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[DrkSage]

No it's just a waste of time. Other than Buddhism it's all about making a select few powerful men even more powerful.

That's all it's ever been about.

Convince the masses their souls are in danger and that they must obey to save themselves no matter the price.

How is it necessary

It's both actually, to me it's a waste of time, because yea it's true what you say Betty, religion is something man created to grab power where there was none. But I say it's also a necessary evil because it keeps some people in check.

(Also, Buddhism is considered a way of life, right?)

 

[Heshinsi]

Waiting for the religious brigade to tell us that religion isn't the problem and that the same stuff is happening in the western so we're in no place of judging

Horrifying story. Rip to the victim.

Where exactly in Islam does it say civilians can go murder people? In fact when it comes to accusations, their own religious rules states that they need 4 witnesses in front of a judge, and if the person being accused states that the accusations aren't true, they're supposed to be left alone, and god is supposed to deal with it in the after life. Accusing someone, and setting a mob on them, isn't Islamic.

There is regular occurrence of this sort of behaviour in Pakistan. A few years back there was the little Christian girl who was accused by a Imam that she had torn pages of the Quran in a garbage bag. Turned out to be false. A few years before that, two brothers were lynched on video, because a mob thought they had stolen cricket equipments. Turns out they didn't, and the murder happened in ramadan. These people don't give two shits about what their religion actually teaches.

 

[OG Shaka Zulu]

Shouldn't they be called Islamic extremists and not radicals? The latter has a good connotation.

 

[SlimySnake]

Here's my problem with Imran Khan's statement: he only objects to the killing based on the fact that the student didn't actually commit blasphemy. What if he had committed blasphemy? Would it have been okay to kill him then? (The apparent answer according to Pakistani society is "yes", by the way.)

This. Fuck Imran Khan.

 

[ahoyhoy]

The women raised slogans in jubilation after his death, asserting that they had finally eliminated a blasphemer.

The women, in their statement to police, alleged that Abbas had committed blasphemy in 2004, but “we couldn’t kill him at the time because we were too young then”.

What the fuck.

Imagine Inglorious Basterds but instead of taking your revenge on Nazis that killed her family the main character takes revenge on some dude who said that God was dumb to her 13 years previously.

What a relatable story!

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

Oh this country has nukes? Great...

 

[Chairman Yang]

I think blaming it on religion here misses the underlying causes and overall issues. With the way Pakistan society is, especially culturally, religion largely ends up being a scapegoat for a lot of inner-cultural conflict.

I think Sunni Islam is one of the real, underlying causes. I mean, what else would it be? It's not poverty or inequality--plenty of the worst religious radicals are wealthy and well-connected. It's not solely Western imperialism--China, India, and non-Muslim Africa were all royally screwed but don't have the same level of religious oppression. It's not education--this problem has been happening in liberal universities (and on the flipside, barely happens in non-Muslim poorly-educated places around the world).

I don't think it's a stretch to think that an ideology that prescribes death for blasphemers or apostates ends up killing lots of perceived blasphemers and apostates.

Islam didn't have to be this way (and Saudi Arabian style Wahhabism is a big reason it became this way), but the problem is real and getting worse.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

I beg to differ.

Yeah, I have to agree.

 

[Rygar 8 Bit]

It's both actually, to me it's a waste of time, because yea it's true what you say Betty, religion is something man created to grab power where there was none. But I say it's also a necessary evil because it keeps some people in check.

(Also, Buddhism is considered a way of life, right?)

the threat of death keeps most people in check or even the notion if they fuck up they ruin their life forever that does it for the vast majority of us

 

[Chmpocalypse]

You have to wonder how much hope there is for the people who commit atrocities like this to understand that what they're doing is worse than what they're condemning.

They can't even understand that "blasphemy" is quite literally a victimless crime. I'm not holding out hope.

 

[Ziltoidia 9]

Religion was always just a government tactic to keep people how the rulers wanted it. We don't know this as much anymore because most western counties have separation of church and state now, but over in the ME where theocracies are still king, here we are.

 

[Ogodei]

What's elitist about it? Ridiculous.


Not the first time I see this kind of apologist horseshit, but it's frustrating regardless. The more people keep making excuses for irrational, hateful beliefs not being "the problem", the more they will persist.

Moreover, the notion that university students (which means access to higher education) are "being tricked into believing" things by leaders is pure infantilization. These are grown, educated men, who are absolutely responsible for their actions.

I'm not saying secularism is elitist inherently, i've just said that it's been an ideal held by elites in Muslim-majority countries, and that anti-elite backlash is partially responsible for the rise of extreme Islamist views among the populations as part of a swing against this idea.

This is not at all to justify or excuse this horrible behavior, just explaining where the change might come from.

 

[Chairman Yang]

I'm not saying secularism is elitist inherently, i've just said that it's been an ideal held by elites in Muslim-majority countries, and that anti-elite backlash is partially responsible for the rise of extreme Islamist views among the populations as part of a swing against this idea.

This is not at all to justify or excuse this horrible behavior, just explaining where the change might come from.

The elites have been very Islamist in Pakistan and the Gulf countries. That didn't halt the spread of Islamism among the population; it made it worse.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

https://www.dawn.com/news/1327745

I actually saw this the other day.

No one except the government, of course.

 

[Arkeband]

Imagine Inglorious Basterds but instead of taking your revenge on Nazis that killed her family the main character takes revenge on some dude who said that God was dumb to her 13 years previously.

What a relatable story!

Quentin Tarantino could make a movie nuanced enough to tackle this subject, I believe in him!

 

[Bruce Springsteen]

And went on to provide / facilitate the means for North Korea to further their nuclear program after leaving the deproliferation pact.

and sat back and chilled while giving Osama protection for years

 

[GameAddict411]

I think blaming it on religion here misses the underlying causes and overall issues. With the way Pakistan society is, especially culturally, religion largely ends up being a scapegoat for a lot of inner-cultural conflict. As you move to the more rural areas, especially ones without a lot of governance, it's pretty crazy just the amount of stuff elders will ascribe to religion as a means of motivation/guidance to a largely uneducated group of people.

I agree with this. Religion is no more than a tool to the people in power to install fear in people. They will use religion as a tool to keep people in the dark, and keep them from liberating themselves from their claws. Questioning religion or the laws that governs the punishment of leaving religion is also questioning the authority of the people in power. Unfortunately, the west will immediately blame religion when it's only partially responsible in installing these wicked beliefs that were created in a completely different era. Beliefs that are long overdue for reform(some have).

 

[Machina]

Religion is a necessary evil

Excuse me?

 

[SlimySnake]

It's a corrupt country, and a pretty fucked up one.

My parents grew up in Pakistan and moved to Dubai before ending up in Canada. They can't believe what's happening in Pakistan. It's a complete opposite of what it was like for them growing up.

My mom used to wear Jeans in pakistan growing up in the 70s. Hell, even i was growing up, no one really cared about religion that much. we all went to the mosques only on Fridays and worried more about cricket than islam. no one i knew wore Burqas or Hijabs. I left before 9/11 and apparently everything changed. I can see the changes in Pakistanis living abroad too. Girls are wearing hijabs when their mothers didnt or still dont. People start praying during random dinner parties at each other's homes. in my uni, there was an Eid Party and they separated female students into a different section and put up a freaking curtain in between despite the fact that we all knew each other anyway. i promptly stood up and left but that stuck with me because in Pak i grew up playing sports with my neighbors. girls, boys, out in the streets in a middle class neighborhood. no one gave a shit.

just bizarre whats happened to pakistanis. they have regressed. then again Americans elected trump and britains voted for Brexit. We are all going insane.

 

[Wolfgunblood Garopa]

Hard to imagine that a god, after eons of creation and destruction, after countless lives and deaths across all manner of living being, would give a random shit about someone blaspheming. Truly heartbreaking that we still do this to each other.

 

[sephi22]

Here's my problem with Imran Khan's statement: he only objects to the killing based on the fact that the student didn't actually commit blasphemy. What if he had committed blasphemy? Would it have been okay to kill him then? (The apparent answer according to Pakistani society is "yes", by the way.)

This. Fuck Imran Khan.

I mean, if he says no one should be killed for blasphemy, he's going to be the next one to go. You realize that, right?
If you live among bloodthirsty, hyper religious mobs, perhaps being diplomatic is a good way to survive methinks.

I think Sunni Islam is one of the real, underlying causes. I mean, what else would it be? It's not poverty or inequality--plenty of the worst religious radicals are wealthy and well-connected. It's not solely Western imperialism--China, India, and non-Muslim Africa were all royally screwed but don't have the same level of religious oppression. It's not education--this problem has been happening in liberal universities (and on the flipside, barely happens in non-Muslim poorly-educated places around the world).

I don't think it's a stretch to think that an ideology that prescribes death for blasphemers or apostates ends up killing lots of perceived blasphemers and apostates.

Islam didn't have to be this way (and Saudi Arabian style Wahhabism is a big reason it became this way), but the problem is real and getting worse.

India currently has it way better than Pakistan but it's getting there, inching closer day by day. It's the muslims being killed, rather than the ones doing the killing, for the crime of transporting cattle or fake allegations of consuming beef.

Religion is a necessary evil

Nah, fam. The most extreme cases of people who have broken moral compasses and can be helped by religion, can also be helped by better mental health care. Fear of god can make people stop killing, but for some it can push them to kill.

 

[GameAddict411]

I think Sunni Islam is one of the real, underlying causes. I mean, what else would it be? It's not poverty or inequality--plenty of the worst religious radicals are wealthy and well-connected. It's not solely Western imperialism--China, India, and non-Muslim Africa were all royally screwed but don't have the same level of religious oppression. It's not education--this problem has been happening in liberal universities (and on the flipside, barely happens in non-Muslim poorly-educated places around the world).

I don't think it's a stretch to think that an ideology that prescribes death for blasphemers or apostates ends up killing lots of perceived blasphemers and apostates.

Islam didn't have to be this way (and Saudi Arabian style Wahhabism is a big reason it became this way), but the problem is real and getting worse.

You seriously can't be this naive? This level of punishment and oppression is done to maintain and secure power. Same reasons why wahhabism was introduced in Saudi Arabia. The saudi royal family protect ignorance by using extreme beliefs to push away people from education which in turn keep them in power. Wahhabism is a relatively new sect of Islam that was created only in the past couple centuries. Now look where it got the AL saud royal family. The same thing is happening in Pakistan, but also adding it their own regional problems. I am definitely over simplifying the problem here, but it's not as black or white as some people paint them to be.

All if not most religious conflicts in the history of the world have roots in power, and wealth. They just use religion as motivating and controlling element in war.

 

[cirrhosis]

Fuck, this shit is so depressing. Zia-Ul-Haq ruined Pakistan with these damned "laws". It'll never be scrubbed away.

 

[SlimySnake]

I mean, if he says no one should be killed for blasphemy, he's going to be the next one to go. You realize that, right?
If you live among bloodthirsty, hyper religious mobs, perhaps being diplomatic is a good way to survive methinks.

he's supposed to be their leader. he's supposed to lead by example and tell these idiots whats right and wrong. he was supposed to be the good one. The liberal sports star dating western models, drinking and whoring around in general and yet now he's the most religious of them all.

lets not forget he was asking the government to make deals with the terrorists right before they went and killed 150 school students. he's an asshole.

 

[MagnaderAlpha]

Religion is one of the problems, but given how quick some of these "vigilante mobs" get to work in killing "blasphemers" after they've been accused, it makes me things of all the shit going on with Duterte's "war on drugs" where all it takes of you to get offed is being accused of taking or selling drugs, then you become another body on the pile of corpses. It isn't JUST religion, you see this shit in different places. I mean, look at the shit Russia's doing to the LGBT crowd. Fuckin' concentration camps!!! And it is to be fair warned that we aren't safe from this, considering how you are seeing more fascism driven Right-winged groups popping up.

 

[Netherscourge]

Religion - brainwashing murderers for the past 6,000 years.

 

[azyless]

It isn't JUST religion, you see this shit in different places. I mean, look at the shit Russia's doing to the LGBT crowd. Fuckin' concentration camps!!!

I don't think bringing up Chechnya does anything to support your point.

Pretty amazing that you can get killed because of blasphemy or apostasy laws and still, religion has somehow nothing to do with it.

 

[HellforLeather]

Well, you see...



Anyone who says that doesn't know what they're talking about. Religion is not at fault, the people who misuse and appropriate religion with their disgusting agendas and desire for power that they mask in "godliness" and "righteousness" are at fault.

And this happens everywhere. All the time, in fact, to varying degrees of sick and twisted.

Religion is the tool used, it is not the reason why these so-called "religious leaders" trick people into believing that something which goes against the core tenets of many faiths is actually a good thing.

So dude gets kills for "blasphemy" against a religion that prescribes the punishment for blasphemers is death and people kill him for it....but it has nothing to do with religion....got it.

EDIT: People get murdered for blasphemy all the time in the west!? Does the news just totally ignore these religious murders?

 

[Not]

Religion by itself doesn't make people kill people. You can set up a lot of organized methods of causing people to voluntarily lose their empathy and agency that don't involve supernatural higher powers.

For all the fuckheads using religion as an excuse to take out people they find inconvenient, there are churches supplying food banks to low income neighborhoods.

(Different can of worms regarding voluntary privatized assistance vs. government benefits, but I hope my point gets through. For the record, fuck well-off people who think they should have the "right" to decide whether to let poor people die or not.) Anyway!

Go after the manipulators. Find the actual cure without blaming the people desperate for the medicine.

 

[sephi22]

he's supposed to be their leader. he's supposed to lead by example and tell these idiots whats right and wrong. he was supposed to be the good one. The liberal sports star dating western models, drinking and whoring around in general and yet now he's the most religious of them all.

lets not forget he was asking the government to make deals with the terrorists right before they went and killed 150 school students. he's an asshole.

WEll.. that changes things.

 

[RoadHazard]

Fuck this backwards​ shitpile of a country.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Religion is a necessary evil

I'd argue that there's almost nothing on earth more unnecessary than religion.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Here's my problem with Imran Khan's statement: he only objects to the killing based on the fact that the student didn't actually commit blasphemy. What if he had committed blasphemy? Would it have been okay to kill him then? (The apparent answer according to Pakistani society is "yes", by the way.)

Indeed

I think Sunni Islam is one of the real, underlying causes. I mean, what else would it be? It's not poverty or inequality--plenty of the worst religious radicals are wealthy and well-connected. It's not solely Western imperialism--China, India, and non-Muslim Africa were all royally screwed but don't have the same level of religious oppression. It's not education--this problem has been happening in liberal universities (and on the flipside, barely happens in non-Muslim poorly-educated places around the world).

I don't think it's a stretch to think that an ideology that prescribes death for blasphemers or apostates ends up killing lots of perceived blasphemers and apostates.

Islam didn't have to be this way (and Saudi Arabian style Wahhabism is a big reason it became this way), but the problem is real and getting worse.

Yuuuup

My mom used to wear Jeans in pakistan growing up in the 70s. Hell, even i was growing up, no one really cared about religion that much. we all went to the mosques only on Fridays and worried more about cricket than islam. no one i knew wore Burqas or Hijabs. I left before 9/11 and apparently everything changed. I can see the changes in Pakistanis living abroad too. Girls are wearing hijabs when their mothers didnt or still dont. People start praying during random dinner parties at each other's homes. in my uni, there was an Eid Party and they separated female students into a different section and put up a freaking curtain in between despite the fact that we all knew each other anyway. i promptly stood up and left but that stuck with me because in Pak i grew up playing sports with my neighbors. girls, boys, out in the streets in a middle class neighborhood. no one gave a shit.

This really highlights how yes, religion is the problem. The entire culture and social justice regressing is directly linked to religion taking a larger place in their society.

just bizarre whats happened to pakistanis. they have regressed. then again Americans elected trump and britains voted for Brexit. We are all going insane.

So true.

You seriously can't be this naive? This level of punishment and oppression is done to maintain and secure power. Same reasons why wahhabism was introduced in Saudi Arabia. The saudi royal family protect ignorance by using extreme beliefs to push away people from education which in turn keep them in power. Wahhabism is a relatively new sect of Islam that was created only in the past couple centuries. Now look where it got the AL saud royal family. The same thing is happening in Pakistan, but also adding it their own regional problems. I am definitely over simplifying the problem here, but it's not as black or white as some people paint them to be.

All if not most religious conflicts in the history of the world have roots in power, and wealth. They just use religion as motivating and controlling element in war.

This post has several fallacies.

First, saying a conflict is rooted in wealth or power struggles rather than religion is a false dichotomy. They are not mutually exclusive things. On the contrary, they can feed into each other. That doesn't make religion blameless, anymore than wealth inequality is "blameless".

Second, saying "these leaders just use religion as an excuse to oppress etc." implies that these leaders don't actually believe their shit, and we all know that it's not true. Religious fanaticism is real, and harmful.

Third, in this story, wealth, power struggles, etc. are irrelevant; the perpetrators were highly educated and not reacting out of desperation or poverty. Their motivations were purely religious.

It's high time that we stop handwaving religion as "not the real problem".

 

[LordOfChaos]

Pakistan was a mistake.

there are dozens of muslim countries where shit like this doesnt happen, or at least not as frequently as it does in pakistan. i dont want to insult all Pakistanis but they are a failed society. they have laws where blasphemy is punished by death and no one seems to want to do anything about it. they are all complicit. I was born in pakistan and i would like to think my friends and family wont do anything like this, but it's a democracy and they ought to vote on ridiculous laws like this.

No one wants to live in pakistan. there was a poll a few years ago where like 80% of the population wished to leave the country.

The irony is that it was founded as a better home for Muslims, however now an average Indian muslim is far better off than an average Pakistani muslim.

Let alone if you're a nonmuslim minority, which skews even further.

 

[ChemicalCutthroat]

"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward then, brother, that person is a piece of shit."

Pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter.

Mob mentality it terrifying. When you have that many people feeding off of each other, they turn into the worst of humanity.

 

[Netherscourge]

So, will all those asshole classmates be arrested and executed?

Or will this go down as a "whoopsie daisy"?

"Yea, they committed a heinous act of murder, but they THOUGHT it was a for a good cause! Boys will be boys! ¯\_(&#12484_/¯ "

 

[Sinfamy]

You know your God is weak when you have to act on his behalf.

 

[Shredderi]

You know your God is weak when you have to act on his behalf.

Yep. Fucking idiots must be geniuses when they can't even figure out how they themselves paint their god as a fucking pussy.

 

[Coriolanus]

he's supposed to be their leader. he's supposed to lead by example and tell these idiots whats right and wrong. he was supposed to be the good one. The liberal sports star dating western models, drinking and whoring around in general and yet now he's the most religious of them all.

lets not forget he was asking the government to make deals with the terrorists right before they went and killed 150 school students. he's an asshole.

he's also the best chance at (some) positive change you've got over there.

 

[boiled goose]

Traitors to the nation, the worst scum, degenerates of society, etc.

None of these reasons require religion, and they have all been used to sentence innocents to death for no real purpose beyond solidifying and enforcing a specific power structure.

Hell, America got worked into a frenzy over supposed communist invaders influencing the nation.



So what exactly are these hateful beliefs that are established in the doctrine of Islam? Tell me, I'd love to know.

Religion doesn't become hateful until someone tells you you're never wrong, and every action, no matter how cruel or disgusting, is justified so long as it serves "a higher purpose".

I don't know of any mainstream religion evangelizes which that from its own established doctrine.

Both religion and nationalism are dangerous.
Religion might be more dangerous since it's not even based on reality.
Most religions have horrible doctrine that is present in texts considered holy Scriptures.

Religion being used for evil is a symptom but it also adds to the problem

 

[PinkyMonkey]

So anyone can randomly kill anyone else in that region and just claim it was for blasphemy...and all will be forgiven?

 

[chromatic9]

Religion is one of the problems, but given how quick some of these "vigilante mobs" get to work in killing "blasphemers" after they've been accused, it makes me things of all the shit going on with Duterte's "war on drugs" where all it takes of you to get offed is being accused of taking or selling drugs, then you become another body on the pile of corpses. It isn't JUST religion, you see this shit in different places. I mean, look at the shit Russia's doing to the LGBT crowd. Fuckin' concentration camps!!! And it is to be fair warned that we aren't safe from this, considering how you are seeing more fascism driven Right-winged groups popping up.

Chechnya is a muslim region which borders the middle east. Islam's text has a lot to do with the barbarism.

 

[SwipeLeftHoney]

Religion is a mistake.

A very outdated mistake. Why can't we evolve past this BS already... The world is so messed up...

 

[LordKasual]

Without religion, what would the justification for killing someone and dragging their corpse around be?

Literally anything they decided to replace it with.

Just look how America has nearly weaponized the words "liberal" and "conservative" to the point where being labeled with either of them no longer even takes the person in question into account.

You just assume the worst depending on what you've been taught, and suddenly you view them as everything wrong with the country.

 

[MikeMyers]

RIP to the victim.

 

[Yoda]

What a horrible story, the culture (heavily influenced by religion) really needs to be reformed. It really makes you wonder if our species capable of solving these problems with substantive geopolitical changes. These kind of atrocities aren't confined to Pakistan, in fact multiple "modern/developing" nations have these kind of issues.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Fucking awful. There are no words. Bastards, fucking condemn them all to hell and condemn their fucking religious teachings that say this is in any way okay. RIP to the poor kid. Makes me so fucking glad I live in a tolerant country where you can believe whatever you want. Fuck religious extremism.

 

[reckless]

Literally anything they decided to replace it with.

Just look how America has nearly weaponized the words "liberal" and "conservative" to the point where being labeled with either of them no longer even takes the person in question into account.

You just assume the worst depending on what you've been taught, and suddenly you view them as everything wrong with the country.

Did you just try and use that comparison for a group of people publicly murdering someone... Really.

 

[womfalcs3]

The article cites 65 deaths since 1990. It's a sad story, but far from commonplace.

 

[see5harp]

The article cites 65 deaths since 1990. It's a sad story, but far from commonplace.

Yea, that's why no one should be scared to call these criminals savages.