The Sheila Variations

Yikes!

Considering the two suicide bombings today, this image is chilling.

Religious fanaticism...who understands it? The literal nature of it. From circumcision to this, is it really a necessary part of celebrating ones faith? Is this what spirituality is supposed to be about?

Can you imagine the family album featuring photos of this yearly ritual?

Sigh...but who are we to judge? That whole body of Christ business with communion still creeps me out.

Apologies to any practicing Catholics/Christians out there.

I guess I do judge a mother who would cut her son's head with a sword. I do judge that. Cut your own damn head if you feel like it. But don't cut your baby's head.

Amen, Red. That picture makes me ill. I can't imagine doing that to my son, no matter what my relition, or fanaticism, might be. It's just wrong. So very screwed up and wrong.

I meant reliGion, not relition. Guess that kind of detracts from my outrage a bit, huh?

Also, Fee:

"Can you imagine the family album featuring photos of this yearly ritual?"

If it weren't so politically incorrect, I could imagine Saturday Night Live doing a good bit with that one!

I have to agree: mutilating yourself for your faith is one thing, doing it to children who cannot possibly fathom its meaning is something totally different.

Somewhat tangentially, Shia is interesting, to say the least. Don't take this the wrong way, Sheila, but even though it's the breakaway sect, Shi'ite hierarchy, fatalism and bloody ritual invariably have made me think it is something like the Catholicism of Islam, while the more egalitarian atomistic Sunnis resemble its Protestantism in a way, at least by comparison. Does that make any sense?

Well of course you can't imagine it, and of course you judge because that's the culture in which we were raised. We see it as cruel and monsterous. Our Western religious practices do not encourage self-mutilation as a sign of piety. Islam does. And of course this image was chosen and broadcast throughout the world because it just reinforces Western notions about the barbarian nature of Muslims. The message, "Fear the other, because this is how the treat their young."

Let me re-iterate, that I find it disturbing because I cannot imagine doing that to a child of mine, however, it's not my world.

Judisim encourages cutting the foreskin off the penises of infant male babies. A process that has to be painful no matter how sharp the blade. And yet we don't judge that because most American hospitals cajole parents into doing it, although there is no evidence that it is hygenically necessary, but it is what we are taught.

Does the woman who is raised in a culture where wearing a burkah is not only condoned but expected of a "good" devote girl grow to think otherwise? Sometimes yes, but often with a sense of great conflict in the same way that traditional Catholics struggle with the use of birth control.

Again, it's all about the culture in which you were raised. It's not our culture, and so it is appalling.

Oh yes, Dave J. It makes total sense.

The best essay I ever read about Shiism was in Ryzsard Kapucinski's book about the last Shah in Iran. It was that essay that started me on the course of educating myself about Islam, starting with what it was about in Iran, during the revolution - but then fanning outwards.

Amazing writing. It opened up all these doors in my mind. I had bought the book so that I could understand what had happened to the last Shah - and ended up learning all these other things, which led me to other books, which led me to ask other questions...

I think there is a Saturday Night skit already in the works...since when are they concerned with Political Correctness? Of course I haven't seen the show in a while.

MADTv tends to be a bit more risque when it comes to this, maybe they'll do something.

You know it would be hilarious! Something ala the Julia Child bit done by Dan Ackroyd with the spurting blood from a knife wound.

Well, SNL seems to pretty much stay away from religious issues, though.

Except when they have Sinead O'Connor on as a musical guest. :)

They're still waiting for the Twelfth Imam, but is that any more irrational than waiting for the Messiah or the Second Coming? Thinking Khomeini actually WAS the Twelfth Imam, OTOH...well, he never actually said so--perhaps because, as a genuinely devout Shi'ite even if he was a ruthless tyrant, he knew he wasn't and didn't want to blaspheme--but he didn't discourage the idea, either.

Faith isn't about rationality, obviously.

That was exactly my point.

Amen...hee hee...couldn't resist.

I think what worries me about "this" kind of faith it is that is not faith based on knowledge. And by that I mean many fanatical Muslims, Catholics, Baptists, what have you, are not highly educated, inquisitive folks.

They are told "Do this, because Allah, Jesus, Yaweh deems it." and so they do what they are told, often without question.

Blind faith. It's a fool's faith because it's is up to us to question the things our religion(s) ask of us. Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses, they all struggled with the "rightness" of their beliefs.

I think faith is supposed to be a struggle. And I think that is the point that Shia followers, like the parents of that bloody boy, don't really get because they have been told to question one's faith is to blaspheme the teachings.

Oy...so convoluted.

All you need to do is look at some of the comments on this site:

http://www.secularislam.net/

to see how right you are, Fee.

This "disaffected" American Muslim questions her faith, reads books which make her think about things, reads about other religions to learn about them - and the "faithful" bombard her with condemnations.

Either the Koran is the direct word of God or you are an infidel. You cannot question.

There are Muslim philosophers and theologians out there who advocate secularism and moderation, as well as peaceful coexistence with other religions - but many of them are either in jail, or living in exile from their native countries.

Sigh...I know...it's sad.

When did religiousity become so black and white?

Did you ever see the film "The Rapture" with Mimi Rogers and David Duchovney? It's all about faith and one character's total lack of it in the face of the apocalypse.

Brilliant.

Intellectuals, artists, scientists, provocatures, they're the first to go when the fanatical purges begin.

"The Rapture" was a wonderful and terrifying movie. Why Mimi Rogers doesn't get more interesting parts like that, I don't know. She was amazing. And I loved David Duchovny.

Shoot! Two things I have yet to do today - I have to go and vote and I have to cut my children! I hate it when I get behind...

I hate to sound like a reactionary, but followers of Islam lost their claim to immunity from criticism of their religious practices on the grounds of cultural relativism the moment the first plane hit the WTC. What might have seemed just a strange religious rite before 9/11 is now a chilling indicator of the inculcation of violence that has become endemic in that culture. Whether followers of Islam like it or not, they have lost their right to claim that slitting open a baby's head with a sword and rubbing the blood all over his face is merely a benign cultural practice that Westerners simply
cannot understand.

Betsy- HA HAHAHA HAHAHAH HAHA!!