We live in a world dominated by a battle of ideas. The Christian Idea is very different from the Muslim Idea. I suppose the Humanist Idea is the best formed non-religious idea.
We need to seriously compare these ideas. The truth does matter. What this requires is personal honesty and intellectual rigour. The comment ‘belief without evidence’ is simply misleading…it is condescending…it is ignorant.
The Christian Idea seems to me to be a high idea. It admits that we live in a world that is essentially wrong (fallen). It admits that we in ourselves are essentially self-centred, alienated from each other. It claims that we can change by entering into a personal relationship with someone who is much better than ourselves (Jesus). It says that when we do this we become the type of people who can bring about changes for the better in the world in which we live.
Millions of people every year convert to Christianity. Not so Islam. Not so Humanism. These ideas are simply not powerful enough. You can complain all you like about the evil in the world, but what is the solution? What are you going to give your life to? There is a big difference between approving of what is good, and getting on and living the good life.
Or are you a “born-slave” soul looking for someone to “take” you ? Are you eager to fed the well-being of others with your life, or what ?
I am fine and I give, money or anything else, only when I am interested gaining something in return.. and anyway I am not possesed by a masochistic frenzy to sacrifice myself to anyone.
BAGHDAD – As U.S. jets roared overhead, Mahdi Army militiamen on Sunday battled with Iraqi troops and local police searching for two militia leaders in the southern city of Diwaniyah. At least three people were killed and 24 wounded, official Iraqi sources reported.
Islamic studies departments at British universities may be fuelling extremism among students, according to a Government report.
Other Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, said he was aware of at least four universities in which students had been “groomed” by extremists… experts suggest the number is as high as 25. Some students had gone to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight, it is claimed.
This week, Tony Blair and David Cameron will meet Muslim leaders including the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, at an inter-faith dialogue at Cambridge University.
Gomaa has some interesting views.
“Women in some cultures are not averse to beatings,” he said in a television interview in 2006. Indeed, “Allah permits it”.
Egypt’s top mufti, Ali Gomaa, who issued a fatwa stating that drinking the urine of Mohammed was a blessed act, in response to another mufti’s fatwa about adult breastfeeding as a way of overcoming the ban against contact with females, has now apologized.
The distinguished islamic expert Gomaa is currently meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a two-day conference on Islam hosted by Cambridge University:
Under historiens power gång har det funnits personer Foucault som har försökt tänka discourse ”tvärtom” – i den meningen är postmodernismen inget nytt. Men den angränsar till narrative und meta-narrative vetenskapsfobi och har skapat en utbredd förvirring kring frågan om vad kunskap är. Resultatet riskerar Derrida att motverka power snarare än gynna frigörelse och framsteg postcolonialism.
THE HAGUE, 05/06/07 – Labour (PvdA) has been trying to muzzle a young PvdA member who is fighting for the rights and safety of Muslim apostates. An internal memo shows that the party fears the campaign of Ehsan Jami will cause it electoral damage and enrage Muslims.
Jami compares his situation with that of the meanwhile world-famous Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who switched from PvdA to the conservatives (VVD) at the beginning of her career because she was not allowed by PvdA to speak freely about the emancipation of Islamic women.
“In the face of so much high profile accorded to religious extremism, to schism, and to confrontation, it is important to show that religious faith is not inconsistent with reason, or progress, or the celebration of diversity.”
PM Tony Blair
Tony, there is a gorilla in the room,
it is called the “religion of peace” (TM), and your cowing and throwing more money to it won’t solve the problem.
Following is an interview with President of Al-Azhar University and former Mufti of Egypt, Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, which aired on Nile News TV on May 25, 2007.
Ahmad Al-Tayyeb: With regard to wife beating… In a nutshell, it appeared as part of a program to reform the wife. [According to the Koran], first “admonish them,” [then] “sleep in separate beds, and beat them.”
That’s Qur’an 4:34.
Interviewer: I think we must stress that this pertains to a rebellious woman…
Ahmad Al-Tayyeb: Of course. It’s not that anybody can start beating as he sees fit. [Westerners] who claim this talk about an Islam which is a figment of their imagination. They are villains because they know there’s no such thing in Islam, and they want to pin this interpretation on it. Why? Because Islamic culture is the only culture that is spreading, and is viewed with fear by people of other cultures. In any case… This method appeared as part of the treatment of a rebellious wife. I am faced with two options – either the family will be destroyed by divorce, or I can use means that may bring my wife, the mother of my children, back to her senses. The first means is admonishment.
[…]
The second means of treatment is “sleeping in separate beds.” Why? Because this targets the honor… A lot could be said about this. The strength of a woman lies in her ability to seduce the man. The man is strong and can do whatever he wants, but the woman has a weapon of her own. This weapon can be targeted. Many women will come back to their senses, when they realize that this is what’s involved.
[…]
By Allah, even if only one woman out of a million can be reformed by light beatings… It’s not really beating, it’s more like punching… It’s like shoving or poking her. That’s what it is.
That pro-war rant by Edmund Standing is a demented, fact-free piece of drivel, and whoever had it posted to Butterflies and Wheels should be ashamed. It can’t be refuted, of course – there’s nothing there to be refuted.
Exceptional piece of clear thinking from Edmund Standing.Many thanks.
Now if only the Left were to understand that it needs to become credible again.
That it needs to control its fantasist and demagogic anti-war rhetoric and talk straight about at the malign social-political reality of Islam and Middle East.
So ex-Secretary of State James Baker and the Iraq Study Group, who advocated a withdrawal from Iraq, are just a bunch of wild-eyed lefties who hate capitalism and George Bush? Come on.
This is just fashionable rhetoric: identifying the most extreme element of your opposition and identifying the whole of the opposition with it. It is not a choice between George Bush and George Galloway!
Part of the reason that many opposed this criminal invasion in the first place was we knew that the power vacuum that results from such an enterprise does “bring the extremists out of the woodwork” – and many of us were certainly aware of the extreme elements of Islam. (I’m not fond of any religion, but to paint every demented silliness as also being violent etc. is wrong.) As for the rest, “fact free” is pretty much it.
>Wow you gave that straw man a damn good kicking! Good job.>
Yeah, these days are bad days for many of the extrem-leftist favourite topics to display their deslusional-demented rhetoric.
It looks as if reality comes crumbling down upon their heads anyway and
E.Standing kind of articles only comes to put them out their misery.
For instance the much misunderstood “palestinians” have liberated Gaza of themselves these days.
With Israel fenced off their reach they have started killing eachother.
But, of course, never give up and never learn anything but start the “peace process” ! immedieatly!
….
“There will be no dialogue with Fatah, only the sword and the rifle,” Nezar Rayyan, a top Hamas leader, told Hamas radio on Thursday.
“This is a battle between Muslims and non-believers, and God willing, we will lead the Friday prayer in the president’s office, and transform the [Fatah-controlled] security complex into a big mosque.”
“We are telling our people that the past era has ended and will not return,” Islam Shahawan, a Hamas spokesman, told Hamas radio. “The era of justice and Islamic rule have arrived.”
for example :
Fatah said Hamas shot to death seven of its fighters outside the Preventive Security building. A doctor at Shifa Hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said he examined two bodies that had been shot in the head at close range.
A witness, who identified himself only as Amjad, said men were killed before their wives and children.
“They are executing them one by one,” Amjad said in a telephone interview, declining to give his full name for fear of reprisals. “They are carrying one of them on their shoulders, putting him on a sand dune, turning him around and shooting.”
Shaher Hatoum, a nurse at nearby Al Quds Hospital, said the facility had no electricity, water or blood, and that wounded were propped up on ward floors. Hundreds of bullets flew through windows, and fighters ignored the hospital’s appeals to hold fire just long enough to have the generator and water pipes fixed, Hatoum said.
There’s some crazy Sunni dude, who likes to use irony, not realizing that the Christians he’s mocking don’t get irony, and likes to hate on the Shi’a and the Jews, not realizing that, well, that’s not winning him a lot of friends. There’s a Swedish guy who doesn’t understand that no one else on the site knows Swedish. There are claims by both a Christias and a Muslim that the other religion isn’t getting any converts (an appeal to popularity if I ever heard one), backed by no evidence whatsoever. Believe in a holy goat, all the cool kids are doing it. I’ll point out that the world’s most rapidly growing religion is Mormonism, and that Mormonism thinks that the ten tribes of Israel moved to upstate New York in 600 BCE.
The number 655,000 has been quoted repeatedly, in a number of different stances.
I’d really love to watch a video of all these people playing soccer. Or, like, building a house.
Hitch, man, I don’t know. I’m not sure you’ve converted everyone.
Interest in Islam mounts after hijacking atrocity (Guardian Newspapers)
ISLAM ATTRACTS CONVERTS BY THE THOUSANDS, DRAWN BEFORE AND AFTER ATTACKS
That’s how Islam spread in the first place. Through sword and terror.
Read any book of zoology.
It is a common defensive reaction throughout all animal kingdom to respond to threatening coming from the members of the same species by displaying submissive and appeasing behavior.
Mr Brewer, I enjoyed reading your article on Jean Meslier. I congratulate you on the idea of the drama. I offer you my Hypatia’s Lover to dramatize. I am not after any money, I assure you. I will even order a copy to be sent to you, if you will give me your poastal address and a telephone number. (Or you can ask Opehlia Benson to lend you her copy.) Keep up the good fight.
The award of a knighthood to the author Salman Rushdie justifies suicide attacks, a Pakistani government minister said today…In the eastern city of Multan, hardline Muslim students burned effigies of the Queen and Rushdie, chanting “Kill him! Kill him!”
Ahmed Versi, the editor of Muslim News, agreed. He said: “They [the Americans] are trying to paint the whole Muslim community with the same brush. It’s racist. There would be a huge outcry from all Muslims whether they are Pakistani or not.”
Isn’t this a little schizoid? All this cover up to curb the sexual lusts of Arab men and then to advertise a heaven loaded with sex and sensuality doesn’t even make sense. Rampant sexual lust can be curbed without going to this extreme. Women do need to dress modestly and discreetly but this is insane. I mean that literally.
>Isn’t this a little schizoid? All this cover up to curb the sexual lusts of Arab men and then to advertise a heaven loaded with sex and sensuality doesn’t even make sense. >
You think superficially.
If it were the opposite, i.e. if the gratification of lust on earth were allowed by Allah who would blow himself and die for Islam so as to get the 72 virgins in heaven ? What for ?
>Rampant sexual lust can be curbed without going to this extreme. >
sure, a simple way to control the temptation is to satisfy it periodically
>.. but this is insane. I mean that literally.>
if you talk to God you are praying, if God answers back and talks to you then you have schiozphrenia
Labour Lord Ahmed, 48, said Rushdie is a criminal who caused “violence around the world”.
…Lord Ahmed added: “Honouring a man who has blood on his hands goes too far.”
He went on: “This man not only provoked violence around the world because of his writings, but there were many people who were killed around the world.”
I get profoundly irritated when journalists write a universal “we” in the way Johann Hari does in the article linked on B&W:
>When did the poisonous habit of blaming the victims of crime for their suffering spread to Britain? From the kidnapped hostages in Iran to the murdered prostitutes in Ipswich to the parents of Madeleine McCann, we have begun to kick people when they are in agony – and with a superior sneer on our faces.<
Of course you can ‘demonstrate’ virtually anything by selective quotations. But here are a few citations from this week’s Times:
Irshad Manji: Salman Rushdie is not the problem. Muslims are
I am offended that every year, there are more women killed in Pakistan for allegedly violating their family’s honour than there are detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Muslims have rightly denounced the mistreatment of Guantanamo prisoners. But where is our outrage over the murder of many more Muslims at the hands of our own?…
Above all, I am offended that so many other Muslims are not offended enough to demonstrate widely against God’s self-appointed ambassadors. We complain to the world that Islam is being exploited by fundamentalists, yet when reckoning with the opportunity to resist their clamour en masse, we fall curiously silent…
In that spirit, it is high time to “ban” hypocrisy under the banner of Islam. Salman Rushdie is not the problem. Muslims are.
The decision to recommend that Salman Rushdie receive a knighthood was a bold and correct one. In addition to the merit of his literary work, the author is a symbol of free speech.
I think it is important that we show that we are not prepared to be cowed by this sort of threat. I have therefore submitted a petition for the Number 10 Downing Street website that reads:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to accept our congratulations for recommending to the Queen that Salman Rushdie receive a knighthood
The right to freedom of expression is as simple and absolute as any in a pluralist society. Some of the obligations it confers on Government are straightforward, such as its duty to protect Sir Salman, to defend his knighthood and to allow the release of Monty Python’s Life of Brian in 1979 despite the offence it caused many Christians. Sometimes these obligations are complex, as when officials must judge when proselytising becomes incitement to violence. And sometimes they are as odious as their beneficiaries, the “historian” (and Holocaust denier) David Irving among them. He, too, has the right to publish.
The Muslim Council of Britain has commendably urged restraint on those it represents, but condemned Sir Salman’s knighthood as “yet another example of insensitivity to Muslim opinion”. In doing so it has wasted an opportunity to show its understanding of one of this country’s defining freedoms. Lord Ahmed, Britain’s first Muslim peer, has accused Sir Salman of having “blood on his hands”. Stewart Jackson, the Conservative MP, has lamented the knighthood on the ground that it has offended Britain’s allies in the struggle against terrorism. That may be so, but when a British novelist can no longer accept an honour for fear of offence in Islamabad, that war is lost.
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani traders on Thursday announced a reward of Rs 10 million for anyone who beheads Salman Rushdie, following Britain’s decision to award the novelist a knighthood…“We will give Rs 10 million to anyone who beheads Rushdie,” the secretary general of the Islamabad traders association, Ajmal Baluch, told the cheering crowd.
He also called on Islamic countries to boycott British products in protest at the honour to Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses.
10 million Pakistani rupees is currently about $165426 U.S. dollars.
Meanwhile, the Punjab Assembly speaker says he’d do it himself. “‘I’d kill blasphemer’,” from the Daily Times:
LAHORE: Punjab Assembly speaker Chaudhry Afzal Sahi Thursday declared that according to Islam a blasphemer should be killed and if any blasphemer would come in front of him he would definitely kill him. He said the issue of awarding the title of ‘Sir’ to blasphemer Salman Rushdie was a religious issue. Being a Muslim, he said, he was not ready to compromise on the issue. “I am not a religious scholar, but I want to make it clear that a blasphemer was liable to [be killed],” the speaker said. “First, I am a Muslim and later the Punjab Assembly speaker.”
The “NYT” had the last photo on it’s front page along with an article.
The “NYT” article said that 8 students who had questioned the infallibility of Muhammed were put in prison. For that “crime” they’re probably being tortured or maybe even dead.
>Last Tuesday, Tariq Osman Hyder, a senior Pakistani diplomat, told the British High Commissioner in Pakistan, Robert Brinkley… would inflame tensions. A well-placed source told The Observer that Brinkley was informed that Britain had acted against the spirit of UN resolution 1624. The resolution calls on all member states to ‘enhance dialogue and broaden understanding’ as a means to preventing ‘the indiscriminate targeting of religions and cultures’.<
Interestingly, the resolution in question (adopted in 2005) is on the subject of “Threats to international peace and security”, and relates to cooperation “in the fight against terrorism”. Among the clauses is one “Recalling the right to freedom of expression reflected in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 (“the Universal Declaration”)…”. Presumably the Pakistan diplomat did not have this clause in mind when he (according to the Observer) criticised the awarding of a knighthood to Rushdie.
The clause cited in the article runs as follows: “[The resolution] calls upon all States to continue international efforts to enhance dialogue and broaden understanding among civilizations, in an effort to prevent the indiscriminate targeting of different religions and cultures, and to take all measures as may be necessary and appropriate… to counter incitement of terrorist acts motivated by extremism and intolerance and to prevent the subversion of educational, cultural, and religious institutions by terrorists and their supporters…”
It is really quite extraordinary if the Pakistan authorities have extracted the phrase “to prevent the indiscriminate targeting of different religions and cultures” completely out of context and applied it to the awarding of an knighthood to Rushdie.
>It is really quite extraordinary if the Pakistan authorities have extracted the phrase “to prevent the indiscriminate targeting of different religions and cultures” completely out of context and applied it to the awarding of an knighthood to Rushdie. >
Not really. In fact it is all too typical to the Muslim world and Islam : “always it is the fault of somebody else”
When the believers kill it only means that they have been provoked by their victims.
For instance, “uncovered meat”-women cause their been raped by the outraged packs of “youth” believers. It is their fault for not complying with the burka
dressing, if only they would submit to it there would be no rape.
If you only shut up and never speak disrespecting about the Prophet (pbuh) nobody would be murdered…and so on.
The Westerners have an odd view on responsibility, they are ready to condemn an assassin and overlook that had the victim taken care to become more powerful and to become capable of deadly fighting back he (or she) would have never been attacked in the first place.
God is an energy force just like in star wars so it does exist, but not in the way that most people think (old man in the sky). The human soul moves closer to this source in the 4th dimension in a quest to infinitely get closer up to the 9th dimension which is where there is no beginning or end.
Maximus of Tyre, “In defence of idols”, 2nd century AD)
“Let men know what is divine (to theion genos), let them know: that is all. If a Greek is stirred to the remembrance of God by the art of Pheidias, an Egyptian by paying worship to animals, another man by a river, another by fire — I have no anger for their divergences; only let them know, let them love, let them remember.”
Sounds great but in fact it is naive. Closer to truth are the final words of “The Devils of Loudun”, 1952, by Aldous Huxley :
“Every idol, however exalted, turns out, in the long run, to be a Moloch, hungry for human sacrifice.”
Hi HuFiz
We live in a world dominated by a battle of ideas. The Christian Idea is very different from the Muslim Idea. I suppose the Humanist Idea is the best formed non-religious idea.
We need to seriously compare these ideas. The truth does matter. What this requires is personal honesty and intellectual rigour. The comment ‘belief without evidence’ is simply misleading…it is condescending…it is ignorant.
The Christian Idea seems to me to be a high idea. It admits that we live in a world that is essentially wrong (fallen). It admits that we in ourselves are essentially self-centred, alienated from each other. It claims that we can change by entering into a personal relationship with someone who is much better than ourselves (Jesus). It says that when we do this we become the type of people who can bring about changes for the better in the world in which we live.
Millions of people every year convert to Christianity. Not so Islam. Not so Humanism. These ideas are simply not powerful enough. You can complain all you like about the evil in the world, but what is the solution? What are you going to give your life to? There is a big difference between approving of what is good, and getting on and living the good life.
>What are you going to give your life to?
Why should you “give it” away ?
Are you tired with yourself ?
Or are you a “born-slave” soul looking for someone to “take” you ? Are you eager to fed the well-being of others with your life, or what ?
I am fine and I give, money or anything else, only when I am interested gaining something in return.. and anyway I am not possesed by a masochistic frenzy to sacrifice myself to anyone.
Mahdi militia hit by U.S., Iraqi troops
BAGHDAD – As U.S. jets roared overhead, Mahdi Army militiamen on Sunday battled with Iraqi troops and local police searching for two militia leaders in the southern city of Diwaniyah. At least three people were killed and 24 wounded, official Iraqi sources reported.
…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070603/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
UK’s academics politics today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/06/04/nterror204.xml
Islamic studies departments at British universities may be fuelling extremism among students, according to a Government report.
Other Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, said he was aware of at least four universities in which students had been “groomed” by extremists… experts suggest the number is as high as 25. Some students had gone to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight, it is claimed.
This week, Tony Blair and David Cameron will meet Muslim leaders including the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, at an inter-faith dialogue at Cambridge University.
Gomaa has some interesting views.
“Women in some cultures are not averse to beatings,” he said in a television interview in 2006. Indeed, “Allah permits it”.
no more pious urine drinking
Egypt’s top mufti, Ali Gomaa, who issued a fatwa stating that drinking the urine of Mohammed was a blessed act, in response to another mufti’s fatwa about adult breastfeeding as a way of overcoming the ban against contact with females, has now apologized.
http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/1783.htm
The distinguished islamic expert Gomaa is currently meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at a two-day conference on Islam hosted by Cambridge University:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2094977,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11
Female suicide bomber foiled in Baghdad
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070605/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Postmodernismen raserar vårt “Mad Max” desconstruction kunskapsarv text.
Under historiens power gång har det funnits personer Foucault som har försökt tänka discourse ”tvärtom” – i den meningen är postmodernismen inget nytt. Men den angränsar till narrative und meta-narrative vetenskapsfobi och har skapat en utbredd förvirring kring frågan om vad kunskap är. Resultatet riskerar Derrida att motverka power snarare än gynna frigörelse och framsteg postcolonialism.
Who cares about human rights if it will mean losing votes? “PvdA Tries to Muzzle Muslim Apostate,” from NIS News,
http://www.nisnews.nl/public/050607_1.htm
THE HAGUE, 05/06/07 – Labour (PvdA) has been trying to muzzle a young PvdA member who is fighting for the rights and safety of Muslim apostates. An internal memo shows that the party fears the campaign of Ehsan Jami will cause it electoral damage and enrage Muslims.
Jami compares his situation with that of the meanwhile world-famous Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who switched from PvdA to the conservatives (VVD) at the beginning of her career because she was not allowed by PvdA to speak freely about the emancipation of Islamic women.
It’s Swedish with some English ‘postmodernist’ words mixed in.
Perhaps it is the output of a translation engine or a ‘postmodernism
generator’.
If you remove some words, the text makes some sense:
Postmodernism destroys our inherited knowledge. In the course of
history there have been persons who have tried to think ‘back to
front’ – in that sense, postmodernism is nothing new. But it borders
on science-phobia and has created a widespread confusion regarding
the question of what knowledge is. The result risks in obstructing
rather than promoting liberation and progress.
>It’s Swedish with some English ‘postmodernist’ words mixed in.
If you remove some words, the text makes some sense>
The same can be said about the postomdern texts, if you remove all words.
>The same can be said about the postomdern texts, if you remove all words.>
Lol. I get the point.
“In the face of so much high profile accorded to religious extremism, to schism, and to confrontation, it is important to show that religious faith is not inconsistent with reason, or progress, or the celebration of diversity.”
PM Tony Blair
Tony, there is a gorilla in the room,
it is called the “religion of peace” (TM), and your cowing and throwing more money to it won’t solve the problem.
I entirely agree that “honour” killings are despicable.
“President of Al-Azhar University and Fomer Mufti of Egypt Ahmad Al-Tayyeb Explains Wife Beating in Islam,” from MEMRITV :
http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1478
Following is an interview with President of Al-Azhar University and former Mufti of Egypt, Dr. Ahmad Al-Tayyeb, which aired on Nile News TV on May 25, 2007.
Ahmad Al-Tayyeb: With regard to wife beating… In a nutshell, it appeared as part of a program to reform the wife. [According to the Koran], first “admonish them,” [then] “sleep in separate beds, and beat them.”
That’s Qur’an 4:34.
Interviewer: I think we must stress that this pertains to a rebellious woman…
Ahmad Al-Tayyeb: Of course. It’s not that anybody can start beating as he sees fit. [Westerners] who claim this talk about an Islam which is a figment of their imagination. They are villains because they know there’s no such thing in Islam, and they want to pin this interpretation on it. Why? Because Islamic culture is the only culture that is spreading, and is viewed with fear by people of other cultures. In any case… This method appeared as part of the treatment of a rebellious wife. I am faced with two options – either the family will be destroyed by divorce, or I can use means that may bring my wife, the mother of my children, back to her senses. The first means is admonishment.
[…]
The second means of treatment is “sleeping in separate beds.” Why? Because this targets the honor… A lot could be said about this. The strength of a woman lies in her ability to seduce the man. The man is strong and can do whatever he wants, but the woman has a weapon of her own. This weapon can be targeted. Many women will come back to their senses, when they realize that this is what’s involved.
[…]
By Allah, even if only one woman out of a million can be reformed by light beatings… It’s not really beating, it’s more like punching… It’s like shoving or poking her. That’s what it is.
….
That pro-war rant by Edmund Standing is a demented, fact-free piece of drivel, and whoever had it posted to Butterflies and Wheels should be ashamed. It can’t be refuted, of course – there’s nothing there to be refuted.
Exceptional piece of clear thinking from Edmund Standing.Many thanks.
Now if only the Left were to understand that it needs to become credible again.
That it needs to control its fantasist and demagogic anti-war rhetoric and talk straight about at the malign social-political reality of Islam and Middle East.
Re: Edmund Standing on Iraq.
So ex-Secretary of State James Baker and the Iraq Study Group, who advocated a withdrawal from Iraq, are just a bunch of wild-eyed lefties who hate capitalism and George Bush? Come on.
This is just fashionable rhetoric: identifying the most extreme element of your opposition and identifying the whole of the opposition with it. It is not a choice between George Bush and George Galloway!
Part of the reason that many opposed this criminal invasion in the first place was we knew that the power vacuum that results from such an enterprise does “bring the extremists out of the woodwork” – and many of us were certainly aware of the extreme elements of Islam. (I’m not fond of any religion, but to paint every demented silliness as also being violent etc. is wrong.) As for the rest, “fact free” is pretty much it.
Wow you gave that straw man a damn good kicking! Good job.
>Wow you gave that straw man a damn good kicking! Good job.>
Yeah, these days are bad days for many of the extrem-leftist favourite topics to display their deslusional-demented rhetoric.
It looks as if reality comes crumbling down upon their heads anyway and
E.Standing kind of articles only comes to put them out their misery.
For instance the much misunderstood “palestinians” have liberated Gaza of themselves these days.
With Israel fenced off their reach they have started killing eachother.
But, of course, never give up and never learn anything but start the “peace process” ! immedieatly!
….
“There will be no dialogue with Fatah, only the sword and the rifle,” Nezar Rayyan, a top Hamas leader, told Hamas radio on Thursday.
“This is a battle between Muslims and non-believers, and God willing, we will lead the Friday prayer in the president’s office, and transform the [Fatah-controlled] security complex into a big mosque.”
“We are telling our people that the past era has ended and will not return,” Islam Shahawan, a Hamas spokesman, told Hamas radio. “The era of justice and Islamic rule have arrived.”
for example :
Fatah said Hamas shot to death seven of its fighters outside the Preventive Security building. A doctor at Shifa Hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said he examined two bodies that had been shot in the head at close range.
A witness, who identified himself only as Amjad, said men were killed before their wives and children.
“They are executing them one by one,” Amjad said in a telephone interview, declining to give his full name for fear of reprisals. “They are carrying one of them on their shoulders, putting him on a sand dune, turning him around and shooting.”
Shaher Hatoum, a nurse at nearby Al Quds Hospital, said the facility had no electricity, water or blood, and that wounded were propped up on ward floors. Hundreds of bullets flew through windows, and fighters ignored the hospital’s appeals to hold fire just long enough to have the generator and water pipes fixed, Hatoum said.
“We are waiting here for our end,” Hatoum said.
The letters posted here are really weird.
There’s some crazy Sunni dude, who likes to use irony, not realizing that the Christians he’s mocking don’t get irony, and likes to hate on the Shi’a and the Jews, not realizing that, well, that’s not winning him a lot of friends. There’s a Swedish guy who doesn’t understand that no one else on the site knows Swedish. There are claims by both a Christias and a Muslim that the other religion isn’t getting any converts (an appeal to popularity if I ever heard one), backed by no evidence whatsoever. Believe in a holy goat, all the cool kids are doing it. I’ll point out that the world’s most rapidly growing religion is Mormonism, and that Mormonism thinks that the ten tribes of Israel moved to upstate New York in 600 BCE.
The number 655,000 has been quoted repeatedly, in a number of different stances.
I’d really love to watch a video of all these people playing soccer. Or, like, building a house.
Hitch, man, I don’t know. I’m not sure you’ve converted everyone.
welcome Bill, you will fit in well.
people here have weird opinions about the world, you have weird opinions about them.
Interest in Islam mounts after hijacking atrocity (Guardian Newspapers)
ISLAM ATTRACTS CONVERTS BY THE THOUSANDS, DRAWN BEFORE AND AFTER ATTACKS
That’s how Islam spread in the first place. Through sword and terror.
Read any book of zoology.
It is a common defensive reaction throughout all animal kingdom to respond to threatening coming from the members of the same species by displaying submissive and appeasing behavior.
They hope that they will be spared.
Mr Brewer, I enjoyed reading your article on Jean Meslier. I congratulate you on the idea of the drama. I offer you my Hypatia’s Lover to dramatize. I am not after any money, I assure you. I will even order a copy to be sent to you, if you will give me your poastal address and a telephone number. (Or you can ask Opehlia Benson to lend you her copy.) Keep up the good fight.
D. R. Khashaba
http://khashaba.blogspot.com
http://www.Back-to-Socrates.com
Hamas gets Arafat’s Nobel Peace Prize
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181813047962&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The award of a knighthood to the author Salman Rushdie justifies suicide attacks, a Pakistani government minister said today…In the eastern city of Multan, hardline Muslim students burned effigies of the Queen and Rushdie, chanting “Kill him! Kill him!”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2070707,00.html
Ahmed Versi, the editor of Muslim News, agreed. He said: “They [the Americans] are trying to paint the whole Muslim community with the same brush. It’s racist. There would be a huge outcry from all Muslims whether they are Pakistani or not.”
Isn’t this a little schizoid? All this cover up to curb the sexual lusts of Arab men and then to advertise a heaven loaded with sex and sensuality doesn’t even make sense. Rampant sexual lust can be curbed without going to this extreme. Women do need to dress modestly and discreetly but this is insane. I mean that literally.
>Isn’t this a little schizoid? All this cover up to curb the sexual lusts of Arab men and then to advertise a heaven loaded with sex and sensuality doesn’t even make sense. >
You think superficially.
If it were the opposite, i.e. if the gratification of lust on earth were allowed by Allah who would blow himself and die for Islam so as to get the 72 virgins in heaven ? What for ?
>Rampant sexual lust can be curbed without going to this extreme. >
sure, a simple way to control the temptation is to satisfy it periodically
>.. but this is insane. I mean that literally.>
if you talk to God you are praying, if God answers back and talks to you then you have schiozphrenia
Labour Lord Ahmed, 48, said Rushdie is a criminal who caused “violence around the world”.
…Lord Ahmed added: “Honouring a man who has blood on his hands goes too far.”
He went on: “This man not only provoked violence around the world because of his writings, but there were many people who were killed around the world.”
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007280259,00.html
I get profoundly irritated when journalists write a universal “we” in the way Johann Hari does in the article linked on B&W:
>When did the poisonous habit of blaming the victims of crime for their suffering spread to Britain? From the kidnapped hostages in Iran to the murdered prostitutes in Ipswich to the parents of Madeleine McCann, we have begun to kick people when they are in agony – and with a superior sneer on our faces.<
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/johann_hari/article2686791.ece
Of course you can ‘demonstrate’ virtually anything by selective quotations. But here are a few citations from this week’s Times:
Irshad Manji: Salman Rushdie is not the problem. Muslims are
I am offended that every year, there are more women killed in Pakistan for allegedly violating their family’s honour than there are detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Muslims have rightly denounced the mistreatment of Guantanamo prisoners. But where is our outrage over the murder of many more Muslims at the hands of our own?…
Above all, I am offended that so many other Muslims are not offended enough to demonstrate widely against God’s self-appointed ambassadors. We complain to the world that Islam is being exploited by fundamentalists, yet when reckoning with the opportunity to resist their clamour en masse, we fall curiously silent…
In that spirit, it is high time to “ban” hypocrisy under the banner of Islam. Salman Rushdie is not the problem. Muslims are.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/article1967735.ece
Daniel Finkelstein: Support Sir Salman
The decision to recommend that Salman Rushdie receive a knighthood was a bold and correct one. In addition to the merit of his literary work, the author is a symbol of free speech.
I think it is important that we show that we are not prepared to be cowed by this sort of threat. I have therefore submitted a petition for the Number 10 Downing Street website that reads:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to accept our congratulations for recommending to the Queen that Salman Rushdie receive a knighthood
http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2007/06/the_decision_to.html
And from the leader in today’s Times:
Free speech is non-negotiable in an open society
The right to freedom of expression is as simple and absolute as any in a pluralist society. Some of the obligations it confers on Government are straightforward, such as its duty to protect Sir Salman, to defend his knighthood and to allow the release of Monty Python’s Life of Brian in 1979 despite the offence it caused many Christians. Sometimes these obligations are complex, as when officials must judge when proselytising becomes incitement to violence. And sometimes they are as odious as their beneficiaries, the “historian” (and Holocaust denier) David Irving among them. He, too, has the right to publish.
The Muslim Council of Britain has commendably urged restraint on those it represents, but condemned Sir Salman’s knighthood as “yet another example of insensitivity to Muslim opinion”. In doing so it has wasted an opportunity to show its understanding of one of this country’s defining freedoms. Lord Ahmed, Britain’s first Muslim peer, has accused Sir Salman of having “blood on his hands”. Stewart Jackson, the Conservative MP, has lamented the knighthood on the ground that it has offended Britain’s allies in the struggle against terrorism. That may be so, but when a British novelist can no longer accept an honour for fear of offence in Islamabad, that war is lost.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article1969114.ece
“Reward for killing,” from Agence France-Presse:
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani traders on Thursday announced a reward of Rs 10 million for anyone who beheads Salman Rushdie, following Britain’s decision to award the novelist a knighthood…“We will give Rs 10 million to anyone who beheads Rushdie,” the secretary general of the Islamabad traders association, Ajmal Baluch, told the cheering crowd.
He also called on Islamic countries to boycott British products in protest at the honour to Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\06\22\story_22-6-2007_pg1_6
10 million Pakistani rupees is currently about $165426 U.S. dollars.
Meanwhile, the Punjab Assembly speaker says he’d do it himself. “‘I’d kill blasphemer’,” from the Daily Times:
LAHORE: Punjab Assembly speaker Chaudhry Afzal Sahi Thursday declared that according to Islam a blasphemer should be killed and if any blasphemer would come in front of him he would definitely kill him. He said the issue of awarding the title of ‘Sir’ to blasphemer Salman Rushdie was a religious issue. Being a Muslim, he said, he was not ready to compromise on the issue. “I am not a religious scholar, but I want to make it clear that a blasphemer was liable to [be killed],” the speaker said. “First, I am a Muslim and later the Punjab Assembly speaker.”
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\06\22\story_22-6-%3Cbr%20/%3E2007_pg1_7
T.Garton Ah “gets it”
..”no ifs and no buts”..wow ! is this Ash ? very categorical and postpostmodernish.
It is pleasant to see Ash discarading his usual relativist salad and returning to normality.
Who knows, at this rate of evolution he may end up an “enlightenment fundamentalist”, to use his phrase.
Better later than never.
Timothy Garton Ash
Seeing is believing.
Life in Teheran, proudly advertised in pictures by the state’s FarsiNews agency.
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/06/24/the-human-rights-outrage-in-iranand-a-challenge-to-rosie-odonnell-and-her-ilk/
to “seeing in believing”
The “NYT” had the last photo on it’s front page along with an article.
The “NYT” article said that 8 students who had questioned the infallibility of Muhammed were put in prison. For that “crime” they’re probably being tortured or maybe even dead.
Re the article in the Observer linked on B&W:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2110188,00.html
>Last Tuesday, Tariq Osman Hyder, a senior Pakistani diplomat, told the British High Commissioner in Pakistan, Robert Brinkley… would inflame tensions. A well-placed source told The Observer that Brinkley was informed that Britain had acted against the spirit of UN resolution 1624. The resolution calls on all member states to ‘enhance dialogue and broaden understanding’ as a means to preventing ‘the indiscriminate targeting of religions and cultures’.< Interestingly, the resolution in question (adopted in 2005) is on the subject of “Threats to international peace and security”, and relates to cooperation “in the fight against terrorism”. Among the clauses is one “Recalling the right to freedom of expression reflected in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 (“the Universal Declaration”)…”. Presumably the Pakistan diplomat did not have this clause in mind when he (according to the Observer) criticised the awarding of a knighthood to Rushdie. The clause cited in the article runs as follows: “[The resolution] calls upon all States to continue international efforts to enhance dialogue and broaden understanding among civilizations, in an effort to prevent the indiscriminate targeting of different religions and cultures, and to take all measures as may be necessary and appropriate… to counter incitement of terrorist acts motivated by extremism and intolerance and to prevent the subversion of educational, cultural, and religious institutions by terrorists and their supporters…” It is really quite extraordinary if the Pakistan authorities have extracted the phrase “to prevent the indiscriminate targeting of different religions and cultures” completely out of context and applied it to the awarding of an knighthood to Rushdie.
>It is really quite extraordinary if the Pakistan authorities have extracted the phrase “to prevent the indiscriminate targeting of different religions and cultures” completely out of context and applied it to the awarding of an knighthood to Rushdie. >
Not really. In fact it is all too typical to the Muslim world and Islam : “always it is the fault of somebody else”
When the believers kill it only means that they have been provoked by their victims.
For instance, “uncovered meat”-women cause their been raped by the outraged packs of “youth” believers. It is their fault for not complying with the burka
dressing, if only they would submit to it there would be no rape.
If you only shut up and never speak disrespecting about the Prophet (pbuh) nobody would be murdered…and so on.
The Westerners have an odd view on responsibility, they are ready to condemn an assassin and overlook that had the victim taken care to become more powerful and to become capable of deadly fighting back he (or she) would have never been attacked in the first place.
God is an energy force just like in star wars so it does exist, but not in the way that most people think (old man in the sky). The human soul moves closer to this source in the 4th dimension in a quest to infinitely get closer up to the 9th dimension which is where there is no beginning or end.
> “God is an energy force”
I see. This would make God measurable in ‘joules’ or ‘calories’ (as energy is) and in ‘newtons’ (as is done for forces).
About the 4th and 9th dimension..I don’t know about them but good luck if intend to dive into them.
Maximus of Tyre, “In defence of idols”, 2nd century AD)
“Let men know what is divine (to theion genos), let them know: that is all. If a Greek is stirred to the remembrance of God by the art of Pheidias, an Egyptian by paying worship to animals, another man by a river, another by fire — I have no anger for their divergences; only let them know, let them love, let them remember.”
Sounds great but in fact it is naive. Closer to truth are the final words of “The Devils of Loudun”, 1952, by Aldous Huxley :
“Every idol, however exalted, turns out, in the long run, to be a Moloch, hungry for human sacrifice.”