We in the West got over our fears of the supernatural a bit late - if you ask me, as someone who still believes in the mystical/spiritual realms I know that fear is an un-allowable weakness in them as it is here in the mundane world. You should overcome all fears.
I think the last woman was executed acused of witchcraft in England sometime in the mid 1600's and of course there were the infamious Salem trials here in America --- there may still be witches, but we don't burn them any longer... or cut off their heads, or stone them ... or hang them ... or, well you get the point, we just leave them alone.
But in the center of Islam, Saudi Arabia .. that land of enlightenment and godliness they are still living in 900 AD or there abouts - a man can't get "IT" up ... so he blames some poor woman who IS imprisoned for witchcraft and is sentenced to die.
Islam despises women - all women, and, like many of the Christian churches and other traditional cultures, there is a deep-seated mistrust and hatred for all women, for women-kind and for any hint of femininity - a terror that goes so deep that they feel that women must be subjugated, forced to be slaves of males, and, if rebellious, destroyed. I suspect that it goes into some of the deepest fears in our primitive ape brains, a primitive fear of the magic of reproduction and sexual passion and also concerns the power and masculinity of men who are very uncertain of themselves... certain, confident people don't need to persecute others.
Persecution is always born of fear. I lived in traditional Italian Culture - and rebelled. My father refused to pay for my education, saying I was a girl and I considered him harsh and distant and rebelled as fully as I might. But he never abused me (as I grew up I began to understand that he was just a product of another time and place and was generally a good father if not a kind one) and he never treated me like Muslim men treat their daughters, wives,sisters and mothers... harshly, meanly, more like animals than fellow human beings, created by the same God and without any love of any kind and Muslim men are very, very good at hating - its seems to me to be the only thing they do with great skill - they show few skills in creating great civilizations, any longer. What was acceptable in 900 AD is now considered primitive and barbaric. It is time of the Islamic religion to grow up and for Muslim men to act like human beings with real hearts instead of hearts of stone. Islam must learn compassion and the simple art of live and let live or it will force the rest of us to take some kind of action we will all regret. Either that, or there will come a time when they live behind their walls - some sort of curtain, like the old Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union, and the rest of the world lets them live in a permanent dark ages. No one goes in - and few get out. I wish we could tell them that we no longer needed their oil - that alone would send them on their way to becoming, once again, inconsequential to the rest of the human race, I suspect.
Here is the Link, again, that shows you what I am so outraged about ...
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/02/14/saudis-set-to-execute-woman-for-witchcraft/ And a hint to all you Muslim men -
IF YOU CAN'T GET "IT" UP IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT. GO SEE A DOCTOR, DON'T PERSECUTE A WOMAN WHO CAN'T EVEN READ OR WRITE FOR A CRIME SHE DIDN'T - COULDN'T DO!!!!!!.
I thank God ever day of my life I wasn't born in an Islamic land or family. They are one and all barbarians - and don't give that 'you're prejudice' nonsense, either. I am a woman - when a woman is hung, stoned beheaded or whatever for being raped or stoned for a love affair, or hung, as one girl was, for being a silly teenager, or executed for witchcraft - it's no longer pre-judgement - its judging what I already know and see. Not all cultures are equal.
What hurts one woman hurts all of us. We are connected.
The rest of you can stay in your fantasy worlds of open minded political correctness but I will and do judge the actions of others... and this action - killing a woman for a crime that does not exist is just plain barbaric - it's superstitious nonsense that hearkens back to the worse of the dark ages. We in the West blush about some of the actions of our ancestors who murdered old women whose only sin was being old,senile and knowing some herb lore . The coming execution of this poor, ignorant woman has nothing to do with God, compassion or justice for Islam knows none of these. It is an unjust, unmerciful warrior religion. The man's problem is within his own body. We have pills for that problem.
I don't understand why women in this country don't get outraged about how women are treated in Islamic countries, because I certainly do. Why don't we protest.. why don't we encourage our country to do things to help the plight of women worldwide?
