Just… wow. I can’t even imagine what it might be like to lose that many years of an already brief life. We’re only given a few loops around the sun before our molecules disperse. Every day you’re given is the only one that will ever be. They will run out one day, and you never know when.

I read the other day about a lovely, kind and all-around beautiful woman named Gemma Hogg, who developed terminal cancer and was on her way out very quickly. Despite this, she didn’t want to miss her son Thomas’ first day of school, so she checked herself out of the hospice to see her son off. With that milestone behind her, she passed away the very next day. Gemma was only 31.

I cannot even imagine what would drive a healthy young man, so full of life and potential, to simply forfeit 30 years of his life, all for little more than a philosophy.

no one says anything to the fatwas by various clerics who would like nothing better than stuffing women into burqas and making them sit at home, punishment by stoning to death for adultery etc.

You need to lay off the crack pipe, dude, it’s obviously making you deaf or something.

The people “no one says anything” about are the violent Christians who are responsible for most of the terrorism in the USA. Bombing abortion clinics, murdering doctors, destroying federal buildings, flying planes into buildings, burning crosses on people’s lawns, that shit gets mentioned once and forgotten.

Violent Muslims get plenty of coverage, by comparison.

Those who want to use religion to justify violence will do so. Those who want to justify violence will always find a way to do so.

In India’s case, on the one hand you have the Sangh, and on the other, more or less co-operative prayers by both communities (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/In-Kanchi-mutt-muezzins-call-coincides-with-morning-puja/articleshow/6647876.cms). It’s wrong and unfair to everyone involved to tar with the same brush, whether Hindus, Muslims, Christians or anyone else for that matter. I always find it hilarious when people talk about “the” Hindus, or “the” Muslims, as though everyone were operating under orders from some high command. There’s a world of difference between syncretic Sufism and fundamentalist Wahabbism, as there is between the Sangh Parivar mainstream Hinduism.

But they’re much different from the kinds of countries which are “Islamic Republics/Kingdoms/etc.” because they were taken over by groups that wanted to establish religious rule.

By contrast, as far as I know there’s nothing in any Hindu scripture that is homophobic, certainly not to the extent that Leviticus is (yes, I know Leviticus is not binding on Christians). There are certainly HINDUS who are homophobic; most of the Hindus in India are. While they may say it’s against their religion, they have no basis for saying so. The homophobia is part of the culture of India—but not of the culture of Nepal, for example.

I’m not at all afraid that al Qaeda is out to get me, and i’m terribly tired of the simplistic analysis presented in American media. On the other hand, there are good questions to be asked here. Like why young, white suburban kids are drawn to a radical and foreign ideology? And even if it is because they’re mad at their parents or shunned by a girl, that’s a valid beginning of bigger movements. How many 60′s counter-culture types were initially reacting to their parents and the plastic culture of their childhoods? It doesn’t really matter why someone begins a path like this; it matters how deeply they believe in it and act on it.

In any case, there’s a far more interesting take on the case at Foreign Policy:

“It is tempting to dismiss Chesser as just another suburban white kid lashing out at the world. But his story is not the irrelevant absurdity it appeared, not merely another terrorist folly like exploding underpants and the undetonated bomb in Times Square. Chesser, in fact, was the real thing: a significant al Qaeda propagandist for a new moment, South Park fatwa and all. In less than two years, under various identities, Chesser had promoted an extensive collection of radical papers, videos, and blog posts to an astonishing array of online outlets, from the hardest-core al Qaeda discussion forums to mainstream Islamic websites to social-networking tools like Facebook and Twitter. He even recorded his own jihadi war tunes.”

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/11/watching_the_watchers?page=0,0

As if the sociopathic incompetent self-hating gays weren’t bad enough

So you’re saying that his conversion isn’t so much a philosophical stance as a wide stance?

I agree with the poster who surmised that this probably boils down to a kid wishing to greatly upset his mother. I think it’s sad. This kid had so many blessings in life and he’s thrown it all away. He put people in danger. He’s ruined his life and his parents’ lives. Pretty damn sad.

Three different Edits of the same slash fiction.

Do you count actions by governments as terrorism? What if they’re against their own citizens, or against civilians in other countries, as opposed to soldiers in other countries? Is it terrorism if you bomb somebody’s water supply instead of their houses?

Do you count non-masked mob violence as terrorism? Most of the Hindu violence against Muslims and Christians has been that kind. What about political assassinations of people from the wrong ethnic group or party, or of judges and prosecutors? The former’s popular world-wide, the latter’s been popular in Latin countries participating in the US Drug War.

You’ve got sweeping generalizations applicable to both sides, conditional ad hominems, and rhetoric dismissive of your potential audience.

you get 4 troll biscuits. well done, gold star.

You’re delusional. Hinduism is at least as violent, xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic and oppressive as Islam.

I have to disagree, at least as regards homophobia. There’s nothing homophobic in Hinduism. There’s PLENTY homophobic in India, but that’s not the same. As an example of the difference, Nepal is predominantly Hindu, but has none of the Indian traditions of homophobia; they legalized same-sex marriage a couple of years ago.