20 April 2010 It’s hard to take you seriously when…
http://carnalnation.com/content/53132/615/sexy-women-cause-earthquakes?utm_source=CarnalNation&utm_campaign=af577f92db-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
Sexy Women "Cause Earthquakes"
Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, who is based in Tehran, as said that women who sleep around and wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes, the Guardian has reported.
According to Sedighi:"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes,"
From www.guardian.co.uk via clp.ly
Granted, Gloria has shown me the far edges of the universe, moved the stars and planets around me, and the earth beneath my feet. But earthquakes are caused by movement of the earth’s crust; not by defiance of religious tenets laid down by men who regard women as property. If the Tehran resident cited above was at all correct, the tides would be greatly amplified and the planet’s crust would never have become stable enough to allow building thatched huts. Sedighi sounds as if he’s been rejected by one or more Iranian woman who refuses to accept the blame for his lack of social graces.
It must be a bitter thing to wake up and find that your religious lock on sex and marriage has been altered drastically; dragged from the 15th century into the 20th century, having only a hundred years or so to reach the social and political structures of the 21st. Women may be the necessary agents of reform for Islam. It will have to begin in nations like Iraq, Lebanon, and perhaps Iran; where women once knew much greater personal freedom and were able to obtain educations that opened the world to them. While there are many women from Western nations trying to bring equality, education, and modernity to the more backward nations, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and others; the real opportunity for change will only begin to manifest when other Moslem women bring it into the more backward corners of the Islamic world. I’ve said, often, that Islam is in dire need of a reformation to change it from a faith for 8th century nomadic tribes into a faith that recognizes the world has changed under it since the camel got his hump. That reformation is not going to take place if Islam waits for its imams and mullahs to bring it about. It is more and more evident that any reformation will have to be torn from the histories of other faiths and blended skillfully into something that no longer allows mercy killings, mutilation, denial of education, marriage to children, and that no longer views half the world’s population as infidel and approved targets for violent jihad. Men who have yet to leave tribal culture behind will not willingly embrace religious reformation; they have too much to lose in terms of tradition, culture, and power. But women, who have next to no possessions and no positions of power, have much to gain. Perhaps this is the decade that the green revolution will explode in Iran and then sweep throughout Islam, reforming a religion in great need of change. We can all hope for it; the entire world will benefit when the earth moves in Tehran for the same reason it moves in Chucky.
Meanwhile, in cartoon land:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/19/security-brief-radical-islamic-web-site-takes-on-south-park/?hpt=T2
“On Sunday, Revolutionmuslim.com posted an entry that included a warning to South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone that they risk violent retribution – after the 200th episode last week included a satirical discussion about whether an image of the prophet could be shown. In the end, he is portrayed disguised in a bear suit.”
That’s right! The creators of South Park have been threatened with death for defaming the prophet Mohammed. Unlike the Danish political cartoons which were responsible for staged riots in parts of the Islamic world because someone dared depict the prophet with a human face; South Park depicts Mohammed in a bear disguise.
I’m guilty of watching that episode – just try to prevent me after that sort of idiotic response. And I must admit the disguise was effective. Without be made aware of Mohammed’s guest appearance by the script, I’d never have known that the character on my television was somehow possessed of a direct connection to a supreme being. Really good disguise, guys!
Honestly, I understand the tradition of “no graven images” for supreme beings. It gets around that messy problem of what does a supreme being really look like. It places an element of mystery into the liturgy and ritual that only specially designated people may deal with, such as the entry of the Kohen Gadol into the Kodesh HaKadashim on Yom Kippur. And it provides a line of demarcation for the believers.
While Islam’s prohibition against images of Allah is consistent with those of Judaism’s imageless deity and Christianity’s; the prohibition against depicting Mohammed is rather incomprehensible. According to the history of Islam, Mohammed was human in origin and exit. To me, there is no sense in banning his depiction. In fact, such a ban would seem to me to approach deification of Mohammed, a thing to be avoided for the faithful.
What this rabid, fundamentalist, murderous objection to images of Mohammed brings about is a view of Islam that suggests it has yet to leave the days of tribal warfare that existed at its founding. The use of murder to enforce religious purity left Judaism millennia ago and Christianity, more or less, with the Inquisition. Islam has not ruled out human sacrifice, it has merely put a mask on the matter. Honor killings, stoning, and such primitive practices still exist today in nations that control nuclear power and weapons. It would seem to be possible that some fundamentalist might decide his nation was in need of carrying out an honor killing and that nuclear fire was the weapon of choice.
When religious leaders can call for international jihad over a political cartoon, or worse, over the concept of a man in a disguise, it is hard to grant that religion any real merit. If Islam wants my respect, it has to undergo drastic reformation from within and without. Until then, the 200th episode of South Park should be televised every day and the Danish editorial Mohammed cartoons should be printed weekly in every newspaper, especially those in Moslem nations.
There have been many images of Mohammed produced over the centuries by various artists. Some are favorable, others not. I can’t think of too many riots caused by these works of art and some of them from current times seem to be well accepted.
Medieval and Renaissance Christian and secular artists had no religious restrictions regarding depictions of Mohammed, and were free to show his face and body in their entirety
.http://zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/euro_medi_ren/
Mohammed Image Archive European Medieval and Renaissance Images
http://www.godweb.org/mohammedpaintings.htm
Paintings and Images of the Prophet Muhammad
From the art of Islamic or Muslim cultures
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