised their full rights under syariah law by appealing the court’s decision.

These are behaviours which should not be treated as if they were criminal offences; but they have been. The offenders have not only been caned but also jailed, which is rather harsh punishment for something which did not harm anyone else and was done in privacy and behind closed doors.

This is clear indication that there are laws in our statute books – both syariah as well as civil – which are outdated and need to be revised in keeping with the times and the recognition that individuals have personal rights.

Personal behaviour between consenting adults that do no physical harm to them and to others should not be legislated. This is in keeping with the development of personal rights throughout the world, and anything that takes away these rights is a step backwards.

Religion is open to interpretation, man interprets it and man can – and does – make mistakes.

Even if religious rules are flouted, we should have a system which does not mete out punishment for offences, and focus instead on rehabilitation and counselling. That will be in keeping with the universal tenet that there is no compulsion when it comes to religion.

Custodial and punitive sentences by religious courts should be limited via statutes because personal behaviour of adults is often involved and there is no hurt or harm to any others arising from such behaviour.

Religion is about persuasion not compulsion, about faith not certainty, and that is the way we should keep it. Otherwise, bigotry is going to get in the way and we won’t be following the tenets of religion but of those who choose to interpret it the way they want to.

We have all seen what happens when religion – no matter what religion – is carried to extremes and hijacked by bigots. We don’t want public flogging, we don’t want arms chopped off, we don’t want people to be stoned to death, and we don’t want people to be burned at the stake.

We have already moved way past that. Let’s not allow a small number of religious bigots to take us back into the dark ages. And for that, we all need to stand up and speak up when our individual rights are trampled upon.

Managing editor P. Gunasegaram is appalled by the number of sins committed in the name of God.
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Posted
February 27th, 1:24pm 0 comments

Liberals and atheists smarter?

More intelligent people are statistically significantly more likely to exhibit social values and religious and political preferences that are novel to the human species in evolutionary history.  Specifically, liberalism and atheism, and for men (but not women), preference for sexual exclusivity correlate with higher intelligence, a new study finds.

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