I just read this on Pharyngula and couldn’t stomach it. It’s the story of a professor of Malayalam in Kerala, India. He used a question on a test asking students to specify the punctuation. Somehow, this innocuous paragraph enraged local Muslims. He was suspended, then arrested, and finally had a group of the devoted and loving followers of this peaceful faith cut his hand off. PZ has all the details with links, so rather than re-post them here I’ll just ask you to read the Pharyngula entry for the full story.

Muslim sympathizers will no doubt be quick to shriek, “But Jim, there are bad eggs in every faith!” You’re right. And they’re all worthy of my scorn. If I heard about Christians or Buddhists or Atheists (which is NOT a faith no matter what the faithful will tell you) behaving like this I would be equally sickened. All religion breeds zealots, and all zealots are terrorists.

My thoughts are with professor TJ Joseph, and I do hope that he finds some peace in his life. Something tells me he isn’t going to find it in a mosque or the writings of a tyrant.

Jim