Can we hope that I’manutjob, the president of Iran, might Just be one of those who gets run down this year?

Gary on December 17, 2007 at 4:01 pm

Maybe Islam should be known as ‘The Religion of Rest in Peace’.
[NB: YUP, I’VE USED THAT ONE ON THIS SITE BEFORE. SEE, I’M WEARING OFF ON YOU. DS]

Norman Blitzer on December 17, 2007 at 4:04 pm

I love this idea of a gambling pool, Debbie. Call it the Hajkill contest.
Incidentally, does this happen at that deeply spiritual experience a.k.a. the stoning of shaitan? If it does, it reveals who Allah really is 😉

Infidel Pride on December 17, 2007 at 4:49 pm

Mmm, 362 people, most of them poor, illiterate and from developing countries, spend every last penny they have to make a religious pilgrimage of a lifetime and die in tragic stampede. But here during the Christmas and Hannukah seasons, the time of goodwill to all, we ridicule and mock. Have a happy holiday.
http://13martyrs.blogspot.com/
[13M: ACTUALLY, YOU HAVE NO IDEA IF THOSE KILLED WERE POOR, ILLITERATE, OR FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES. MANY VERY WEALTHY PEOPLE GO ON THE HAJJ, SINCE THEY CAN MOST AFFORD IT.
DID THEY “DIE,” OR WERE THEY MURDERED? LIKE I WROTE, NO-ONE GETS TRAMPLED AT MASS OR YOM KIPPUR SERVICES. WHY DOES IT HAPPEN HERE? WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS AND “VICTIMS”? THIS IS BECAUSE THIS IS A RELIGION OF BARBARIANS WHO CANNOT CONTROL THEMSELVES AND THEIR IMPULSES IN ANY WAY. AND BY THE WAY, MANY OF THOSE DOING THE TRAMPLING ARE ALSO POOR, ILLITERATE, AND FROM DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, TOO. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT UNITES THEM. WHAT UNITES THEM IS A RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF HATE.
WE ARE NOT MOCKING. WE ARE STATING A FACT. IF YOU SEE THIS AS MOCKERY, PERHAPS YOU NEED TO SEARCH FOR A MORE TRULY PEACEFUL RELIGION OTHER THAN THE ONE YOU SEEM SO ON THE DEFENSIVE ABOUT. THOU DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH. DS]

13 Martyrs on December 17, 2007 at 4:56 pm

13 Martyrs, I totally understand your response. I didn’t mean to ridicule the deaths of people. The point that I was trying to make is that people are needlessly dying for religion, in this particular case it’s Islam.

Norman Blitzer on December 17, 2007 at 5:19 pm

It’s never a good thing when anyone gets trampled to death. What can a good infidel say? Just another sunny holiday season in good old Islam huh? Please pass the ham–HO HO HO . . .

JoeBoy on December 17, 2007 at 8:11 pm

13 martyrs is a jihadist enabler. He believes the ‘it’s their culture’ shtick. When honor killings are running rampant in Canada and the US, he’ll be satisfied that we have ‘progressed’ in our tolerance.

Gary on December 17, 2007 at 9:08 pm

An important part of Eid al-Adha is the purchase and slaughter of animals, which commemorates the Koranic version of Abraham’s sacrifice of a sheep in place of his son (in the Koran, the son is Ishmael, not Isaac). The animal is selected, butchered, and eaten by family members at the Eid. It is also customary for a sponsor to purchase animals (sheep, goats, cattle, etc.) for slaughter, the meat given to the needy. Animal sacrifice is central to this holiday. While it is customary to serve turkey on Thanksgiving and at Christmas and lamb at Easter, the consumption of such foods on these occasions is never religiously mandated or even obligatory, and one may forgo meat entirely if one wishes. Clearly, the slaughter and eating of animals is not central to these holidays, even Thanksgiving. Somehow, once one studies Islam and imbibes its violent precepts, the bloodthirsty practices of the Eid al-Adha come as no surprise. One recoils nevertheless.

commonsense on December 17, 2007 at 9:11 pm

“One recoils nevertheless.”
Oh, one does, does one?
Then I would suggest one is a pretentious hypocrite.
Has one never eaten battery grown chicken or hen’s eggs? Has one ever eaten factory farmed beef or lamb? I suggest that one looks at one’s own society’s inhuman practices in animal husbandry before one criticizes others.

No Pasaran! on December 18, 2007 at 4:10 am

My point, to my detractor, is fundamentally this – Eid al-Adha (which means “Festival of Sacrifice”) mandates animal slaughter and butchery. Such religiously mandated slaughter, to my knowledge, is nonexistent in any other major religion.

commonsense on December 18, 2007 at 10:14 am

Debbie, I think you are misattributing these deaths when you say that they are a result of the barbarity of Muslims. These deaths have occurred for one reason and one reason alone – crowd control. There are periodic deaths at Eid Al-Adha and no deaths at Christmas Mass or Yom Kippur services not because Muslims are inherently “BARBARIANS WHO CANNOT CONTROL THEMSELVES AND THEIR IMPULSES IN ANY WAY,” but rather because Eid Al-Adha, for the pilgrims in Mecca, involves moving 2.5-3 million people, often with luggage or other personal effects, through what is essentially a narrow corridor, while everyone is focused on a religious ritual. It is a situation where, if people start tripping and falling, the sheer number of people and limited space dictates that disaster can follow very quickly.
Stampedes are a nasty thing, and once people start going down, and others start to panic, there’s really not much you can do to stop the horror.
Say what you want about Islam, but you’re talking about the death of 345 of your fellow human beings, so have a little respect and treat it like the tragedy that it was.

Conscience of a Conservative on December 18, 2007 at 10:38 am

Eating a chicken slaughtered in a factory is morally equivalent to ritual slaughter prescribed by a ‘holy’ book. Riiiiiiiight.
I suspect no pasaround will get a big surprise the day the scimitar descends upon his neck.

Gary on December 18, 2007 at 11:58 am

“My point, to my detractor, is fundamentally this – Eid al-Adha (which means “Festival of Sacrifice”) mandates animal slaughter and butchery. Such religiously mandated slaughter, to my knowledge, is nonexistent in any other major religion.”
So what?
You live in a society that treats animals as a resource to be exploited, leaving them locked in cages for their entire lives before slashing their throats. How is that any less barbaric?
**
Gary, you seriously need to get a life, buddy.

No Pasaran! on December 19, 2007 at 8:18 am

The Baltimore Sun said, ” The Health Ministry said about 254 pilgrms, many of whom were elderly have died of natural causes…” It seems that natrual causes killed alot of these people. Is that number in addition to the ones trampled or the same group of people? The importance of the religion to go to Hajj once in a lifetime is a real threat to life that a pilgrim can only go once.
Also how come the Hajj has been front page news for the past 2 days in the Washington Times? Is this country so concerned about the rites of the Muslim religion? Will we read so much about people going to Church on XMass?

gr8muscles on December 19, 2007 at 11:11 am

NO STAMPEDE THIS YEAR SO THAT WILL BE A KICK IN THE TEETH FOR DEBBIE & CO 🙂

skouti on December 21, 2007 at 3:15 pm