Crushed pilgrims 'met their fate'

[GabysPoppy]

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef Bin Abdul-Aziz has said that the 251 pilgrims trampled to death during the Hajj "met their fate".
Speaking to officers responsible for security at the annual event, Prince Nayef said the pilgrimage season had been "a great success".

"Those who say otherwise are ungrateful or hate this country," he said.

Those killed "met their fate because their place and time of death has been decided the moment they were born".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3459041.stm

I don't mean to disrespect somebody else's religion, but someone needs to explain this one to me.

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. It's the standard Presbyterian doctrine of predestination

Ask a Presbyterian. See if they will make you some potato salad while they explain it.

Call me a bigot, but Presbyterians make better potato salad than anybody. It's in their blood.

[GabysPoppy]

2. I meant the stoning and the stampede

Predestination I understand

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. The "stoning" is about a story in the Koran, where the devil tempts

Abraham, and he stones him. Hajj includes a ritual where people throw pebbles at a pillar that represents the devil. It is a symbolic gesture to signify that the person is rejecting bad things.

There are a lot of people there, and of course everyone wants their pebble to hit the pillar, and so there is crowding.

Whether the stampede is predestination or a failure on the part of the princes to implement adequate crowd control will depend on the individual's religious beliefs and opinion of the princes.

There is nothing in Islam that would preclude moving people through in one direction, like they do at the Basilica of the Virgen de Guadalupe and many other famous sacred sites of many religions.

[madrchsod]

4. this is war!!!

Methodists make the best potato salad and Lutherans-you can`t touch their German hot or cold potato salad...

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. Methodists are potato salad wannabes, and Germans stolid attempts pale

- literally - when set on a plate beside the delicate pink artistry of the world's SECOND best potato salad makers - Russians.

The secret is beet juice. And peas.

[RC]

6. I was raised a Presbyterian and

You are correct. Non-Presbyterians just think they know how. :9
Some people even put DILL pickles and DILL juice in potato salad. It's SWEET pickles and SWEET pickle juice, people.