So, July 11^th is the International Day Against Stoning. While most of us who have the financial and technological benefit of being able to read these words probably live in a country that is also advanced enough to not sanction stoning someone to death, it still happens in a number of places around the world. The fact that I am able to say openly that there is no god or sleep with whoever I want (in theory more than practice, sadly!) means that I am more privileged than many of my brothers and sisters throughout the world.

Because atheists know there is no deity commanding that we throw rocks at other people, sometimes it's hard to imagine such a thing actually occurring. As someone who has personally witnessed stone-on-human violence on multiple occasions, let me tell you that it is a very real thing indeed and it ain't cool.

People are stoned for many reasons, but from my perspective vis-à-vis western media, it happens most often to women. At the risk of sounding sexist and preachy: women are wonderful, don't throw rocks at them! But regardless of your gender, you are not safe. For the Bible dictates:

1. Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)
2. They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB) Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT) 
3. If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB) 
4. Cursed be he who does the Lords work remissly, cursed he who holds back his sword from blood. (Jeremiah 48:10 NAB)

Of course if you are homosexual or a woman "who loses her honor by committing fornication" there are a few more verses in store for you, but you get the point!

Lest we not forget ye goode olde Korane...it seems that most of that book of the religion of peace is aimed at killing infidels. My Googlefu revealed so many verses toward this end that I gave up attempting to type them and y'all can look them up for yourselves! Even the very first verse I read when I opened the damn book up for myself said that I, as an unbeliever, should die, so rest assured, if you are on Atheist Nexus, Islam wants you dead.

So what can we do? Obviously it helps to speak out. Writing to people in government probably helps, though I increasingly question how much. Read books, write books, do whatever you can to be vocal. Fundies are stone-cold, but let the more rational but detached moderates know what atrocities are being done in their name. Above all: be compassionate, it really pisses fundamentalists off when skeptics are more moral than they are!

I know it's a scary thought to speak up against Islam. I am terrified. A friend of mine once compared it to putting your dick in a hornet's nest. While this is a fair analogy, people are suffering and dying because of this belief in nonsense, real human people. Maybe we don't see them because we live in lands of YouTube, rarely-censored literature, and AtheistNexus, but they are real, and they are bleeding. They are men, women, and children suffering and silenced by writings attributed to a schizophrenic desert pedophile who lived one and a half thousand years ago. Now is not the time to hide behind your agnosticism and cultural relativism, now is the time to say that some things are wrong and stoning someone to death is wrong. Period.