Adam and Eve Half-Naked in the Garden

(Video from Ricky Gervais)

Christopher Hitchen's latest book, God is Not Great, is subtitled How Religion Poisons Everything. This story is illustrative of his point.

In Pakistan, a monthly fashion magazine called Octane published an image of Hazrat Adam and Amma Hawwa, who are apparently the Islamic version of Adam and Eve. The fact that they were pictured "half-naked" made a local cleric see red, and he promptly issued a fatwa against the magazine's owners and publishers for committing blasphemy.

Funny, I thought being half-naked was an integral part of the story, what with the whole fig leaf fashion show and all. Call me crazy, but the death penalty seems just a wee bit harsh for not putting trousers on Adam and a moo-moo on Eve.

In another demonstration of the clerics' power in Pakistan, Nilofar Bakhtiar, the country's female Tourism Minister, was forced to resign after clerics threw a hissy fit upon seeing a photograph of her giving a hug to her male coach after completing a para-jump in France. Never mind the fact that she had done the para-jump as part of an effort to raise money for the victims of the Pakistan earthquake of October 2005. No, she was a hugger and so she had to go.

Sheesh. Just....sheesh.