Islamic Education, Madrassah Reform, Rationality and Dawkins

Re: # 68

Pl read this part as:


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Therefore is`t not that GOD is a human`s creation OR a cultural construct personifying an an unknown entity/supernatural power?

I READ A LOT OF UR POSTS HERE DEFENDING GOD. I dont believe in god nor I deny his/her/unknown entity`s existence. I dont think that GOD defined in religious books exists. If the concept of GOD gives u peace I dont have any problem with that concept BUT if that concept compels me to collide with u, then I dont want that religion.

Your take please (I appreciate u not quoting religious books).

naqshbandi writes <<< masadi - jawab e jaahilaan khamushi baashad. >>>

In other words, when stumped by rational argument, put your tail between your legs and whimper away. Exactly the response we expect from those who have no clue about either their own existence or the reality of the condition of our people.

I don`t know how anyone can reconcile sufism with either religion (it is not Islam, and it is not Hinduism) or with rationality (blind faith in morally deceptive and intellectually destructive dogma and ``love`` toward humans of often dubious character being its two cardinal principles).

Perhaps, the way Khuram bhai had earlier reconciled myth and animism with religion. In an amazing leap of pure philosophical brilliance, he disclosed to us: God Himself gave humans the True Religion. Everything else was myth and animism.

Like brother Asif, Khuram himself may be a Sufi. That will reconcile everything.

Re: # 62

Bhai, Sufism Is Islam--indeed, it is really the heart of Islam itself. Take out the heart and the body dies--remove Sufism (i.e. spirituality) from Islam and Islam will `die`. This is what the real danger of Wahabism is. The greatest proof that sufism is at the heart of Islam is that almost all the Muslim scholars from its inception to now have, without exception, been Sufis. Even the godfather of modern Wahabism, Hafiz Ibn Taymiyya, was a initiate in the Qadiri Sufi order!

Asif Sahib,

Dawkins (PBUH... no pun intended) has written a fantastic book. Blind faith has no real structure. It can be formulated through a wide array of human feelings sprung from everyday worldy interactions. For expample.. when I miraculously survive a thunderstorm, it is my ``faith`` that compels me to keep going. You are right when you say that we should incorporate modern science and philosophical reasoning into religion. This is the only way to realize that religion is the saddest, most ironic, and best story ever told by our ancestors. Imagine a man in the modern era telling us that he speaks to angels and that God talks to him. Most probably we would pass it off as schizophrenia. The fact of natural selection is a hard one to swallow for many creationists and I think wihtin it lies the undoing of religion and its prepatrator... God. I am sure you will find that rationally thinking minds and secular humanists don`t need to count on a Supreme Being for cookie points when it comes to morality.

Very Nice.

I would agree to all that you said. Faith can never be established by reason. Only charlatans like Asadi would write `conclusive` logical proofs regarding existence of things that belong to the realm of heart.

The starting step to bring about a reform in islamic societies is to systematically reduce the use of languages which have been used to brain wash young muslim minds , namely
ARABIC (in middle east) & URDU (in the indian subcontinent) .

Once muslims start studying their own religion`s foundations in languages like ENGLISH , they are more likely to RE-INTERPRET their so called HOLY BOOK , in new & modern terms.

masadi - jawab e jaahilaan khamushi baashad.

Re: # 54

``jawab e jaahilaan khamushi baashad. ``


ma sha`a allah !!

You have indeed reached the heart.

The Haqiqat is facing you in all its purity!!!

Hi all,
I believe that a renaissance will NOT be possible until and unless muslims throw off this ``Islam is everything for everyone for all time`` thing as a starting premise and then buttress this false premise with all sorts of silly arguments!
They need to grow up! plain and simple!
No harm in understanding that what they have been thinking as gospel truth worth killing others for, is NO TRUTH at all.
It is an anachronism.
Something outmoded and out of synch with 21st century world.
Just like Manu`s himduism is in this time and place.
Thing is that hindus have realised that long ago, and only lip service is given to the ``vedas`` and ``manusmriti``!
The bhaktimarga has reformed hinduism in many subtle ways.
Though hindus keep on saying the vedas are ``their scriptures`` etc, how many temples to indra / vayu/ agni can one find in delhi and bombay?
Surprisingly even finding temples to Vishnu & brahma are rare!
But temples to ``personalities`` like rama and krishna abound.

Hindus have travelled far from the vicious vedic age.
No kidding! The naga insurgency in the time of Parikshit was put down by ruthless slaughter of the nagas by the vedic guys under the guise of the sarpa-satra or ritual killing of all nagas! (story of sarpa-satra).

Earlier during the time of Bali, the whole asura tribe was exiled from india under the lead of a midget priest Vamana.(clans designated as asura in one age appear to become good ones in another, as is the case of the bhrigus in the vedic age). Many vedic richas are of these bhrigus, but these later were considered as asuras.

Even the mahabharatan hero Arjuna was no better! He is documented to have killed wholesale the family of maya asura (killing his wife and injuring his son mortally for no fault of maya, but just because krishna ordered him to do so. (stories of khandava van dahana ..burning of the continental forest ``khaandawa``, and the killing of the nivatakavachas and kalkeyas)

The manusmriti has codes that would strike terror in the haert of any modern indian.
And so is the artha shastra.

These held that if one rescued a woman in a forest or in a flood, he had right to ``....`` (no explanation needed there) her for his pleasure and if she was a brahmin, she had to be released untouched, but a kshatriya could buy her back by barter!! [i may be wrong but not far off the poinnt here]

Indians have rejected consciously ``kala-bahya`` outmoded practices, the muslim world has yet to do that.

For some strange reason (like a child refusing to part with a toy), it clings irrationally to a set ofcodes 1500 years old. (to the dead letter too)!!

How childish can one be?
And then these guys want to compete with the west! How? May one ask?
Jayen

Re: # 53

Jay,

U make a lot of sense but lets be practical. Though u may be aware that no god exists in idols u keep worshipping them. Once u reject that god doesnt exist in idols then u dont need temples but Ashrams where good words are taught. Then the moot question is, `are u going to give awya this practice of idol worship`??

They too have this problem of fixation. Leadership makes all the diff. Kemals, Mahatirs are not born in every country. Let Pakistanis start introspection, then something good wud come out of that.

As I see Pakistan, `change for good` is out of sight for them. This is the land that saw bloodshed caused by maruaders into India. That land is in the hands of those people who wanted a Sunni Persia out of India.

Scientific tempor is what was recommnded as Directive Principles in Indian Constitution but it was diluted in our own land since 1947. Whereas Pakistan statred off as a quasi-religious country but degerated into a full-blown religious country with CII in place (Council of Islamic Ideology). They are one step away from complete Talibanisation.

People like Mushsrraf think that u can have a country of all saintly people. IMPOSSIBLE!

Lets watch them.

Naqsh (#39),

Tariq Ramadan is anther goon trying to repackage the same age-old crap in a different box when by demanding a moratorium on killing apostates and adulterers.

Tariq Sahib is playing up to the ullema by validating such barbarism, while trying to appease modernists by a providing a lame argument … that such punishments are no longer needed and are almost never carried out. He is basically an academic transvestite who lacks galls and is merely dancing around the issue. He is another moron who deserves to be flogged in public, if anything.

You yourself prove to be a fanatic … when you insist that you “don’t support such punishments (killing a person for apostasy, adultery etc.) in current age”.

You may as well argue that Islam is aging out of relevance. That view I can respect. But you too are dancing around the issue ... while pushing the same crap that has led ummah to social decay all across the globe.

kulharee (#36):

I don’t think it is a matter of ‘likelihood’ or ‘probability’. That is, shoving more Muslims through formal education will not necessarily produce enlightened Muslims. A monkey can learn all the tricks, but it is a monkey after all.

It is a ’garbage in, garbage out’ scenario … since ’garbage’ is what gets injected into their minds from the very start. All formal education that follows simply serves to divorce a madrassah-educated goon from reason, sense, and civility. Unable to reconcile faith with reason, he starts to box them into different compartments.

It all goes downhill from that point on. Appealing to his senses is futile. He simply fails to see the absurdity of stoning an adulteress … and sheer silliness of believing in a prophet residing above clouds. What follows is a culture of blind faith and violent ideology that ledads to social decay at all levels.

masadi mian it dont matter. religion is dead. all this talk is crap. dump the middle mumbo-jumbo its a dead end.

the west has moved years ahead and you will never catch up with this attitude.

#44 by masadi on November 30, 2006 9:50am PT


with no empirical evidence that such ``different life`` is even possible.


A believer in the infallibility of the koran asking for empirical evidence?

do you have any empirical evidence that allah exists?