3/4/2004: Ashoura 2004
 

http://cellar.org/2004/ashoura2004.jpg

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.

http://cellar.org/2004/ashoura2004b.jpg

I guess.

These people are friggin SICK.
This is what they deserve:rattat:
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* :confused:

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.:angry:

You tell em Leah!

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.

I'm sensing a little sarcasm here. I'm not sure though.

Hence my opinion of the reliance on religion in the first place. It's silly and a waste of time, money and paper.

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.

I got "you're kids are fine" right here.

http://www.twin-towers.net/images/Ashoura.jpg

http://www.twin-towers.net/images/Ashoura7.jpg

http://www.twin-towers.net/kgart.jpg

http://www.twin-towers.net/kgart3.jpg

Now I ask you, what is fine about this?

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

I saw them at first, but then they disappeared. Weird.

Here are the links to the pics, please look at them and tell me things are all fine and dandy.

http://www.twin-towers.net/images/Ashoura.jpg

http://www.twin-towers.net/images/Ashoura7.jpg

http://www.twin-towers.net/kgart.jpg

http://www.twin-towers.net/kgart3.jpg

Edit: That's too weird. If you put the link in the address box directly it works fine, but any form of redirect sends you somewhere else entirely. Well, here's the site, try that.

http://www.twin-towers.net/muslims.htm

I take it you are an athiest, or at the least, an agnostic? And I take it you have a very long list of what you consider "weakness," and religion falls into that category? You seem to be very sure of yourself and that your beliefs are eminently logical, and therefore correct (the rest of us are just too unevolved to see it).

Seems to me that you've created a world of your own and do what it takes to prove that world's validity to everyone else. Hm. Kinda like the religious folks...

Merely because some find comfort in the belief in something greater than themselves, and use that belief to their benefit, even though religion has been the basis of wars (usually, however, instigated by the governments who saw a use for believers and believers who were zealous enough to go along with it) is no call to unilaterally deem it "silly and a waste of time..." You don't believe it, or feel it worthy of belief, well, don't believe it. Don't ascribe to it. Don't hang with people who will soil your pristinely logical mind with spirituality.

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.

Some people feel the need for something greater than themselves. I don't.

Some people feel the need for an answer to every unsolved question. I'm quite willing to accept "I don't know," instead of making up a completely improvable, and no more plausible than anybody else's, story about how it happened.

Religion is the manifestation of humanity's insecurities and inability to think about more than their self.

Here Here! Well said Shooter.

Oooh...delusions of grandeur...gotta love 'em.



Ah, but you imply that you DO know, merely by saying that religion (I prefer "spirituality," I don't personally ascribe to "religion," myself. ) is silly and a waste of time. You don't KNOW that. You BELIEVE that, but you can't say that you KNOW. And merely because something hasn't been proven doesn't mean it can't be.



Again, your opinion, not necessarily reality. Others may feel differently. Merely because people desire to believe in something bigger than themselves is not necessarily an insecurity, and the very belief in a creator, however one chooses to picture it/him/her is looking beyond oneself.


Oh, and it's "themselves," btw...

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.

Now this is good stuff! I totally agree with this one Shattered. Mainly the idea of "believe what you want just don't preach to me".

On the other hand, this is a discussion forum where the idea is to discuss what we see and how it makes us feel. We're not sending all these thoughts over to the ppl concerned, we're just voicing opinions and ideas. For anyone to say anyone else's beliefs are 'wrong' is absurd but we can express how we see these beliefs personally, and what better place to do it than here in the Cellar.

I agree. Like I said, it's just that he brings out the Devil's Advocate in me. All of his posts are so "this is how it is, end of story." I'm having a blast.

I appreciate the understanding that you are showing, but that being said, understanding need only go so far. Ashoura is only part of the problem. It's part of a program that teaches that infidels are only so much extra shrapnel.


I disagree. They want to give us a bit more than a smiley.


I'm averse to it because it's only the tip of a homicidal, suicidal, dark ages, un-evolved, towering mountain of hate.

Um, swimming is useful, as in not drowning. Scalping yourself isn't. Hell, even the native americans had the sense to do it to the other guy and sell them to a third party for a profit.

Then it is my opinion that you need to read and get out more.

While a bit ambiguous, I'm guessing that you meant to end with is, "is bad," or some such, so I'll answer on that basis.

If there can be shown a provable link between a given culture/group/etc. and past and present attrocities and there appears to be a liklihood of future attrocities then I say "Fire when ready Gridley!" And don't forget the dosimeters and the marshmellows.

LOL!!!

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....

Not at all. No one, ever, anywhere, anytime, has shown me that there is more to this existence than what we create.

See my first point. If it's unproven it's not religion, it's art. Calling all of this art is the only thing that could redeem it at this point. Catharsis and auto-erotic masochism I could tolerate.

Then what is it?

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

I stand corrected.

Uh, it's marshmallows.
Many indigenous peoples, including Indians of the Americas used blood rituals and scarification as part of their religious ceremonies.

"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:angry:

I'm not the most learned on the subject but there are hygenic benefits to circumcision also.

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.

That is a massive generalization which you offered no proof of. Those kind of statements result from very shallow understandings of cultures and religions which make little or no effort to understand the true meanings. That being said, anyone can put a religion or culture in a bad light, yes, thats right, even Christianity/Judaism/whatever else you please. A broad statement of "they are all taught to kill anyone not of their religion" is hardly convincing.

Another massive generalization which is blaming the radical actions of some people who happen to share the same religion/culture on those people as a whole, rather than the individuals or specific group.




Additionally, I could argue for days about the whole which child or which culture is better issue, but I won't. I didn't quite structure my statement correctly, but that is not the issue here, so I'm not going to start a different discussion. However, I might recommend that you not be so patronizing and tell me to "get out more". If you wish to make a point, do so in a more polite way, it is more effective and maintains the pretense of civility.


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". Not to mention, that rules out much of western religious pratices as well, if you don't think that their religious ideas are "useful" then no other religious ideas are "useful" either.

It's not a question of "use" for me. Instead, it's a question of beliefs. They believe in this strange ritual of cutting their head to show their faith. I think it's ridiculous, but no more ridiculous than many other religious practices.


First of all, the issue on whether or not there is a "proveable link" should be FAR from closed from anyone who has "read and gotten out more" (sorry, couldn't resist). Aside from that, however, there are plenty of ways to connect "past and present attrocities" to any government or culture, and very easy to project those images into the future. By your statement, perhaps we should just start shooting everyone just to be safe.

Additionally, it seems depressing to me that once you have found some sort of connection between past and present action, and possible (unless you can somehow see the future, you have no idea what will really happen) that your first inclination is to start shooting. While many people share this opinion with you, I find it disheartening

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

in your opinion

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!'

;)

I stand corrected.

And?

That doesn't make it good, right, or just. And were not talking about them. We're talking about a people who hate us with a white hot heat that is fired by a religiou that requires them to do things that are self destructive as a means to prove their faith.

And I'm just reminded of some video clips I downloaded a good while back that I will make available if I can find them as a case in point.

"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. :D

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?

A poor explanation on my part I guess. I was trying to say that if your religion is an expression of how you feel that the universe was created and how you think your creator thinks it needs to be run that is fine, but I am not going to let your artistic endeavor interfere with, or end, my life.

I look beyond myself all of the time, my interest in sociology and philosophy is an extension of that. Philosophy requires some reason to your thinking though.

That being said, if your reason for all of the flubdubbery is a desire for something more ephemeral or more powerful then you more power to you, but there is yet to be shown any form of first cause. Not even the big bang.

No it doesn't, but it doesn't make their belief reasonable. Without evidence or proof, it's fiction.

To borrow wisdom from Sensei Carlin:
"Millions of dead motherfuckers all because they gave the wrong answer to the god question.

You believe in God?

No.

*doomph*

You believe in God?

Yes.

You believe in my God?

No.

*doomph*

MIllions of dead motherfuckers..."

They're celebrating the martyrdom of Mohammad's (sp) grandson.

Oh, no...no spat. He's just got an extreme world-view going on, and it brings out my inner Devil's Advocate. I've got nothing against him at all. I even think he's got good points at times.

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.

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

And why does everyone say that boring is bad? In time boring becomes the norm and is no longer boring. We see it every day, but in reverse. Clothing, language, thought, all becoming more coarse every day. Why can't we reverse the trend towards higher standards?

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.

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

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

Ah, gotcha.

I'm not sure. Maybe I can find a Muslim on campus and ask.

Blood, pain, tithing, flagellation, asceticism, abstinance *shudder*; various forms of abuse or self-denial are central to some (most?) religions.

"In the past, many Shia men have demonstrated their devotion to Husayn by letting their blood flow freely from self-inflicted wounds. Today, however, many governments have tried to ban this practice, with varying degrees of success. In Lebanon, the practice is permitted, and a bloody commemoration of Ashoura takes place in Nabatieh every year."

Apparently the head wound is not the only thing they do. The CNN article says;

"Shortly after the explosions, pilgrims returned to the Imam Hussein mosque: chanting, beating their breasts in penance, cutting themselves with daggers or swords and whipping themselves in synchronized moves."

I would imagine the head wound is common (and done to the kids) because, as UT pointed out in the orginal post, you get more bang for your buck in the blood:suffering ratio.

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?