Teaching Science Badly – and Well

Re: # 158

tehsin,

...... you ignorant male whore! ..... bj is just another sorry apologist for unreason and superstition ......... just because he worships flying monkeys and is kindly disposed towards ugly naked men who sleep with their female relatives, does not mean he is right ............ the fact of the matter is that islam cannot be reconciled with modernity - it is just not possible ........... can you imagine any muslim ever giving up his watwani for toilet paper and maswak for a toothbrush .......... it will never happen and therfore this insidious ideology must be thorougly defeated, disgraced and if possible, completely wiped out ............ and don`t tell me it cannot be done - if your grandfather could be `persuaded` to stop worshiping a cow and eat baray paye, it is quite possible that your grandkids can be persuaded to stop hating pigs and enjoy a pork chop ...........

...... and no, we don`t need philosophers and social scientists - all we need are engineers, scientists, mba`s and some economists ............ by the way, did i tell you that alfred sloan. leonaro da vinci, charlie wilson, henry ford, jack welch, paul allen (the guy who actually started microsoft) and lee iacoca were engineers .......... and your heros, sam walton and warren buffet studied economics .......... the only famous social scientists i can think of are dick cheney and muhammad (pbu) .............


p.s. charlie wilson is the guy who said ``what is good for gm, is good for america``

hamidm #161 can you imagine any muslim ever giving up his watwani for toilet paper and maswak for a toothbrush ..

So, at what age did you give up the watwani and maswak?

Re: # 159

tahmed,

....... you are trying to tell a man who claims descent from the abbasids that syed qutub should have `` gotten rid of the ``syed`` part of his name `` !! ............. more than forty years ago a wise old man in the mountains gave tehsin the same advice ( if i remember correctly he compared the abbasids to an animal whose name i cannot take )

Re: # 162

tahmed,

...... i was using watwani and maswak as symbols for the sunnah and sharia ............ and besides, i have no idea how i would react if i came across a kikar tree or a pile of nice round sones .............

#156 by bjkumar

[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 ]

So what would you call reading re-reading and re-re-reading and following the koran day in and day out by the millions of Muslims then? Vast numbers of Muslims IN FACT take the time to go back and study ``whatever were the originating events of the religious labels that they wear``.

You are wrong in your arguments.


[– 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.]

Did you know that 40% of Muslims in UK admit to preferring Shariah to democracy? And a much larger number supports/empathizes with terrorirsm.

Is 40% an ``aberration``?


[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. ]

This ``demonization`` line is used to silence critics of Islam all the time. But with me, you have to do better.

Since you are a ``thinking`` person, I would expect you to get back to me on these points.

hamidm #163 what i meant was ``syed`` means something special to ``muslims`` who see the ``syed`` as a cut above the regular folks. abbasid doesnt have the same connotation.

the syed qutbs are a footnote to history - their ideology is riddled with inner contradictions, their methods are criminal, and they have no more chance of changing the course of history than king canute had of turning back the ocean tides.

syed qutbs are the result of social backwardness (jehalyiat). to equate them with islam is in fact to give them the very legitimacy they seek. separate syed qutb from islam, and all you are left with is a common criminal.

#157 by tolkinin

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

Do you call your brethren in Hamas ``broken record revoling needle``, or your brethren in the Pakistani terrorist establishment that have been harping on the ``rights`` for Muslim Kashmiris For the last 50 years?

You don`t, right?

Why not?

hamidm #164 the miswak serves a useful purpose if you dont have a toothbrush. the watwani i have my doubts about under any circumstances. the sunnah and sharia on the other hand are tools in the hands of animals-that-cannot-be-named to impose their will on society by setting themselves up as a priesthood.

but thanks for the clarification anyway.

#143 by malik99

“the fact that there was no dearth of ``aalims`` who had mastery of arabic just as good, if not better, than arabs’

Please guide me to some sort of course requirements for aalim, faazils, because as I understand it Faazil e Adab, Fazil e Dinyaat, munshi fazil (farsi), moulvi fazil (Arabic), adeeb fazil (urdu) sanad e hikmat younani; were all the asnaad in the madrasah which was conducted at the mosque. Hardly any of them required over 10 or 11 years of education. These graduates had very little ability. Their main function was that of being munshis whose job was to read letters or write letters to loved ones who were far away. Most if not all of the population lived in villages and there were one or 2 munshi fazils or with alim sanad. But calling these dinyat peddlers as ‘aalims’ is a stretch. Knowledge of Arabic enough to know about the Quran and tafseer was rare. If you have any data or sources which give some indication as to the level of such literacy I would love to have them.

“but even Bible didnt get translated from Latin into English and other languages until well into 1500s - nearly 1500 years after it was put together”

You are absolutely right – but it did not happen without a fight. Fact of the matter is that this ended up dividing the Church into its current Catholic and Protestant factions. The Church raised similar objections like our ulema that translating the Bible was not possible as its divine meaning would be lost. Practical reason was that where as it was so much easier for a priest to utter his words in an unknown language where he could impress his congregation as they didn’t know what was being said. But once it was said in the local vernacular they knew that what ever the priest was saying was after all not so magical and some of it was actually pretty ordinary that they were afraid to loose their power over the people. So Martin Luther said something to the effect that the strength of the church should not be in the ignorance of the laity. Moreover the printing press was just coming on and he was able to get the gospel translated into German published and distributed much more quickly then the opposition had time to solidify against him.

Kemal Ata Turk with his national hero credentials tried it for us Muslims as well, but not having philosophical credentials he was unable to make a coherent argument for having the Quran and the namaz conducted in Turkish. It never caught on and as a matter of fact today even in Turkey namaz is conducted in Arabic. But for our Muslim reformation we may end up having to revive the same formula that the Christians had adopted 500 years ago.

#169 The Church raised similar objections like our ulema that translating the Bible was not possible as its divine meaning would be lost.

While the comparison with 15th century europe is valid to the extent that priests wanted to hold on to latin the way mullahs hold on to arabic to give them that special edge over the laity, it is misleading: while 15th century christian priests sought to usurp control over society by keeping the bible in latin, mulahs have gone a step further and supplanted the simple straightforward message of the quran altogether by the sharia and sunnah.

Also, while your statement above (in italics) is true, this does not capture the uproar that issue caused in england when the issue first came up. william tyndale who translated the bible to english from latin was condemned as a heretic and burnt at the stake in the late 15th century. john wycliffe who had similarly translated the bible along with a bunch of ``conspirators`` before tyndale, managed to escape the church`s attention, but after his death his body was pulled out of its grave and hanged for good measure by the church.

the church lost its influence in part due to the black death, spread by rats, which killed priests in larger numbers than the ordinary populations (rats and priests tended to be together in closed confines of buildings) and thus lost credibility for their magical powers with the ordinary people.

#165 Krishna_abcd

Krishna, let me respond to the only portion of your response which cites data:

[Did you know that 40% of Muslims in UK admit to preferring Shariah to democracy? And a much larger number supports/empathizes with terrorism.]

You are perhaps referring to the report by Ms. Munira Mirza which found, among other things, that 37% of British born 16-24 year old Muslims prefer sharia compared to 17% of 55+ year olds.

You pull this factoid from among many in that report but neglect to talk of the CONCLUSIONS the author made based on the whole survey. Let’s look at it a bit closer:

Is such support a worldwide phenomenon among Muslim expatriates or is it uniquely a British situation. If it is the former, have we seen similar numbers in, for example, the USA? I seriously doubt it. I do not know too much about the UK, but my guess is that it has a track record of institutionalized racism which frowns upon integrating immigrants – and systematically discriminates and alienates especially their younger generations.

In fact, the lead author of that report, Munira Mirza, said: “The emergence of a strong Muslim identity in Britain is, in part, a result of multicultural policies implemented since the 1980s which have emphasised difference at the expense of shared national identity and divided people along ethnic, religious and cultural lines.”

And here is the clincher, from the same lead author:

Mirza cautioned: “We should be wary of treating the entire Muslim population as a monolith with special needs that are different to the rest of the population. There is considerable diversity amongst Muslims, with many adopting a more secular approach to their religion and a majority feeling they have as much, if not more, in common with non-Muslims in Britain as with Muslims abroad. There is clearly a conflict within British Islam between a moderate majority that accepts the norms of Western democracy and a growing minority that does not.”

So there, your argument has been shot to death! But shed no tears – it is good death!

For your viewing pleasure, I produce below a picture of Ms. Mirza because, because…

Because I think she is a lot more photogenic than Dr. Hoodbhoy and she is perhaps more photogenic than 99 percent of the chowk writers and interactors!

Enjoy!

#171 by bjkumar

So according to Ms.Munira Mirza`s ``guess`` ( a nice technique to establish facts ) UK Muslims are terrorists because ``it has a track record of institutionalized racism ....`` etcetra, etcetra.

I wonder then, if 37% of Hindus and 37% of Sikhs in UK also want to blow up their fellow citizens ? After all, by the first hand accounts of many Pakistanis on this board, Injuns are ugly darkies, who are also smelly, short and generally look ugly as hell. Surely then, Hindus in UK must have been far worse victims of Racism than fair skinned pakistanis ? no ???

By the way yo fair skinned pakistanis of UK, is that why you people trap young early-teen ( iam talking 13,14 year olds ) white girls in to what is called ``grooming`` ? or is that a way of sticking it to the ``whitey`` as a revenge ?

#171 by bjkumar

[Krishna, let me respond to the only portion of your response which cites data: ]

So what you are saying is that only that portion merits a response because there is data cited. Surprising how there was no ``data`` in your post #156, as well as the overwhelming majority of your posts.


[You are perhaps referring to the report by Ms. Munira Mirza which found, among other things, that 37% of British born 16-24 year old Muslims prefer sharia compared to 17% of 55+ year olds. ]

Regardless of what I am referring to, you have skirted the MAIN issue, which is that EVEN 37% is no ``aberration``.


[I do not know too much about the UK, but my guess is that it has a track record of institutionalized racism which frowns upon integrating immigrants – and systematically discriminates and alienates especially their younger generations. ]

Surprising then, that minorities of OTHER RELIGIONS, like Hindus, Sikhs etc. are solidly on the side of democracy.

See how your ``argument`` has no leg to stand on? Do you see that? No? I thought so.



[Mirza cautioned: “We should be wary of treating the entire Muslim population as a monolith with special needs that are different to the rest of the population. There is considerable diversity amongst Muslims, with many adopting a more secular approach to their religion and a majority feeling they have as much, if not more, in common with non-Muslims in Britain as with Muslims abroad. There is clearly a conflict within British Islam between a moderate majority that accepts the norms of Western democracy and a growing minority that does not.”

So there, your argument has been shot to death!]

Ah, so my argument has been shot to death by Ms. Mirza`s ``argument``.

No doubt.

If this is the best you can do, try not to respond to my baseless and illogical arguments. Just ignore my comments just like I ignore yours. And keep up your interfaith dialogue with Chowk Islamists.

mullahs have no problem with hard modernity, modern medicine, trains and planes etc. they have problem with soft modernity, secularism, democracy, eqaulity of sexes, arts& culture etc.

#172, #173

In #171, the paragraph containing ``guess`` is my own baby - not a contribution from Ms. Mirza.

Hey Zeemax:

Man, I have been waiting for you, because I really wanted to have our discussion, but you have chosen not to. That is okay. I am sorry, I put you on a spot, but you see this is the subtlety of our condition. Life is nothing more then a journey and self doubt and being conflicted is an essential part of the human experience.

This is where it becomes crucial to believe in a benevolent, beneficent and compassionate God, who understands our frailties and forgives our trespasses. This is also where we have to reject the Mullah trap of an angry, vengeful God all set to throw us all into eternal hell fires. Both you and I are hopeful (because without hope there is nothing) that His mercy will pull us through.