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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday August 08 2015, @05:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the give-thanks-to-those-who-speak-out-for-freedom dept.

A gang armed with machetes has hacked a secular blogger to death at his home in Dhaka in the fourth such murder in Bangladesh since the start of the year, an activist group and police have said.

Niloy Chatterjee, who used the pen-name Niloy Neel, was murdered on Friday after the men broke into his flat in the capital's Goran neighbourhood, according to the Bangladesh Blogger and Activist Network, which was alerted to the attack by a witness.

"They entered his room in the fifth floor and shoved his friend aside and then hacked him to death. He was a listed target of the Islamist militants," the network's head Imran H Sarker, told the AFP news agency.

Chatterjee, 40, was a critic of religious extremism that led to bombings in mosques and the killing of numerous civilians, Sarker said.

First found here: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/fourth-secular-bangladesh-blogger-hacked-death-150807102408712.html
Search led to these sites: http://www.itv.com/news/2015-08-07/machete-wielding-gang-kill-blogger-in-his-home/
http://www.firstpost.com/world/dhakas-secular-claims-get-increasingly-blood-soaked-as-another-bangladeshi-blogger-is-killed-2383420.html
http://www.nirapadnews.com/english/2015/08/07/news-id:29841/


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday August 08 2015, @06:12PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday August 08 2015, @06:12PM (#219935) Journal

    What's needed is for atheists to leave that country, since it isn't ready to be part of civilization.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
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  • (Score: 2, Troll) by opinionated_science on Saturday August 08 2015, @06:59PM

    by opinionated_science (4031) on Saturday August 08 2015, @06:59PM (#219950)

    Atheism is another form of extremism. The intolerance for "those not like us" with violent acts. Pick a view and there is always one that needs destroying, especially when your diety absolves personal responsibility.

    And there is the problem; personal responsibility. To think for yourself and act accordingly. In the west this is a choice, as we have all the materials necessary for a comfortable existence. In these infrastructure poor locations, the functional society is kept hostage by dogmatic ideals of obsolete power structures. If you cannot eat unless you are religious, what do you do?

    But with the world's more powerful country electing politicians wearing their different excuses for "faith" on their chests, is this a surprise?

    Separation of church and state was not an accidental principle in the founding of America. The founders were extremely perceptive of human frailty and the role it plays in dictatorships, when responsibility for personal actions can be absolved by scripture or law.

    • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday August 08 2015, @08:05PM

      by Gaaark (41) on Saturday August 08 2015, @08:05PM (#219965) Journal

      If atheism is a form of extremism, then so are all forms of religious belief... if everything is 'extremism', then nothing is.

      But i see where you are coming from... should have said "Even atheists have their extremists", maybe.

      But a couple of weeks ago (i am an atheist with a sense of humour about God), in frustration said, "I GOD DAMN YOU TO HELL, GOD!", and since then, my life has been going along quite a bit better. So either,

      1. I feel better having done it and it shows in my personal life
      2. I really have damned God to hell and now s/he can't f*ck with my life anymore?!?

      As William Shatner would say, "Weird, or what?"

      Or Depeche Mode:
        "I don't want to start
      Any blasphemous rumors
      But I think that God's
      Got a sick sense of humor
      And when I die
      I expect to find Him laughing"

      (I'm expecting God is a she, is cis-gendered, looks like Oprah and spends every moment mugging in front of a camera and giving away prizes for audiences who clap the loudest.

      Or its Donald Trump. 50/50)

      --
      --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
      • (Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Saturday August 08 2015, @08:28PM

        by opinionated_science (4031) on Saturday August 08 2015, @08:28PM (#219984)

        Any belief that is not able to be modified through experience and empirical evidence, is a form of extremism. Agnostic is the position that reflects reality, and probably reflects a significant population.

        My point is that personal responsibility, great reduces the power of centralised authority, hence the most extremism comes from fantastic dogma.

        • (Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Saturday August 08 2015, @11:12PM

          by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Saturday August 08 2015, @11:12PM (#220037) Homepage

          Ah. Either a militant agnostic or a True Believer in a sorry joke of an attempt to intimidate atheists into shutting up and going back to where they belong at the back of the bus.

          First, are you agnostic with respect to Bigfoot, or leprechauns, or Zeus? Considering that the definitive text that serves as "evidence" for the existence of YHWH and his pantheon opens with a faery tale about an enchanted garden with talking animals and an angry wizard, might you not accept that agnosticism with respect to the Abrahamic religions is as childish a position as agnosticism with respect to Quetzalcoatl?

          Humans have searched for the divine for millennia and failed to even agree upon the most basic facts relating to the gods. Are there many, or just one? If one, which one? Do gods actually manifest in crackers and wine on the verbal command of certain shamans, or do they have blue skin and thousands of arms?

          In stark contrast to religion and its dependence on revelation, tradition, and faith, science has discovered previously-unimaginable facts about the Universe. And everything we've learned about through science practically screams that the gods simply couldn't do the things claimed for them. Are we supposed to remain agnostic about a man born of a virgin who becaume a zombie who beamed up to the mothership, but have confidence in the evolutionary and molecular biology as well as physics that tells us it's all childish bullshit?

          Once you understand the true nature of the gods, agnosticism is a laughable position. And that true nature is most obvious: the gods are a stock character in a certain class of fiction whose sole purpose is to provide an unquestionably authoritative voice for the authors of the fiction. Within the story, the gods establish their authority by doing that which is truly impossible; having thus demonstrated their bona fides, the gods go on to parrot whatever the conman getting the revelation wants them to say. And it is obvious and essential that the gods do that which truly is impossible and not the merely impressive, else some other conman might come along and actually perform the feat and thus usurp the power of the gods and the original conman.

          If it's extremist to laugh in the face of the priests, then call me extreme. But humanity remains chained so long as we fail to give the priests and their lackeys and dupes the complete and utter lack of respect they so desperately deserve.

          I mean, seriously? A talking plant gives magic wand lessons to the reluctant hero, or the triumphant hero rides a flying horse into the sunset, and we're not supposed to laugh?

          Cheers,

          b&

          --
          All but God can prove this sentence true.
          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:14AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:14AM (#220105) Journal

            Either a militant agnostic or a True Believer in a sorry joke of an attempt to intimidate atheists into shutting up and going back to where they belong at the back of the bus.

            Do you know anyone who can be cowed by moderately bad poetry? I don't think it was an attempt at intimidation.

            And everything we've learned about through science practically screams that the gods simply couldn't do the things claimed for them.

            No, it doesn't. If your philosophy is based on things which can be observed, then by the foundation, it has nothing to say about stuff that can't be observed. But this sort of thing contains one of the more well-known cases of cognitive dissonance in religion. It is routinely claimed that whatever supernatural beings we're supposed to believe in make themselves known to us. But at the same time, they don't. The being who reveals and hides at the same time has to be part of the most annoying religious argument of all time, namely, that you known the truth, but refuse to acknowledge it.

            • (Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:28AM

              by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:28AM (#220111) Homepage

              If your philosophy is based on things which can be observed, then by the foundation, it has nothing to say about stuff that can't be observed.

              A wise man once remarked that the unobservable and nonexistent are indistinguishable. Sure, there might be an invisible dragon in your garage that breaths heatless flames...but until it actually interacts with something else in the Cosmos it might as well not be there at all.

              b&

              --
              All but God can prove this sentence true.
        • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2015, @11:58PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 08 2015, @11:58PM (#220051)

          You're making the foolish assumption that atheism is a belief system.

          It is not.

          I don't walk around, each day reaffirming my faith that the Abrahamic god doesn't exist. If I did that, I'd also need to walk around reaffirming that Vishnu and Kali don't exist either, as well as the sun god and on and on and on. I also don't walk around having faith that the stars have no impact on my life, that tea leaves hold no knowledge of my future, nor that animal entrails hold next week's lottery numbers.

          I walk around, each day, with no thought for the imaginings and faiths of other people. They are meaningless.

          Or perhaps I should walk around believing that tomatoes scream when we slice them?

        • (Score: 1) by throwaway28 on Sunday August 09 2015, @12:42AM

          by throwaway28 (5181) on Sunday August 09 2015, @12:42AM (#220065) Journal

          Therefore, as an extremist believer in euclidian geometry and minkowski space;

          DEATH TO THOSE RIEMANN INFIDELS !!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @12:56AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @12:56AM (#220070)

          > Agnostic is the position that reflects reality,

          That presumes the question is valid in the first place.

          There are practically an infinite number of questions with unknowable answers, what makes the question of God worth the effort of even thinking about versus all the other less popular, but equally unknowable questions like if you are really conscious or not?

    • (Score: 2) by Gravis on Saturday August 08 2015, @08:18PM

      by Gravis (4596) on Saturday August 08 2015, @08:18PM (#219976)

      Antitheism is another form of extremism.

      FTFY

      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by TrumpetPower! on Saturday August 08 2015, @11:37PM

        by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Saturday August 08 2015, @11:37PM (#220044) Homepage

        Would you consider it "extremist" to be anti-totalitarianism? No? Yet there is no condition conceivably more authoritarian than the ones described by the major religions.

        How about the Flat Earth Society and Moon landing hoaxers? Are you "anti" them, as well? Yet their conspiracies pale in comparison to the religious ones -- Creationism for obvious starters, but even the general and common notions that death is a mere illusion and that all-powerful invisible superfriends love us but still somehow can't be arsed to call 9-1-1 when they spot their official agents buggering children. Somebody tells you that aliens are beaming messages into his brain and you know he's crazy; but if it's Jesus speaking to a Republican presidential candidate he damned well better answer his shoe phone if he wants to have a prayer of getting elected.

        And that's long before we get to Islam, whose most ardent practitioners have implemented a truly Mediaeval theocratic hellhole in Saudi Arabia and are going on a rampage bringing the sword of peace to all nearby lands.

        Tell me: how could you possibly not be against theism? Unless, of course, you're one of the priests personally profiting from claiming divine support and authority for your scams and other crimes....

        b&

        --
        All but God can prove this sentence true.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @12:26AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @12:26AM (#220061)

          > No? Yet there is no condition conceivably more authoritarian than the ones described by the major religions.

          That's the same bullshit as the racists who equate the most despicable things any black person has done with the average black person. Extremist interpretations do not define a religion any more than the shore defines the ocean.

          Guys like you prove those religious assholes right when they say "athiesm is a religion" - just like those religious assholes you are all about telling other people how to live their lives.

          • (Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday August 09 2015, @12:49AM

            by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Sunday August 09 2015, @12:49AM (#220069) Homepage

            Last I checked, every single flavor of Christianity agrees that there exists a confusingly-eponymous god named, "God," who, regardless of his relationship of the other gods in the pantheon, is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. They also agree that God and / or Jesus set forth various laws which must be followed upon pain of an eternity in Hell.

            If that's not the ultimate form of totalitarianism, then Popes don't shit in the woods when nobody's listening.

            Granted, there's practically no agreement on what those laws are and which will and won't get you sent to the gulag, as well as much disagreement about just how nasty things really are in Guantanamo. But all are in full agreement that the Dear Leader loves everybody, and only does bad things to people in sorrow and for their own good. Exactly as we are told is the case about every dictator anywhere ever.

            Now, if you can identify anything in there that I got factually incorrect, I'm all ears. Do Christians reject God's omnipotence, omniscience, or omnipresence? Do they claim that Hell actually isn't Jesus's personal prison? Are these facts inconsistent with totalitarianism? Does Big Brother not watch and love you?

            "Good luck with that," as the saying goes.

            b&

            --
            All but God can prove this sentence true.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:11AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:11AM (#220075)

              > They also agree that God and / or Jesus set forth various laws which must be followed upon pain of an eternity in Hell.

              Then you haven't been paying attention.
              Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Unitarians, Christian Gnostics - none believe in an eternity in hell, some don't even believe in a hell at all.

              Jews and Sufis don't believe in eternal punishment either. And that's just the abrahamic religions.

              Hindus don't do eternal punishment, after all they believe in reincarnation.

              > "Good luck with that," as the saying goes.

              Fuck luck. Unlike you, I take knowledge over ignorant faith.

              • (Score: 1, Troll) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:26AM

                by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:26AM (#220085) Homepage

                Ah -- a liar for Jesus (and others). Business as usual.

                Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Unitarians, Christian Gnostics - none believe in an eternity in hell, some don't even believe in a hell at all.

                ORLY? Let's see what the official LDS Web site has to say about that.

                HELL [lds.org]

                Latter-day revelation speaks of hell in at least two senses. [...] Second, it is the permanent location of those who are not redeemed by the atonement of Jesus Christ. In this sense, hell is permanent. It is for those who are found “filthy still” (D&C 88:35, 102). This is the place where Satan, his angels, and the sons of perdition—those who have denied the Son after the Father has revealed him—will dwell eternally (D&C 76:43–46).

                I've neither the time nor patience to play whack-a-mole with the rest -- especially since Unitarians are largely non-Christian and Gnostics largely non-existent.

                b&

                --
                All but God can prove this sentence true.
                • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:36AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:36AM (#220088)

                  How convenient of you to elide the part that proves you wrong. Here, I'll fill in those ellipses:

                  First, it is the temporary abode in the spirit world for those who were disobedient in mortality.

                  That's all the matters with respect to how you live your life.

                  The second version of hell that you focused on is all about decisions you make after death. Big deal.

                  > I've neither the time nor patience to play whack-a-mole with the rest

                  When proven wrong, lie and then claim you don't have time to face the truth. Hello mr trump!

                  • (Score: 1, Troll) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:48AM

                    by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:48AM (#220093) Homepage

                    Let me get this straight.

                    Morons believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god who sends his enemies to Hell for all eternity, but I mischaracterized that as the ultimate form of totalitarianism because it's only those who keep giving the Moronic god the finger after death who're infinitely tortured?

                    And you expect people to take you seriously about any of this...how, exactly? Do you also make up similar fantasies about how War Trek is just totally possible because nanochhlorites are only super-relativistic at more than seven parsecs?

                    This is exactly what I meant by whack-a-mole. Next thing, you're going to say that Bigfoot is Jesus and Bigfoot isn't everywhere so he's not omnipresent so stalecheckers, athiest1!1

                    Find me a Christianity that represents more than single-digit percentages that's not fundamentally totalitarian and we'll talk. Until then, grow the fuck up already.

                    b&

                    --
                    All but God can prove this sentence true.
                    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:51AM

                      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:51AM (#220094)

                      > but I mischaracterized that as the ultimate form of totalitarianism because it's only those who keep giving the Moronic god the finger after death who're infinitely tortured?

                      Let me get this straight. You don't believe in an afterlife, but rules about what other people do in their afterlife qualifies as totalitarianism in actual life.
                      So, you are an athiest who believes in the mormon afterlife. lol.

                      • (Score: 2, Touché) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:56AM

                        by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Sunday August 09 2015, @01:56AM (#220097) Homepage

                        Either your cluelessness is epic or your apologetics are epically sorry.

                        I'm not stupid enough to think that Darth Vader is real, either; yet I challenge you do describe his Empire without equating it to totalitarianism.

                        Now, got any rejoinders that rise above the level of, "HA! So if you don't think Santa is real, then who do you think gave you that bicycle you're riding!?"

                        b&

                        --
                        All but God can prove this sentence true.
                        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:44AM

                          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:44AM (#220116)

                          Why do you keep trying to equate actions in a person's afterlife with actions in a person's mortal life? Who the fuck cares what mormons do after they are dead?

                          Really, what is wrong with you that fail at such an utterly simple question of logic?

                          Well, I know the answer to that - you are one of those idiots who has made antitheism his faith and just like all the other religious nutjobs, when faced with a contradiction between your faith and logic you can't reconcile it and so you just spew bullshit instead of owning up to it.

                          And then there is the larger problem with your anti-theism in that all your arguments are based on arguing about religions with "more than single-digit percentages" which implicitly says you are OK with religions that only have single-digit percentages. In which case, you are neither really an anti-theist nor an atheist at all. You are just a anti-big-religionist.

                          • (Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday August 09 2015, @03:00AM

                            by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Sunday August 09 2015, @03:00AM (#220121) Homepage

                            What the fuck is worng with you that you ignore the whole all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present bit plus the ultimate gulag for dissidents and are instead hyper-focussed on the bit of the myth that says you get killed before you're zombified to be sent to the gulag?

                            I get it. You're a Moron, and you really don't want people pointing out that Moronism is a fantasy about the ultimate tyranny. You really do love Big Brother because Big Brother loves you and, even if you didn't love him, Room 101 just isn't your style.

                            But do you really think you're making your elders happy by making your fantasy look so spectacularly Moronic? Don't you realize that, every time you post that your Hell doesn't have all that much crunchy frog in it, you're reminding everybody of just how awesomely purely evil your gods are to have even thought of such a thing in the first place, even if they save it only for the most special of special cases?

                            b&

                            --
                            All but God can prove this sentence true.
                            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @03:37AM

                              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 09 2015, @03:37AM (#220135)

                              What the fuck is worng with you that you ignore the whole all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present bit plus the ultimate gulag for dissidents and are instead hyper-focussed on the bit of the myth that says you get killed before you're zombified to be sent to the gulag?

                              I am having a hell of time parsing that. So I am just going to restate your original argument and my critique:

                              You: Religion is totalitarian because you have to follow rules while you are alive or face eternal punishment after death.
                              Me: Nope. Lots of religions don't work that way. For example, mormons can do whatever they want while they are alive and not face eternal punishment.

                              > I get it. You're a Moron,

                              What? You dumbfuck. Of course you think I am religionist, in your simplistic world view, anyone who isn't a fucking raving anthithiest must be a brainwashed religionist. I was born an atheist and have always been an atheist. Like most real atheists, I know more about religion than religionists. [pewforum.org] Your ignorance of religion just goes to show that you are a religionist too, you just are too deep into your faith to even realize it is a faith.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:22AM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:22AM (#220109) Journal

          Yet there is no condition conceivably more authoritarian than the ones described by the major religions.

          1984 gives a counterexample. There's not even the pretext of making people better. It's just a pure exercise of power for its own sake.

          • (Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:34AM

            by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:34AM (#220113) Homepage

            1984 was about a rather limited government on a most insignificant planet with demonstrable failings, if not necessarily ones that, in the context of the story, would soon lead to the demise of the regime.

            Religions are about unlimited power over all of existence for all of eternity. That's the whole point of the religions -- that there can't even possibly be anything that could top them. This is not by coincidence; if you're an authorized representative of such a power, what mere mortal can question your authority? And it is why heresy is the ultimate crime in any religion, for you dare to undermine the very foundation for the authority of the priests. Er, the gods, that is, of course. It's the gods who have all the authority, and the priests, their humble servants, who are but mere mouthpieces voicing the desires of the gods.

            b&

            --
            All but God can prove this sentence true.
            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:55AM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday August 09 2015, @02:55AM (#220119) Journal

              1984 was about a rather limited government on a most insignificant planet with demonstrable failings, if not necessarily ones that, in the context of the story, would soon lead to the demise of the regime.

              That's an incredibly optimistic view of the story. It's about eternal domination of humanity with their game plan working.

              • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TrumpetPower! on Sunday August 09 2015, @03:17AM

                by TrumpetPower! (590) <ben@trumpetpower.com> on Sunday August 09 2015, @03:17AM (#220128) Homepage

                Yet, even in the story, we see clear signs of constant and unsustainable decay: the chocolate rations "raised" from several to a few grams; the widespread urban blight Winston and Julia are able to find temporary respite in; the inevitable death and destruction from perpetual warfare. Sure, it's a slow burn, but, despite the government's rhetoric, it won't last forever. If nothing else, the Sun will burn up the planet in a billion years or so.

                Religion, on the other hand...again, the whole point is eternal perfection. Long after the last star burns out, Jesus's boots will still be sniny from the constant licking from the faithful -- and that's not even the whole opening act.

                b&

                --
                All but God can prove this sentence true.
  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Saturday August 08 2015, @07:14PM

    by Nuke (3162) on Saturday August 08 2015, @07:14PM (#219955)

    Where does it say he was an atheist?