It has everything to do with religion. Only religion (from the sons of Abraham) tells people to not think and to accept the word of your leader on blind faith. Only those religions teach you that you are in peril if you doubt the word of god. Without religion, no one would listen to a fool such as this.
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Christ, even my 4-year-old son maintains that while the moon is out at night, and the sun is up during the day, the moon and sun are friends and sometimes meet up during the day.
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Iâm inclined to believe (heheheh, see what I did there? 
), that is, to assert without proof, that there are actual atheists among the anti-vaxxersâŚ
I would say that anti-vax is a faith based decision, even when made by an atheist.
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Some anti vaxxers hold that position because one of their children died or were harmed by vaccines. It does happen. Some are simply following bad science and some are in it for the personal liberties argument. Some people have developed a significant mistrust for governmental authority due to decades of lies and are unable to escape that view. There is no need for faith to explain atheist anti-vaxxers. Only a mistaken position.
Faith has little to do with theism, though they often walk hand in hand. Iâm an atheist and I have faith in my friends and family. No god needed. Some hold faith as sub-doxastic venture. Former President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association Annette Baier stated âthe secular equivalent of faith in God, which we need in morality as well as in science or knowledge acquisition, is faith in the human community and its evolving proceduresâin the prospects for many-handed cognitive ambitions and moral hopesâ
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Are you saying politicians donât tell people to follow them blindly without thinking or disagree with science?
The âGlobal Warming Is A Hoaxâ folks are happy to take advantage of some religious peopleâs distrust of science, but the message doesnât come from religion, it comes from the partyâs Corporate Sponsors in the energy production and consumption businesses who donât want regulations to affect them near-term.
And then there was that whole Lysenkoism business. And politicians in Britain pushing homeopathy and astrology.
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An Armstrong family tradition for generations
Yes. Iâve watched it a few times. Man, people have a fucked up view of the ME if they think no one can crack a joke without the police raiding your shit. Is there censorship? Yes. Does it get applied evenly, and to a media conglomerate owned by the ruling elites? You do the math.
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Not the same new moon, theyâre working off a different set of definitions for New moons that have to do with the visibility of the crescent. Visibility is a key word here. It has nothing to do with the phases and everything to do with sighting. Since having the international Muslim community on seventeen different calendars seemed like a bad idea, most communities just go by Mecca. It has literally zero to do with ânot knowingâ when there will be an astronomical new moon.
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Iâm sorry that I have a fucked up view of Saudi Arabia. Itâs just that Saudi Arabia keeps doing really fucked up things. Like sentencing blasphemers to be whipped to death.
Iâd expect with skin that thin, SA wouldnât be tolerant of any kind of satire, much less satire thatâs publicly broadcasted.
Collectively, the Middle East is served by two main television satellites that are free-to-air. They are Arabsat and Nilesat. It cuts down on the ability of countries to impose country-specific censorship on television networks that they donât own, or which are based in other countries. It also means that itâs pointless to impose censorship above a certain baseline level. (It also makes American cable TV look like a giant rip-off).
SA may be fucked up, but people actually live there, yâknow.
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Hereâs a recent linkâŚ
A more recent update on the same story
I imagine that, in Saudi Arabia, âinsulting Islamâ == blasphemy
So if they donât see it when it should be there (bad weather, say), Ramadan would start LATER, not earlier.
The only way Ramadan could start earlier than they expected is if they literally didnât know that the new moon was due to show up that night.
edited to add:
The current stay of execution on Raif Badawi is a symbolic gesture at best.
Punishing blasphemy proves that the offended party has no faith in their god anyway. If that god actually existed and had power of its own, it wouldnât need the sycophantic and condescending defense of its adherents in the case of blasphemy anyway.
I wonder if the SA clerics ever considered that the harder they push to kill the blasphemers, the more they prove that they think their own god is imaginary and devoid of power.
Yep. The wording is something like, âIf the sky is overcastâŚâ
Ramadan will either start when you see the beginning of a faint crescent (which Iâve tried to see before, itâs harder than youâd think, even on a clear night, or the next day. It will be the next day no matter who sees what. You end up with a maximum difference of about a day, so an Islamic lunar month is either 29 or 30 days. Never more and never less, so itâs understandable that people are more concerned with getting everyone on the same calendar than worrying about whether Ramadan is the next day.
Honestly, I never learned all the little rules. It makes a total difference of one day, and so most people are understandably just kind of like, âEh, whenever.â When I was growing up, I was more concerned about the END of Ramadan. As Eid approached, I wanted it to be over already.
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Letâs assume youâre correct. Satire that most viewers mistake for sincerity is still bad satire.
I understand the sentiment, but it always weirds me out when people say this. Some people are probably insecure and probably feel petty, sure. But, Iâd wager most have plenty of faith in their god. Being insecure about your faith isnât always the first step to being a murderous piece of shit on toast. Most of the time, the thought process isnât, âIâm not secure about this and you make me uncomfortable so I want to kill you.â The thought process is a magnification of what happens when people disagree with each other in blog comments sections. People get mad when theyâre disagreed with. Especially when theyâre sure theyâre right.
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Also, sadly, I think it often has little to do with lack of faith in their deityâs ability to punish. They feel that their deity is punishing the guilty through them.
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The thing is, we have astrolabes, because religion.
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Hm, thatâs probably true. My point stands, though.
