Here is a short video clip on faith schools and religious morality from a programme I was on a while ago. Love Richard Dawkins’ intervention in the end on apostasy…

Tags:

15 Comments

  1. Thank you for the clip. It was an informative way to introduce yourself to readers like myself who are unfamiliar with who you are. I am glad that Dawkins was able to get that arrogant holy man to admit that Islam is not all about peace and love.

    You also showed how difficult it is to use reason, on unreasonable people. Those who insist that if you are not an insider you have no basis to criticize Islam (or any other superstition system).

  2. Maryam, I see you are active in the Communist party. For all the problems religious people have caused, The Communist party has always caused great suffering (including that of relatives of mine) in any country it has obtained control of.

    And, of course, when it does obtain control, it seems to specialize in eliminating the oppostion.

    A death toll of some 100 Million (The Black Book of Communism, Harvard University Press) in the past century alone means that its victims far exceed those of any religous misdeeds.

    So, I don’t see how what you offer is an improvement. Officially Atheist Dialectical Materialist Governments offer mankind nothing.

    We all should have learned that by now.

    I know my family did.

    1. I never supported that communism nor did my party so I cannot but agree with you when you speak of atrocities in the name of communism. I can’t be held responsible for those crimes. Now I know some will say this is no different from those saying the Islamic states are not real Islam. But go back to religious texts and you will see that all the havoc created by Islamic states are in the texts. The communist manifesto however is different. It is first off not dogma to be followed literally but shows a way in which people can break their chains and be free and equal – not just politically but also socially and economically.

    2. A death toll of some 100 Million (The Black Book of Communism, Harvard University Press) in the past century alone means that its victims far exceed those of any religous misdeeds.

      1) The number from that book is actually 94 million, and many scholars dispute about it, because it seems the book uses the highest numbers, when the numbers themselves are in dispute. It could just as easily be said that the actual number is about 50-75 million, and religion has definitely done that much.

      2) Religion has killed that many, easily, between the assorted Crusades, inquisitions, witch burnings, torture and murder of intellectuals, murders of women, children and homosexuals through ignorance (faith “healing”) and violent hatred, religious wars, the religious terrorism of the British in Ireland, the IRA, the KKK–

      Oh–and since you’re blaming Communism for the deaths from famine, you have to blame the anti-science ignorance of religion for contributing to 75 million people dying from the Black Death alone in Europe, not to mention the other epidemics of the Christian era. All that death came because the Catholic Church was stupid about disease, hygiene, and what was a good predator and what wasn’t. Having an abundance of rats because known predators of rats were killed or demonized and their owners killed (in the case of cats) is all on the Catholic Church.

      Religion also get the blame for the tens of millions of Native Americans who were murdered, exterminated, infected and worked to death as slaves. Oh, and the Africans who died during transport across the Atlantic. These actions were considered tolerable by Christians because they believed the heathen brown people weren’t human, so it was okay to treat them like animals.

      Since you wanted to go there.

  3. He actually dodged the apostasy question somewhat. Earlier in the program Richard Dawkins’ question was what they teach the children about apostasy, which is what I’d like to know.

    I went to a Saudi School for two years when my family emigrated out of the Middle East, and they were not shy about telling us the penalty for apostasy is death.

    Incidentally that video is how I first found out about you 🙂

    1. We actually weren’t “taught” that, I learned that later in life and it was difficult to swallow, and remained so until I left the religion (after years!).

      What we were taught is much much worse: that we’ll burn for ever in hell (but this is not exclusive to Islam, Christians teach their children the same)

      I remember at one time, when we were kids, one of my cousins was so scared, she said something along the lines “I wish I’d die now so I know I’m going to heaven for sure”. She was like 7 at the time.

  4. خانم نمازی عزیز

    شما مایه افتخار ایرانیان هستید. من هیچوقت فکر نمیکردم که در اینجا بفارسی بنویسم و جالب است که امکان آن را پیدا کردم. به رسوا کردن این اراذل و اوباش کلم به سر ادامه دهید!

  5. This whole clip plays out like the setup for a joke with the punchline delivered right at the end. If only this was but a joke…

  6. I live in Singapore. There used to be an islamic kindergarten in my neighbourhood mall – not the usual ones run by the mosques but a private one for a very middle-class demographic and I used to watch the children (the classrooms had glass walls and a bookshop I frequent was right across from the classrooms, just to be clear). The boys wore trousers and tshirts and sometimes, a malay style cap called a songkok. The little girls were all covered up, including hijabs. They sat around sex-segregated group tables and when they left their tables to sit on the floor before their teachers, boys and girls again sat separately. They were being trained for very clear-cut roles in life.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.