Teaching Science Badly – and Well

#141 by zeemax

I am sorry man! This is too darned pivotal so tedious or not, lets delve into it as deeply as we can. Now you have introduced another term that you are a fundamentalist but not a fanatic. Wait just a minute … When it comes to Islam both these terms are meaningless. The only terminology that can be used is whether you are observant or you are not. Either you follow Islam or you don’t. There are no gradations, no moderation, no enlightened moderation, fanaticism etc. They just do not apply to Islam.

Either you accept the literal word of God and you observe it to the best of your ability …. And if you don’t accept it (mind you not observe it)….. aap daira e islam sey kharij hein.

Re: # 142

Hamidm,

But you are talking about a very subcontinental version of Islam, which has fallen
terribly out of favour with the more righteous amongst Pakistanis. Thank god there`s
still enough austerity-free Islam to go around...

#129 by hamidm2

“we don`t want people with humanities degrees to go back ! ....... remember syed qutub?..... he came to america to get a humanities degree and this is what he learned about you :

......... then he went back to join hassan al-banaa`s al-qaeda ......... and if i am not mistaken, hassan turabi, another shining light of al-qaeda, has a phd in law from the sorbonne ......... and let`s not even talk about sir muhammad allama iqbal who studied philosophy in germany and returned to cause more havoc than masadi can ever dream of ..........”

As usual you don’t get the point unless I hit it over your head with it. You cant even claim the success of Agha Khan medical college on the talent of you science dans. It has all to do with Agha Khan and their sects philosophy of creating such institutions for their success. Where as idiots like you (science graduates) even in the best of circumstances were only able to make marginal differences to institutions that you have mentioned Syed Qutb, Illama Iqbal and Maudoodi have had the lasting societal impact on the Muslim ummah.

So the point being that you can study all the science you want but it is going to be meaningless unless you can reconcile modernity with your purpose in life, your conception of what is good, and ultimately its place in your salvation.

#142 by hamidm2

``........ this really comes as a shock to me !......... if the koran wasn`t translated into persian.....``


You see that is why you need to study history – it challenges your assumptions.

Re: # 122

Massadi Mian:

``....it is not the result of knowledge but a manipulation of knowledge to perverse ends....``

Manipulation of knowledge, requires knowledge. Just as you are manipulating the little knowledge that you have. What you fail to understand is that there is nothing wrong in manipulating knowledge, it only creates more knowledge.

tehsin abbasi,

.... you dolt ! ..... ``Syed Qutb, Illama Iqbal and Maudoodi have had the lasting societal impact on the Muslim ummah`` ......... that is like saying the plague and the aids epidemic had a lasting societal impact - of course they did, but everyone would have been better off without it ! ............. come to think of it the people of mecca, my grandpa gopinath and your grandpa ram chandar would have been better off without the philosopher who talked to godknowswho in that dark cave ......... and now we have masadi running loose in pakistan armed with a degree in sociology from tuskegee college - god knows what havoc he is going to wreck !

....... come to think of it, we would all have been better off if shah waliullah had never translated the book - that we we could at least plead ignorance .......... and stop saying stupid things and encouraging the likes of zeemax before he blows himself up ..........

hamidm #142 acutally it wasn`t any better in the 1960`s and 70`s when my mother made me wear the imam zamin, walk under the koran before catching bus to lahore, spit on me to ward off evil spirits and dragged me off to pir sahib of kohat to ask for good grades

If I had been made to do this kind of nonsense as a child, I am sure I would have grown up hating islam as much as you do. But how many people in Pakistan have their children walk under the the koran, or spit on their children to ward off evil and so forth (and please dont say you were joking, since even if you were stretching it - it does indicate the source of your issues).

Speaking for myself, I am very comfortable with being a muslim because religion in our household was first and foremost developing a good character - the thing that was emphasized were basic values like being honest at all times, respecting servants and the poor and caring for them when possible, and so forth. This was the Islam I grew up with, and the Islam countless others have grown up with, and this explains why I dont get the goosepimples like you when discussing Islam.

Re: # 151

tahmed,

..... youn read me wrong - i loved my mother`s islam ! ....... it was benign, joyful, harmless and full of halwas and firnis and zardas - the only harm that came out of it was when my cousin almost blew off his hand with a big firecracker one shab-i- barat ............. none of this austere wahabism that is making people blow themselves up ..........

..... of course you are comfortable being a muslim - it is like peeing in your pants because it gives you a nice warm feeling even though you might stink ......... or to use another analogy, a bird falling into a warm pile of fresh cow manure thinks it is spring and begins to sing .......... so sing on, my little songbird ........

#152 hamidm: I would never have imagined the effect my one simple post would have on you!! It made you switch from saying you hated the islam you grew up (per your earlier post) to saying you loved the islam you grew up with (in #152). Another lost soul helped find his way back. and as the Lone Ranger would say, Hi Yo Silver Away!! :-)

#Article

[But for that we may first need a major cultural and attitudinal change that permits real science to be taught in our schools.]

Author, what you neglected to say – is ... well, let me phrase it for you – the entire paragraph should read like as follows:

“But for that we may first need a major cultural and attitudinal change that permits real science to be taught in our schools. As a practical matter, this can only be accomplished through a drastic change at the grass root level. The combined onslaught of the diseases of blind adherence to dogmas, the hostility to openness, the mindset of “everyone else is my enemy”, and the desire to conform in order to avoid the fear of being looked down upon by our society has done so much damage to the psyche of the nation that to bring it back in line with the present is no easy task – it needs a virtual reconstitution of the very molecules of what passes, falsely, for the thinking minds of this land. But who will bell the cat? The native “intellectuals” are too much under the thumb of the very agents that rule the country’s mind and control its coffers and are arguably the most direct beneficiaries of the status quo. Perhaps the true change of belling this formidable cat can only be brought about through the determined efforts of the fat cats settled abroad! But nobody is holding their breath for the same, because this cat has many more than nine lives!”

#151 by tahmed32

[Speaking for myself, I am very comfortable with being a muslim because religion in our household was first and foremost developing a good character - ]

tahmed,

Would you say beheading 700 UNARMED CIVILIANS and selling their INNOCENT AND HELPLESS women into slavery is a sign of ``good character``?

Because if it is not, then all this ``religion in our household`` stuff is just peeing in your pants.

Think about it logically. You can do it.

#Various Krishna

Dear Krishna, for most individuals, religion is a personal matter. Populations are not monolithic. Vast numbers of individuals do not take the time to go back and think through whatever were the originating events of the religious labels that they wear – they are fully occupied trying to meet the day-to-day challenges that face them in life and trying to make a decent living while protecting their loved ones around them while surviving the multiple constrains (sometimes contradictory) imposed on them by larger structures. The aberrant behavior of groups, even well-organized groups, is not to be taken as something that most reasonable people of any creed or nationality endorse. The wholesale “demonization” of a people based on the actions of some of its people has been a tool used by numerous demagogues in the past to bring about organized mayhem.

#155 Krishna XyZ

.....U and your broken record revoling needle



Majority Muslims reject terrorism: Survey
*******************************

A large majority of Muslims across the world have been forthright in rejecting terrorism, according to a US survey that says the findings were ``surprising``.

But only 46 per cent US nationals and Europeans are ready to reject terrorism, while 24 per cent of those surveyed have said that terror attacks are ``sometimes justified``.

In an interesting twist to what has been touted as ``a clash of civilizations``, spurred by 9/11, even supporters of international mastermind Osama bin Laden ``most overwhelmingly approved of specific American actions in their own countries``.

Eighty-six per cent Pakistanis, 81 per cent Bangladeshis and 74 per cent Indonesians said they rejected terrorism.

Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Nigeria were the Muslim nations where 20 surveys have been conducted over the last two years by the University of Maryland that covered the US and Europe.

The Daily Times did not indicate which of the European nations were surveyed. Entitled `Terror Free Tomorrow`, the survey says a half of the Westerners associated Islam and Muslims with terrorism.

For most Muslims surveyed, their professed support of terrorism/Bin Laden could be more accurately characterised as a kind of ``protest vote`` against current US foreign policies, not as a deeply held religious conviction or even an inherently anti-American or anti-Western view.

According to the survey, ``In truth, the common enemy is violence and terrorism, not Muslims any more than Christians or Jews. Whether recruits to violent causes join gangs in Los Angeles or terrorist cells in Lahore, the enemy is the violence they exalt. America`s goal, in partnership with Muslim public opinion, should be to defeat terrorists by isolating them from their own societies.

``The most effective policies to achieve that goal are the ones that build on our common humanity. And we can start by recognising that Muslims throughout the world want peace as much as Americans do.``

According to the Christian Science Monitor, public opinion surveys in the US and Europe show that nearly half of Westerners associate Islam with violence and Muslims with terrorism.

Given the many radicals who commit violence in the name of Islam around the world, that`s an understandable polling result. But these stereotypes, affirmed by simplistic media coverage and many radicals themselves, are not supported by the facts - and they are detrimental to the `war on terror`.

``When the West wrongly attributes radical views to all of the world`s 1.5 billion Muslims, it perpetuates a myth that has the very real effect of marginalising critical allies in the `war on terror```, says the Christian Science Monitor.

Indeed, the far-too-frequent stereotyping of Muslims serves only to reinforce the radical appeal of the small minority of Muslims who peddle hatred of the West and others as authentic religious practice, it says.

#150 by hamidm2

Hamid:

What the heck is wrong with you today, I think it is the pathan side of you that is acting up. If you cant get it just read what bjkumar wrote. It is fairly simple, the harm like you said done by Syed Qutb and Co. cannot be undone by Dr. Hoodbhoy or any of you science types. It requires an anti Qutb and Co. philosophers, social thinkers, religious scholars who refute the arguments and reconcile modernity with Islam. That is the only way forward.

Tehsin #158 What you say is true, i.e. the ideology of the ``syed`` qutbs is so hollow it takes two minutes for any reasonably intelligent and objective individual to understand it.

Thus, to start with - if ``syed`` qutb understood the fundamentals of the message of islam, he would have gotten rid of the ``syed`` part of his name (given that all individuals are equal before the eyes of God, and thus descent from the prophet - even if it was true - confers none of the aura that the name ``syed`` has attached to it).

And there is no priesthood in islam - and mullahs are priests. and thus cannot be considered to be muslims.

bjkumar #154 well said, sir. although i dont think this individual (like other religious zealots or all religions like him) is capable of registering what you said.