Spiritual Guidance

Good evening:
I send you this letter to draw your attention to the ofenses against the Catholic Church broadcasted by the Spanish TV Channel "La Sexta". The TV programme is "Salvados por la Iglesia" (Save by the Church). In it, some interview and comments are given with humouristic and sarcastic intentions, in order to provoke laughs in the audience. OPUS and the Pope are the butt of everyone´s jokes. The journalist betrays confidence of the interviewed people and makes fun on them. A campaing againts this practice has started in the web portal www.hazteoir.org. I hope that you could take note of this and support us againts "La Sexta". People who make jokes on spiritual believes of human beings should be rejected from our societies.
Alberto Torres Santo Domingo
Madrid, España
ID Card: 05.226.989-D

Totally expected remarks!

Athena,

Pamela (as also does the Obfuscating Jihadist) critiques the policies of the USA but she always neglects the discrimination so rampant in Islam i.e. the Sunni hate and discrimination against Shiites and vice versa. One wonders when these elements in the USA (and Malaysia) will start blowing each other to the mythical land of Allah along with some of the rest of us??

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"I can't say for certain on those of other beliefs, including pagans/wiccans."

There are no Pagans or Wiccans currently in office, as far as I know. If you think this thing with Obama is a mess, can you imagine the s**tstorm in the media when a Pagan finally works up the guts to run for office?

India tells Bangladeshi writer to stay hidden or leave

* Randeep Ramesh in Delhi and Richard Lea
* guardian.co.uk,
* Friday February 15 2008

The exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin, who is accused of insulting Islam, will be allowed to stay in India it emerged today – but only if she remains in a government flat in a secret location in Delhi, unable to receive visitors or step outside her door.

The Indian foreign affairs ministry justified the conditions saying that as a "guest" Nasrin should not "undertake actions that could hurt the sentiments of the many communities that make up our multi-religious and multi-ethnic nation."

Speaking via email from her safe house in Delhi today, Nasrin rejected the Indian government's description of her as a "guest", emphasising that she has been a resident in India since 2004.

"The Indian constitution upholds democracy, secularism, human rights and freedom of expression, exactly what I have been fighting for," she said. "I think this warning goes against freedom or expression, which is a vital part of democracy."

Nasrin fled her adopted home of Kolkata in November after Muslims protested violently against "anti-Islamic" passages in her works. The rioting was brought to an end only when the army was deployed in the city – and the writer forced to flee.

The 45-year-old told the Guardian that she had been told her "residency permit" would be extended just days before it expired, but for an unspecified time. Her only company is a television and her laptop.

"I cannot live a normal life like this. [Officials] said because if I went outside 10 people would die in riots. I don't believe them," said Nasrin. "I want to stay in India but I don't know how long they will allow me to remain."

Nasrin said she was a "prisoner without prisoner rights".

"I get food and medicines bought to me. It is prison food. I want prisoners' rights. Let me have visiting hours."

Lawyers today questioned whether such a "detention" was legal under Indian law. Indira Jaisingh, a supreme court lawyer, said the government had probably used a 1946 "foreigners' act" to restrict the writer's movements.

"I think it is almost certainly illegal and could be challenged in the courts. The act is usually used for criminals wanted by the police. Here it has been used pre-emptively but not proportionately. The constitution guarantees freedom of life and liberty to anyone on Indian soil."

The British author Hari Kunzru, who is an executive member of the writers' organisation English PEN and has been in regular contact with Nasrin during the last few months, described the Indian government's position as a "mixed blessing".

"She's not being put back into immediate danger," he said, "but there seems to be a lack of political will to do anything about her situation. The Indian government is trying to kick this problem into the long grass rather than deal with its responsibility to uphold freedom of expression."

He said he held out little hope that her state of "suspended animation" would improve.

"Unless somebody in the Indian government is prepared to take a political risk, standing up to say why she should be defended," he said, "this could go on indefinitely. I'm frankly not very hopeful that somebody will do that."

"She's a defiant, strong woman who has lived for a long time with a real threat of violence, so she's used to it," he continued, but "indefinite detention is a form of torture."

Earlier in the week, intellectuals had called on the government to give the writer citizenship and permanent residency in India, saying it was the state duty to protect "freedom of speech".

Nasrin, who has lived in India since 2000, has been targeted by radical Muslim groups in the past six months over her autobiography, Dwi-Khandita, where she commented on the relationship the prophet Muhammad had with his dozen wives and also said that the Qur'an had advised against friendships with non-Muslims.

The book had been recalled and the passages deleted at the end of 2007.

"[Dwi-Khandita] was basically defaming the Prophet," said Mohammad Anwer, spokesman for the Jamia Ulama-i-Hind which runs thousands of religious schools in India. "It is best she is forgotten about. Let her abide by the government's conditions.

End of article.

So much for religious compassion. NBrady.

Ms. Pamela:
You say “When he points to the positive in leaders like Farrakhan …..”
and
“It's not a crime to be a Muslim. It doesn't disqualify you from being President, just as being Catholic or Mormon doesn't."

Your post has two messages; Farrakhan is an OK person, and secondly a Muslim’s religion should not disqualify him from the Presidency of this country. I will leave the comment about Farrakhan for someone else to deal with.
I have often wandered why a non-Muslim never advances to the post of a police captain let alone a judge or Prime minister in the most of the liberal predominantly Muslim countries ,such as Egypt. I learned it is due to a command by Allah. The Most Merciful and Just commanded;
“And Allah will never give the unbelievers any way (of authority) against the believers" (Quran 4: 141).
When your religion abrogates such bigoted discriminatory statement, we will begin to consider a Muslim president

Assalamu Alaikum
Imam Pamela Taylor.

Thank you for your essay.

As for what you concluded : "I can only dream of the day that fear mongering around a supposed or real Muslim identity is met with the comment of "So what if I were (or am) Muslim. It's not a crime to be a Muslim. It doesn't disqualify you from being President, just as being Catholic or Mormon doesn't."

From what I have been reading in On Faith threads, the "religious test" on candidates for public office is of great concern and interest among Americans, not "competency test". I have never seen anything like it elsewhere in the world where a candidate for public office is asked on whether he believe in God, "which God" and which religion.

And from what I see, there are great reservations on Mormons and Muslims to be public officials. Jewish officials are long accepted in public office in the US. I can't say for certain on those of other beliefs, including pagans/wiccans.

Looking at the recent elections in the country where I live, it is not the personal belief in religion that matters in the end, but what the candidates are saying on issues of concern to the public and how they propose to manage it and to actually do so, especially in economic and social issues.

It surprised the political parties, both in the government and opposition (including the Islamic party), that people voted across race and religion. Just goes to show how out of touch all our political parties are that issues of race and religion cannot simply be exploited and manipulated as excuses for incompetent governing in all areas and in creating fears and mistrust of the other to garner votes. There are limits in public tolerance of politicians resorting to fear-mongering on race and religion, creating discords and perpetuating unjustness based on warped their reasoning and harping on race and religion.

Salam and best regards

"J"

Ms. Taylor the racial divide in this country now exists primarily in the minds of leftists and the delusional -Dr. Wright and the KKK - being examples of the latter.

As for your other comments, are you most upset that we turned a blind eye to Saddam's take over of Iraq or that we eventually got around to trying to clean up the mess we made in Iraq?

You see the current problems in the Middle East have existed for longer than there has been a United States. I would wish that it were not so and the fix was as easy as you and others sometimes seem to think. But wishing is, in general, a waste of energy.

The chief problem in the Middle East remains that there are far too few good guys (I'd settle for decent human beings who were at least semi reasonable) any where close to positions of power.

What do you wish us to do about this state of affairs? Over throw the tyrants? Wait we did that with Saddam and all we got were boos and bombs.

Let human nature take its course? Oh wait we did that and got a rather virulent theocracy which abuses human rights on a scale that made the Shah look like a piker and an eight year war that killed about a million and a half people.

Anything you do in the Middle east seems to be a crap shoot with loaded dice that come up craps about 70% of the time.

CCNL,

What does any of that have to do with the topic question?

Pamela, Pamela, Pamela,

Hmmm, as usual you did not mention the Sunni discriminations/blood feud against Shiites and vice versa. And the latest body count from the Iraq Sunni/Shiite blood feud, 4000 US troops and 82,109 – 89,605 Iraqi civilians http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Thank you, Pamela. I, too, look foward to the day when a candidate can say, "Yes, I am a Muslim/Pagan/Atheist/Hindu/Rastafarian/whatever. It's not a crime to be one. What difference does it make?" I really wished that one of the candidates would have said that in this election cycle.