John Smith lived a secret life before fleeing to Australia and changing his name

[danieldemol]

'The Iranian-born reverend now known as John Smith was arrested twice after secretly converting to Christianity in his homeland and put into isolation. Fleeing to Australia, he was free to establish a unique church for others like him...


...Born in Iran to a Muslim family, he attended mosque until he was 18, when, as an adult, he learned of crimes committed by his imam and began to question his religion.

Seeking to learn about Christianity, he secretly attended underground meetings of Christian converts but was discovered by members of the disciplinary force of the Islamic Republic of Iran....




....“When they arrested me for the first time, I was held in isolation in a two-metre-wide cell for 57 days," he tells SBS News in Persian.

"I wasn’t allowed to see or speak to anyone except the investigator."

“In those 57 days, I had the luxury of two showers, each one for a maximum of three minutes, during which I was blindfolded.”

His charge was collaboration with a Zionist regime, seen as a precursor to apostasy, or abandoning his religion.'


Read more here:
John Smith lived a secret life before fleeing to Australia and changing his name

 

[Shadow Wolf]

People should read this story before complaining covid restrictions are tyranny.

 

[Sunstone]

People should read this story before complaining covid restrictions are tyranny.

Is 'morality' still a thing? Does it still apply to behaviors that unnecessarily risk other people's lives?

I don't have a name for a period or time when such questions become meaningful.

 

[Sunstone]

'The Iranian-born reverend now known as John Smith was arrested twice after secretly converting to Christianity in his homeland and put into isolation. Fleeing to Australia, he was free to establish a unique church for others like him...


...Born in Iran to a Muslim family, he attended mosque until he was 18, when, as an adult, he learned of crimes committed by his imam and began to question his religion.

Seeking to learn about Christianity, he secretly attended underground meetings of Christian converts but was discovered by members of the disciplinary force of the Islamic Republic of Iran....




....“When they arrested me for the first time, I was held in isolation in a two-metre-wide cell for 57 days," he tells SBS News in Persian.

"I wasn’t allowed to see or speak to anyone except the investigator."

“In those 57 days, I had the luxury of two showers, each one for a maximum of three minutes, during which I was blindfolded.”

His charge was collaboration with a Zionist regime, seen as a precursor to apostasy, or abandoning his religion.'


Read more here:
John Smith lived a secret life before fleeing to Australia and changing his name

I think it's important -- crucial actually -- to understand these things as frequent human behaviors and, in some genetic way, potential or latent in nearly every human. Among so many other reasons, unless large enough numbers of us can see these things for what they are, we cannot as nations be expected to choose our leaders nearly as wisely as we need to choose them.

It seems so clear to me that there's too much assuming some guy doesn't have it in him be some thing, then guess what? He gets in office and it turns out he is exactly that thing.

DNA, anyone?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Is 'morality' still a thing? Does it still apply to behaviors that unnecessarily risk other people's lives?

I don't have a name for a period or time when such questions become meaningful.

I love John Stewart Mill's example of a business owner destroying his wooden sign, and pondering the morality of it and weighing it from a perspective of it being private and personal property but also an act that needlessly deprives the community of resources. It's probably one of the single best things I've read in regards to at least attempting to evaluate my actions in regards to their effects on others, because there are many little things that can add up.
Today I don't know. It's like we'll smash our neighbor's sign and scream it was our right and insist we live dictatorship if we can't do that, but yet fight tooth and nail and scream that it violates our rights should our neighbor seek to destroy our own sign.
Never mind the fact you have very real repression like in the OP going on in the world.

 

[danieldemol]

I think it's important -- crucial actually -- to understand these things as frequent human behaviors and, in some genetic way, potential or latent in nearly every human. Among so many other reasons, unless large enough numbers of us can see these things for what they are, we cannot as nations be expected to choose our leaders nearly as wisely as we need to choose them.

It seems so clear to me that there's too much assuming some guy doesn't have it in him be some thing, then guess what? He gets in office and it turns out he is exactly that thing.

DNA, anyone?

Yes we alll have potential to be tyrannical dictators. I can only hope that as few as possible who would actually realise that potential gain power, and oppose those who have that power who have realised that potential.

And above all be thankful that I'll never wield that power myself.

 

[Sunstone]

And above all be thankful that I'll never wield that power myself.

You're one of only a handful of people I've seen in my life make that point without needing much prompting, Dan. Thanks for that.

I don't think humanity will ever be lucky enough that even half of us see why it would be a good thing if everyone thought that way about themselves, but I hope I'm someday wrong about that.