1/30/2006: Caning

[gaidin]

the lady in the back with the mic is freestyling.....i heard she's about to get a big record deal she's got the streets goin crazy

[capnhowdy]

Why don't she just refuse the beating? She is not bound in shackles. What would they do... lock her up? I would choose that before I'd let some masked asshole flog me in public. IMO this is just more evidence that these people are a bunch of brainwashed idiots. Thank God for the USA.

[moonspider666]

i glad i live in the good ol' USA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by Target

This is the sort of bullshit that Makes President Bush a hero of mine. All theocrats should be whacked.

My head nearly exploded on reading this.

Public punishment.
Corporal punishment.
Laws based on religious texts.

We're so fortunate to have a president in power who sides with groups willing to fight these awful ideals.

[chrisinhouston]

Interesting that she is wearing white, which we in the west associate with purity and virginity like in wedding dresses or little kids doing the first communion thing at church. Perhaps it is just white so that after the beating the crowd can see the blood soak through.

I quit being associated with any religion when I was about 17 or so. I got tired of all the BS rules. I got tired of all the stupid long church services, no meat on Friday, holy days of obligation, the stations of the cross, having to go to church in the morning on December 25th instead of opening my christmas presents instead like most of my friends. I got tired of atonement theology, being told that my sins were to blame for jesus getting killed like he did and all his suffering. I think what did it for me was that I had asthma as a kid and used to get soar throats alot. One Sunday, my parents insisted I go with them to mass because it was the feast of st. Blaise, the patron saint of throats. My mom insisted that if I would just go to church and have the priest splash holy water on my neck I would be cured of asthma and soar throats. And then there was the time that I misplaced my watch and my grandmother insisted that I should sit right down and pray to st. Anthony.

I think it was Karl Marx who said that religion was the opium of the masses.

[Trilby]

opium is also the opium of the masses.

[mickja1]

Permit me a small soapbox.

It's disheartening to read many of the replies here. The problem isn't with Islam or Judaism or Christianity, the problem is with man. We are naturally inclined toward evil. Isaiah said, 'the heart is desperately wicked, who can understand it?'

Even in our well-meaning attempts to please Allah or Jehovah or God we contaminate religion with our own sinfulness. That is how the Jews put Jesus on the cross. That is how the crusades happened. That is how a group of radical fundamentalists justfied bringing the World Trade Center towers down. That is how Chris is led to pray to a patron saint to help him find his watch. And that is how this woman is publicly beaten.

I object to the idea that moral right or wrong vary from one culture or religion to another. Now what is acceptable behavior varies, but moral law does not. Everyone is pre-programmed to know that Adolf Hitler was not a nice man. There is absolute truth, and it is specified clearly in the Bible.

The answer to our sinfulness is outside ourselves. It doesn't revolve around us being good and following rules, but in throwing ourselves at the feet of someone who has the authority and the gumption to forgive our sins past, present, and future. Jesus, as the holy son of God, has both the authority (he is God's son) and the gumption (he loves us).

God must punish sin to satisfy his holiness. He would not be a good God if he left sin unpunished. Think for a moment about the parents of a child who was raped and murdered. They need God to exact justice. This is an extreme example I know, but what would it say about God if he turned a blind eye to something like that? Well all sin is that offensive to God (who is holy).

The real mystery is that Jesus, in dying on the cross, took the *penalty* for all our sin. God is now free to lavish his love on us and satisfy his holy justice (Jesus after all bore the punishment for all of us) at the same time, to those who will 'repent' (come seeking mercy).

So you see any religion (even what passes for Christianity) that relies upon self effort (trying to live by rules to be better) is pointless. We can never be good enough, and we will eventually have to pay for our sins. The only religion I know of that doesn't rely on self is faith in Christ. That is the difference.

Soapbox speech complete.

As an aside, it is also amusing to observe that religious tolerance extends to all religions, except of course, Christianity. What is it about Jesus that still offends people today?

[Promenea]

Christianity. What is it about Jesus that still offends people today?

All the proselytizing?

[Trilby]

Jesus does not offend me. (But a lot of certain) Christians offend me. Jesus taught no doctrine yet his cult loves to muck his message up with it.

Philip Yancey's THE JESUS I NEVER KNEW is a good example of one Christian trying to get this across.

[chrisinhouston]

Originally Posted by mickja1

As an aside, it is also amusing to observe that religious tolerance extends to all religions, except of course, Christianity.

Not me, I'm equally intollerant of all religions!

Actually, I wasn't trying to turn the thread towards a debate of theology but more so to say that I think for the most part all religions are stupid because of images like the one at the start of this thread. From what I get out of the picture of the lady who is about to get her ass whipped is that this particular religion's "holy law" says this lady is in deep shit for something that comes most naturally like being attracted to a person of the opposite sex which, humerously enough can be attributed to what god wants in the first place (don't foget that god also is supposed to hate homos, they tell us that in some other part of the holy books that all these religions claim are the one true word).

And incidentally the holy books and rules are mostly written by a bunch of men with beards a long time ago; ever notice how you never hear about any prophets being women, they are always men and the only women who get righteous get killed, kind of like Joan of Arc did. It doesn't seem to matter that it isn't very fair that the men who defame women mostly get off scott free and that women, who the holy books all claim to hold in such high esteem also get to have a good ass whipping or a good stoning or wear a scarlet A around their neck or have their family kill them to avenge the family honor.

I guess Yoko was right; "women is the nigger of the world."

[Kitsune]

Originally Posted by mickja1

The answer to our sinfulness is outside ourselves. It doesn't revolve around us being good and following rules, but in throwing ourselves at the feet of someone who has the authority and the gumption to forgive our sins past, present, and future.

The more I think about this, the more I realize I'm not familiar with any religion that operates this way. Christianity still requires you to "be good" and to follow the rules, just as does Islam as well as the slew of other major religions. Unless you subscribe to the "I'm going to profusely apologize on my death bed" ideal, my understanding is that it isn't as simple as this.

Some branches of Christianity even require you to be active in the word of god, to convert others, to even punish others so that you may be without sin. Many sects of Islam require its followers to not remain idle. These people still consider their answer to sin to be outside themselves, they just happen to see the answer in the "saving" of others. Preaching, beating, genocide. Saving others, acting out god's wishes, religious cleansing. All the same, really, to the people that do it.

[mickja1]

"All the proselytizing?"

Proselytizing = making someone conform to the rituals associated with a religion. An earnest Gentile convert to Judaism would proselytize to become accepted into their fold. No such need for proselytizing in Christianity (there is no male or female, Jew or Greek, free or slave).

Evangelizing (from the greek evangelizo) = to spread the good news. Why do Christians evangelize? They are firmly convinced they had found the way to salvation. If you had the cure to cancer but told no one, what kind of person would you be. That plus Christians are commanded to spread the good news by, of all people, Jesus: "Go and make disciples of all nations." (Matt. 28:19f.)

[Undertoad]

If you had the cure to cancer but told no one, what kind of person would you be.

If you thought you could save that woman by beating her, and you didn't, what kind of person would you be.

[mickja1]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If you thought you could save that woman by beating her, and you didn't, what kind of person would you be.

Yes, but I'm not beating her.

[mickja1]

a.) "Christianity still requires you to 'be good' and to follow the rules"

It's not about reliance on self. Christians try to please God by minding their own personal walk. There is no expectation unbelievers act like Christians, however we are called to act as "salt and light" to a lost world. LOOK AT HOW JESUS DID IT: He was truthful and confronted people about their sin, but was compassionate at the same time. This message is lost on all of us in varying degrees. Our hearts are spring-loaded to be self righteous, judgmental, "you're going to hell if you don't ____ (fill in the blank)" hypocrites.

Now 'being good' and 'following the rules' are not requirements to get into the kingdom of heaven (it is only that Christ saves you), but one must wonder if she has made a true profession of faith if there is no changed life. If God intervenes in your life you are going to become more like Christ over time. Read Romans ch. 6-7 to see what I mean.

b.) "Unless you subscribe to the 'I'm going to profusely apologize on my death bed' ideal, my understanding is that it isn't as simple as this."

Is a death bed confession truly a sign of repentance, or a desire instead to avoid the consequences of a life lived selfishly? More often than not I would argue the latter.

When you put your hope in Christ it is a future hope. You are in effect saying, on judgement day I will look to Christ for help. I will be found guilty, but Christ will take the sentencing (try and get your head around this--he already did!) and I will walk out of the court room a free man.

c.) "Some branches of Christianity even require you to..."

A lot of things are done under the name of Christianity that are man's contamination of the original elements of true saving faith. Keep in mind Jesus' first miracle in the book of Mark was casting out a demon-posessed man who was in church (what was a demon possessed man doing in church?)!

Hence the term "sola fide" (only faith), one of the prominent cries of the protestant reformation. There is such a need in our hearts to have rituals and rules. Again, a tendency toward self-governance. It is not about us, it is about what God does to rescue us from ourselves.