How about those modesty police?
In Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where the rule of law sometimes takes a back seat to the rule of God, zealots are on a campaign to stamp out behavior they consider unchaste. They hurl stones at women for such “sins” as wearing a red blouse, and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet.
In recent weeks, self-styled “modesty patrols” have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men. They have torched a store that sells MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use them to download pornography.
“These breaches of purity and modesty endanger our community,” said 38-year-old Elchanan Blau, defending the bearded, black-robed zealots. “If it takes fire to get them to stop, then so be it.”
And the significant difference between Judaism and Islam is…? I guess it’s merely a matter of degree: a Muslim cleric wants women to wear clothing that covers up all but one and only one eye, while the Jewish fundamentalists, I presume, still allow women to use both eyes. So far.
Hey, I have a suggestion for all those fearful people who want to punish women for being so darn tempting. Instead of targeting women, let’s have all orthodox, fundamentalist men fitted with devices that measure penis enlargement, and that set off blinking lights and whistles mounted on the gentleman’s hats when significant arousal is detected. Then the clerics and rabbis and orthodox mobs can patrol the streets and stone anyone with a flashing hat — one way or another, the visible responses to perfectly ordinary human forms will disappear, the clerics will be able to claim victory over temptation, and they can stop abusing innocent women.
I’m sure there’s a clever dick somewhere who can come up with such a device.
The above actions are the same reasons I thought it was OK to bomb Afghanistan.
Bomb Israel? Maybe?
Maybe we can even call the widget the “Clever Dick”.
No need for bells and whistles, a nice high voltage electric shock should do the trick.
Or maybe we could call the widget, “The Homosexual selector agent?”
I’m quite convinced that Judaism is the least violent of the three Abrahamic religions, but only because it never got a real chance at the power required to commit something like the crusades.
The hats on these “modesty patrol” members would overload whenever they beat someone for immodesty.
I’m thinking an arousal detection device that attaches to a guillotine apparatus similar in size to a cigar cutter. For orthodox Jewish men that should be a more than adequate size.
“”In Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where the rule of law sometimes takes a back seat to the rule of God, zealots are on a campaign to stamp out behavior they consider unchaste. They hurl stones at women for such “sins” as wearing a red blouse, and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet. “”
When I lived in Jerusalem back in the 60’s (as a child) our UN jeep was pummeled by the orthodox jews everytime we drove through their neighborhood. It had to do with the way Mum was dressed, and the fact that they knew we were heading to the swimming pool.
My parents actually lost their southern Baptist upbringing living among these nutjobbers and the Islam is all crowd.
And thank god for that!
The above actions are the same reasons I thought it was OK to bomb Afghanistan.
Bomb Israel? Maybe?
How american of you.
I love Twisty’s phrase, “Most women have no idea how much men hate them.” I keep thinking the women subjected to this sort of crap will finally have had enough, rise up en mass and just refuse/leave/castrate all the men they know some night. They must be so afraid.
I like your idea for an alternative morality delivery methodology, btw. I think it gets to the true root of the problem.
Bomb Israel? but doncha know that we’re BFF with Israel and cannot ever secondguess what they do? pffft. you’re sooo unpatriotic!![/channeling Palin]
seriously, the hypocrisy is mind-numbing… i guess as long as the crazies are on our side, it’s ok? *sigh*
There was this whole event with planes and skyscrapers… absolute fucking mess. You might want to look it up, since you’ve obviously been living under a rock for the past seven years.
Finally! I’ve alwsys despised the argument that says, “Women are too tempting, therefore they must cover up.” I answer, if you can’t handle it, then stop LOOKING.
Why does it become MY responsibility as a woman to protect you from evil? It should be YOUR responsibility as a good (fill in the blank) to be able to tread that straight and narrow path.
I like your solution , PZ.
Abbie @ #9
Hey, don’t conflate me and that asshole because of our nationality. I’ll return the favor by not calling everyone from your country a bunch of unthinking, overgeneralizing, condescending twats.
It seems to me that, just as a percentage of the population are naturally prone to criminality, influenced by socio-economic circumstances, another percentage are naturally prone to extreme religiosity, influenced by socio-educational circumstances.
Both groups mostly comprise males. Wouldn’t it be great if we could identify the genes responsible, and abort the fetuses carrying the aberrant mutations. It would make the world a much nicer place.
And these are the same people who want to be (and are) exempt from military service.
They won’t fight their country’s enemies, but they’ll beat up defenseless women and other fellow Jews. And then they move into settlements in the occupied territories and expect the secular Israeli soldiers to protect their wretched hides.
The above actions are the same reasons I thought it was OK to bomb Afghanistan.
Bomb Israel? Maybe?
Because the only thing better than being beaten up by a religious zealot is being blown up by a bomb. Good thinking, there.
Ack, blockquote failure. The “How american of you.” in my #14 is from Abbie.
You know, don’t you, that Afghanistan did not blow up a couple of towers in NY?
Um, it was a joke people. You know, based on short-minded foreign policy thinking, aka the last 8 years?
The fact that I need to explain that?
Priceless…
Make sure it has a real loud siren, and call it the Dicktaphone (TM)!
OTOH, it could become embarassing when meeting up for a date with your Trophy Wife (or whatever significant other you happen to prefer) …
PZ, you are quite right that this behavior is cowardly. I think the only difference between Judaism and Islam is that Jews have no interest in converting others to their faith. They will only harass the weak of their own community. And they will violently chase out intruders.
And this isn’t terrorism… how?
Hey, don’t conflate me and that asshole because of our nationality. I’ll return the favor by not calling everyone from your country a bunch of unthinking, overgeneralizing, condescending twats.
Sorry, I should have mentioned I’m a vermonter. I’m just not feeling very charitable towards the other 49 states right now.
You know, don’t you, that Afghanistan did not blow up a couple of towers in NY?
Wasn’t it the Iranians? Maybe the palestinians? Or Hezbollah? I forget! Someone brown-who-doesn’t-sell-us-oil did it, that’s all I know.
I wish I could remember the title of one of Tom Sharpe’s early novels in which the (apartheid-era) South African police initiate a program to stop patrol officers from unseemly “fraternization” with the local ladies. There is an outrageous scene in which a few hundred policemen are tied to chairs and made to watch interracial porn movies – all plugged into plesmographs which trigger high-voltage shocks at the first signal of penile turgidity: a steady chorus of yelping ensues.
Sharpe’s exile from that nation followed shortly thereafter.
I LOVE you solution to the overtly misogynistic actions/beliefs of so many religions. It is time for MEN to take resposibility for their own thoughts and actions and not blame women.
Another solution might be to put boys into chastity belts and their mothers can pass the keys on to their wives when they marry.
That kind of penile response device would be rather easy to produce. There’s nothing new required in the realm of technology. All of the kit exists to do it. Just needs to be built. Maybe a good project for one of my senior engineering students.
But in the meantime, the women can just get a can of that “Priest Off” stuff. It seems to be rather effective.
But surely truly devout Jews would never use their MP4 players for porn. Can’t they be trusted?
They have these suggested devices now (almost). It is not uncommon in judicial use for evaluations.
A band is placed around the penis and the person is shown images and they are judged based on the arousal they experience.
Quote:
“Penile plethysmography is a test utilized to make subjective determinations about an individual’s psychological condition with regard to certain sexual disorders and deviant behavior in the male.”
http://forensic-evidence.com/site/Behv_Evid/BeE00005_2.html
I find it frightening.
Orthodox Judaism is a mental disorder.
Even among the most religious Jews, the rule to cover up is only (I know, only!) collarbone, elbows, ankles. And hair if you’re married.
Not that I’m defending Orthodoxy – I have some serious personal gripes with it – but I think it is actually more woman-friendly than a lot of religions. The ketubah (marriage document) actually protects women in case of divorce.
But those particular assholes in Israel deserve a serious beatdown. Ironically, they probably rely on their own wives to support the household while they stay home and “study”.
I hope I’m guilty of missing sarcasm here.
You know, don’t you, that the ruling party of Afghanistan was harboring the organization behind the attacks? This according to our best intelligence at the time, which is beyond my ability to confirm or deny.
There simply isn’t any comparison between the decision for military action in Afghanistan in retaliation for 9/11 and “Jews are repressive, let’s bomb Israel”. Yes, I know it was said as a hyperbole, but it just doesn’t fit.
I don’t, however, agree with our policy of replacing governments in that region, or propping up others. While we should have “bombed Afghanistan”, it should have been to eliminate the al-Qaeda presence there, not to install our own puppet.
They hurl stones at women for such “sins” as wearing a red blouse…
Hmm. Would it be safe for a woman to wear red on a Sabbath, or do these guys grant themselves an exemption from The Rules for their holy work?
PlainJane:
Perhaps you’ve never heard of Phyllis Schlafly and others of her ilk.
“Electric Alarum” (A: cuff for penis; B: leads to alarm box).
Seems like the 19th century British beat you to it.
Wages of Sin by Peter Lewis Allen:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=JKUJ58GkDKQC&pg=PA100&lpg=PA100&source=web&ots=0qUFM9ZOHv&sig=w4iLmtEMMPMuEFJ2_0VabEYXciU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result
The percentage of crazed militant fanatics in the affected regions of the world.
Lago @ #19: These last eight years have, unfortunately, turned that statement to something almost believable. I didn’t find it remarkable at first, but Abbie’s #9 set me off a bit. Too often on this forum and elsewhere I see an “all americans are ___” statement made, as though we unanimously voted the current leadership in.
Abbie @ 23
Sorry, I should have mentioned I’m a vermonter. I’m just not feeling very charitable towards the other 49 states right now.
Unfortunately, my state is the reddest of the red ;( My vote hasn’t been worth counting since I’ve been able to vote.
Self-restraint? How humanist.
If men do not have urges which are uncontrollable, then they would not need supernatural powers and commandments to resist them. Therefore, the pious have to convince themselves that they’re out of control without constant devotion, sacrifice, and prayer. They’re sick and riddled with the sin of the world, and require remedies which come from a higher dimension — which have the ‘right’ to control this one.
Religion cuts you, then sells you a band-aid.
Pierce R. Butler wrote
I wish I could remember the title of one of Tom Sharpe’s early novels in which the (apartheid-era) South African police initiate a program to stop patrol officers from unseemly “fraternization” with the local ladies.
——————————————————-
Indecent Exposure?
um… that doesn’t even make sense. you can’t bomb an organization out of a place, unless you’re suggesting we should have just carpet-bombed the entire place to the point of complete unlivability?
sorry, but the U.S. attitude of “just fight the enemy, then go home” was what got the Taliban into place to begin with. no, the real fuckup was: one, the new completely pointless war in Iraq; two, the conflict of interest between The War on Terror(TM) and The War on Drugs(TM); three, severe underfunding for Nationbuilding organizations (though this one I can also blame on Europe. they totally missed an opportunity to show how international policy and nation reconstruction should be done. total FAIL)
Pcarini: They belonged to the group Al Quaeda, but most were Saudis.
It would be the equivalent of saying that the US is to blame for any violence in foreign countries initialized by, for the sake of argument, KKK or Los Angeles based Neo Nazi members.
There’s many differences between judaism and islam, actually, but what matters more is what they have in common: they’re both opium for the people at best and dangerous cults (as evidenced here) at worst.
A fellow Texan?
I bet my state is redder than yours :-p (not really…at least the congressmen and such are often dems)
I wish I could remember the title of one of Tom Sharpe’s early novels in which the (apartheid-era) South African police initiate a program to stop patrol officers from unseemly “fraternization” with the local ladies. – Pierce R. Butler
“Indecent Exposure”. The result (unrealistic, but this is OTT satire) is to turn all the policemen gay. The novel also includes a “communist cell” made up entirely of members of the secret police, who feed ostriches with condoms full of explosive, then let them loose. It’s a sequel to “Riotous Assembly”, which I found even funnier. Tom Sharpe’s best, IMO – his kind of satire needs a really insane target such as apartheid South Africa provided.
Another difference between Islam and Judaism is the order of magnitude of both the respective communities and the restrictions on them. It is obvious that there are more Muslims than Jews, and if a religious Haredi moron would harm a woman for wearing cloths he finds offensive, he will be prosecuted, judged and punished. His actions are not and will not be supported by the Israeli administration or law, as both are mostly secular.
In short, despite me being biased (I’m Israeli), I still think that if I had to choose the lesser of two evils, I’d go for Judaism.
PZ’s solution is expensive and there could be many ways around it. If baby boys were just blinded at birth, the women in these countries could dress however they wished to without being so darned tempting.
Rich Lowry at the National Review has a confession.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDYzMGFiNjQ0MWRjNmI0ZTlkYjgwZTExMjA3MWNiZTk=
I find the idea of such “modesty patrols” particularly offensive because it suggests that I am some sort of ravening beast, barely held in check by the constant attention of the carefully dressed women handlers whose primary job, it seems, is to keep monsters like me under control.
That people call this “civilization” makes me angry. Surprisingly, I do not use this rage as license to kill and rampage, because, you see, I am NOT enslaved to my instincts like an animal.
The idea that men are creatures of uncontrolled lust, and that women are responsible for it, is an insult to all humanity.
That’s the philosophical outrage, of course. The inevitable violence produces anger of a much more banal sort.
‘”These breaches of purity and modesty endanger our community,” said 38-year-old Elchanan Blau, defending the bearded, black-robed zealots.”’
Do you know what these people believe their god will do to them if these ‘breaches of purity and modesty’ continue?
No wonder they feel that these things cannot be allowed to continue, when their god will kill everybody who lives in a community which allows such things.
As for the internet devices, could the porn thing be a cover? I wonder if maybe the real danger is the information. I imagine few things can create doubt as swiftly and powerfully as the weird and varied panorama of ideas on the web.
Subscribe a bunch of those assholes to porn lists.
Many of them internalize it and side with the enforcers. Behold the Ann Coulters, Sarah Palins and other Judas goats of the world.
Oh–and perhaps those getting on their high horses about stone throwing will consider, for a moment, how this behavior is on a continuum with cat-calling, an activity which is commonly defended as “appreciation” but actually serves to intimidate females who dare to enter the public sphere without the protection of male.
Posted by: Dahan | October 4, 2008
PZ’s solution is expensive and there could be many ways around it. If baby boys were just blinded at birth, the women in these countries could dress however they wished to without being so darned tempting.
Dahan, while your solution would work, it is needlessly cruel. Also it is wasteful, you are limiting what the male workforce would be able to do. Also, if men are such uncontrollable beasts, would not the smells and voices bring about temptations.
I would suggest that menfolks can only move through underground tubes that only men could use. That way they can move between work and home. This ensures that menfolk can still be the bread winners and do not come in contact with women who are not their wives or relatives. No pain, no loses of abilities and the men can work all sorts of jobs. And womenfolk can dress as we please.
Jadehawk @ #39
I never suggested anything even remotely like that. I placed quotes around “bombed Afghanistan” to try to point out what an absurd oversimplification that is of the military operation that’s going on over there, in response to Lago’s (now admitted to be sarcastic) #1.
I’m not a fan of nation-building in general, but I’m a bit torn in the case of Afghanistan. If we destroy the political structure of a country than we have to obligation to make sure it has a working government when we leave, likewise with any of the infrastructure necessary for civilization. Of course we shouldn’t go around destroying other nations’ leadership as often as we have been in the past few years. The Taliban, being hosts and sponsors of al-Qaeda, probably couldn’t remain while our aim was to eliminate al-Qaeda. The democracy we set up there, and our man at the top, probably can’t survive without our continued presence there. How long will we have to prop yet another government in that region up, then?
E.V. @ #40
If the US funded, armed, and trained the KKK and then sent them out to cause havoc elsewhere, that would be a valid comparison.
What makes you think they don’t have their very own, very private stash? The object of their little game is to enforce strict morality for everyone else but themselves. They’re so twisted though, that sexual aversion and denial gets them off. Talk about perversion.
see now, that makes a lot more sense. the thing is though that a properly re-built nation can become (mostly) independently functionable relatively quickly (relative to the time the U.S. is already stuck in Afghanistan and will remain stuck there and in Iraq), but not if it’s a half-assed effort.
I am quite grateful that WWII wasn’t followed by what qualifies as Nationbuilding these days :-/ (I’m from Germany)
On second thought, maybe the ultra-Orthodox Jews and that Muslim cleric are on to something. Rich Lowry of The National Review Online cannot control himself.
If Palin was wearing an outfit that only allowed one eye to be seen, poor little Rich Lowry never would have been able to tell that Palin winked at him.
I should have guessed I couldn’t just claim that title without some competition. In the past several presidential elections, Utah’s popular vote has been either the most or second most republican in the nation. (my source) 1992 was the odd year out, because we loves us a crazy independent, otherwise this trend goes back until at least ’76.
The current aggregation of polls at pollster.com has us more republican, by a hair’s breadth, than OK for the top spot. A poll by KSL news here in SLC has 48-20 that Palin won the VeeP debate.
“It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America.”
I want whatever this guy is smoking.
When I visited Israel in the 90’s, the ultra orthodox weren’t too popular with most.
1. They wouldn’t serve in the military.
2. They wouldn’t work very much. I’m vague on how they got out of that one, but a lot seemed to be on state support i.e. welfare. Might be something about studying to be a rabbi or being a rabbi or something or having a zillion kids they couldn’t feed.
3. They were always protesting about something. It seemed to be anything to do with road building or construction because their might be ancient graves there, selling pork, not being immobile on the sabbath, and so on.
Utah?!
ok, you win. Even North Dakota (me) and Texas (E.V.) can’t compete there. (and yes, i already knew that, but in comparison to my previous homes, this is deep red hell)
“A Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia has called on women to wear a full veil, or niqab, that reveals only one eye.”
Am I the only one who thinks this is even more insane than Crackergate? Here’s an idea: If these shit-for-brains idiots don’t like the way women look, why don’t they poke each others eyes out? For a fee, I’ll gladly do it for them. What a bunch of fucking morons.
I’m afraid I can’t argue with that characterization of my home-state, sir. *pours self another drink*
To add to the excitement — this weekend is the big semi-annual Mormon conference/indoctrination thingy, and it’s snarling up traffic here something fierce. Buncha damn Idaho drivers that aren’t used to being off the farm…
A device that can be easily worked around would be a plus, actually.
Imagine a world where the devout can wear a prominent system of flashers to alert everyone when they’re thinking impure thoughts, but which they can surreptitiously circumvent by, say, not hooking it up to their genitals. Now, when a beautiful naked woman sashays into their field of view, she isn’t a challenge to their faith, but an affirmation — the mute darkness of their hats becomes a testimony to their piety. Instead of stoning women to flaunt the strength of their beliefs, they’ll be encouraging them to strut their stuff!
it’s ma’am, and I was talking about ND in comparison to CA, WA, and Germany (oh and socialist Poland, which was a different kind of red hell), where I lived before
Utah would then be deeper, redder, hellisher, heheh
These might help.
http://sexology.narod.ru/images/anti-masturbation-devices.gif
My apologies, Jadehawk, ma’am it is then. (That’s much less embarrassing online than in person ;)
Also I’m liking where PZ’s taking this in #64. Can we call this The Emperor’s Cockring? “Of course he’s wearing it, he just doesn’t find naked women sexy” … never mind, I guess that wouldn’t work all that well.
Admittedly the Abrahamic religions as instructed by Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah (its all in the bible folks, which was dictated by God to Moses) have brought us 3000 years of female-bashing, metaphorically and literally, but that does not justify a reversal to male-bashing and, in itself, to country bombing.
Nature gave women sublimely beautiful bodies for the purpose of arousing males. Our survival liteally depends on this interaction. Anyone who can’t handle this because they were taught that females exist ONLY for reproduction at the discretion of patriarchal males, or that males exist ONLY to be socially and politically regulated automata serving women’s reproductive strategy is by definition sexist and and anti-nature.
Let’s all grow up and accept sex for the wonderful thing that it is, a gift to both sexes, to be enjoyed by both. And enough with the smashing planes into buildings and the bombing.
Shalom, Salaam, Peace.
What always gets me about these religious types is how weak and lacking in self control they seem to be. In mostly atheist Germany they have FKK (nude) beaches. People are responsible for controlling themselves, an erection is a serious faux pas, and anyone who engages in excessive ogling is invited to jump into the (cold!) ocean until they can control themselves again. No fuss, no muss, no orgies on the beach (those are restricted to different, private beaches). In contrast, judeo-christio-islamic fundies apparently can’t so much as look at a woman’s ankle without losing their cool. What a bunch of wimps. No wonder they’re losing the cultural war.
pcarini:
I knew right away you were talking about Utah. Like you, my vote hasn’t counted since I started voting – with the exception of the local judge I helped vote out of office in the last election (and boy, was that a pleasure).
Fellow Utahn
Nature gave women sublimely beautiful bodies for the purpose of arousing males.
Nah. It’s just that the men who were aroused by healthy, fertile women shared their genes with those women, had lots of babies who survived, and defined “beautiful” for the next generation.
Nature gave women sublimely beautiful bodies for the purpose of arousing males.
Actually, I think it’s more like “Males who evolved to think that females have sublimely beautiful bodies — and females who think that males have sublimely beautiful bodies — tend to have greater reproductive success than others.” Really, none of us actually are sublimely beautiful; that’s your body chemistry playing tricks on you. Damn I love being immune to certain biological imperatives; it makes having a sense of perspective dead easy.
It’s not that they object to the way women look, it’s that they don’t want anyone else to look lustfully or covetously at their personal property (wives and daughters). And we all know that if a woman exposes any flesh she’s just begging for sex.;-)
I always like passively designed devices. You could make a device that fits comfortable over their flaccid penis, but is much to small for their erect penis. Then put sharp prongs all around the interior. Any aroused man would quickly learn to stop looking at the tempting ladies.
Careful with that, you might summon Pete Rook!
@ #24
Riotous Assembly and Indecent Exposure
You have to promise not to laugh
Although my logic’s iffy;
I hooked up a plethysmograph
To show I’ve got a stiffy.
So if some woman’s leg I see
And “beep-beep!” goes my cock,
I do what scripture asks of me
And hit her with a rock.
If just a bit of ankle shows
But I still get a boner,
I’m justified, my Rabbi knows,
To go ahead and stone her
The scriptures say it’s not my fault
Some temptress shows some skin
It’s simple justice, not assault,
To stone her for her sin.
We’ll stone the sluts, on God’s behalf
Till all temptation’s gone…
But… wearing this plethysmograph?
It kinda turns me on…
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2008/10/modern-technology-meets-bronze-age.html
Amazing as always, Cuttlefish.
But perhaps somehow squeezing in something about “one eye”
Cuttlefish, that was absolutely spectacular! Must be a hoot coming up with rhymes for stiffy, cock, and boner.
Jared @#78
The clerics devoutly may try
To make sure that our morals are high
But it’s no great surprise
That I still get a rise
When I gaze on her lovely brown eye…
As an Israeli (atheist), I’d like to explain that the Ultra Orthodox people that are being described here [not Orthodox, which are normally-dressed people with a Kipa; the Ultra-Orthodox are the black-wearing people] are very much a cult and a closed society. They prevent contact with the outside world, including television, MP4 players, Internet, and so on. They teach their children in secluded, sectarian schools where they are brainwashed with anti-evolution, literalistic, and I dare say racist interpretation of Judaism. And more. There are many bus-lines which are segregated (women sitting at the back of the bus), segregated beaches, and so on. Women are accorded some rights in Jewish courts, but not as many rights and certainly not equal rights to men. The men hardly work, relying on the women’s labor and welfare; they stay in the Yeshiva instead of going to the army or work. It’s a very poor, backwards society. And they make up about 8% of the adult Jewish population.
Jewish fundamentalism isn’t any nicer than Muslim or Christian one. And Jewish fundamentalists are far, far more common in Israel than you’d probably imagine. As an example – the science curriculum in Israel does not include Evolution as an obligatory subject, so a child could very well finish (secular) high-school without ever learning about it; this is because of the large support for creationism is even relatively moderate Jewish circles. Israel in polls has more secular people than the US, but the influence of fundamentalist and religious thinking on its policies is even higher than it is in the US.
Yair – Obviously this is a subject for considerable examination, but I’m curious if you can illuminate why the ultra Orthodox have so much sway in Israel? I know a fair number of modern Orthodox here in the U.S., and they’ve given me the impression that is the case, but with such a low percentage, I’m puzzled as to why. I always attribute the crazy backward laws in the States to the preponderance of crazy backward thinking.
Cuttlefish, you are a genius!
And I’m loving PZ’s suggestion in #64.
E.V., I think you’re spot on – this “modesty” nonsense is a religiously codified way for men to control “their” women. I’m often amazed that women in these communities don’t realise this, but I guess that’s the power of religious indoctrination.
So if males had come to associate mouth breathing and drooling to be good correlates with fecundity, that would be the standard for beauty.
Have I got that right? Truly all in the eye of the beholder, then.
There is such a device already – it’s called a penile plethysmograph.
You don’t need to know how I know this.
I find the difference between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam simple to remember and describe. It is based on how each religion, when it achieves power, treats people who challenge their beliefs.
Judaism requires that they be stoned to death.
Islam cuts off their heads.
Christianity, demonstrating its superior morality and mercy, burns them at the stake.
All three would still be doing it if it wasn’t for secularists.
Whose Fallacy is Poe’s Law now called?
Sarcasm — ur doin it rong.
Alicia-logic #52 said:
Perhaps those getting on their high horses about perceived inconsistency will consider, for a moment, that commenters here are real people who are not necessarily perfect, but do not seem to be defending any part of the continuum, and most likely do not participate in cat-calling themselves.
In other words, why are you condemning the people who are writing in support of the right of women not to be stoned without any evidence that they’ve done anything wrong?
@ Lau (#82):
The ultra-Orthodox hold a lot of sway for several reasons.
First, Israel is a parliamentary representative democracy, which is a system that gives power to relatively-large minorities. Traditionally, the country was split between two parties with the religous-parties serving as the tip of the balance. The result is that a large party will grant a lot of stuff to the small party so that it can form the ruling coalition, hence the small parties often get what they want even more-so than the large ones – they’re in the position of power, determining which large party will be part of the coalition. This has not always been the case, and to some extent isn’t the case now, but it has enough turth to it and happened often enough for the laws and government structures to become very favorable to the religous parties.
Secondly, even though the ultra-Orthodox comprise a relatively small segment of the population, their electroal power is greater. For one thing, their voters have very high (sometimes over 100% – they fake votes) voting rates. More importantly, however, many religous (including some calling themsleves secular) but not ultra-Orthodox hold the uO in very high regard, or give their votes on ethnic grounds. The result is that the uO parties have 18 out of 120 (15%) votes. No Arab party has ever been a member of the coalition [they are generally anti-Zionist; many Israeli-Arabs don’t vote, or vote for non-Arab parties], so this actually amounts to about 16% in practice for coalition purposes.
Finally, the uO public is a large and very determined public that is not afraid to confront and flaunt secular law. Riots, vandalism, and illegal behaviour are common on the issues their leaders point them towards. It is for these reasons impossible, for example, for archeologists to dig up graves or so on, for even if this was legal the uO will phyiscally prevent them. The result is that the government makes deals with the uO public, to maintain peace and order, and accomodates them. Archeologists, for example, must report to uO supervision which prohibits them from descrating anything that may possibly be Jewish graves (in the eyes of the uO supervisors).
I’m only an Israeli citizen, of course, not an expert on politics or religious sects. These are things as I understand them, though.
PZ’s proposal neatly combines two things which seem to be common to many religions:
1. An obsession with sex that would make any competent psychiatrist look as wise as a treeful of owls.
2. A love of astonishingly silly-looking hats.
All you Israeli apologists are making me sick, with your “we’re better than Islam” or distinguishing between black kipot and srugot. Lets face it – the police isn’t doing anything about this sort of thing, and we’ve been letting the religious parties and communities get their way ever since Ben Gurion came up with the status quo. Meet some of your non-ultra orthodox to see what they’re really like. It doesn’t stop with chauvinism. To a religious Jew in Israel everyone is more responsible for his being observant than he or she is. For example, outside Israel Jews look for kosher tags on food. In Israel, if you sell taref or keep your shop open on saturday, meaning there’s no kashrut certificate, they want to close you down. Not so that the rest of us wouldn’t buy there – so that the Dosim don’t buy there by mistake.
There’s more and more orthodox “Alukot” in Israel every year, living off our taxes, telling us what to eat, how to dress and where to drive. Let’s not make any excuses for them.
Cuttlefish, you should compile an anthology and get it published. We’ll read it as a companion to PZ’s future tome.
Click my name to see the latest burka design which should please even the most fundamental muslim clerics!
Posted by: Jared | October 4, 2008 3:27 PM
Posted by: Cuttlefish, OM | October 4, 2008 3:35 PM
are these feelings of love or just bawdy lust?
for I’ve always been partial to nautilus…
but those minutes eight
got me ready to mate:
your brain’s engorged my hectocotylus.
That would be the weirdest device ever. Good idea, PZ.
We should also get them for Catholic Priests teaching in elementary schools.
The power of the penis. Another solution to this lust problem is simple: depo provera injections to the male who simply cannot control himself. Women have have just about enough with the second class status stuff, no matter which of the “desert dogmas” (thanks Pat C) one refers to. The Sky Father is a sick individual who should be isolated, not a grand vision of a perfect GOD. Now if you will excuse this female who has the conceit that she is worth more than a zygote, but I think all misogynist religions should go back to adoring your god with castration and or severe punishment to the male member who offends.
And the significant difference between Judaism and Islam is…?
Magnitude, scope, and ambition, especially in regard to the non-believing world (a.k.a.the rest of us) mostly.
A resident of Afghanistan had something to do with it. His name was Osama bin Laden. The government of that country refused to turn him over to us, so we bombed them. Personally I wish we would have bombed every square inch of that country, killing the entire population, just to teach the rest of the Muslim world it’s not nice to fly airplanes into buildings. Then we wouldn’t have had to invade them and waste more American lives. A million Muslims are worth less than one American soldier in my opinion. Anyone who disagrees can volunteer to go there and get killed by a suicide bomber.
On topic: Jews hurl stones at women, and Jews break into apartments of women and beat them. That’s interesting. I didn’t know that. That’s more evidence for the idea that religious people are stupid cowardly assholes.
Whatever happened to Keep It Simple? When a male is instrumented to detect lasciviousness, simply arm the thing with a cherry bomb. The righteous man will constantly pray to Allah, or Jehovah, depending, to keep his head clear of impure thoughts. The moment he strays, blooey — evil gets punished.
Then all the ladies can walk around bare nekkid!
Psycho Atheist, Nick Gotts, Corydoras – thanks for your Sharpe memories!
Docwazoo @ # 91: There’s more and more orthodox “Alukot” in Israel every year, living off our taxes…
Take a look at your national ledgers, please: they’re living off US taxes (to be paid by current US taxpayers’ grandchildren, according to our national ledgers).
Personally I wish we would have bombed every square inch of that country, killing the entire population, just to teach the rest of the Muslim world it’s not nice to fly airplanes into buildings. Then we wouldn’t have had to invade them and waste more American lives. A million Muslims are worth less than one American soldier in my opinion. – BobC
PZ, please dungeon this genocidal maniac.
…and I will also be eternally grateful they didn’t have more BobC’s during WWII, either.
you, sir, are a fucking moron. and let’s hope those who feel America is overstepping its bounds don’t follow your advice in return.
PZ, please dungeon this genocidal maniac.
Motion is moved and fourthed.
Re: PZ’s invention…
Maybe I’m missing something, but how again to you enforce that they don’t just remove the thing?
I guess I must be humor impaired today, but the idea seems about as clever as suggesting that we solve the burglary problem by making a rule that all burglars report to the police station with their stolen goods right after committing their crime. Ummm, ok.
Posted by: BobC | October 4, 2008
A resident of Afghanistan had something to do with it. His name was Osama bin Laden. The government of that country refused to turn him over to us, so we bombed them. Personally I wish we would have bombed every square inch of that country, killing the entire population, just to teach the rest of the Muslim world it’s not nice to fly airplanes into buildings. Then we wouldn’t have had to invade them and waste more American lives. A million Muslims are worth less than one American soldier in my opinion. Anyone who disagrees can volunteer to go there and get killed by a suicide bomber.
And that resident of Afghanistan, assuming that he is still alive, is also a Saudi. As were most of the terrorists who pulled off the attack. So what is your point except that BobC is just as willing to use terrorist tactics as those loathsome people who planned and executed the attacks.
BobC is proof that an atheist can be just as deranged as a true believer. This is why I will never argue that being an atheist will make a person a morally superior person. Just that an atheist will hopefully be more aware of the reasons for their ethics.
Janine, I love you. in a completely non-lesbian way.
I love all of the excuses in the line of “oh they are just an extreme minority”. All of the religious Jews / Muslims / Christians are inherently racist/chauvinist/misogynous. It is the religion that makes them so. It is no wonder that less strictly they adhere to the source of all evil, the more comfortable they are to live with. You are callling the ultra orthodox jews “extremists” because their laws are closer to the source than of any other fraction ? that tells something about the source…
What’s the difference between Israel and Islam?
Have you checked the percentage of the ultra-orthodox community in Israel? It’s much smaller than even the least extreme Christian cult in the U.S.
Unfair.
This strand of ultra Orthodox thuggery has been well documented, as these gangs, usually young men, will stomp around occupied territories, armed, spitting on Palestinians and trying to pick fights, sort of like soccer hooligans only more dangerous.
These attacks on moderate jews and businesses is somewhat new, I believe.
I thought that Israelis took their Ouzis home with them after discharging from the service. This would seem to be a deterrent to street thugs and hooligans, but maybe I’m just too Texan.
We have shootings right here in my middle class subdivision fairly regularly around break-ins, or assaults, and nobody ever gets convicted.
And semi-auto is all we can get.
probably a good thing, huh?
E.V. @ 73
“If these shit-for-brains idiots don’t like the way women look”
What I meant to say was, “If these shit-for-brains idiots don’t approve of the way women look…”.
At least some of it’s got to be envy for the attention paid to other religions. These ultra-orthodox assholes are probably sitting around thinking, ‘hey, why aren’t we getting any press? We’re hardcore. We’re as serious about the ridiculous, bronze-age misogyny of our religion as the Muslims are about theirs; where’s our fifteen minutes? Screw this. Let’s throw some rocks at women!’
Then, of course, there’s the fear that they – and the real old-time ooga-booga that gives their pathetic, empty lives meaning – is becoming completely redundant in the face of an increase in moderate adherence and/or total atheism.
#105, #106
+1
So. Killing people in order to teach them that killing is wrong.
You are as stupid as any cretinist. I understand what I’m saying here; and I mean it.
#110:
Oh… that’s diifferent. Never mind.
I second (or fourth, evidently) Janine over Bob.C’s asshattery.
“…let’s have all orthodox, fundamentalist men fitted with devices that measure penis enlargement, and that set off blinking lights and whistles mounted on the gentleman’s hats when significant arousal is detected. Then the clerics and rabbis and orthodox mobs can patrol the streets and stone anyone with a flashing hat…”
Now there’s an idea I can support. Unfortunately, that would entail men being made responsible for their own thoughts. I don’t think they would like that. They already have a ready made scapegoat in the other half of the population to blame.
what is the difference between judaism, islam and christianity?
why, isn’t it obvious? they each worship a completely different deluded middle eastern goat fucker
Yeah Bob. C:
I’m with ya. I wish they’d bombed every man, woman and child in Michigan and Indiana because of those ideological assholes in 1995. You remember? Oklahoma City? The Murrah Building? That would’ve taught all those militia jerks!
Abbie
” “You know, don’t you, that Afghanistan did not blow up a couple of towers in NY?”
Wasn’t it the Iranians? Maybe the palestinians? Or Hezbollah? I forget! Someone brown-who-doesn’t-sell-us-oil did it, that’s all I know.”
I thought it was supposed to have been Saudi nationals working out of Afganistan. Didn’t they find ‘miraculously’ preserved passports?
#118:
Have a conspiracy fetish?
All they had to do was identify flight manifest passenger list, peruse airport security footage, cross reference I.D.’s with visa info (addesses, US vocational training, etc) and the rest was straight forward.
No magically pristine bullet like JFK.
§1 I second Motion 101-103, 105 and 112. I also deem a commendable mention of 105 in Protocol necessary.
§2 All misogynist men are ordered to wear blinders and aren’t allowed to leave their homes when not accompanied by a female superior (like their mother for example).
§3 Yair and Docwazoo are to be compensated to have to deal with even more powerful fundamentalists in their country then average.
“I LOVE you solution to the overtly misogynistic actions/beliefs of so many religions. It is time for MEN to take resposibility for their own thoughts and actions and not blame women.
Another solution might be to put boys into chastity belts and their mothers can pass the keys on to their wives when they marry.”
You’re a revolting piece of shit.
Second post relating Israel in 24 hours PZ !
I was not so aware of the fact that Orthodox Jews are just as fucked in the head as the muslims or christians when it comes to “modesty”,thanks for pointing it out in your post.Not that it comes as a surprise.
I think there can be no doubt,as others upthread have pointed out,that this whole modesty thing is a means of controlling women and preserving a strictly patriarchic society.It is interesting to think about men in those societies tho,who never are exposed(and in a way,desensitized) to naked or lightly clothed women on the street,let alone porn of any kind,they probably really get a hardon from a bare ankle or an eye after a while ! Talk about tempting !
@BobC
By your logic, since the government of the US has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, for a terrorist attack that was not the fault of anybody who lived there, and even though a sizable part of the population of the US _opposed_ the war in Iraq from the very beginning, Iraq would be justified in bombing the entire country and killing every single person who lives here.
Personally, I think the morality of disproportionate, random retaliation is a bit lacking.
@Largo
If you need to explain that you were telling a joke, perhaps it wasn’t funny? If you don’t understand why it wasn’t funny, take a look at BobC’s comment.
If you have to blame the audience when your “joke” bombs, perhaps your sense of humor is not as advanced as you think it is.
These a-holes are not limited to Israel:
http://goingcoastal.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/its-hipsters-versus-hasidim-on-bike-lanes-in-south-williamsburg/
Methinks a “hotpants hike” through the neighborhood is in order!
The town of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, NY was founded so Satmar Hasidim could unconstitutionally set up religious schools on the public dollar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Education_of_Kiryas_Joel_Village_School_District_v._Grumet
I disagree with your life value assertion, but I’m not American. But speaking of stupid cowardly assholes like the one who would love to see millions of innocent people bombed, why don’t you volunteer to go over there and shoot every single Afghani? That would certainly teach them a lesson and prove that you’re not just another fuckwad full of Internet bravado.
So it’s sort of like a Jew-on-Jew Kristallnacht? Tragically ironic.
Here’s an idea. Maybe if all those religious stupids weren’t so sexually repressed, they wouldn’t get so terribly aroused by say, a woman in a red blouse in the first place. I mean seriously, a red blouse? Seek help, you’re doing it wrong! Maybe instead of beating up prostitutes, they should just pay them to relieve the tension? I’m sure with the action these stupids aren’t getting, it couldn’t take more than 10 minutes. Tops. For the lot of them.
But I have the solution of course. Strip joints. Give these guys a lap dance. Consider it research on Spontaneous Human Combustion.
Listen people, Judaism is just as stupid and useless a religion as Islam and Christianity. First, let’s leave aside the orders of magnitude difference between treating apostates. The fact alone is that you’re basing your beliefs, regardless of what you label it, on faith, and not evidence. Your world view is shaped in some fashion by stories dictated to you that could not have come about through independent thought. All religions, including those outside the Abrahamic faiths, are still useless drivel when seeking answers in this complex mass of the universe. If you need comfort, then find a large cozy blanket, but don’t wrap yourself with some fantasy thinking that it’s superior to another fantasy. It’s like having rats, squirrels, and capybaras arguing over which one’s the most rodent like. You’re may all differ in your appearance, but you’re all fucking rodents. Well, apply the same analogy to religious belief and their supposed differences in magnitude. Regardless of the differences, you’re the same where it counts. Any superiority complex by one of you is as meaningless as the prayers with which you rely upon.
You don’t think that might have been a sly reference to an earlier post rather than a CT mindset?
“They have torched a store that sells MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use them to download pornography.”
I love that quote.
It just proves, once again, that *no one* in the world thinks about sex more than religious fundamentalists.
“Cool they have MP4 players.”
“PORN!”
Can’t take full strength women?, seems unmanly.
So wait, some Muslim cleric thinks it is the Will of Allah to deny women depth perception, on top of everything else?
Dude! I totally sent you this months (okay weeks) ago!
I DEMAND you use Gmail filters to prioritize my emails from now on. If you fail to do so I will desecrate, yes- a cephalopod!
Mwahahahaha!
(In case someone’s irony meter is broken, I’m kidding.)
depth perception is overrated. i have none, and my car is in great condition. well, except that dent…. or three… :-p
Intact irony meters and BS detecters are in short supply around here. Too many trolls and a large backorder for
industrialsuper reinforced research grade equipment.@pcarini,
Regarding your nation building comment. Even with the Taliban in place authority was never centralized. It likely never will be, even under our tenure. There are just too many tribal groups who want to retain power. Actually, if we leave now (which we should, since staying won’t actually help us kill Bin Laden, even though I think he’s dead) we may be leaving it better off than any point in the future.
@BobC
I hesitate to throw my response to you in the same comment with pcarini, since you are so obviously in a completely different league of intellect, and for that matter human being.
I’m glad you’re a person who chooses to prioritize human life on the basis of accidents of birth and imaginary lines on a map. For a second there, I thought that such an animal never existed. It’s nice to discover true viciousness.
I’ve totally given up on the irony meter. They just don’t manufacture them strong enough here. My choice is the good old foil lined colander on the head, and a bronze brassiere.
Dearest Flameduck:
Maybe instead of beating up prostitutes, they should just pay them to relieve the tension? I’m sure with the action these stupids aren’t getting, it couldn’t take more than 10 minutes. Tops. For the lot of them.
But I have the solution of course. Strip joints. Give these guys a lap dance. Consider it research on Spontaneous Human Combustion.
Don’t assume it doesn’t happen! Like most patriarchal types, they have no compunctions about their own sexual peccadillos- it’s just their wimmins that need to be pure. Non-Hasidic women are most likely considered beneath contempt, unworthy of their gynojihad.
I have been searching the tubes to find confirmation for anecdotes common in NYC, and have found a couple of items, admittedly anecdotal themselves.
From a weird blog on Jewish polygamy/concubinage, with a lot of weird Lubavitcher “Mosiach is Coming!” woo:
We got some media exposure and got Agudath Israel of America spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran to admit that pilegesh is permitted but is not normative (whatever that means). Apparently it’s more normative Jewish practice to endure community members picking up hookers(and infecting their own wives with STDs)
http://pilegesh.blogspot.com/2006_12_01_archive.html
From a comment on a Brooklyn neighborhood blog regarding “offensive” wig ads:
Anonymous said…
When I lived in Williamsburg I was stopped more than once by Hasidic men in minivans trying to pick me up. Mind you, I was wearing office clothes and a backpack – not exactly what the whores are wearing these days. If you’re not one of them, you’re available. Disgusting. So many of them frequent prostitutes and dungeons. But hey, maybe the wives find their own fun, too. Let’s hope.
I’m one of those dastardly secular Jews, too – we’re as good as goyim to the Orthodox. I’m glad that they can recreate the vanished shtetls of Europe here in Brooklyn, but it’s also amazing that they try to carve out such a separatist world in the middle of the most diverse place on earth.
http://ditmaspark.blogspot.com/2008/02/just-down-street.html
Still looking for an academic/statistical study, but these are very insular communities we’re talking about here. I really don’t imagine they’d talk to an outsider about these topics.
Judaism vs Islam?
Same shit, different bucket.
These goatfuckers/sons of goatfuckers, – are they so excitable that the mere sight of anything female drives them in a sexual frenzy?
What I still can’t understand is that the women don’t tell the men to get a life. Being forced to walk around like a kinda Dalek must have its limitations in the long run.
So, for sexual satisfaction these deluded men are used to goats, dream of camels, and like the prophet, and end up becoming pedophiles. And then they demand respect????
Some of them sit on top of a lot of oil, so they get respect, but is that any particularly good reason to show it to these backward zealots?
Oh, and the government here in Australia, pushed along by some hysterical cretinous sheila also want the clock to go backwards. They can’t distinguish between art and pornography anymore. Goddam’ roofus!
http://news.sbs.com.au/worldnewsaustralia/police_to_lay_charges_amid_art_versus_porn_row_547594
And the new little twat (no, I didn’t mean ‘twit’ although he is that as well) of a prime minister in Australia is come out as the godfucker he is. The previous one was a hobby fascist, but at least he wasn’t much into GF’ing, contrary to the new one.
And working people, who that latest one is supposed to represent, traditionally opposed the clergy’s naturalisation of social inequality.
Fuck them all, and in particular fuck their filthy religions. No exceptions.
Totaly off topic, and I apoligise.
I must confess I just returned from a family gathering(funeral) and have realized that I am in a definite minority with in my family structure. I did learn that I will be going to the lake of fire according to the presiding preacher.It was disturbing to my logical mind and actually reinforced my world view. My life is so ruled by science that the comfort provided by religion is provided to me from the knowledge of Knowing. I am from this wonderful explainable planet surrounded by amazing supernovas,ocean bed rifts, genetic markers,subatomic particles.To understand the internal workings of the solar system is such a joy to me I guess you could call it a way of life. Perhaps what some would call a religion.I had to share this with those who are like minded since my recent experience was of those not capable of under standing or I failed in my delivery. But how can you explain your worldview in a sea of other worldviews so dominant by the masses.It is quite difficult for me.I need reality,not a wisp of smoke.My reality requires me to be (grounded) and I feel just as much contentment as those who have chosen a comfy security blanket, yet I have an advantage over the Vail of religion.I can think for myself and if it turns out in the end that there is a god of whatever form, then thanks for my abilities.Of course as I always say “that will be decided upon my death or maybe it won’t.There are millions of people who share my worldview, it is to those people I share my thoughts and seek camaraderie. I suppose I wish those who have the predominant view could see what I see. But they are so focused on their view to see any other. To me it is amazing how dominant a predestined world view is to some people.Each side request an open mind in the other party, when for the most part it is the side who is so prevalent about an open mind that theirs is shut.
Simply amazing.
Sorry to burden you off topic, and I think I’ll have another libation and contemplate the possibilities of the planetary core to core force connections provided by the investigations of the LHC, while I absorb the cosmic particle precipitation under a beautiful autumn sky.
Peace and look to the sky. Sphere Coupler
Garn! Should have had italics up until “but it’s also amazing that they try to carve out such a separatist world in the middle of the most diverse place on earth.”
I’m a goy-boy, so I never had any pangs of conscience over eating a bacon cheeseburger. I have had a fascination with the Hasidim for over a decade, garnered while working as a claims investigator (mainly in Brooklyn). I actually got to the point where I could tell a Lubavitcher from a Satmar (different hats).
Shonny – Please up grade your vocabulary, and don’t refer to male cowards as pussies, male idiots as twats, or male jerks as cunts. Thank you! ;o)
I guess the secret is out, we don’t have irony meters capable of surviving a creationist attack. Creationists just are too far ahead in the joke warfare arms race
You tell him, Patricia! Don’t be dissing the vulva!
Sphere Coupler, I am sorry for your loss.
I’m very fortunate that I have not had the loss of a human relative since I have lost my faith. Because I am being shunned, it will be difficult to attend funerals as the older folk pass on. The god bothering family won’t allow me to sit the first night with the body, or enter into the sacred ground of the cemetery. Which are strong family traditions. After service suppers are at an end too.
For what it’s worth, I send you a cyber hug. This must be very hard for you. :o(
Sorry, Trish, lived too long in Roofu-land, so got into the habit of using female genitalia as term for anything bad. Never again till next time!
A bit like in English using one of the most pleasant activities as basis for a swear-word. Damned silly!
The Finns are MUCH better at swearing, and it sounds impressive as well.
But regardless, am still pissed off that the churches are not closed down when they practice pedophilia, whereas an art exhibition with beautiful images of young people is not allowed. And it was a religious sheila behind the uproar.
So please give me a proper term to describe her!
@Patricia
Thanks,your comment means alot, and is well accepted.It is difficult as you say and cyber is good.
Sphere Coupler:
Also sorry not just for your loss, but that it had to turn into an attack and defense situation. We’ve all been there — if not at funerals, then at some other gathering where we’re the minority (usually a minority of one) and everyone professes astonishment.
I agree with you re having an “open mind.” They don’t mean what we mean by the phrase. We mean “being willing to consider both sides, and understanding that you should be able to discover you are wrong, and change your mind.” They mean “being open, receptive, and eager to believe.”
Oh, I thought the clerics were the ones with the greatest problems regarding temptations. They are the ones dreaming up the rabid rules.
So maybe no more half-hearted circumcisions, but full-blown neutering later in life for male offenders (and ALL clerics) would help.
Maybe something the catlickers and anglicans should look into as well for their priesthood?
To add to Patricia’s point, don’t use those terms for *female* cowards, idiots and jerks either.
I spent nearly two years effectively one-eyed. The wonder I felt the day I was finally able to afford to buy a lens for my other eye is still palpable to me. The leaves on trees! I didn’t realize how much I wasn’t seeing until I finally could.
Which is a good metaphor for what it’s like to be born female and grow up in such a culture. You don’t know what you’re missing.
Sphere Coupler & Sastra,
This is a good topic of discussion. Maybe one PZ needs to look at.
What indeed happens to us atheists at god bothering family rituals.
I’m dreading the next funeral, wedding or baptism in my family.
@Sastra
Yes, As I am aware, you have traveled down the road from which I have just returned and that which Patricia has yet to travel.Your words are wise, as they have been gained thru experience.Both you and Patricia have spoken these words as if you were there with me and it is a comfort to know that you understand. I am just human, why must I grieve within a specific religion.I accept the deceased beliefs and honour them according to that belief,yet that belief is not my own and I should not be nor was I excluded(by most) from the procedure.However I did not force my views upon others,although it was made clear that my world view was not acceptable, and not appreciated.There are some in my family who will not attend for this reason and that is very sad.I must give some credit to most in my family who still accept me for who I am, tho probably most have no idea of my world view and could not accept it while professing there own. I have never felt comfortable with religion and I never will.I’ve had way too much to drink,and it is good.
To Sasta,Patricia, and all others who understand,Thanks and may the sun shine ever clearer in your future days.
Sphere Coupler…
It can run the other way, depending on the location. I have an Israeli acquaintance who grew up in Akko (one of the few towns that still houses a fair number of Palestinian Christians), and he says that the local Jewish population has much stricter modesty standards than its Christian and Muslim neighbours. Christian and Muslim women breastfeed in public, for instance.
Patricia @ 141
Shonny – Please up grade your vocabulary, and don’t refer to male cowards as pussies, male idiots as twats, or male jerks as cunts. Thank you! ;o)
It must be the stupid english language without gender that confuses these guys.
Shonny:
male coward = punk
male idiot = dickhead or the yiddish= putz
male jerk = a dick
please keep the gender consistent in your sentences, even though it’s English.
Now Patricia Ever wonder why the Anacronym happy dicks never use the term for The War Against Terror ???
——————————————
scooter and Hockeymom take calls on KPFT: http://acksisofevil.org/audio/inner195.mp3
Why, it’s obvious that women who expose both eyes are sluts.
/sarc
Sphere Coupler, I’m sorry to hear of your loss. I hope the beautiful autumn weather, the libations, and contemplation of the wonders of heaven (the real one you can see at night) were a comfort to you.
Patricia, it pisses me off to hear that you have to dread the next death in your family for more than the usual reasons. Shunning you . . . seriously, WTF? It seems to me your people are missing/dissing the damn point of the religion they profess to uphold. At the very minimum, they ought to be encouraging your attendance so you can hear TEH WORD, don’t you know.
Damn.
My thought on the Ultra-Orthodox bully boys is pretty simple. One of them fuckers chunks a rock at ME, I’m going to blow his ass away.
Clearly I have not internalized the woman-hating religious worldview. Too damn bad.
The web-comic Jesus and Mo offers (through CafePress) a T-shirt for sale. It depicts two women clad entirely in black burkas with only eye-slits, and the caption “Thank you for not provoking my uncontrollable lust”.
Even among the most religious Jews, the rule to cover up is only (I know, only!) collarbone, elbows, ankles. And hair if you’re married.
So that means it’s okay to not cover… Oh yes, the face, hands and parts of the arms. How wonderful.
I actually got to the point where I could tell a Lubavitcher from a Satmar (different hats). – Longtime Lurker
The wonders of human memory teh intatubes! LL’s last sentence caused the phrase “It’s hard to tell the difference when they take their hats off” to surface from my long-term memory. Googled it, and here’s the context, from The Bonzo Dog Doodah Band’s Rhinocratic Oaths from the album The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse, which I can’t have heard for 30 years:
‘After his second wife passed away, Percy Rawlinson seemed to spend more and more time with his alsatian, Al. His friends told him “Percy – you’ll wind up looking like a dog, ha ha”. He was later arrested near a lamppost. At his trial, some months later, he surprised everyone by mistaking a policeman for a postman and tearing his trousers off with his bare teeth. In his defence, he told the court “It’s hard to tell the difference when they take their hats off”.’
human memory and teh intatubes
It’s fascinating that some people have nothing better to do than harass people for their fashion sense. Seriously, when you think about it, the whole thing seems entirely insane. Religion really does poison everything.
Re Afghanistan, which has infiltrated this thread. “Nation-building”, aside from the arrogance of which the phrase reeks, has never to my knowledge been proved possible for outsiders to do. Comparisons with Germany and Japan are otiose: both were already nation-states in 1945, something Afghanistan has never been: due to its geography and multi-ethnicity, as long as it’s existed there has been a weak government in Kabul, which allies with, and/or bribes enough of the regional warlords to keep the rest in line. That’s what Karzai is trying to do, with his alliances with various thugs, and negotiations with the Taliban. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the original invasion, it now looks very much as though the foreign troops are making things worse.
The British general Bernard Montgomery formulated two advisory “Rules of War” for governments and generals:
1) Do not march on Moscow.
2) Do not go fighting with your land armies in China.
Given the experience of the British Empire in the 19th century, and the Soviet Empire in the 20th, we might add:
3) Do not attempt to hold Afghanistan.
Getting in, and taking Kabul and the other main towns, is no problem for a well-equipped force. Staying is another matter entirely.
Is that how you read it? I read it as most of the torso, thighs and certainly the pelvic region, don’t need to be covered either. I mean wear a hat, cover up the collarbone with some poncho like garment, that stops at the chest, wear elbow guards and ankle high socks, and you should be just fine. I mean you’d be making one hell of a fashion statement, and probably raising a few eyebrows (and pulses), but you’d be perfectly acceptably dressed to go to temple.
Inspired by Cuttlefish, and seeing PZ’s suggestion as an opportunity to reach a state of affairs (yes, pun intended) where men and women can meet and enjoy each other’s company with a bit more respect:
Through a system which signals “Erection!”
(and perhaps even gives an injection)
those who women despise
will meet their demise:
artificially natural selection!
Misogynist thinking detection
and a guillotine there for correction
will cut down to size
these religulous guys
and the gene pool will see their ejection.
Let us work for a swift resurrection
of more genuine interconnection
I say: “Real men, arise!” –
just not ‘tween your thighs
unless she returns your affection…
Oh, yeah, atheists and funerals. I became an atheist a year before my mom died, and her religious nitwit friends were the minority at her funeral, which I found out only the day OF the funeral. How was I to know that practically my whole family was Jewish nonbelievers? They’d kept it from me from respect for the way Mom chose to raise me.
Dad’s funeral was this January. I was up front with my brother and Dad’s Presbyterian minister about my atheism. My brother, who handled the paperwork and decision making, didn’t shut me out (in fact he let me help with a lot of the planning). There was an unintentionally hilarious moment when the preacher asked us if we wanted to pick the hymns, and everyone looked at me, the music student. I just had to laugh, sorry, but it was nice to have been asked anyway. Fortunately I haven’t lost my soft spot for some of the good old Protestant favorites and could pick some nice tunes. Also fortunately, nobody asked me to sing.
fundies of all religions are nutters. However to suggest that there is no difference between Israel and Islam is to compare a nation to a religion. Islam in many nations is the controlling rule; Israel is not made up of only orthodox, and a large number of these nuts are in the settlements…
example: how many women in the military, flying fighter planes in Israel? And in the US?
> 2) Do not go fighting with your land armies in China.
Vasilevsky’s invasion of Manchuria in 1945 was brilliantly planned and executed. It would have made Alexander or Hannibal proud.
I’m sure a fair number of you folks are familiar with The Jesus and Mo online cartoon series;
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2008/10/03/bill/
If you’re not get over there and soak it up! But the point to this thread is the excellent T-shirt as shown on the website; two women in burkas being congratulated with the slogan ‘Thank you for not provoking my uncontrollable lust’!
I’m sure a fair number of you folks are familiar with The Jesus and Mo online cartoon series;
http://www.jesusandmo.net/2008/10/03/bill/
If you’re not get over there and soak it up! But the point to this thread is the excellent T-shirt as shown on the website; two women in burkas being congratulated with the slogan ‘Thank you for not provoking my uncontrollable lust’!
johannes,
Good point! But:
a) The Japanese had already broken the rule, and greatly over-extended themselves trying to conquer China (even before widening the war in 1941).
b) The Japanese were already bound to be defeated, without the Soviet invasion.
c) Manchuria is a peripheral part of China, and the Soviet aims were quite limited – basically, to get into the war, and hence get southern Sakhalin and the southern Kuril islands when Japan surrendered.
Still, maybe “Do not try to hold Afghanistan” should be substituted for the rule about China, rather than added! I note that the UK commander in Helmand, Mark Carleton-Smith, has just said that a “decisive military victory” over the Taliban should not be expected.
For some reason Douglas Adams comes to mind.
Clearly, what is required is for fundamentalist men to be issued with a modified pair of Joo-Janta 200 SuperChromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses to prevent them seeing anything that might inflame them …
“The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas — uncertainty, progress, change — into crimes.”
— Salman Rushdie (1947-), Is Nothing Sacred?, 1990
Thinker@#164:
* enthusiastic thumbs up*
1. Women are going to appreciate the bells and whistles, but it will change arousal as we know it.
2. I’m not putting mine in a machine thank you very much.
3. You don’t get war without religion or vice versa. Imagine?
These muslims men seem to have very weak minds if they cannot control themselves…
In my country, women are topless on the beaches and men just behave.
Why is so difficult for these religious men?
Now, you want the real reason…?
The real reason if slavery, plain and simple.
Women in these countries are slaves.
Pierce # 32,
stone-throwing is not work! I don’t have a reference for that, but these jerkoffs’ main interaction with the non-ultra population is stoning passing cars every sabbath. Gets them out of the house, I suppose (where they’re not allowed to flick a light switch).
In the early 1990’s my friend Don and I drew a diagram of a gadget we called a turgidometer. It was a tongue-in-cheek reaction to a proposed law which would classify “discernable turgor” as public nudity. I was going to send the diagram to the bill’s sponsor and see if he would endorse it.
(It would look like and beep like a pager.)
Hmmm, don’t remember one reported incident of orthodox Jews burying a woman up to her head and then stoning her to death?
What always gets me about these religious types is how weak and lacking in self control they seem to be. In mostly atheist Germany they have FKK (nude) beaches. People are responsible for controlling themselves, an erection is a serious faux pas, and anyone who engages in excessive ogling is invited to jump into the (cold) ocean until they can control themselves again.