Unmarried couples caught in Malaysian hotel raids

[BolivarianHero]

Source: BBC

Scores of officers conducted raids on budget hotels on New Year's Day in the western state of Selangor.

Those detained in the early hours of New Year's Day were mainly students and young factory workers.

The Muslim couples are expected to be charged with the offence of close proximity, or Khalwat.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8439899.stm

---

Sucks to be Malaysian.

If you're not a Muslim, you can drink and have sex all you want, but you pay higher taxes and you're treated as a second class citizen when it comes to education (sort of ironic, given that atheists and secularists are generally more educable than supporters of political Islam or any form of theocracy) or government services.

If you are one, you have to deal with the Sharia Gestapo harassing you at every corner and shooting you if you wisen up and realize that there is no God.

Notice too that the government targeted sites that would be frequented by students and by the working class. Reminds me of American drug policy. That any person of at least moderate intelligence would find this obnoxiously capitalistic and inegalitarian flavour of political Islam superior to socialism is completely baffling to me.

Between this, the teabagger "man of faith" who misspelled the n-word on his racist placard, and Brit Hume imploring Tiger Woods to convert to Christianity if he seeks forgiveness, today we have truly hit the trifecta of religious stupidity...

Since a high score is good, we'll give a 10 to atheism for no stupidity today, a 5 to Islam for some stupidity today, and a 0 to Christianity for today's cavalcade of ignorance.

[im1013]

1. k&r!

[SoapBox]

2. Religion is a freak show

...funny how these religions just cannot get their sniff'n snouts out of the bedroom...they insist on making it their business, who is having sex. Bizarre!

But yet, those that are do'n the sniff'n, are some of the biggest liars, cheaters, crooks, thieves and pervs. What is good for you...is most certainly NOT good for them...and they like it that way.

I could only wish (but I will not hold my breath) that the masses would rise up and tell them to "butt" out.

[ShockediSay]

3. Christ did not point his finger at adulterers

Rather he used his fingers to draw in the sand

And as for the stoning of adulterers,

his response was 'Let those without sin cast
the first stone. '

Christ hung out with sinners, saying that he
did not come to save the righteous.

Such a difference b/n the following of the Christ
depicted in the Bible, and organized pedophiliac
finger pointing.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

4. "Ya know Mom, sometimes ya really tick me off!!!"

Old joke that follows "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"

WHIZZZZZ!!!


"Ya know, Mom...... :rofl:

[ShockediSay]

31. "Fascism will come to America under the guise of patriotism" -- Huey P. Long

Those right wing tea bags have as much brains as Sara Palin when it comes to painting Democrats as Fascists. Look it up. Fascism comes from the right wing and historically has involved a ton of corporate control (as Federalist Fascist Scalia will hold) when it comes to unlimited corporate control of our so-called democracy with unlimited money contribution /bribes by persons in the form of corporations.

Hell, we may as let the corporations all vote and while we boycott the whole business of elections, every bit as valid as the religiously controlled 'elections' in Iran.

PS Every federal judge affiliated with the Fascist Federalists, peopled in pertinent part by the federal judiciary, can be impeached on the violation of the federal judicial code of ethics requiring
avoidance of any appearance of partiality.

[Javaman]

12. Christ knew that sinners were more fun.

:rofl:

[pundaint]

5. Having just watched "Islam: what the west needs to know"

That really has some scary resonance.

[katkat]

10. scary?

You want scary? Listen to a Christian or Jewish fundamentalist sometime.

[leftynyc]

11. Really?

Care to name names of those who call for jihad and beat up women who don't dress the way they want? Or another person trying cultural relativism on for size.

[katkat]

14. yes really leftnyc

The NYTimes had an article sometime in the past year about Orthodox Jews hassling and attacking women they considered inappropriately dressed in "Orthodox neighborhoods" in NYC.

Here's another one for you:

"Conservative Jewish men and women who tried to pray together at the Western Wall during the Shavuot holiday early Wednesday morning said today that they had been assaulted by hundreds of rigorously Orthodox men evidently incensed by the sight of women praying with men."

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/13/world/orthodox-israelis-assault-jews-praying-at-western-wall.html

And you don't think the looney tunes on the Christian right who try to prohibit women from getting abortions are committing violence against women?

[leftynyc]

30. Hassaling women

and assaulting them (which legally could mean just shouted insults - if they were touched, it would have been battery) is a far cry from BEATTING women for showing ankle or STONING them for holding hands with someone or being the victim of rape. There is simply no comparison and those that try are being willfully blind.

[ck4829]

6. Wow, Malaysian police, you don't have anything better to do?

I guess there are no muggers, burglars, murderers, rapists, etc., in Malaysia, right?

[parkia00]

8. This is not the police

This is usually the work of the Islamic department who from time to time conduct such raids on "immoral" activities to remind the citizens they, the Islamist are important and powerful and you have to respect them because they have God on their side. The police are there to protect the Islamist and to make sure things don't get out of hand because without police protection, the Islamist tend to get roughed up my irate members of the public.

[MetaTrope]

7. I would guess the officers didn't have to look very hard though

I remember a night spent in one of the pricier hotels in KL...it was difficult to sleep with all the noisy giggling and romping of the young hotel staff through the hallways and adjacent rooms in the middle of the night. There is some value in discretion...

[parkia00]

9. Shooting you!??!

I have never heard of anyone getting shot by the Sharia Gestapo in Malaysia. The Sharia Gestapo are not allowed to carry any guns.

[mainer]

13. It's a weird country, treating its citizens differently depending on religion

The Chinese-Malays are pretty much left alone. If you walk through Chinatown in KL, you'll see women in short-shorts and halter tops, and no one bothers them. Because the Chinese, basically, are non-religious. The Hindus are also left alone to do their own thing. But if you're a registered Muslim, you have far fewer civil rights.

[superconnected]

15. Really?

"sort of ironic, given that atheists and secularists are generally more educable than supporters of political Islam or any form of theocracy"

Source?

"Since a high score is good, we'll give a 10 to atheism for no stupidity today, a 5 to Islam for some stupidity today, and a 0 to Christianity for today's cavalcade of ignorance."

Ah, I see we are simply going off of your own opinion - an intolerant one at that.

[daleo]

24. Actually there are studies that show IQ is negatively correlated with religiosity

==================================================================================================
Granted, it is a subject that is highly controversial, to say the least.
==================================================================================================

Intelligence
Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Average intelligence predicts atheism rates across 137 nations
Pages 11-15
Richard Lynn, John Harvey, Helmuth Nyborg

Abstract
Evidence is reviewed pointing to a negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief in the United States and Europe. It is shown that intelligence measured as psychometric g is negatively related to religious belief. We also examine whether this negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief is present between nations. We find that in a sample of 137 countries the correlation between national IQ and disbelief in God is 0.60.

=====================================================================================================
Here's another interesting one:
=====================================================================================================

Conservatism and cognitive ability
Pages 294-304
Lazar Stankov

Conservatism and cognitive ability are negatively correlated. The evidence is based on 1254 community college students and 1600 foreign students seeking entry to United States' universities. At the individual level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with SAT, Vocabulary, and Analogy test scores. At the national level of analysis, conservatism scores correlate negatively with measures of education (e.g., gross enrollment at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels) and performance on mathematics and reading assessments from the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) project. They also correlate with components of the Failed States Index and several other measures of economic and political development of nations. Conservatism scores have higher correlations with economic and political measures than estimated IQ scores.

[superconnected]

25. psuedo science. I especially enjoy how religious belief continously is cited as likely to be

genetically inherited. Yep, fucked up psuedo science. It also keeps trying to make up for low iq's in non religious countries by saying that the people suffer from anti religious propaganda and states that communism itself could be considered a religion therefore lowering iq. see, fucked up psuedo science.

[superconnected]

26. Btw, if you start hanging out on high IQ sites you'll learn a whole lot more about IQ.

That there are many tests not just the standard bell curve(which has been debunked repeatedly - from the math being wrong to determine the curve, the validity of the questions, as well as the results vary by area, education level and income level.) This study is using the bell curve so you may as well throw it out right there - it's comparing 137 nations which will vary greatly by poverty level thus the results can already be surmised to not be on equal ground. It's perfectly probable that the poorest countries will do the worst on the bell curve and also may have the most standardized religions. Simply refusing to allow banks to charge interest - a religious belief in many countries, will cause countries to be poorer and will throw your results on the bell curve. Poorer = less exposure = they don't understand the questions.

Let's not forget the blacks in this country had iq's on average 10 points lower than the whites on the bell curve until that was debunked by studies that pulled the poor blacks in, educated them, and viola, their iq's were suddenly equally comparable.

I prefer the Stanford Binet test myself. But, even the real experts agree that is flawed. Among the people in the know, no IQ test is adequate yet. A study looking at the worlds countries and deciding the most religious of them does the worst on iq, and not looking at the economic factors of those countries, is pseudo science.

[daleo]

32. I don't care for the inter-country comparisons in these articles

The subject is a fairly difficult one and fraught with politics. It can be accused of being "pseudo-science" in some cases.

Nonetheless, survey data have shown negative correlations between intelligence measures and religiosity as measured by church attendance, acceptance of dogma, etc, within reasonably homogeneous populations. Fundamentalist religion can alienate some intelligent people, when it insists on things like 7000 year old cosmologies or disdain for gays or other groups. Conversely, less intelligent people can take comfort in these dogmas and be drawn toward fundamentalism. I think that is the underlying mechanism responsible for these findings.

In my opinion, more nuanced religious positions can be compatible with scientific reasoning and liberal thinking. But I think an intelligent, educated person who wants to believe in dogmas such as a 7000 year old universe or humanity's creation in a garden that included talking snakes would have a difficult time of it, if they were being honest with themselves.

[MellowDem]

16. Your post...

puts atheists at a -100 :eyes:

[superconnected]

18. We have a winner!

[MellowDem]

28. Booyah!

I'd like to thank my parents, my best friend Danny, and of course, God, for making all this possible! Thank you! Thank you all! ;-)

[superconnected]

17. One more comment - I really believe that athiesm is the new home of the truly intolerant

and closed minded. It's pretty clear the intolerant atheists are just as scary as the religious ones in attacking others for their beliefs. Proof that religion isn't needed for hate attacks - only man is.

[Orsino]

19. Charged with possession of mismatched genitals?

Are same-sex couples not getting the same treatment?

[grantcart]

20. As a former resident of Malaysia I can tell you that Khalwat is

practiced frequently and enforced randomly.

Must be a bi election or something coming up.

[BolivarianHero]

21. Incidentally...

Enforcing a law in a way that targets people of lower social classes indirectly violates one of the five pillars of Islam...lol

[Ignis]

22. Great summary on Malaysian life in your OP, BH.

I've only been there a few times, but it's both a fascinating and a highly troubled culture.

[DavidDvorkin]

23. This thread has caused some members of the DU anti-atheist brigade

to spring into stupid action.

[MellowDem]

29. Stupid action...

so you mean, like this?

Atheism 10, Islam 5, Christianity 0.

:eyes:

[Alamuti Lotus]

27. Misguided attempts by the ruling elites to head off the strong Islamist parties

The idea is for the state to run very heavy on social conservativism, keeping up all appearances of heading off the opposition jamaats, but this is really just window-dressing to prevent any kind of real political and more importantly economic change that the mujihadeen would really prefer and that which would benefit the people greatly. It is an effective ruse, at first, but bad for the people who are oppressed by the draconian ruling class.

[Socal31]

33. Yay for religion!

No.