3/4/2004: Ashoura 2004

Thanks to Slarti for pointing this out. Once again it's the Shiite festival/blood ritual Ashoura, a festival which IotD has noted twice before. The news images carry these shots each year but is it helpful to note that only a small segment of Shiites go around cutting themselves or their kids? And that the head bleeds profusely in any situation, and not too painfully? And that they hit the wound with their blades to keep it bleeding?

This is the day which was reported this time around to be utterly violent in another way - marked by attacks on the Shiites, thought to be terrorism meant to try to evoke civil war.

With hundreds dead and hundreds more injured, suddenly the blood ritual is not so bad.



I guess.

I find myself appalled that they cut their children and make them bleed. Then I realize that I have to step out of what Western Culture considers "right and wrong" and realize that this is no more wrong to them as circumcision is to westerners.

Still, I'm not entirely comfortable with the images of bloody children. Especially in the first picture, the child is sucking on a bloodied finger. The father's face isn't bloody, and I would have thought his face would be bloody too, to "celebrate" or whatever.

I also want to mention I switched from lurking to posting about a year ago this month.

These people are friggin SICK.
This is what they deserve
No wonder why there are so many F#@Ked up people in this world.

Yeah! They are strange. We should kill them.

This practice is just too disturbing. The adult must see some percieved benefit to the child in his actions, and that just makes the whole thing worse.

The FUCK?!?!?! Dear God, I thought for sure that was fake blood...until I read the post. Jesus....*shakes head*

I would never do that to either of my young children. The images are distubing. I think it's crazy.

But if you look at them with a clinical detached eye, you see that the kids are fine. They aren't crying. They aren't distressed. They just go with the flow. When my kids hurt themselves, they cry like crazy. Kids cry when they are in pain. These kids are fine. It's just blood, and the scabs will heal in a week.

The red blood just makes people freak out.

It's another cuture. Try to keep an open mind.

glatt, you can have an open mind on this culture, but I can tell you that most of us still think it's F#@king sick. I'll never have an open mind to this kind of stuff. It's primitive.

Quote:

Originally posted by Leah glatt, you can have an open mind on this culture, but I can tell you that most of us still think it's F#@king sick. I'll never have an open mind to this kind of stuff. It's primitive.

Ah yes, because where in our systems of belief do we espouse tolerance?

Certainly we don't do anything strange or even risky in our utopic, modern America. At the very least, we would never seek to glorify any of those risky topics, nono...

You're right, we should fear and look down upon anything "primitive" because anything which is not modern can't be worthwhile, or even tolerated.

Zen, I don't think it's an issue of what's modern and what's primitive, I think it's more an issue of these ppl pulling out big ass knives and smacking their babies in the head with them in order to make them bleed all over the place. Whether it's modern or primitive in my opinion it is an awful thing to do to anyone, specially your own child. I could never bring myself to hit a small child with a knife regardless of how harmless it may really be, it just goes against everything I believe,feel,think, am.

Is it just me, or can no one see Troubleshooter's pics???

I don't think that there is anything wrong with being averse to this kind of behavior. Quite frankly my first reaction is distaste as well. But what we need to do is step back and examine the actions from outside our own cultural view (if that is possible).

Stating that what these people deserve is a machine gun smiley is not exactly a worthwhile idea in my opinion.

The children are scared, yes. They bleed, yes. It is dangerous, yes. It is contrary to our system of beliefs, yes. But the question is, are we really averse to this because the children are in serious danger, or is it because this is a cultural idea which seems foreign to us.

A bad example, but here goes: Lets look at swimming lessons. I personally was terrified of swimming. My parents forced me to learn how, and I am thankful now, because I rather enjoy swimming. Now, was I scared as hell? yes. Also, there is a chance that I could drown. Slight, this is true, but still a chance. Yet we don't see forcing a kid to learn how to swim even though he is afraid of the water as a horrible thing.

This is a bad parallel, I know, but it conveys the idea adequately I think. We are shocked by this because our values do not coincide with it, but if we take it out of our frame of vision, and look at it from a different cultural perspective, it is not quite the way we imagined it to be.

That all being said, perhaps there are some cultures which have better ideas on raising children than do others, but that is an argument which in all probability cannot be solved. I don't even want to begin suggesting which culture's children are "better" because that is a worthless argument in my opinion.

What I AM sure of is suggesting that people who commit strange, sometimes dangerous acts should all be machine gunned to death because they are primitive.

I just love playing Devil's Advocate.

I believe what I believe, and anyone who believes differently is free to, so long as they don't shove their different beliefs down MY throat. Live and let live, I say. But TS, you're so SURE of what you believe, and SO SURE that you're right, that you bring out the Devil's Advocate in me. You strike me as an "The only time I was ever wrong was the one time I thought I was wrong" kind of person.

BUT, returning to the topic for a moment, I figure the adults can do whatever the hell they want to themselves, but I don't think the children should be involved until they're old enough to make the conscious choice. Course, they don't really have a CHOICE, when you think about it, do they, considering the fact that the country is a Theocracy....

Uh, it's marshmallows.

"If it's unproven it's not religion, it's art. Calling all of this art is the only thing that could redeem it"
------------


You're contradicting yourself here...if it's unproven it's NOT religion, it's art? Huh?




"Then what is it?"
-------------

It's a looking beyond oneself and, possibly, considering that there may be a first cause and that that first cause may be conscious.

If you create life in a test tube, and then put it out in the environment, but that life never, EVER sees evidence of your existence, and yet somehow begins believing that some sort of consciousness created it, does it make you any less real because they have no concrete PROOF that you exist?



"And I'm not going to kill you for not changing your mind about my beliefs either."
------------

What's that in re to?

On another note, I think the best correlation so far has been circumcision. In this modern country, can anyone really justify circumcision other than "tradition?"

Disturbing

Quite disturbing........
I can't believe one would say " they are not crying"
You are putting a knife to your child....That is unspeakable

circumcision is done for health purposes

"Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision."
- The American Academy of Pediatrics

PEDIATRICS, Volume 103, Number 3, Pages 686-693,
March 1, 1999.

circumcision is wrong

i don;t see a great difference between this and baptism. apart from the blood. and the big scary knives.

people do some fucked up stuff to their bodies and their kids' bodies. chinese folk bind feet, some tribes in africa stretch necks, put plates in their lips, ears and who knows where else. people perform female circumscisions, massive tattoing and scarring.

it freaks you out because you see a bloody child.

Hey Pearcie haven't you got much work today??? Me either.
TGIF
:p

Being the lazy ass that I am, (and not wanting to surf the muslim/porn central link from work), can anyone find the reason why they feel they have to cut themselves to celebrate?

Is it in a holy book or something?

Thou shalt cut thyself on the head and thy children, yea, even the little child shall be cut. When the blood stoppeth the flow, verily, take thy knife and smack the cut repeatedly while wearing white. Behold! The media shall frenzy!

Yeah I've got plenty Leah, but like u said TGIF. A good day to relax I reckon. This thread has become way to heavy for Friday tho, I reckon this'll be my last post today. I've got big plans tonight, my sister is coming over for dinner tonight, she's bringing her newborn so after dinner I'm gonna get a big knife and smack him on the head with it til he pisses blood al over the place and then I'm going to cheer and say 'praise the lord!'

"So the only measure of worth of an activity is usefulness? That seems incredibly narrow, and would result in a rather boring life in my opinion, if we only did those things we felt were "useful". .."


Right on, Zenchou. That, I think, is what TS doesn't understand. "Useful" to him, it appears, is what he himself deems so. Anything else is a waste of time, again, because he believes it to be so.

Oh, and btw, TS, you have once again ceased communications on something I have asked you to explain. This is getting to be a trend, it appears.

Of course, you probably feel that you don't need to explain yourself...but if there's one thing I've seen here, it's this: if you don't want to have to explain yourself, don't post an opinion.

did you two have a spat somewhere else that i missed?

troubleshooter has a right to his own opinion, as do you. you seem to be taking his opinion rather personally, imo, though. what gives?

TS:


Well there you go. MY point was that you were making a sweeping accusation of silliness and stupidity of all those who DO believe in something that you do not believe in. Merely because you do not believe in it and cannot prove it does not make it silly or false.

And DO you look beyond yourself, really? Studying philosophy and sociology don't mean that you look beyond yourself, it just means that you read the works of people who looked beyond THEMSELVES (philosophy), and sociology is just a way to learn the trends of how people act in what situations, all the better to manipulate them. Companies use Soc all the time. It's a basis of advertising.

Perh aps I didn't phrase my question correctly. I understand they are celebrating a holy day, I understand it's for Imam. Why are they hitting themselves in the head with knives? Why not...go fuck a cow? Why are they celebrating it in this particular manner. The CNN article doesn't answer that.

Their holy guy got killed for his views. It's kinda like those people that hang themselves on crosses - old IOD pic anyone? - but less painful.

Please stop the argument. It is going nowhere.

(TS in quotes)

"... to qualify that, if the usefulness is pleasure then it is useful."


Yes, I can vouch for the fact that he thinks that if it's pleasurable for him, it is therefore useful, and therefore OK, no matter what it is.



"And why does everyone say that boring is bad?....Why can't we reverse the trend towards higher standards?"


I've been asking you that for a year, and haven't gotten an answer yet.


quote:Originally posted by Shattered Soul

Right on, Zenchou. That, I think, is what TS doesn't understand. "Useful" to him, it appears, is what he himself deems so. Anything else is a waste of time, again, because he believes it to be so.


That's true.



"My standards are based on a desire for improvement and simplicty that is derived from the greatest thinkers if time, Kant, Plato, Epictetus, Epicurus, Hobbs, Socrates, and so on."



Many of those also had very unemotional views of life. I can see why they drew your attention. However, lack of emotion is a flaw, as we can see by observing serial killers, other sociopaths, and some other personality disorders. Without emotion, and the resulting empathy, people don't care about anyone but themselves. In other words, if it's pleasurable to them, it serves a valid purpose, no matter how it affects other people. That isn't an improvement.



"If I have one belief in this world it is that only humanity can save humanity."


Humanity is made up of individual people, and if individual people don't care about anyone except themselves, and view things that cause them pleasure as being ok despite how it affects other people, humanity will keep going downhill. Without emotion, things like family, marriage, and the like, the things that knit society together, cannot be sustained.



"People are migratind towards a degree of complex shallowness and venality that is truly staggering."


I'm not even going to comment on the audacity of you making that statement.

Sidhe

A few little things.

- The website cited earlier (twin-towers.net/muslims.htm) is bullshit propaganda. It takes a small handful of photos of things which exist in a completely accepted form in American society (children with toy guns pretending to kill each other or inanimate objects, e.g.) and comes to the conclusions that A) those photos are representative of every, or even a majority, of the members of a religion with over a billion (their own statistic) followers and B) that all of those people want to kill Americans. I seriously have to question the source of their translations.

It's this sort of fucked up misrepresentation of other cultures that leads to terrorism; you take a few provocative images, add some subtitles that tell you they're going to kill you for what you/they believe, and bam. Somebody's blowing somebody else up. Except, it's terrorism when the other guy does it.

Vicious cycle.

- Circumcision is a part of Islam. Same origin as in Judaism and Christianity: covenant between Abraham and God.

- Husayn, the younger son of Ali and Fatima, the Prophet Muhammad's daughter by his first wife, was killed by a the present Umayyid caliph circa October 680.

This event marked the split between the Shi'ite (literally, the "party of Ali", or something to that effect) Muslims and the Sunni muslims/Umayyid caliphate. There had been some disagreements before, because Ali got shafted out of being Caliph for a while. But once they killed the grandson of the Prophet, there wasn't any way to really reconcile things: the Umayyids were no longer just questionably okay, and instead were considered by Shi'ites to be a bunch of non-Muslims leading the rest of the Muslims.

whoa.

sidhe,

what the..?

trying to compete with staceyv? you saw how much fun it has been for her, i presume. You sure you want to bring this online?

Spiritualism, theology, cultural differences and philosophy aside, what about the REAL danger of infection.
I've just recovered from a stapphlycoccal (Kiss my arse, spellcheck) infection and apparently it only needs a tiny break in the skin to enter. In 24 hrs it got in, swelled my foot to roughly double then spread up to my knee. Being navy I was seen immediately and hospitalised. 9 days later I was clean.
I've been to quite a few places in the middle East and my sweeping generalisation involves poor hygiene and a lousy medical infrastructure.
Rational thought aside, this ritual offends my sensibilities.

Found an interesting (and brief) article on the Muslim perspective of circumcision.

I was actually looking to confirm at what age the procedure is performed ... the Jewish bris occurs 8 days following the birth of the child, US hospitals do the medical circumcisions shortly after delivery. I had thought that the Muslim rite was performed in early adolescence as part of the 'manhood' rituals. Guess Alec Hailey sold us all a bill of goods ... actually the age of circumcision does vary, but this guy indicates it's "within the early few years of age". I did see some statements from men who had it done around age 12-13. The practice is apparently optional for adult converts.

1 second: I am slightly disturbed, because I am genetically programmed to like kids and care about them.
10 seconds: I read the explanation and realise that kids are apparently not suffereing too much.
15 seconds: I feel the urge to judge them, but quickly remember the idea of cross-cultural tolerance.
20 seconds: I compare this with other rituals, such as circumcision and come to a conclusion that this is not worse.
21 seconds: but it is just as bad. Being religious and irrational, this ritual is clearly very bad. Still, on the grand scale of things, USian president mentioning god in every speech is definitely much worse and much more dangerous.
25: I decide to no worry about this particular cult. There are too many things wrong on this planet (university students not knowing basic math is one of them) and I can't fix all of them immediately. People cutting the heads of their children will have to wait.

Some people on this god forsaken planet are very different to others. DIFFERENT. JUST DIFFERENT. Some of you believe that being different to you, gives you the absolute right to blow them to pieces. God has nothing whatever to do with this. I know where my sympathy lies and it is not with mindless yes mindless killers. If the cap fits.

Quote:

Originally posted by paranoid So, to conclude: 1) religion contradicts reality 2) we understand how religion emerges and god has nothing to do with it 3) and an obvious additional point: there are thousands of religions, all contradicting each other. Simple logic dictates that the majority of them is wrong.

Quote:

Originally posted by mrnoodle Myself, I think there's enough historical evidence for the prophecies in the Christian bible to lend credence to that religion. It holds up logically in theological debate as well, but no religion can be PROVEN true through debate. You just have to weigh the evidence and decide for yourself if something MIGHT be likely to be true. Weee

You know what, everyone? I'm sorry. You're right. I shouldn't bring this online. I'm just so frustrated and hurt that I want everyone to know how he really is, as opposed to how he portrays himself. He's so worried about the image he puts forth to y'all that he's willing to hurt his wife to make it.

Don't get me wrong. He can be a good man...used to be a good man, back when he cared about other people. I don't know where that man went, though, and he won't let me talk to him.

If he has no regard for the feelings of others, then there's no reason anyone else should hold their tongue in regards to him. And I won't. I'm through putting his welfare above mine. I've done it for five years, only to get blamed for his indescretions.


Anyway...sorry. But I'm not going to let him get away with being a hypocrite.

Sidhe

ok, so you DO want to bring it online.


~~~fade in harps~~~~

And so begins another chapter of "As the Cellar Turns".

Nope. I'm just not going to hold my tongue when he outright BS's people, like I used to.

No, actually, I'll just let him spout. Yeah, that's better...because I'll look bad no matter what I do. I seem to have earned a place as an idiot/drama queen, and the last thing I want to do is give anyone ammunition. His sarcastic comment against me had everyone cheering him on, so I know where I stand. Anything I say will be misconstrued as bitterness, so I'm better off just not saying anything.

But I must say, he's pretty popular for a man everyone was vilifying in "need advice."


I've tried to be nice, but it's hard to be nice when you're hurting.

Shutting up.


Sidhe

oh FOR FUCKS SAKE.

Can we at least keep all these bloody personal spats in threads in the home forum so the rest of us can ignore them? It's like a bunch of white trash having a domestic in the middle of a supermarket.




oh and troubleshooter:

Quote:

Originally posted by jaguar oh FOR FUCKS SAKE. Can we at least keep all these bloody personal spats in threads in the home forum so the rest of us can ignore them? It's like a bunch of white trash having a domestic in the middle of a supermarket.

thankyou.

Like I said, I was frustrated and stressed and I posted out of hand. All I can do is apologize.

Reply is in Philosophy

Carryin' my ass to philosophy as well... (NT)

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