Its not about religion, its politics. A few years ago the Pakistani military overthrew a very popular prime minister who publicly said that it was the military behind his removal. Then slowly and gradually there was more and more evidence behind military involvement which as a result, made the public anti-military. They have been kidnapping and torturing anyone critical of them.
But the more they oppress, the more people become anti-military. It got to the point that in february the government blocked access to twitter because of anti-military sentiment, so people started using VPNs. Now this “religious body” which is government appointed claims to block VPN because “people are watching immoral things via VPN”. But in reality, it is to stop people organizing protests.
Also a governmental body can not decide what is islamic or not, thats not how islamic law works. It has to come from islamic scholars and there needs to be consus on it.
I don’t think any major islamic scholar who lives inside pakistan has signed or approved this message even though they want to stop porn they know its not about stopping porn, its about making it difficult to criticize the military.
It’s about religion. In a theocracy religion is politics, and law, and culture too.
Religion isn’t something that empowers people to do more or live more freely. Religious dogma is nothing more than a set of arbitrary laws and norms, written and decided by man, but given the weight and authority of god(s)–the fear of eternal damnation in the afterlife being the only way that people knew to keep others in line in a world devoid of secular laws.
How did we convince women that they were lesser beings throughout human history? Why do we consider some forms of consensual adult sexuality to be morally wrong? Why do we believe that human beings are destined and entitled to live on this planet forever no matter how poorly we treat it?
The answer is religion. Religion is mass delusion, used mainly as a tool of oppression. Socrates was sentenced to death by a jury of Athenians for thought crimes against Athena, showing that religion, democracy and justice simply do not mix. Thousands of years ago (or more) gods and religious law were the inventions that ushered humanity into the post-truth world that we live in today.
Look we can criticize religion for its issues all we want but in this specific case, they are using religion as a tool to get what they want. If it weren’t for religion, they would use something else.
“Terrorists are using VPNs to evade law enforcement”
Or maybe something racism related
Fascist/authoritarian governments always use something to control the public.
Call it “stories that people are taking way too seriously”. I’m sure that you can think of other stories that people take way too seriously too, that have nothing to do with religion.
I think that we might be seeing the power of propaganda there. Consider that the science of propaganda is very old. Thousands of years old. There’s population-control psychology there. It’s got hooks.
(On the flipside, imposing a set of rules for moral behavior is a good thing. People can be animals. And if you need to cite an old story about gods and wizards to give those rules some oomph then so be it.)
Its not about religion, its politics. A few years ago the Pakistani military overthrew a very popular prime minister who publicly said that it was the military behind his removal. Then slowly and gradually there was more and more evidence behind military involvement which as a result, made the public anti-military. They have been kidnapping and torturing anyone critical of them.
But the more they oppress, the more people become anti-military. It got to the point that in february the government blocked access to twitter because of anti-military sentiment, so people started using VPNs. Now this “religious body” which is government appointed claims to block VPN because “people are watching immoral things via VPN”. But in reality, it is to stop people organizing protests.
Also a governmental body can not decide what is islamic or not, thats not how islamic law works. It has to come from islamic scholars and there needs to be consus on it.
I don’t think any major islamic scholar who lives inside pakistan has signed or approved this message even though they want to stop porn they know its not about stopping porn, its about making it difficult to criticize the military.
It’s about religion. In a theocracy religion is politics, and law, and culture too.
Religion isn’t something that empowers people to do more or live more freely. Religious dogma is nothing more than a set of arbitrary laws and norms, written and decided by man, but given the weight and authority of god(s)–the fear of eternal damnation in the afterlife being the only way that people knew to keep others in line in a world devoid of secular laws.
How did we convince women that they were lesser beings throughout human history? Why do we consider some forms of consensual adult sexuality to be morally wrong? Why do we believe that human beings are destined and entitled to live on this planet forever no matter how poorly we treat it?
The answer is religion. Religion is mass delusion, used mainly as a tool of oppression. Socrates was sentenced to death by a jury of Athenians for thought crimes against Athena, showing that religion, democracy and justice simply do not mix. Thousands of years ago (or more) gods and religious law were the inventions that ushered humanity into the post-truth world that we live in today.
Look we can criticize religion for its issues all we want but in this specific case, they are using religion as a tool to get what they want. If it weren’t for religion, they would use something else.
“Terrorists are using VPNs to evade law enforcement”
Or maybe something racism related
Fascist/authoritarian governments always use something to control the public.
Call it “stories that people are taking way too seriously”. I’m sure that you can think of other stories that people take way too seriously too, that have nothing to do with religion.
I think that we might be seeing the power of propaganda there. Consider that the science of propaganda is very old. Thousands of years old. There’s population-control psychology there. It’s got hooks.
(On the flipside, imposing a set of rules for moral behavior is a good thing. People can be animals. And if you need to cite an old story about gods and wizards to give those rules some oomph then so be it.)
No, it’s definitely religion. Always has been.
Do you understand that they are using religion as an excuse? If that wasn’t an option, they would just use something else.
That’s exactly what organized religions are designed to do in action, crowd control