How a religion is conceived and how it can be exploited
March 15, 2007
As we have been able to see through the years and our studies, practically all religions have been conceived under the fundamental concept of God, or a god, in this post I am going to deal with the idea of religions which have been a permanent part of our lives for thousands of years, namely – in chronological order – Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Of all the three are based in beliefs that have God as the main core of everything that exists, the origin and eventual end of life, any life.
In accordance with what we have learnt, Christianity was the origin of a religion that sprouted from Judaism and which Judaism did never accept as legitimate by Jewish standards. The Christian Messiah was never admitted as the Messiah the Jewish Scriptures spoke of. Perhaps if he had been admitted Christianity would not exist, only Judaism would have been consolidated. But events took a different course to what today seems it would have been a logical one.
Islam came to existence long afterwards. Its origins are in a way much to do with Judaism and Christianity, although it is a totally different religion. All in all I wonder whether if there had not been a split there would have existed the problems we have today which oppose the three religions against one another. If there existed just one giant religion all over the world, without divisions, how would the world behave in religious matters? Would it have been a religious dictatorship? My opinion is that it would not. My opinion is that given the individualistic condition of the human being, it would eventually have split into as many divisions as there are today, with the same problems we also have today.
The concept of God has been taken by the three divisions as an individual patrimonial asset and each one has claimed its property along thousands of years, something that bumps frontally with the very foundations of the three religions, because in all cases God is the proprietor not the propriety.
It is curious that the term fundamentalism was first used in reference to an extreme Protestan position characterised by the belief that the Bible is a verbally accurate recording of the word of God. This position holds that the writers were divinely inspired to the smallest detail of revealed truth. The term has been applied to a part of Islam with the same strict adherences to the Muslim sacred text, the Coran. But the term, if I am not wrong, was employed by Christians in the first place. Following the definition given above, then Judaism is the most fundamentalist of all doctrines, but this has never been said of it.
We have Orthodox Jews, as we have Orthodox Christians and I believe Muslims, too. Can we liken Orthodoxy to fundamentalism? I think we can quite easily. As happens with so many other idioms or terms in our languages, the degeneration of the meaning of fundamentalism has been clearly taken to represent a religious position that in our Western world demonises its followers when it is applied to Islam. If we follow the traject of the term its meaning is all the contrary: it is strict adherence to a faith, nothing else.
Did the persons who started using the term realise that its application was by no means a clear reflection of the real status of those it was meant to be used for? Perhaps they did not or perhaps they did, I do not know nor do I believe anyone will at this stage. The fact is that the term is considered as a deprecatory one referred to the Muslims who use violence in their aims which as far as I can understand, have nothing to do with the Islamic religion. It has to do with the freedoms the people who live in the Middle East region want to achieve for themselves, freedom from the economical grip exerted by multinational corporations whose only interest in that region is the exploitation of natural resources paramount for the normal development of the Western world.
But a world-wide system of news at the service of those corporations has created a false impression on the minds of its readers which really in my opinion disguise a legitimate claim on those resources in a veneer of religiosity. Not that religion is not mixed up in the struggle, but it is mixed up because it is the only way to make Arabs move, given their adherence to the Islam’s principles and tenets. In my opinion it is not conquest what this movement pursues, it is the devolution to their legitimate owners of the exploitation alien forces make of those natural resources.
And in this pursuit the media I referred to before take much care in focussing the attention on Muslims in general, which creates the desired outcome of generalisation of the problem. The more people accuse the Muslims in general, the more Muslims will join what the Western Media call fundamentalism. That is the main mistake – sometimes I call it purpose – of the Western countries regarding the Arabs: their position face to Islamic countries is being conducted by interested parties which will never bow to the Arabic countries’ legitimate claim of their own land and resources.
And to this we should also add the precarious situation in which Arab leaders recognised by the Western countries find themselves in, starting being hated by their subjects for their affinity to the West.
My thoughts about the situation in the Middle East, and in the World, are many more than a normal post would permit, so I will leave it as it is now for the consideration of readers, as otherwise it would be too long and boresome.
The title of the post also allows for a second part to be written.
Political, Human, Environmental Respect 
Without any proof that “God” exists, each of the three monotheistic religions lays proprietorial claim to the deity and, as you rightly say, these claims lead to inevitable confrontation between them. People would be less inclined to be so extremely antagonistic if this Supernatural Motivator was removed from the equation, and they dealt with their differences on a solely human, more realistic, basis.
I cannot agree with you that Muslim violence has “nothing to do with the Islamic religion”, and is solely “to do with the freedoms the people who live in the Middle East region want to achieve for themselves, freedom from the economical grip exerted by multinational corporations whose only interest in that region is the exploitation of natural resources paramount for the normal development of the Western world.” That is an oversimplification.
While they should indeed be freed from economic exploitation and [conscious or unconscious] Western colonialism, their Islamic beliefs impel them to ever greater self-righteous fury and anti-Western frenzy, and distract them from the necessary and overdue task of putting their own domestic regimes in order on their own soil.
Before going ahead with this discussion, where there appears we still have strong disagreements, I would like you to read this article, part of which reads:
“Since the collapse of the former USSR, it appears that capitalism no longer needs democracy – so antithetical to the oligarchy’s objectives. Terrorism is the latest alibi to tighten security, criminalize dissent, expand surveillance and imprison the poor. “The hyper-rich will attempt to maintain their excessive advantages by force as they did after Hurricane Katrina, when armed forces were sent – not to help the drowning poor – but to hunt down looters.”
Full article here:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031507E.shtml
I’ll revert.
“Capitalism and democracy are always in conflict, and the history of all capitalist states that have conceded universal suffrage has been, in part at least, a history of that conflict.
“The case against capitalism, and for a democratic socialist society to replace it, seems every bit as strong today as it was when the vote was first granted to most people some 85 years ago.”
(Source : “THE VOTE – How It Was Won And How It Was Undermined” by Paul Foot – Viking/Penguin 2005)
Thank you, Richard, for this contribution, because that we believe it or not power and money have always been linked to religions. It is a pity that the book by Hervé Kempf “How the rich are destroying the planet” has not yet been translated into English.
And we must have our eyes open because I contemplate radical changes in the world in the very near future. And this not precisely because of Islam, Islam is the excuse but the reason is another.
But where does all this leave ‘sub-religions’ such as Budaism, Zoroastrianism and various others? There are large communities who adhere to these, but are stifled, such as the Russian Orthodox Church was for a long time (or do you equate that with Christianity?). And then, of course, there are large numbers of people who now admit to being atheists and in fact are quite genuinely horrified by everything ‘believers’ stand for (for example, Richard Dawkins’ latest book’The God Delusion’ – I do admit I still haven’t read it from beginning to end). Yes, a lot of misery has come from fundamentalism and all it stands for – but then, human beings have always looked for a ‘peg’ to hang their insecurities on and probably will do so for ever – Marxism was just another peg, wasn’t it?
Obviously a highly important, intelligent, and prescient book which I look forward to reading when it is translated into English.
There have always been greedy, rich, immoral, unscrupulous, stupid people in all ages and societies. Unfortunately, today they have far too much power and time is running out. This is the “democratic deficit” issue – how to stop the tiny tail wagging the big dog.
I do think, however, Jose and Richard, that you ascribe far too much deliberate macchivellian conspiracy and plotting to these people. They are mostly not intelligent enough for that. Their stupidity is far more dangerous – their inability to see – let alone care – about the glaringly obvious consequences of their actions and inactions. If they do plot, it’s clear that their plots are going badly awry. I have more faith in the ultimate clout of the democratic electorate in the West – yes, even in the USA – than in all these prophecies of gloom and doom; and I deplore the blind eye-turning to the real threat of Islamist fanatics with nukes.
Actually, anticant’s comments come closest to my own feelings. There could and never will be a one world religion or one giant religion UNTIL (I believe) we see it enforced….which I believe we will. And then, any dissent will be prosecuted or go ‘underground’. I also like seachanges comments re: other religions that don’t get the attention. There really isn’t much history of conflict in these, is there? There are some horrendous practices, however, in my opinion…such as a wife required to be burned on her dead husband’s funeral bier (am I wrong here?).
IF men could sit down and discuss political issues without invoking one religion or another things might go better, but on the other hand they might not. There would be some other reason such as race, gender, etc., that would cause the problems. And, if you know anything at all about the Women’s Movement in the U.S., they are as passionate as some religious people are about their goals.
In short, I see the earth’s future as a wind-down into complete chaos until ‘someone’ surfaces who will take the whole thing in hand, tightly, and we WILL be required to take hold of his version of religion or pay a price for not doing so.
Also, fundamentalism in any religion, if meaning that ‘fighting spirit’ is what is most likely going to bring about the chaos which will ‘need’ to be controlled by ‘someone’. It’s all heading in that direction and there’s nothing really surprising about it.
The first part of your post, Jose, describing how all three could have been one is very interesting. There is a term ‘Judaeo-Christianity’ which I hate, because they are 180 opposed. It is a ‘christianzionist’ term that they use all the time, as do Jews who want to court their favor. Actually, Judaism, it seems to me, changed from Mosaic Law Judaism to Talmudic Judaism at some point long before Christ arrived, and that was rejected by him as he said it made God’s Word of no effect by tradition. He said he fulfilled the law and ended that system. So, his followers were mostly ex-Jews who became followers of The Way (called Christianity first at Antioch), but certainly it had no ties to observance of Judaism or the Law in any way as a means to salvation or as part of being a follower of Christ.
Then came Muhammad, stating an angel told him that Allah wanted to give a new revelation as the Old and New Testaments had both been perverted by their followers, which seems incredibly strange to me that God Almighty would have not been able to keep the first books from being perverted but now has figured out a way to do it the second time around.
Then of course, came B’Ha Ullah and the Bab who stated that the Bible and the Quran were outdated and the newest revelation was B’Hai (and built a heavenly complex in Haifa, Israel to prove it).
And then we had Joseph Smith, with another angelic visit that gave another reveleation, purportedly also from God, because everyone else had missed it.
I have a chart given me by the B’Hai that parallels all the beliefs from Zoroasterism through B’Hai, giving the name of the major prophet, the doctrine, time frame of the writings, etc., etc. Very interesting.
A one world ruler/government (which I believe is in the works) cannot tolerate such divisions, and especially those who have strife with one another.
And to think that no religion would have made life any better long term is a pipe dream, in my opinion. Man is who/what he is. Prisons, where there are no ‘religious groups’ but rather go more by racial divisions, are some of the most dangerous places; not because of religion but because of man’s nature when put in close proximity. That’s another whole topic: geographical/demographic causes of crime, etc.
And your title, Jose, evokes a number of other comments, but l’d like to see your Part 2 before commenting on that, although actually did a little above re: starts of religions. You always make me think.
Excuse me…just saw anticant had posted again, another interesting one and, as I went to paste from it, this was still in my mouse, a good precursor to my response to his comments:
Iraq war withdrawal bill hits a wall in Senate
House panel approves its version in funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan
The Associated Press
Updated: 12:26 p.m. PT March 15, 2007
WASHINGTON – Democrats aggressively challenged President Bush’s Iraq policy at both ends of the Capitol on Thursday, gaining House committee approval for a troop withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1, 2008, but suffering defeat in the Senate on a less sweeping plan to end U.S. participation in the war.
Anti-war Democrats prevailed on a near-party line vote of 36-28 in the House Appropriations Committee, brushing aside a week-old veto threat and overcoming unyielding opposition from Republicans.
“I want this war to end. I don’t want to go to any more funerals,” said New York Rep. Rep. Jose Serrano, one of several liberal Democrats who have pledged their support for the legislation despite preferring a faster end to the war.
“Nobody wants our troops out of Iraq more than I do, countered Rep. C.W. Bill Young of Florida, who sought unsuccessfully to scuttle the timeline for a troop withdrawal. “But we can’t afford to turn over Iraq to al-Qaida.”
In the Senate, after weeks of skirmishing, Republicans easily turned back Democratic legislation requiring a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days. The measure set no fixed deadline for completion of the redeployment, but set a goal of March 31, 2008. The vote was 50-48 against the measure, 12 short of the 60 needed for passage.
National security interests
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, said in a New York Times interview that if elected she would maintain a scaled-down American military force in Iraq that would stay off the streets in Baghdad and no longer would try to protect Iraqis from sectarian violence.
She cited “remaining vital national security interests” for a continued deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq aimed at fighting al-Qaida, deterring Iran, protecting Kurds and possibly supporting the Iraqi military, the newspaper reported Wednesday night on its Web site.
She said her plan was consistent with the Senate resolution, saying it called for “a limited number” of troops to stay in Iraq to protect the U.S. Embassy and other personnel, train and equip Iraqi forces and conduct “targeted counterterrorism operations.”
Stalled debate in Senate
The Senate voted 89-9 on Wednesday to begin consideration of the measure, but debate quickly became hamstrung again after Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on the parameters for a debate.
Aides said leaders were waiting to see a proposal by Sen. John Warner, R-Va. According to a draft, Warner’s resolution would outline benchmarks for the Iraqi government and call for an assessment of Iraqi security forces.
Warner’s resolution stops short of calling for troops to leave Iraq by any particular date.
While the House bill is unlikely to sail through unchecked, Democrats say its passage — even if by a slim majority — would be a loud message to the president to end the war. Its passage also would be a political victory for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has struggled in trying to unify party members on the war.
Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., who had been skeptical of earlier drafts of the war spending bill, said he is now on board and believes Democratic defections will be few.
Pelosi was trying to line up votes from party liberals who want troops out of Iraq sooner than the 2008 deadline, as well as more conservative Democrats who are concerned the bill would micromanage the war.
Rep. Barbara Lee, a member of the Appropriations Committee, has not said whether she will vote in favor of the bill. As co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, Lee, D-Calif., supports an alternative proposal that would cut funding for all military operations.
‘The best way to get out of Iraq’
In a statement Tuesday, Lee called the supplemental proposal a step forward.
“Still, too many of our troops are dying in an occupation that needs to end sooner rather than later, and I will continue to push for enforceable timelines and to protect our troops and to fully fund their safe and orderly withdrawal from Iraq at the earliest practicable date.”
But other members of the Progressive Caucus said they would support the measure once it is on the floor.
“I think people have to take a close look at the best way to get out of Iraq,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. “I think this is the best framework to do that.”
Rep. C.W. Bill Young, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, said he opposed the spending legislation because of the timetable to end the war.
But Young was not expected to oppose Obey’s suggestion to delay the closing of Walter Reed.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11100906/
So now to what anticant said:
“I have more faith in the ultimate clout of the democratic electorate in the West – yes, even in the USA – than in all these prophecies of gloom and doom; and I deplore the blind eye-turning to the real threat of Islamist fanatics with nukes.”
Well, I don’t. have any fiath in the democratic electorate at all. Look what that electorate has accomplished since 9/11. The so called wonderful democracies or Western societies were in the forefront of the Iraq massacre, going on one million deaths (okay, 650,000+). In fact, I have absolutely NO faith in any government or man in general. Too many idiots are willing to follow; we’ve seen it again and again throughout history.
OK folks, now that we’re all in gloom-& doom mode, how about some classic right-wingery? In an essay on the Counter-Enlightenment, Isaiah Berlin tells us that Joseph de Maistre, who spearheaded the early 19th century reaction to the French Revolution, felt that “men are by nature evil, self-destructive animals, full of conflicting drives, who do not know what they want, want what they do not want, do not want what they want, and it is only when they are kept under constant control and rigorous discipline by some authoritarian elite – a church, a state, or some other body from whose decisions there is no appeal – that they can hope to survive and be saved. Reasoning, analysis, criticism, shake the foundations and destroy the fabric of society. If the source of authority is declared to be rational, it invites questioning and doubt; but if it is questioned it may be argued away; its authority is undermined by able sophists, and this accelerates the forces of chaos….If the state is to survive and frustrate the fools and knaves who will always seek to destroy it, the source of authority must be absolute, so terrifying, indeed, that the least attempt to question it must entail immediate and terrible sanctions; only then will men learn to obey it. Without a clear hierarchy of authority – awe-inspiring power – men’s incurably destructive instincts will breed chaos and mutual extermination. The supreme power – especially the church – must never seek to explain or justify itself in rational terms; for what one man can demonstrate, another may be able to refute. Reason is the thinnest of walls against the raging seas of violent emotion: on so insecure a basis no permanent structure can ever be erected. Irrationality, so far from being an obstacle, has historically led to peace, security, and strength, and is indispensable to society…
“Rousseau asks why it is that man, who was born free, is nevertheless everywhere in chains; one might as well ask, says de Maistre, why it is that sheep, who are born carnivorous, nevertheless everywhere nibble grass…In a striking image de Maistre says that all social order in the end rests upon one man, the executioner…Repression, censorship, absolute sovereignty, judgements from which there is no appeal, these are the only methods of governing creatures whom de Maistre described as half men, half beasts, monstrous centaurs at once seeking after God and fighting Him, longing to love and create, but in perpetual danger of falling victims to their own blindly destructive drives, held in check by a combination of force and traditional authority and, above all, a faith incarnated in historically hallowed institutions that reason dare not touch…
“These gloomy doctrines”, Berlin comments, “became the inspiration of monarchist politics in France, and together with the notion of romantic heroism and the sharp contrast between creative and uncreative, historic and unhistorical individuals and nations, duly inspired nationalism, imperialism, and finally, in their most violent and pathological form, Fascist and totalitarian doctrines in the twentieth century.”
Finally, a quote from Sam Harris’s book The End of Faith, which is required reading for anyone seriously seeking to understand the rationale of atheism:
“It is, as yet, unclear…whether the religious barbarism that animates our enemies can ever be finally purged from, our world… Life under the Taliban is, to a first approximation, what millions of Muslims around the world want to impose on the rest of us. They long to establish a society in which – when times are good – women will remain vanquished and invisible, and anyone given to spiritual, intellectual, or sexual freedom will be slaughtered before crowds of sullen, uneducated men.”
Roll on, brave new world!
Formidable contenders that you are leaves me in a position where I must address all the doubts and opinions that are posed here, and…alas!, I am compelled then to multiply my time by the numbers of posters. So you’ll permit me either to reply to the comments, or perhaps it would be wiser to start Part II of this issue. I’ll decide in the course of the day, but would like to give seachanges an answer to his questions:
Yes there are large communities, perhaps larger than those following the religions I have mentioned, but in the case under discussion I’m only referring to established religions near to us in Europe, among which harsh conflicts have arisen. Perhaps in Part II it would be convenient to refer to the former.
Yes, the term Christianity involves the Orthodoxes in Russia and Greece, it involves all religions derived from the presence of Christ on Earth who follow his teachings, although their tenets are fundamentally different.
In my opinion Marxism was at its origins an excellent political analysis of how the world was run at that stage. The application of Marxist principles in Communism and its subsequent alterations and corrections caused the ruin of the original idea. But I believe Marxism, politically speaking, keeps being a valid idea.
Marxist Theory, as a critique of power, is almost unbeatable in terms of accuracy – which is one primary reason why the words ‘Marxism’, ‘Trotskyism’, ‘Communism’, ‘Socialism’ etc are used i the same breath – misused and abused by so many in power, or seeking power – to control and manipulate people’s thoughts and emotions for very dubious political ends.
For example, I am now reading today’s West Sussex County Times (March 16). There’s a letter from Nick Griffin – Chairman of the British National Party (BNP) who is desperate to win a BNP seat in this area next May. This dangerous idiot is referring to Horsham’s Tory MP, Francis Maude, who has refused to debate with this racist BNP Party (& rightly so) :
“He employs the word ‘racist’, an Orwellian double-speak term invented by Leon Trotsky, which is designed to stifle any constructive debate on multiculturalism…”.
Marx himself never called himself a Marxist – and his theories are as relevant today as they have ever been.
Indeed, Richard. Sometimes simple questions are made difficult by the minds of those who do not understand them, or simply want to make them difcult.
I am starting to think, Richard, may God protect me, that parties like the BNP are beginning to appear as logical ones, face to what I watch to be happening on the so called Right, or the so called Left.
Is it that Fascism is starting to overwhelm what until today has been deemed to be Democracy, Richard?
Shall we have to take into account what Kempf said in his book? Which I have a little idea of because I only know what’s been said in the interview and the article the link of which I gave above.
In sum, are we free thinkers being played with?
The problem with statements like the Griffin one you quote, Richard, is that they ring a bell with a lot of people – including me. It is indeed absurd to dub discussions of religious and cultural issues as “racist” simply because most of those concerned belong to a particular ethnic group. Being a ‘mongrel’ myself, I am not a racist, and never will be – but I have no intention of allowing my traditional British culture to be elbowed aside by alien cultural and religious influences.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
– WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS: ‘The Second Coming’
Anticant,
Are you not yourself neglecting the possibility that these people who you think we are ascribing too much deliberate machiavellian conspiracy – which I am not – to, may if not in a Machiavellian way, at least in a systematical way, design how the economic matters in the world must be run? Because if it is so, tnen perhaps you should revise your analysis about those international groups that are continuously studying those economic matters.
The Banking system is worth being analysed, the way this system controls the world banks, the central banks, and how financial operations must be carried out; the big corporations: how they work, who and what they control. Do you think the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are nunneries where only charity is organised with no regard to exploitations of countries in terms of natural resources?
Do you really believe nothing is being done in the high spheres of the economy to establish the way your life and my life and the lives of the rest of the world must be organised, not individually of course but in a general manner?
Because if you still think so perhaps you may need a revision of your knowledge – which as is is worth of admiration.
I am also against the idea of conspiracies, they are absurd, but how you pay your mortgages, how much you are to pay for a car, for a house, for any consumer durables, those assets which are really important, all those activities are planned meticulously following international patterns.
One of the most important banks established in New York is apparently Spanish, of all countries a small one – like Spain – of about 44 million
inhabitants “has” a very influential bank in New York.
What do you think the Stock Exchanges are for? They allow for the big corporations to be valued at international levels, their shares being quoted anywhere in the world.
It is at the least curious that corporations and companies have associations both at national and international levels, whilst the unions that so much did for the workers, have been relegated to sheer uninfluential entities.
The G8 meets regularly to do what?
And in all this economical network religions have much to say, I have not the slightest doubt. They are pillars, important pillars, of the established power, although I am afraid their importance is being continuously eroded by their ceaseless intervention in the lives of the “faithful”.
In Spain, today, I learn that some pornographic films that were published many years ago exposing the sacred images of the Catholic Church, have been brought again to light by the Right against the Socialist government. Apparently this fact caused on that occasion a strong impact in the Church, but apologies were offered and the film withdrawn from circulation and everything was forgotten.
Now then, the Church has immediately started legal actions against the government in Estremadura (autonomous and socialist) for all this. Is there any doubt that the Catholic Church is supporting the Rightist Partido Popular in its fight against Socialism?
The Partido Popular, on the other hand, that allied with Bush and Blair to send troops to Iraq against the opinion of the majority of the Spanish people.
Everything falling into place in this alliance Right/Church.
The good is not the Right, the bad is not the Left, or vice versa. The problem is leadership and power. Power corrupts, absolute power..well, you know.
It seems more and more to me that, since we honestly can’t change much (not in my opinion re: the ‘international powers that be’), the best way to go through life is as indiscreetly as possible, giving to those in need and doing what little good we can. I’ve seen those who do try to change things and rarely do they accomplish anything, if so only temporarily. The world is going to go the way of the power elite until (in my beliefs) Someone says ‘enough’. If you don’t think so, give me some evidence otherwise.
Please. 😉
No, Jose, I don’t hold such views about international financial and commercial operations. A topic for a new blog thread, surely?
Returning to religion, the following are of interest:
“Islam is the only significant faith that does not accept the Golden Rule, and all OIC (Muslim) countries have eschewed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in favour of their own Cairo Declaration, in which Sharia takes supremacy. It is the only faith which contains political control at its core, and institutional humiliation for non-believers. The doctrine of Islam is proclaimed to be eternal, universal, and perfect. “Eternal” means unchanging and final. Mohammed is the final and last prophet of Allah. “Universal” means that is applies to all of the world and “perfect” means that the doctrine needs no change.”
– (Coeur de Lion, poster on Guardian’s Comment is Free)
“If I say something which is not positive about a particular brand of Islam, the imposition is that I am inciting hatred of every Muslim. I am very concerned about this – it is an attack on academic freedom. We are seeing it more and more, particularly in the UK. There is nothing wrong with holding beliefs but you must be able to challenge and question them. Academic integrity is all about the exchange of positions and the search for truth – I think this is in danger in the UK.”
– (Matthias Küntzel, a German author and political scientist, who was prevented from talking about Islamic extremism at Leeds University after protests from Muslim students) – see:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/15/nislam15.xml
The paper which he would have delivered is at:
Click to access Kuntzel_2.pdf
It’s worth reading.
I agree with you, CZE. We should be in peace with our consciences and do what we are allowed to do while we can.
Unluckily it seems the people’s capacity of reaction is numbed and does not work as it should.
No, Jose,
I don’t hold such views about international financial and economic institutions. A topic for another bkog, surely?
Indeed, Anticant. I just reacted to your statement
“I do think, however, Jose and Richard, that you ascribe far too much deliberate macchivellian conspiracy and plotting to these people.”
It is a topic for another post, you are right. And it was dealt with, although with not many contributions in
“Islam is the only significant faith that does not accept the Golden Rule, and all OIC (Muslim) countries have eschewed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in favour of their own Cairo Declaration, in which Sharia takes supremacy. It is the only faith which contains political control at its core, and institutional humiliation for non-believers. The doctrine of Islam is proclaimed to be eternal, universal, and perfect. “Eternal” means unchanging and final. Mohammed is the final and last prophet of Allah. “Universal” means that is applies to all of the world and “perfect” means that the doctrine needs no change.”
– (Coeur de Lion, poster on Guardian’s Comment is Free)
“If I say something which is not positive about a particular brand of Islam, the imposition is that I am inciting hatred of every Muslim. I am very concerned about this – it is an attack on academic freedom. We are seeing it more and more, particularly in the UK. There is nothing wrong with holding beliefs but you must be able to challenge and question them. Academic integrity is all about the exchange of positions and the search for truth – I think this is in danger in the UK.”
– (Matthias Küntzel, a German author and political scientist, who was prevented from talking about Islamic extremism at Leeds University after protests from Muslim students).
I will post the link to his paper separately.
You will find the Kuntzel link at:
Click to access Kuntzel_2.pdf
As this link still doesn’t come up, I will put a reference to it in anticant’s arena.
In reply to your previous post, Anticant, I beg to cite here the following:
“Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Semitism
Anti-Zionism should not be equated with anti-Semitism, the racist ideology directed against Jews as Jews. Nor should Zionism, the political movement established to reconstitute Jews as a nation, be equated with Judaism, the universal faith which knows no national boundaries and constitutes a relationship between man and God, requiring no political loyalty to any country. ”
A very interesting article at this link:
http://www.alfredlilienthal.com/antisemite.htm
The trouble with so much of our discussions, Jose, is that we are presumptuously redefining words and concepts to suit our own preferences.
Such fine distinctions mean nothing to the angry indoctrinated tribal masses who are simply filled with hate against “the other”.
What everyone of good will should be doing is everything possible to reduce the levels of insensate violence ravaging the world – not engaging in sterile semantics.
I differ from your view, anticant, as to really do everything possible we must get to the root of the problem. And the root of problem started growing when the State of Israel was declared unilaterally in 1948, against the spirit of the Balfour Declaration. So it is not semantics, it is just place things in their due position.
Again we are mixing pears and apples as both your post and this one should go to another topic.
Historically speaking, you are correct – but what’s done cannot be undone and we have to proceed from where we are now.
The Balfour Declaration was a piece of diplomatic gobbledyook. It should never have been issued. It tried to square the circle. How could it have ever worked?
‘In my opinion Marxism was at its origins an excellent political analysis of how the world was run at that stage. The application of Marxist principles in Communism and its subsequent alterations and corrections caused the ruin of the original idea. But I believe Marxism, politically speaking, keeps being a valid idea.’
Exactly.
‘So it is not semantics, …’
Aha, is it anti-semantic?.
“Historically speaking, you are correct – but what’s done cannot be undone”
Oh really? In watching what is happening in Iraq, I’d have to disagree with that. That’s just one example of things ‘being undone’.
Oh dear – semantic confusion again. I think my meaning is quite clear. We can’t turn the clock back, alas.
And just why not? The clock was turned back on the Palestinians about half a century ago.
Ohhhhh….you mean the clock cannot be turned back BECAUSE the power (of the U.S., the international bankers, etc.) is on the side of the Zionists? If so, you are probably right.
There’s a way to turn the clock back that nobody wants to speak of: Permit the return to their homes of the millions of Palestinians who had to flee because of the Israelis.
But again I am mixing topics here. I’ll have to write a new post about this.
You’re both mixing metaphors.
Actually, aren’t we using them in your opinion, rather than mixing them?
Wikipedia:
In language, a metaphor is a rhetorical trope where a comparison is made between two seemingly unrelated subjects. Typically, a first object is described as being a second object. In this way, the first object can be economically described because implicit and explicit attributes from the second object can be used to fill in the description of the first.
At any rate, they are very related, Israel and the plight of Palestinians and turning back the clock has been done each time a land is taken away from another group by this definition of not being able to undo what is presently existing, it seems to me.
Mixing metaphors? You explain that to the Israelis who consider the full region as their property, in their words as the “people chosen by God”.