Satire.
Tag: Islam
Danish Debate: Bare Breasts or Bacon?
Members of two Danish political parties differ over whether including scenes of nude (or at least topless) beach-goers in an informative film about Denmark would discourage fundamentalist Muslims from trying to immigrate.
“Bare breasts are not a protection against fundamentalism,” [Conservative Integration Spokesman Naser] Khader says on his Facebook page.
“Quite on the contrary. Fundamentalists [are] so sex crazy that bare breasts would make them flock to the country. Perhaps one should try naked pigs and pork— that’ll keep them away…” Khader says.
Add this to your file on “embodied religion,” maybe.
A New Muslim Witchhunt
Following Saudi Arabia’s recent threat to execute Lebanese radio personality Ali Sabat for “sorcery,” the progressive government of Bahrain now plans to make sorcery and witchcraft criminal offenses, evidently part of a new Arab Muslim attack on the psychic arts.
People found guilty of sorcery and witchcraft would face unspecified jail terms and undetermined fines or both, the paper reports.
The article is illustrated with a stock photo of Australian Witch and writer Caroline Tully, oddly enough.
Viewing with alarm, a Saudi professor of Islamic studies claims that Arabs spend $5 billion annually on magic and sorcery, so the Islamic witch-hunters have their work cut out for them.
Meanwhile, in Iran, they want to arrest women for having sun tans, which “defy Islamic values.”
Did the Earth Move for You?
Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi of Iran explains that women cause Middle Eastern earthquakes.
“Many women who dress inappropriately … cause youths to go astray, taint their chastity and incite extramarital sex in society, which increases earthquakes,” Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi told worshippers at overnight prayers in Tehran.
It’s the way that they walk, you see. So we must hide them in order to have a proper Islamic society.
Did Poseidon the earth-shaker ever lust after mortal women? I could imagine a great music video here for someone along the line of Haifa Wehbe or Madonna.
May
In US Air Force, Wiccans Outnumber Muslims
A friend passed on this column by political commenter Diana West, who notes in passing that there are almost as many Wiccans as Muslims in the American military–and more in the Air Force.
So far, I have not heard of any Wiccan dissatisfied with their military careers expressing themselves by killing their fellow service members.
Let’s hope it never happens.
Copyediting Religion
Orthographic payback is a bitch.
For years–starting when I wrote for Gnosis in the 1980s–I was one of those pushing for the capitalization of the words Witch and Pagan when used to describe first, the followers of the new, self-consciously created polytheistic mystery religion and, second, Pagan as a more general term for both old and new polytheism.
When I wrote The Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics in the early 1990s, I won the capitalization battle over “Paganism,” but lost on changing BC/AD to BCE/CE.
It should be noted that some Pagan scholars prefer “pagan,” either because they are English or because they see “paganism” as a way of being religion in which people of all faiths participate. For instance, making a pilgrimage to a saint’s tomb is “pagan” in Michael York’s view.
But now I am editing and laying out an anthology intended as a college textbook on world religions. And almost everyone has their capitalization quirks.
The writer on Judaism wants write not merely “Israel” but its full diplomatic name: “State of Israel.” Oddly enough, she does not insist on “Federal Republic of Germany.”
The writer on Mormonism wants to capitalize priesthood, as in Aaronic Priesthood, while all the other contributors lowercase it, e.g., Zoroastrian priesthood.
The writer on Islam has a whole capitalization list for me too. The Baha’i wants Baha’i Faith capitalized–which is fine–but also “faith” when it stands alone. And of course the expert on Christianity wants Church to be “up,” even though that runs contrary to the stylebook, which specifies, for instance, “the early church.”
And so on.
Unfortunately the The Chicago Manual of Style does not pronounce on all these issues (except “church”), sending me to other sources, such as the The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion, in order to try to keep the book consistent.
Wouldn’t it be easier to handle these issues in German, with its capitalization of all nouns, or in Spanish, which is, as we editors say, very “down style“?
The Religion of Beer
As “religion,” beer predates Christianity and Islam. And it is back on sale in Iraq.
(In some areas, as I understand, the sellers of alcoholic beverages come from Iraq’s dwindling Christian community. I do not know if that is the case here.)
Via Instapundit.
Gallimaufry to Fill Space
Back from a week on the road to a full inbox and a desk covered with bills to pay, I offer a few links for your kind attention:
¶ Attention Kemetic reconstructionists: Don’t let your temple-builders become anemic.
¶ A list of things that offend Muslims. Anyone want to try the Pagan equivalent? I think it would be a lot shorter. Piggy banks and Easter eggs don’t bother me. Can you imagine Pagans rioting in the streets over the crappy remake of The Wicker Man and giving director Neil LaBute the Theo Van Gogh treatment? I can’t either. We prefer to just make fun of it.
¶ This will go onto my must-see list: Jason Pitzl-Waters notes an upcoming movie about the philosopher Hypatia. An uncompromising Neoplatonist, from what I understand, she was murdered by a Christian mob after some bishop put out a fatwa against her.
Seizing Symbols of Love
The Valentine’s Day card that I bought for M. would be illegal to Saudi Arabia’s Wahabi Muslims.
It would be an acknowledgment that women are more than a necessary evil, household appliances in veils. Maybe it’s an incitement to polytheism too. Who knows?
In fact “red items” are a problem.
So if I had Saudi students and marked their papers in red ink, I would be inciting lust or something?
Muslims attack Yazidis
Followers of “the religion of peace” attack members of a religious minority, the Yazidis of northern Iraq. (This is what you can expect from them if you do not follow a “religion of the book.”)
Journalist Michael Yon recently visited a Yazidi village, where he was treated well.
I had been hearing about the Yezidi people who live in villages near Dohuk. Followers of an ancient religion, whose proponents claim it is the oldest in the world, there are thought to be about a half million Yezidis, living mostly in the area of Mosul, with smaller bands in forgotten villages scattered across northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey and other lands. Saddam had labeled the Yezidis “Devil Worshippers,” a claim I’d heard other Iraqis make, but no source offered substantiation. I wanted to know more.
(Thanks to MacRaven.)