Mobasheer was always interested in religion, and his family didn't discourage his curiosity in his faith. But his father said he told his son that if he wanted to explore further, he should read the Quran directly. He even gave Mobasheer an English translation of the Quran because he didn't want his son to get a warped interpretation elsewhere.
July 4, 2016
"That's not my son, that's not my son. He was full of humanity."
Said Meer Hayet Kabir, father of the 18-year-old Meer Sameh Mobasheer, one of the terrorists in the Dhaka massacre.
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He even gave Mobasheer an English translation of the Quran because he didn't want his son to get a warped interpretation elsewhere.
The words say what the words say.
I'm too cynical, because I read the same denial that I see on TV each night when some young local thug is killed by the cops in an armed robbery or by his companions in some drug deal gone bad. They always trot out the Grandmother who declares that the kids was "a good boy"
Maybe he was an excellent student and a good boy, but then you have to ask about the content of what he was reading...
Ramadan ends in a few days. Maybe then the violence and killing will revert to normal levels.
Just wish I could secure an invite to the White House's dinner the night the " holy" month ends.
"He even gave Mobasheer an English translation of the Quran because he didn't want his son to get a warped interpretation elsewhere."
The problem isn't the language. It's the book.
Jeffrey Dahmer's neighbors offered a similar reaction upon the revelation of his crimes.
Have sex in English. That way you won't get pregnant.
Notice no one goes on a rampage after reading Darwin.
Ken B said...
Have sex in English. That way you won't get pregnant.
Notice no one goes on a rampage after reading Darwin.
People are snoring after reading Darwin. It's a slog.
The Muslim religion is a fantasy religion. Very much designed for an impressionable teen boys sexual gratification.
The religion describes what is in store for males who go to paradise as martyrs. There is no cushy deal for females. In the Sunni mythology:
The houris would not urinate, defecate, become pregnant or menstruate. The houris are "transparent to the marrow of their bones", "eternally young", "hairless except the eyebrows and the head", "pure" and "beautiful".
Charles Martel (Charles the Hammer), grandfather of Charlemagne, defeated the Saracens at the Battle of Tours, and permanently halted the Muslim invasion of Europe. A large piece of iron fell from heaven (likely a meteor), and his blacksmiths made him a sword from it.
It was at the Chateau of Chinon, 700 years later, that Joan of Arc first saw Charles VII and gave him confidence in her mission, and she sent to St-Catherine-de-Fierbois in the diocese of Tours for the sword of Charles Martel. If the sword could turn back the Muslims, maybe it could turn back the filthy English.
No one knows what became of the sword, as it was never seen again after the failed attempt to take Paris from the English-Burgundian forces. It is said she was last seen running it through the backs of prostitutes as she retreated. One report says she gave it to her brother to hide.
The swords location will be given by God, just as it was to Joan. That person will lead the world in halting the second Muslim invasion.
Notice no one goes on a rampage after reading Darwin
Good idea, transfer your fear to a less fearsome object, like Christianity. That will help you avoid the psychic pain of dealing with it honestly, and of having to re-evaluate your beliefs. Ostrichize yourself, it's better than being ostracized, amIright?
@Tim - But, but, but - the Crusades!
I bet not one in fifty people honestly try to apply Darwin's thinking to their own analysis of the issues of the day. And of those one in fifty, I am talking about people who purport to actually think about them. One in fifty of that smaller group.
For instance, I would like to hear the Darwin explanation of why women and men evolved to a state of exact equality in all but outward appearance despite the apparent utility of the division of labor between the sexes in survival for the past several millions of years of human existence.
Weren't the Crusades a response to Muslims destroying Christian holy sites in the "Levant"? No, that doesn't sound like Islam to me either...
I am pretty much the antithesis of a Marxist/socialist/communist as most of you can tell from my comments over the years. Yet I have probably read more of Marx than many who claim to be Marxists.
I am the the opposite of a Fascist yet I have read Mussolini's Doctrine of Fascism.
and so on.
I think I am a fairly devout Christian yet I have tried several times to read the Koran. First in the 70s in a comparative religion class, 2-3 other times I've started. Last year I tried to listen to an audio version from Librivox.org
Never was able to get into it. Never made it past the first 30-40 pages. As Tank said about Darwin, it is quite a slog. For me at least, apparently not for billions of others.
Someone raised objections to reading the Koran in another comment thread recently and I don't understand the reasoning. Why NOT read the Koran? Now more than ever. Not out of any religious sense, but out of intellectual curiosity. Just to see what the fuss is all about?
Why let others tell us what it says? Why not see for ourselves?
It is just a book.
How dangerous can it be to read a book?
John Henry
So who is hiding the wife of the Orlando shooter? You know, the lone crazy madman?
Coupe,
Aren't all religions, including Christianity "fantasy religions"? Isn't fantasy, in the sense of being unknown and unknowable, the primary characteristic of any religion?
Religions are based on belief and faith, not on fact.
John Henry
I think we need to replace the "No true Scotsman" fallacy with "No true Muslim."
Example: No true Muslim would fly airplanes into buildings, killing thousands, while yelling "God is great!"
Coupe,
Do Christians poop in Heaven?
Never seen it addressed specifically but have always assumed not since we are told we will not eat in Heaven. If we don't eat and drink, we have no need to piss and poop. And if no need to procreate, no need to menstruate or get pregnant either.
John Henry
Religions are based on belief and faith, not on fact.
No, they are based on fleshed out words.
"Notice no one goes on a rampage after reading Darwin"
Eugenicists and master race theorists believed they needed enhance natural evolution and they created a little mischief as I recall.
There's no place safe from people who are possessed of the truth.
John Henry said...
Coupe,
Aren't all religions, including Christianity "fantasy religions"? Isn't fantasy, in the sense of being unknown and unknowable, the primary characteristic of any religion?
Religions are based on belief and faith, not on fact.
John Henry
With the caveat that I'm no expert on religion, I think you've given too much away here. There are plenty of "facts" provable in the same ways that events that happened a looooong time ago are usually proven. Interpretation of those "facts" is a different story.
Look at current "facts." Who knows what is and isn't with the constant never ending stream of BS that we get every day from every direction.
It is nice that many Muslims put "humanity" above obedience to Allah and the Prophet. But Islam is not about submission to "humanity."
Aren't all religions, including Christianity "fantasy religions"?
Islam was designed as a response to the powerful Christians. The early Christians had no use for Saracens, other than to enslave them.
The Christian religion freed women to join the men in society without hiding their faces. A hierarchy of leaders that replaced corrupt governments.
At best, Islam was nothing more than savages and their war lords. Even today, the religion has no purpose. The only purpose in being a Muslim, is to keep women down, and to kill Christians.
If you aren't a Christian, you have to depend on people like Mrs Clinton to structure your life and society.
As a Christian, you have a Pope, and his leadership to support you from cradle to grave.
Try doing that with the VA.
Coupe,
Yes there are historical facts associated with most religions. Some of these are provable, more or less. Joseph Smith did exist. Some are not, he claimed to have gotten the golden tablets and the book of Mormon direct from the angel Moroni (I hope any LDSers here will excuse and correct me as necessary)
That Mohammed existed is a provable fact. How he got the Koran and founded Islam is more legend and belief in that legend than fact.
Moses probably didn't exist yet many people take him as an actual, factual, character. Even if he did exist, any "facts" we know about him and especially about what he did would be mostly unknowable after all this time.
I stand by may statement that all religions, including Christianity, are belief, not fact based. "Fantasy" might be a bit pejorative but it probably accurate.
I believe in Christ as my savior. I have no evidence to support that belief. It is purely faith. That doesn't make it any less real. It just makes it hard to argue rationally.
Other than, perhaps, on a Pascual's wager basis.
John Henry
Sebastian,
Isn't Christianity about submission? Perhaps not so strongly or explicitly as in Islam and perhaps in a different form. We are commanded throughout both OT and NT to do as God wills, not as we will?
John Henry
Arrgh, one of the reasons I do not like discussing religion.
I used "LDSer" above and reading it don't think it is the right term. Perhaps I should have said "Saints" or "LDS".
Certainly no offense intended.
John Henry
Isn't Christianity about submission?
No. That's a very narrow hence incorrect understanding of what Christianity is "about." In this instance you confuse "submission" with making a choice to understand and acknowledge that God is supreme and to act accordingly. It's your choice whether to do so. Free will and all that. There is no free will in Islam. And, as a I said, Christianity is about a whole lot more than what you term "submission."
I do worry a bit about Darwin a bit. I think that most of us, at least at some level accept the basic premises laid out by him. We now understand scientifically how evolution works, but also that at one level it is much more complicated. Still, the basic premises can sometimes lead to worrying results. One of them is that as the world gets more complex, intelligence becomes more and more important, as it aids greatly in understanding the complexity. Yet, we financially incentivize those with lower intelligence and lower ability to defer gratification to breed, and disincentivize those with greater intelligence and ability to defer gratification. In other words, we are taxing those we probably should be encouraging to breed, in order to have the money to pay those who maybe shouldn't be breeding to breed. On the other side, maternal hips were a limiting factor in head size, and, thus, somewhat of intelligence. But now C-sections are common in our society - can we expect baby head size to increase as intelligence may be of evolutionary benefit? Are these factors driving us long term to divide the species? And what happens to all those larger heads (and other problems), if we lose modern technology (allowing for safe child bearing)? I should note that I have long read much too much science fiction, at least since Heinlein and Asimov in high school some 50 years ago.
"who is hiding the wife of the Orlando shooter?"
Yes. We may find out when Obama cleans out the White House.
Isn't Christianity about submission?
No. That's a very narrow hence incorrect understanding of what Christianity is "about."
I agree. There is a pretty good book called "For the Glory of God,: which explains a lot about Christianity and how it asks Christians to seek to understand God. That is almost the opposite of Islam which requires submission to Allah and does not permit inquiry into his reasons or the principles in the Quran.
From a review:
Stark makes four main arguments. First, faith in God leads to quarrelsomeness (what someone referred to as the "joy of sects") and to reformations. (Brilliantly contrasting the "Church of Power" and the "Church of Piety.") Stark has some very interesting insights deriving from Adam Smith about what happens when a religion has a monopoly, and what happens when (as in the US) there is a free market of spiritual ideas in effect. But he somehow manages to spin his sociological theories without impinging on individual human choice.
There is nothing in Islam like that.
I don't worry about head size too much. Computers have steadily gotten both smarter and smaller.
There's no reason we can't engineer a powerful yet practical, wearable head.
I don't think that "Saint" works, because of its overtones, esp with non-Protestant Christianity. It would almost be an admission that Harry Reid were spiritually equvalent to Mother Teresa, just because he accepted the existence of those gold tablets. If LDSer is problematic, I think that Mormon works pretty well. Not being Mormon, but having been around them a bit, I would think that one advantage of using Mormon over LDSer and the like is that their mainline church seems to have been decreasing the emphasis on the second half of their name, and emphasizing it on the first part, to make themselves more acceptable to (other?) Christians. You can see it on the front of their churches, where the first part (Church of Jesus Christ) is noticeably bigger than the second part (of the Latter Day Saints) of their name. Though, if you spend enough time in Mormon country, you can usually identify their churches from miles away.
Is so hard for us to wrap our heads around the idea that a random event such as a genetic modification can accrue benefits. We always think "cui bono?" Who benefits must have had intention. It's nothing like that at all. It's like the concept of the "invisible hand" in economics. Creationists can't accept that no designer is involved any more than lefties can believe that an economy can grown without some tiny cabal controlling all in the background exclusively for their own personal gain.
I don't believe Protestants are true Christians. As a matter of fact, everything bad about being a Christian can blamed on Protestants.
Protestants make an appeal to the bourgeois to provide a basis for their rape of power and corruption of government.
You never see a Catholic (the only true Christian) putting up bullshit on the courthouse lawns. Catholics don't need to empower corrupt governments.
This is why all Protestants go straight to hell when they cease to breath. Joining their corrupt government compatriots, and Muslim savages amongst the smell of sulphur and black tar.
Amen.
It doesn't seem to have been really ISIS, but a Bangladeshi organization called Jamatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh, probably sponsored by Pakistan's rogue military intelligence agency, which is responsible for a lot of the terrorism in countries near Pakistan. A good question is where did thsi claim or responsible truly originate from. We don't know, or the government doesn't know, or realize, the true oOrder of Battle of terrorst organzations which is one reason we are having so much trouble putting an end to it.
Note that these terrorists in Bangladesh, were, by and large, educatedenough to know English.
Many people have heard of the Singing Nun. She blew the Beatles off the charts for one record, that while it sounded beautiful, was nothing more than her love of her Christianity.
Sadly today, the thing she used to rhyme her song, is a synonym for nasty sex (Dominique - nique, nique) as in nique ta mère.
On the flip side is her most beautiful song, and it is merely a ditty about how man is created in the night, man is baptized in the day, and in the evening, man dies.
La nuit où de deux chairs il a crée ta vie - The night in which of two fleshes he created your life.
"two fleshes" sounds very Catholic to me. Laslo would probably not approve.
re the comments about submission, I tend to agree that Christianity is not really about "submission" in the same sense that Islam is. I would generally not use the word "submission" in discussing Christianity.
Under the concept of free will we can choose to follow God's will or our own. I think that being a good Christian requires us to follow God's will.
What that will is and how we follow it is a subject that fills hole shelves of books. So we just have to do the best we can as we understand God's will.
John Henry
That's not my son? Is this guy claiming that Ted Bundy crept into his wife's bedroom and implanted the demon seed in the little boy?
Give me a break; the father probably chanted "That's my boy" when the killing was going on, along with an Allulah Akbar thrown in for spice.
But in the aftermath when all the excitement and bloodletting is over, it's "He's not my kid."
What did anyone expect the father to say? 'That's my son! He was full of shit!'?
Comanche, I agree that the father is secretly proud of his son. As close as Muslim families are, there is NO WAY the parents wouldn't be aware of their son's involvements. This was very apparent in San Bernardino.
At least he wasn't perverted.
He even gave Mobasheer an English translation of the Quran because he didn't want his son to get a warped interpretation elsewhere.
According to basic Islamic theology, including verses in the Koran, any translation from the original is itself a warping and distortion which also presumes to speak for Allah. That is why in some places translating the Koran is considered a form of blasphemy.
To some extent, this is also a fundamental understanding of any kind of translation of any text -- because of the differences in language, to translate is necessarily to alter to a greater or lesser degree.
Why NOT read the Koran? Now more than ever. Not out of any religious sense, but out of intellectual curiosity. Just to see what the fuss is all about?
I read the Koran in the aftermath of 9-11. I wanted to know exactly the substance of Islam. And, given that there are about a billion Muslims in the world, why anyone would convert to Islam or otherwise be Muslim. I already knew the five pillars of Islam -- profession of faith, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage -- but that only tells you what you do as a Muslim, not what you believe.
What I discovered after reading the Koran is that the substance of Islamic faith is little more than those five pillars, plus the idea of submission. That's it. Almost no intellectual component to it at all other than the idea that Allah had revealed his will to the Jews and the Christians, but both had distorted his will and teaching, and only Mohammed had been faithful. Also, Allah also conveniently justified everything that Mohammed did or wanted to do, especially conquest. Allah also conveniently justified those things that Mohammed had "protested" against, like raping young teenaged girls, telling the Prophet, "who are you to say you should not do these things?"
That is pretty much the substance. As for why anyone would convert? Given the superficiality of the faith itself, there are essentially two reasons -- the sword, and also I would surmise more recently the anti-Western allure that it has to those who also hate Western civilization (with its Judeo-Christian values).
If you are going to read the Koran -- and you should -- be sure to read one that has been produced by Muslims themselves for Muslims, and not by some Western apologist who explains away Islam.
Isn't fantasy, in the sense of being unknown and unknowable, the primary characteristic of any religion? Religions are based on belief and faith, not on fact.
Very few people would explain "fantasy" as "the sense of being unknown and unknowable." Rather, they would classify "fantasy" as fiction.
While the claim of religion does not thereby make it true -- no doubt there have been many throughout history who have simply made things up knowing them to be fraudulent (e.g. a certain guy from seventh century Arabia) -- that does not mean that all religions are false and not grounded in truth and fact.
Neither is the reliance on belief and faith necessarily counter-factual. We accept as fact that 240 years ago we declared our independence from England, but the only proof of that is what other people have said to us about it. None of us were there. Instead, we trust (belief and faith) in what we have been told is true.
Further, that something is unknown and unknowable speaks to our limitations as human beings, not to whether that something is real, true, factual or not.
Judaism would hotly contest that it is not based in fact. To be sure, the foundation of the faith is a Being who, in describing himself to Moses said that he is "I am," he is Being itself, he is reality itself. Likewise Christianity, which proclaims the Logos as the center of its belief, that is, Reason itself personified in Jesus.
If you wish to apply the fantasy label, in its truest sense, then it most applies to the current relativistic culture of today which cheers the splendid clothes of the naked emperor.
Isn't Christianity about submission?
To the contrary, Christianity is about freedom. Jesus came to liberate humanity from our enslavement and the self-made chains we carry. He came to help us to be free to think and act and be more authentically human as God made us to be - creatures living in truth and love.
The problem is that most people abhor such radical freedom. Like the Israelites, they prefer the slavery and bondage they were under in Egypt and they moan and complain, demanding to go back. They prefer being a slave to error and sin, they prefer living in their fantasy land.
Mark, apt comment. I find it ironic that so many proclaimed feminists embrace Islam. Most people are terrified of freedom.
Bruce Hayden where the Darwinist go wrong is using the term 'evolution'. That is going from a lower state to a higher state. Instead what actually occurs is adaptation which may be evolving in some instances and in others not. If humanity destroys itself sharks, insects and almost all other living things will survive. So much for evolvement.
"be sure to read one that has been produced by Muslims themselves for Muslims, and not by some Western apologist who explains away Islam."
Absolutely ! One popular version is written by a Catholic nun and you can imagine what that is like.
Mark I suppose from a Western Perspective if the Arab world simply embraced the Seven Noahide Laws and skipped Islam they would have spared the rest of the world a lot of misery and backwardness.
John Henry, 7/4/16, 8:42 AM: there is no possible rational argument that denies Christianity was the major influence for the people that started the United States of America. A suggestion that the Bible be taught in schools as a critical historical influence works in some places, but not generally in urban centers (where, it might be argued, it would be most helpful).
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