Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Why Islam Isn't Innocent
by James Dunnigan
September 3, 2011
StrategyPage
Twenty nations account for over 95 percent of terrorism activity in the world. Of these twenty (Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Yemen, Iran, Uganda, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria. Palestinian Territories, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Colombia, Algeria, Thailand, Philippines, Russia, Sudan, Iran, Burundi, India, Nigeria and Israel), all but four of them (Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Colombia and Burundi) involve Islamic terrorism. In terms of terrorism fatalities, the top four nations (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia) accounted for 10,400 dead last year, 75 percent of the world total. All of these were the result of Islamic radicalism, often directed at other Moslems, and not just non-Moslems (“infidels”).
This has been the case for decades, and the Moslem world does not like to dwell on this fact. Many Moslem leaders admit that there is a lot of Islamic terrorism, but insist that it’s all the fault of Infidels who are making war on Islam, so some Moslems feel compelled to fight back. The catch-phrase Moslem leaders like to repeat is that Islam is the “religion of peace.” It is not, and the historical record makes that very clear.
And not just the historical record. Currently you find Moslems attacking Buddhists in Thailand, Jews everywhere, Baha'is in Iran and Christians in Egypt, Iraq, the Philippines, Pakistan, Malaysia and elsewhere. This is not a sudden and unexpected outburst of Moslem violence against non-Moslems. It is normal, and at the root of Islamic terrorism. While this violent behavior represents only a small number of Moslems, it is a large minority (from a few percent of a population, to over half, according to opinion polls). Moreover, the majority of Moslems has not been willing, or able, to confront and suppress the Islamic radicals that not only spread death and destruction, but also besmirch all Moslems. This reveals a fundamental problem in the Islamic world, the belief that combining righteousness with murderous tactics is often the road to power and spiritual salvation. Throughout history, when these tactics were applied to non-Moslems, they often failed. The non-Moslems were unfazed by the religious angle, and, especially in the last five hundred years, were better able to defeat Islamic violence with even greater violence. Thus, until quite recently, the Moslems fought among themselves, and left the infidels (non-Moslems) alone. But after World War II, that began to change.
Naturally, this began to show up first in the Middle East. During the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990, Christian and Moslem Arabs fought bitterly over political, cultural and, ultimately, religious differences. The capital, Beirut, was divided into Christian and Moslem sections by the Green Line. The name came from the fact that in this rubble filled no man's land, only grass and weeds survived. And that the line on a ceasefire map was drawn in green. There have been a lot more Green Lines since then. Few realized it at the time, but this war was but the first of many major conflicts between Christians and Moslems in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Many of the earliest Moslem converts were Christians. And many of the peoples Moslem armies unsuccessfully sought to conquer were Christian. The original Crusades, which modern Moslems portray as Western aggression, were actually a Western attempt to rescue Middle Eastern Christians from increasing Islamic terrorism and violence. But Islam as a political force was in decline for several centuries until the 1970s. Then things changed, and they continue to change. Fueled by oil wealth and access to Western weapons and technology, Islamic radicals saw new opportunities. Islam was again on the march, and few have noticed the many places where it was turning into religious war with Christians and other non-Moslems.
In Asia, we have a Green Line between India and Pakistan. Inside India, many Moslem communities remain, and feelings aren't always neighborly. Indonesia and the Philippines suffer growing strife between Moslems and non-Moslems. Malaysia has fanatical Moslems persecuting more laid-back ones, and non-Moslems in general. China has a large Moslem community that generates an increasing amount of violence. Russia and America have formed a curious partnership to deal with Islamic-based terrorism coming out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in Chechnya, Russia faced Islamic-inspired violence all alone in the 1990s.
Africa has a rather dusty Green Line south of the semi-arid Sahel region. Many African nations are split by increasingly sensitive religious differences. The Moslems are in the north, Christians and animists in the south. Nigeria, Chad and Sudan are among the more violent hot spots at the moment. When the Moslem Somalis stop fighting each other they will return to raiding their Christian and animist neighbors to the south.
The Middle East still contains many non-Moslems. None have their own country, except for Israel. But Egypt contains five million Copts, native Christians who did not convert to Islam. Similar small Christian communities exist throughout the Middle East, and growing hostility from Moslem neighbors causes many to migrate, or get killed.
Moslems also have turned their righteous wrath on dissident Moslem sects. The Druze and Alawites are considered by many Moslems as pagans pretending to be Moslems. Similarly, the Shias of Iran and neighboring areas are considered less orthodox, not just for their admitted differences, but because many adherents openly practice customs of the pre-Islamic Zoroastrian religion. These differences are less frequently overlooked today. To survive, many Druze have allied with Israel, and most of the current Syrian leadership are Alawites who pretend to be more Shia than they really are.
Even Europe has a Green Line. The Moslems in the Balkans (Albanians and Bosnians) have been a constant source of strife for the last decade. Moslem migrants in Europe face even more persecution because of all those Green Lines, and this makes it easier for radical groups to recruit and carry out their crusade against Christians. In many European cities with Moslem minorities, there are neighborhoods non-Moslems are advised to stay out of.
But the Green Lines are about more than religion. A lot of it is politics. One of the reasons Islam ran out of steam centuries ago was that the Moslem areas never embraced democracy, and intellectual progress. Until the 20th century, most Moslems lived as part of some foreign empire, under local totalitarian monarchs. The foreign empires are gone, but democracy has had a hard time taking hold. The dictatorships are still there. And the people are restless.
Radical Islam arose as an alternative to all the other forms of government that never seemed to work. In theory, establishing "Islamic Republics" would solve all problems. People could vote, but only Moslems in good standing could be candidates for office. A committee of Moslem holy men would have veto power over political decisions. Islamic law would be used. It was simple, and it makes sense to a lot of Moslems in nations ruled by thugs and thieves, especially if the people are largely uneducated and illiterate.
Islamic Republics don't work. The only one that has been established (not counting others that say they are but aren't) is in Iran. The major problems were twofold. First, the radicals had too much power. Radical religious types are no fun, and you can't argue with them because they are on a mission from God. Most people tire of this in short order. To speed this disillusionment, many of the once-poor and now-powerful religious leaders became corrupt. This eventually sends your popularity ratings straight to hell.
It will take a generation or so for everyone in the Moslem world to figure out where all this is going. This is already happening in Iran, where moderates are getting stronger every day, but everyone is trying to avoid a civil war. While the radicals are a minority, they are a determined bunch. The constant flow of Islamic radical propaganda does more than generate recruits and contributions in Moslem countries; it also energizes Moslem minorities (both migrants and converts) in Western countries to acts of terrorism. In the United States, you find such Moslems getting arrested several times a year for attempting to carry out religious violence.
Radicals throughout the Moslem world continue to take advantage of dissatisfaction among the people and recruit terrorists and supporters. To help this process along they invoke the ancient grudges popular among many Moslems. Most of these legends involve Christians beating on Moslems. To most radicals it makes sense to get people agitated over faraway foreigners rather than some strongman nearby.
Most radicals lack the skills, money or ability to carry their struggle to far-off places. So most of the agitation takes place among Moslem populations. Any violent attitudes generated are easily directed at available non-Moslems. Thus we have all those Green Lines. But the more violence you have along those Green Lines, the more really fanatical fighters are developed. These are the people who are willing to travel to foreign lands and deal with non-believers, and kill them for the cause. We call it terrorism; the fanatics call it doing what has to be done.
Not surprisingly, Moslems get motivated to do something about Islamic radicalism when the violence is literally next door. That's why terror attacks in the West are so popular. The infidels are being attacked, without any risk to those living in Moslem countries. Iraq changed all that, and during the course of that war (2004-7) the popularity of Islamic terrorism, in Moslem countries, declined sharply because the terrorists were killing so many Moslems. That, in the end, is what has killed, for a while, most Islamic terrorism in Iraq. But this time around, it would be nice if the Moslem world got their act together and expunged this malevolent tendency once and for all.
September 3, 2011
StrategyPage
Twenty nations account for over 95 percent of terrorism activity in the world. Of these twenty (Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Yemen, Iran, Uganda, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria. Palestinian Territories, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Colombia, Algeria, Thailand, Philippines, Russia, Sudan, Iran, Burundi, India, Nigeria and Israel), all but four of them (Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Colombia and Burundi) involve Islamic terrorism. In terms of terrorism fatalities, the top four nations (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia) accounted for 10,400 dead last year, 75 percent of the world total. All of these were the result of Islamic radicalism, often directed at other Moslems, and not just non-Moslems (“infidels”).
This has been the case for decades, and the Moslem world does not like to dwell on this fact. Many Moslem leaders admit that there is a lot of Islamic terrorism, but insist that it’s all the fault of Infidels who are making war on Islam, so some Moslems feel compelled to fight back. The catch-phrase Moslem leaders like to repeat is that Islam is the “religion of peace.” It is not, and the historical record makes that very clear.
And not just the historical record. Currently you find Moslems attacking Buddhists in Thailand, Jews everywhere, Baha'is in Iran and Christians in Egypt, Iraq, the Philippines, Pakistan, Malaysia and elsewhere. This is not a sudden and unexpected outburst of Moslem violence against non-Moslems. It is normal, and at the root of Islamic terrorism. While this violent behavior represents only a small number of Moslems, it is a large minority (from a few percent of a population, to over half, according to opinion polls). Moreover, the majority of Moslems has not been willing, or able, to confront and suppress the Islamic radicals that not only spread death and destruction, but also besmirch all Moslems. This reveals a fundamental problem in the Islamic world, the belief that combining righteousness with murderous tactics is often the road to power and spiritual salvation. Throughout history, when these tactics were applied to non-Moslems, they often failed. The non-Moslems were unfazed by the religious angle, and, especially in the last five hundred years, were better able to defeat Islamic violence with even greater violence. Thus, until quite recently, the Moslems fought among themselves, and left the infidels (non-Moslems) alone. But after World War II, that began to change.
Naturally, this began to show up first in the Middle East. During the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990, Christian and Moslem Arabs fought bitterly over political, cultural and, ultimately, religious differences. The capital, Beirut, was divided into Christian and Moslem sections by the Green Line. The name came from the fact that in this rubble filled no man's land, only grass and weeds survived. And that the line on a ceasefire map was drawn in green. There have been a lot more Green Lines since then. Few realized it at the time, but this war was but the first of many major conflicts between Christians and Moslems in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Many of the earliest Moslem converts were Christians. And many of the peoples Moslem armies unsuccessfully sought to conquer were Christian. The original Crusades, which modern Moslems portray as Western aggression, were actually a Western attempt to rescue Middle Eastern Christians from increasing Islamic terrorism and violence. But Islam as a political force was in decline for several centuries until the 1970s. Then things changed, and they continue to change. Fueled by oil wealth and access to Western weapons and technology, Islamic radicals saw new opportunities. Islam was again on the march, and few have noticed the many places where it was turning into religious war with Christians and other non-Moslems.
In Asia, we have a Green Line between India and Pakistan. Inside India, many Moslem communities remain, and feelings aren't always neighborly. Indonesia and the Philippines suffer growing strife between Moslems and non-Moslems. Malaysia has fanatical Moslems persecuting more laid-back ones, and non-Moslems in general. China has a large Moslem community that generates an increasing amount of violence. Russia and America have formed a curious partnership to deal with Islamic-based terrorism coming out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And in Chechnya, Russia faced Islamic-inspired violence all alone in the 1990s.
Africa has a rather dusty Green Line south of the semi-arid Sahel region. Many African nations are split by increasingly sensitive religious differences. The Moslems are in the north, Christians and animists in the south. Nigeria, Chad and Sudan are among the more violent hot spots at the moment. When the Moslem Somalis stop fighting each other they will return to raiding their Christian and animist neighbors to the south.
The Middle East still contains many non-Moslems. None have their own country, except for Israel. But Egypt contains five million Copts, native Christians who did not convert to Islam. Similar small Christian communities exist throughout the Middle East, and growing hostility from Moslem neighbors causes many to migrate, or get killed.
Moslems also have turned their righteous wrath on dissident Moslem sects. The Druze and Alawites are considered by many Moslems as pagans pretending to be Moslems. Similarly, the Shias of Iran and neighboring areas are considered less orthodox, not just for their admitted differences, but because many adherents openly practice customs of the pre-Islamic Zoroastrian religion. These differences are less frequently overlooked today. To survive, many Druze have allied with Israel, and most of the current Syrian leadership are Alawites who pretend to be more Shia than they really are.
Even Europe has a Green Line. The Moslems in the Balkans (Albanians and Bosnians) have been a constant source of strife for the last decade. Moslem migrants in Europe face even more persecution because of all those Green Lines, and this makes it easier for radical groups to recruit and carry out their crusade against Christians. In many European cities with Moslem minorities, there are neighborhoods non-Moslems are advised to stay out of.
But the Green Lines are about more than religion. A lot of it is politics. One of the reasons Islam ran out of steam centuries ago was that the Moslem areas never embraced democracy, and intellectual progress. Until the 20th century, most Moslems lived as part of some foreign empire, under local totalitarian monarchs. The foreign empires are gone, but democracy has had a hard time taking hold. The dictatorships are still there. And the people are restless.
Radical Islam arose as an alternative to all the other forms of government that never seemed to work. In theory, establishing "Islamic Republics" would solve all problems. People could vote, but only Moslems in good standing could be candidates for office. A committee of Moslem holy men would have veto power over political decisions. Islamic law would be used. It was simple, and it makes sense to a lot of Moslems in nations ruled by thugs and thieves, especially if the people are largely uneducated and illiterate.
Islamic Republics don't work. The only one that has been established (not counting others that say they are but aren't) is in Iran. The major problems were twofold. First, the radicals had too much power. Radical religious types are no fun, and you can't argue with them because they are on a mission from God. Most people tire of this in short order. To speed this disillusionment, many of the once-poor and now-powerful religious leaders became corrupt. This eventually sends your popularity ratings straight to hell.
It will take a generation or so for everyone in the Moslem world to figure out where all this is going. This is already happening in Iran, where moderates are getting stronger every day, but everyone is trying to avoid a civil war. While the radicals are a minority, they are a determined bunch. The constant flow of Islamic radical propaganda does more than generate recruits and contributions in Moslem countries; it also energizes Moslem minorities (both migrants and converts) in Western countries to acts of terrorism. In the United States, you find such Moslems getting arrested several times a year for attempting to carry out religious violence.
Radicals throughout the Moslem world continue to take advantage of dissatisfaction among the people and recruit terrorists and supporters. To help this process along they invoke the ancient grudges popular among many Moslems. Most of these legends involve Christians beating on Moslems. To most radicals it makes sense to get people agitated over faraway foreigners rather than some strongman nearby.
Most radicals lack the skills, money or ability to carry their struggle to far-off places. So most of the agitation takes place among Moslem populations. Any violent attitudes generated are easily directed at available non-Moslems. Thus we have all those Green Lines. But the more violence you have along those Green Lines, the more really fanatical fighters are developed. These are the people who are willing to travel to foreign lands and deal with non-believers, and kill them for the cause. We call it terrorism; the fanatics call it doing what has to be done.
Not surprisingly, Moslems get motivated to do something about Islamic radicalism when the violence is literally next door. That's why terror attacks in the West are so popular. The infidels are being attacked, without any risk to those living in Moslem countries. Iraq changed all that, and during the course of that war (2004-7) the popularity of Islamic terrorism, in Moslem countries, declined sharply because the terrorists were killing so many Moslems. That, in the end, is what has killed, for a while, most Islamic terrorism in Iraq. But this time around, it would be nice if the Moslem world got their act together and expunged this malevolent tendency once and for all.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Donations to Missionaries in India.
via Ramanan50's Blog
This report is released by the Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI, & gives details
of Contribution received by the NGO’s under the Foreign Contribution
Regulation Act 1976:-
1 crore (100,00,000) = 10 million (10,000,000)
1. Highest receivers of Foreign Contribution by state:
TAMIL NADU — Rs 2244 crores
DELHI — Rs 2186 crores
ANDHRA PRADESH — Rs 1,211 crores
2. Highest receivers of Foreign Contribution by city:
CHENNAI — Rs 928 crores
MUMBAI — Rs 891 crores
RANCHI — Rs 653 crores
3. Largest Donors:
USA — Rs 2971 crores
GERMANY — Rs 1650 crores
UK — Rs 1425 crores
4. List of foreign Donors topped by:
MISEREOR POSTFECH, GERMANY — Rs 1243 crores
WORLD VISION INTERNATIONAL, USA — Rs 469 crores
FUNDACION VICENTE FERRER, SPAIN — Rs 399 crores
5. The Highest Contribution received by:
RANCHI JESUITS RANCHI JHARKHAND — Rs 621 crores
SONTHOME TRUST OF KALYAN NEAR MUMBAI — Rs 333 crores
SOVERGEIN ORDER OF MALTA DELHI — Rs 301 crores
To know more about the amounts received by the NGOs for Evangelisation
in India, read the FCRA Report (PDF) 2006-07, Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI.
Note:-
1. We are not talking of the money that comes from the Arab world which I presume
comes mostly through the Hawala route.
2. Hindus need to donate a lot more to worthwhile organizations. A friend recommended this site: as an example of a samstha doing good work.
3. Amongst many others who are doing good work and need to be supported:
i) The Ramakrishna Mission,
ii) Friends of Tribal Society,
iii) Vivekananda Kendra,
iv) Chinmaya Mission,
v) Arya Samaj
_________________________________________________
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
(Annual Report for 2006-07 )
*****
Introduction
Foreign Contribution is regulated under the provisions of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 1976 and the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Rules, 1976. This Act came into force from 05th August 1976, to regulate the acceptance and utilization of foreign contribution with a view to ensure that institutions, associations and other voluntary organizations as well as individuals working in important areas of national life receive foreign contribution and foreign hospitality, respectively, in a manner consistent with India’s values as a sovereign, democratic republic.
Salient Features
Data pertaining to receipt of foreign contribution for 2006-07 has inter alia the following salient features:
I. As on 31-03-2007, 33937 associations were registered and 522 were granted prior permission during the year 2006-07.
II. For the year 2006-07, 18996, associations reported receipt of foreign contribution (including those which received NIL amount) amounting to Rs. 11336.97 crore.
III. Among the States and Union Territories, Delhi (Rs.2183.03 crore) reported the highest receipt of foreign contribution followed by Tamil Nadu (Rs 2117.71 crore) and Andhra Pradesh (Rs 1,210.82 crore).
IV. Among the districts in different States, Chennai (Rs. 908.09 crore) reported the highest receipt of foreign contribution, followed by Mumbai (Rs. 891.26 crore) and Bangalore (Rs. 628.48 crore).
V. The list of donor countries is headed by the USA (Rs.2,949.35 crore) followed by UK (Rs. 1427.50 crore) and the Germany (Rs. 1035.40 crore).
VI. The list of foreign donors is topped by World Vision International, USA (Rs. 703.75 crore) followed by Gospel for Asia, USA (Rs. 453.58 crore) and Fundacion Vicente Ferrer, Spain (Rs. 399.45 crore).
VII. Among the associations which reported receipt of foreign contribution, Sonthome Trust of Kalyan, Mumbai, Maharashtra (Rs. 332.86 crore) received the highest amount of foreign contribution followed by Sovereign Order of Malta, Delhi (Rs.300.79 crore) and World Vision of India, Chennai, Tamil Nadu (Rs. 256.06 crore).
VIII Among the purposes for which foreign contribution was utilised, the highest amount of foreign contribution was utilised for Establishment Expenses (Rs.3058.48 crore), followed by Relief/Rehabilitation of victims of natural calamities (Rs.2534.23 crore), Rural Development (Rs.1956.63 crore), Construction and maintenance of schools/colleges (Rs.1208.92 crore), and Welfare of Children (Rs.1184.38 crore).
This report is released by the Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI, & gives details
of Contribution received by the NGO’s under the Foreign Contribution
Regulation Act 1976:-
1 crore (100,00,000) = 10 million (10,000,000)
1. Highest receivers of Foreign Contribution by state:
TAMIL NADU — Rs 2244 crores
DELHI — Rs 2186 crores
ANDHRA PRADESH — Rs 1,211 crores
2. Highest receivers of Foreign Contribution by city:
CHENNAI — Rs 928 crores
MUMBAI — Rs 891 crores
RANCHI — Rs 653 crores
3. Largest Donors:
USA — Rs 2971 crores
GERMANY — Rs 1650 crores
UK — Rs 1425 crores
4. List of foreign Donors topped by:
MISEREOR POSTFECH, GERMANY — Rs 1243 crores
WORLD VISION INTERNATIONAL, USA — Rs 469 crores
FUNDACION VICENTE FERRER, SPAIN — Rs 399 crores
5. The Highest Contribution received by:
RANCHI JESUITS RANCHI JHARKHAND — Rs 621 crores
SONTHOME TRUST OF KALYAN NEAR MUMBAI — Rs 333 crores
SOVERGEIN ORDER OF MALTA DELHI — Rs 301 crores
To know more about the amounts received by the NGOs for Evangelisation
in India, read the FCRA Report (PDF) 2006-07, Ministry of Home Affairs, GOI.
Note:-
1. We are not talking of the money that comes from the Arab world which I presume
comes mostly through the Hawala route.
2. Hindus need to donate a lot more to worthwhile organizations. A friend recommended this site: as an example of a samstha doing good work.
3. Amongst many others who are doing good work and need to be supported:
i) The Ramakrishna Mission,
ii) Friends of Tribal Society,
iii) Vivekananda Kendra,
iv) Chinmaya Mission,
v) Arya Samaj
_________________________________________________
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
(Annual Report for 2006-07 )
*****
Introduction
Foreign Contribution is regulated under the provisions of the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 1976 and the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Rules, 1976. This Act came into force from 05th August 1976, to regulate the acceptance and utilization of foreign contribution with a view to ensure that institutions, associations and other voluntary organizations as well as individuals working in important areas of national life receive foreign contribution and foreign hospitality, respectively, in a manner consistent with India’s values as a sovereign, democratic republic.
Salient Features
Data pertaining to receipt of foreign contribution for 2006-07 has inter alia the following salient features:
I. As on 31-03-2007, 33937 associations were registered and 522 were granted prior permission during the year 2006-07.
II. For the year 2006-07, 18996, associations reported receipt of foreign contribution (including those which received NIL amount) amounting to Rs. 11336.97 crore.
III. Among the States and Union Territories, Delhi (Rs.2183.03 crore) reported the highest receipt of foreign contribution followed by Tamil Nadu (Rs 2117.71 crore) and Andhra Pradesh (Rs 1,210.82 crore).
IV. Among the districts in different States, Chennai (Rs. 908.09 crore) reported the highest receipt of foreign contribution, followed by Mumbai (Rs. 891.26 crore) and Bangalore (Rs. 628.48 crore).
V. The list of donor countries is headed by the USA (Rs.2,949.35 crore) followed by UK (Rs. 1427.50 crore) and the Germany (Rs. 1035.40 crore).
VI. The list of foreign donors is topped by World Vision International, USA (Rs. 703.75 crore) followed by Gospel for Asia, USA (Rs. 453.58 crore) and Fundacion Vicente Ferrer, Spain (Rs. 399.45 crore).
VII. Among the associations which reported receipt of foreign contribution, Sonthome Trust of Kalyan, Mumbai, Maharashtra (Rs. 332.86 crore) received the highest amount of foreign contribution followed by Sovereign Order of Malta, Delhi (Rs.300.79 crore) and World Vision of India, Chennai, Tamil Nadu (Rs. 256.06 crore).
VIII Among the purposes for which foreign contribution was utilised, the highest amount of foreign contribution was utilised for Establishment Expenses (Rs.3058.48 crore), followed by Relief/Rehabilitation of victims of natural calamities (Rs.2534.23 crore), Rural Development (Rs.1956.63 crore), Construction and maintenance of schools/colleges (Rs.1208.92 crore), and Welfare of Children (Rs.1184.38 crore).
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Hindus beaten evicted from homes in Karachi for drinking water at a mosque
11 July, 2010 06:15:00 AM Asian News International
Voice of the Copts
In an incident which showcases the brutal hatred with which Hindus are seen in Pakistan, at least 60 members of the minority community, including women and children, were forced to abandon their house in Karachi's Memon Goth area just because a Hindu boy drank water from a cooler outside a mosque.
Local tribesman, who hold a good clout in the area, thrashed several Hindus forcing them to run away and take shelter in a near by cattle pen, The News reports. "All hell broke loose when my son, Dinesh, who looked after chickens in a farm, drank water from a cooler outside a mosque. Upon seeing him do that, the people of the area started beating him up," said Meerumal, a resident of the area. "Later, around 150 tribesmen attacked us, injuring seven of our people, who were taken to the Jinnah Hospital," he added.
One of the injured, Heera, said that another 400 families of the area were also being threatened to leave their households and settle elsewhere. "Our people are even scared of going out of their houses. We are also putting up with living in the filthy pen because we cannot go home for fear of being killed," Heera said.
Police officials are aware about the incident, but they have failed to take any steps to stop the atrocities being meted out to the minority community."A trivial incident led to riots between the people of the area. Since both the communities happened to be illiterate, the matter just flared up," said Memon Goth Station House Officer.
Meanwhile, Minority Affairs Minister Dr Mohan Lal has assured Hindus of full government protection. "I have directed the DPO and the SHO to ensure that these people go back to their houses safely," Lal said.
Voice of the Copts
In an incident which showcases the brutal hatred with which Hindus are seen in Pakistan, at least 60 members of the minority community, including women and children, were forced to abandon their house in Karachi's Memon Goth area just because a Hindu boy drank water from a cooler outside a mosque.
Local tribesman, who hold a good clout in the area, thrashed several Hindus forcing them to run away and take shelter in a near by cattle pen, The News reports. "All hell broke loose when my son, Dinesh, who looked after chickens in a farm, drank water from a cooler outside a mosque. Upon seeing him do that, the people of the area started beating him up," said Meerumal, a resident of the area. "Later, around 150 tribesmen attacked us, injuring seven of our people, who were taken to the Jinnah Hospital," he added.
One of the injured, Heera, said that another 400 families of the area were also being threatened to leave their households and settle elsewhere. "Our people are even scared of going out of their houses. We are also putting up with living in the filthy pen because we cannot go home for fear of being killed," Heera said.
Police officials are aware about the incident, but they have failed to take any steps to stop the atrocities being meted out to the minority community."A trivial incident led to riots between the people of the area. Since both the communities happened to be illiterate, the matter just flared up," said Memon Goth Station House Officer.
Meanwhile, Minority Affairs Minister Dr Mohan Lal has assured Hindus of full government protection. "I have directed the DPO and the SHO to ensure that these people go back to their houses safely," Lal said.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
List of 25 Blasphemous Quotes
Published by Atheist Ireland
1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.
2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.
3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.
4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy – he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.
5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”
6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”
7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.
8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”
9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”
10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”
11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”
12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.
13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”
14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”
15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”
16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”
17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.
18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”
19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”
20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”
21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”
22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”
23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”
24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.
25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.
Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.
1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.
2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.
3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.
4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy – he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.
5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”
6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”
7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.
8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”
9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”
10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”
11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”
12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.
13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”
14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”
15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”
16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”
17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.
18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”
19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”
20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”
21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”
22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”
23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”
24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.
25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.
Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Dear God, stop brainwashing children
Worship is forced on 99 per cent of children without even asking what they think
Friday, 8 May 2009
The Independent (UK)
by Johann Hari
Let us now put our hands together and pray. O God, we gather here today to ask you to free our schoolchildren from being forced to go through this charade every day. As you know, O Lord, because You see all, British law requires every schoolchild to participate in "an act of collective worship" every 24 hours. Irrespective of what the child thinks or believes, they are shepherded into a hall, silenced, and forced to pray – or pretend to.
If they refuse to bow their heads to You, they are punished. This happened to me, because I protested that there is no evidence whatsoever that You exist, and plenty of proof that shows the texts describing You are filled with falsehoods. When I pointed this out, I was told to stop being "blasphemous" and threatened with detention. "Shut up and pray," a teacher told me on one occasion. Are you proud, O Lord?
Forcing children to take part in religious worship every day is a law worthy of a theocracy, not a liberal democracy where 70 per cent of adults never attend a religious ceremony. That's why the Association of Teachers and Lecturers – one of the teachers' unions – has recently moved to ask the Government to stop forcing its members to take part in this practice.
Related articles
* The Pope heads for the Holy Land (just don't mention the war)
Why does this anachronism persist in this blessedly irreligious country? For all their whining that they are "persecuted", the religious minority in Britain are in fact accorded remarkable privileges. They are given a bench-full of unelected positions in the legislature, protection from criticism in the law, and vast amounts of public money to indoctrinate children into their belief systems in every school in the land.
I can understand why the unelected, faltering religious institutions cling to this law so tightly. When it comes to "faith", if you don't get people young, you probably won't ever get them. Very few people are, as adults, persuaded of the idea that (say) a Messiah was born to a virgin and managed to bend the laws of physics, or that we should revere a man who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year-old girl. You can usually only persuade people of this when they are very young – a time when their critical and rational faculties have not yet been developed – and hope it becomes a rock in their psychological make-up they dare not pull out.
But why do the rest of us allow this fervent 5 per cent of the population to force the rest of our kids to follow their superstitions? Parents can withdraw their children if they choose – but that often means separating the child in an embarrassing way from her friends and exposing them to criticisms from the school, so only 1 per cent do it. Most don't even know it is an option.
More importantly still, why is worship forced on 99 per cent of children without their own consent or even asking what they think? As the author Richard Dawkins has pointed out many times, there are no "Christian children" or "Muslim children". I was classed as "Christian" because my mother is vaguely culturally Christian, although at every opportunity I protested that I didn't believe any of it. Children are not born with these beliefs, as they are born with a particular pigmentation or height or eye colour. Indeed, if you watch children being taught about religion, you will see most of them instinctively laugh and ask perfectly sensible sceptical questions that are swatted away – or punished – by religious instructors.
I am genuinely surprised that no moderate religious people have, to my knowledge, joined the campaign to stop this compelled prayer. What pleasure or pride can you possibly feel in knowing that children are compelled to worship your God? Why are you silent?
The prayer-enforcers offer a few arguments in their defence. At first, they claim it instils "moral values" in children. The scientist Gregory S Paul produced a detailed study in 2005 to find out if rates of murder and rape went up as levels of religion went down. He found the exact opposite. On detailed international comparisons, the more religious a country is, the more likely you are to be stabbed or raped there. There isn't necessarily a causal relationship – but it blasts a bloody hole in this claim.
Of course, if you actually followed the morality explicitly commanded by the Bible, Torah and Koran, you would kill adulterers, gay people, apostates, and disobedient children and be sent to prison. Thankfully, the vast majority of religious believers long since decided to disregard much of "God's word", because it is manifestly appalling, and read it metaphorically. But you have to strip away an awful lot of the texts as metaphor before you get to a few bland lessons about being nice to each other. Can't we get the lessons about niceness from somewhere else, without the bogus metaphysics and endless injunctions to kill our friends?
Once the morality defence dissolves, the religious switch tack, and claim that children indoctrinated into religion perform better academically. As "proof", they point to the fact that faith schools perform somewhat better on league tables. It's true – but look a little deeper.
There have been two detailed studies of this, by the conservative think tank Civitas, and the Welsh Assembly. They found faith schools get better results for one simple reason: they use selection to cream off highly motivated children of the wealthy and weed out difficult, poor or unmotivated students who would require more work. Once you take into account their "better" intakes, faith schools actually underperform academically by 5 per cent (and that's before you factor in all the other problems they cause).
I am absolutely not saying that schools should teach children to be atheists. No. Schools should take no position on religion. They should be neutral, and equip children with the thinking skills – asking for evidence, and knowing how to analyse it rationally – that will enable them to make up their own minds, when they wish, beyond the school gates. How can a religious person object to that, without admitting that open-minded, evidence-seeking adults would see through their claims in a second?
And so, O Lord, I ask you – and the British Government – to set our children free, at last, from being forced to worship You. Amen – and hallelujah.
j.hari@independent.co.uk
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Slumdog - British dirty tricks?
Is Slumdog Millionaire another dirty trick by the British?
If you know a bit about the history of India, you will know the British instigated hostilities between Hindus and Muslims as a way to break up the independence movement using their time tested divide and rule strategy. This cynical ploy later led to the deaths of about 1.5 million people and the forced migration of about 20 million.
This movie was made by an Englishman who twisted the characters from original book to make the secular hero a Muslim and added in a large dose of persecution at the hands of Hindus.
Understandably the western audience is largely unaware of the realities of religious identity and secularism in India and will take this at face value. But reading the comments at various blogs and news sites you can see a clear polarization of opinions on this movie based on religion.
For example:
Here is an comment to an uninformed article by Barbara Crossette:
If you know a bit about the history of India, you will know the British instigated hostilities between Hindus and Muslims as a way to break up the independence movement using their time tested divide and rule strategy. This cynical ploy later led to the deaths of about 1.5 million people and the forced migration of about 20 million.
This movie was made by an Englishman who twisted the characters from original book to make the secular hero a Muslim and added in a large dose of persecution at the hands of Hindus.
Understandably the western audience is largely unaware of the realities of religious identity and secularism in India and will take this at face value. But reading the comments at various blogs and news sites you can see a clear polarization of opinions on this movie based on religion.
For example:
Here is an comment to an uninformed article by Barbara Crossette:
I am a 67-year-old ex-Indian. In 1946, when I was 4 years old, my paternal uncles, aunts and their families were massacred in cold blood, forty-eight in number in three small towns in Bihar: Telhara, Karai Perserai and Salarpur! The total death toll ran into thousands. In 1964 I personally escaped being thrown alive into an industrial furnace in the industrial city of Jamshedpur, the HQ of Tata Steel and other other heavy industries. On the same day the massacres started, similar massacres were conducted by Hindu "terrorists" in two other major industrial cities; Rourkela and Bhilai both in North East India like Jamshedpur! In 1964 the Kashmir "intifada" was two decades ahead. Osama bin Laden was in a primary school. It was 1965 when India "invaded" West Pakistan (now the only Pakistan remaining after India helped East Pakistan secede after another invasion by India). In 1964 the Kashmir cease-fire line was "quiet" in every sense of the word. Why then forced boiler crematoriums for the living? Because it was only in industrial cities like Jamshedpur an educated Indian Muslim like me could land a job on merit, like I had done.
In 1964, right after being saved by a Sikh colleague, I crossed the border into East Pakistan where I was welcomed as an unwanted refugee, but that's another story.
In 1965 I flew to Saudi Arabia after accepting the first overseas job I could land, and it here that I have lived, worked, married locally and raised kids who are now lecturers in Jeddah University.
Had the Hindu "terrorists" who are now being courted by the US allowed me to continue living and enjoying my "human, civil and citizen rights" in India, I wouldn't be sharing any "past hell" with you all!
Hindu "terrorism" is very much alive and getting healthier and stronger with every passing day.
syed salamah ali mahdi
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
#
Is Ms. Crossette aware that the central character in the novel Q and A (on which Slumdog is based) is named Raj Mohammed Thomas? Despite the West's obsession with identity politics and revulsion at the caste system, religion/caste and identity have had a fluid nature in India--a point Vikas Kashyap, the author of Q and A, emphasized in naming the protagonist.
The primary reason for the backwardness of Muslims in India and indeed the world is their desire to shield and protect their women, thereby depriving them of opportunity. To read absurd subtexts can only be accomplished by an elite journalist who during her tenure in India predicted the coming disintegration of India with a confidence matched only by her colleague Judith Miller's on the presence of WMDs in Iraq.
Sumant Rawat
Pueblo , CO
02/24/2009 @ 7:18pm
----
Finally someone has notice and written about the pro-Muslim subtext of the film! The subtext is that Muslims in India are the victims of Hindus. This fits very well into the standard pro-Muslim line that Muslims are always victims--of Hindus, of Christians, of "colonialists," of Jews, you name it. Muslims are always victims.
Unfortunately, neither the author, Barbara Crosette, nor anyone else will tell you that Muslims slaughtered literally millions of Hindus when they invaded and conquered India centuries ago. The Hindus have a lot of pent up grievances against the Muslims in India--which, of course, does not justify the anti-Muslim pogrom portrayed in Slumdog Millionaire.
Abdul Ameer
Chicago, IL
In 1964, right after being saved by a Sikh colleague, I crossed the border into East Pakistan where I was welcomed as an unwanted refugee, but that's another story.
In 1965 I flew to Saudi Arabia after accepting the first overseas job I could land, and it here that I have lived, worked, married locally and raised kids who are now lecturers in Jeddah University.
Had the Hindu "terrorists" who are now being courted by the US allowed me to continue living and enjoying my "human, civil and citizen rights" in India, I wouldn't be sharing any "past hell" with you all!
Hindu "terrorism" is very much alive and getting healthier and stronger with every passing day.
syed salamah ali mahdi
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
#
Is Ms. Crossette aware that the central character in the novel Q and A (on which Slumdog is based) is named Raj Mohammed Thomas? Despite the West's obsession with identity politics and revulsion at the caste system, religion/caste and identity have had a fluid nature in India--a point Vikas Kashyap, the author of Q and A, emphasized in naming the protagonist.
The primary reason for the backwardness of Muslims in India and indeed the world is their desire to shield and protect their women, thereby depriving them of opportunity. To read absurd subtexts can only be accomplished by an elite journalist who during her tenure in India predicted the coming disintegration of India with a confidence matched only by her colleague Judith Miller's on the presence of WMDs in Iraq.
Sumant Rawat
Pueblo , CO
02/24/2009 @ 7:18pm
----
Finally someone has notice and written about the pro-Muslim subtext of the film! The subtext is that Muslims in India are the victims of Hindus. This fits very well into the standard pro-Muslim line that Muslims are always victims--of Hindus, of Christians, of "colonialists," of Jews, you name it. Muslims are always victims.
Unfortunately, neither the author, Barbara Crosette, nor anyone else will tell you that Muslims slaughtered literally millions of Hindus when they invaded and conquered India centuries ago. The Hindus have a lot of pent up grievances against the Muslims in India--which, of course, does not justify the anti-Muslim pogrom portrayed in Slumdog Millionaire.
Abdul Ameer
Chicago, IL
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