So. . . It's everybody else's fault that they can't tell the difference between you stating a random thought and attempting to state a fact? ~String
Perhaps you could join in on Signals thread. How does one signify a fact vs an opinion? Usually I use modifiers and expressions of intent [I believe or I think] but sometimes its a matter of flow and continuity ie in response to someone else's opinion.
I stand corrected. I just scrolled back to your original statements. You clearly stated "In my opinion. . . " and "I would consider. . ." So, you were clear. While it seems a bit odd to think it terrorism or arson, I shoulda' paid more attention to the qualifiers you provided. I still don't think you demonstrated clearly that, to someone who prides herself on being reasonable, it could ever approach terrorism and certainly not arson (unless you consider every bon fire to be arson). ~String
I don't know if they were Muslims. Gainesville has the 50,000 student University of Florida there that might have supplied some non-Muslim protesters. Besides to all of us Americans are anti-Muslims idiots, just too many of us.
Hmm maybe it was students then - I can't imagine Floridian getting worked up enough to protest an anti-Quran burning. Can't even imagine the Muslims there getting that involved/motivated. They voted for Bush after all.
Good morning. My qur'an says auliyâ' means friends, protectors, helpers, etc. I'm reading it right from the qur'an, right in front of my eyes. I quoted the qur'an verbatim. This is not in a footnote; this is the text. I did not invent or imagine this. The qur'an is a religious scripture and a political treatise which dictates that any Muslim who sincerely accepts friendship, protection or help from a Jew or Christian is not a Muslim, but a wrong-doer. Either the qur'an lies, or it does not lie. No misunderstanding exists on my part; I'm reading it directly from the qur'an. The intolerance began with the qur'an itself, and anyone who rejects intolerance must reject the qur'an. Book burning symbolically and dramatically rejects the statements in the book or the ideas put forward by the book. Qur'an burning symbolically and dramatically rejects the qur'an's falsehoods, false teachings, etc. In this example, qur'an burning means rejecting the dictate that Muslims must never be sincere friends to Jews or Christians. Let's not confuse America with Islamic countries. In America, anyone can believe anything ... it's the law ... and they can proselytize anything they want. Islamic countries either severely limit or prohibit such freedoms, and most — if not all — of them prohibit proselytizing Muslims away from Islam. Nowadays, many Muslims cannot abide by the power and the freedom of electronic media — the Internet, television and radio. Two hundred years ago, people on the other side of the Earth could have been burning qur'anic verses as fast as they could print them, and probably, Muslims wouldn't have cared much because they would not know about it real time. But the modern media brings these graphic acts, or talk of committing these acts, right into their presence — into their homes. In return, they reach out through the same modern media to try to prohibit foreigners in foreign lands from burning the qur'an or from talking about doing it. The modern media is like pornography to some Muslims because they seem to think that it's happening right there in their own Islamic countries, right in their own homes, right in front of their very eyes. Similar to the famous King of Siam, these Muslims are far overdue with accepting the reality that western countries are not Islamic countries and need not obey the qur'an. If they cannot abide by this fact, they best turn off their computers, televisions and radios for fear of damaging their intellect and emotions any further. I remember a news report from about ten years ago describing Afghanistan as an extremely backwards and inept nation and stating that the vast majority of Afghanis have never seen an image in photographic or electronic form. Intellectually and emotionally, they are about 150 years behind modern technology —— and they act it.
No you didn't. You quoted a translation of a term which you are unfamiliar with from a language you do not know. The term awliya is used interchangeably with the word saint in Arabic e.g. Nizamuddin Awliya or St Nizamuddin. It is a religious term, not a general one. A saint is a helper, friend and protector, yes, but in a religious sense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizamuddin_Auliya Just to show you how erroneous your conclusion is let me introduce you to the constitution of Medina drawn up by the Prophet : The ummah then includes everyone in the community.
I only know of one religion which does not do this. The Amish usually send their late teenage children outside of their community to live a year amongst those who watch TV, drink beer, often have casual sex, etc. (More than half return to the "plain life".) Most religions strongly discourage, especially for their female children, even dating someone of a conflicting faith. Thus, if this part of the Koran offends you, you can take offense at almost all religions which try to keep their followers on the "straight and narrow path" they believe in. I have a tendency to seek out what is different / interesting. I married a Norwegian and then a Brazilian. My best friend was the Rabbi’s son - I often served as "shickengle" (the gentile who could do what needed to be done during the Sabbath). I left the Lutheran faith I was raised in when becoming a teenager. I know firsthand that most Jews strongly discouraged me dating their daughters. Even Jewish organizations do this: - When I was graduate student at JHU it had no swimming pool, but the Jewish Community center, which I drove by every day did. I asked to join, filled in the applications, etc. as they claimed it was not restricted to Jews. At least once each month, FOR TWO YEARS, I would stop in on way home to ask how my application was progressing. (I was big follower of Gandhi methods - shaming better than violence, etc.) Eventually one shamed representative, who could not invent a new excuse for the delay, admitted that they did not want gentiles mixing with Jewish girls in bathing suits. It is not just Jews that “protect” their daughters. I had to go to summer school as I was making up for the year I did not go to school by doing those 4 years in 3. Only one Catholic girl in the class was smart (all other summer school students had failed the winter school class.) We became romantically connected that summer. Her parents were so shocked that instead of allowing her to return to her winter school in that town, she was packed off and sent to distant convent, to become a nun. SUMMARY: It seems to me you are objecting to a practice of Muslim which all religions I know of (except the Amish) practice. – Indoctrinate their followers to shun contact with other religions. This is more strongly done in religions which practice their religion daily instead of just an hour each week, but the idea is the same.
I have always regretted what happen to her, but I don't know the end of the story. She was smart and an independent thinker. - I doubt that she ever actually became a nun. Her family was very well off and influential; they gave a lot to the church, etc. They were reported to have paid large sum ($10,000, as I recall) for a "sliver of the cross" which they buried with a grandmother or some relative. I forget the details.
Plenty of Muslin website have my qur'an's interpretation of (friends, protectors, helpers, etc), but they do say that it's often used to designate the status of a saint. My qur'an makes the effort to provide the transliteration auliyâ' in the text immediately followed by (friends, protectors, helpers, etc). Because there's an interpretation problem with this word, and if the translation should have been (saints or religious leaders), then the publishers had plenty of opportunity to say so, but specifically did not. It pretty much goes without saying that Muslims would not follow non-Muslims (like the Pope) in religious matters. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it? Anyone who doesn't like the interpretation of friends, protectors, helpers, etc should tell Dar-us-Salam, Publishers and Distributors in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia about the errors in their books. I certainly wouldn't want to excoriate it from my copy, for fear that it would start World War III. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
. no one answered me, who's going to burn the quran here? and will he/she do it? and is it right? ... :bugeye: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! : ((
How do you know this? There were Mosques in Constantinople and it may have been a "Byzantine" fashion for all religious conservatives? Regardless, there's yet another obscure verse buried somewhere in some "religious" text that says women are more "pure" when they cover their heads. Not men of course. Only what Allah's puts in their right hand and being right handed myself ... pffff hahahaha....
Shadow. There is an old grandpa in a tiny little church in a medium sized town in America who threatened to burn some Korans, but ended up not doing it. No-one thinks it's right, not even Sarah Palin.
I likely would have had it banned, had it been up to me - it's pointless and provocative, besides being offensive - but they do have the legal right to do so.
I've known ex-Muslims who burned a Qur'an. They did so privately and told me it was that final act they needed to do to be "free" from Islam. So, burning a $5 paper back novel you bought at the local store can actually be a good act. This was their own personal ceremony.
It's truly amazing seeing the extent of the damage done to some of you via your opinions of the whole "respect religion" nonsense that pervades through human culture. It's this sort of blatant irrationality that makes me pessimistic about the rest of this century. What is the inherent/intrinsic value of a Qur'an? Nothing, apart from its physical properties of the material, of course. The value in this object is virtual; man-made value. Just like gold. The markets make this metal the desirable and sought-after substance that it is. What if I burned a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf? Would I get a call from US Defense Secretary Robert Gates? Would people care? Wouldn't I be burning bridges and undermining tolerance between people like myself and neo-Nazis? After all, don't neo-Nazis deserve to be, well, neo-Nazis if they choose to be? Should I respect their ideology? Their world view? Their prejudices or their practices? Many would say no. One doesn't have to respect neo-Nazis. What about Scientologists? They have a belief system, right? One definitely should not symbolically destroy any of their *holy* objects in protest, right? Getting back on topic, I find it utterly despicable that some of you point the finger of wrong-doing towards the fundamentalist and megalomaniacal Pastor Terry Jones. He is not committing an offense of any kind except for the innocuous offense of being non-violently offensive. I'm offended to varying degrees every single day. Religious people, especially Muslims, have formed a collective frame of mind that acts as a self-justifying mechanism that reinforces itself and tells itself that it shall not be offended. And it is exactly THIS sort of group phenomenon that has allowed for this form of pestilential thinking to pervade world culture as it has. And it's stubbornly hanging around in the science age or age of reason. Laughable at best. Mr. Jones wasn't the bad guy here. He can do whatever he wants to with his personal belongings on his private property. The "bad guy" here was the perceived "religion's immunity to symbolic protest". If Mr. Jones accomplished anything with his distasteful stunt, it was exposing, again as many times before, the way in which Islam has succeeded in terrorizing the West. Putting fear into people who dare consider speaking out against it. It's such a shame that so many of you are incapable of assessing the present situation in a more pure light.
