Thursday, July 18, 2013
By trying to adjust to the findings that it once tried so viciously to ban and repress, religion has only succeeded in restating the same questions that undermined it in earlier epochs. What kind of designer or creator is so wasteful and capricious and approximate? What kind of designer or creator is so cruel and indifferent? And—most of all—what kind of designer or creator only chooses to “reveal” himself to semi-stupefied peasants in desert regions?
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
A Christian man in Pakistan’s Punjab province has been sentenced to life imprisonment for sending blasphemous mobile phone text messages to some faceless small minded Muslim clerics
Masih, a resident of Pak pattan district, was arrested in December 2011 for allegedly sending blasphemous mobile phone messages to Muslim clerics of Gojra in Toba Tek Singh, some 200 kilometres from Lahore.
To belittle and squash these minuscule minds of insignificant Muslim men here are three of the best from Hitchens, my God of reason. He never give a shiite about blasphemy and neither does Allah.
The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.
Is it too modern to notice that there is nothing [in the ten commandments] about the protection of children from cruelty, nothing about rape, nothing about slavery, and nothing about genocide? Or is it too exactingly “in context” to notice that some of these very offenses are about to be positively recommended?
Faith is the surrender of the mind; it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It’s our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.
Is it too modern to notice that there is nothing [in the ten commandments] about the protection of children from cruelty, nothing about rape, nothing about slavery, and nothing about genocide? Or is it too exactingly “in context” to notice that some of these very offenses are about to be positively recommended?
Faith is the surrender of the mind; it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It’s our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.
Additional District and Sessions Judge Mian Shahzad Raza of Toba Tek Singh district slapped the sentence and a Rs 2 lakh fine on Sajjad Masih yesterday.
Masih, a resident of Pak pattan district, was arrested in December 2011 for allegedly sending blasphemous mobile phone messages to Muslim clerics of Gojra in Toba Tek Singh, some 200 kilometres from Lahore.
The judge heard the case in the district jail and handed down the sentence to Masih after several ulemas (clerics) of Gojra testified against him.
A forensic record of the accused’s mobile phone messages was also presented in the court.
The court was informed that Masih was engaged to his relative Ruma Masih of Gojra Christian Colony but she contracted marriage with a Christian man living in the UK.
Masih had with him a mobile phone SIM belonging to Ruma and he sent blasphemous messages to the clerics from it.
Police said Masih wanted to land Ruma in trouble to teach her a lesson for her ‘betrayal’.
The police initially registered a case against Masih under Section 25-B of the Telegraph Act but then added the controversial blasphemy law to the FIR on the demand of the clerics.
Muslims and clerics of Gojra also pressured police to try Ruma under the blasphemy law.
The police finally succumbed to their pressure and registered a case against her under the law.
On the request of police, the federal interior ministry sought a red corner notice from Interpol for the arrest of Ruma in the UK but she is yet to be traced.
Pakistani police have declared her a ‘proclaimed offender’ or fugitive.
Masih, a resident of Pak pattan district, was arrested in December 2011 for allegedly sending blasphemous mobile phone messages to Muslim clerics of Gojra in Toba Tek Singh, some 200 kilometres from Lahore.
The judge heard the case in the district jail and handed down the sentence to Masih after several ulemas (clerics) of Gojra testified against him.
A forensic record of the accused’s mobile phone messages was also presented in the court.
The court was informed that Masih was engaged to his relative Ruma Masih of Gojra Christian Colony but she contracted marriage with a Christian man living in the UK.
Masih had with him a mobile phone SIM belonging to Ruma and he sent blasphemous messages to the clerics from it.
Police said Masih wanted to land Ruma in trouble to teach her a lesson for her ‘betrayal’.
The police initially registered a case against Masih under Section 25-B of the Telegraph Act but then added the controversial blasphemy law to the FIR on the demand of the clerics.
Muslims and clerics of Gojra also pressured police to try Ruma under the blasphemy law.
The police finally succumbed to their pressure and registered a case against her under the law.
On the request of police, the federal interior ministry sought a red corner notice from Interpol for the arrest of Ruma in the UK but she is yet to be traced.
Pakistani police have declared her a ‘proclaimed offender’ or fugitive.
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