Ethic Soup

Ohio Pastor Asks Young Trick or Treaters: 'Wanna Comic Book with Pictures of Children Dying?'

Kids love to be scared on Halloween -- most of the time, kind of. Okay, not really! Just pretend.

FRIGHTEN THE LITTLE CHILDREN

Should they have to fear a church minister who has decided to scare the bejesus out of little children who just want to go trick or treating and get some Halloween candy?

That's stooping pretty low. Get religion children -- mine -- or you'll die. And here's some pictures of how you'll die. Sweet dreams!

No wonder more and more people are leaving the church. When a pastor doesn't even show common sense in how to treat and protect kids, you gotta wonder what his church is teaching in Sunday School.

The preacher is Rev. Kenny Cousar of the Northview Baptist Church (pictured below) in Hillsboro, Ohio.

Muslim Fatwa Order: Bangladeshi Girl Lashed To Death After Rape by Cousin

 

IT MAKES YOU ILL -- SICK TO YOUR STOMACH

The ghastly news out of Bangladesh is about a 14-year-old girl named Hena Akhter who has been killed by a public lashing. Hena was raped by her 40-year-old cousin. That's why she was beaten -- she was a rape victim.

Bangladesh is almost 90 percent Muslim and under sharia, or Islamic law, rape cannot be proved without the testimony of four witnesses. As explained by Andrew C. McCarthy, The National Review:

MUSLIM LAW STACKED AGAINST WOMEN

"Rapists tend not to bring witnesses along for their attacks. In any event, moreover, sharia values a woman's testimony as only half that of a man, so the deck is stacked and rape cannot be proved in most cases. Yet that hardly means the report of rape is of no consequence. Unable to establish that she'd been forcibly violated, the teenager became in the eyes of the sharia court a woman who'd had sexual intercourse outside of marriage. Thus the draconian lashing sentence that became a death sentence."

Hena's flogging under a fatwa -- for being a "participant" in her assault --would have been 101 lashes except she fell unconscious when the count was reportedly around 50. She was rushed to a hospital where she succumbed to her injuries and died, whipped to death.

VICTIM IS PUNISHED

"Died because she was raped," says the blog Conservative New Jersey. "What a loving religion."  (Pictured above right is another sharia flogging of a woman.) 

Surprise -- last year the Bangladeshi High Court banned punishments handed down by fatwa, or religious edict, following a series of cases of Muslim women who were beaten or caned for religious offenses, reported Huffington Post in July. The court ruling resulted from petitions filed by human rights groups and Bangladeshi women lawyers, who argued that women were publicly whipped for supposed crimes of adultery, having a child out of wedlock or even talking to people of other faiths -- and, of course, being a "participant" in their own rape.

The court's ruling also imposed jail terms for clerics and other members of village courts who order such punishment by invoking Islamic Shariah law.

FATWAS & VEILS RULED ILLEGAL

The same court ruled last April that women who were employed in public institutions were not required to wear the "hijab" or veil against their will, which would be a "flagrant violation" of basic human rights.

TEENAGE GIRL STILL WHIPPED TO DEATH 

Yet, although punishing fatwas were finally against the law, young Hena was whipped to death.

Following Hena's death, the High Court has ordered district officals to explain in 15 days why they failed to protect the 14-year-old rape victim from being beaten as per a fatwa, according to Bangladesh newspaper The Daily Star.

DOCTORS LIED ABOUT WOUNDS

The recent news is that three doctors are being investigated for claiming the teenage girl had no signs of injury in a postmortem examination, says The Guardian (UK):

"But Hena's body was exhumed on orders from the High Court and a second autopsy concluded that she had died from internal bleeding and septicaemia caused by wounds "of a homicidal nature" on her scalp, abdomen, back, chest, arms and legs."

Police are now treating the case as murder and have arrested six, including a Muslim cleric.

CLICK & READ: "Yet Another Saudi Sheikh's Fatwa: Women Must Wear One-Eyed Veils"

CLICK & READ: "Has Saudi Arabia Beheaded Fawza Falih for 'Witchcraft'?"

   

 

by Sharon McEachern

Terrorism Research: "Fused" People Want to Kill and Die

Fused glass art titled "Worry People" by Verna Bartnick

TO FUSE OR NOT TO FUSE equates with TO JUMP OR NOT TO JUMP and with TO BE A SUICIDE BOMBER OR TO NOT BE A SUICIDE BOMBER.

Are you willing -- and eager -- to kill and die, to sacrifice yourself to save your compatriots?

People with extremely strong connections to their countries or groups are not only willing, but eager, for self-sacrifice to save their compatriots.

These are some of the findings of new psychology research from University of Texas at Austin.

Appearing in Psychological Science, the study  with lead author and psychology professor Bill Swann, along with an international team of researchers, found the majority of "fused" people -- those who view themselves as completely immersed in a group (whether ethnic, national or other) -- are willing to commit extreme acts for the good of their compatriots.

"Fused group members believe that through suicide, their lives will achieve tremendous significance," said Swann. "Their strong sense of moral agency drives them to see not only that justice is done, but to also take an active role in its implementation."

Airport Security Forces Disabled Boy, 4, To Remove Leg Braces or Else No Disney World.

LITTLE RYAN Thomas just turned four-years-old and hadn't been walking on his own all that long. Ryan is developmentally disabled and just got a pair of corrective braces. He was born 16 weeks premature, his ankles are malformed and his legs have very little muscle tone -- He cannot walk without the braces.

For his birthday, his mom and dad, a Camden, N.J. police officer, were taking Ryan on his first airplane flight, to visit Disney World in Orlando, Florida. How exciting!

HE COULD BE A TERRORIST!

That is until TSA screeners at Philadelphia International Airport decided 4-year-old Ryan could be a terrorist.

"Now we know how the 'Crotch Bomber' got through security -- TSA screeners are busy terrorizing disabled toddlers," says CBS News.

As Mom Leona Thomas walked Ryan through the metal detector (pictured right), the alarm went off.

TAKE OFF THE BRACES!

The screener told them to take off Ryan's braces.

Dad Bob Thomas told them the boy can't walk on his own without the braces.

Answer: "He'll have to take them off."

Then Mom said she would walk Ryan through the detector after they removed the custom-made braces, composed of metal and plastic.

HE MUST WALK ON HIS OWN

The screener said no. The boy would have to walk on his own.

By this time, Dad, a 53-year-old cop in Camden's emergency crime suppression team, was steaming. But he and his wife complied with the TSA screener's demands. Mom went first, then Ryan, backed up by Dad. That way Ryan wouldn't get hurt if he fell. But Ryan made it through the detector.

Why in the world didn't the TSA have a policy that would have let the parents help their child to a private screening area, where Ryan could have been swabbed for traces of explosive materials? asked columnist Daniel Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer.

Long after the fact, the TSA apologized and said the boy never should have been told to remove his braces.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) often operates with little common sense. We might as well have robots performing the services of TSA screeners.

SPEAKING OF ROBOTS:

TO READ "DEAR SANTA: I WANT A ROBOT THAT LOOKS LIKE ME"CLICK HERE.

 by Sharon McEachern

Indian Muslims Refuse Mumbai Burial for Muslim Terrorists

   

In the aftermath of the Mumbia terrorist attacks, Muslims are finally standing up for the ethics of their own religion, the tenets of their faith. India's Muslim Council has declared that the bodies of the Muslim terrorists killed in the 3-day attack on Mumbai (and responsible for killing almost 200 people) cannot be interred in Indian soil -- not just Mumbai, but anywhere in the country. Wow! This could be the first openly defiant act against "Islamic terrorism."

MOST MUSLIMS ARE NOT TERRORISTS

"Most Muslims are not terrorists!" is a cry heard over and over since 9/11. But it's a statement that has been difficult to believe for victims of Muslim terror, and for those who fear becoming future victims.  This is especially true when so many Muslim leaders have refused to condemn the terror or even acknowledge the Muslim attackers as terrorists. By their silence, their omissions, they have invited the perception that they, and other Muslims, could be co-conspirators in the terrorism. We do not know each other.

Even before the Muslim Council's orders, a Muslim cemetery in the heart of Mumbai broke with Islamic tradition and refused to bury the bodies of the nine dead terrorists. The influential Muslim Jama Masjid Trust, which runs the graveyard, says that it refuses to bury the gunmen because they were not true followers of Islam.

"People who committed this heinous crime cannot be called Muslim," said Hanif Nalkhande, a spokesman for the trust. "Islam does not permit this sort of barbaric crime,"  reports The Australian.

NO BURIAL IN INDIAN SOIL

Unclaimed bodies believed to be Muslim are traditionally given to the nearest Islamic graveyard for burial after three days. Right now the bodies of the nine dead gunmen are lying in a morgue waiting. It looks like they'll have a long wait. Muslims are insisting they not be buried in India. The police don't know what to do with the bodies -- they do not believe anyone will claim the terrorists' corpses.