The U.S. joined Saudi Arabia in voting AGAINST a UN
resolution condemning the death penalty for gay sex, blasphemy, adultery and
other taboos. Of course, although, for example, adultery is not a particularly
admirable behavior, the penalties are more likely to be imposed against women
or other targeted individuals. Of course blasphemy is aimed at believers of the
non-preferred religions or non-believers and is not a moral wrong in any way.
EVERYONE is a blasphemer in the eyes of someone else after all. As far as death
for gay sex - is this a crumb thrown to the likes of supporters of Republican
Senate nominee Roy Moore?
Showing posts with label Saudi Arabia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saudi Arabia. Show all posts
Friday, October 20, 2017
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
The same story, over and over with this President
One could write a variant of this story pretty much every week or every other day: take something the so-called President has said in the past, show it to be full of untruths and fabrications and contrast it with something he is now doing or saying that shows him to be a hypocrite, liar, inept and totally without ethics.
While running for president, the current occupant said this about Hillary Clinton:
"Crooked Hillary says we must call on Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding hate," Trump wrote on June 13, 2016. "I am calling on her to immediately return the $25 million plus she got from them for the Clinton Foundation!" http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-putin-no-relationship-226282
Keep in mind that the so-called President could not verify the $25million figure; keep in mind the Clintons made no money personally from the foundation; keep in mind that independent charity rating organizations gave the Clinton Foundation high grades as a quality charity; and finally, keep in mind that at the worst, the alleged $25million donation diverted money AWAY from religious extremist causes and instead was actually used to help people around the world.
On the other hand, in the last week, the so-called President did this:
"When President Donald Trump closed a nearly $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia on Saturday, his deputies’ spirits soared. Policy advisor Jared Kushner high-fived National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster as he entered the room where they held talks with Saudi officials. Aide Gary Cohn told pool reporters the deals represented “a lot of money. Big dollars. Big dollars.”
The weapons sale was one of the largest in history, totaling close to $110 billion worth of tanks, artillery, radar systems, armored personnel carriers, and Blackhawk helicopters. The package also included ships, patrol boats, Patriot missiles, and THAAD missile defense systems.
Much of that military hardware will likely be pressed into service in the Saudi fight against its neighbor Yemen, where more than 10,000 people have been killed over more than two years of heavy airstrikes and fighting.
This puts the U.S. in a precarious ethical position, say human rights groups and former U.S. officials. The Saudi-led airstrike campaign has hit numerous schools, hospitals, factories, and other civilian targets, leading to well-documented allegations of war crimes by human rights organizations. The war has also pushed much of the country to the brink of starvation, with more than 17 million people facing famine, according to the U.N." http://time.com/4787797/donald-trump-yemen-saudi-arabia-arms-deal/?xid=homepage
Yeah but Benghazi and the email server.
For info on the Clinton Foundation: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=16680
While running for president, the current occupant said this about Hillary Clinton:
"Crooked Hillary says we must call on Saudi Arabia and other countries to stop funding hate," Trump wrote on June 13, 2016. "I am calling on her to immediately return the $25 million plus she got from them for the Clinton Foundation!" http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-putin-no-relationship-226282
Keep in mind that the so-called President could not verify the $25million figure; keep in mind the Clintons made no money personally from the foundation; keep in mind that independent charity rating organizations gave the Clinton Foundation high grades as a quality charity; and finally, keep in mind that at the worst, the alleged $25million donation diverted money AWAY from religious extremist causes and instead was actually used to help people around the world.
On the other hand, in the last week, the so-called President did this:
"When President Donald Trump closed a nearly $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia on Saturday, his deputies’ spirits soared. Policy advisor Jared Kushner high-fived National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster as he entered the room where they held talks with Saudi officials. Aide Gary Cohn told pool reporters the deals represented “a lot of money. Big dollars. Big dollars.”
The weapons sale was one of the largest in history, totaling close to $110 billion worth of tanks, artillery, radar systems, armored personnel carriers, and Blackhawk helicopters. The package also included ships, patrol boats, Patriot missiles, and THAAD missile defense systems.
Much of that military hardware will likely be pressed into service in the Saudi fight against its neighbor Yemen, where more than 10,000 people have been killed over more than two years of heavy airstrikes and fighting.
This puts the U.S. in a precarious ethical position, say human rights groups and former U.S. officials. The Saudi-led airstrike campaign has hit numerous schools, hospitals, factories, and other civilian targets, leading to well-documented allegations of war crimes by human rights organizations. The war has also pushed much of the country to the brink of starvation, with more than 17 million people facing famine, according to the U.N." http://time.com/4787797/donald-trump-yemen-saudi-arabia-arms-deal/?xid=homepage
Yeah but Benghazi and the email server.
For info on the Clinton Foundation: https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=16680
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Tragedy at the Hajj and the Irrelevance of Religious Morality
Once again hundreds of religious pilgrims died from trampling each other at a "holy" site in Mina, near Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The actual death toll was over 700 as of last week. The trampling took place near the location where the ritual of throwing pebbles at the "devil" takes place. In 1990, 1426 died in a stampede associated with the pilgrimage, that time in a tunnel leading to "holy" sites in Mecca.
It is an obligation to make the pilgrimage at least once in one's lifetime if one is able to arrange it. Since there are over a billion Muslims, this means many converge upon Mina and Mecca, particularly during religious holidays, and the crowds have become unmanageable leading to stampedes and the deaths of innocent people, despite the efforts of the Saudis. Please note that this pilgrimage is entirely a religious exercise - nothing is accomplished as far as I can see that could not be accomplished without this pilgrimage, except for the pilgrimage.
It is instructive to read how a Muslim, Nima Elbagir of CNN, views the Hajj: " For Muslims to complete the Hajj is to be reborn. To die in the Hajj is a blessing. You are considered to have been martyred, cleansed of sin. In the space of less than a week, during the Hajj, millions of Muslims stream along prescribed routes, undertaking the same rituals within the same narrow window of time. Islam requires the rites of the Hajj be completed only once in a lifetime and even then only if you are able. There's a reason for that -- the Hajj is hard. I've done it only once. It was one of my first big assignments when I joined CNN. As a practicing Muslim, it was an almost indescribable experience. As you walk for hours among Muslims of every possible color and nationality, the physical toll of the Hajj is meant to humble you. And it does.
In the press of humanity, it doesn't take much to spark panic. Muslims believe the rite of "stoning the devil" is a re-enactment of the temptation of the prophet Abraham by Satan on the same site. As you throw the stones, you are conjuring your own personal demons...
When pilgrims set off, they know there is a real possibility that they might not come home. Many truly hope they won't... As the families of the victims of this tragedy struggle to come to terms with their loss, they will also be struggling to come to terms with the knowledge that the risk was always there. As they grieve, they'll be told these were the lucky ones. And some will pray that they will be lucky, too..."
If I understand the situation correctly, some, if not many Muslims believe, or claim to believe that dying during a Hajj is a blessing and they are "martyred." This is not unlike hearing, at a Christian funeral for example, that the deceased is "in a better place" or that God "wanted them" in heaven for some undisclosed purpose. Many Christians who died for their beliefs, and their beliefs alone, were considered "martyred" and many have been "sainted." They are revered by many and their deaths are seen as heroic, not futile.
These are the problems with religious belief, religious morality and religion itself; the belief in the afterlife distorts our view of our life while we're alive; and what is considered moral may have no relationship to human well being and may even be very bad for us. If there is an eternal afterlife, our real lives on this earth in this lifetime are almost irrelevant. What is less than 100 years in life on earth compared to an eternity in heaven? The answer is basically NOTHING - unless heaven does not exist and/or the believer's version of the divine is in error, and then our earthly lives becomes all important and worthy of cherishing. With an afterlife, however, dying pointlessly for some supernatural purpose otherwise becomes all important, again, unless it is in error, of course. Please keep in mind however, that non-Muslim religious persons see no point in dying in the Hajj while non-Christian believers see no point in dying defending the idea that Jesus is God. To the vast majority of humans on this planet, dying for someone else's mistaken belief system is a tragedy not a blessing and not martyrdom. In actuality almost everyone agrees on this subject with the exception being when their own beliefs are considered.
If we want to promote a better life for humanity on this earth in our lifetimes, a humanistic approach is a requirement. Caring about others is the source and starting point of a real morality, not belief in one or another supernatural myth. We need to get past the martyrdom that helps no one.
It is an obligation to make the pilgrimage at least once in one's lifetime if one is able to arrange it. Since there are over a billion Muslims, this means many converge upon Mina and Mecca, particularly during religious holidays, and the crowds have become unmanageable leading to stampedes and the deaths of innocent people, despite the efforts of the Saudis. Please note that this pilgrimage is entirely a religious exercise - nothing is accomplished as far as I can see that could not be accomplished without this pilgrimage, except for the pilgrimage.
It is instructive to read how a Muslim, Nima Elbagir of CNN, views the Hajj: " For Muslims to complete the Hajj is to be reborn. To die in the Hajj is a blessing. You are considered to have been martyred, cleansed of sin. In the space of less than a week, during the Hajj, millions of Muslims stream along prescribed routes, undertaking the same rituals within the same narrow window of time. Islam requires the rites of the Hajj be completed only once in a lifetime and even then only if you are able. There's a reason for that -- the Hajj is hard. I've done it only once. It was one of my first big assignments when I joined CNN. As a practicing Muslim, it was an almost indescribable experience. As you walk for hours among Muslims of every possible color and nationality, the physical toll of the Hajj is meant to humble you. And it does.
In the press of humanity, it doesn't take much to spark panic. Muslims believe the rite of "stoning the devil" is a re-enactment of the temptation of the prophet Abraham by Satan on the same site. As you throw the stones, you are conjuring your own personal demons...
When pilgrims set off, they know there is a real possibility that they might not come home. Many truly hope they won't... As the families of the victims of this tragedy struggle to come to terms with their loss, they will also be struggling to come to terms with the knowledge that the risk was always there. As they grieve, they'll be told these were the lucky ones. And some will pray that they will be lucky, too..."
If I understand the situation correctly, some, if not many Muslims believe, or claim to believe that dying during a Hajj is a blessing and they are "martyred." This is not unlike hearing, at a Christian funeral for example, that the deceased is "in a better place" or that God "wanted them" in heaven for some undisclosed purpose. Many Christians who died for their beliefs, and their beliefs alone, were considered "martyred" and many have been "sainted." They are revered by many and their deaths are seen as heroic, not futile.
These are the problems with religious belief, religious morality and religion itself; the belief in the afterlife distorts our view of our life while we're alive; and what is considered moral may have no relationship to human well being and may even be very bad for us. If there is an eternal afterlife, our real lives on this earth in this lifetime are almost irrelevant. What is less than 100 years in life on earth compared to an eternity in heaven? The answer is basically NOTHING - unless heaven does not exist and/or the believer's version of the divine is in error, and then our earthly lives becomes all important and worthy of cherishing. With an afterlife, however, dying pointlessly for some supernatural purpose otherwise becomes all important, again, unless it is in error, of course. Please keep in mind however, that non-Muslim religious persons see no point in dying in the Hajj while non-Christian believers see no point in dying defending the idea that Jesus is God. To the vast majority of humans on this planet, dying for someone else's mistaken belief system is a tragedy not a blessing and not martyrdom. In actuality almost everyone agrees on this subject with the exception being when their own beliefs are considered.
If we want to promote a better life for humanity on this earth in our lifetimes, a humanistic approach is a requirement. Caring about others is the source and starting point of a real morality, not belief in one or another supernatural myth. We need to get past the martyrdom that helps no one.
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