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47 thoughts on “As We Say in Tashkent

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  • arsalan goldberg

    The difference between someone with a religion and someone without is that people of religion judge according to their scripture. While people without religion judge according to what usually is the dominant culture, judge according to their whims and desires or judge in a confused manner by taking bits from here and there and ending up with a contradictory mess. That is why couples in mixed marriages usually choose one of their religions for their children.

    A judge according to my scripture so I see what Abraham did is the ultimate sacrifice, and what God did as a message to all of us, that he doesn’t want Human sacrifices like the Idols of pagan religions, what he wants from us is much less.

    To answer your question, what sort of God demands that, the answer is the only God asked him for that.

    And the only God has every right to that because everything belongs to the only God.

    The only God is the one who created Abraham and his children.

    He is the one who created every life that lived and killed every life that died. He is the one who has given every pleasure and every pain. And because everything was created by him and belongs to him, he has every right to do that.

    So to show our love for him, we don’t sacrice a son. He hasn’t asked us to do that. We sacrice a sheep and share its meat.

  • lwtc247

    “lwtc247, how typical of you to deliberately misquote me out of context.” – and how typical for you to talk gibberish and dodge examination of your islamophobia and hypocrisy.

    Out of context?? Where? (awaits dodge or non-response)

  • anticant

    Out of context? What I said was: “I think it is the responsibility of you, and others posting here who deem themselves to be religious, to face down the ignorance, the violence and the hatred within your own ranks, and to restore religion to what it professes to be its true purpose: Peace on Earth, Goodwill to all Men (and Women).” You carefully omitted everything after “ignorance”, thereby implying that it was MY ignorance you needed to combat.

    I don’t talk gibberish, and I don’t insult you or anyone else here by calling them hypocrites. I leave the mudslinging to you.

  • lwtc247

    You were ignorant about many things mentioned here, inc. the pluralism shown by people who follow a religion. I had addressed you previously and I had tried three times to face down that ignorance.

    I failed.

    Quite simple really.

    Don’t see anything out of context there.

  • technicolour

    anticant – “halal slaughter methods..are inhumane”.

    sorry, but:

    (28 Aug 2009) National campaigning group Animal Aid has today released footage taken secretly at three randomly chosen abattoirs, which offers an unprecedented close-up of the true inner workings of typical British slaughterhouses that kill pigs, sheep and cattle. The film convincingly disposes of the myth of stress- and pain-free ‘humane slaughter’. The 40 hours of footage shows more than 1,500 animals being stunned and more than 1,000 being killed.

    Animal Aid filmed:

    Pigs and sheep going to the knife without adequate stunning

    Pigs and sheep stunned and then allowed to come round again

    Pigs, sheep and calves crying out and struggling to escape

    Pigs being kicked in the face and sheep thrown to the floor

    Pigs falling from the slaughter line into the blood pit and being dragged out and re-shackled

    and more.

    as I said, sorry. but there’s no real reason to point the finger at halal, unless you are going to kill something yourself, or know the person who’s doing it for you.

  • arsalan goldberg

    The sun is a tiny star, a yellow dwarf.

    a tiny speck in our Galaxy filled with much greater stars. And our Galaxy is a tiny speck in a Universe full of Galaxies.

    And our Universe is just a tiny insignificant speck in all that was created by God. And all that was created by God is nothing compared to God.

    And here we are looking up in the sky, And God only knows how many others are looking up in to the sky in our planet, in all other planets in all other galaxies in all other universes and in the rest of creation along with us.

    It isn’t that tiny yellow ball of nuclear fusion that warms this speck of galactic dust that we live on who is God, God is the Creator of that tiny yellow ball along with all the hydrogen inside it and it is God alone who makes that hydrogen fuse in to helium, there by warming our tiny little rock that we call our world.

    Whatever we are God is greater, to God we belong and to him we will return.

    compared to all that is, we and as far as we can see in to the night sky is of less significance then a tiny neutrino. And all that is is nothing in compareson to the creator of all that is, was and will be.

  • Arsalan Goldberg

    I’ve slaughtered my own. And I’ve been in slaughterhouses where both Hallal method and Harram method are used.

    So when I make a judgement that the Halal method is less painful, I am not talking from ignorance, because I am talking from experience. The only one more qualified to give a verdict on this issue would be an animal that was slaughtered according to the Islamic method, was reborn and then slaughtered according to the stunning/bolting method, and then was reborn as a human. But I don’t believe in reincarnation so don’t believe such a person exists.

    I can not understand the thought process of these people who think receiving a electric shock is painless or pain relief? In places like Uzbekistan and Guantanamo bay electric shocks are used by America and its puppets as a method of causing pain.

    Craig did your bosses at the home office use the example of animals being electrocuted to as pain relief to justify what their friends were doing in Uzbekistan? Did they say Karimov was electrocuting people with beards to relieve the pain of being beaten?

    As the brother mentioned earlier, not all animals are knocked out by electrocution and bolting. I’ve seen sheep electrocuted, hung upside down, regain consciousness, start kicking so hard that the leg which they are hung from snaps, wait there turn to get slaughtered. I have even seen the skinning process start before the animal is slaughtered! This happens because the animal is often assumed to be dead after bolting/electrocution. But as mentioned before not all animals die and some regain consciousness.

    If electrocution was really such a painless method of causing sleep, don’t you think hospitals would use it before operations?

    Why do you think America has removed the electric chair in favour of lethal injection? Don’t you think animals feel the pain we feel when electrocuted?

    Compare that to the Islamic method where the sheep is slaughtered, and not hung until after death.

    Antican, have you been to a slaughterhouse? Have you seen the Islamic method of slaughter first hand and seen the factory method to make your comparison?

    Or are you relying on the words of others to make you judgment?

    If electrocution and bolting really reduced the pain of the animal instead of increasing it, Muslim would not have a problem with it. But it is not about reducing pain, it is about saving time, money and man hours in a conveyorbelt factory slaughter system.

  • ingo

    Now look what has come of a positive greeting to the end of a religious tradition.

    For all it is worth, religious education should ideally encompass all major religions, not prefer one or the other in religious asemblies.

    It does not just educate children to whats good or bad, it teaches them the basics for future strife in life.

    I despise those clergy who preach morals and then are failing their own standards, rather do away with all RE education and teach citizenship values and communitarian principles as they exist, here and abroad, lessons from a more diverse poor and developing nation can only improve the spoiled lifes of our little darlings.

  • technicolour

    ingo, the “spoiled lives of our little darlings”? you obviously haven’t seen the east end recently. if we are going to compare those children with the children dying of starvation then of course they are lucky, but if we are going to compare everything to the lowest most awful denominator, we are not going to get v far in this society.

    surely the point about teaching religion is not that you have to exhibit the morals necessarily, you just have to say what Jesus (or whoever) did. thus giving out ideas to inspire, rather than a stick to beat people with.

  • technicolour

    arsalan: beautiful meditation, and very appealing self description. do you, though, i wonder, have a point of view on the burkha?

  • Anonymous

    technicolour, would you like to teach your child about a moral subject that has been regenerated to suit a certain brand of thinking, regurgitated from other religions and played as the true gospel?

    The bible has been re written some 26 times, not counting the fact that its basic commandments were copied from earlier religious text and amalagamated?

    jesus is a figment of the imagination, an emotional clutch engaging morals that are not helping in todays world.

    To base one’s morals on religious scripts is like asking the devil to open the purly gates, but thats just my opinion. Religious freedom has got us to this point in time, where politicians have the gall to say that religion is the new politics.

    Thats when it has been the old politics for hundreds of years.

    Sorry, but I don’t follow your logic and we just have to agree to differ.

    I shall now go and sit at the frog pond, watching a very successfull specie is a good start for meditation and contemplation.

  • technicolour

    dear ingo (i think it was ingo) I do follow your logic. It doesn’t change the fact that I know religious people who live by good textual advice – “seek not to overcome evil with evil, seek only to overcome evil with good”, for example.

    They would have doubtless done so anyway. But the fact that they had backing and a sense of belonging helped them, I think. In any case, if you dispose of all religious and philosophical texts (I think religions are philosophy) you’d just have to write new ones. “Think about not nicking your mate’s PS4, in case he jacks your ipod” maybe.

    I agree that people who try & impose prescribed morals are on a hiding (often literally) to nothing.

    Have fun with the frogs!

  • arsalan goldberg

    technicolour

    To be honest I’ve never actually thought about whether I should wear one or not(Do you think it will bring out my eyes?).

    Now that I have thought about it I can categorically tell you I will never wear one because it is not allowed in Islam to be a transvestite.

    But if you are asking me what Islam says on this issue. My answer will be more vague, because there is a difference of opinion on this issue, which has existed from the earliest days of Islam.

    I don’t know how knowledgeable you are about Islam, so I will assume you have no knowledge to try and make my answer as comprehensive and clear as possible.

    The two Primary sources of Islam are the Quran and Sunnah(words and actions of the Prophet). The Sunnah has been collected in to various compilations, called Hadith. Bukhari(9 volumes, I have this) is the most famous one which was collected by someone from a city in Uzbekistan called Bukhara. Muslim(4 volumes I have that too) is the second most well known, and was collected by a student of Imam Bukhari called Imam Muslim. Looking up at my bookshelf which is just above this computer there are a lot of others, such as Riyad us Suliheen, Nawawi, Tarmedi, al Muwata and loads of others.

    The Quran was revealed verses at a time. The way we follow the verses of the Quran is the way the Prophet Mohummed pbh followed them. Because the words and actions of the Prophet are within themselves revelation.

    When the verse concerning what women should cover was revealed, women covered themselves with whatever came to hand. The female members of the Prophet Mohummed’s pbh family covered everything except an eye to see with.

    The key issue on whether Niqab is compulsory or not is whether this dress code was for the female family of the Prophet pbh or for all Muslim women.

    Some Muslim Scholars of Islam say it was only for the female family members of the Prophet pbh and the dress code for other Muslim women allows them to show face and hands because there are Hadith that says women are allowed to uncover the face in Huj and allowed to uncover it to be identified for signing a business contract.

    Others who say the dress code of the Prophet’s female family members is for all Muslims state the same Hadith, but say the very fact that women are allowed to uncover their faces in those circumstances means they aren’t in other circumstance.

    Now if what you meant by your question was which of the two opinions do I believe is correct. My answer will have to be I DON’T KNOW!

    Greater men than me differed on the issue, so who am I to say who is right and who is wrong?

    I don’t need to decide on which opinion I believe is stronger because I am never going to wear one anyway.

    Just as I don’t need to learn about how long after a women’s period ends does she have to take a bath and when does praying and fasting become compulsory on her,again because I have never had a period and I never will.

    Just as if you ask me what I think of always ultra and whether I think it is better than supermarket own brands, I don’t know and I have no reason to find out.

    If you meant what I think of others wearing Niqab, Everywhere and in none Muslim countries such as this one in particular.

    I have to say whether it is compulsory or not I respect them for copying the dress of My Prophet pbh’s family, because I love my Prophet pbh and I love my Prophet PBH’s family. When it comes to non-Muslim countries where such a dress results in discrimination, insults and even attacks, I have to say I respect them more.

    When following a religion results in worldly reward, it is very easy to follow one, and the out word signs of following a religion do not indicate in word piety. but when following a religion result in no worldly benefit and much harm in this life, I think it is clear those people only do what they do for God. And that sort of conviction has to be respected by people of all religions.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    It seems to me that even the most erudite discourses on religion often end up sounding like guys in the local pub arguing over which team is best, and why. ‘The Life of Brian’ contains so many excellent vignettes on this topic, it’s worth a re-viewing anytime: “I was here first even though you were here before me and anyway, my beard’s longer than your beard!”. Even Ernie Ray’s highbrow BBC Radio Four programme, ‘Beyond Belief’ ended up all-too-often sounding like this. Well-intentioned ‘Encounters of Faiths’ make me groan. None of us need to, or can, know the definitive account of, or possess, either history or absolute good. However, we ignore the histories of others at our peril – or rather, at theirs. Basically, rather than being intelligent beings perching on the shoulders of giants, really at times it seems to me that really we are worms with tongues, feeding off the minds of the dead. Now, listen-up, worms, the key question, it seems to me, is this: Does Richard Dawkins dwell in an aubergine, or a flat iron? One, two, three… go!!

  • Anonymous

    Look all this over someone saying Eid mubarak?

    I am going to click on this web page again on the 25th of December to see if any of the people who had a problem with Eid Mubarak have the same problem with Merry Christmas?

    Anyway, to answer the latter posts about religion and morality.

    People who believe in a religion don’t believe in it because the morality contained within its scriptures, they implement the morality contained within its scriptures because they believe in the religion.

    It isn’t a chicken and egg scenario.

    Firstly someone decides whether or not they believe in a God, a great spirit, a supreme being, whether you want to call it, Allah Bagwan or Yahweh.

    This thought process is independent of scriptures but knowledge is always a useful tool in this contemplation. Astronomers, might look at the night sky, geologist might look at the earth beneath us, I’m more of a Materials Engineer so like meditating over macro molecules while contemplating the infinite complexity of creation. I think about simple molecules I work with such as PP, or something more complicated such as PET and PC then start thinking about really complicated structures such as those contained within liquid crystalline polymers. I know the complexity if synthesizing something as simple as PP, and if the monomers and joined together in the wrong way it would end up like a putty instead of like the rigid plastic used to make the glass I am drinking out of while I type this. I think about how thinks get harder with Pet and PC and really difficult when synthesizing LCPs.

    Then I compare the polymers made by us, with the polymers God has made and I know even when I look at a simple protean used to metabolise glycogen, that this isn’t by chance.

    Those of you are don’t have knowledge on this subject do have knowledge on other subjects. so all of us can think about what we know about when we decide whether their is a creator or not.

    If you decide their is a creator then you decide whether their is a message from the creator to us, if there is which set of scriptures is the creators message to us.

    (Notice that I didn’t tell everyone to follow my religion, and how mine is right and everyone elses is wrong)

    If you have made a choice, That is when you start looking for morality within them to implement upon yourselves.

    Not before. Actions come after belief, not before belief.

  • arsalan goldberg

    I have just read what I wrote.

    I have a B in GCSE English but I wrote ‘their’ instead of ‘there’ at least twice! 🙁

    I’m going to bed, Eid Mubarak everybody.

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