Church vs Mosque

Not more than an unsuccessful attempt of undermining Islam. Carry on dude, thousands and thousands have tried this since advent of Islam. HE who has lit this truthful religion will protect it.

The Attack On Chrisitianity

I am noticing a lot of the fanatics turning their attention to attacking Christians which leads me to the feeling that this article really worked! I will have these people know that I grew up on more virulent anti-christian anti-semitic propaganda than anything you fundamentalists disguised as socialists can pull out.

And look at me today!

There is no stopping the truth for the truth will set you free!


Regarding Mr. Sattar

``Shiraz dude … a few rambling, off-topic thoughts …"#136 by sattar2 on September 14, 2004 5:13pm PT

I have always wanted to write like that in public! unfotunately the abuse one recieves by simply writing the bland stuff is enough to cause one to attempt a more ``subtle`` approach to informing my beloved dwellers of the Land of the Pure (thank goodness! never apprecited it before but what a beautiful name it is and what a great destiny our people have in front of them!).

Wow! I am honored to have someone like you write. And these are not just words but consolation in words that could have only been transmitted from outer space!

I am indifferent to Sinatra (I think that is worse than despising a person, I think) and though there was a time when I admired and adored Wilde I have now begun to observe with great alarm that he Wilde lived my life a few hundred years ago (with the exception of that wit thing topped with that homosexuality).

Why have I not read your responses before ? I guess it takes a crucifixion to galvanize and ferret out the cool Pakistanis!

As for looks department, there is so much neurosis there that it will take me a few years to expurgate most of them.

More commentary and analysis and interpretation sir! both you and HamidM are just fabulous characters :)

Shiraz dude … a few rambling, off-topic thoughts …

… apparently a photograph of yours is floating around in cyberspace … and the word has it that you are one ugly sob … Don’t take literally what hamidm wrote … he’s a bit of a sufi … and at times means the opposite of what he writes …

… but don’t let this bother you … history of mankind is shaped by men who had atrocious looks … and an equally repugnant fashion sense … there was picasso, gandhi, churchill, einstein, napoleon, alexander, eisenhower … all were butt-ugly men who could not seduce a whore even with crisp, hard cash in their pockets. On the other hand, the pretty boys usually end up in b-movies … if not porn flicks … or grow old responding to classifieds placed by equally hopeless women in sunday personals … (seems like everyone nowadays is looking for a soul mate … wtf does that mean anyway …? )

… as for chicks who blew you off … they are probably in for a rude awakening later in life. Usually they go through this phase early on … but most quickly get out of it, become highly proficient in the abstract science of social mathematics … and start indexing potential mates on basis of their earning potential … and the rest is good ol’ fashioned darwinian evolution. The ones worth pursuing are turned on more by confidence and a worldly outlook … mixed with occasional flirtatiousness (which I think is a measure of a man`s type-s sperm count). We fondly talk about romeo and juliet … probably because they never got married … or their lives would have become endless bickering over insurance premiums and grocery bills. I don’t think romeo could do a day’s worth of work in an entire lifetime … the guy was a fu@king moron … and I can’t believe Shakespeare’s gotten away with it for so long ...

... some chicks wait for a shinny, faggoty-assed tom cruise look-alike soul mate (… here we go again …) … but start kissing frogs as age catches on (o`boy ... and you think the economy is sagging ...). And if by chance they do find some smoothed-skin, shinny pursuer … after moving-in or marriage he turns into yet another abusive, chauvinist, jerk. That pretty much sums it up. It’s the same all over the tv and the papers … and among my colleagues and neighbors … white, yellow, or brown. God is a clever architect and has put everything in a fine balance … go over the limit and inevitably your butt will get kicked rotten …

… so dude … history, evolution, and genetics are on your side … but first, get somewhere in life … and all along listen to sinatra, read oscar wilde ... and dance like no one’s watching … and if this bothers anyone ... tell`em plainly to shove it … and you’ll do just fine …


PS: I am too lazy to go back and check ... but if I misunderstood the photograph comments, kindly disregard this post ...

And now from a Bible-Rifle mafia-boss himself. Nothing has changed. The thugs are still trying to get footholds among the superior civilisations of Sudan, Rwanda, Congo & Sierra Leone.

Expose them, hound them , shun them.

Promote, propagate, and publicise.

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The White Man`s Duty

The American Missionary 53 (July 1899).

In the poem of Mr. Kipling which so stirred our hearts a few months ago a large and fundamental truth is expressed. The white man has a burden to bear. There are and always have been in the ethnological classifications dominant and subordinate races. Islands and even continents bear witness to this fact. Not the most fertile nor the most comfortably situated nations have led in the civilization of the world. Africa is favored with a soil, with geographical, topographical and climatic conditions which might be supposed most favorable to make its people one of the prominent forces in the civilization and progress of the world. It was not the appointment of providence or nature but the character of the people themselves which has kept them a prey of other peoples and races. They are not recognized as a real element in the national forces of the world. They have no literature. Their language is crude and imperfect. Their condition is hardly worthy the name of civilization. That this is true no one can question. A subordinate and not a dominant race occupy this great, rich continent. The same is true of other regions of the world. We are bound, if we are true to the fact, to recognize that there are dominant and subordinate races.

The dominant, which is substantially the white race, has the burden to sustain of bringing civilization and regenerating forces to bear upon the needy races. This is properly the white man`s burden. But in a sense it is a negative. He bears that which is imposed upon him by the very conditions of race peculiarity. He has more than simply a burden to bear. There is the white man`s duty as truly as the white man`s burden. His responsibilities are aggressive and positive and not simply negative and submissive.

In the alarming condition of our own country, especially in the Southern states, the Duty of the white man is written in the imperative. The work of the American Missionary Association, through its schools and churches and army of consecrated missionaries, has always been the elevation of the needy peoples among whom the work has been carried on. The agitation of political, social and even religious questions had not been the object of its effort. Nor is this the object today. The work would fail were this its object. The undeveloped races must become capable of holding their places in the competition with the dominant race as races, and not simply in individual cases, before they can attain this position of equality. The work lies with the depressed and undeveloped peoples primarily. Higher ideals, physical, intellectual and moral, must be established. But, notwithstanding this, the white man must face his own duties and accomplish his own work. The white man`s duty includes, in the first place, self-control. The heinous crimes committed by Negroes in the South, or alleged to have been committed, are crimes that should receive the severest punishment of the law. If law is inadequate, the white man holds it in his power to correct this law and make it adequate. The brutal lynchings, which are in themselves a violation of law, are only a stimulus to the Negro to further violence. The white man`s duty involves self-control. This he seems utterly incapable of in the South. Not only does he wreck vengeance on Negroes who are accused of crimes but upon neighboring white men who dare to stand for the legal punishment of crime. It is not that this course on the part of the dominant race is bringing discredit and disgrace upon us in all the nations of the world. This is unfortunate in itself, but it is not the primary evil. The fundamental trouble is that the dominant race is proving by these outrages that it lacks the very element of self-control which it demands of the other race. These crimes of the white man are the most discouraging phenomena of this century. They show that even with his boasted superiority and advanced civilization he has attained scarcely to the self-control of a savage. If crimes similar to those that are committed in the South were committed by the Indians of the prairie, it would be deemed sufficient for the wiping out of a while tribe. But how much greater is the disgrace, the shame, the crime, when these outrages are committed by the white race, who should be the dominant factor of civilization!

The white man`s duty also involves the considerate treatment of a weaker people. The undeveloped condition of the Negroes of the South results largely from the white man`s neglect. He has deprived the black man of privileges that he might use him to better advantages for himself. The inevitable fruits of years of subjection in slavery, when the race was kept in enforced ignorance, are being reaped in the harvest of ignorance and lawlessness on the part of the Negro today. It is the white man`s duty to educate and elevate those whom he has in the past robbed of natural privileges. It is not simply a burden thrown upon him which he must passively bear. It is a stern duty, for the accomplishment of which he must gird himself. Efforts should not be lessened but multiplied all over the South for the education and elevation of the subordinate races. It is the white man`s duty and he fails not in philanthropy but in meeting the just demands of human society upon himself, if he does not accomplish this. It is not whether the black man shall meet his opportunity and be qualified to meet his responsibility, but whether the white man meets his opportunity and is qualified for his responsibility. The disgrace falls today not upon the black man but upon the white citizenship of the South. The white man`s duty is at once to exercise self-control on his own part and to demand the exercise of the same on the part of other white men so that law shall be administered by courts and not by mobs. It is not a question of the innocence or guilt of those who are accused by mob violence. The disgrace and dishonor is upon the dominant race of America in view of these brutal outrages of the South. Every patriotic American ought so far as possible to utter his protest against the feebleness of a civilization that cannot hold the stronger and more intelligent element within the confines of the law.

---

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[ No wonder there is so much emphasis on ``education`` rather than on Character.]

`` MAULANA Sattar Edhi no no, Hakim Saeed No NO but drooling-dog Musharraf & Shaukat Aziz yes yes: ``They are educated, they know how to take orders; evry dog knows that to fetch the ball; the dog understands ENGLISH. The mullah cannot understand this``

[ Luckily the mullah is NOT `educated`]

The Bible-Rifle missionary-mafia must be exposed:

This is what a hindu from India writes:( If a muslim wrote this , the godfathers would raise hell)

Expose them, hound them, shun them.

promote, propagate, and publicise the activities of these thugs in your neighborhood.

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Indians Against Christian Aggression

Christians have become a threat to our way of life

March 29, 2004, 3:34 pm

N.KRISHNA

Our houses are being targeted in various ways. Only last year when my aunty had admitted her son in UK, she was approached by the missionaries in UK and they found out all the family details and wanted to conduct a prayer for the recovery of her son in the house of her daughter in Trivandrum. Within few hours, christian nurses from some of the hospitals assembled at their house in Trivandrum. Another family in Trivandrum whose son was somewhat mentally unstable was converted to Christianity few years back. In Mumbai one Thomas is trying to convert even prostitutes in the red light area around Kamathipura which is widely reported in the media.

Never in my life I was offended like when two tribal ladies have landed in my house immediately after I came to live in Hyderabad. Christians are no more targeting the illiterate or Tribals. Every Hindu house is under threat from these Christian missionary terrorists. I would like to live in my house in India without being targeted by the Christians.

It is not for charity Christians are running hospitals and educational institutions. It is the money-making racket. My relatives` child put in a Bangalore christian school comes home and trying to pray in front of the cross. This is what is going on in the schools. Christians are much more of a terrorist than the Muslims is my experience. Christians and Hindus are not the same. Christians have destroyed various ethnic cultures of the world. Christians have killed in the name of religion.

Everything about Christianity is based on fraud, from mother Teresa`s miracle to the stealing of various festivals from other pagan religions. Time the government declared that all conversions are illegal and the church should not get involved in politics. Christians in the Gulf are working as agents of Muslim terrorists for handling their money. Christians are like a Trojan Horse in India trying to destroy our culture.

#123: Ms.ZahraJ,

Honestly speaking, if you take care to re read my previous interact, you will realise that i am not obsessed with the nick/id etc and that the bulk of my argument dealt with nothing about the id in itself.

Although, i do admit that it was triggered by an explanation of the Id itself, by the author of the article.

Furthermore, i have no problem and have enough guts to declare that indeed i am the One, who did not appreciate his previous article. I changed the Id long before this current article was posted for personal reasons.

However, i certainly am not the one who posted his pic and i thorougly disapproved of it myself . I respect every ones privacy and would like mine to be respected too.

Moreover, i have no personal grudges against the author simply because i do not know him personally and vice versa. my arguments did not flow from the ``personal is political`` ideology.

I voiced out my opinion exactly the same way as you do. I think that i do have the right to do that, don`t i ?

Kind regards.

# 131

I am thoroughly amused. I have been watching Yoginder Sikand`s antics for sometime. It surprised me that `secular` Hindus had been so completely taken in by this die-hard Islamist. But I reasoned that if Hindus didn`t care about unmasking Islamist thugs like Yoginder Sikand, why should I exert myself?

But now this Islamist fanatic has begun to reinvent the truth against Christians. If his followers like Echoboom persist in their ways, Yoginder Sikands` `secular` empire will come crashing down.

Please publicise, promote, propagate this news to Yoginder Sikand. :)

Muslims! watch out for these evil-agencies for western thugs amongst you. Expose them , hound them, drive them out from amongst you. what a bunch of thugs are these. Deserted and desolate churches at home, and trying to save-souls to enslave them into the westernish-evils

How shocking indeed! Muslims seldom pay attention to these wretched do-gooders.

Publicise, promote, propagate this article please.

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The Evangelical Challenge: A New Face of Western Imperialism

Yoginder Sikand.

Some months ago I wrote an article on western Christian evangelical groups active in various Muslim countries, pointing out how many of them were actively working for promoting the strategic interests of Western governments, particularly the United States. I had been careful to buttress my arguments with ample quotations from Christian sources themselves so as not to appear to be making any unsubstantiated claims. I sent the article to several Muslim magazines, websites and Internet discussion groups, expecting it to raise some discussion of the issue in Muslim circles. To my surprise, while almost no Muslim readers got back to me about the article, I received several letters and emails from angry Christian evangelicals, almost all of them American and working among Muslim communities in South Asia, protesting that I had unfairly tarnished their image. Yes, they admitted, they did believe that the way to heaven was through Jesus alone. Without accepting him as ‘personal saviour’, they stressed, no one could hope to escape eternal damnation in hell. But, they protested, despite their firm faith in the exclusiveness of Christianity, they were engaged in doing ‘good’ for the Muslims they were working among. They were supplying them free education, and medical help, they said. They were running scores of economic development project to help ‘uplift’ the poor, they argued. Hence, they insisted, I had presented a completely one-sided picture of Christian evangelism among Muslims, ignoring the many ‘positive’ contributions that the missionaries were apparently making.

The angry response from evangelical Christians to my article prompted me to delve further into the history and broader agenda of European and American Christian missionaries working among non-Christian, particularly Muslim, peoples. A random search on the Internet revealed to me the existence of a vast, well-organised network of institutions I never knew existed, devoted specifically to missionary work among Muslims. These include academic institutes, publishing houses, radio and television stations, medical missions, centres for training missionaries and so on, all seemingly generously funded and, for the most part, located in western Europe and the United States. As they described themselves and their mission, they all seemed to be fired by a passionate belief in Christianity as the only road to salvation, and Islam, as well as other faiths, as paths to perdition in hell. Some of them described Islam as nothing less than a Satanic invention.

As many critics, including several Christians themselves, have pointed out, the fiery zeal that driveswhite Christian evangelicals to swarm to the ‘Third World’, including Muslim countries, in a desperate bid to save ‘lost’ souls reflects the continuing hold of the nineteenth century European imperialist discourse that saw ‘natives’ as beyond the pale of civilization. Today, when Christianity is almost dead in the West, how does one explain the rush of American and European evangelicals to the ‘Third World’? Quite obviously this has little or nothing to do with mere pious intentions, for the decline of religion is far from apparent in the West than in the rest of the world, making it more of an urgent imperative for missionaries to work in the West than elsewhere. Thus, one has to turn to other factors to explain this seeming paradox. From a close examination of the agenda of evangelical groups in the ‘Third World’ it appears that, as a whole, Christian fundamentalism in our part of the world is no simple religious mission. As is widely believed, many evangelical groups working in the ‘Third World’ are simply fronts for Western agencies and governments, helping to promote their vested interests and strategic goals. This is most readily apparent from the cozy relationship between Christian fundamentalists and the current Bush administration. Right-wing American Christian groups are known to be sources of immense financial support to Israel. They are also vociferous backers of America’s imperialist designs on the Muslim world, seeing these as a divinely mandated crusade against the forces of ‘evil’.

My own discomfort about western Christian evangelicals were further confirmed when, recently, I came across a fascinating book titled ‘Mission, Myth and Money in a Multicoloured World’, authored by a certain Jules Gomes. Gomes is apparently a leading Indian Christian scholar, a member of the teaching faculty at one of the largest Protestant seminaries in India, the United Theological College at Bangalore. Author of several books, he is presently a research scholar at the University of Cambridge. In this insightful book Gomes describes in detail the dark and little-known world of Western evangelicals who see themselves as entrusted with the burdensome task of bringing the ‘light’ of Christianity to the ‘benighted’ non-white world.

Gomes tells us that many white right-wing Christian evangelicals whom he has interacted with closely for many years see America as God’s chosen nation, capitalism as ‘sacrosanct’, globalisation (a euphemism for American imperialism) as a ‘blessing’, the carpet bombing of Afghanistan as ‘necessary’, the war on Iraq as a ‘crusade’ and the American flag as a ‘quasi-religious icon’. In short, he says, he has discovered, much to his dismay, that ‘the western church [is] replicating the imperialistic behaviour of the western world’. The only difference now is, he writes, that the centre of imperialism, economic, cultural and political, has shifted from Europe to America. Today, America leads the world in sending out missionaries to other lands. In 2002, America is said to have sent out 60,200 missionaries to 220 countries in 2001. ‘Coca-Colonisation’, as Gomes describes American imperialism, thus goes hand in hand with Christianisation.

Gomes writes that the close alliance between the Christian rightwing and American imperialism is not a new phenomenon, although the bond seems to have become even closer in recent times. As early as 1854, he tells us, a book appeared in America under the revealing, though clumsy, title of ‘Armageddon: Or, The Existence […] of the United States Foretold in the Bible, Its […] Expansion into the Millennial Republic, and Its Dominion Over the Whole World’. Two decades later, in 1885 another tract, ‘Our Country’, was published, that claimed that America had attained the ‘highest degree of Anglo-Saxonism and true Christianity’ and that God had bestowed upon it the task of Christianising and ‘civilising’ the whole world.

While white racism, American imperialism and evangelical Christianity thus have a long history of mutual collaboration, Gomes writes that the rise of America as the global centre of right-wing Christian evangelism is largely a post-Cold War phenomenon. He argues that in the aftermath of World War II, America deliberately sought to promote right-wing Christian missionary groups in other countries, particularly in the ‘Third World’, in order to combat the ideological challenge of communism and anti-imperialist nationalism. These Christian groups also served to promote American interests abroad. Several of them received generous funding from far-right American government lobbies, CIA front organizations, American big business and right-wing think tanks. Many missionaries were appointed as sources of vital information for the CIA, and were used to bolster American hegemony by indoctrination and spreading American propaganda. As Sara Diamond writes in her ‘Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right’, these Christian groups eagerly sought to promote ‘dependence on the world leadership […] of the United States’. For them, missionary work was simply a means ‘to organize social movements and development programs favourable to US political and economic priorities’.

Contrary to the image of evangelical missionaries as pious, God-fearing do-gooders that they are so concerned to portray, Gomes shows how many of them have been involved in murky deals, working closely with American imperialist organizations. In 1975, the journal ‘Christianity Today’ admitted that large numbers of both Protestant and Catholic missionaries had provided information to the American intelligence authorities. In 1996, the ‘Washington Post’ reported that CIA officials admitted the existence of a ‘controversial loophole’ that permits the CIA to recruit ‘American journalists as agents, use newsgathering organizations as cover and [employ] clerics or missionaries for clandestine work overseas’. Gomes provides several examples of the active role of missionaries working in

Gomes contends that American evangelicals today are one of the fiercest supporters of Israel, seeing Islam as their greatest ideological enemy. Several Christian fundamentalist groups send huge sums of money to Israel, including to various fiercely Zionist Jewish organizations. The close collaboration between right-wing Christian groups in America and world Zionism, Gomes says, is clearly suggested by the fact that when the Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington in January 1998, his first meeting was not with the American President, but, instead, with the leading Christian evangelist Jerry Falwell and more than a thousand Christian fundamentalists. At the meeting he was hailed as ‘the Ronald Reagan of Israel’, and Falwell promised to contact more than 200,000 Christian pastors, asking them to ‘tell President Clinton to refrain from putting pressure on Israel’. The unrelenting hostility of many American Christian groups towards Islam and Muslims is clearly apparent in their passionate endorsement of recent America’s military strikes against Muslim countries. Thus, Gomes writes, let alone the Protestant fundamentalists, even the apparently somewhat less extreme US Catholic bishops blessed the American invasion of Afghanistan. The evangelicals are now among the most fervent supporters of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq.

To come back to where I started, I do not wish to tar all evangelicals with the same brush, for surely there must be noble souls among them as well. However, taken as a whole, the evangelical project, I would still insist, constitutes a major menace, a thinly veiled guise for western imperialism, and a powerful threat to religious and cultural communities in the ‘Third World’

Zahra J : I like your STYLE

However, you may applaud A.Shiraz for his writing style because you think it provokes reactions. If you read my previous posts, I have mentioned the same thing.....YET ITS NOT NECCESSARILY HIS WRITING STYLE, ITS THE TOPIC, anyone can stir up a little controversy by being one sided and bigoted. I can write an article on Jesus Christ, condemn him, abuse and curse him and if I post it on the Catholic forum - you can bet your socks ill get some reactions. Like I said, I pity A.Shiraz, because at the end of the day some of the points he is trying to make (are valid) - he looses the reader because of his tunnel vision. Such a writer can neither be called talented or serious. I think theres a point to writing, do you see where Im coming from??

but I agree with the rest of your post - so thanks for some great advice doctor Z.

Vertex: I did not need any blessing from you on what I have pointed out. I dislike those with agendas and hanky panky ways of expression. I do not fully agree with the writer on any of his works, but I definitely appreciate his authentic work. His approach certainly ``lacks`` the hanky panky ways of some interactors on board, the ridiculous sugar coating of some of the jihadis, the narrow-mindedness of the fanatics ... oh lest I forget, the convoluted arguments of the seculars.

On a relatively calmer note: I hope you are doing well.

Take Care :)

Shia Baiting

#84 by MQMPower on September 10, 2004 6:19am PT

There are Shia haters abundant in Pakistan and on Chowk but that is the case with most Sunni Muslims. It is good to have you come here and talk about the Shiite faith, however do remember that Sunnis will be the first to subvert and destroy your people as they have done historically and they continue to do today in Sunni Islamic Pakistan.

The Stink That Attracts Ex Cons To Islam
Do you realize that you could have taken a whole new angle by fanning the disturbingly numerous child abuse scandals that the Catholic Church has faced in the recent years #38 by seinfeld on September 8, 2004 11:38am PT

In case you could not tell this is not about a Catholic church. I criticize the Catholic Church as much as if not more than Islam.

While you have your own take on the stink that you sensed in the mosques that you have been to, that “stink” is exactly what has attracted many people towards Islam.#38 by seinfeld on September 8, 2004 11:38am PT

You have to be kidding me! but this is so true! In prisons white felons go for Nazism and White Supremacist groups while Black criminals go for Islam. If it ain`t the stench that attracts them to Islam, I don`t know what it is.

However there are some of us who are educated, civilized and upright, law abiding citizens who just happened to be born into Islam. We were not given an option really. It is to those people that I say ``Go out and find your heaven, explore! be brave! You are intelligent and you are worth it!``

Meanwhile you and your fundamentalist friends may feel free to enjoy each others` stink. If you can`t get enough of it you may go the Gyms and smell other people`s jocks (get high on spirituality, Islamic style!) but do remember to watch out for those body builders, if they catch you smelling their soiled underwear you are going to wish the Americans were kicking your arse again. But while you are at it close the windows of your dens of terrorism, male chauvinism and homosexuality which you call your houses of worship.

May moderate Muslims be free of such associations. May moderate Muslims be free of whatever image the mosque has in the rest of the world.

Its the Quality NOT the Quantity
Anyway, may be we should forgive that stinky guy in the mosque. Being the hourly-rate kind of a guy that he is, chances are that he didn’t have the time and resources to “drive” home and take a shower for the three prayer times that fell during his long and hard work-day digging the ditch.#38 by seinfeld on September 8, 2004 11:38am PT

In essence, all the relatively poor people, sweating but trying to earn a living. Let us assume that during their work, they hear the call for prayer. What do you suggest they do? With no public baths in sight in Pakistan, should they go, miles way to their home to take a bath first? What if no bathing facilities are available in the mosque and all they can do, is perform their required and refreshing wudu? What do you suggest then? #96 by ELUSIVE on September 10, 2004 8:50pm PT


What is better, to show up to greet your God sweating and smelling of urine or to show up in a state of cleanliness?

The frequency of Islamic prayers is such that I am amazed Muslims get the time to go to the bathroom and finish their daily business. If such people heard the prayer call in the middle of their business I bet you would be ok if they marched into the mosque soiled and stinking?

That is exactly the condition of atleast 1 in 15 Muslim men who show up at the mosques - unless you are near a Pathan colony then the percentage of soiled and stinking men shoots up astronomically.

Praying at a mosque is a communal experience. You are standing shoulder to shoulder with another human being. When you raise your arms you are exposing your armpits in all its deodrant-less glory! When you are bending over and your Kameez and Shalwar flutters you are fluttering the contents of your genitalia in plain view of people behind you who are bending straight into the line of sight of your genitalia.

If you must pray 5 times a day and you stink, can you not do it in private? Must you flaunt your piety and your unhygenic condition in front of 500 other innocent, washed and clean people? Would you rather not pray to your God in a condition of good quality rather than unclean and copiously stinking quantity?

But the trouble is you cannot do that. Why? because the Imams and the Mullahs will not let you do that. Why? Because the Imam would rather have a stinking, mindless laborer firing the guns for his cause than some educated, well dressed and clean shaven man. The clean shaven worldly man would find it easier to pay the Chanda (alms) when there is a crazed bearded fanatic threatening to blow himself up at his children`s schools.

Its not like the Imams and Mullahs don`t try to recruit intelligent people but the civilized and educated people rarely have time to waste on 5 times prayers.

But even absentee Muslims are good news for Mullahs because the more you miss the prayers the more Mullahs can make you feel guilty about it and the more money they can extort from you.

``Brother, so how many prayers you did Qadha? How many prayers you missed? You would rather be a doctor than pray five times a day``.

The poor mindless Muslim Doctor is ofcourse thinking ``Yes, maybe I am bad! so what if I saved the life of 50 people that day, I missed my prayers man! maybe I should give all my salary to the Islamic Jihad!`` You are being taken for a ride and your degrees are worthless in the face of this immense brainwashing!

But if you are a rational and clear headed man with good western education in you, you will say ``There is a time for everything and TOO MUCH of anything is bad! so I will go maybe once a week or even once a year but when I go I wish for quality of experience , and I shall not whore away my spirituality for cheap, two minute prayers at rapid fire frequencies``.

What effect do 5 times prayers have on Muslims? It only solidifies their mental brainwashing but the spiritual experience is deadened and cheapened because Muslims start to pray like ``Murghas`` (Cocks and Hens) who do things mindlessly and mechanically and quickly as if they have to get rid of a task and get back to their work.

Muslims when they are praying act is if they are not in the presance of God but praying by a timer. Why will they not pray in a staccato rapid fire way? When you cheapen the experience of appearing before God it shows in your actions. You may boast that you pray five times a day but its a mindless ritual to you and most Muslims (With the exception of Osama Bin Ladin and look where 5 times a day has gotten him!) How many of you can FEEL the experience of praying at 5 in the morning (IF you can even get up in the morning)? How many of you can really connect with your God while you rattle off words in a language you don`t even understand? Do you realize that praying is NOT a drill or an obligation.

Instead you make excuses on behalf of people who stink and have poor hygiene! Is there no end to your excuses? You would rather dive into a pile of shi_te than have the courage to explore and see what else is out there, right?

Well go ahead and meet your stinking end.

Culture Is NOT Your Race

In your fancy of the English, the Protestant ethic, Capitalism and of course westernization, you have unfortunately forgotten your very roots. .. One does not become white, if they paint their faces white. One does not become protestant by a singular or a few visits to a church.#121 by ELUSIVE on September 13, 2004 1:40pm PT

One may not change their race (atleast until medical science advances enough to allow us to do that) but one may change one`s culture.

You can speak English even if you have never seen England. You may adopt the Protestant Ethic (as the South Koreans have) even if you are unrelated to Martin Luther or King Henry VIII. One may be a Capitalist even if one is born into a ``spiritual`` Hindu family. One may become westernized even if one is born and raised in Pakistan.

People who are ``ethno centric`` and who claim that adopting western ideals of freedom, equality and justice is ``forgetting ones roots/identity/race`` are in my opinion impeding the progress of their own people. They are identifying values that are good and noble with ``whiteness`` . It is racist to identify words like ``We the people consider all people are created equal`` as something white and un-Pakistani or un-Brown. It is racist to say that learning English or ``western science`` is Un Islamic or un-Brown (like the people who ridiculed Sir Syed Ahmed Khan). It is racist to say that Pakistanis cannot be Protestants or Capitalists. It is wrong to say that Pakistanis cannot aspire to the values that the Swedes or the British hold dear.

Muslims claim ``Islam about Equality brother poor man pray shoulder to shoulder with rich man`` but they forget the forgotten and huddled masses of suffering women who are never there by the side of their men when praying. Your claims and your lies will not stand in front of those who have seen that there is something better out there! That is why I urge all of you to be brave and shrug all those fears implanted in you of Christians and Jews.

Be brave and see how Protestants in England and America live and eat and behave and you will astonished! You will see why Christians and Protestants are foremost in the world! You will see why God has blessed them and why Muslims live under this curse ... be brave! go out there and explore with a open and loving heart... what have you got to lose ? a few brown friends who think its ``un Islamic`` to hold the hands of a woman but perfectly Ok to hold the hand of a member of your own gender? Forget the haters!

Zahra,

If you don`t like some of the commentary, then follow your own advice and don`t read them. This one included. This article was designed to be inflammatory, and if your too self absorbed to see that, then let others who recognize that vent. Rebuking the author and his attitude is contributing to the board...

zahraj - you wrote ``It seems that interactors waste more bandwidth on Chowk in ridiculing others` points than contributing anything.``

That makes it two of us. You don`t have to ``waste more bandwidth on Chowk in reidiculing others` points`` either, Ms. ZahraJ ;)

But aside from this article, how are you doing? I like your brazen style. There are only a few Pakistani girls who can be this in-your-face. And I like it. I may not agree with your point of view, but I appreciate your tenacity in defending yours. Keep up the good work.

Elusive - you should interact more often. You write well.

This article captures a few points very well but it adds a few elements that can create havoc amongst the traditionalists. Everyone wants to see his or her religion, faith, culture, belief and life through a certain lens. For some there is no need for a social center; for others there is definite need. For some, belonging to a certain sect means that they need to consider themselves martyrs for entering their own mosques. For others their place of worship offers them tremendous opportunity to grow and connect with like-minded individuals.

I am reminded of a dear friend and colleague with a German Irish background. He used to attend the Unitarian Universalists` Church on a frequent basis. My friend met his wife at that church. As I attended his wedding ceremony(after 2 years from the day they met at the church), the pastor of that church was also present and gave a very nice speech introducing the couple. It was a very tight and close-knit gathering of family and friends. And there was something very serene and positive in the air. During the brief introduction of the bride and the bridegroom, the pastor expressed his sentiments on how he felt when he saw both of them in his church on their first day. It was simple, sweet and beautiful. No hotchpotch and loud behavior. I do not want to leave it open ended. I have to add my little bit on the happily ever after piece...This couple is one of the very few couples I have come across in my life who complied with the concept of “meant for each other”.

#121: Rather than focusing so much on ids and nicks, why not look into the thoughts and ideas if you are truly into thoughts and ideas. If you are into appreciating ids and highlighting their uniqueness then it may make sense to spell out your own nick and the id behind it. Could it be that you are the woman who was writing unendingly long posts on Shiraz`s previous article or you are the one who was busy posting his picture? It seems that you are nursing some grudges from his past article. I think it`s ridiculous to use discussion boards to address personal grudges. My 5 cents.