| StoreTags: bear, islam, wtf
Author: owl on November 28 2007 Viewed 5121 times. 25 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
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When I was in first school I won the highly coveted yearly "guess how many jelly beans there are in this jar" competition. There were 374, and I guessed so. The prize was a teddy bear and a huge jar of 374 jelly beans, I didn't like jelly beans so I gave them all to my friend, which I guess is what led to his downspiral into a world of gambling, drug dealing and male prostitution to aid his obsessive jelly bean addiction, eventually ending in a near fatal sugar overdose and a period in rehab.
I could never bring myself to name the bear, it didn't have a persona, with those vacant eyes, partially concealed with fur, devoid of any form of identity. The only glimpse of character it gave off was a jumper brandishing a healthy school meals slogan and a faint aurora of the irony of being paired with a gargantuan tub of jelly beans.
Initially I nicknamed it after it's wonderful healthy eating message, something like "health bear" or "fruit bear," but I realised at some point that the bear probably wouldn't be to be identified as a bear by the clothes it had had no choice in choosing or wearing, lacking a means of communication, (and most probably, although not certainly, consciousness) as most stuffed toys do.
So, the bear sat nameless for many years, with no sense of identity or self, on the windowsill of my bedroom, temporarily being relocated for dusting and other window activities (there seem to be more in your childhood.)
Until now...
You may have heard of the ridiculous story of british school teacher Gillian Gibbons who teaches (or tought, I should say) at Unity high school in Khartoum being arrested for calling the class teddy bear Muhammad, after a school boy suggested calling the bear Muhammad, after his own name. This is similar but on a smaller scale to the danish cartoons fiasco a few years ago.
Innocent people who were not muslims were killed over cartoons, that's right, cartoons, which nobody outside of Holland would have noticed if they had not been actually added to and hyped up by muslim Imams, sickeningly so.
I wish to pay homage to the wonderful religion of Islam by calling my own childhood nameless bear Muhammad (pbuh). In the eyes of a muslim i'm going to hell for doing this anyway, so please, no violence or threats. | |
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edited: Nov 29 2007
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cbit
cc said: "its not the religion itself thats to blame, its the powers that use it to keep wars going or keep a lower class of cheep labor." You're dead wrong.
Take 9/11 as an example. Lets grant that among the antecedent causes were cynical manipulative leaders, imperialism etc etc. Even granting all that, that attack would not have been possible if the 19 jihadists had not been certain that a reward awaited them in paradise. There's simply no way you can exonerate religion from blame in attacks like this. To do so, while condemning other factors, is to apply a double standard.
11/29/07
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clarkq
cbit: i believe as much in spagetti monsters and my religious views cloesly resembles the ones of richard dawkins, so does yours, i suppose. thats not what i oppose against- my personal belief is that islam is as much bullshit as any other religion. the reason it leaves me with a bad taste is not the bad-mouthing per se, but the lack of it regarding other major religions. going to church is a social event where as going to the mosque is a "fundamentalist" act- wearing a crucifix is a choise, wearing a veil (is that the word?) is being opressed. claiming god is behind your act is a strong belief, claiming your acts are allah's will is crazy-talk and dangerous. at least treat'em all as crazy, dont point out one groop of fools while you approve of the other.
11/29/07
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monty
theres plenty chaos/war/murder kicked off without religion.
ie: the last 2 world wars and a few other ones since.
a few nutters start blowing themselves up in shopping centres, and all of a sudden we need to STAMP OUT RELIGION
im not religious, by any means.
i just think its became an easy scapegoat for all the political problems in the world.
11/29/07
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owl
This blog wasn't a dig at the people who practice Islam, i'm confident in my assumption that the majority of muslims are perfectly moral people, I have the same assumption for any other population on the planet, regardless of religion or lack of, as it may be.
It's more letting off steam from the built up anger I have regarding the three abrahamic religions. They have a certain respect and authority that 'allows' their followers to sentence a woman to 15 days of jail or 40 lashings (the verdict is in, she has been found guilty,) for insulting their religion.
Do you think this would be acceptable if you reversed it? A christian, muslim or jew going to jail or being lashed for insulting a non religious (non supernaturally religious that is) groups beliefs?
Grr.
edited: Nov 29 2007
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cbit
clarkq said: "the reason it leaves me with a bad taste is not the bad-mouthing per se, but the lack of it regarding other major religions [..] at least treat'em all as crazy, dont point out one groop of fools while you approve of the other."
I hope I didn't give the impression that i thought christianity, judaism, Hinduism etc etc were any less crazy than Islam. I certainly don't think they are, and criticise them as opely as i do Islam (infact more so, because i live in a predominantly muslim area and i don't want to put myself in danger) see link . But when followers of islam do crazy things because of their metaphysical convictions i don't feel it's necessary to postscript my criticism with "and all the other religions are crazy too", because it should go without saying.
monty said: "theres plenty chaos/war/murder kicked off without religion.
ie: the last 2 world wars and a few other ones since."
Absolutely. And plenty more wars chaos murder that were only possible because of the role played by religion.
monty said: "i just think its became an easy scapegoat for all the political problems in the world."
Show me anyone claiming that eradicating religion would solve all the worlds problems and we can both agree that they're very naive.
11/29/07
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djugel
actually .. I think this would piss most muslims off. Moderate or extreme.
kinda shitty but true...
11/29/07
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celibacyclub
well i guess theres ppl who are willing to die for things..
why do ppl join the army? because they believe what they are told about the need for violence and war, that they are saving their country by invading another.
imperialism can explain 9/11. the executive branch needed a crisis to consolidate power, to get there war on terror/american neo-facism going. greedy powerful ppl contracted some moraly corrupt religious leaders to help find ppl that were desperate enough to sacrifice their lives for some supposed cause. they could have done this without religion, but religion made it easier.
Hitler used hatred for a particular religion to get support to invade countries and seize all jewish assets. they invaded austria in to stop terrorists. holy wars are not fought by religions, they are made by leaders and governments that realize they can make a war happen by dividing ppl based on their beliefs.
im no supporter of religion, i think its all pretty pointless, but i dont think that religion itself is what is causing all the injustices... its the corruption of religion by governments in order to exploit/control/motivate its people.
11/29/07
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celibacyclub
i guess all religions can have things in them that are cruel and unjust and whatnot,
i just dont think religion itself is what should be opposed, but rather the misuse of religion.
11/29/07
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cbit
cc said: "greedy powerful ppl contracted some moraly corrupt religious leaders to help find ppl that were desperate enough to sacrifice their lives for some supposed cause. they could have done this without religion, but religion made it easier. "
They couldn't have done it without religion, not in anything like the same way. The hijackers were well educated and not poor (see quote), the only sense in which they could be described as desperate is perhaps that they were desperate to become martyrs and enter paradise.
Mohamed Atta, suspected as a leader of the hijacking plot, was a city planner, fluent in German, English
and Arabic, who held advanced degrees. During the years he lived in Hamburg, Germany, he supported
himself with a variety of legitimate jobs. Members of a terrorist cell broken up in Milan, Italy, typically
supported themselves through such crimes as drug dealing, Italian authorities say
cc said: "im no supporter of religion, i think its all pretty pointless, but i dont think that religion itself is what is causing all the injustices... its the corruption of religion by governments in order to exploit/control/motivate its people"
This is bizarre to me. How can you conclude that the people who take the word of the holy books the most seriously, and do violence because of their convictions, are the ones who are following a corrupted version of a religion? If anything the gentle moderates are the ones who have distorted the messages in their texts (for which we can all be thankful).
11/29/07
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cbit
cc said: "i just dont think religion itself is what should be opposed, but rather the misuse of religion."
This idea is plagued with problems. How do you even begin to decide what's 'misuse'? On what authority can you decide which interpretation of a holy text is legitimate when the subscribers to that text can't settle it between themselves? Islamic holy texts declare that homosexuals should be physically punished for their sexuality, is it 'misuse' to take this recommendation seriously?
11/29/07
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celibacyclub
yeah i think its misuse to make literal interpratations of a religious text a basis for laws.
misuse of religion would be its use in place of government. its use to hurt people. its use to incite violent behavior.
11/29/07
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clarkq
insert standard dawkins quote:
"Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness."
personally, i find any use of religion as a misuse of it- but thats probably because ive been raised by an pretty militant atheist. for me, personally, i think the misuse takes place when someone believesin a god, not when someone hopes. i understand this might not be the same for everybody, especially you guys who are raised with christian / any other religious values.
11/29/07
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nightowl
religion may not be the scapegoat for all the political problems in the world, but it is the cause of all terrorism in the world (northern ireland,isreal vs. palenstinians, murder of abortion doctors, 9/11,etc. and a powerful force of repressing human rights. when a woman is sentenced to jail for the crime of being a gang-rape victim, something is very wrong.
mankind is still in its childhood because it still believes in fairy tales ( bible, koran,etc).
why dont we believe that Cinderella is literally true?
its even more logical than many of the religious myths
Snow White & the 7 dwarves is just as "believable" as the parting of the red sea.
mankind will reach adolescence when we stop believing fairy tales and accept reality
for what it is. children cannot face the fear of death, so they make up a story that there is life after death,
therefore negating the reality of death.
(read " denial of death" by ernest becker)
11/29/07
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celibacyclub
to take a several thousand year old book as a way to live ones life today, i see as corrupt religious behavior. to discount all the things that have happend since these books were written would be a misuse.
weather the 9/11 hijackers were rich or poor, they were still exploited by religion by people acting for non religious reasons.
you can see it as religion causing fundamentalist violence or look one step up as secular power using religion as an excuse for violence. im not saying that no religion has ever incited violence on its own, just that most big religious wars or acts of violence seem to be related to non religious issues, usually economics. the whole war on terror/terror cycle can be seen as a support system for very profitable wars (for the companies making the supplies) and a move towards fascism for the corporate run "1st world" that finds democracy inconvenient and religious differences very convenient, as a scapegote for there own involvement in supporting war and terror.
though, cbit, we could argue this forever. we just have different opinions on this.
11/30/07
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cbit
celibacyclub said: "yeah i think its misuse to make literal interpratations of a religious text a basis for laws.
misuse of religion would be its use in place of government. its use to hurt people. its use to incite violent behavior."
Islam makes no distinction between the state and the church. I'm sure you're familiar with the term Sharia law.
cc said: "to take a several thousand year old book as a way to live ones life today, i see as corrupt religious behavior. to discount all the things that have happend since these books were written would be a misuse. "
I agree with you that its a really bad idea to live this way. What i have difficulty with is describing this as a 'misuse or religion'. since that implies that religion is supposed to be used in a different way, and that you know what that way is. It sounds like you have access to some ultimate truth.
you can see it as religion causing fundamentalist violence or look one step up as secular power using religion as an excuse for violence. im not saying that no religion has ever incited violence on its own, just that most big religious wars or acts of violence seem to be related to non religious issues, usually economics.
You can't separate out causes and identify the 'real' cause for any given situation, It's a mistake to try. Wars and violence often depend on economic reasons to get started. Wars and violence often depend on religious reasons (a subset of tribalistic reasons) to get started. There's no contradiction between the two, wars--especially in previous centuries--almost always needed both to get going. More local violence often only needs the religious aspect to get going. Why try to shield religion from blame?
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