19 Wednesday Feb 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2014/02/19/the-religion-fueled-fight-in-syria/
Apocalyptic religious divisions, rather than political grievances, now dominate the Syrian civil war.
12 Wednesday Feb 2014
Evolving ideologies, strategies & framing
This article underpins a public conversation hosted in conjunction with the Muslims Institute, British Muslims for Secular Democracy and Semiticart, entitled Towards a secular Islam State. The ‘conversation’ shall seek to re-examine the notion of what the term ‘secular’ means to Arabs and the connotations it carries, but more importantly how Muslim Scholars and the legal practitioners of Fiqh (Islamic Law), interpret secularism in its current form, and the future of the notion, in light of events post Arab-Spring. Does the word itself need to be re-contextualised, in order for it to be an ‘acceptable-equivalent’ for Muslims? Thus, I have called such a play on words a ‘semantic-synonym’. Furthermore, what are the psychological and sociological forces at work, with such framing dynamics? Finally, do Arab Muslims need to overcome the ‘Western-colonial-cultural-baggage’, which is often associated with the word ‘secularism’ to mean anti-religion, in order for them…
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04 Tuesday Feb 2014
The de facto global state of affairs involves a conflict-ridden cultural polyphony — many peoples living in proximity — with disproportionate warfare experienced in and around Islam. Not the only conflict nexus (by far), it’s confusion well relates to how information and perception work when used wrongly, as with lying or deceit, or for wrong purposes.
Last month, more than 900 souls lost their lives in Iraq in direct relation to fighting over belief and governance.
That has to stop.
The only way to get it to stop is to get under the language drivers that excuse, motivate, or promote ideas that would seem not to be working very well or not at all (aside: some 34,000 Iraqi families have been displaced recently in relation to the ISIS presence in Fallujah).
The thread topic was about lying and featured a list detailing the many ways. The comment came up when a participant praised the character of those who believed in God and in the Day of Judgment.
And everyone else?
Citing Daniel Everett’s experience, I asked “Who are we to judge?”
Beneath that, one might ask — and best that something of a narcissist familiar with narcissism as a dimension in psychology ask its — how special is anyone, really, or any collection of persons? And on what basis? Merit and “meritocracy” or “meritocratic” behavior and systems have some sway in the west, but with peace, even accomplishment need not be an end-all or cause (or excuse) for the impositions of “social Darwinism”.
Goodness counts too.
Or devoted atheists and secularists would not ask do often, “Do you need God to be good?”
In the United States, the “ethical unions” obtain the nonprofit status of other religious organizations: that is, even separate from faith in divine existence, the embrace of a way in living, of a philosophy of living, constitutes investment in religion. The messianic urge to drive everyone to believe in God and Judgment Day has strength yet in Islam but not so much as it may have had once in Christianity and not much at all in Judaism even though Jews themselves very much believe in God, secular-appearing though they may seem.
Aside here: the Torah does not being with a statement about language, mankind, or power: it begins with a statement about God and the universe.
Add earth, some weather, life — a pretty good stage.
Then, finally, we get something earthly, like a garden, and talk, which is immediately true and not true, rather disingenuous in fact, as regards Eve’s dying after eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (she does die — and she doesn’t: she becomes human, aware, self-aware, and possessed of conscience).
The humans are human in Torah and if possessed momentarily of magical abilities, it’s with knowing full well that God is doing the miracle, not themselves.
Here on earth, humans are human too, and perhaps the more we appreciate that and deal with the exuberance of nature in human nature and its variety in the development and expression of culture and mind, the better for all and, gosh, the planet.
Not in any particular order:
FTAC – Singing “Hatikva” On the Way to the “Showers” | BackChannels – 10/29/2012.
Felix Adler (professor) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abraham Maslow – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Varieties of Religious Experience – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joseph Campbell – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
God Is Red: A Native View of Religion – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vine Deloria, Jr. – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American Transcendentalism Web
Comparative religion – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Add the scholarship of any language to the western complement and the universe of the global scholarly mind may expand exponentially.
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31 Friday Jan 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/opinion/islam-zionism-and-turkey_21253
“The country’s humane and modern interpretation of Islam is the most crucial trump that the world has against radicalism and terrorism, which has been rapidly pervading the region.”
30 Thursday Jan 2014
Posted in Uncategorized
27 Monday Jan 2014
For a global standard in values, I’ve been promoting just four virtues: compassion, humility, inclusion, integrity. With those four embraced, a lot of problems start to go away and more things can be done to get improvements in “qualities of living” for the living everywhere.
As regards Islamic Reformation, I sometimes want an Obi Wan moment to say to one proponent of one thing or another, “The goodness, K, is in you, not the Qur’an, the Torah, the Second Testament. God cannot be taken from the good, for such may be emergent within the humanity of humanity.
Referencing psychology, the keys on which I harp: bipolar and narcissistic personality disorders / “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy (the psychology of dictators) / “civilizational narcissism” Mobarak Haider’s term; in cognitive psychology and language behavior, one may note that while we don’t always see things the same way (the truth is we seldom do), we can look into that together and together diminish an entire class or dimension in contemporary armed conflict.
Oh how we used to fight, my father and me.
Today, he’s gone, and I get to win some.
At least in my own head.
And the “dinner table” — the forum for “lively” (brutal) political discussion: Facebook.
If any readers should be with me on all of this: let’s keep it simple.
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10 Friday Jan 2014
Argue the facts. She’s not making them up. They lend themselves to independent verification and reflection. And they lead to reasoned conclusions.
I argue — and I think she knows this (for a sliver of a second in FB-type chatyping) — for “Shimmer” — that the humanity of the humanity of Muslims writ large cannot today countenance Islam as Bin Laden, the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabi royalty (perhaps — some only nod and take), and Ayatollah Khamenei (or Hamas) would have it. That Islam is over, and while Muslims in its various paths, or the paths of zealots, may know it, they’re not well defended from it, either within themselves or externally.
Pakistani Usman Ali and I could probably title a piece “The Islamization of Pakistan in 2013” and as absurd as they may sound for a state with a constitutionally chartered investment in Islam, it might turn out just as full a report.
All at this point have heard or read the rule: “Qur’an 9:29—Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.”
In our still spunky United States of America, that ain’t gonna work.
Yet it stands.
It — and much else — need to be stood down.
The source of inspiration for the thread (one of mine): Pamela Geller’s “The Islamization of America in 2013“.
The source of inspiration for the comment was a bit of mud slinging: “Her book could be better titled The Protocols of the Elders of Islam.”
Perhaps I should have answered, “Not really — The Protocols of the Elders of Zion had to be fashioned out of hate and thin air. Geller’s observations, as noted, may be independently verified for factual validity and challenged on the pedestal of reason.
I believe Geller’s conclusions and her position will stand up to criticism quite well.
Even so, “shimmer” coincides with the absolute position.
Islam is killing Muslims today en masse, often impersonally, and viciously in several states — Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria, at least — and that alone should signal the bankruptcy of the civilization hewing in absolute and literal terms (!) of the Qur’an or, equally so, the humanity of those struggling to channel or reform Islamic thought away from urgent supremacist ambitions and separated forever from the desire to deal death and subjugation to the whole world that is not within the post-Qur’an political concept that is Dur al-Islam.
Wood, David. “Quran in Context 1: ‘Fight Those Who Do Not Believe (Surah 9:29)'”. Answering Islam. Up to this point, I have looked for a neutral scholarly resource in quoting scripture, but here, for once, I’ve drawn from the American analytical anti-Jihad. Quite a few of the demands, injunctions, and warnings sustained in the Islamic cultural intellectual legacy have proven in invention and continuation infantilizing (“O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends: They are but friends to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust” – Surat 5:51), inflammatory, as with Surat 9:29, and deadly (e.g., “”They wish that you should disbelieve as they disbelieve, and then you would be equal; therefore take not to yourselves friends of them, until they emigrate in the way of God; then, if they turn their backs, take them, and slay them wherever you find them; take not to yourselves any one of them as friend or helper” – Surat 4:89).
Islam and Freedom of Religion – “Apostasy”.
Islam and blasphemy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From the news and on the monitor as I’ve type: “Blast in Pakistan Kills Senior Police Official” – NYT – 1/9/2014.
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▶ Qur’an in Context 1: “Fight Those Who Do Not Believe” (9:29) – YouTube – 28 minutes – David Wood – 5/20/2012.
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05 Sunday Jan 2014
Tags
burning libraries, cultural annihilation, destruction of cultural artifacts, Islam, Islamic Small Wars, ISW
However, Ashraf Rifi, former head of the Internal Security Forces, told AP the attack had nothing to do with a pamphlet and was, in fact, triggered by speculation that Father Surouj had written a study on the internet that insulted Islam.
Thousands of books, manuscripts torched in fire at historic Lebanese library (PHOTOS) — RT News – 1/4/2014.
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Speaking by phone, city mayor Ousmane Halle said: ‘They torched all the important ancient manuscripts. The ancient books of geography and science. It is the history of Timbuktu, of its people.’
Timbuktu treasures destroyed by Islamists as French move in | Mail Online – 1/28/2013.
▶ Islamist Fighters Destroy Timbuktu Tombs – YouTube – Posted 7/1/2012
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Reports from Afghanistan Reveal Kabul Libraries Devastated | American Libraries Magazine 2/4/2002
The burning of libraries – Irish atheist (liberal-right, anti-jihad, pro-west, pro-Israel) writer Mark Humphrys gores everyone’s ox, not only Muslim, but the page is worth a look in light of today’s expansion of the Syrian Civil War and Jihad into Lebanon.
Libya Islamists destroy Sufi shrines, library: military | Reuters – 8/25/2012. I looked for libraries on this fast glance, but cultural artifacts may be brought down too. The destructive point is not to redress grievance but to annihilate and subdue all cultures foreign in space or time itself. Antiquities are of no value before the delusional onslaught of Islamozombies.
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▶ LIBYA Sufi Sites Razed By Heavily Armed Salafis, Cops Attacked, Burn Library, Destroy Graves 8.26.12 – YouTube – Posted 9/17/2012
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The Description of Egypt is likely burned beyond repair. Its home, the two-story historic institute near Tahrir Square, is now in danger of collapsing after the roof caved in.
“The burning of such a rich building means a large part of Egyptian history has ended,” the director of the institute, Mohammed al-Sharbouni, told state television over the weekend. The building was managed by a local non-governmental organization.
Thousands Of Rare Books, Journals, Writings Burned At Institute d’Egypt In Cairo – 12/19/2011.
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Egypt’s richest library goes up in smoke (VIDEO, PHOTOS) — RT Art & culture – 12/20/2011.
▶ Egyptian Institute – YouTube – Posted 12/18/2011
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There seem too complaints of underhanded reconstruction underwritten by the Saudi state. To address the repair of Balkan Islamic monuments, Jolyon Naegele suggests the wholesale bulldozing of the same has been to replace that heritage with architecture more favoring the Saudi Wahhabi vision.
Annihilation, One Cultural Artifact, One Memory, At a Time – Oppenheim Arts & Letters – 9/8/2008.
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