Allah and the Evils of Dancing

[espritch]

According to an Article in today’s Charlotte Observer, Iran’s best known dancer and 24 of her students were arrested by Iranian authorities after giving a public performance for an all female audience.

Although there are no written laws against dancing, Iran’s hard line clerics have banned the activity which they consider a promotion of moral corruption.

This comes as no surprise. After all, the even more hard line Taliban banned not only dancing, but music and kite flying. The real aim of fundamentalism is to quash any activity that brings human beings pleasure or joy. After all, if people find any pleasure in life, they might not be as willing to spend all their time prostrate in Mosques and swallowing the crap the clerics want to feed them in hopes of gaining a little happiness in the afterlife.

It seems that Allah has rewarded their piety by randomly slaughtering up to 10,000 in the ancient Iranian city of Bam.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031226/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_earthquake&cid=540&ncid=716

A severe earthquake devastated the southeastern Iranian city of Bam on Friday, leveling more than half the city's houses and its historic mud-brick fortress. A preliminary estimate said the death toll could reach 10,000.

Is it wrong of me to suspect that this kind of news secretly warms the cockles of their cold shriveled little harts?

[Brown]

Additional quirk: The Iranian city of Bam is pronounced "bomb." No kidding.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Quirk number 2: Qom is pronounced "{clear throat}om."

I lived in Iran and have an Iranian (a girl btw) e-mail pal and this sort of theocratic crap grates on their nerves. I don't think they'd want pornos availible on every street corner, but I know they wouldn't want a complete separation of the sexes.

{agenda}
Iran is our natural ally in the middle east, almost as much so as Israel. By marginalizing and declaring them part of the "axis of evil" we set back our regaining a major oil supplying and strategic ally in that region by 10 years. Iran might never be another Germany or England, but it would be folly to convince the population we hold them in less than high regard.
{/agenda}

[Bikewer]

One seems to recall that the "other guy" wasn't too fond of dancing either (at least in some sects).

NPR had a brief "morning edition" segment a few weeks ago about an Xian school somewhere that had finally decided to let the kids have a prom.

[espritch]

Just as a point of clarification, I bear no ill will towards the Iranian people. I do not presume that all Iranians are fundamentalists. It is fundamentalism that I have a problem with. I find Jewish, Christian, and Hindu fundamentalism equally objectionable (not to mention such non-theistic versions of fundamentalism such as Fascism and Communism). They all suck.

[sparklecat]

Originally posted by Bikewer
One seems to recall that the "other guy" wasn't too fond of dancing either (at least in some sects).

NPR had a brief "morning edition" segment a few weeks ago about an Xian school somewhere that had finally decided to let the kids have a prom.

*grins*

I went to a Christian boarding school for awhile... the teachers allowed dancing at the Graduation banquet if it happened to spring up, but nothing organized was allowed- last time they tried, the school's sponsors had called in and threatened to withdraw their financial support if the dance went off as planned.

Luckily, the 'guys and girls have to be more than 6" apart, and we'll be walking around with a ruler to check that' rule was long gone by the time I came...

[MoeFaux]

I went to a private xtian school, and we didn't have school dances, we had "banquets". They were just events to dress up and go out to a semi-fancy restaraunt. No dancing. No "rock music".

My freshmean year, I lived in Southern California. A lot of the kids would spend weekends at Disneyland, where at the Carnation Plaza, they had swing dancing. One of the students suggested that we have swing dancing classes instead of P.E. So for about two weeks, about 15 of us ditched P.E. and danced in the school auditorium (the only place with proper room and away from teachers). We were caught, told our idea was insane, and sent back to class.

I was always taught that dancing was a sin. And, I guess, if you're doing it right, it is. Heh. But really, it's just as suggested in the first post. Anything that brings someone joy and "distracts" them from whatever god they're worshipping is usually banned.

[sparklecat]

Mmm, well, we were just told that dancing was the vertical expression of a horizontal desire...

[Bikewer]

I remember when I was a young kid, my parents went out to some nightclub and returned discussing how people there had been doing the "dog", and even.....the "Dirty Dog". (1950's..)

Naturally, I was consumed with interest as to what made the "dirty" version dirty....

[Yahweh]

DANCING!?! What did those girls think they were doing!?! Heathens the girls are!


Can I go back to thinking Muslim Law is stupid...

[shuize]

Originally posted by MoeFaux
I went to a private xtian school, and we didn't have school dances, we had "banquets". They were just events to dress up and go out to a semi-fancy restaraunt. No dancing. No "rock music".

My freshmean year, I lived in Southern California. A lot of the kids would spend weekends at Disneyland, where at the Carnation Plaza, they had swing dancing. One of the students suggested that we have swing dancing classes instead of P.E. So for about two weeks, about 15 of us ditched P.E. and danced in the school auditorium (the only place with proper room and away from teachers). We were caught, told our idea was insane, and sent back to class.

I was always taught that dancing was a sin. And, I guess, if you're doing it right, it is. Heh. But really, it's just as suggested in the first post. Anything that brings someone joy and "distracts" them from whatever god they're worshipping is usually banned.

Dancing a sin. Banquets. Southern California.

SDA?

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by shuize


Dancing a sin. Banquets. Southern California.

SDA?

That's the one. My father was associate pastor for a few years at a church in Westminster. Then we moved back to Northern California.
Are you familiar with them?

[Mercutio]

Which church was it (I'm thinking southern baptist) about whom it was said "they are opposed to sex, because it might lead to dancing"...?

[shuize]

Originally posted by MoeFaux


That's the one. My father was associate pastor for a few years at a church in Westminster. Then we moved back to Northern California.
Are you familiar with them?

Oh yeah. As a kid I spent time in Loma Linda, California where they deliver the mail on Sundays rather than on "Sabbath."

[phildonnia]

Originally posted by Brown
Additional quirk: The Iranian city of Bam is pronounced "bomb." No kidding.

Just yesterday I was imagining some alternate universe in which the Farsi term for "utter destruction" was pronounced "Paso Robles, California". Thus, much snickering in the city of Bam about such an unfortunately named city finally meeting its destiny.

[SFB]

Originally posted by espritch
After all, if people find any pleasure in life, they might not be as willing to spend all their time prostrate in Mosques and swallowing the crap the clerics want to feed them in hopes of gaining a little happiness in the afterlife.

I agree with everything you posted, but I think clerics would say the only way to find pleasure is prostrate in a mosque. IOW, that's the only thing worth living for, hence one gains happiness reverring Allah.

Not that I agree ....... Just what they would say. Same for many religions, esp. here in the US. They see spiritualism as a means to enlightenment, a way to transcend everyday life which is base or corrupt (for a Muslim, not all that different from original sin).

This is a very fundamental concept which is very difficult to break from, or break people from.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound preachy!!! (Pun intended.) Just saw a chance to split hairs, expand a bit.

[Suezoled]

There's a tiny group of people up here called Shakers. They are very religious, and if you live among them boys are on one end, girls another, ne'er the two shall meet (except meals). They don't have sex and don't reproduce. To increase their numbers, they take in orphans and stray peoples. Once someone is accepted, they are welcome to leave anytime if they want. And they dance; to celebrate a God they believe is gentle and kind and good, to celebrate each other's company, to thank life. They arrange in a circle, and follow the patterns to a dance, and never touch. But they dance.

[espritch]

I agree with everything you posted, but I think clerics would say the only way to find pleasure is prostrate in a mosque. IOW, that's the only thing worth living for, hence one gains happiness reverring Allah.

I'm sure that is what they would say. And if that is how they wish to conduct their own lives, more power to them. The problem is that they are not satisfied to just deny their own basic humanity - they want everyone else to do so as well and are quite willing to use violence to achieve that end. Muhammad himself was quite willing to force his religion on others at the point of a sword.

[Ladewig]

Which church was it (I'm thinking southern baptist) about whom it was said "they are opposed to sex, because it might lead to dancing"...?


The joke is: thay are opposed to any sexual position involving standing because it might lead to dancing.

[Crossbow]

Sounds like they need a Muslim version of that Kevin Bacon movie.

:p

[tedly]

Originally posted by Mercutio
Which church was it (I'm thinking southern baptist) about whom it was said "they are opposed to sex, because it might lead to dancing"...?
Here it's Mennonites who won't dance, and the line goes 'Why won't Mennonites (do IT) standing up? People might think they were dancing.'

[ggcarl]

I was at a holiday party the other night, when dancing broke out spontaneously. A lot of black people were there and they were really "getting down." One 20-year-old woman was dancing rather suggestively, sticking her butt out, writhing it side to side in the crotch of a 15-year-old boy. The boy was obviously turned on.

The woman sitting next to me said something like, "If he ain't got a boner by now, he ain't human."

The boy's Mother noticed the dancing, too, and quickly stepped in to drag him away. I saw them over in the corner right after, she with a stern look on her face apparently giving him the riot act. I know her to be a devout Snapper.

I ask you: Which is more harmful, a boy getting a hard-on from suggestive dancing, or praying on a rug 5 times a day to an invisible guy?

Gimme the boner any day. Religion sucks in every way.