The Book is also Just a Book

Re # 203

Vertexji,

I think you meant to address 203 to singularity right?
We are not same :)

shishapa,

``...are relatively more evolved people who more or less leave religion to be a personal domain.``

LOL...sure, whatever. As we all know, such people are pacifists, right? Pacifists with huge-ass armies.

Something doesn`t jive...

Fact is, ``semetic relgions`` are winning converts all over the place, and the hodge-podge collection of archiaic traditions and renumerations of the ``east`` simply aren`t coherent enough to compete. `cept in Hollywood....but then, Scientology is big there too...

singularity,

Well don`t look now, but you`ve just creted a `Kafir` of sorts all by your lonesome. Good work. You`ve become what you hate.

Re # 200

Singularity,

Add to mullahs and churches, VHP and Bajrang Dalis.

#199 shishapa

Jews lost the race 2000 years ago and never recovered. Hindus, buddists and taoists(generally called as eastern philosophy) are relatively more evolved people who more or less leave religion to be a personal domain. That is why historically there was never any violence between various eastern philosophies, in the scale of that encountered between or with semitic religions.

The world will ditch its tribal dogmas and move on towards a more universal easterm philosophy. Knowledge society is not controlled by mullahs and churches. Besides it is hard to make the NON-muslims/Non-Christians as Satan/evil in an increasingly global world. It might have worked when a typical christian or muslim never had to live with a Hindu/Taoist as Neighbour or colleague or classmate or friend. Thats why i predict the death of the semitic dogmas by the end of the century.

Where are Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish crybabies? What are they doing building their
respective countries? Are not they supposed to cry over injustices meted out to some
distant buddhist and hindu and jewish people and their lost lands just because they
happened to be co-religionists?
I mean what is important here, crying over and fighting for some imaginery injustices
or contributing something positive for the humankind? What are those countries thinking?

Godot # 191 put it rightly. There are two types of muslims, hamidm types are the evolved types who are open to critically evaluate Islam and Koran. They are the ones who should reform the tied to the past ones like Urstruly, Tahmed etc. Then the Farzanas fall somewhere inbetween.

Echobooms are delusional nut cases like their Prophet Mohamad who are best left alone to their world of delusions.

echoboom#181

I do not read Toronto Star but have watched Haroon frequently on TV current affairs programs. He comes across as the very Maader-rate Muslims you hate. What`s more, his idol seems to be Jawahar Lal Nehru, the very epitome of the brown Englishman you call Kanjjars.
You may want to look for another hero.

Re: # 191

Godot:

``A crisis that prompts otherwise intelligent Muslims to defend their identity tooth and nail and at any cost, represented by Echobooms and Urstrulys on one hand, and on the other, like Hamidms and Sameers, to blast it out of proportion. Both groups are reacting, albeit in opposing way, to the same helplessness, to the same crisis of identity.``

I would not call it as ``the same helplessness``, or ``the same crisis of identity``. These are healthy precursors to reforms in society and thoughts. History is replete with examples to prove this is how most reforms started. Even american presidential elections start this way. Candidates in primaries take extreme positions to get support of the hard core voluteers and then run to the center to capture it the widest support.

It would be interesting to see who Echbooms.. or Hamidms.. of Islamic world woul run faster to capture the center first. My bet is on Hamidms of the Islamic world, becuase I feel they better understand the evolution toward the future, while Echobooms better understand the regression toward the past. And in knowledge society, regression simply cannot prevail.

Anil Kapuria

godot,

But what would Christians do if their country was occupied by Muslims, and Muslims were going about flushing bibles and crucifixes down the toilet, I wonder?

Scratch that. What would Christians do if Muslims were occupying their country? Showing their other cheek?

A little bit of context here shows why the comparison to Christian reactions to anti-Christians is note quite the same thing.

Farzana,
You haven`t addressed the basic issue raised early by one of the posts, KORAN itself is a book of desecration of the faith of ALL NON-Muslims, especially the NON-Semitic variety. And they make 80% plus of world population. Think about it. How many honest muslims do we see who say Koran is a desecration of majority of humanity. Why is that when a tribal,delusional Megalomaniac arab by name Mohamad invokes god, to impose his delusional arab imperialism on everybody else it cant be questioned.

If you have read Koran with the historical and environmental setup of the 7th century arabia, it is easy to get an insight into the real Mohamad and his delusional world. Koran starts with Mohamad having delusions of God instructing him and talking to him. He tells it to the people around and they ridicule him and call him as mad man. Initially Mohamad was a sceptic and doubted. But when he began to get some followers, he started believing in his delusions as vision from god. So once he gets the authority and confidence of a few followers and by turn of history he also ended up making a political upheaval in Medina against high odds. Maybe he was lucky or maybe he was a good warrior-leader or most likely both. The basic qualification for a leader is to have rock solid faith in some philosophy. The philosophy can be Universal and timeless like Buddha`s or Gandhi`s. Or the philosophy can be parochial and narrow, applied to certain people living in certain place and time only, like that of Mohamad or Hitler.

Mohamad was never a prophet, he only had delusions. And when people ridiculed him he called them NON-Believers coz they didn`t subscribe to his delusional ideology of a delusional tribal arab god. And when he ended up with political power to boot, he had a vehicle to murder and kill the so called NON-Believers who questioned his sanity. That is the historic irony. And the world of 600 AD didn`t have the luxury of psychologists or asylum. So all along Mohamad was talking only his critics as Non-Believers. That the same critics were following some form of NON-Semitic worship came as a weapon to call them as primitive and idol worshippers. In the world of 600 AD ofcourse people were supersticious. So in the end what really happened was one set of beliefs and superstitions have been replaced by another set called as Islam which was nothing more than the delusions of a megalomanaic tribal arab.

Now before you hit the typical muslim reaction of Hindu Villification. Ofcourse what became bundled together as Hinduism also has myths and superstitions. But here is the difference. What came to be bundled together as Hinduism is nothing more than the cultural way of life of the people of the Hind. It was never a religion. It never had any dogmas. It never had any SINGLE book written by one SINGLE Prophet from the so called divine vision of god. It was just the way of life of people with their own idiosyncretic beliefs. Caste system as it was practised before it broke down due to external assault and internal ossification was just a hierarchical way of sharing the duties based on a person`s abilities and interests. And the barbaric invaders who never did or COULD understand the way of life of a more mature civilziation contrary to their tribal beliefs. So it is easy for the tribals to whitewash everybody as INFIDEL/EVIL Hindus. it also gives themselves a JUSTIFICATION TO KILL, rape and plunder. Coz thats what god ordained anyways, according to the koranic delusional babble of arab tribal.

There is one simple solution for all this:

1. Let all religion be treated as Personal right. No more desecration by calling non-muslims as Evil/satan/kafir/infidel who go to an imaginary hell about which muslims have no idea about. No more desecration by calling Non-Christians as heathen/satan and the the hell BS.

2. Remove all such desecration present in any so called religious book be it Koran or Bible or GITA or Tao(Eastern philosophies have no dogmas and thats why they are universal).

3. No more conversion UNLESS the person walks into a mosque or church and wants to change his name and gods name. Any other conversion means is criminal and should be stopped. Public call for conversion should be stopped.

The world is going that way anyways. By the end of the century the hell BS and Satan/Evil tribal BS and the tribal dogmas would die its natural death. What we are going through is just the initial steps of that process.

Re # 191

``If not religion and its symbols, what else do the Muslims have to fall back on?``

A mythical bygone golden days?

Farzana, #177 –

You asked point blank “What would happen if...Christian symbols had been the subject? Would they tolerate this nonsense?”

No they wouldn’t and shouldn’t. But the Christians don’t kill themselves when desecration is done to their sacred symbols. Take, for example, not long ago, when a painting depicted a bucket full of urine with a cross in it with the title “Christ in Piss,” or the painting that depicted Virgin Mary with elephant dung splattered all over her. Both were displayed in museums as “work of art.” Sure there were protests from those, whether religious or not, who felt deeply offended by that “art.” But there were no killings, no burning of buildings, no violence in response to that despicable blasphemy.

The key question, then, is, Why don’t the Muslims take insults to their sacred symbols peacefully and are so offended by it that they are willing to kill? To my mind, that extreme reaction has to do with the crisis of identity.

Islam as a civilization has achieved nothing of significance in about a millennium: in Politics, in Literature, in Science, in Economics, in Military, in Knowledge. Reason and Inquiry has passed it by. At the dawn of the twentyfirst century, Islamic civilization is watching helplessly from the sidelines other great civilizations move forward leaps and bounds. A wonderful ship, on which a party is going on, leaving the dock and you are not on it. It is this feeling of helplessness, of left behind, of belonging to a civilization that cannot match other civilizations moving into the future that triggers the extreme reaction.

If not religion and its symbols, what else do the Muslims have to fall back on? For the Muslims, it is most certainly a crisis of identity. A crisis that prompts otherwise intelligent Muslims to defend their identity tooth and nail and at any cost, represented by Echobooms and Urstrulys on one hand, and on the other, like Hamidms and Sameers, to blast it out of proportion. Both groups are reacting, albeit in opposing way, to the same helplessness, to the same crisis of identity.

Dharma #19: You are exactly right. They have changed the Quran from being a written record of the message revealed to the prophet (per our muslim belief) into a religious idol whose message they studiously ignore and violate every day. Everyone who considers himself a muslim should reflect upon what you have written.

Re: # 187

That explains why you are always pissed at Muslims and their values. Thanks