Harry's Place

Anyone converted to Satanism can go to hell.

If this doesn’t mean that Turkey is ready for EU membership, nothing does.

Can I call a friend? Beelzebub…

Personally I’m also amazed at the concept of an evangelistic Rabbi.

The question in my mind is will the Rabbi on the show tell the prospective convert to bugger off three times before the show ends as per tradition, or will they show a live adult Bris?

Should be strange but interesting.

Lol @ Trundlemaster.

I should think any atheist who converts to Islam on TV will want to think about this decision very carefully – given the rather unpleasant possible consequences of a recantation when the entire of Turkey know one’s face and name.

This is no more dumb an idea then those of most “Reality” TV shows.

I’d have thought a theologian would be extremely well placed to “assess atheist credentials”, all things considered. Someone with that kind of knowledge would more or less be required to wheedle out people who describe themselves as atheists but who really are nothing of the sort (not a rare breed).

Is it a Lubavitcher rabbi?

If this doesn’t mean that Turkey is ready for EU membership, nothing does.

According to this report, the government and Islamic religious authorities in Turkey are opposed to the concept and the airing of this program. It’s the show’s producers who defend it the program as a demonstration of tolerance toward non-Muslim minorities in Turkey, showing Turkey to be a worthy candidate for EU membership.

But religious authorities in Muslim but secular Turkey are not amused by the twist on the popular reality game show format and the Religious Affairs Directorate is refusing to provide an imam for the show.

“Doing something like this for the sake of ratings is disrespectful to all religions. Religion should not be a subject for entertainment programmes,” High Board of Religious Affairs Chairman Hamza Aktan told state news agency Anatolian after news of the planned programme emerged.

The makers of “Penitents Compete” are unrepentant and reject claims that the show, scheduled to begin broadcasting in September, will cheapen religion.

“We are giving the biggest prize in the world, the gift of belief in God,” Kanal T chief executive Seyhan Soylu told Reuters.

“We don’t approve of anyone being an atheist. God is great and it doesn’t matter which religion you believe in. The important thing is to believe,” Soylu said.

The project focuses attention on the issue of religious identity in European Union-candidate Turkey, where rights groups have raised concerns over freedom of religion for non-Muslim minorities.

Detractors of the ruling AK Party government, which is rooted in political Islam but officially secular, accuse it of having a hidden Islamist agenda, a charge it denies.

Some 200 people have so far applied to take part in the show and the 10 contestants will be chosen next month.

I think there’s an antizionist angle here that isn’t being properly exploited against the shows’ producers given that an atheist contestant who converts to or decides to practice Judaism is sent to the city where according to several leading Palestinian politicians and clerics, including the northern Israel chapter of the Islamic Council, Jews have no historic, religious, or cultural connection to Jerusalem whatsoever.

Can we do the show in reverse? Who wants to be an atheist!

Deeply believing Muslims and Jews can compete at eating pork. Hindus can eat beef.

Maybe we can put a priest into an orgy or two. Maybe a gay orgy.

This show has potential.

Hmm my comment didn’t appear.

Am I banned now?

If this doesn’t mean that Turkey is ready for EU membership, nothing does.

Hitchens -”Ankara Shows Its Hand – Turkey’s scheming at the Strasbourg summit proves it doesn’t belong in the European Union.” source

It might lead to the mass conversion of Turkey to Judaism, Christianity or Bhuddism. Have they thought of that?

Trundlemaster
9 July 2009, 8:50 pm

Personally I’m also amazed at the concept of an evangelistic Rabbi.

I guess you’ve never run into a Lubovitcher. I understand they ambush all sorts of males, Jewish or not, and strap phlactyres on them and get them to recite prayers with them.

As for an adult bris, I understand from a Turkish Muslim friend they circumsize males when they become adolescents.

Lbnaz: anti-zionist, perhaps, but in that case, you’d think they’d be promising to send Muslims to “Quds”, wouldn’t you?

They did have quite a good program called the Monastary on BBC TV, where people went on retreat and one of them ended up converting, but it wasn’t a contest. I see I missed the follow ups and another programme in the series where they went to a Muslim place.
http://www.findingsanctuary.org/monastery.htm

Then there was an awful series called Make me a Muslim on Channel 4 where an increasingly impatient and irate man tried to convince awful people to become Muslim. I don’t know if he succeeded as I lost interest.

http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/makeme.html

This show sounds more like The Bachelor than Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

I’d “convert” to Buddhism for a free trip to Tibet.

This blog could provide a whole host of entertaining contestants.

I would pay to see Venichka v Morgoth on Turkish TV.

I think we’d both get on quite well. We may disagree philosophically on al manner of things, but at the end of the day we are both stubborn Ulstermen.

Can you *convert* to Buddhism?

And given that Buddhism is a religion without a firm notion, nor indeed need for deity, how would one go about converting an atheist to a religion without need for a god?

The point is that they may not ‘convert’ to Buddhism, but they can ‘renounce’ Islam. Then, the entire population of Turkey would be forced to kill each other. It would be like Easter Island all over again. What would the last man do?

Wouldn’t be a thrilling programme if they could get Allah, Jehova, and God to compete on screen for the atheist’s allegiance? Imagine the amazing digital-like camera effects, only this time it would be for real.

Hahaha religious people!

Isn’t it WE who convert THEM?!

Isn’t that why we have something called “Progress”?!?!?!

Or?

Leon: is your second name “Trotsky”?

I’m sure I’ve heard this argument before. I don’t recall it worked out too well.

Actually, there do seem to be some positive moves regarding religious liberty in Turkey

eg
http://www.churchinneed.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5907&news_iv_ctrl=1001

Seemingly some (very long-awaited) moves to reopen an Orthodox Christian seminary forcibly closed by the state 40 years ago may be on the cards too.

http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/turkey-might-reopen-greek-seminary-2834528

I think we’d both get on quite well. We may disagree philosophically on al manner of things, but at the end of the day we are both stubborn Ulstermen.

Exactly.

Though Ven is only an Ulsterman by proximity *runs away chortling from the thread*

I want to see them take on The Hitch, He spectacularily demolished American religious loon Ray Comfort recently.

Habibi -haha; I was just thinking the same thing, but in fairness I think that if the various clerics fail to convince the contestants, the latter should be allowed to choose a destination for a trip for them.

I really must find a bookies who will take a bet that the Hitch (C., should there be any doubt in the matter) that he will convert to Catholicism before he dies.

I think it’s pretty much a dead cert: we’ve kind of been here before, in the 1890s and the age of the green carnation and so on. Even Oscar Wilde came to his senses after living a life I guess even more disordered that C. Hitchens.

I’d like to see Fr Z take on Hitch (I don’t think the latters arguments are terribly compelling or coherent)

Ah Pascal’s wager (a comforting idea for those of a religious persuasion.)

Pascal’s wager is a bit simplistic and even egotistical, and the man was, elsewhere, too close to Jansenism for comfort.

“Only true non-believers need apply. An eight-strong commission of theologians will assess the atheist credentials of would-be contestants before deciding who should take part.”

Well we know why that is.

But wouldn’t it be fun for an atheist to enter the contest, get converted to Judaism, and then shout ” Praise Jehovah, I was a miserable muslim but now I am cleansed!”. Live, on air.

I really must find a bookies who will take a bet that the Hitch (C., should there be any doubt in the matter) that he will convert to Catholicism before he dies.

Ah, the arrogance of the Theist personified.

Colin,

There is a rather funny on-line flash game where various deities or prophets beat the shit out of each other… it rather upset the Big Bearded Ones a while back.

Faith Fighter One can be got here:

http://www.molleindustria.org/faith-fighter-one

I’m a true non-believer and want to apply, but first I have to check the credentials of the theologian members of the commission.

Oh look at the arrogance of the atheist personified prancing about in this thread. Go and feed your cats…

No cats in the house. They are the representatives of some Egyptian gods.

Converts will be monitored to ensure their religious transformation is genuine and not simply a ruse to gain a free foreign trip.

Impossible, of course.

Lynn T said:”I guess you’ve never run into a Lubovitcher. I understand they ambush all sorts of males, Jewish or not, and strap phlactyres on them and get them to recite prayers with them.”

I live amongst the Lubavitchers and other Hasidim and I’ve seen this. Haven’t seen them collar non Jews though.

None of the Rabbonim I know would ever dream of breaching someone’s inherent right to freedom of thought and and religion and try to PERSUADE a person to become Jewish.

Having seen up close the ways that some Christian evangelists gain converts (aggressive persuasion, playing on a person’s weaknesses, spiritual ‘demonstrations’ such as exorcisms etc etc) I respect and admire even more the normative non evangelist policy of Judaism.

The desire in a religion to ’soul win’ to use a Christian evangelist term does lead to oppression of others because of the evangelising religions need to have the whole world under one doctrine or deity whatever that may be.

You can read my post about this here:

http://martininthemargins.blogspot.com/2009/07/any-god-will-do.html

If you did a “who wants to be an atheist” program, where would you send someone as a prize?

I kinda lean towards something like a space station. They can be in the real “heaven”

Trundlemaster,

“The desire in a religion to ’soul win’ to use a Christian evangelist term does lead to oppression of others because of the evangelising religions need to have the whole world under one doctrine or deity whatever that may be.”

Agreed absolutely. It rather falls under what the wonderful opponent of Calvin’s intransigence and bigotry, the French humanist Protestant, Sebastian Castellio, called “the vanity of theology”.

On a lighter note, here is a fatwa on the permissibility of eating mermaids. It asserts, inter alia:

“Many of the fuqaha’ mentioned mermaids and differed on the ruling concerning them. Some of them said that they are permissible (to eat) because of the general meaning of the evidence which says that whatever is in the sea is permissible. This is the view of the Shaafa’is and Hanbalis, and is the view of most of the Maalikis and of Ibn Hazm and others. And some of them regarded it as haraam because it is not a kind of fish. This is the view of the Hanafis and of al-Layth ibn Sa’d.”

This should sponsor a few conversions to Islam (not).

source: http://www.islam-qa.com/en/ref/103991/mermaids