Actually I believe the Maldives has been traditionally tolerant, but fast degenerating into an intolerant society.

The intolerant constitution doesn't really help matters.

So why don't we skip God and his rules.
Problem is increasing number of radicalization in the country and intolerance.
The Sharia law of choping heads not in place does not mean we are tolerant. We lack the very freedom to chose our faith.

Dear Anonymous@11:08(April 04) (why the hell do people have to still be cowards?),

People like you are empowering religious fanatics. You and your kind turn everything into a battle of theologies. There is no need to change the beliefs of ordinary citizens in order to enforce better justice. If you did not get that jest from my post then you should go back to studying English perhaps.

Just so that people like you understand: there is nothing stopping the parliament from enacting better service (not the people and certainly not God). The only thing that may stop them is the influence of money and the politics of the administration (either one of which is not SUPPOSED TO be a hindrance after the recent separation of powers). The same goes for the judiciary.

Cowards will be cowards regardless of whether they are Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews, atheists, etc.

Im sorry but it is a battle now isn't it? Do you agree to the fact that our society is being talibanized day after day? I really didn't get the jest, perhaps you fail to deliver.

Just so you know, religion is politics and purely politics. Do some self studies and think little bit before calling other cowards!

Dear Anonymous@1:35pm,

I'm afraid you're the one who's still anonymous. Our society is not getting talibanized contrary to what everyone is claiming. This ranting is only you and your kind politicizing to achieve theological disorder in the country.

You yourself have proven my point. I am telling you that if parliamentarians were more active they can develop much of what's missing in law (as proven by Ibra). I'm saying that people's beliefs (again, regardless of whatever friggin' religion), has nothing to do with the inaction of the police, the government, the legislature or the parliamentarians.

Murdering babies, molesting one's own child, embezzling the people's money, religious fanaticism, etc., are all crimes which can only be remedied by authorities which are more intent on pursuing justice.

The people have already elected a government. They have entrusted the pursuit of justice unto the authorities which were yielded from democracy. These authorities are now in charge and unhindered by anything other than the people's call for justice (not for religious fanaticism, but justice). Don't blame the radicalization of these authorities on the people's beliefs. Just because there are some of us who'd like to work in the nude doesn't mean the government has to acquiesce (perhaps when these beliefs are held by the majority, as per the rule of democracy).

How is persona non grata any less anonymous?
Im not politicizing anything.
You do not understand the fact that the parliment mambers are 100% moslems who has only a freedom that is provided in the constitution which is within the tenets of Islam. What parliament you are talking abt? those who did the current constitution?

The inaction of police and laws has eveything to do with peoples faith and belief. Thats why my friend you can not question about validity of what you have been asked to believe. How can majlis allow couples to sleep in hotel rooms when our little minds can not understand that not all humans rent rooms to have orgies...

With the current constitution and the mindset of ordinary ppl, govt is religion (eventhough we do not have Sharia law implemented yet), its religion that rules. Your fantasy to reform laws without considering the religious belief is not achievable especially with the increasing number of beards and veils. Now don't tell me there are no veiled insecure women in the coutry, a bloody 90% of it is dominant in our society.

Not all the problems which are plaguing us are religious in nature and since it is more of social problems arising from lack of infrastructure lack of facilities low living condition problems of wealth distribution the slandered of available education. A good point to note is that religion is something that a person falls back in state of psychosocial weakness out of depression. So therefore the real problem is are rarely discussed and in a shallow manner the awe and shock of the current events with no roots are always discussed.

Here the majority of the people did not get a good education live in slums how can these people think beyond the horizon. the society as a whole has a mental block. We maybe utilizing modern technology modern science to some extent but most us are still in the mental dark ages.

This is the real problem. when these issues are tacked the society will open us and be more free.

We love to blame our own inefficiencies and shortcomings and mistakes on other things, like lack of capacity, lack of human resources Bla Bla Bla... When whatever capacity we do have is engaged in doing quizzes or commenting on pictures on facebook, or twittering or chatting during the working hours.

We need to change our "Art of doing nothing" attitude soon. Sorry if I strayed a bit away from the topic, but I feel this is root cause of our problems that you have mentioned here.

In response to the original post, Maldives was a very promiscuous place, is, and will be.

We've evolved in terms of punishments, but there is a long way to go.

And btw, hands don't get decapitated. :-) only heads.

Warm Pixels,

Did you really refer a dictionary before you made that comment on decapitating hands? If not, go refer one now (a proper one mind, not just the free version of www.m-w.com). It's because of belligerent idiots like you that the whole process of intelligent debate fails. Learn first, before you preach.

decapitate
/dikappitayt/

• verb cut off the head of.

— DERIVATIVES decapitation noun.

— ORIGIN Latin decapitare, from caput ‘head’.

And that's from the oxford dictionary. Try one. It's not that expensive.

Your lovely little tweak about belligerence is the funniest thing because I actually liked the post you wrote... but now it sounds like the sort of hollow rhetoric one would hear at a mob.

Warm Pixels,

What did I tell you?! Go look it up in a real dictionary. Not a free one like the URL you got that last excerpt from.

I can understand that you're feeling humiliated because I inferred that you're a nutcase. I apologize for that. I should have called you a precocious pretender instead.

Next time, in promulgating your esoteric cogitations, or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications possess a clarified conciseness, a compacted comprehensibleness, coalescent consistency, and a concatenated cogency. Eschew all conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement, and asinine affectations.

Let your extemporaneous descantings and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity, without rodomontade or thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolixity, psittaceous vacuity ventriloquial verbosity, and vaniloquent vapidity. Shun double-entendres, prurient jocosity, and pestiferous profanity, obscurant or apparent!! ;)

Thought I share this jokes since you guys are squabbling over terminology now

Hi Shaafiee,

"Failure to bring paedophiles to justice is not God's failure"

But failure to criminalize paedophilia and failure to denounce harm in anyway to children in any of God's books are, in my opinion, God's failures.

God's failure in recognizing that harm to loving parents's child by anyone, whether sexually or physical, can traumatize, make emotions flare to unspeakable levels as well as afflict the said parents and child psychologically is God's utter failure.

God has touched upon matters that are far more trivial such as stealing. One may say that stealing can cause grievance to the owner but does not the level of grievance depend on the intrinsic or emotional value of the stolen object?

In comparison, if an adult were to so much as push my child to cause harm, no law is going to stop me from beating the crap out of them. Such precious are our children to us.

It is widely believed, as I'm certain you do as well, that God's words act as deterrents to evil behaviour. If you steal you lose a hand. If you commit adultry you get flogged or stoned. All these punishments are there as deterrents. Where is the deterrent towards causing harm to children? What has God promised in hellish retribution for paedophilia?

That is where God has failed and failed the most important asset of any society in any point in time: its children.

Now, one may argue that regardless of whether God denounced and criminalize paedophilia and harm to children, immoral humans will still exploit them. This is irrelevant to the point I am raising.

In fact, this brings me to your main argument. That ultimately humans have the moral responsiblity to create laws and formulate punishments for criminal behaviour. While your post just stops short of making God irrelevant to society at large it nevertheless makes a valid point about about implementation of social controls and doing is broadly and efficiently.

But I must agree with anonymous somewhat. That in a country such as ours, everything is inextricably linked to beliefs because society as a whole is conditioned to view the world through the foggy lens of religious doctrines.

Dear Simon,

I'm not contesting any Quranic verses (pun?). In fact, I don't want to, because that's not the point of my post. The point I make in my post is that the people's beliefs (whatever these beliefs) are not empowering the government's inaction. Hence, the lack of justice does not hinge on religion, but the failure of relevant entities in being objective about achieving it. Nothing in the current constitution prevents these entities from pursuing justice (not even the insert about enacting Hadh as per Quran).

Suppose there was something in the constitution which prevents the government from bringing paedophiles to justice. Then they should be hard at work on remedying this.

Dear Shaafiee,

Maumoon is gone, Ilyas Ibrahim is gone... No more FPID, no more torture in jail... mvbloggers can't make fun of Anni, they been looking for a target and it came to them after watching couple of documentaries by Richard Dawkin's. Hmmm...BLAME it all on someone who holds NO RESPONSIBILITY of our current state of affairs: GOD!

You name it pedophilia, incest, rape, women with long arm-pit hair you name we can all blame it on GOD.

You win. Your stupidity is astounding.

@ simonshareef:
"But failure to criminalize paedophilia and failure to denounce harm in anyway to children in any of God's books are, in my opinion, God's failures."

God forbade fornication. God forbade incest .

shaafy,

i also tried to look up "decapitate" and this is what i got:

# cut the head of; "the French King was beheaded during the Revolution"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

# Decapitation (from Latin, caput, capitis, meaning head), or beheading, is the cutting off of the head of a person or animal. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapitate

# To remove the head of
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/decapitate

# decapitation - execution by cutting off the victim's head
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

# Decapitated is a technical death metal band from Poland. They formed in 1996 in Krosno in southern Poland, when all the members were still ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decapitated

# decapitation - The act of beheading; beheading
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/decapitation

# decapitation - The act of beheading a person, usually instantly such as with a large and heavy knife or by guillotine, as a form of capital punishment. This form of capital punishment is still in use in some Arab countries, notably Saudi Arabia.
www.4lawschool.com/dic/dict-d.htm
I like your posts and I believe Symon (the atheist) to be a buffoon and in my view the devil-incarnate, trying to make this whole country godless ... however;

That's actually quite a lot of definitions. pray tell where you got the definition where it talks about hands?!

People,

One definition that my dictionary gives for 'decapitation' is 'cut the end or top from (something)'. This is why I asked Warm Pixels to avoid relying solely on online dictionaries. Hasaint (or whoever he is) has listed a whole barrage of online references. These sites will usually have a free portion and a subscribed portion. Of course, not all of us can afford paying for accurate information.

Sorry Shafy, that explanation is utterly ludicrous. Come on man, ALL these "online" definitions cannot be wrong. And not even one single mention of the "hand cutting"!!!

You are just trying really hard to find a way out of something really stupid and trying even harder to justify that you are right. Well, you and me both know that in this particular instance you are just talking bullshit and not wanting to admit defeat. That's a human trait I believe so I'm not really surprised. Symon (the atheist) is very much like that too sometimes (I've seen his blog entries and his replies).

I've also Googled for decapitation and hand and I've yet to come across anything meaningful that puts any faith to what you are talking about here. And I'm pretty sure the whole Google (with so many peoples ideas, opinions, etc) can also be wrong.

The online definition dictionaries today most likely carry more weight than most books today on the market - definitely sites like Wiki where contributions come from the best of the best to the village idiot.

I'm bet you are just darn stubborn. Admit you are wrong this time. I'm sure in the long run your arguments will hold more water in the future then.

And I guarantee you that coming up with your own dictionary would be a silly idea with all these "online" dictionaries already out there. And please don't get with the "free portion" barrage - knowledge like this today IS free! And it is, mostly accurate too!

Let's let the readers (who have proper paid-for dictionaries at home) decide. Also, let's see what the reflection is on the claim that 'online definition dictionaries today most likely carry more weight than most books today on the market - definitely sites like Wiki where contributions come from the best of the best to the village idiot.'

This is the point where I've lost respect for you, unfortunately. Just don't wont to give up eh? And high time I'm willing to agree with what Warm Pixels eventually said ... "You win. Your stupidity is astounding." - calling you a moron will not be an insult now.

Seriously Shafy, ... "Let's let the readers (who have proper paid-for dictionaries at home) decide..." statistics today show that the print medium (especially for lookups & reference is at a very low today as opposed to what it used to be 8-10 years ago)

You yourself seem to agree that readers will reply to this blog (because they DO NOT indulge in the use of printed dictionaries and what not that much any more). Why should they? Online or computer search is so much faster. and IT IS reliable too.

Why? Are you wishing to go back to the rock ages? You are contradicting yourself. No amount of your argument is going to justify that decapitate is associated with hands! Thats it. Period! Just don't be silly anymore. I would think you are more sensible than that!

"... not all of us can afford paying for accurate information."

Paying somehow made it accurate? Hehehe. Don't make us laugh.

Sorry Bin Laid (or Simon, or whoever). You're still wrong and I am right. And many readers will be wondering about why you're getting worked up over this. And they're also wondering why I'm being targeted, especially consider I'm right. Awaiting your next reply. Sincerely.