As if the previous farce over a teacher being jailed for 15 days and deported because she committed that most heinous of crimes – she allowed her class to name a teddy bear Mohammed – wasn’t stupid enough (Previous post and Nullifidian’s comments), we find out more today.

The BBC have reported:

Crowds of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for a tougher sentence for a UK teacher jailed for insulting religion.

It is put slightly stronger on AFP:

KHARTOUM (AFP) — Thousands of angry Sudanese, some brandishing swords, marched Friday through the centre of Khartoum calling for the execution of a British woman teacher as she began a brief jail term for insulting Islam.

“Those who insult the Prophet of Islam should be punished with bullets,” a sea of white-clad demonstrators shouted after Gillian Gibbons, 54, was jailed for 15 days on charges stemming from naming a teddy bear Mohammed.

What absolute, stark-staring, raving, madness. As if the people of Sudan have nothing better to be outraged about than this trivial nonsense. More importantly, it drives home the problem of allowing religious beliefs to dominate rational thinking. The whole concept of actually shooting someone for this idiocy is truly mind boggling.

It strikes me that this is nothing but the effects of rabble rousing being carried out by those who are looking to accelerate the inevitable class between Islam and the “Christian” West. I can not for one second think that these people would really have been insensed by such nonsense without prompting – and Friday is the big prayer day… I suspect that some of the more fundie clerics have stirred their masses up and unleashed them. It is worrying that this effect is so pronounced and obvious. From AFP:

Sheikh Hussein Mubarak told thousands of faithful gathered for the Muslim day of prayer that the court’s “verdict was lenient out of fear of criticism from human rights organisations, America and the West.”

…

Earlier, Sheikh Mubarak railed at what he said was an attempt “to transform Sudan from an Islamic state into a Christian state,” adding that the British teacher had come to Sudan “as part of that design.”

“Why did this teacher come to Sudan? She surely didn’t need to emigrate from her country for the money? So she came for another reason…” he told the faithful at Al-Safa mosque in the city’s eastern Jarif district.

See, Hovind et al are not alone. Islam has more than its fair share of evil, lying, self serving, manipulative scum bags. AFP continues: (emphasis mine)

He [Sheikh Mubarak] denounced “those who try to defend democracy and human rights and insult the Prophet,” adding that he did not think the teacher would even serve out the 15-day sentence.

At the central Martyr’s Mosque, another imam, Sheikh Abdul Jalil Karuri, said Gibbons “did it with the intention of insulting Islam.”

The crowd responded with cries of “The army of Islam will prevail.”

Like I said yesterday, the real crime isn’t so much naming a toy Mohammed (although now I will name every inanimate object I come across after prominent Islamic figures), as it was allowing the class to participate in a democratic action. What an evil woman this teacher was…

Well it seems like we get another wonderful example from the religion of peace. All I can say is they are all mad. I am, however, a bit surprised by how tame a lot of the political / international reaction has been. I have even read US based blogs talking about how it was the teacher’s responsibility to have learned all about the culture before she went there. I found that quite ironic.

The wonders of religious belief strike again. The ongoing saga of the British teacher in Sudan has now reached its (illogical) conclusion. Islamic clerics have managed to reinforce the idea that Africa is a haven for raging nutcases. Well done to them all. I am sure their god is a lot happier now, I mean he must have been really peeved that a teddy bear could be named after him. (Typical the Judaeo-Christian deity to be so vain).

Today the BBC reported that after a speedy trial the teacher was found guilty and sentenced to 15 days then will be deported. Wonderful. I am sure Sudan is full of surplus teachers and getting rid of this obviously evil one is only a good thing. How dare she try to teach her pupils to think and participate – she should have been caning them daily and teaching them nothing but what was in the Koran….Showing what a farce this whole thing is, the BBC article talks about the previous hopes for this to all blow over:

The prime minister, Sudanese embassy officials in London and UK Muslim organisations also expressed the hope that Mrs Gibbons would be released.

So, the Sudanese embassy officials have such poor insight into the mood and will of their country’s clerics they didn’t see this happening? Remind me why they are in the embassy here?

Typically, part of the truth is revealed (do you like that play on words?) by this little quote from the BBC:

But Sudan’s top clerics had called for the full measure of the law to be used against Mrs Gibbons and labelled her actions part of a Western plot against Islam.

Once again, crazy Islamic clerics in Africa create an imaginary western plot against Islam. Brilliant isn’t it. Bloody paranoid fools. The west obviously infiltrated that school and convinced the kids to name the teddy Mohammed all as part of a great master plan…

Toutatis only knows what the goal of the master plan is though… Do we think that this sort of thing will make Islam vanish maybe? In reality, the crackpot fundie clerics are managing to generate much more ridicule of Islam than anything a single teddy could manage. Even if it was a large teddy.

Worryingly, there is a lack of condemnation for this nonsense among international Islamic groups. Most have skitted around the issue a bit and come up with some variation of how they hope it wont result in jail time. None (as far as I can see, I hope I proven wrong) have stood up and said “these Clerics are nutjobs and it is nothing to do with Islam.”

[Hat Tip: Nullifidian]

First off, I have to say I am sorry. Once upon a time I had thought all those years of compulsory Religious Education at school had taught me a thing or two about religion. I think I was wrong.

Take one of the basics as an example. I was taught that Moses had carried a tablet with ten commandments which formed the basis of the annoying triumvirate of Monotheistic religions we suffer with in this day and age. Today, reading Wikipedia, I learned I may be wrong. This is from Wiki’s page on the Ten Commandments:

1. I am the Lord thy God
2. Thou shalt have no other gods before me
3. Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol
4. Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God
5. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
6. Honor thy Father and Mother
7. Thou shalt not murder
8. Thou shalt not commit adultery
9. Thou shalt not steal
10. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
11. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house
12. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife

Now, I might be a bit old fashioned but I actually count 12 there… It seems most religions get round this by lumping two of them together every now and then. I suppose the “Ten Commandment” had a more authoritarian ring to it even all those years ago.

This leads to the second bit of confusion. I was brought up thinking the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” was on the books and it was only today I discovered the rules were you couldn’t murder someone. Apparently only Catholics say the “not kill” bit (must have caused a few problems during the crusades). I find this odd as my school was at most a Protestant one (mostly secular) and we certainly weren’t taught the Catholic doctrine anywhere else.

Anyway it now seems killing people is fine, as long as it isn’t murder. This creates a bit of confusion though. Does God wait until a secular court has reached a verdict before he consigns the killer to hell? Who decides when taking a life is murder and when it isn’t?

Why cant these bloody religions make sense. It is all proof that the bible was written by Loki while he was bored if you ask me…

The teddy bear fiasco in Sudan doesn’t look like it is going away. Null’s WTF is a good starting point, and from there the Times Online takes up some of the slack.

Writing today, Joanna Sugden notes:

Gillian Gibbons has today been charged with blasphemy, and accused of inciting hatred and insulting Islam, in Sudan for allegedly naming a class teddy bear Muhammad.

Now, I am obviously much to rational to be able to work out how naming a class teddy bear Muhammed either incites hatred or insults Islam. If she had named the bear “Islamic law is madness and anyone who follows it is a lunatic,” I could see their point, but she didn’t.

She made the mistake of allowing her class to vote on a name for the bear. Obviously this is the problem. Acts of democracy and free-thinking for children is potentially deadly for Islamic nations and they seek to stamp it out at the earliest possible stage.  Loki forbid that Sudanese law have concepts such as mens rea – who cares if she intended to do wrong, the fact of the matter is a thinly skinned religion has taken the hump over a trivial issue. Who said Islam had no sense of humour? (Well they were right)

Interestingly, and just in case the raging nutcase Christians thought they were being let off lightly today, the article on the times has this snippet:

Blasphemy is a crime on the statute book of Sudan, as it is in many countries governed by Islamic law.

My, what backward nations they are… Oh, hang on a second… Blasphemy is still a crime on the statue book of the United Kingdom and we certainly are not governed by Islamic law… (I suppose the only difference is you wont get 40 lashes in the UK…)

If you are sane enough to think this is madness please take a moment to sign the petition calling for the revocation of this nonsensical law. If you have a blog, please spread the word about this petition.

Hot on the footsteps of my previous post, I have carried on looking over the latest rantings posted on FSTDT. This led me to a wonderful link to a Hovind movie on DivX.com’s Stage6. I’ve linked to it here, so you can watch the video if you want – personally I have seen enough of his cretinous nonsense to not bother.

On the FSTDT, they have taken someone called “MovieSelect” to task over part of a comment. Namely this bit of idiocy:

Why do christians like myself say evolution is a religion? This is easy at first science was thought as observing about the present so they became facts and no one could say its not true. Now people realize they didn’t only observe the present but predict the past so people find out its a religion because scientists predict the past or the future so it makes it into a theory and theory is a religion i don’t care what anybody says about that and dead bones is not evidence because they can lose form over time.

While it is funny and reasonably fundie nonsense, it was the fifth point in a stream of nonsense made by the same madman. MovieSelect opens with this headspinning reasoning:

Very informative thank you a lot to think about.
Why it proves evolution wrong is-

1. Some cells that form the baby’s hands commit suicide. In evolution theory is that cells/organisms only want to try to stay alive why then do they kill them selves? it is because the cells follow orders so then look at it this way the solider follow orders even to commit suicide for the sake of the commanders plans. So the cells follow the creators plans.

No, seriously. That is what he has written. It gives me a headache thinking about it. This is blatantly a person who has no idea what “cells” are. I suspect someone has tried to use analogy to teach him about the bodies process and he has become confused. Very confused. More importantly, it speaks of a deep misunderstanding about evolution – as is often the case with creationists. Almost a shame. Still, the strangeness continues:

2. How does the cells/organisms think for themselves if they don’t have a brain? The evolutionist theory would be they naturally follow natures law, but were did the law come from? If you create something you set rules to it that means theres a creator because before it was created there aren’t any rules because it doesn’t exist. So lets pretend evolution is right then we would not exist because theres no creator in evolution, so why do they claim there is a law?

(Why are creationists so grammatically bad? Is heather a creationist, I wonder :-)  )

This is a stream of madness if ever I saw one. First off he ask a question which has a simple answer “they dont.” However, he wants it to have a different answer, which he then goes off and critiques. It is like an uber-Strawman. From that dodgy beginning, things go really downhill.  Please let this be a parody.

Genuine madness kicks in now:

3. Is there a random chance of our existence? I say no because how can you answer this problem with out an answerer 123,473,957,430,965,743,196,749,574,590,487,595,826 + 539,476,056,790,734,635,680,953,530,579,057,035,987=? the problem doesn’t answer itself.

No, really. This is what he wrote. I couldn’t make this lunacy up. How can you answer anything without an answer? As for the basic addition problem he posted, well it is long, but it is an easy sum to add…. What sheer madness. I cant help but chuckle at how long he must have spent typing that out – you cant just mash the keys when you want to include a comma every 3 digits…

Lastly, we get:

4. Many evolutionist claim to say the world is billion years old because evolution takes a long time for it to happen so why does the baby starts from a cell to a human being in 5 months? Why is it impossible for evolution in the outside world evolve the same speed as in the mothers wound? I will tell you why because evolution is mostly incorrect with there so called factual evidence and there not facts there guesses. Of course they do have ways to sample material underground to state there age but I cant say if there right or wrong because I don’t know exactly how they sample them I do know that they compare present elements decays and relate them to old ones and state how long its been decaying but I think things decay alought faster underground then above the ground so you cant really rely on it. There must be a creator.

Babble, babble, babble. The first sentence is funny – either the crazy fool thinks evolution exists (and for some reason thinks that the development of a cell to human being is an example of it) or they don’t. Why does it take 10 hours for me to fly to the USA, when it only takes me 3 minutes to microwave a bag of popcorn would be a similar argument.

With this fourth comment, MovieSelect must have been getting really carried away. His spelling has deteriorated even more than normal, so I suspect he was typing really fast now – maybe he thought this was a crushing blow against evolution. Sadly it is just disconnected nonsense.  He finishes with an isolated cry of “there must be a creator” as if everything else he has written leads to that conclusion. Sadly…

Posts like this really do make me wonder about the mental health of a huge swathe of the world. Worryingly, when you sit there and look around, and everyone else seems to be mad maybe it means you are the mad one…