Friendly reminder that VOA, aka Voice of America, is a subsidiary of the US Agency for Global Media. It was established to convince people in the Soviet sphere that the US was better in every way. It continues that mission with America’s allies and enemies today.
The process of opening up a country’s media space is integral to getting those State department messages in there.
Is there anything about this piece that you feel is inaccurate or biased?
someone should point out to them that a vpn is the technological equivalent of the burqa.
either ban both, or allow both.
Really wish our species could evolve past this moronic, religious bullshit.
You know how some people make the claim that atheism is a religion? This is why. People who think that anyone who believes something different from them is a moron and/or in need of conversion. I don’t like it when religions behave like this, and I don’t like it when nonreligions behave like this, either.
So if I call you a moron for not believing that the Easter Bunny is a real deity, you shouldn’t criticize me?
Religious people literally believe in things that mostly are no longer believed in after someone reaches about 10 years of age. All this thing’s, Santa Claus, slender man, you name it, it’s all dropped as fantasy yet religion keeps being reinforced causing actual sane adults to believe that there is a magical sky being.
As this article goes to show, it’s a great tool to control the populace, it has little real world value.
Respectfully, you think I’m denigrating Islam because it’s different from what I believe?
No.
I’m simply pointing out what, to anyone who wasn’t raised in it, is obvious stupidity.
Sorry if I misunderstood. I interpreted your comment as saying that all religion was moronic bullshit, which would be in line with what I said.
If you meant that this particular religious behavior is moronic bullshit, I completely agree. I just don’t hold the view that every religious person is a moron because they believe in a religion.
Using allegory as a moral proxy is fine. And even a really great way of making complex or dry topics more approachable.
What is not ok is when you take allegory as literal, such that you actually believe that there is a sky wizard who will punish you for showing your hair in public. What is incredibly fucked up is when you then project that literal belief to a prescriptive action framework which commands you to murder heretics.
I love this comment.
My related anecdote is that I studied Aikido for many years, and there’s a lot of woo-woo in it. Energy, and Ki and whatnot. At one point (I was taking physics at the time) I realized that Aikido of all about directing momentum and force, and force as levers on body parts, and that you could probably calculate all of the various ideal angles for maximum conservation of momentum, and angles for balance points… and I realized that all of the woo-woo was a simplification of all of this that allows people to think about all of these things in real time and intuitively, rather than getting locked up in the theory.
I doubt that was the process and intention of the inventor, and a lot of practitioners believed in Ki or Chi or magic juice… but it’s all just physics boiled down to something people can easily visualize. And, yes, the problems start when people begin believing the magic juice, and start proclaiming that they can influence someone’s chi from a distance, or some shit. That’s a far cry from: if I bend your wrist this way, it’s incredibly painful and you’re going to fall over to stop it, or break your wrist.
Thing is privacy is protected in Islam, this has nothing to do with religion.
Its not about religion, its politics. A few years ago the Pakistani military overthrew a very popular prime minister who publicly said that it was the military behind his removal. Then slowly and gradually there was more and more evidence behind military involvement which as a result, made the public anti-military. They have been kidnapping and torturing anyone critical of them.
But the more they oppress, the more people become anti-military. It got to the point that in february the government blocked access to twitter because of anti-military sentiment, so people started using VPNs. Now this “religious body” which is government appointed claims to block VPN because “people are watching immoral things via VPN”. But in reality, it is to stop people organizing protests.
Also a governmental body can not decide what is islamic or not, thats not how islamic law works. It has to come from islamic scholars and there needs to be consus on it.
I don’t think any major islamic scholar who lives inside pakistan has signed or approved this message even though they want to stop porn they know its not about stopping porn, its about making it difficult to criticize the military.
Do you understand that they are using religion as an excuse? If that wasn’t an option, they would just use something else.
Its not about religion, its politics.
It’s about religion. In a theocracy religion is politics, and law, and culture too.
Religion isn’t something that empowers people to do more or live more freely. Religious dogma is nothing more than a set of arbitrary laws and norms, written and decided by man, but given the weight and authority of god(s)–the fear of eternal damnation in the afterlife being the only way that people knew to keep others in line in a world devoid of secular laws.
How did we convince women that they were lesser beings throughout human history? Why do we consider some forms of consensual adult sexuality to be morally wrong? Why do we believe that human beings are destined and entitled to live on this planet forever no matter how poorly we treat it?
The answer is religion. Religion is mass delusion, used mainly as a tool of oppression. Socrates was sentenced to death by a jury of Athenians for thought crimes against Athena, showing that religion, democracy and justice simply do not mix. Thousands of years ago (or more) gods and religious law were the inventions that ushered humanity into the post-truth world that we live in today.
Call it “stories that people are taking way too seriously”. I’m sure that you can think of other stories that people take way too seriously too, that have nothing to do with religion.
I think that we might be seeing the power of propaganda there. Consider that the science of propaganda is very old. Thousands of years old. There’s population-control psychology there. It’s got hooks.
(On the flipside, imposing a set of rules for moral behavior is a good thing. People can be animals. And if you need to cite an old story about gods and wizards to give those rules some oomph then so be it.)
Look we can criticize religion for its issues all we want but in this specific case, they are using religion as a tool to get what they want. If it weren’t for religion, they would use something else.
“Terrorists are using VPNs to evade law enforcement”
Or maybe something racism related
Fascist/authoritarian governments always use something to control the public.
It serves a need. Get rid of the need and you’ll get rid of the religious bullshit. But if you get rid of the religious bullshit without getting rid of the need, some other kind of bullshit will crop up.
Religion isn’t the need. Social interaction and the feeling of belonging and belief are the needs. Religion can and does fill that for many.
And before you attack me, I’m atheist.
Thank the Biden administration for overthrowing Imran Khan in Pakistan to install this dictatorial regime.
US Christians: “write that down!”
