Ladies, Hop On Jerusalem's Buses

"Women's faces can't appear on the sides of Jerusalem's buses, “What can I say? It's Iran.”"
Ignorant is no substitute for humor, if one can not go to Iran to see women faces and images all over the place, then one should go to a Iranian movie, only orthodox Jews and Sunnis ban images of Women and their participation in society, to be more accurate it's not orthodox religious thing but it's a orthodox semitic culture norms!

"Iran? Wait a minute. This is Jerusalem, capital of a model democracy, the only one in the Middle East, right?"
What idiotic thing to say, Jerusalem is no capital of any country if you're planning to ace your geography exam, and if a model democracy means a state to be governed only by Jews, then you failed to pass your civic exam too, Lebanon is a better candidate since Christian and Moslems do share power in government, actually minorities have better posts than majorities in Lebanon government, try to do that in Israel, good luck:)

Here are is a educational site to dispel demonizing myths about Iran.
http://www.bibijon.org/iranimage/

I knew there was something important missing when I spent a week in Israel in September. Now I know what it was. http://www.winnowed.blogspot.com

Hello from Joe,
I congratulate Israelis for winning a Time.com to bring sensor to my favorite site in past several years, I won't comment anymore in this site since Mosad asking for my life details as was evident in San Francisco police conspiracy to report on anti-Israelis several years ago but I can assure you that you will get better in field of battle, ie Lebanon

Good bye to sensors, US is no Israel!
No more Joe

For more on this story and all the issues of religion and state in Israel, visit:

Religion and State in Israel

http://religionandstateinisrael.blogspot.com/

Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.

Goodbye Joe, real lost to humanity :--)
To neutralize Israeli man Obama administration might take John Brennan as director of the CIA and Shirazi born Valerie Jarrett as a senior White House Advisor and wine consultant
By the way Jerusalem is a city but no capital city and also you can see women faces on bill boards in Iran but not their skirt so take your stereotypes with Studies!

[...] Las mujeres se suben a los autobuses de Jerusalenmideast.blogs.time.com/2008/11/13/ladies-hop-on-jerusalems-b... por KarmaPolice hace pocos segundos [...]

I really hate this new blog system. I'm sure the authors' share this view in some way. Right, Tim, aka zg2nr9? Hopefully the TIME webmaster will fix it up a little bit in the near future.

I have a real resentment for religious extremism. Around the world, even in what many consider the paradigm of freedom, America, the extremists impose their wills upon others. In every form, there is some great hypocrisy to this kind of conduct. Indeed, the very notion of the free will is abolished when you don't allow people to make up their own minds about sinning. It's even worse when you resort to violence to make sure that the sinning be stopped.

While the Mullahs in Iran diminish their people's rights to simply be, the Haredim in Israel attempt to do away with other Israelis rights as well.

One of these days, God will open up the clouds in the sky and shout to us peons below, "It's only a little booby you wussies!"

Nick,

I agree with you. I've noticed that ever since the format change, the frequency of blogs has decreased as has the number of posts in reply to the blog. I'll add that the formatting is hard on the eyes.

I disagree with you. Obviously there are religious extremists in the U.S., but not a single one of them has imposed his/her views on me. Please give an example of how you have been forced to do something you don't want to do because a religious extremist has ordered it or an example of how you have to advocate or pay lip-service to a viewpoint you don't agree with. Religious extremists ATTEMPT to do those things, but never succeed, at least in the long run.

How'd you know it was me? ;P

Example Set 1: Violence against abortion clinics. There are too many instances to cite. This website does a good job of it: http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_viol.htm

Example Set 2: This is not strictly enforced and by all means you can utter the phrase at your own volition, but when we say the pledge of allegiance, the law has mandated that the phrase "Under God" remain therein. This was challenged several times in futile fashion.

There are variations to religious extremism and in America it hits rather softly as compared to areas like the Middle East. But, it does happen. I can continue with more specific examples but since you asked for one example, I gave you two just to exceed your expectations. I think the fact that there are Justices in the Supreme Court who will turn their backs on science to vote on the basis of religiously germinated morality (aka nonsense) to turn over Roe v. Wade shows that we are a nation that has yet to truly separate the Church and the State as decreed by our forefathers. Well, our adopted forefathers in some instances anyway...

Response:

1. The bombings are definitely an example of extremism. But they are illegal, and everyone knows this, including the bombers. Because the bombings are illegal, the extremists obviously haven't had their way, i.e. haven't forced every clinic to close or completely halted abortions.

2. "Under God." I don't think that phrase is indicative of extremism, especially since, as you point out, the Pledge is voluntary. The original Constitution didn't have any of the amendments, so their intent as to what constitutes separation of church and state is unclear. The 1st Amendment conatins the Establishment Clause, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ...." Historically, the Colonies sought to be free from not just the Crown of England, but also the Church of England. In other words, the intent of the 1st Amendment was to ensure that no state religion was introduced and that Americans were free to practice the religion of their choice. In my opinion there's a big difference between the government acknowledging God (read the first sentence of the Delcaration to get a sense of the underpinnings of the founding of the USA) and the establishment of a state religion. I mean this entire country is founded on the notion of "unalienable rights" that are endowed to men by their Creator. (Come to think of it, that was an extremist viewpoint back in the day. So maybe the US is nothing but a nation of religious extremists. Hmmm....)

To be fair, I believe there is a rebuttal to any example I can possibly bring up within the United States. To be even more fair, no religious group has been able to completely impose their wills upon any particular group without some form of dissent or non-compliance.

Another example would be same-sex marriage bans across our nation. What point of reference do most, if not all, people use to consider same-sex marriages unethical? Religion. The will of a voting majority, motivated by religious purposes, have been imposed on many in California, for instance.

I think I should rephrase what I said in my first comment. I have a real resentment for religion being tied with government in any way. It doesn't have to necessarily be extreme. I think religion is a great thing that teaches a great many people how to be virtuous and civilly obedient, amongst other things. However, keep it to your damn self, I say. I share a view with many good people who are secular that religion is neither a sword nor a shield, but a private practice not to be imposed in any way on to others. I also believe that good can be achieved without the need to be religious.

Like I said, within the framework of Judeo-Christo-Islamic religions, the concept of free will dictates that God gave man/woman the option to follow his lead or not to follow his lead. Why diminish God's decree if you are a true follower?