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 The religiously insane become yet insanier.....
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  03:22:51  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
Sooo, ya wanna live in a theocratcy, hah? Good for you, but perhaps you should eXamine the situation closely before you start screwing up your country.
quote:
The letter "X" soon may be banned in Saudi Arabia because it resembles the mother of all banned religious symbols in the oil kingdom: the cross.

The new development came with the issuing of another mind-bending fatwa, or religious edict, by the infamous Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — the group of senior Islamic clergy that reigns supreme on all legal, civil, and governance matters in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The commission's damning of the letter "X" came in response to a Ministry of Trade query about whether it should grant trademark protection to a Saudi businessman for a new service carrying the English name "Explorer."

"No! Nein! Nyet!" was the commission's categorical answer.

Why?

Well, never mind that none of the so-called scholars manning the upper ranks of the religious outfit can speak or read a word of English. But their experts who examined the English word "explorer" were struck by how suspicious that "X" appeared. In a kingdom where Friday preachers routinely refer to Christians as pigs and infidel crusaders, even a twisted cross ranks as an abomination.

Apart from the Cross of St. Andrews,





I don't see much resemblence.

But that's neither here nor there. The bottom line is that if the Dobsons, Wildemons, Perkins, et al, should get their way, this is some of the silly shit we might have to put up with.

So, y'all fundies who think that a literal interpretation of the Bible is the answer to all of your intellectual desires, take a long look at Saudi Arabia. Then, if that same Bible hasn't permenantly damaged your thought process' consider this: madness is madness, whatever it's dogma.

I eXpect that the pious idiots in the Office of Purity & Whatever, will not banish "X" from any of the many languages that use it. And, as the Saudis are international business types, they will have to live with it because even if it's banned in their country, no one else is gonna give it up. The outcome of this might be interesting -- or not...




"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!


Edited by - filthy on 01/16/2007 03:25:02

Starman
SFN Regular

Sweden
1613 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  04:12:37   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Starman a Private Message
Sounds reasonable to me. A 'X' might offend a non christian and a 'C' is obviously very offensive to non muslims.
Lets remove all those letters that might hurt someones feelings...


"Any religion that makes a form of torture into an icon that they worship seems to me a pretty sick sort of religion quite honestly"
-- Terry Jones
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Neurosis
SFN Regular

USA
675 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  04:22:49   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Neurosis an AOL message Send Neurosis a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Starman

Sounds reasonable to me. A 'X' might offend a non christian and a 'C' is obviously very offensive to non muslims.
Lets remove all those letters that might hurt someones feelings...





Y pisses me off. Always showing up late for work and hanging out with the consonants, then he comes lad de da back to the vowels like everything is cool.

Facts! Pssh, you can prove anything even remotely true with facts.
- Homer Simpson

[God] is an infinite nothing from nowhere with less power over our universe than the secretary of agriculture.
- Prof. Frink

Lisa: Yes, but wouldn't you rather know the truth than to delude yourself for happiness?
Marge: Well... um.... [goes outside to jump on tampoline with Homer.]
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard

USA
3834 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  05:03:59   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send beskeptigal a Private Message
Crazy is the least of the problems with that nonsense. The anti-US and anti-Christian rhetoric is heating up a bit there. Considering Bush leading this country, you can't blame them, but I thought Bush was their buddy. So what does it mean? That maybe the oil barons are losing control to the Madrassa crowd?


I dunno. It's a bit worrisome.


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HalfMooner
Dingaling

Philippines
15831 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  05:45:45   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send HalfMooner a Private Message
Seems to me that every letter in the alphabet (actually, in every alphabet) is going to resemble some religion's banned symbol. The only solution is for the world to become preliterate again in support of religious freedom. If we do this, we certainly won't be reading anything more about this problem.


Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  09:34:44   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
I'm getting that "tsk, tsk" feeling beskeptigal had about the Park Service and the age of the Grand Canyon.

Only the New York Sun has released this story (a couple other Web outlets have reported it as from the New York Sun). It seems to have been written by the same guy who, in 1995, wrote a story for the New York Times claiming that a fatwa had been issued declaring the Earth to be flat (which appears to have been a gross distortion of the actual edict).

Also, a website called Hot Air points out that the "banning the letter X" story actually came out three years ago.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9688 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  10:58:12   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
My initial feeling of this report when I read it a few hours ago was "this is to moronic to be true". It looks like I was right.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder.
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  13:33:21   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message
I had almost the same intuition, Mab, but it was, "This is too moronic to be true, so it probably is."

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular

Australia
800 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  15:51:44   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit JohnOAS's Homepage Send JohnOAS a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
The only solution is for the world to become preliterate again in support of religious freedom.

I believe the former greatly improves the environment for the flourishing of the latter.

Except of course, for the whole "freedom" thing.




John's just this guy, you know.
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Chippewa
SFN Regular

USA
1496 Posts

Posted - 01/16/2007 :  19:18:10   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Chippewa's Homepage Send Chippewa a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner

Seems to me that every letter in the alphabet (actually, in every alphabet) is going to resemble some religion's banned symbol. The only solution is for the world to become preliterate again in support of religious freedom. If we do this, we certainly won't be reading anything more about this problem.



Except I'm take'n cammand o' them Pie-rate letters matie! You know whataye mean!
Letters I ("Ayeeeee") and R ("Arrrrrr")

Aye....Arrr....aye....arrrr...
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Ghost_Skeptic
SFN Regular

Canada
510 Posts

Posted - 01/17/2007 :  00:18:19   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Ghost_Skeptic a Private Message
On the other hand, this piece of fundamentalist Isamic idocy however is real, absolutely insane and evil beyond belief.

19 year old rape victim facing death sentence for killing one of her attackers freed.

quote:
Fatehi was sentenced to death in an Iranian court a year ago, after admitting to stabbing to death one of three men who tried to rape her and a 16-year-old relative. Fatehi was 17 at the time.

Under Iran's strict laws on chastity, if Fatehi had allowed the men to rape her and her niece, the girls would have been subjected to 100 lashes. If they had been married at the time, they would likely have been found guilty of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning.



For a woman in Iran (and probably a lot of other Islamic countries) it is a real case of damned if you do and damned of you don't

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. / You can send a kid to college but you can't make him think." - B.B. King

History is made by stupid people - The Arrogant Worms

"The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism." - William Osler

"Religion is the natural home of the psychopath" - Pat Condell

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter" - Thomas Jefferson
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GK Paul
Skeptic Friend

USA
306 Posts

Posted - 01/18/2007 :  12:06:53   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send GK Paul a Private Message
What's the big deal. The Church of Secular Humanism wants all reference to Christmas banned in public arenas. I see little difference in that, and what the Saudis want to do.


"Something cannot come from nothing" -- Ken Tanaka - geologist

"The existence of a Being endowed with intelligence and wisdom is a necessary inference from a study of celestial mechanics" --Sir Isaac Newton


GK Paul
Edited by - GK Paul on 01/18/2007 12:12:07
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Siberia
SFN Addict

Brazil
2322 Posts

Posted - 01/18/2007 :  12:12:18   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Siberia's Homepage  Send Siberia an AOL message  Send Siberia a Yahoo! Message Send Siberia a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by GK Paul

What's the big deal. The Church of Secular Humanism wants all reference to Christmas banned in public arenas. I see no difference in that, and what the Saudis want to do.


No they don't.

"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa

"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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GK Paul
Skeptic Friend

USA
306 Posts

Posted - 01/18/2007 :  12:37:19   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send GK Paul a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Siberia

quote:
Originally posted by GK Paul

What's the big deal. The Church of Secular Humanism wants all reference to Christmas banned in public arenas. I see no difference in that, and what the Saudis want to do.


No they don't.


If you put up a Merry Christmas banner in your city hall (in December) I have a feelling it won't stay up too long.


"Something cannot come from nothing" -- Ken Tanaka - geologist

"The existence of a Being endowed with intelligence and wisdom is a necessary inference from a study of celestial mechanics" --Sir Isaac Newton


GK Paul
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 01/18/2007 :  12:46:30   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
There isn't even a "Church of Secular Humanism" to begin with, so GK Paul is making all this crap up. It's his own, private version of "reality" which has such a Church, and it wants to ban Christmas. Obviously, it's also true in GK Paul's own personal reality, that the Saudis really do want to eliminate the letter X. And so, within his reality, extreme religious fanatics other than himself are being consistent no matter what their religion.

You know, perhaps in GK Paul's personally fabricated world, marsupials attempt to break into hospital maternity wards because they need to eat placentas to live. And maybe army ants are called that because they have little teeny-tiny rifles. Or maybe, like in verlch's world, bats really are blind. (Any of these make just as much sense as the existence of a Church of Secular Humanism, and GK Paul is all about things making "sense.")

Let's all be glad that we don't live inside GK Paul's fevered imagination.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9688 Posts

Posted - 01/18/2007 :  12:50:22   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by GK Paul

quote:
Originally posted by Siberia

quote:
Originally posted by GK Paul

What's the big deal. The Church of Secular Humanism wants all reference to Christmas banned in public arenas. I see no difference in that, and what the Saudis want to do.


No they don't.


If you put up a Merry Christmas banner in your city hall (in December) I have a feelling it won't stay up too long.

We have already established that your feeling, intuition, and gut-feeling sense is a very poor substitute for Facts. Therefore I don't take your word for it, but demand citation. Find us a quote by a representative of the Church of Secular Humanism stating that banning reference to Christmas in pubic arenas is a goal of theirs.
Provide credible evidence that Merry Christmas banner-removals from any City Hall actually did happen due to pressure from Secular Humanists.

I'm very skeptical to the truthfulness of your statements.

(edited to change one word, struck-out)

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder.
Edited by - Dr. Mabuse on 01/18/2007 12:53:26
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