Woman selling achcharu (fruit pickle), Galle Face Green
As Ramadan ends at the Manhattan mosque controversy simmers, I thought it might be opportune to talk about the brown muslims. Contrary to popular western belief, most Muslims are not Arabs (contrary to Sri Lankan Muslim beliefs, most of them aren’t very Arab either). Contrary to some belief, Muslims are not terrorists or even sympathetic. There is sympathy and support for terrorism in states like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, but that is more to do with their political issues than Islam. As proof, if Islam were correlated with terrorism, one would expect the most populous Muslim countries (India and Indonesia) to be anti-American. They’re not. Muslims are, by now, billions of very diverse people and just cause Al Qaeda claims the mantle of Islam doesn’t make it so. They have their own Arab political issues. As much as the heart of Islam is in Arabia, its body is now spread all over the world.
A friend once asked if it was safe to travel to Sri Lanka, she’d heard that there were Muslims here. I just laughed. Muslims are the last people she’d have to worry about here. Of all the people who’ve been killing, Muslims have done the least. Indeed, they are some of the few people who can speak bi or tri-lingually. Muslims might throng the Colombo World Trade Center for a Deli Market buffet but they’re quite unlikely to blow it up.
If you go out Muslims are often a majority in public spaces. I went to Excel World post-Ramadan and it was packed. Dinemore, everyday, so much so that I think they’re now buying out Pizza Hut. Many Muslims keep apart and I see more and more women in full hijab, but I don’t see any strife.
I’m not saying that Muslims are saints. They are certainly human. In my limited knowledge they don’t seem to marry out of the faith which can make for a lot of unhappy people otherwise in love. I don’t know what else. They’re human, but I’m liable to say that the horrid things they do are due more to their human failings than to Islam. Just as terrorism is a human scourge more than a religious one. But living in Sri Lanka and knowing many Muslims, I must say that I find the Muslim/Terrorist association completely absurd. We have Muslims and we had terrorists and let me tell you, they are not the same.
Eid Mubarak, belatedly. Someone please give me biriyani.
These are not my own opinions or statements of out of content, but opinion of Muslim scholars. The problem is you don’t hear these voices in popular media. Fatwa to kill or some other hatred speeches are wrong not Islamic. These Muslims are limited to a specific number. But, media is trying to generalize it. What is happening is, anti-Muslims are seeking out those with the loudest voices who fit their own agenda rather than fitting the agenda around the more significant voices, deliberately suggesting a cynicism where all Muslims have synonymous views.
You speak about the people die or repressed. Who is repressed? Who is dying? by whom? Today media is spreading Islamiophobia. And Muslims all over the world are repressed or killed, falsely identified as dangerous lot to be eliminated. The suspects of 9/11 yet to be proved of guilty, yet, 1.5 billion Muslims across the world have suffered for the past 9 years for the deeds of just 19 lay people with Muslim names.
Oh.. Yes.. all of them who believe in GOD are nuts….
Instead, come and believe my formula:
Plentiful Muddy Water + A Long Time + Many Coincidences = Civilization!!
We are the intellectuals in this century…!
In Islamic law (sharia), the consensus view is that a male apostate must be put to death unless he suffers from a mental disorder or converted under duress, for example, due to an imminent danger of being killed. A female apostate must be either executed, according to Shafi’i, Maliki, and Hanbali schools of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh), or imprisoned until she reverts to Islam as advocated by the Sunni Hanafi school and by Shi’a scholars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam#Execution
So much for “Let there be no compulsion in religion”
http://thefaderist.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/jesus-facepalm-facepalm-jesus-epic-demotivational-poster-1218659828.jpg
Ah..So… you think Wikipedia is right Quran is wrong…?
This is the problem.. Please read my above comment again. Media includes Internet as well.
The punishment for apostasy from Islam is a controversial topic for Muslims living in the West and for ex-Muslims everywhere. That’s because Islam teaches that apostates are to be killed. We know from historic Islamic documents that during Muhammad’s lifetime, and the lifetimes of the next four “Rightly Guided Caliphs”, tens of thousands of Muslims left the faith of Islam and thousands were killed. On a large scale the Muslims made war on groups that chose to leave Islam and massacres of apostates occurred. On a smaller scale individual apostates were executed. This death sentence is in effect whether or not the apostasy occurred in or out of the Islamic state.
….On the other hand, Muslims living in the West are embarrassed by this death sentence. The West values the freedoms of thought and speech, Islam does not, and these virtues have never blossomed under Islamic rule. Consequently, when asked about the Islamic law for apostates many Western Muslims do their best to cover up Islam’s edict. Motivated by conviction, or shame, they make up various defenses and say whatever they can to put your mind at ease and make Islam more acceptable to a naïve, gullible, and ignorant Western audience. It is not difficult to make the Quran dance and say what you want it to say.
http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/apostasy.htm
Dear mr.Quran, that wiki article is properly referenced, and the sources are all academic literature. So unless you think the entirety of western and non-western academia is engaging in some grand conspiracy against islam, your last two posts are merely silly acts of denial.
Ruki, http://www.answering-islam.org is an anti Islamic Site. Anyway, thanks for posting as readers could see how these sites are misleading the mass.
Dodo, I don’t need to explain why Wikipedia is not reliable. Still,…a quote from the artice:
” a number of scholars argue the punishment is reserved for those who have committed treason against the Muslim community,..”
Did you read the whole article? Read the section “OPPOSITION TO EXECUTION.
– – – – – – – – –
QURAN says (4:137)
“Those who believe, then reject faith, then believe (again) and (again) reject faith, and go on increasing in unbelief, – Allah will not forgive them nor guide them on the way.”
The atmosphere of this verse is that of free will and freedom of choice to everyone. If Allah wanted he would have said something about the punishment, but Allah takes this to be clearly a private matter between them and Allah.
You will find many verses in the Quran that teach us NO PUNISHMENT for an apostate.
In all the religion you will find extremist and in very small number
The interpretation of those (a very small number) who prohibit women from education, even though Islam clearly allows education for women, and prohibit them also from driving, and oppress men by forcing them to grow beards, even though beards are NOT mandatory in Islam, doesn’t mean much to me or majority of true Muslims. But, as I said before, what is happening is, anti-Muslims are seeking out those with the voices who fit their own agenda rather than fitting the agenda around the more significant voices.
Guys, again and again I’m telling, don’t take the Islam as presented by Media/Internet. Instead, try to understand the real Islam.
Cheers!
Laughed so hard, feel compelled to make confession and serve penance. Where on earth does this stuff come from? I’m guessing it’s one of a series of sculptures, and this is one that depicts Christ in prayer.
The fact is, Christ used words and special effects to such advantage that he still commands a following far greater than any Darwin and Dawkins put together.
By the way, what’s become of Indi? Indi, have you abandoned the blog altogether to the rants and ravings of others?
@DARWIN
Your fucked up formula explains everything. It explains why our world is totally fucked up, why, as shammi stated above, Christ still commands a following far greater than Charles Darwin and Dawkins put together, and why Mahinda is still the president.
Dear religious nuts,
Please watch Monty Python’s Life of Brian
WOW… So, Simple….
DARWIN & DAWKIN bless you my son!
Yes, Yes, We can’t clean this ‘Fucked Up’ world as everything is controled by Genes, isn’t it?
– President Mahinda-
is that the type of blessing catholic priests have been giving out of late.;)
@MAHINDA
To a certain extent, YES. That’s why all of us are royally fucked by the royal family. Namal, Basil and the rest of them all have some of Mahinda’s genes. So I say we’ll continue to get fucked, which wouldn’t be the case if there was God who wasn’t a child abuse victim himself.
Evolutionists say Everything that goes on in our heads is a product of genes, environment and chemical reactions. That there is no room for free will . That’s why you say “we’ll continue to get fucked”. Accordingly, we cannot change the present situation by our will.
But believers of GOD say , we have been given free will. We have to take the responsibility for our action and the conditions created by our actions. Therefore only we could change the situation not the GOD.
If GOD has not given us free will, or our actions are controlled by GOD then, no need to send messengers or prophets to correct/guide us and there is no meaning promising reward or punishment after death for our actions.
This is why I like the way Kolu expressed his way of thinking in a comment above. First decide how one wants to live, and then decide why, or what one lives for. Whether God exists or not, and whether our genes command us or not, this will surely bring us inner peace. Now, I’m wondering what the epitaph on my gravestone should be.
@Mahinda
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
Who says there’s no room for free will? Evolutionists? If so, why don’t they campaign to close down all the prisons and release the prisoners.
About God. Say God gave us free will. But then it is he who also created time. Therefore he knew what would happen once he made Adam & Eve. He knew they’d eat that cursed apple. He knew we’d kill each other.
What kind of a sick bastard do that Mahinda?
@Shammi
People fart. Did God create farting?
-10 for using the word ‘evolutionist’.
So …you don’t know about this, but you support the EVOLUTION theory…
Oh God. What the hell is this guy talking about?
It seems you need go little bit deep into this theory. As a starting point read the following post.
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/free-will-and-biology/
“free will” and an “all knowing God” don’t make sense. Just more theistic bullshit.
“Free Will and GOD” make perfect sence,… How?
If there were no free choice for man, the whole concept of man’s religious accountability would be unjust. The oppressive ruler would deserve no blame and the just would merit no praise.
Then Why GOD?
Take the example of electric lamp in your home. You have to switch it on to bright your house. But It derive their light from the power station and it must constantly receive energy from the same source in order to remain alight.
Similarly, our power derives from God and He can withdraw it from us at any moment, but He has assigned the manner in which we make use of that power entirely to our free choice.
Mahinda, the power that keeps us running isn’t god it’s called ‘food’. So unless you worship your carrots, stop this nonsensical wibble.
Lol.. pretty obvious mahinda is a religious nutjob. Yes yes, a magical creature in the sky puffs life into you and then when you get old he/she/it breathes in and then you die.
If you believe in a God and you believe he is all knowing, then you have no free will to act on your own. See if he is all knowing then everything you will do is already known to God, thus leaving you to just act to what he already knows.
Yes God did – he also created such wonderful things as death, cancer, deformed babies, old age, ticks and mosquitoes.
Dodo, I managed to borrow Mount Improbable from the library and just started on it, where your hero seems rather preoccupied with a fig. I’m expecting him to at least convince me to buy a Rs. 10/- lottery ticket by the time I come to the end. I also hear they’ve discovered a very earthlike planet somewhere. Maybe it’ll help to throw some further light on things.
Funny that you mentioned about the planet. i was talking to an old university friend of mine who’s now at the U of A observatory and he’s saying that we might soon be able to probe into the atmosphere of these planets. That should be able to tell us if these planets have atmospheres capable of sustaining life
Neat! Hopefully I’ll get to see an alien something during my lifetime. Even ghosts have eluded me so far.
@Mahinda
If I remember properly, Darwin himself said that people will ‘learn’ to regret their impulsive actions; a regret which will eventually create in them a conscience.
In any case, according to christians, God created everything, including time. Therefore, even if he gave people free will, it’s actually meaningless. He knew humans would fuck up everything.
Hey Dodo, I’m in the last chapters of Mount Improbable and though the contents so far have been quite riveting, it’s only now the author is getting to some of the questions I had. I wasn’t impressed with his claim that “nobody knows how it happened but, somehow, without violating the laws of chemistry and physics, a molecule arose that just happened to have the properties of self-copying – a replicator.”, but I’ll wait until I get to the end.
And guess what, I even found this very interesting blog that deals specifically with Dawkins, evolution, biology and religion. The blogger seems to have abandoned it recently, so I’m not sure whether I’ll get any replies to the comments I posted there, but at least I can get some information.
I think dawkins has a website that run a forum or something like that. it should give you some answers
No, no, no. This one’s perfect.
I’ve also decided that I don’t want to know too much on the subject. You see, they’ve discovered that the happiest people on earth (out of those studied) based on how acutely some happiness centre in the brain was stimulated, are some isolateed meditating lamas of Tibet and some cloistered nuns who spent the whole time praying. I can believe that you know, because from pictures of the young Dawkins and the recent one, he does seem to look rather tired and drawn. Do you think he could be having second thoughts?
I don’t really want to be as happy as those hermits, but I’ll just attempt to strike a balance between enough cynicism to stop me from feeling guilty if I don’t attend mass on Sunday and enough faith to be able to have someone to pray to when I get in to a wrong train and end up in some unknown railway station.