Thankful for Land of Opportunity

"My Collie had pups a few days ago.I've just named the most playful one Mohammed. Mo for short.
It's a free country,and its the least I can do."

Cassius Clay might have been better. :)

Actually, maybe J could tell the story for us, but as I understand, despite the idea in Islam that dogs are unclean, didn't Muhammad have a dog of certain merit?

Jihadist

Good try, but I'm afraid there aren't many here who haven't already made up their minds. This site has become more screed than conversation -- maybe it was always that way....

Yesterday I saw on a website a Muslim mob digging a hole for two people who were wrapped in white sheets and placed standing up in the hole up to their waists while the mob joyfully hurled rocks at them until they were dead.
They were two young lovers who had had illegal sex,(whatever that is). So now they are dead.
Yes I expect the Jihadist to giggle and jest at such goings on.But the rest of us look on in horror.

Chris Everett,
The above post was directed to you.

I agree with your comments.
Anyone whose identity is their religion is already lost to objectivity and common sense,in my opinion.

The indoctrination process in Muslimville is irresistible.Few escape its power.The highest virtue,it seems,is believing in the patently ridiculous without question,like in Christianity,but moreso.
It is a brutal religion,and I feel bad for that well meaning English teacher in Sudan who let her students name their doll Muhammad. She is in jail,and could get lashed 40 times. How prehistoricly stupid it all is.
My Collie had pups a few days ago.I've just named the most playful one Mohammed. Mo for short.
It's a free country,and its the least I can do.

"Quick question. I've noticed that a huge fraction of muslim men are named Mohammad. Is that disrespectful? Should they be killed?"

Actually, that sounds like the very cultural misunderstanding that spawned the heinous reaction. The *boy* was named Muhammad, and apparently they were naming teddy bears after the children, ...to Muslims, there's a difference, as J describes.

It's a little like how in Mexico, all kinds of people are named Jesus, ...but try that in New England and people will think the cheese slipped off your Mom's cracker at best.

All I can say about that is that multiculturalism has to go both ways. Pagans didn't go threatening people with death over the Xena and Hercules shows, but then again, who listened to even the Hindu community complaining how the shows treated other people's Gods.

But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

-Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782

The above statement by Mr. Jefferson summarizes the moral basis for religious freedom: IT'S NOT MY BUSINESS what my neighbor's religion is... UNLESS it's driving him to pick my pocket or break my leg.

Well, Islam is breaking a lot of legs these days, and as a result it is undermining the moral basis for tolerance of it. If Islam cannot peacefully coexist with the rest of the world then it is, as Jihadist says, culture war, and Islam must be subdued.

JIHADIST:

Quick question. I've noticed that a huge fraction of muslim men are named Mohammad. Is that disrespectful? Should they be killed?

JIHADIST:

What gives? You seem to see "the Salman Rushdie flap, 9/11, the Danish cartoons," along with the fatwa against Hisri-Ali (whom I had the pleasure to meet, after making it past the bomb-sniffing dogs) and the murder of Van Gogh as examples of the media making life a little uneasy for American muslims.

Hello?! I think there's a pattern here that's at the root of all the recent unpleasantness, namely FANATICAL ISLAM. Fanatical Islam is REAL. Fanatical Islam EXISTS. It's consequences are EVIDENT. If you think it's putting "true" Islam in a bad light, blame fanatical Islam, not people's stereotyped responses to it. If you think fanatical Islam is an understandable reaction to Western cold-war corporate imperialism, well, say that. But your fixation on the lovely Ms. Hirsi-Ali is, I dare say, prostesting too much.

Dear Champion of Muslim Talewriter Women,

When will *Human Rights* and *Civilization* come to Malaysia and Indonesia ?

Market value of Citibank dropped from 5 trillion USD to below 3 trillion USD.Is it *manipulation* of *sukut paper traders* ?

Flash news.Citibank gets 7.5 billion USD frash credits from the Gulf investors.Can it stop *free fall* of stocks ?

Ahhh, The Jihadist returns once again and trys in vain to deflect us from the true issues i.e. the flaws in contemporary religions especially her own warmongering religion.

And she has the audacity to criticize Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim sister brutalized and traumatized by dark age imams as noted in the summary of her book, Infidel:

"Thus begins the extraordinary story of a woman born into a family of desert nomads, circumcised as a child, educated by radical imams in Kenya and Saudi Arabia, taught to believe that if she uncovered her hair, terrible tragedies would ensue. It's a story that, with a few different twists, really could have led to a wretched life and a lonely death, as her grandmother warned. But instead, Hirsi Ali escaped -- and transformed herself into an internationally renowned spokeswoman for the rights of Muslim women."
ref: Washington Post book review

As with many previous outreachings, we offer The Jihadist an easy way to cure her Three B Syndrome, i.e. Her Breeding, Birth and Braiwashing in Islam. Hopefully The Jihadist will someday have the courage of Hirsi Ali and reach for Reality that this program allows:

Using "The 77 Branches of Islamic "faith" a collection compiled by Imam Bayhaqi as a starting point. In it, he explains the essential virtues that reflect true "faith" (iman) through related Qur’anic verses and Prophetic sayings." i.e. a nice summary of the Koran and Islamic beliefs.

"1. Belief in Allah"

aka as God, Yahweh, Zeus, Jehovah, Mother Nature, etc." should be added to your cleansing neurons.

"2. To believe that everything other than Allah was non-existent. Thereafter, Allah Most High created these things and subsequently they came into existence."

Evolution and the Big Bang or the "Gib Gnab" (when the universe starts to recycle) are more plausible and the "akas" for Allah should be included if you continue to be a "creationist".

"3. To believe in the existence of angels."

A major item for neuron cleansing. Angels/devils are the mythical creations of ancient civilizations, e.g. Hittites, to explain/define natural events, contacts with their gods, big birds, sudden winds, protectors during the dark nights, etc. No "pretty/ugly wingy thingies" ever visited or talked to Mohammed, Jesus, Mary or Joseph or Joe Smith. Today we would classify angels as fairies and "tinker bells". Modern devils are classified as the demons of the demented.

"4. To believe that all the heavenly books that were sent to the different prophets are true. However, apart from the Quran, all other books are not valid anymore."

Another major item to delete. There are no books written in the spirit state of Heaven (if there is one) just as there are no angels/"pwtfft"s to write/publish/distribute them. The Koran, OT, NT etc. are simply books written by humans for humans.

Prophets were invented by ancient scribes typically to keep the uneducated masses in line. Today we call them fortune tellers.

Prophecies are also invalidated by the natural/God/Allah gifts of Free Will and Future.

"5. To believe that all the prophets are true. However, we are commanded to follow the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) alone."

Mohammed spent thirty days fasting in a hot cave before his first contact with Allah aka God etc. via a "pretty wingy thingy". Common sense demands a neuron deletion of #5. #5 is also the major source of Islamic violence i.e. turning Mohammed's "fast, hunger-driven" hallucinations into horrible reality for unbelievers.

Accept these five "cleansers" and we guarantee a complete recovery from orthodox Islamic ways!!!!

E Ponsonby-Smallpiece :)

That's really funny, your post, in reaction to the one pasted by Anonymous on an English teacher naming her teddy bear, Muhammad.

I don't know about westerners naming their pets and toys, but in Indonesia and Malaysia, Muslims don't name them as one would give names to people. Always, after things, fruits or plants etc.

Naming a pet or toy Dubya or Beyonce is seen as disrespectful of and demeaning the real named ones. Sometimes someone would hit the pet or toy, "Take that Dubya!". Yes, very, very sick when the pet or toy has nothing to do with the real Dubya do and displeases one.

This is culture war and cultural misunderstanding.

I can't wait to see a real culture war happen again when Ayaan Hirsi Ali comes out with her new book, the so-called, "Shortcut to Enlightenment" or something like that, with Prophet Muhammad PBUH having a sort of education on Enlightenment as rumours has it.

If true, that would be another "Satanic Verses".
Makes one wonder why, in "teaching" Muslims to be Enlightened, or to lead them to Enlightenment, Ms Ayaan Hirsi Ali takes on to "educating" the Prophet and got the opposite reaction she'd want, unless it is done deliberately so for a culture war:)

Such a shrewd political scientist she is Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali. No doubt the usual suspects will run to her "defence" and Muslims will express shock and dismay and some would vilify her. And she will wear the look and mien of a misunderstood and but unbowed intellectual and be cast as the martyr of free thought, freedom of expression, freedom from superstitious beliefs and all that.

Another culture war, but one very profitable for some:

- Muslims will close ranks against Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the West and some would make religious and political capital ove that.

- Non-Muslims will close ranks against the unelightened, unwashed Muslim hordes, and some would make religious and political over that too.

- Some Muslim businessess will profit from Muslims boycotting western products. It happened during the flap on Salman Rushdie's "Satanic Verses", in the aftermath of 9/11, following the Danish Prophet Muhammad cartoon controversy.

This is a portent of things to come when Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a political scientist, a former Muslim, publish her latest book.

Don't you just love culture wars where both sides dig in and reaffirm their beliefs about one another and widen the gaps?

Don't be surprise if the most vehement opposition against Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali are Muslim women, the ones she purported to raise consciousness on their rights and such. She raised their awareness all right - against her as an untruthful (on her own life) self-serving person who is used by AEI/neocons as their hammer.

So, I'm waiting to see if her upcoming book is deliberately brewed up by Hirsi Ali to be such (to prove to the west she is as brave and truthful and they made her out to be) and the culture war that may come again on Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali - former Muslim! Freed at last as an atheist! Champion of Muslim Women! Advocate of Muslim Reformation! A Brave Woman! So said the western media.

If that happens, I really feel sorry for American Muslims who will bear the full brunt of excretable remarks and comments on Islam and Muslims in the media, the blogs etc as happened during the Salman Rushdie flap, 9/11, the Danish cartoons, and which they have absolutely nothing to do with.

Thank you and regards

"J"

Regarding the Guardian article about the teacher who named a teddy bear Mohammed.
Well,is there NO END to the depravity of some people?? Naming a teddy bear Mohammed????
That is outrageous!!! Stone her I say!
Dig a hole in the sand.Bury her up to her neck in it..then hurl rocks at her head until she is dead.
That's what Allah(PBUH)would do.
The teddy bear was named after the American president,Teddy Roosevelt,who I'm sure must have had the person who named it executed for character assassination,and grievous insult. And rightly so.
You have to nip this kind of thing in the bud.Otherwise people will be given their teddies any names they like,regardless of the offense it causes to others.

From The Guardian,UK.

Teacher on blasphemy charge over 'Muhammad' teddy bear

James Sturcke and agencies
Monday November 26, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

A British primary school teacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of blasphemy for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad, it emerged today.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was arrested yesterday at her home inside Unity high school, a British international school, after a number of parents made a complaint to Sudan's education ministry.

The school's director, Robert Boulos, said Gibbons had since been charged with blasphemy, an offence he said was punishable with up to three months in prison and a fine.

Article continues
Gibbons's colleagues told Reuters they feared for her safety after receiving reports that young men had already started gathering outside the Khartoum police station where she was being held.

Boulos said Gibbons was following a national curriculum course designed to teach young pupils about animals and their habitats. This year's animal was the bear.

Gibbons, who joined Unity in August, asked the class of mostly seven-year-olds to name the toy.

"They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad. Then she explained what it meant to vote and asked them to choose the name." Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad.

Each child was allowed to take the bear home at weekends and was told to write a diary about what he or she did with the toy. The entries were collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover, next to the message "My name is Muhammad," said Boulos.

Boulos said the first he knew about the course was last week when he received a phone call from the ministry of education, saying a number of Muslim parents had made formal complaints.

A spokesman for the British embassy in Khartoum said it was still unclear whether Gibbons had been formally charged. "We are following it up with the authorities and trying to meet her in person," he said.

Boulos said he had decided to close down the school until January for fear of reprisals in Sudan's predominantly Muslim capital. "This is a very sensitive issue," he said.

"We are very worried about her safety," he added. "This was a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam."

Unity, an independent school founded in 1902, is governed by a board representing the main Christian denominations in Sudan but teaches both Christians and Muslims aged four to 18.

Sulayman S. Nyang,

As requested before but not answered, please peruse and address the following facts about contemporary religion to include your own severely flawed religion:

1. Abraham founder/father of three major religions was probably a mythical character. If he was real, he was at best a combination of at least three men. 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT. http://www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

2. Jesus, the illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter possibly suffering from hallucinations, has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

3. Mohammed, an illiterate, womanizing, warmongering, hallucinating Arab, also had embellishing/hallucinating/plagiarizing scribal biographers who not only added "angels" aka "pretty wingie talking flying fictional thingies" and flying chariots to the koran but also a militaristic agenda to support the plundering and looting of the lands of non-believers.

This agenda continues as shown by the conduct of the seven Muslim doctors in the UK, the 9/11 terrorists, the 24/7 Sunni suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the 24/7 Shiite suicide/roadside/market/mosque bombers, the Islamic train bombers in the UK and Spain, the Bali crazies, the Kenya crazies, the Pakistani koranics, the Palestine suicide bombers/rocketeers, the Lebanese nutcases, the Taliban nut jobs, and the Filipino koranics.

And who funds these acts of terror? The Islamic Shiite terror and torture theocracy of Iran aka the Third Axis of Evil and also the Sunni "Wannabees" of Saudi Arabia.

4. Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingy talking flying fictional thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

5. Hinduism (from an online Hindu site) - "Hinduism cannot be described as an organized religion. It is not founded by any individual. Hinduism is God centered and therefore one can call Hinduism as founded by God, because the answer to the question ‘Who is behind the eternal principles and who makes them work?’ will have to be ‘Cosmic power, Divine power, God’."

The caste/laborer system and cow worship are problems when saying a fair and rational God founded Hinduism."

6. Buddhism- "Buddhism began in India about 500 years before the birth of Christ. The people living at that time had become disillusioned with certain beliefs of Hinduism including the caste system, which had grown extremely complex. The number of outcasts (those who did not belong to any particular caste) was continuing to grow."

"However, in Buddhism, like so many other religions, fanciful stories arose concerning events in the life of the founder, Siddhartha Gautama (fifth century B.C.):"

Archaeological discoveries have proved, beyond a doubt, his historical character, but apart from the legends we know very little about the circumstances of his life.

Bottom line: There are many good ways of living but be aware of the hallucinations, embellishments, lies and myths surrounding the founders of said rules of life.

Any Native American voices on this question?
--V-de-O, Virginia Colony, 1620
BTW the Euro-Americans among my forebears were probably escaping their debts, so you could call the hardscrabble life they found in Virginia a form of affluence.

Norrie:

My ancestoors were exiles - they didn't leave their homes voluntarily seeking riches either.

And there wasn't any for the slaves, either.

"... all those who traveled from elsewhere and landed in this country have come to appreciate the affluence ... that awaits the visitor."

Let's keep the record straight.

My ancestors landed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628.

There was no affluence.