Thoughtless for the Day

By this point in the Iraq War, we've all heard innumerous stories the Sunnis and the Shiites. It's starting to get to where even George Bush is almost able to tell them apart. But why do you never her about the plight of the Mandaeans?

The Mandaeans are a sect residing in southern Iraq as well as the Iranian province of Khuzestan (AKA "the Iranian Riviera"), consisting of roughly 60,000 members (maybe less: see below) who revere John the Baptist practice baptism, and go to church on Sunday. Which would make the Christians, right? No. The Mandaeans believe that Jesus was a false prophet who stole, then distorted the teaching of John the Baptist.

So, if the Mandaeans aren't Christians and they live the Middle East, they must be Muslims! Nope: Muhammad was a false prophet too. And, no, the Mandaeans aren't Jews either: Moses and Abraham were - altogether now - false prophets!. The only Real McCoy's recognized as prophets by the oh-so-choosy Mandaeans are Adam and a few of his offspring as well as Noah and a couple of his ark-brats.

For the sake of brevity, let's just call the Mandaeans Gnostics (perhaps the last surviving true Gnostic sect) and move on.

Now, if being a Sunni or a Shiite in Iraq means that the odds are roughly 50/50 that you're going to be digging shrapnel out of your ass before lunch, imagine what life must be like for the Mandaeans who are neither Sunni nor Shiite. There are rabbits living on Dick Cheney's ranch that have a better chance of seeing the next sunrise than the average Iraqi Mandaean. I wonder why an atrocity of this nature is getting so little press. Maybe it has something to do with swarthy foreigners who call Jeebuz a false prophet?

Oddly, the repository of all human knowledge, Conservapedia didn't have a single article about the Mandaeans. The closest religious sect beginning with the letter M that I could find there was the Mormons. Here's what I learned about them:

"... most Mormons are products of adulterous relationships"

And now some culture