Saudi Arabia's 'Anti-Witchcraft Unit' breaks another spell

[dead0man]

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<snicker>

[specific_name]

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<snicker>

A war on sorcery, that's something we need in America now that the war on an emotion is waning.

[John Dibble]

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What exactly do you find so funny about this? It may seem like mere nonsense, and it certainly is nonsense, but it has very real consequences. Nonsense ceases to be funny when people end up dying over it.

[dead0man]

You are, of course, correct.  It's not funny, it's depressing.  I guess I was laughing at the absurdity of it all and didn't really consider the individuals dying because of the stupidity of their leaders.

We really shouldn't be supporting these doughebags, but I suppose as long as we need that oil and they still have it we'll keep playing this game.  In the future we as a society will feel bad about it and think how stupid we were...and of course we will learn nothing from it.

[Gustaf]

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What exactly do you find so funny about this? It may seem like mere nonsense, and it certainly is nonsense, but it has very real consequences. Nonsense ceases to be funny when people end up dying over it.

I don't think it's necessarily mutually exclusive to laugh at a regime while recognizing the horror of it.

It's dangerous to trivialize evil, of course, but at the same time I think part of the Western enlightenment is essentially that we laugh at stupidity rather than hate on it.

I mean, have you never laughed at a Nazi joke?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Facing so much stupidity, crying or laughing are the only possible reactions indeed.

[John Dibble]

I don't think it's necessarily mutually exclusive to laugh at a regime while recognizing the horror of it.

It's dangerous to trivialize evil, of course, but at the same time I think part of the Western enlightenment is essentially that we laugh at stupidity rather than hate on it.

I mean, have you never laughed at a Nazi joke?

Well, there are certain things I'll laugh at that these regimes do, but mainly that's when they're doing something that's comparatively harmless compared to the other stuff they do - for instance a number of Kim Jong-Il's little quirks, like teaching in schools that he doesn't defecate. The fact that he feels the need to have that taught is absurd and can make you laugh at how much having absolute power can make a person crazy in the head - it's more of a side effect of the tyranny rather than being part of it. I can't bring myself to laugh at the witchcraft thing because it's directly part of the oppression.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

And in Iran, some of Ahmadinejad aides were charged with calling the djins.

Djins are big f**king deal.

[TheGlobalizer]

I don't think it's necessarily mutually exclusive to laugh at a regime while recognizing the horror of it.

I think this was the entire original point.

Comic laughter =/= condescending laughter

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

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<snicker>

A war on sorcery, that's something we need in America now that the war on an emotion is waning.

A lot of this article is about the US. Some schools actually banned it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_debates_over_the_Harry_Potter_series

[Peeperkorn]

Religious fundamentalism should be eradicated as smallpox.