Teaching Science Badly – and Well

#207 yes pewresearch: listen to what monkey man says. he speaks from bitter experience - the only thing pakis feed him is peanuts.

#206 bjkumar: whiile you are right in saying that faith means no questioning - that is true only for faith practiced in traditional religion (never mind the brand name, islam, hinduism whatever)

true faith i think calls for questioning and increasing human knowledge of things (that, per the quran e.g., is the reason God created mankind - i.e. to study creation and learn more about it).

i will grant you that traditional religion has been pervasive in the past. but that does not mean that your or i are obliged to follow it rather than to use our common sense.

#210 by tahmed32

[i will grant you that traditional religion has been pervasive in the past. but that does not mean that your or i are obliged to follow it rather than to use our common sense.]


So, does your common sense say that a man who beheaded 700 UNARMED CIVILIANS and sold their INNOCENT AND HELPLESS women and children into slavery, is a monster?

(Try to answer this one without the usual hissing, spitting and name-calling).

#210 by tahmed32
[whiile you are right in saying that faith means no questioning - that is true only for faith practiced in traditional religion (never mind the brand name, islam, hinduism whatever)

true faith i think calls for questioning and increasing human knowledge of things (that, per the quran e.g., is the reason God created mankind - i.e. to study creation and learn more about it). ]

Interesting how faith, which is defined by the absence of reasoning, is now categorized into ``false`` and ``true`` faiths.

It`s even more interesting how ``true`` faith just happens to be associated with the quran. :)

Re: # 211

``(Try to answer this one without the usual hissing, spitting and name-calling).``

Bhai, try to ask a question sometime, without usual hissing, spitting and name-calling, if you really want to know or understand something. What makes you so angry all the time?

#210 by tahmed32 on March 6, 2007 9:00am PT


true faith i think calls for questioning


really..let`s see you question pbuh-dude`s divinity...we`ll see how long you last....

krishna #214/arjun #212 You claim to hate pakis/muslims etc. and at the same time are falling over one another seeking to engage in ``discussion`` with the same pakis/muslims you claim to hate. While this strange behavior is beyond the understanding of a normal person, I am not interested in what your problem is, much less in engaging in ``discussion`` with you. Have a nice day.

Urstruly #213 That is a good question you have. I have long given up trying to understand the mind of the macaca.

#215 by tahmed32 on March 6, 2007 2:00pm PT


You claim to hate pakis/muslims etc


No prophet tahmed(pbuysrr): that`s your claim....

TehsinAbbasi:
Yea, sorry about the tone. It did come out as angry and offensive. I just wanted to say that it helps - well, kind of - to be a little ironic when making self-serving claims.

Re:hamidm2

[..According to some adaptationists, this is part of religion’s role, to help humans deal with the grim certainty of death. Believing in God and the afterlife, they say, is how we make sense of the brevity of our time on earth, how we give meaning to this brutish and short existence. Religion can offer solace to the bereaved and comfort to the frightened....]

Actually most of us are smart enough to realize that there is a huge chance, probably 99% chance that there is nothing after death. Your neurons stop firing and thats that!! Yet that 1% possibility that you will not be maggot feed but get on a luxury cruise after death with wine women and song, is what keeps us plodding along with religion, especially for the islamists who think they have a first class ticket to heaven.

Where this evolutionary vehicle goes kaput is when religious belief actually becomes a negative force against survival. If the afterlife is so good and so certain, why even bother to survive? Just die and go for the afterlife. A lot of religions go through this phase where people are so sure of the afterlife that the current life loses all meaning except as a brief time to book the best seat for the afterlife. Christianity has gone through this phase and Islam is going through this phase, as we hear how muslims love death more than they love life. What can be more anti-evolutionary than that?

Except for Islam, most other religions have managed to overcome this certainty of afterlife phenomenon. Christians, especially in the west, dont give a $hit about heaven and hell anymore. Neither do hindus. Religion becomes a series of fun social events - shopping sprees like Christmas or fooling around with women on Holi. The world is waiting for muslims to graduate to that phase where they enjoy the Ids and Muharrams with full vigor and then get down to practical life instead of blowing people up.

#213 by Urstruly

[Bhai, try to ask a question sometime, without usual hissing, spitting and name-calling, if you really want to know or understand something. ]

I have. It never works with tahmed. When he gets inconvenient questions he has no answer for, he calls me a hater of Islam and Muslims and clams up.

At least you and zeemax are no hypocrites. You guys have actually bothered to read the koran, and know what it actually says, without putting a thousand contradictory spins on a thousand different things to feel good about things.

Zeemax likes the simple kill-or-be-killed philosophy of the animal kingdom. You like it too, except with the veneer that Allah wants it so and therefore it`s okay. But Tahmed wants to mould and interpret things his way. If there is something that he just cannot put a spin on, like ``chop your non-Muslim neighbor into mincemeat and feed him to the dogs`` or something to that effect, he declares that it must be a corruption of the original message. Normally this would be a good sign, because good people like to believe good things about their religion (just like an axe murderer`s children want to believe that their father was framed), except for the fact that tahmed has been seen making copious donations into the jehad boxes.

In any case...

#217 arjun: So what you are saying is you dont hate terrorists and liars (which is what you said a few posts below all pakis are). Like I said, it is not for normal human beings to understand the mind of a macaca......

Re: # 205 Tahmed

``....need to engage in india-pakistan mudslinging...``

This has nothing to do with India-Pakistan `mudslinging`, and everything to do with your character and claims of a virtuous upbringing stressing `honesty` and the like; your attempts to weazel away from a discussion on the facts notwithstanding. If you are indeed `honest` as you claim to be, can you explain how you can defend General-President Musharraf with a call to arms when your country`s neighbors threaten to pay back in kind when he sends murderous agents to their civilian centers, but express no such calls to action when he engages in such provocative acts in the first place` that I raised in #177.

This has been my question that you are not willing to address, while trying every means to deflect the discussion on other spurious matters (e.g. india-pakistan mudslinging even though the instance that I cited was of Afghan concerns about Taliban infiltration).

You are exposed on Chowk for all to see! You can run, but can`t hide! Hypocrite!!

#222 *yawn*

the answer is still: ``jao baba maaf karo. no discussion wiscussion with macacas.``

#222 Pew

Ama yaar, beating up on Tauheed sahib will not work. Here is why:

(1) Individuals like Tauheed sahib do not (as far as I know) endorse what the terrorists in Kashmir or in other parts of India (whether native or sent-in) are doing.

(2) The Pakistani khakis (or at least their “rogue” elements) who fund, train and send in the jihadis into Kashmir do not seek the approval of the likes of Tauheed sahib, or perhaps ANY segments of the Pakistani population – such elements are self-justified in their own minds and are not really the most democratic bunch around who would even feel any need for such justification – and they have never tried to obtain it – if they had done so, it would have never deteriorated to this stage.

(3) In all likelihood, there are plenty of Pakistanis who feel in their hearts that their government has been doing a LOT of wrong things regarding India, but will not say so openly because (a) they do not really feel they have the clout to make a difference, (b) they feel that saying things openly will expose such lack of clout, (c) in some cases, they might even feel that if they refuse to face up to it, perhaps the rest of the world won’t notice.

(4) The fully two generation long deliberate, state controlled indoctrination has done its damage to the hearts and minds of individuals who – until the other day, were our kins by ties of blood and often still display – when they give way to being unguarded – whatever remains of the kinship that at one time was a given and a part of our joint heritage.

(5) On top of everything else, there is the VERY desi tendency to dig into heels and become more entrenched when attacked – a tendency which makes people do and say things which they would not do or say if they were more comfortable.

The above are strictly my personal opinions. I have no special expertise on such issues and I certainly can not divine what exists in the hearts of individuals or groups of people.