Freedom to love, tested in Afghanistan. When Rafi Mohammed, a 17-year-old
Tajik Afghani, met and fell in love with his girlfriend Halima, he did not think about the rage that would erupt in her ethically conservative
Hazara neighborhood, or of the lengths to which the local police and religious leaders would go to protect the couple from an angry mob in a region of Afghanistan which
has seen fewer attacks recently and has been restored to local control. Despite -- or perhaps because of -- the violence that ensued, many of the locals have found themselves opposed to the fundamentalists, unwilling to see another pair of young lovers executed,
as happened under Taliban rule. (
video, NSFW)
""I feel so bad. I just pray that God gives this girl back to me. I'm ready to lose my life. I just want her safe release. . . It’s the heart. When you love somebody, you don’t ask who she is or what she is. You just go for it.”
posted by markkraft
on Jul 31, 2011 -
35 comments
Inside C Street–Six Questions for Jeff Sharlet It’s about the Idea… the monolithic vision of fundamentalism always threatening to subsume the many lowercased ideas that constitute democracy. In Uganda, we see the Idea verging on murder, in the military, we see it gathering force, at C Street we encounter its enduring corruption.
(
Jeff Sharlet previously).
posted by adamvasco
on Sep 30, 2010 -
13 comments
GodBlock is a web filter that blocks religious content. It is targeted at parents and schools who wish to protect their kids from the often violent, sexual, and psychologically harmful material in many holy texts, and from being indoctrinated into any religion before they are of the age to make such decisions. When installed properly, GodBlock will test each page that your child visits before it is loaded, looking for passages from holy texts, names of religious figures, and other signs of religious propaganda. If none are found, then your child is allowed to browse freely.
posted by Obscure Reference
on Jul 8, 2010 -
128 comments
The PEW survey recently released; summarised by
Andrew Sullivan reveals that evangelicals are most likely to approve of torture.
This survey coincides with Harpers May edition lead article (
presently behind a subscription firewall)
extracted here. The article is by Jeff Sharlet - (
previously: How the Christian right is reimagining U.S. history). The two are not unrelated. The division of the world into God's people and Satan's people enabled the
Bush Administration to support the most devilish behavior imaginable, all in the name of righteousness, as shown by
General Boykin then Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.
posted by adamvasco
on May 1, 2009 -
181 comments
Christs, Communists, & Rock 'n' Roll is an excellent introduction to a tradition of anti-rock writings and recordings by the Religious Right. In the 1960s, there was
David Noebel who wrote
Communism, Hypnotism, & the Beatles and
The Marxist Minstrels. In the early 1970s,
Reverend Riblett constructs a seven-foot cross out of rock music records and sets it aflame with gasoline. Michael Mills finds
hidden Satanic messages in Bow Wow Wow and the Grateful Dead, while Bob Larson valiantly
debates Mandy, a 13-year-old fan of the Cure. The motherlode is probably the
cassettes of John Todd, who traveled the fundamentalist circuit in the 1970s claiming to be a former witch and a member of the Illuminati, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. (more inside)
posted by jonp72
on Aug 20, 2007 -
31 comments
Iran
executes two teenagers. Their crime? Making love. Homosexuality is a crime under
Sharia law. Meanwhile, newly "liberated" Iraq moves closer to embedding traditional Islamic laws in its new constitution,
reducing rights for women. Will
Iraqi gays be the next to suffer the wrath of "Allah's law" after years of secular oppression under Saddam Hussein?
posted by digaman
on Jul 21, 2005 -
109 comments
April 14, 2005: The Day of Truth. On April 13th thousands of students will don black-and-red t-shirts and remain quiet for the ninth
Day of Silence in order to "recognize and protest the discrimination and harassment--in effect, the silencing--experienced by LGBT students and their allies." But this year the
Alliance Defense Fund, "a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth [yes, "Truth" is capitalized] through strategy, training, funding, and litigation," plans to add a twist to the occasion by following up with its so called Day of Truth in order to protest the
homosexual agenda and promote their interpretation of Christianity. Though in their
"Hostile Questions" section they claim they're not Day of Silence copycats, in addition to the silent treatment like their DoS foes students who register will receive
t-shirts and explanation cards to distribute to inquiring minds, albeit with a slightly altered message.
But will it draw participants? Well, Clint Armstrong can't wait--he staged a protest of his own last year.
posted by schroedinger
on Apr 13, 2005 -
43 comments
The mind of the fundamentalist (streaming RealAudio) is an hour-long radio show featuring excerpts from talks given at a psychoanalytic psychotherapy conference in Sydney. Three speakers discuss experiences with fundamentalists, and driving factors behind their beliefs. It includes an amazing first-hand account of fundamentalist terrorism by a journalist whos plane was hijacked, and who later tracked down the hijacker and attempted to understand what drove him. The RealAudio-squeamish can find a
transcript here.
posted by Jimbob
on Apr 29, 2004 -
20 comments
Paul Kurtz on the Enlightenment. Unfortunately, there has been a massive retreat from Enlightenment ideals in recent years, a return to pre-modern mythologies. There has been a resurgence of fundamentalist religions
worldwide—Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Roman Catholicism, and Orthodox Judaism. Added to this are occult-paranormal claims, which allegedly transcend the existing scientific paradigm.
In the United States—the preeminent scientific-technological-military superpower in the world—significant numbers of Americans have embraced primitive forms of biblical religion. These focus on salvation, the Rapture, and the Second Coming of Jesus. Evangelical Protestant Christians have made alliances with conservative Roman Catholics and neo-conservative Jews, and they have captured political power—power they have used to oppose secular humanism and naturalism.
via the council for secular humanism
posted by skallas
on Apr 5, 2004 -
75 comments
An Insider's Look at the Southern Baptist wing of the Republican party. How religion and politics became so entwined and how fundamentalists took control of a major American denomination.
The Southern Baptist fundamentalists conquered their denomination; they have every reason to hope the Bush administration will make over the world in their image.
...
The separation of church and state, long central to Baptists, is of little interest to the fundamentalists: In 1998, Richard Land, at a strategy meeting with Republicans and members of the religious right, told the Republicans, "No more engagement. We want a wedding ring, we want a ceremony, we want a consummation of the marriage."
posted by nofundy
on Apr 18, 2003 -
47 comments
Name That Fundamentalist! Is everyone ready for some Friday fun? How about online quizzes today? Here's one where you try to guess which fundamentalist is responsible for a quote. Go ahead, give it a try and post your favorites too!
posted by nofundy
on Nov 8, 2002 -
14 comments
The Guardian isn't so good at letting you link to their articles anymore. But if you use this link then click on "printable version" you might get to the site I want you to link to. My title being: If you're Jewish and American its hard to know whose side your on these days.
posted by donfactor
on Oct 28, 2002 -
20 comments
Religious Fundamentalism: 1, Science: 0. In a stunning knock-out blow to rational thought, the United States tells Darwin, "Not so fast, bud. We better check with God before naming you the head honcho of evolution." Read the article carefully-on first read the new law sounds benign enough. Legislators claim the law will only require that the "debate" between creationism-evolution be discussed. Sounds simple, right? Think again. Once again, the Ohio mentality begs me to flee this state...
posted by tgrundke
on Sep 16, 2002 -
100 comments
Putting the 'fun' back in fundamentalism, and the 'beastly avatars of Satan' back in...
cat? (via memepool).
posted by oflinkey
on Sep 5, 2002 -
23 comments
Managing Fundie Eruptions. A short course on how Karl Rove manages the fundamentalists who so often disrupt the regime's plans. He gives them what they want, but secretly, kinda like fundie sex.
posted by nofundy
on Jul 3, 2002 -
10 comments
